A Creed for the Third Millennium

"Give these pages to the world, and there shall be another mighty religion, another priesthood, another Us and another Them, one set against the other. In a hundred years, a million will have died for the words we hold in our hands; in a thousand years, tens of millions. All for this paper."

(Because I've now heard 'non-overlapping magisteria' one too many times in recent weeks.)

Who knew? Certainly not I, back when I decided to study science. Or the person I was when I was a professional scientist. I even managed to make it through graduate school without getting seriously immersed in (or even really being aware of) the idea that science might be at war with religion. Or that the idea of 'God' was something on which a scientist would/should ever be pressured to comment. All this I learned from the blogosphere. (sigh)

In my head things are a little simpler. (And devoid of Latin.)

• Spirituality - The individual experience of the Unknown. The curiosity, the anomalous, the wonder, the introspection, the yearning. The subjective experience, and its consequences.
• Religion - The communal enterprise with respect to the Unknown. What Man chooses to share with his fellows. The objective experience - what is done with/for/by others with respect to the Unknown.

Having defined religion thusly (and distinctly from spirituality), it is (only) now possible to compare science and religion. Gould's idea of the relationship between science and religion - called non-overlapping magisteria - has been summarized as follows... "[T]he magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value." I think that this is an absurd statement, for reasons you may be able to infer from my above description of religion.

Religion was the precursor of Science in Man's attempt to explain the past and predict the future. Because Man benefits by perceiving Order rather than Chaos, those explanations which most satisfactorily explain the past and enable successful predictions about the future survive. When (and where) Man had insufficient facts with which to explain or predict, he (historically) sought to establish Order in his perceptions via the simplest route - a single source, generally conceived in the image Man knew best... his own. A God, whose motivations and desires (being similar to Man's) might be understood, and having been understood, might be acted upon in a way that would benefit Man. Because Man also benefits by being part of a cohesive social unit, and cohesion is defined in large part by shared beliefs, it behooved Man to instruct his fellows and control the behavioral cohesion of his social unit.

This has been the historical function of Religion (the communal enterprise) - to explain and predict, and instruct and control. To perceive 'explain and predict' as the sole purview of Science is to ignore the entire historical context of Religion, and the foundation by which Religion holds its ability to instruct and control. (It also fails to acknowledge those aspects of human experience that (mainstream) Science has not (yet) adequately explained. Like it or not, Religion still offers an explanation for many of these experiences.)

Yet, to function as it was intended, Science cannot be concerned with exerting social control. Control requires suppressing contradiction and stifling contention in favor of maintaining cohesion. Such is contrary to the nature and spirit of true Science. This means that Science, though it can inform us, cannot and should not be held up as the final arbiter of what human beings should do. Science can say 'If you do X, then everything we have observed to date tells us that Y will happen as a result." But Science must stop there, and remain our servant in that respect, and Scientists must never become another set of masters to whom we defer. Science cannot give us a creed, set in stone, without ceasing to be an enterprise of inquiry.

As the explanations offered by Religion are challenged and surpassed by those offered by Science, it becomes possible to challenge the instructions and controls passed down by Religion as well. In many areas this is overdue. Yet this does not mean that any idea put forth by Religion as a moral restraint or control is necessarily a bad idea. It simply means that the dialogue about what is right and what is wrong will have to continually evolve as humanity wrestles still more self-determining power from the realm of the Unknown. Scientists should be prepared to engage in that dialogue, but without assuming the demeanor of conquerors or kings.

Advancing Humanism vs. Transhumanism

"Well, if you insist on tagging me, call me a meliorist."

This post started to percolate when I read this... "The cowardice I see out there is astonishing. Smart, productive, de facto transhumanists that are just too damn stodgy to use the T-word to describe themselves."

It continued to brew after I read this... "All humans have the right to become transhumans. If not, then the transhumanist movement is no longer humanist."

And what would a blogpost be without controversy? "An international, intellectual, and fast-growing cultural movement known as transhumanism... intends the use of biotechnology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence as tools that will radically redesign our minds, our memories, our physiology, our offspring, and even perhaps... our very souls."

Seven or eight years ago I had a real fascination with transhumanism. It seemed like the kind of cool, progressive movement that a smart, sci-fi loving geek like me could relate to and embrace. Yet here I am, 'regressed' back to ordinary humanism. Why? What changed?

• I began to feel that the transhumanist movement was limited in its unflagging reverence of technology. Like the man said, "At best, we can say that we have effectively become 'slaves' to the technology we create." (q) Technology was/is presented by transhumanists as the only, the inevitable, and even the superior course through which humanity can, will, and should evolve. I began to believe that there was another way for humanity to evolve, and for the definition of what it means to be human to significantly change; one that did not involve the hybridization of man and machine.
• I began to believe that transhumanism was too focused on the far future, and was dangerously disconnected from the problems that we currently face. Don't tell me about the glories of a cyborg body; tell me about the various expressions of humanity that stand to be wiped out by improvements in genetic screening technology. Tell me about the current sociological consequences of our rush to seek 'normalcy' via neuropharmacology.
• Transhumanist writings began to seem more like the fantasies of an isolated elite, and less like a practical, mainstream philosophy or an attempt to address current real-world concerns. Yes, on some level we like to be entertained with visions of the future, but where/what is the transhumanist approach to hunger, poverty or illiteracy? What does transhumanism have to say about the fact that coveted biological 'amplifications' aren't available to everyone?

I appreciate that it's exciting to talk about and plan for a far future; one that might be utopian or dystopian, as your mood permits. Even I find it more exciting to talk about the possibility of mind-uploading than the future of Brazil as an agricultural world power.

But I also want to talk about what happens when you force the ordinary factory worker to engage a slow, flawed piece of software for eight hours via voice recognition. How does the company's desire for increased productivity rate against the psychological and neurological change (one might even say 'damage') that the new technology inflicts upon the worker? And I want to talk about the freedom to resist the pressure to modify one's consciousness according to the current social norms.

Embracing the race toward a better future via technology is transhumanism. Being concerned for those who suffer along the way is humanism. We really shouldn't be transhumanists without first being humanists...

My Name Is Memory

"A poem is but a thought, a mere memory caught at play. From hand onto paper, bleeding thoughts emerge."

Where were you, and Who am I.
Catching moments passing by.

Buried deep, yet a sight away.
A song evokes another day.

Little things, like what you wore,
All of this and more I store.

Holding love, and loss: identity.
Feed me well, but cautiously.

Mark this day 'save', and this 'forget'.
Season nothing with regret.

As the moment comes again,
the time returns: another when.

Yet swear by me not, for I deceive,
Colored by what you want to believe.

So we dance together and you try to lead.
Held in check, I accede.

But today I held the upper hand,
Not quite under your command...

Labor Day

Yours truly is still learning about humanism.

It seems to me that humanists would/should have something to say about labor and the conditions under which people labor. Googling various expressions of 'humanism' and 'labor' brought up nothing so frequently as it did Marxist-Humanism. Having been brought up in the era of Marxism=Communism=BAD, and having little direct knowledge of the man's work, I didn't know quite how to react to this association. But it's made for some interesting reading...

"He must constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it." (q) (I seize upon the word 'temporarily', as I can imagine nothing so frightful as a voluntary captivity of 20+ years with a single employer.)

"The workers’ antagonism to the machine has traveled a long way from the time when they simply wished to smash it. Now what they want to have done with is their very work. They want to do something entirely different – express all their natural and acquired powers in an activity worthy of them as human beings." (q) (Self-actualization, anyone?)

"Marx's aim was true man - living under emancipated conditions of labor and not disintegrated by the division of labor. His vision of humanity's future was founded on the assumption that such a man was not only possible, but the necessary result of social development and essential to the existence of a truly human society." (q)

"More specifically, real liberty does not exist unless workers effectively control their workplace, the products they produce, and the way they relate to each other. Workers are not fully emancipated until they work not in the way domesticated animals or robots work, but voluntarily and under their own direction." (q) (My emphasis.)

"The opposite of war is not peace, but social revolution." (q) (Just because it's an interesting thought...)

And speak to me like you know me - the theory of the alienated worker...

"The most basic form of workers’ alienation is their estrangement from the process of their work. An artist, unlike an industrial worker, typically works under his or her own direction; artists are in total control of their work. (That is why artists usually do not mind working long hours and even under adverse conditions, because their creative work is inherently meaningful, and an expression of their most personal desires and intuitions.)... In modern industry, however, workers typically do not work under their own direction. They are assembled in large factories or offices, and they work under the close supervision of a hierarchy of managers who do most of the important thinking for them. Planners and managers also divide complex work processes into simple, repetitive tasks which workers can perform in machine-like fashion... " (q) (Yours truly never considered herself an artist, until she started blogging.)

"In what, then, consists the alienation of labor? First, in the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his nature, that therefore he does not realize himself in his work, that he denies himself in it, that he does not feel at ease in it, but rather unhappy, that he does not develop any free physical or mental energy, but rather mortifies his flesh and ruins his spirit. The worker, therefore, is only himself when he does not work, and in his work he feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor, therefore, is not voluntary, but forced--forced labor. It is not the gratification of a need, but only a means to gratify needs outside itself. Its alien nature shows itself clearly by the fact that work is shunned like the plague as soon as no physical or other kind of coercion exists." - Marx (via) (Shunned like the plague, people.)

"A person with very few possessions, but with an intensive life, comes much closer to Marx' idea of a happy human being than a well-paid worker who can afford to buy many consumer goods, but who is neither informed enough to understand the society in which he lives, nor has the motivation to shape, in cooperation with fellow-workers, his working conditions or the political system in which he lives. A worker who is overweight, who spends most of his time watching commercial television, whose main conversations with colleagues deal with the sports page, and who is too tired or apathetic to participate in the political process--such a worker is not well off in Marx' eyes, but a victim of a system that is ripe with alienation in every sense. Marx was not so much interested in what people might have, but in what they could be. He was interested in people being alive, informed, and in control of their destiny." (q) (Yours truly was just commenting yesterday that the two most-miserable years of her life were the years when she earned the most money.)


Some things to think about this Labor Day...

Religion Did This

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."

"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."

I'll comment. My opinion on putting a mosque near Ground Zero? Do it.

Remind the world that religion made this heinous thing possible. Remind everyone what happens when men cede their secular influence to those who claim to know the will of God. Remind people that they cannot seek knowledge of or comfort from a God via other men without also being knowledgeable and wary of the flaws of men. Remind us all about the dangers of dogma and unquestioning belief.

Remind us that there are people in this world who so despair of their condition and place in it that they will live and die based on promises of an afterlife. Remind us that there are men who will exploit that despair for secular gain.

Remind us that the structures of organization feed everything that is bad about religion.

Of course, putting only a mosque near Ground Zero for those reasons would feed the illusion that those dangers are only present in the religion of Islam. And who else looks at the Christian churches near Ground Zero and sees in them everything I've just said? Only the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero triggers such an outcry. And that tells me that we are not having the necessary discourse on this topic. Because only when we no longer see the terrorists of 9/11 as Muslims, but rather as men who were preyed upon by other men, will we have truly understood what happened that day and made real progress towards a world free of terrorism.

Let the proximity to Ground Zero be a reminder to everyone who walks through the doors of any nearby church, mosque, or temple that what you seek in there should not be 'found' without a great deal of questioning and doubt on your part. Let all religions build a sacred space near Ground Zero, and let their proximity to each other remind us all of our common humanity and our common fallibility in presuming exclusive knowledge of the unknown. And let the proximity to Ground Zero serve as a reminder that suffering is universal, and that what is good about any religion is that which seeks to alieviate that suffering with something other than unprovable words and empty promises.

The Jungle

"He had learned to hate poverty, and the limitations it put on his desire for learning, as well as its crushing effect on the dignity of men and women... Now here it was in its ugliest aspects, the worst of which was the ignorance of its victims themselves. With the exception of a very small minority, they had no idea that they had the right to a better way of life. It was moral, spiritual, and physical degradation, a 'jungle' in which humans lived barely above the level of animals."

So fundamental is the idea that a person must labor - that is, exchange something of themselves (be it time, intellect, or physical exertion) for the necessities of life - that few people question it, or the conditions under which, or the reasons why, a person can reasonably be expected to surrender something of themselves. While the idea that one person can own another outright is no longer acceptable in the civilized world, we are only slowly catching on to the potential for oppression of identity and spirit represented by currently acceptable forms of labor. We have coined the terms 'wage slavery' and 'intellectual slavery' to indicate that we recognize an extreme imbalance of power inherent in certain labor situations, and we routinely despair of and satirize the conditions under which many of us labor. So, while physical labor conditions have certainly improved in the last centuries, we seem to agree that there is still room for improvement in other aspects of what it means to 'work'. We would all like to feel as though we did not labor under conditions of "moral, spiritual, and physical degradation", yet few of us would consider our jobs to represent ideal conditions under which to spend our time. And so the question becomes - What is this "better way of life" to which we are told by Sinclair that we have the right to? Would he be content with the labor reforms set in place since The Jungle, or would he agree that we have fallen short of some ideal condition of labor?

I first came across The Jungle many years ago in the R&D library of a company that will remain unnamed. Having already battled a former boss about the laws regarding overtime pay, I was sympathetic to the labor plights that Sinclair had intended to be the focus of his book. Unfair treatment of workers remains something of a hot button with me. But now I'm also interested in broader questions with respect to labor...

Transhumanist thought on labor seems to deem it sufficiently ideal for machines to simply take over 'manual' labor. AI proponents would like to think that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could remove the needs for many forms of intellectual labor as well. Are we destined for (and do we desire) a future where all that remains for us to do is to create art, and to have as many experiences of ourselves as we desire and no more? Thinking about a future with no 'labor' as we now understand it can give us a great deal of insight into what labor currently represents... For example, does mitigating the need for any form of labor contribute to a more equal perception of individuals? How much are our ideas about 'personhood' and equality (historically and currently) based upon judgments what that person can potentially contribute in the form of labor?

I find, however, that I'm ultimately more interested in discussions aimed at improving current conditions. What practical corrective measures can be employed today to give us more-ideal conditions under which to labor until the need for us to labor is gone?

It's interesting to me that the Buddha, who supposedly had reached a state of detached enlightenment, felt compelled to state the importance of 'right work' when he laid out the Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering. On the surface, this is simply an instruction to ensure that one's livelihood does not harm other living beings. Note that harm to oneself is not addressed in the standard interpretations of this instruction. Yet is the current state of 'working' in which most of us find ourselves more degrading to the psyche of the worker, or ennobling? And when one's options for employment are forcibly limited, how easy is it really to find meaningful, useful work that does not directly or indirectly produce harm to oneself or others?

I hope to devote more time and energy to the topic of labor in the year to come. The question I'm going to leave you today with is this... If the ideal conditions under which to labor are ones that permit self-actualization without harming others, then how do we create or embrace an economic system that rewards such an intangible outcome?

Good Samaritan Health Care

"Go and do likewise."

A recent blog post prompted me to resurrect an almost-post of my own from some months ago...

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about universal health care or its merits. This is a post about the perils of using the Bible as the primary justification of your argument. I try not to get involved in these kinds of things, but the guy who presented this argument was a lawyer. And the argument annoyed me.]

[DISCLAIMER: All religious puns are completely intentional.]

It annoys me when people use the Bible in an attempt to justify public policy. It really annoys me when they do it badly.

Unsuspecting Me recently attended a talk ('sermon' would be a more accurate term) called The Moral Dimensions of Public Policy. Unsuspecting Me was more than a little disappointed that said talk was nothing more than a singular argument for universal health care. While I have no problem with a discussion on universal health care - indeed, I think that it should be widely discussed - I do have a problem with the fact that the speaker's sole justification for universal health care was the story of the Good Samaritan. For ease of reference, I'll insert the relevant Biblical passage here...

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

The speaker removed certain elements of this story and twisted them to suit his argument for universal health care - namely, that the idea of 'neighbor' transcends tribe, ergo everyone is our neighbor, and our instruction to do 'likewise' means that we have an obligation to provide health care to everyone.

And here's why that argument simply won't do. Let's examine what the Samaritan actually did...

• He did stop for an injured man that he came upon while travelling.
• He treated the man with his own materials and knowledge.
• He transported the man at the cost of his time.
• He spent a further day caring for the man upon coming to the inn.
• He paid for the injured man's care at the hands of another when he (presumably) could no longer stay himself.

...as well as what he did not do...

• He did not compel anyone else to give money or care to the injured man at their expense.
• There is no indication that he bankrupted himself (or was willing to) to provide for the injured man.
• He did not specify for what care he would or would not pay.
• He did not assume any future health care burdens beyond the immediate recovery from injury.

Perhaps the most irksome point of this lawyer's presentation came right before yours truly was about to speak her piece. The lawyer mentioned that his own sister did not have health care insurance, and that he was worried about her. Seriously - the mic was in my hand when he said this. Of course what I was about to say would now fall on deaf ears. (sigh)

As you may have guessed, my response comes down to this...

• The Samaritan responded to an immediate need that was before him. Universal health care is a level of abstraction that shifts our attention away from what is going on in our immediate environment. Upon hearing stories about sick people without health care insurance who are going without care or treatment, how can our only response be to gripe/argue/whine about the need for universal health care? Take the person to a doctor! Help them buy their meds! Don't "pass by on the other side" and wait for someone else (i.e., universal health care) to show up on the scene and save the person; if they need a doctor now, help them get help now. Yes, it may cost you, but that is the point of this parable. Individual action and sacrifice makes the difference.


• The Samaritan did what he could with what he had. HE did it. He did not compel anyone else to help him at a loss to themselves. Universal health care legislation is about compelling others to bear financial burdens that are not their own. The Samaritan voluntarily gave what he could. The difference between what one does voluntarily and what one does because one is compelled to do so is huge. One could even argue that the most critical point of this story is that the Samaritan was not compelled to give aid, and yet he did. And while he did give aid, there is no indication that the Samaritan bankrupted himself (let alone anyone else or future generations) in the process of caring for the injured man. He did not make himself a victim by failing to live up to his own pre-existing obligations.

It's probably a good time to repeat that this is not a post about universal health care. It's a post about my annoyance with an argument that assumes that 1) the moral authority of the source would permit only the speaker's interpretation and conclusions, and that 2) because one is presenting an argument that is based on the Bible that one's argument is rendered unimpeachable.

But if this post also makes a few valid points about universal health care, I can live with that.