Atheism: Autopsy of a Failed Faith

As part of my “Debate With Atheists About…Well…Just About Everything,” I wrote…

Just for the record, I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

Needless to say, this statement – just like everything I wrote – would be vigorously opposed by most atheists. They insist that faith in God is NOT necessary for “the good.” A belief in Darwinism, materialism, atheism, etc. is sufficient for a healthy moral order.

And what IS a “healthy moral order?” That depends. There is some disagreement within the atheist community. However, I’ll tentatively divide those guys into 3 categories: The Nihilists (“all morality is an illusion;” think Nietzsche); the Objectivists (“morality DOES exist and is universal;” think Ayn Rand) and the Sentimentalists (“morality sort of exists, but is always relative;” think Richard Rorty).

I just made up the term “Sentimentalist Atheist.” And I would argue that they make up the vast majority of atheists (probably about 80%). What makes them “sentimental?” Even though they vocally loathe religion, they behave morally (for the most part) and have no interest in shedding their morality (think of Richard Dawkins or E.O. Wilson). In fact, if you studied them on a purely behavioral level – and knew nothing of their personal beliefs – you might find no difference between them and most Christians (except for praying and going to church, obviously). They marry and have children. They hold the door open for the person walking behind them. They say “Sorry” when they bump into strangers accidentally. They pay their taxes. They abstain from crime. And they even donate to charity (except to religious charities, of course).

How do we account for this behavior? Is it “logical” for an atheist to behave this way? And would a society completely composed of atheists behave this way? Let’s find out.



For starters, let's look at a brief dialogue between me and “Grant,” which arose from the comment section of one of my previous essays.

Todd: Personally, when I was an atheist, I was just as “moral” as I am today as a theist, but it was a “folk morality.” I knew – on an intellectual level – that morality was an illusion, but I “liked” being moral, and why? Probably because I had spent 15 years absorbed in a Christian culture, and still had the residue of faith on my soul. Being “bad” morally made me feel “bad” emotionally…

I think the morality of atheists is a consequence of being born and raised in a religious culture for a long, long time before they even begin to question their faith. As religious culture fades away (partly because of the efforts of atheists, btw) morality (among atheists and theists, too) is likely to wither away…

In today’s age, an atheist almost certainly has to be a materialist, and a materialist almost certainly has to be a Reductionist. And how do Reductionists see human beings? According to them, we're just mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Does that seem like a positive attitude toward humanity? Is that an ideology that can sustain human dignity? I think not. And once we absorb that attitude toward our fellow man, is there anything beyond fear of the law that can motivate a person to respect the lives of others? No. Once you start peeling the onion a little bit, you see that atheism is intellectually defenseless against the subjection and destruction of humanity. One caveat, though: It is not so much the disbelief in God that is lethal; it is the reductionist materialism that is the foundation of atheism…

Grant: While it's fascinating to hear you explain to me what I almost certainly must be I think I'll fall back on the fact that I have known hundreds of atheists and never met a single one who thinks people are "mindless meat puppets."

Todd: Ah, now we’re coming to the nub of the matter. I’ll try to incorporate your statement into a new observation: While atheists DO think people are “mindless meat puppets” in a scientific sense (sorry, but that is exactly how atheism is articulated by people like Dawkins and Dennett), the atheists DON’T ACT like people are “mindless meat puppets.” They still act like people have inherent dignity. And that’s good! They are resisting the teachings of their leaders. They can’t overcome their desire to live in a teleological, moral order. And again, that’s good! So the question becomes…Why can’t atheists understand that? Why can’t they see the discrepancy between their philosophical atheism and their daily behavior? If they COULD see it, they might question their atheism, and start groping toward a new spirituality.

Grant is a “sentimental atheist.” He is an all-too-common child of modern civilization. He assumes he’s the pinnacle of civilization because he’s smart, tolerant, and liberal. In truth, he’s the red-headed stepchild of civilization. The rest of the family doesn’t accept him. And why should they? They realize what the atheist does not: The atheist is a luxury of civilization, not a creator of it. I’m almost tempted to call atheists “free riders” on the Western moral tradition. A harsher person might call them “parasites” (drawing nutrition from their hosts, while weakening them), but I’ll refrain from using such a pejorative term.

“NO!!” shout the atheists. “You have us all wrong!!!” For Christ’s sake, how many times do we have to tell you: You don’t need God to be ‘good!’”



Larry Anhart is one of those atheists. He is a professor at Northern Illinois University, author of the book, Darwinian Conservatism, and the main contributor of a blog by the same name. I haven’t read Prof. Arnhart’s book, but I did read one of his most recent blog entries: Do Human Rights Require Religious Beliefs?


Prof. Arnhart realizes that most people would automatically answer: “Yes, it does.” He opens…

What difference would it make if we accepted what Bernard Williams has called "Nietzsche's thought"--"there is, not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind"?

One consequence, Nietzsche suggested, is that we could no longer believe that human beings were created by God in His Image and thus endowed with equal dignity. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: "The masses blink and say: 'We are all equal.--Man is but man, before God--we are all equal.' Before God! But now this God has died." The modern morality of human equality is secularized Christian morality that cannot be continued after the death of God.

Does this mean, then, that we could no longer hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights?...

These are the questions raised by Michael J. Perry in his book Toward a Theory of Human Rights… Perry asks: "For one who believes that the universe is utterly bereft of transcendent meaning, why--in virtue of what--is it the case that every human being has inherent dignity?". If we have no answer to that question, Perry insists, then we have no answer to those human beings who assert that they have the right to exploit and abuse other human beings because what we call right is really just the rule of the stronger…

The failure to provide a cosmic standard of value is also why Perry rejects the positions of Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty, who say that human rights rest upon human sympathy and solidarity. Nussbaum and Rorty believe that the lives of human beings have value in so far as we care for them. The idea of human rights is promoted by extending our moral sentiments to embrace ever wider circles of humanity.

Perry objects to this sentimental morality that although normal human beings--those who are not psychopaths--do care for some other human beings, particularly those of their family or tribe, it is not true that normal human beings care for all other human beings equally and impartially…

William Schulz is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. In his book In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All, he dismisses appeals to God or Nature or Reason as insufficient to sustain the morality of human rights. Instead, he agrees with Richard Rorty in relying on David Hume's insight that morality depends on sympathy and the moral emotions that incline us to care for our fellow human beings…

He goes on to say:

"Robert Frost once observed that poems begin with a lump in the throat, and I think human rights do too. . . . far better than by appeals to God or Nature, is to point to the capacity to identify with others, the capacity for human empathy or solidarity"...

But notice the implications of this. This view of morality as rooted in the moral emotions of evolved human nature does not appeal to any metaphysical "beyond" for cosmic support. Those like Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Perry would say that without such a metaphysical foundation, morality is impossible. Those analytic philosophers today who look to pure logic to prove the principles of moral obligation as inherent in the logical order of things continue in this Platonic tradition...

There is a foundation for human dignity, but it's not a transcendent or transhuman foundation--God, Nature, or Reason--but the empirical foundation of evolved human nature as the source of sympathy and the moral sense.

I give Prof. Arnhart a lot of credit: This is probably the best defense of how morality can be justified by Darwinian atheism that we will ever see. The question is: Does it work?

As you would probably expect, I have to answer “No.” Why? Well, because there’s a few contradictions. And they’re big ones. In the heart of his essay, Arnhart writes…

[Perry] hasn't made a good case for his claim that religious belief necessarily supports a morality of universal love or egalitarian humanitarianism. He admits that in practice, much of the history of religion is a history of brutality. But he would say that this comes from the failure of believers to live up to the true teaching of their religion.

Assuming Arnhart agrees with Perry’s criticism of religion (and I think that’s an excellent assumption), we have several unresolved questions that need to be addressed.

First, if humanity has experienced a “history of brutality” – whether in the name of religion, racism, class struggle, or whatever – it certainly puts a major cramp on the idea that humanity has an intuitive moral sense.



The idea that morality is “innate” has been pushed by Darwinists who account for morality as a product of evolution, but it is also very popular among certain Christians, who say it’s evidence of God’s existence and His benevolence.

Personally, I strongly disagree with the idea of an intuitive “moral law.” That’s one of the reasons I find C.S. Lewis – arguably the most famous Christian apologist – so useless.

Last year, I wrote…

According to Mr. Lewis, every human being is born with an “intuitive” understanding of “right and wrong.” This is just plain false. Every mother and father will confirm that NO child is born with an “intuitive” sense of “right and wrong.” Rather, those children must be TAUGHT to understand the difference – and the best way to understand THAT difference is through REASON (although, especially in the early years, social conformity and a few spankings might help).

Lewis’ further explanation that the Holocaust is proof of this “moral law” that is “commonly known to all human beings?” Oh really? I would beg to differ. The fact that SS guards laughed while shooting innocent women and children in the concentration camps and then mailed photos of their crimes to their families back home certainly negates any theory that “right and wrong” is “intuitive” in human beings. The fact that even today, in most Muslim cultures, teenage girls who are raped are then MURDERED by their own parents (to cleanse the “shame” on their family) shows that there are no universal, intuitive standards of “right and wrong.”

While both Christians and Darwinists are wrong to posit an intuitive “moral law,” it is the Darwinists who suffer most if such a law does not exist. Why? Because – as Arnhart’s essay shows – the idea of a “moral sense” is the only thing stitching together a coherent atheist defense of morality. If the “moral sense” goes, so does the idea of atheist morality.

However, an atheist might argue: Even if you’re right, how do you account for Arnhart’s observation that emotional appeals to compassion work on both atheists and believers (as demonstrated by the founder of Amnesty’s experience)?

Easy. See my discussion with “Grant” above. “Amnesty” is a product of modern Western Civilization. The people who finance “Amnesty” – which include Christians AND Atheists - are also products of that civilization. They were raised on the nourishment of that civilization, whose food is faith, and whose water is reason.

As I wrote on Sep. 22:

For thousands of years of human history, life all across the world life was - to quote Hobbes - "nasty, brutish, and short." Then, in one small region of the world in one brief window of time, a civilization emerged in which people (on average) lived for 75+ years in excellent health, enjoyed an economic quality of life unimaginable to their ancestors, experienced freedom from tyranny and violence, and entertained nearly limitless opportunities for creativity and self-expression.

This civilization (first blossoming in the US, Great Britain, France, and Holland in the 18th century, spreading to most of Western Europe by the late 19th century, and spreading even into remote corners like Latin America by late 20th century) was no accident. And it was not inevitable. It was a coming together of a religion and a philosophy.

As I wrote in January...

I've never felt comfortable when politicians describe America as a "Judeo-Christian country" or reaffirm the need to preserve our "Judeo-Christian values"...It defines our country, our values, and our heritage through religion alone.

About a year ago, I coined the term "Christian-Enlightenment" because it combines the religion of the West (Christianity) with the ground-breaking Enlightenment ideas (freedom, reason, the Scientific Method, etc.) that enabled the West to dominate the world.

Ethiopia is a "Judeo-Christian" country, but it's one of the worst countries on Earth because it doesn't have the Enlightenment heritage of Europe and the United States.

The West is a product of the "Christian-Enlightenment." The "Christian Enlightenment" unlocked the "genius of man" - the genius of the rational man - unencumbered by religious superstition or political oppression. But how many people in the West realize that? Not many. And therein lies our problem. How can we preserve Western civilization when so few of us understand it?

The atheists obviously don’t understand it. If faith and reason are the vital ingredients of our civilization, to claim (as they do) that atheism and emotion can – by themselves – sustain our civilization is a pure fantasy, to put it mildly (For more on this topic, see my essay, “Will Western Civilization End in Your Lifetime? Yes, Probably”).

So Anhart’s theory is dead. There is no intuitive moral sense, and whatever morality we DO possess is TAUGHT to us by a civilization that requires faith, not atheism. The “Sentimental Atheists” – like Arnhart – are free to live their lives and advocate their ideas, but the rest of us have no obligation to take their ideas seriously.

So if the Sentimental Atheists can’t defend morality, and the nihilistic atheists obviously deny morality, can ANY form of atheism work in a moral sense? The only remaining candidate is “Objectivism” – the gospel of reason articulated by Ayn Rand and her followers.



I am sympathetic to Objectivism (without the atheism, of course), because I share the Objectivists’ belief that 2 axioms are the foundation of any moral order: 1) Reality exists, and 2) Reason is the best means to master Reality. From those 2 axioms, Rand developed a cohesive, self-confident moral philosophy, expressed in Atlas Shrugged.

But does it work? Well, it used to. But not now.

As I wrote on Sep. 18...

I think--at one time, decades ago--it was possible for an atheist to be a full partner in the fight to preserve Western civilization. Ayn Rand comes to mind. So does Karl Popper. They loved freedom and America, and just as importantly, they loved mankind. They also lived in a more innocent time (1940s/50s)--a time before Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, and the rest of the Reductionist movement.

Today, atheism equals reductionism. Reductionism is the idea that we're all mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Even human reason (which was championed by Rand) is impotent in the reductionist/atheist worldview. As David Brooks says, "Reason is just the press secretary of the emotions."

As we've discussed before, a free republic has to believe that its citizens have the capacity for reason and morality (two things denied by the atheist/reductionist crowd). Otherwise, it is intellectually defenseless against Washington elites who want to lead their brethren around by the nose.

In conclusion, for me, it's not the principle of atheism ("no God") that is incompatible with Western civilization; it is the modern practice of atheism ("reductionism") which denies not only God's existence, but the existence of a truly rational, moral human being.

Ayn Rand belonged to a more innocent time. In her era, one could be a materialist/atheist, and still believe in reason/morality. But if the materialist insists that reason is an illusion, where does that leave rational moralists, like today’s Objectivists? The Objectivists are like dinosaurs who are still groping around the Earth after the asteroid destroyed their habitat. With Reductionism toxifying their intellectual landscape, they have no way to survive. Today, the only “fit” atheist is a Reductionist – whether of the nihilist kind or the sentimental kind.

Of course, as Reductionism gains more intellectual power, even the sentimental atheists will lose ground. After all, the Western Civilization that nurtures their sentimentalism is dying. And thus, in the coming decades, the nihilists will predominate in the atheist community. "Sentimental Atheists" like E.O Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Larry Arnhart, Dennis Mangan, and Luke Muehlhauser are all products of their time, and “the times, they are a changing.”

So to quote Casey Stengel: “Can ANYONE play this game?” Yes, one type of atheist. The atheist who acknowledges that atheism IS toxic – both to the individual and society – but is still an atheist because – with a heavy heart – they've concluded that atheism must be true. And how many atheists advance such a view? Very few. I certainly haven’t met any in my online discussions. And in the culture at large, I cant even think of anyone– although I’m tempted to put John Derbyshire on the list.



Derbyshire is a Darwinist, a Reductionist, and officially a “Myseterian” – which, in practice, is little different from atheism. So let’s call Derbyshire an atheist, shall we? Why does he have value? Because he’s honest enough to admit the problems with atheism, and thus – despite his atheism – he can show the advantages of faith. What kind of atheism is this? Let’s call it “Self-Loathing Atheism.”

At the start of this essay, I wrote…

I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

I stand by all that. Atheism can’t advance the "good." Indeed, it directly opposes the "good." The modern synthesis of atheism with reductive materialism is a triumph of nihilism. In that sense, the most "logical" form of atheism is nihilism. That's why the power of nihilism will grow. And that's also why - from society's perspective - the only useful atheist is one who acknowledges the horror of atheism. In short, a “self-loathing atheist.”

And yet, I’m still supposed to believe that atheism is the wave of the future? If it is, it’s a very bleak future indeed.


**UPDATE, DEC. 20, 2009**


Part of this essay - along with some new commentary - has been cross-posted at Larry Auster's website.

Larry wrote...

Did you coin the category, "sentimental atheists"? It is brilliant. That's exactly what they are. Having no solid, rational basis for moral truth, they are sentimental and emotional about moral truth. There are these things such as morality or conservatism that they WANT to believe in, though they have no solid grounds for them. This makes them sentimentalists.

I also wrote:

Not to sound like Hegel or anything, but I believe that--over time--major philosophical contradictions are unsustainable. They will inevitably resolve themselves. We see that, for instance, in modern America: Our decades-long mix of socialism with freedom has brought us to a crossroads: Will we have socialism? Or will we have freedom? Because we are rapidly reaching a point where it will be impossible to have both. In the same vein, "sentimental atheism" is a strange mix of something good (love of morality), and something awful (atheism), but the awful part is becoming so big that a choice will have to be made: Morality or Atheism? And if you can't make a choice, you will become irrelevant.

Dennis Mangan picked up on Auster's entry and responded here.


Dennis wrote (in part)...

We know that many atheists, perhaps the great majority, behave morally, e.g., they care for their children, are not common criminals, and so on. Therefore moral behavior does not require religious belief.

I responded...

I think the relevant question isn’t so much “can an individual be moral without religious belief?” Yes, I think he can. And the evidence you cite above is sufficient. That is the behavior of a “sentimental atheist.” The better question is, “can atheism – by itself – be a motivator for moral behavior?” As I said in my essay (which I encourage you to read), I think the answer is "no."

In your entire blog post today, you never articulate what is the motivation for an atheist to be moral. That’s because there is none. What looks like motivation is merely the product of being born and raised in a Christian-Enlightenment culture, and developing an understandable attachment to such a great culture. It’s not the behavior of atheists that’s at issue; it’s their lack of appreciation for how religion itself – specifically, Christianity – has built the entire artifice that surrounds you. A purely atheist culture (or even a mostly atheist culture) would descend into barbarism very quickly, as I explained in my essay.

An atheist who understood this essential point might have different policy priorities, including ensuring that religion continues to be an active part of U.S. society (in contrast to say, Europe). As you point out, an atheist wouldn’t necessarily become an advocate of open borders (to use your example). But he might, say, be comfortable with allowing criticism of Darwinism to be taught in public schools. That’s just one example.

**UPDATE, JAN. 4, 2010**

To see the best of Mangan's comment thread, Sentimental Theists, click here.

A Debate with Atheists About...Well...Just About Everything

On December 5, Luke “the Common Sense Atheist” published a blog post predicting that “immortality/consciousness uploading” would be achieved by the year 2150.

This sparked a comment thread in which I debated atheists on several topics, including the nature of consciousness, artificial intelligence, memes, the HBD movement, the Holocaust, and other issues.

At first, I merely wanted to disagree with Luke's prediction. I wrote...

Consciousness is not a material thing, so it can never be “uploaded.”

This led to an exchange between me and “Justfinethanks…”

JFT: A “song” isn’t a material thing, so that must be why it’s impossible to create an MP3.

TW: A song IS a material thing; it’s words set to music.

JFT: A “song” is the product of material things, like a guitar, vocal chords, drums, but the “song” itself is merely an emergent property of these combined things. Much like “consciousness” is merely an emergent property of neurons, chemicals, and electrical discharges.

TW: See, that’s your mistake. You assume consciousness is an “emergent property” of matter when there’s no evidence of that, and a lot of evidence against it.

Consciousness interacts with matter, but is not equal to matter; it is a non-material agent. And as such, it cannot be uploaded into a machine.

Then Urbster and I crossed paths…

Urb: There’s tons of evidence for consciousness being produced by the brain (by contrast, no one has ever produced evidence for the existence of any kind of “soul” or extraphysical, dualist property) or successfully explained such an interaction with physical matter.

TW: To take one example most people can relate to, let’s look at the placebo effect: Who is the “I” that thinks he’s getting healthier, and MAKES his body healthier, even if the pill he took is just a sugar bill? To the Reductionist, the “I” just an illusion. But the facts of science (plus common sense) suggest there really is an “I” (distinct from the body) which can influence the body.

Then Jeff interjected:

“Occam’s Razor would seem to shave off the idea of a soul, but were we to map out the brain in more detail and find that the consciousness function eludes us, it might still be plausible to come up with some notion of a “mind” or “soul”.

I replied…

I’m not a big fan of Occam’s Razor (especially in science, ironically). The universe is a pretty big, complicated place, and while every generation of scientists answers some questions, they usually get dwarfed by the number of new questions that spring from the tremendous complexity that is the world and life itself.

I’m just glad there wasn’t an Occam’s Razor’s in Galileo’s time. I’m sure the Church would’ve used it against him: “The Earth goes AROUND the sun? Surely, you jest Galileo! That goes against Occam’s Razor.”

Then Fortuna arrived…

FTA: The placebo effect, and related instances of biofeedback, do not strictly require us to postulate anything spooky or ethereal.

TW: I don’t think there’s a “strict requirement.” However, if you take the placebo effect (and similar evidence), and then contrast it with the materialist paradigm, I would argue that “an inference to the best explanation” leads one to conclude that the best explanation is that the mind has a non-material element.

FTA: Also, Occams’ razor slices complex things all things being equal. Galileo had evidence that unbalanced that equation.

TW: True, but too often, Occam’s razor is used for scientific enterprises in which so much of our data is fuzzy (like consciousness studies). Unfortunately, the mere fuzziness leads people to use Occam’s Razor in favor of materialism, and I think that’s lazy – especially when, as I said before, we know from experience that the universe is a pretty big, complicated place.

FTA: How do you propose to “contrast” biofeedback with the materialist paradigm? We know that the brain has a great deal of chemical interplay with the rest of body, up to and including dramatically altering various aspects of your physiology.

TW: I’m not sure if I understand the question. The way I see it, biofeedback exists in a pro-mind paradigm too. Mind can influence the body, and vice versa. But the mind does not equal the body.

In the case of the placebo effect, the act of thinking itself is what drives the biochemical changes. What I am suggesting is that the origin of thinking (the irreducible “I”) is an immaterial process. There is no inherent reason to believe that matter can create mind; it’s a theory of materialist science. I won’t be arrogant enough to say it’s an illogical theory or a theory that could never be proven, but I don’t think it fits the evidence discovered by science over the past century.

Then Jeff came back…

Jeff: Because we know that the brain controls the body, it seems reasonable to assume that the brain would be responsible for the placebo effect (an effect on the body).”

TW: If thinking was on the same level of complexity as digestion, that might express my opinion too. But thinking/consciousness is on an order of complexity so startling that science today struggles to even define it, never mind explain it. Thus, I don’t feel inhibited in suggesting that we are grappling with something which can not be understood in strictly materialist terms, and has has a non-material dimension.

I don’t know to what extent you’re familiar with the writer John Derbyshire, but he’s a proud Darwinist and a critic of Christianity who – despite all that – feels the “hard problem of consciousness” is so vexing, he rejects atheism.

Then came my discussion with Urbster about the existence of “I” which "I" (no pun intended) already described in my essay, The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution.

After that bout, it was Fortuna's turn…

FTA: The evidence with which I’m familiar has only ever suggested that biochemical changes drive the act of thinking. Neurons fire, and then one wills their arm to move, or tastes ice cream, or gets angry, or what have you. As far I know, whenever we have been in a position to observe the matter, we have never observed the chain of causality flowing from thought to brain chemistry, only the reverse.

TW: I’ve seen some research which suggests that, and other research which contradicts it. However, I have to cast a skeptical eye toward research which suggests that “I” am just a random firing of neurons, and that this cohesive “I” which imposes order on my thoughts and actions doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that that totally contradicts my daily experience, and the experience of most civilized people, for that matter. The research is legit, I’m sure, but I’m confident it will be superseded by better research in the future.

FTA: I’d like you to cite the contradictory research please.

TW: I think this example should qualify, but if it doesn’t, let me know:

In 1991, investigators told a group of 48 men who were about to watch porn to suppress their sexual arousal – and surprisingly enough (according to penile plethysmography), while watching the porn, they were able to do so.

This, in my mind (pun intended), is evidence that “I” exist; “I” is capable of using reason to suppress instincts; and the very act of using reason can initiate biochemical reactions.

This example comes from The Spiritual Brain.

Then I faced Urbster again:

Urb: How could it possibly be that the brain can produce emergent consciousness? Well, how could it be that complex computers can produce emergent (”artificial”) intelligence?

TW: What is often billed as “artificial intelligence” is not even close to “biological intelligence.” It’s not even intelligence; it’s just algorithms.

Urb: Computers work. Does this take faith to believe? Computing is an EMERGENT phenomenon.

TW: I think your statement indicates a common misperception of what consciousness is and how it compares to strictly material objects like computers. As I hinted at above, there is no comparison between a human being and a computer. A computer can perform many seemingly intelligent functions (like Spellchecker or organizing newspaper articles alphabetically) but that intelligence does not require – and shows no evidence of – consciousness. Is the Internet conscious? Does it think and act and emote on its own volition? Of course not. And it’s reasonable to suggest it never will. As I said above, the idea that “consciousness emerges from matter” is a theory but not a fact, and given the evidence accumulated so far, it’s actually better described as a hope; a wish; a matter of faith. See for instance, Why the Mind is Not Like a Computer.

Urb: The more highly complex the brain is, the more intelligence an animal has. Surely it’s not just “conscious” or “not conscious” but there is a range of conscious behavior; some animals are more self-aware than others. Some animals can predict things farther ahead into the future and recognize objects and words. Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.”

TW: I’m OK with everyone you said until the final line, “Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.” That conclusion does not necessarily follow from the evidence you provide. In fact, there is no reason to believe that consciousness is a product of evolution. See for instance, Rob Rosenbaum’s recent article, The Dangerous Mysteries of Consciousness. Rosenbaum is a Darwinist but he’s upfront on how Darwinism cannot explain consciousness, and probably never will.

Urb: Even if we choose to separate talking about ‘the mind’ from ‘the brain,’ the mind is still just a function of my brain like the Windows operating system is the function of the computing processes of the electronic hardware.

TW: Again, that is a faulty analogy based on a misconception of what consciousness is.

Urb: There are as many examples of religion acting as a “parasitic meme”…It makes me wonder if you even understand what a “meme” is.

TW: I understand “memes” very well, which is precisely why I object to Dennett’s statement. The only legitimate description of “meme” is a “good idea which aids survival.” From that description, 3 problems arise: 1) Dennett apparently believes that “memes” are something of a biological nature; something that is mentally equivalent of genes. That is – at a minimum, unproven; at a maximum, absurd. And in either case, it puts Dennett’s credibility into doubt. But further, there are more problems. A “parasitic meme” is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a “meme” or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme. So again, Dennett is using sloppy language to advance his agenda. And finally, I genuinely object to the causal statement that “religion is a parasitic meme.” It is atheism – not faith – that is a destroyer of happiness and culture.

See, for example, The Despair of the Selfish Gene.

Then Fortuna came back…

FTA: There is no necessary connection between atheism and unhappiness; the vast majority of atheists are doing just fine, thanks, just like the general population.

TW: As The Economist notes, “sociologists agree that the practice of a faith and broad happiness with life do seem to be related, though nobody has much idea why.” In fairness, that same article also suggests that atheism *might* be more conducive to happiness than agnosticism, and for a predictable reason: Atheism – like Christianity – is a “life philosophy” which can provide people with some sort of ethical guidelines on how to live life; agnosticism – almost by definition – can not do that.

FTA: Ditto the destruction of culture; last I checked, Scandinavia was doing just fine.

TW: I don’t have the data in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it would be inaccurate to call Scandinavia “atheist.” I’m pretty sure most people in Scandinavia believe in God (and probably even the Christian God) but they lack the emotional investment in Christianity that we see in other parts of the world (like the U.S.). Also, on a related note, I would call Scandinavia a culture in decline and inferior in most ways to the Anglosphere (where Christianity is more vibrant).

FTA: You claim that teaching people about natural selection (which is an empirical fact, by the by) will somehow poison peoples’ outlook on life.

TW: I resist the assertion that natural selection (in the context of macroevolution) is an “empirical fact.” I would never call it a “fact” in the same way other scientific laws are facts, such as gravity.

FTA: That’s artifical selection. If your own chosen example [the Columbine massacre] had actually understood natural selection, he wouldn’t have done a damn thing, because actual “failures of natural selection” don’t survive and/or don’t reproduce, without any conscious interference on anyones’ part.

TW: I don’t disagree that [the Columbine killers] were morons, but if they were alive, they would probably say: We can see where natural selection is going. It weeds out the “unfit.” I am a mortal being and I will not live long enough to see the climax of natural selection millions of years from now. I want to live in a society without the unfit NOW. And that’s precisely what they did. Eugenics is an idea with a long scientific pedigree; Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galston, boldly used Darwinism as the foundation of eugenics. Eugenics is unpopular today because the Holocaust tainted it, but I would wager that – if current secular trends continue – it’ll make a nice comeback in the next 15-30 years.



FTA on memes: “My understanding of the term merely implies that memes are ideas that can replicate themselves through transmission from person to person.”

TW: To define “memes” as “ideas that can replicate themselves” – as you and Dennett do – is, IMHO, a real stretch of the imagination, to put it mildly.

On a theoretical level, the problem with memes is the same as the one with “selfish genes.” It assumes intent for something that – by definition – cannot have intent. Ideas are not conscious. They have no purpose…They have no desire to “replicate”…They are just, um, ideas!

At Neuroanthropology.net, Greg Downey (who favors Darwinism) states…

I think ‘memetics’ is one of the bigger crocks hatched in recent decades, hiding in the shadow of respectable evolutionary theory’…

It’s one thing to reify a concept, it’s another thing to start attributing it a whole complex personality, drives, desires, and levels of different reification. If defining gene as ’self-replicating’ is playing a little free with the details, defining meme, as ’self-replicating’ beggars the imagination it’s so stupid….

Arguing this reveals so little understanding of how brains work, especially how hard it is for ANY pattern to repeat completely. That is, even repetitive action typically involves constant changes in patterns of neural activation; maintaining consistency requires constantly shifting neural resources, even slightly, to take account to changes even in the organism itself…

Has anyone, ever, anywhere, seen an idea ‘replicate’ itSELF? Although this may seem like a semantic point, I think it’s a bigger logical problem with reifying culture as ‘memes’ and then attributing agentive power to the memes.

FTA: It is simply not the case that there is no reason whatsoever to think that consciousness is a product of evolution. We know that all life on the planet evolved, and that it exhibits a range of ability with respect to sustaining consciousness that correlates to evolved brain structure. That in itself is a powerful reason to infer that consciousness evolved.

TW: I think in some way you are validating my criticism of Dennett (and other materialists). They basically argue: “If life is a product of evolution – and nothing else – then consciousness must – someWAY, someHOW – be a product of evolution too.

As I said, that’s a theory worthy of consideration, but there is no evidence to support that theory (yet); it is merely a deduction based on a materialist philosophy.

Then DRJ arrived…

DRJ: It is now a widely held belief that broad genetic diversity of populations is one of the most important, if not the most important, measure of a populations fitness. Old forms of eugenics are actually counter-productive to that measure of fitness.

TW: I can think of at least one group of Darwinists who disagree: Those involved in the “Human Biodiversity Movement.” They are pro-Darwin atheists who are entranced by the link between race and evolution. For example, they encourage high-IQ racial groups (specifically, whites and Asians) to avoid reproducing with low-IQ racial groups (basically everyone else). They believe that the blending of the races in America is weakening the collective IQ of our country and thus, weakening our economy, national security, etc. That’s why they want to ban immigration, rescind racial discrimination laws, etc.

Steve Sailer is one of their most vocal advocates.

She his article, Darwin’s Enemies on the Left.

Needless to say, I don’t endorse Sailer’s views; I’m merely showing that “ideas have consequences” and even decent people (like yourself, presumably) can’t always control those consequences.

This did not sit well with Fortuna.

FTA: “There is no way to control for misinformed racists eager to seize on data that they hope will vindicate them.”

TW: Unfortunately, that doesn’t jive with my analysis of the HBD movement. They are not “misinformed racists.” No, they are highly-educated young men who found materialist science as a gateway drug to racism and sexism. See, for instance, the words of HBD blogger, “Thursday…”

“Two of the biggest shocks in my life came when, first, I discovered the truth about race and intelligence through people like Steve Sailer, Arthur Jensen, Charles Murray, Vince Sarich and then later discovered the truth about women and sex through Roissy and the seduction community generally. Suddenly, things that you have seen all around you start to make sense. You realize that, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been lied to all my life.’”

FTA: “If atheism is nothing less than a destroyer of culture, that ought to have a measurable effect, and yet those countries are doing fine.”

TW: They’re doing relatively OK for now. Let’s check back in 10-25 years, though, as the growth of their Muslim population hits a critical mass. I’m not optimistic. Atheists, almost by definition, are not people who are going to risk their lives for abstract ideas like “freedom” and “democracy.” They would rather be slaves than corpses.

FTA: You can’t even assent to the proposition that organisms that are less able to survive and/or reproduce than their peers will have their genes progressively less well-represented in subsequent generations?

TW: That’s microevolution. So yes, I accept that.

FTA: It makes no sense whatsoever to gun down a bunch of kids at random, or because you don’t like them personally, and call yourself a ‘natural selector.’

TW: It’s not rational, I agree; but rationality is an all too rare trait among our species. Indeed, I’m tempted to say atheism itself is irrational.

FTA: What “climax”?

TW: In retrospect, “climax” isn’t the best word. I’ll suggest “progression” as a substitute. The “progression” of the human species. The arrival of Nietzsche’s “Superman,” or something to that effect.

FTA: There is no assumption of intent implied in the selfish gene concept. I have to wonder how much of the primary literature on the subject you’re actually familiar with, because I can’t really even discuss this with you until you understand just how bad of a misconception that is.

TW: With all due respect, I’m tempted to repeat that line back to you. How else would you interpret this line by Richard Dawkins, the author of the “selfish gene” concept: “Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” That implies the genes have “intent,” does it not?

FTA: Similarly, I can’t begin to respond to any criticisms of the meme concept that you may have until said criticisms are no longer spurious. There is no attribution of agency going on.”

TW: A quote from Dennett: “There is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. This competition is the major selective force in the memosphere, and, just as in the biosphere, the challenge has been met with great ingenuity. For instance, whatever virtues (from our perspective) the following memes have, they have in common the property of having phenotypic expressions that tend to make their own replication more likely by disabling or preempting the environmental forces that would tend to extinguish them.” And it goes on from there. And it’s all B.S.

FTA: The act of using reason is itself initiated by biochemical reactions.

TW: That is an assumption based on a materialist paradigm, but there is no solid proof of that. Indeed, based on the seeming impossibility of matter to account for the mind, I have no qualms about positing a non-material source for consciousness.

A quote from the Dalai Lama:

“I said to one of the scientists: ‘It seems very evident that due to changes in the chemical processes of the brain, many of our subjective experiences like perception and sensation occur. Can one envision to reversal of this causal process? Can one postulate that pure thought itself could effect a change in the chemical processes of the brain?’ I was asking whether, conceptually at least, we could allow the possibility of both upward and downward causation.

The scientist’s response was quite surprising. He said that since all mental states arise from physical states, it is not possible for downward causation to occur. Although out of politeness, I did not respond at the time, I thought then and still think that here is as yet no scientific basis for such a categorical claim.

The view that all mental processes are necessarily physical processes is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact. I feel that, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, it is critical that we allow the question to remain open, and not conflate our assumptions with empirical fact.”

DRJ again...

DRJ: It seems as if your trying to vaguely dancing around the old argument that such racist beliefs (school shootings and the like too) are the inevitable result materialist science, but without actually saying it so matter of factly.

TW: No, let me clarify: Fortuna said that the Columbine killers were “irrational” according to Darwinian principles. I challenged that view. I said it really wasn’t clear whether “weeding out the unfit through violence” is “rational” or “irrational.” Using Darwinism alone, that can’t be determined. The Darwinist fetish for eugenics, for example, seems to indicate that the question is an open one.

DRJ: If you are, in fact, trying to make a case that materialist science leads people towards anti-social beliefs, like racism, then you’ll need to back it up with more than anecdotes of people in the fringe.

TW: This is a complicated subject, and there’s no way I can summarize my views (at least not persuasively) in one comment. However, I’ll make a few assertions and you can critique them as you wish…

1) If you a materialist, the most logical religion is atheism.

2) If you an atheist, ethics either don’t exist or should be founded on materialist/Darwinist principles.

3)Darwinian principles are ambiguous (as I just explained). Using Darwinism, you could justify the Holocaust (as Hitler did) or you can justify liberal democracy (as contemporary scholars like Larry Arnhart do). I will say this, though: I do think the Darwinist denigration of humanity (“we’re just apes who wear pants") makes it easy for people to initiate violence and/or tyranny. A tolerant form of theism (such as 21st Century Christianity) is superior in that regard.

FTA comes back...

FTA: Did you not read what I said? Racial differences in IQ evaporate when you control for education and socio-economic background.

TW: Personally, I don’t want to touch that issue with a 10-foot pole. I’ll just humbly say that if you talked to those guys, they would happily whip out different studies which show the opposite conclusion.

FTA: Nietzche’s “superman” is not a scientific concept. Evolution isn’t teleological, natural selection is not interested in progress.

TW: I never claimed that the “Superman” was a scientific concept. No, it’s an ideological goal – a goal that Nietzsche, Hitler, and many others shared, while using Darwinism to justify it.

FTA: Have…you…read….his…work?

TW: Yes, I read The Selfish Gene.

FTA: You are categorically wrong to think that A.) Memes have to aid survival to be considered memes at all and B.) Memes have to be treated as having intent, by definition

TW: I’ll take this one at a time.

I originally wrote, “A ‘parasitic meme’ is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a ‘meme’ or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme.”

It’s not clear to me why you consider my statement inaccurate. To quote Wikipedia, “Richard Dawkins introduced the word ‘meme’ in The Selfish Gene as a basis for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena”…As we all know, the main evolutionary principle is “survival of the fittest” …If religion is a “meme” and a meme is a fitness strategy, it’s not clear to me why – in Dennett’s words – religion is a “parasitic meme.” I’m almost tempted to say it’s illogical; “a contradiction in terms.”

Onto the next point…

Personally, I don’t believe in “memes” so debating whether or not they have intent is the equivalent of debating “does the flying spaghetti monster have intent?” If Dennett believes that memes don’t intent, fine…but then he should STOP talking about them as if they DO have intent…See the Dennett quote I used above…Another Dennett quote: “Thousands of memes, mostly borne by language, but also by wordless ‘images’ and other data structures, take up residence in an individual brain, shaping its tendencies and thereby turning it into a mind.” Again, this sounds like intent; memes compete for minds, become part of the mind, and then that mind tries to spread its memes to other minds…If there’s any confusion on this issue, Fortuna, blame Dennett; not me.

FTA: The problem you haven’t addressed is that the Columbine killers did not act to weed out the unfit. As far as I know, the majority (if not the entirety) of their victims were not otherwise likely to die young or be unable to reproduce. They were fit.

TW: The Columbine killers would probably define “fitness” the way Darwinists do: Anyway they like! :)

FTA: Every time we are in a position to observe the matter, brain chemistry happens first and then thought follows, including higher reasoning. There is research to back this up, and I’ll happily reference it for you if you like.

TW: I’ll take a look at the research – assuming it’s not like a 40-page research paper; a 5-7 pages news article or Wikipedia page will suffice.

FTA: Evolution is purely descriptive, so indeed it should not be surprising that it doesn’t tell you what you should do. That would be like looking to the theory of gravitation to determine the desirability of falling off a tall building.

TW: I respect your opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that many scientists such as Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, and others ARE using evolution as the basis of moral theory. And needless to say, it’s an endeavor I don’t support.

FTA: While it’s certainly the case that Hitler was anti-Christian in some respects and/or at particular times, you can’t just say he was anti-Christian and leave it at that.


TW: A few counter-points. First, Hitler was a politician, especially from 1920-1933, when Germany was a democracy, and thus, Hitler needed to coax the masses to accept his program. Therefore, it would make sense for Hitler to say some nice things about Christianity in public venues. Even when Hitler was dictator after 1933, his position wasn’t totally secure, and it made sense for him to be on decent terms with the church. Thus, when the church protested his first sterilization program in 1937/38, he withdrew it, and waited til the chaos of WWII to commit genocide.

Second, Hitler’s private comments should carry more weight than his public comments, and here we have Hitler’s ruminations that Christianity is a slave morality that prevented Aryans from forcefully achieving their natural superiority over other races. Since this accords better with his behavior as a genocidal dictator, I think it’s a truer reflection of his inner faith.

Last but not least, Hitler’s behavior was “unChristian” to put it mildly. And this is actually an important point. If Hitler committed the Holocaust in the name of Christ (in the way, say, Osama bin Laden commits crimes in the name of Allah), that would be one thing; but Hitler committed the Holocaust in a quest for racial domination. That is totally against the spirit of Christianity.

___________________________________________________________


DRJ: It seems implied that Dawkins et al are somehow building their moral theories in a Hitler-ish fashion, to which I strenuously object.

TW: Oh goodness, no. I don’t think Dawkins et al have malignant intentions, just like I don’t think Darwin himself had malignant intentions. Dawkins is an academic, with all that implies. As Plato might say, he doesn’t have a “tyrannical soul.”

DRJ: There are a wide variety of ethical theories developed in godless worldviews.

TW: Yes, but some ethical theories are more logical than others given a materialist/atheist foundation, and dare I say, over time, the more logical ones will have more influence over the less logical ones.

DRJ: Dawkins, from what I know appears to be somewhere in the secular humanist territory.

TW: Yes, and dare I say, that is one of the “less logical” foundations.

To quote the Darwinist writer John Derbyshire…

“A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world.”

The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution

"All revolutions devour their own children." - Ernst Rohm

Rohm was a despicable bastard, but his life and death is a testament to this valuable truth. From an historical perspective, all revolutions – even the most worthy ones – have a habit of going too far and eventually – generations later – destroying those who benefit from it.

I was reminded of this line while participating in a comment thread at the Common Sense Atheist website.

During a discussion on the nature of consciousness, one commenter – Urbster 1 – wrote…

There is no “I”; Dennett explains this in his book, where he proposes a “multiple drafts” view of consciousness, in stark contrast to the “I” view (he calls it the “Cartesian theater” view) of consciousness. In Dennett’s view, our brains evolved to do lots of parallel processing tasks; consciousness, then, is like a virtual serial “I” machine running on top of these parallel processors.

I wrote back…

Dennett is a very dishonest man. To say – as he does – “there is no ‘I’” and then smugly wipe his hands clean of the subject is preposterous. That doesn’t answer anything. There is DEFINITELY an “I.” Who is writing this question? Me. “I.” Who is reading it? YOU! (Another “I.”).

The irony, of course, is that Dennett is merely taking materialism to its logical conclusion…If materialism can’t explain “I,” then “I” can’t exist.

Brilliant!

While Dennett sips his margarita on the beach, I have some real questions to ask: What is consciousness? What is it made of? Where did it come from? How does it work? These are serious questions that deserve serious research, not just smoke and mirrors from atheist propagandists.

Urbster 1 continued to insist that “The ‘I’ IS reducible. It’s not just one thing; it’s many parts of the brain that come together to form this ‘story’ of an ‘I.’"

I wrote back…

“I” exist. I would also point out that “I” is the foundation of science. Don’t you remember Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am?” To postulate that the “I” is an illusion is to destroy reason and thus destroy the scientific enterprise in the long-term. You are making science intellectually defenseless to the theists you claim to oppose. Why science allowed itself to descend into this abyss I’ll never understand.

Nietzsche would be sympathetic to the point I’m trying to raise.

As told by Tom Wolfe in his essay Sorry but Your Soul Just Died…

[Nietzsche] added one final and perhaps ultimate piece of irony in a fragmentary passage in a notebook shortly before he lost his mind (to the late–nineteenth–century's great venereal scourge, syphilis). He predicted that eventually modern science would turn its juggernaut of skepticism upon itself, question the validity of its own foundations, tear them apart, and self–destruct. I thought about that in the summer of 1994 when a group of mathematicians and computer scientists held a conference at the Santa Fe Institute on "Limits to Scientific Knowledge." The consensus was that since the human mind is, after all, an entirely physical apparatus, a form of computer, the product of a particular genetic history, it is finite in its capabilities. Being finite, hardwired, it will probably never have the power to comprehend human existence in any complete way…

This, science's Ultimate Skepticism, has been spreading ever since then…If only Nietzsche were alive! He would have relished every minute of it!...

I suddenly had a picture of the entire astonishing edifice collapsing and modern man plunging headlong back into the primordial ooze. He's floundering, sloshing about, gulping for air, frantically treading ooze, when he feels something huge and smooth swim beneath him and boost him up, like some almighty dolphin. He can't see it, but he's much impressed. He names it God.

The Scientific Revolution bloomed in 1637 with Descartes’ earnest statement, “I think, therefore, I am.” Nearly 400 years later, by joyfully killing the “I,” the Scientific Revolution is eating its own children.

If there was ever a reason to move beyond materialism, this my friends, is it.

Note: This isn’t a full transcript. See the full comment thread at Luke’s website.


**UPDATE, DEC. 17, 2009**

Click below on the Comment section to read a fun exchange between me and "Ian." One clip...

Ian: “The only difference between the rock and the rabbit is that the rock's chemical processes are somewhat less complex, but that is a difference in quantity, not quality.”

TW: No. It’s more complicated than that. And I’ll try to create an analogy: Let’s compare, say, a mousetrap and a VCR. Both are made up of the same “stuff” but the thing that makes the VCR work is electricity. The “stuff” by itself (all those wires and buttons) can’t make the VCR work by itself. The electricity is essential. Ditto for life itself. There is a something “extra” in Life that science can’t explain, and even more worrisome, science doesn’t seem interested in trying to explain it (as shown by your flippant approach to this subject).

Requiem for a Nightmare: The Rise and Fall of Reductionism

I've mentioned Reductionism several times on this blog. And more recently, I've labeled Reductionist philosophy as the inspiration for the Game/HBD phenomenon. But admittedly I haven't done a very good job of explaining what Reductionism is - at least in the literal sense of the word, independent of any moral judgment. Hopefully, this new essay can remedy that.


But before I dive into explaining Reductionism in more detail, I want to highlight 2 Ayn Rand quotes which explicate the fact that our "inner life" (the thoughts, ideas, and values which swirl inside our heads) has a direct impact on our success and happiness.


To quote Rand:

As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

And...

Philosophy provides man with a comprehensive view of life. In order to evaluate it properly, ask yourself what a given theory, if accepted, would do to a human life, starting with your own.

Remember Ms. Rand's warning as we trace Reductionism from a scientific theory to a comprehensive philosophy of life.


To explain all that, I'll be replying on the famous writer Tom Wolfe, who wrote 2 essays on this topic: Digibabble, Fairly Dust, and the Human Anthill and Sorry But Your Soul Just Died.


Oh, and what about the title of my post: Requiem for a Nightmare? It's a play on the movie Requiem for a Dream - an excellent film about the dangers of drug addition.


In fact, I've broken down Wolfe's essays into 4 parts, with each part titled after a song in the Requiem soundtrack.


Actually, before we tap into Tom Wolfe's brain, let's hear from Steve Sailer, a pro-Reductionist leader of the HBD Movement.


In his essay, A Miracle Happens Here: Darwin's Enemies on the Right, Sailer tells us...

Edward O. Wilson, founder of Sociobiology...argues that the future of science resides in "reductionism." Sociology should ultimately be reduced to... its underlying sociobiological mechanisms. In turn, sociobiology needs to be reduced to biology, which will eventually be completely explicable by chemistry. Ultimately, all knowledge can be explained by physics.

This is a magnificently ambitious agenda, and its value is clear... Evolution instilled different reproductive goals in males and females...[And] those contrasting sociobiological drives emanate from chemicals like testosterone and estrogen, which can be understood in terms of the physics of protons and electrons.

So what happened when E.O. Wilson's ground-breaking book, Sociobiology, was published in 1975?

To answer that, I'll quote from Wolfe's essay, Digibabble, Fairly Dust, and the Human Anthill.


Part 1: Ghosts of a Future Lost

Overnight, Ed Wilson became the most famous biologist in the United States. He was soon adorned with the usual ribbons of celebrity: appearances on the Today show, the Dick Cavett Show, Good Morning America, and the covers of Time and The New York Times Magazine…

In 1977 Wilson won the National Medal for Science. In 1979 he won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for the third volume of his sociobiology trilogy…

A field called evolutionary psychology became all the rage, attracting many young biologists and philosophers who enjoyed the naughty and thrill of being Darwinian fundamentalists. The influence of genes was absolute. Free will among humans, no less than among ants, was an illusion. The “soul” and the “mind” were illusions, too, and so was the very notion of a “self…"

From Wolfe's second essay: Sorry But Your Soul Just Died...

Neuroscience, the science of the brain and the central nervous system, is on the threshold of a unified theory that will have an impact as powerful as that of Darwinism a hundred years ago. Already there is a new Darwin: Edward O. Wilson...

The issue this time around, at the end of the twentieth century, is not the evolution of the species, which can seem a remote business, but the nature of our own precious inner selves...

Neuroscientists involved in three–dimensional electroencephalography will tell you that there is not even any one place in the brain where consciousness or self–consciousness (Cogito ergo sum) is located. This is merely an illusion created by a medley of neurological systems acting in concert. The young generation takes this yet one step further. Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system—and since your brain arrived fully imprinted at birth—what makes you think you have free will? Where is it going to come from? What "ghost," what "mind," what "self," what "soul," what anything that will not be immediately grabbed by those scornful quotation marks, is going to bubble up your brain stem to give it to you?...

Part 2: Ghosts of Things to Come

Which brings us to the second most famous statement in all of modern philosophy: Nietzsche's "God is dead." The year was 1882. (The book was Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science].) Nietzsche said this was not a declaration of atheism, although he was in fact an atheist, but simply the news of an event. He called the death of God a "tremendous event," the greatest event of modern history. The news was that educated people no longer believed in God, as a result of the rise of rationalism and scientific thought, including Darwinism, over the preceding 250 years. But before you atheists run up your flags of triumph, he said, think of the implications. "The story I have to tell," wrote Nietzsche, "is the history of the next two centuries." He predicted (in Ecce Homo) that the twentieth century would be a century of "wars such as have never happened on earth," wars catastrophic beyond all imagining. And why? Because human beings would no longer have a god to turn to, to absolve them of their guilt; but they would still be racked by guilt, since guilt is an impulse instilled in children when they are very young, before the age of reason. As a result, people would loathe not only one another but themselves. The blind and reassuring faith they formerly poured into their belief in God, said Nietzsche, they would now pour into a belief in barbaric nationalistic brotherhoods: "If the doctrines...of the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal, doctrines I consider true but deadly"—he says in an allusion to Darwinism in Untimely Meditations—"are hurled into the people for another generation...then nobody should be surprised when...brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non–brothers...will appear in the arena of the future."…

Nietzsche said that mankind would limp on through the twentieth century "on the mere pittance" of the old decaying God–based moral codes. But then, in the twenty–first, would come a period more dreadful than the great wars, a time of "the total eclipse of all values" (in The Will to Power). This would also be a frantic period of "revaluation," in which people would try to find new systems of values to replace the osteoporotic skeletons of the old. But you will fail, he warned, because you cannot believe in moral codes without simultaneously believing in a god who points at you with his fearsome forefinger and says "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not."

Why should we bother ourselves with a dire prediction that seems so far–fetched as "the total eclipse of all values"? Because of man's track record, I should think. After all, in Europe, in the peaceful decade of the 1880s, it must have seemed even more far–fetched to predict the world wars of the twentieth century and the barbaric brotherhoods of Nazism and Communism. Ecce vates! Ecce vates! Behold the prophet! How much more proof can one demand of a man's powers of prediction?

A hundred years ago those who worried about the death of God could console one another with the fact that they still had their own bright selves and their own inviolable souls for moral ballast and the marvels of modern science to chart the way. But what if, as seems likely, the greatest marvel of modern science turns out to be brain imaging? And what if, ten years from now, brain imaging has proved, beyond any doubt, that not only Edward O. Wilson but also the young generation are, in fact, correct?...

Despite their best efforts, however, neuroscience is not rippling out into the public on waves of scholarly reassurance. But rippling out it is, rapidly. The conclusion people out beyond the laboratory walls are drawing is: The fix is in! We're all hardwired! That, and: Don't blame me! I'm wired wrong!...

The notion of a self—a self who exercises self–discipline, postpones gratification, curbs the sexual appetite, stops short of aggression and criminal behavior—a self who can become more intelligent and lift itself to the very peaks of life by its own bootstraps through study, practice, perseverance, and refusal to give up in the face of great odds—this old–fashioned notion (what's a boot strap, for God's sake?) of success through enterprise and true grit is already slipping away, slipping away...slipping away...

The genetic fix is in, and the new message is now being pumped out into the popular press and onto television at a stupefying rate. Who are the pumps? They are a new breed who call themselves "evolutionary psychologists." You can be sure that twenty years ago the same people would have been calling themselves Freudian; but today they are genetic determinists, and the press has a voracious appetite for whatever they come up with…

Where does that leave self–control? Where, indeed, if people believe this ghostly self does not even exist, and brain imaging proves it, once and for all?...

Eventually, as brain imaging is refined, the picture may become as clear and complete as those see–through exhibitions, at auto shows, of the inner workings of the internal combustion engine. At that point it may become obvious to everyone that all we are looking at is a piece of machinery, an analog chemical computer, that processes information from the environment. "All," since you can look and look and you will not find any ghostly self inside, or any mind, or any soul.

Part 3: Meltdown

Thereupon, in the year 2010 or 2030, some new Nietzsche will step forward to announce: "The self is dead"—except that being prone to the poetic, like Nietzsche I, he will probably say: "The soul is dead." He will say that he is merely bringing the news, the news of the greatest event of the millennium: "The soul, that last refuge of values, is dead, because educated people no longer believe it exists." Unless the assurances of the Wilsons and the Dennetts and the Dawkinses also start rippling out, the lurid carnival that will ensue may make the phrase "the total eclipse of all values" seem tame…

We live in an age in which it is impossible and pointless to avert your eyes from the truth...

“[Nietzsche] predicted that eventually modern science would turn its juggernaut of skepticism upon itself, question the validity of its own foundations, tear them apart, and self–destruct…

I suddenly had a picture of the entire astonishing edifice collapsing and modern man plunging headlong back into the primordial ooze.

Part 4: Lux Aeterna (The Eternal Light)



And what is "The Eternal Light?" It's that everything E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Daneil Dennett, and the rest of the "Reductionsts" claim...is bullshit.

To quote Heather Manning...

In the last few decades, there has been a quiet revolution in the scientific community – especially in the areas of physics and biology – whereby a growing body of evidence leads to an inevitable and surprising conclusion: it is “rational” to believe in God, and even better, a personal God who has a loving interest in our lives.

Despite the hopes of millions of atheists who hoped that science would eventually destroy God, today there is more “reason” to believe in God than at any time in history.

The Reductionist paradigm is starting to unravel. At the same time, however, those who find a perverse pleasure in Reductionism (the Gamers, for example) will cling to it like dear life itself. They refuse to forfeit the self-confidence that comes with knowing "Da Truth," a "Truth" that justifies their superiority over the proles.

But sadly for them, "Da Truth" is a "Lie." And the only thing left is to give it a proper funeral.