Philosophy and Navel Exams
Is it true the study of philosophy—with or without drugs—will make you irritable, even crazy? Like theology, only you never come up for air? Just keeping the terms straight can be an effort. Today’s topic is physicalism: is it an exercise for linguistic contortionists, and why should it matter?
Some state, without batting an eye, science has largely replaced philosophy. Ah, well perhaps—science grew from classical philosophy, and scientists frequently return to questions their forebears asked. The origins of the universe, for example, or the inner workings of the brain. Others accuse science of wandering too far from the ethics we were raised with.
Surely the ultimate of abstract thinkers have to be physicists speculating on how the universe came into being. When you reason your way to the point of that singularity, one treads the same ground as Socrates to prove the unknowable.
“Physicalism is closely related to materialism. Physicalism grew out of materialism with advancements of the physical sciences in explaining observed phenomena. The terms [physicalism and materialism] are often used interchangeably, although they are sometimes distinguished, for example on the basis of physics describing more than just matter (including energy and physical law).
“According to a 2009 survey, physicalism is the majority view among philosophers, but there remains significant opposition to physicalism. Neuroplasticity [1] has been used as an argument to support of a non-physicalist view. The philosophical zombie argument is another attempt to challenge physicalism.
From Wikipedia article on Physicalism
[1] “Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. These changes range from individual neuron pathways making new connections, to systematic adjustments like cortical remapping. Examples of neuroplasticity include circuit and network changes that result from learning a new ability, environmental influences, practice, and psychological stress.” from Wikipedia article on neuroplasticity.
The familiar philosophical zombie argument—possibly a George Romero movie. You can also get there if you smoke too much hashish—or go for peyote, as Michael Pollan proselitizes. (See This Is Your Mind on Plants)
Knight in Shining Armor by William E. Evans ©1969
Physicalism seems like it started out in a normative place and wandered off into a thicket—a welter even. Not so different from too deep a dive into a number of theologies. For a longish read: Physicalism. As the article says, the modern age is suffused with it. Seems we’re all physicalists on this bus.
Words are important, and so, likewise, definitions. Take materialism. The common usage bears—or bares—little to do with philosophy. If you grab someone by the arm and challenge them for a definition, most would tell you materialism is all about the money grubbing. Preachers have inveighed (as opposed to inveigling, though some preachers do that too) against it. At least since the Pilgrims, those grim folk in black hats who landed up north in New England.
Though strict Calvinists would take issue that money grubbing’s a bad thing. So the common understanding has usurped the philosophy or were the latter’s practitioners just bad at marketing? Ditto physicalism. Discuss among the group.
So what began this gusher was an article in Medium: “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari and the failures of a physicalist worldview by Gerald R. Baron. His take on the book by Yuval Noah Harari is mainly disapproval, best I can tell.
“The physicalist belief system or worldview dominates our Western culture. The belief that science teaches that nothing exists beyond matter and forces and that blind, accidental and purposeless forces explain everything continues to be the rigorously enforced doctrine of our cultural elites—even when they personally hold contrary beliefs. Harari writes from an ideological position fully conforming to this spirit of our age.”
from “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari and the failures of a physicalist worldview by Gerald R. Baron
75 characters in the title is a mouthful, and it doesn’t help SEOs for Google searches.
Interestingly, Baron never quite gets around to explaining what failures he sees. No obvious ranting, but the giveaway phrase, ‘cultural elites’ is a flag. And what exactly is a worldview, and how does it compare to a less lofty height, say, atop a small asteroid?
Though Baron seems to know about physicalists—see above—he jumps down the rabbit hole right after Harari, and it’s hard to tell who’s winning from his article. He includes the following from Harari’s book:
“Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter-gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The Agriculture Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.”
from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Yeah, it does seem the physicalist in Harari goes a bit overboard, particularly with that landing statement. However, I also hear his concern for historical truths about monarchy and power, tying ‘marketing’ of the Agricultural Revolution in support of that same tyranny Colonial Americans fought a revolution against. Who cleared the land, planted the seeds and harvested the crops? And for whom?
It’s hard to tell from Baron’s piece if Harari is upset by the world’s overpopulation. Since he lives in Israel, it’s likely, being pressed on all sides by too many needing water.
If there were a few less billion sapiens today, climate change wouldn’t be a problem. We’ve been dumping shit in the rivers since the cavemen discovered currents work great for flushing. When there were only a couple of folk per square mile, things weren’t as bad as they’ve become. And no one alive remembers when Ireland and Great Britain were last covered wall to wall with forests.
I get the sense that his real beef with Harari is that Baron sees this as the physicalists’ true dead end, and he promises to publish a second essay on the subject, revealing all, no doubt. My overall takeaway from the article is Baron views Harari as a disturbing sign of the amorality of the technological age.
Baron includes the following from Harari’s book:
“Theist religions focus on the worship of gods. Humanist religions worship humanity, or more correctly, Homo sapiens. Humanism is a belief that Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature, which is fundamentally different from the nature of all other animals and of all other phenomena. Humanists believe that the unique nature of Homo sapiens is the most important thing in the world, and it determines the meaning of everything that happens in the universe. The supreme good is the good of Homo sapiens. The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the benefit of this species.”
from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Though Baron misses the obvious point (perhaps his unstated concern) that Renaissance humanism leading into the 18th Century Enlightenment practiced by Emerson, was a movement away from a god-centric—and one could add king-centric—view of the world. It was not a declaration that sapiens of any kind reigned supreme over the animal kingdom. That too much of Western culture has moved from the ethical aims of humanism to colonizing the world tells us we missed the central point—or perhaps we haven’t yet given up on those monarchial dreams of yore.
The expression, ‘going to the throne room,’ would carry no humor without the well known context.
What Harari points to in his declaration “the supreme good is the good of Homo sapiens” is that while we’ve done a good job for humans, we haven’t been exactly paying attention to the other species in the way we’ve gone about it—and his is a dire warning of consequences—of growing acres of corn for manufacturing Coke, among other empty caloric grocery items.
Although U.S. corn is a highly productive crop, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, the resulting delivery of food by the corn system is far lower. Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup.
The average Iowa cornfield has the potential to deliver more than 15 million calories per acre each year (enough to sustain 14 people per acre, with a 3,000 calorie-per-day diet, if we ate all of the corn ourselves), but with the current allocation of corn to ethanol and animal production, we end up with an estimated 3 million calories of food per acre per year, mainly as dairy and meat products, enough to sustain only three people per acre. That is lower than the average delivery of food calories from farms in Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam.”
from Scientific American article Time to Re-think America’s Corn System
The Guardian review of Harari's book written by Galen Strawson is better balanced. It makes some of the same observations about Harari’s dispute with the modern age, but in a more coherent manner. Strawson has his personal biases, but takes a step back in his observations—sanguinity aside.
“At one point Harari claims that "the leading project of the scientific revolution" is the Gilgamesh Project (named after the hero of the epic who set out to destroy death): "to give humankind eternal life" or "amortality". He is sanguine about its eventual success. But amortality isn't immortality, because it will always be possible for us to die by violence, and Harari is plausibly sceptical about how much good it will do us. As amortals, we may become hysterically and disablingly cautious (Larry Niven develops the point nicely in his description of the "Puppeteers" in the Ringworld science fiction novels). The deaths of those we love may become far more terrible. We may grow weary of all things under the sun–even in heaven (see the last chapter of Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters). We may come to agree with JRR Tolkien's elves, who saw mortality as a gift to human beings that they themselves lacked. We may come to feel what Philip Larkin felt: "Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs."
From The Guardian article by Galen Strawson
From sci fi to Tolkien’s Norse mythology to Larkin, the English poet—all in a single book review.
“The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro, ‘Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?’
“Although it was originally applied to the ancient Greek pantheon, the dilemma has implications for modern monotheistic religions. Gottfried Leibniz asked whether the good and just ‘is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just.’ Ever since Plato's original discussion, this question has presented a problem for some theists, though others have thought it a false dilemma, and it continues to be an object of theological and philosophical discussion today.”
From Wikipedia article on the Euthyphro dilemma
We’re studying motes of distinction here, but humans have been doing that for a while—at least since the Greeks. Taking the side of the theists, perhaps the ‘good and just’ is intrinsic to what humans hold as the highest virtues, ergo their God should agree. Taking the side of the humanists, seems what’s held in common by both is morality. Where’s the dilemma here?
Science—A New Philosophy?
Science—we hope—is unwilling to project opinion beyond what’s provable, i.e. in evidence. Which seems a humbler pursuit than philosophy, religiously tainted or not. The close reading verses the grand proclamation. Nothing’s wrong with speculation—a necessary step toward the most creative of discoveries. But dictums from the throne, whether by the Pope or Harari—or even his detractors—is a degree of navel gazing.
Edith Widder’s Below the Edge of Darkness is an admirable story about delving (quite literally) into the deep, studying bioluminescence across a broad spectrum of life—from bacteria, to fish and squid living far outside our realm of light— seeking knowledge about how and why they exist as they do. She has spent her professional life studying a subject most have never heard of, adding what she’s learned to that stack of books about the physical world around us. Research scientists are too often dismissed for pursuing seemingly trivial subjects; even if the methodology provides the truest means of our comprehending more of our existence.
How does one take on such a humble mantle of work? Not without ego and ambition, but necessarily with a doggedness most of us would rather avoid. And, yes, philosophy is drudge-worthy as well, but does it produce real bioluminescence? Perhaps it too is necessary work, though looking back over a lifetime, does it give the philosopher satisfaction from enlightenment or bitterness at its unanswerable core?
“You think it’s easy?” as Mel Straus would say.
Since writing this, I’ve listened to Mayim Bialik and Yuval Noah Harari in conversation on YouTube. It’s a remarkably thoughtful piece on both their parts, but since so much of this essay has been focused on Harari, I’ll say that he’s been misunderstood by Baron, leaving me to think the book in question is worth its best seller status.
The best way to dispute Baron’s argument is to hear Harari’s larger take on disruptive changes through history, beginning at 5:15 in the video. “If they try to change too much too quickly, it’s always a disaster.” Maybe it’s a sweeping statement, but taken in context, the least logical statement could be Harari is indifferent to the world he’s living in—amoral, in other words. My impression is one could learn a great deal listening to Harari.
For some time, I’ve believed the technological age has left entire swathes, even in the U.S, behind in its wake—for no better reason than this present day change has been too rapid, too threatening. Far from being intentional, but true nonetheless.
Harari’s argument is too rapid a change will always cause dissonance in our hunter-gatherer brains. Huh.