felis_ultharus

I haven't been online much. I've mostly been working on writing -- with two edited copies back from editors. I've also been working on financial stuff, putting in extra hours at work, and what little time I've had to myself has been mostly playing Okami and reading Stuart Kauffman's book, Reinventing the Sacred.

Kauffman's been on radio shows studiously misrepresenting his book. He talks about it as if he's trying to bridge the gap between atheism and religion with some kind of third way. Actually, he's an atheist who's arguing that classical science has gotten a lot wrong, but that doesn't mean there's (in his words) "a Creator God."

Kauffman is a University of Calgary professor who wears three hats -- biology, physics, and philosophy. He's clearly a genius in some ways, which only means that his failure to prove some of his points is more disappointing.

I'll save a full description for when I finish the book. But I just wanted to say that his arguments that consciousness is real and not an illusion generated by neurons is itself worth the read. He argues consciousness is Copenhagen-interpretation quantum -- acausal, probabilistic, nondeterminist, and not limited to matter or algorithms. This is how he tries to recuperate agency and free will without recourse to a god.

I haven't finished the chapter on "The Quantum Brain," but I'm waiting to see how he deals with certain problems raised by his (quite good) arguments on the subject. I'll see how he deals with these (or doesn't), but my suspicion is that he may have opened the door wider than he intended, and let divinity in through the back door.

I tried writing a long entry about an epiphany I've had around the concepts of morality and moral relativism -- how being exposed constantly to moral relativism during grad school made me realize that there is such a thing as good and evil after all, even if Western Civilization has gotten morality completely wrong for the past 2000 years.

I couldn't find a way to get my ideas out, though, except to say that the desire to do good is a basic human drive, not a mere overlay of civilization, and that progressives have a moral obligation to speak up in favour of basic principles of equality and human rights, and fundamental human dignity.

I wanted to say, too, that moral relativism has made us hesitant and overcareful when it comes to asserting that right, and made us doubt ourselves. But all societies have a moral centre, and by abandoning it, we've left the ground wide open for the religious right to assert their brand of morality in its place. It's permitted them to have a monopoly on the language of good and evil.

I tried to develop that, but I couldn't get it out right.

So, yeah. This is all really heavy, so here's the funniest article I've found in a long time in The Onion. Though maybe I just find it hilarious because I was preached to by fundamentalists a lot in high school.