2010/01/10

Clerical Quackery 7 – Physics versus Metaphysics in Ancient Greece – 3 – Aristotle


This is the 27th in a series of posts dealing with what I call “the God Lie”, the 7th in a subseries dealing with “Clerical Quackery”, and the 3rd in the sub-subseries (!) dealing with “Physics vs. Metaphysics in Ancient Greece”, i.e., dealing with skirmishes and battles that occurred in ancient Greece in the war between science and religion that has raged during at least the past 2500 years. In the first post in this sub-subseries, I tried to sketch how people from Homer to Socrates were involved in the war; in the second, I focused on the mystic Plato; in this post, the emphasis will be on Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who may have been the most brilliant person who has ever lived.

To try to reveal some of Aristotle’s astounding accomplishments, I’ll first sketch a little historical background for his ideas and summarize a little of the basics of Aristotelian logic, which in an earlier chapter I reviewed more thoroughly – although still superficially. To begin, I’ll address a fundamental problem in logic, which caused difficulties in ancient Greece, whose resolution Aristotle saw, but which continues to cause difficulties to this day. It’s the problem arising from the (unfortunately) multiple meanings of the verb “to be”.

An illustration of the problem appears in the syllogism:

God is love;
Love exists;
Therefore, God exists.

In the above ‘syllogism’ [from the Greek word syllogizesthai, from syn-, meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’, and logizeshai, to reason (from logos or ‘logic’); so, ‘syllogism’ is “putting reasoning together”] the error arises from the use of two different meanings for the verb “to be”. Thus, in the first premiss, “God is love” (which can be traced back from the New Testament to the Greek philosopher Empedocles, c.490–c.430 BCE), the verb “to be” is used to describe an assumed attribute of God (other attributes assumed, e.g., by Zarathustra, include omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence), whereas the second premiss, “Love exists”, deals with ‘existence’, which can also be expressed with the verb “to be” as “Love is”.

As a result, the conclusion of the above syllogism is unreliable, not only because it’s based on the untested and untestable assumption that “God is love” but also because the logic is unsound. That is, even if the premisses were valid, the conclusion fails to follow, because the meanings of the verb “to be” have been shifted: it’s used in the first premiss to describe attribution, whereas the conclusion relies on the assumption that “to be” can also be used to describe existence.

Such a logical fallacy (in which the meaning of words is shifted or “thrown around”) is called an amphibole or amphiboly (a Greek word derived from the prefix amphi, meaning, e.g., ‘around’, and ballein, meaning “to throw”). The silliness of the conclusion that the existence of an attribute implies the existence of the subject can be seen from:

Invisible flying elephants are pink;
Pink exists;
Therefore, … !

In total, there are four different meanings or uses for the verb “to be”. The four are: 1) the ‘is’ of existence (e.g., “She is”), 2) the ‘is’ of equality (e.g., She is the same height as you), 3) the ‘is’ of attribution or predication (e.g., “She is older than you”), and 4) the use of ‘is’ as an auxiliary verb (e.g., “She is becoming confused”). If reasoning is to be sound, it’s essential that the different meanings of “to be” are used consistently.

One way to avoid logical problems derived from the multiple meanings for “to be” is to eliminate its use! For example, the above four statements can be re-expressed as: 1) “She exists”, 2) “You and she have identical heights”, 3) “Her age exceeds yours”, and 4) “The subject confuses her.” Alternatively, in logical analyses we can use symbols rather than words. Thus, we can: 1) express ‘existence’ with the “identically equal to” sign, ≡ , which has three “bars” rather than the usual two, 2) express ‘equality” with the (two-bar) “equal to” sign, = , and 3) express attribution or predication using set theory, e.g., “Consider the set of all people whose age exceeds yours; the set includes her.” Note that, in logic, there’s rarely need to use “to be” as an auxiliary verb.

“To be or not to be”
Turning now to some basic ideas of logic, most fundamental is a set of two elementary scientific principles, discovered by fish, monkeys, and eventually people, but apparently first appreciated by Aristotle. These two principles are that: 1) some things exist in reality (e.g., bananas) and 2) such things are distinct (i.e., the banana on the ground is not the same as the banana still in the tree). Those two principles are usually written as 1) A ≡ A (read as “A is identically equal to A”, by which is meant that A exists) and 2) A ≢ ¬A or A ≢ ~A (either of which are read as “A is not identically equal to not-A”), by which is meant that the A being considered is distinct.

In ancient Greece, the “father of logic”, Aristotle, formulated these two principles as follows (from Part 3 of Book IV of his Metaphysics):
This, then, is the most certain of all principles… it is impossible for the same man [maybe Aristotle should have said “the sane man”!] at the same time to believe the same thing to be and not to be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he would have contrary opinions at the same time. It is for this reason that all who are carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as an ultimate belief; for this is naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms.
Not to disparage the huge accomplishments of Aristotle to begin to describe how people put ideas together (i.e., create syllogisms), yet it’s unfortunately the case that Aristotelian logic has some severe limitations. I reviewed some of the limitations in chapters entitled Basic Ideas in Logic, Reason vs. Reality, and “Truth” and Understanding. One of the limitations in his logic (arising from ambiguity in language) can already be seen in the above quotation from his Metaphysics.

Thus, in his statement, “it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be and not to be”, ambiguity arises from different meaning for the verb “to be”. Possibilities include the following:

1) If by “to be” he meant ‘existence’, then his statement could be written as
… it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be [or “to exist”; i.e., A ≡ A] and not to be [or “not to exist”; i.e., A ≢ A];
2) If by “to be” he meant ‘identity’, then his statement could be written as
… it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be [equal to something else, e.g., A = B] and not to be [equal to the same thing, i.e., A ≠ B];
3) If, instead, he was using “to be” for ‘predication’ (i.e., according to my dictionary, “to state, affirm, or assert something about the subject of a sentence or an argument of proposition”), then his statement could be written as
… it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be [a member of the set of, e.g., beautiful things] and not to be [a member of the same set].
In this third possibility (dealing with predication) an additional complication can arise because words can be imprecise (compared, for example, with the language of mathematics). Thus, the concept in the third rewrite (above) can be quite wrong: someone can be simultaneously beautiful (e.g., in appearance) as well as ugly (e.g., in interactions with other people).

Being careful with the definition of words (and, in general, Aristotle was so careful with his definitions that his writings can drive attentive readers up the wall!), Aristotle proceeded to formulate logic for cases in which “to be” is used to express attributions (that is, the “to be” of predication). Thus, from the scientific principles that things exist, A ≡ A, and are distinct, A ≢ ¬A, Aristotle proposed that humans who desired that their thoughts conform to reality must adhere to the following “axioms of logics”: 1) “the law of identify”, A = A (read as “A is equal to A” – and notice the difference between the identity and the equal signs), 2) “the law of noncontradiction”, A ≠ ¬A (read as “A is not equal to not-A”), and 3) “the law of the excluded middle”, which in set theory can be described as: A can not be both a member and not a member of a specified set – a “law” that has caused subsequent logicians a great many difficulties defining some sets, e.g., see Russell’s paradox.

In part because of such complications, the “laws” of logic shouldn’t be called “laws”. Instead, they should be described as statements of scientific principles (that some things exist and are distinct). And being “only” scientific principles (similar to the scientific principles – not laws! – of mechanics, thermodynamics, etc.), then consistent with Popper’s principle, we can claim at most that they are falsifiable but (in the main, i.e., excluding “the law of the excluded middle”!) are not yet falsified.

Aristotle’s statement of the “law” of the excluded middle is the following (from his book Posterior Analytics, bk. I, pt. 11):
It is impossible to affirm and deny simultaneously the same predicate of the same subject.
His statement of the “law” of non-contradiction is the following (Metaphysics, IV, 3):
For a principle which everyone must have who understands anything… which everyone must know who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently, then, such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject…
Aristotle’s statement of the “law” of identity was as given a few paragraphs earlier – depending on exactly what he might have meant by his use of the verb “to be”, i.e., if he was using it to represent ‘existence’ or ‘identity” or ‘predication’! He states the principle more forcefully in his Metaphysics (XI, 5):
There is a principle in things, about which we cannot be deceived, but must always, on the contrary recognize the truth; viz., that the same thing cannot at one and the same time be and not be, or admit any other similar pair of opposites.
Pre-Aristotelian Logic
To gain some appreciation of Aristotle’s huge accomplishments in logic, consider first what some earlier Greeks said about ‘reason’, starting with one of the few fragments we have from the mystical mathematician Pythagoras (c.580–500 BCE), from about 200 years before Aristotle: “Reason is immortal, all else mortal.” Such a statement illustrates a mistake made by many people, even today: when they don’t understand something (e.g., reason, love, life, how the universe came into existence…) they have a tendency to worship it. The Greek playwright Sophocles (c.495–406 BCE) wrote: “Reason is God’s crowning gift to man.” Thereby, Sophocles was just as wrong as Pythagoras: no god ever had anything to do with creating reason. Instead, as I tried to outline above and in earlier chapters, reason is simply the application to thoughts of two fundamental principles (discovered by animals millions of years ago) that things exist and are distinct (i.e., A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A).

Parmenides (or “Parmen’s son”; c.515–c.450 BCE) appears to be the first who came close to recording that humans and other animals assumed A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A. He was born in the Greek city-state of Elea (or Elia) on the western side of southern Italy and founded the Eleatic school of philosophy. About 150 years later, Aristotle wrote that Parmenides (“one of the Italians” i.e., one of the Greek settlers in Italy) was a student of Xenophanes (the fellow who saw: “All is but a woven web of guesses”). Parmenides most famous statements are: “what is, is” and “what is not, is not”. Those statements are close to saying A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A, but one can argue that what Parmenides said was “some things exist in reality and other things don’t”, without including the idea that the things that exist are distinct. That is, his statement that “what is not, is not” doesn’t mean A ≢ ¬A, but that some things (such as gods and invisible pink elephants that fly) don’t exist in reality but only as ideas; it doesn’t include the concept that things can’t be what they’re not (i.e., A ≢ ¬A).

Unfortunately, Parmenides also wrote:
Whatever can be spoken [of] or thought of necessarily is, since it is possible for it to be, but it is not possible for nothing to be.
And in case there’s doubt that he could have made such a huge mistake, in the same poem (The Way of Truth), he stated the same idea again, somewhat differently:
It is the same thing – to think of something and to think that it is – since you will never find thought without what-is, to which it refers, and on which it depends.
That means that invisible pink elephants (and gods) are really flying around all over the place – because “whatever can be spoken [of] or thought of necessarily is…” To which one could respond, in the vernacular, “Gimme a break!”

During the next ~2500 years, thousands of philosophers, hundreds of thousands of clerics, and billions of people went off on absurd tangents from the crazy idea that “whatever can be… thought of necessarily is…” For example, as I outlined in the previous post, Plato and his followers convinced themselves that gods and immortal souls were flying around all over the place. Two thousand (or so) years after Plato, Descartes continued the same dumb idea: he convinced himself not only that he existed (“I think; therefore, I am” – rather than the more nearly correct: “I think; therefore, I’m thinking”!) but also that God existed, because he (Descartes) could imagine God. After Descartes, Hegel continued this foolishness with “the real is rational [which may be true] and the rational is real [prove it!]”, which in turn led to Marx’s foolishness and communism. Meanwhile, all organized religions are still based on Parmenides’ absurd idea that “whatever can be… thought of necessarily is…”

After Parmenides, more silliness was promoted by Empedocles (c.490–430 BCE). Empedocles lived in a Greek city in Sicily, and if he didn’t know Parmenides (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he studied under him), he essentially certainly studied Parmenides’ poem (quoted above) and he unfortunately adopted Pythagoras’ ideas about reincarnation. As summarized by Professor Barry D. Smith at his Ancient Greek Philosophy website:
Empedocles accepts Parmenides’ view that ultimately there is no generation or destruction; what is, is, and cannot come into being or perish. Fragments 11, 12 says,

Fools! – for they have no far-reaching thoughts – who deem that what-before-was-not comes into being, or that anything can perish and be utterly destroyed. For it cannot be that anything can arise from what in no way is, and it is impossible and unheard of that what is should perish; for it will always be, wherever one may keep putting it.
Such a conclusion apparently seemed obvious (and still seems obvious!) to the mystics of the world, consistent with their desire for eternal life, described by Empedocles as follows:
When, released from the body, you ascend to the free ether; you will become an immortal god, escaping death.
Ancient Greek (and subsequent) physicists, however, considered the mystics to be the “fools”. Currently, an enormous body of evidence supports the conclusion that a huge variety of things “come into being” from “what-before-was-not” (from self-replicating molecules to their abilities to form DNA and consciousness, from elementary particles to their abilities to create stars and black holes, and from photons to possibly the universe itself). It’s therefore reasonable to conclude that “immortal souls” also “came into being” from “what-before-was-not”, where by “came into being” is meant that they exist only as ideas in the minds of mystics, one definition of whom could be: those who agree with Parmenides that “whatever can be… thought of necessarily is…”!

Yet, it was an important contribution by Parmenides to begin to formulate the fundamental scientific principles that A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A. 2500 years later, these fundamental principles of science – or stated equivalently, these fundamental premisses of logic (that things exist and are distinct) – have yet to be demonstrated wrong. But when Parmenides proposed that whatever could be imagined also exists, he unfortunately abandoned common sense.

Parmenides also abandoned common sense by rejecting the idea of Heraclitus (c.540–c.480 BCE) that “all is flux”. Instead, “rejecting the reality of change… for [Parmenides] all was one indivisible, unchanging reality, and any appearances to the contrary were illusions, to be dispelled by reason and revelation.” Parmenides’ most famous student, Zeno of Elea (c.490–c.430 BCE), carried this abandonment of common sense to an extreme, resulting in some famous paradoxes, parts of which remained unresolved for more than 2,000 years!

Zeno’s Paradoxes
Zeno of Elea (distinct from Zeno of Citium, who founded the Stoic school of philosophy about 150 years later) apparently traveled with Parmenides, including a trip to Athens where (according to Plato) they met with Socrates when he was about 20 and Parmenides was about 65. As readers probably know, one of Zeno’s most famous paradoxes posits that, in a race, “swift Achilles” could never overtake a tortoise, because when Achilles would, say, cut the distance between them in half, the tortoise would move a small distance forward; when Achilles cut the new distance between them in half, the tortoise would again move a small distance forward; and so on, to infinity. Therefore, Zeno argued, Achilles would never catch up to the tortoise. Of course, common sense responds: “Gimme a break; things pass other things all the time!”

Equally obvious is the time when Achilles would pass the tortoise. Thus, if the speed of Achilles is Sa, then the location of Achilles, La, at any time, T, is given by La = Sa x T . If the tortoise is given a head start of HS and if it moves at speed St, then the tortoise’s location, Lt, at any time is Lt = HS + (St x T). So, the time when the two locations are equal (i.e., when Achilles catches up to the tortoise and will subsequently pass it) can be found by equating the two locations: La = Sa x T = HS + (St x T) = Lt. Solving for the time gives the result that Achilles catches up to the tortoise at time T = HS / (Sa – St). For example, if the speed of Achilles is 11 m/s and tortoise is given a head start of 100 m but moves at 1 m/s (very rapid for a tortoise!), then Achilles would overtake the tortoise in (100 m) / (11 m/s – 1 m/s) = 10 seconds.

Actually, although Zeno’s paradoxes may now seem to be rather silly, they had profound implications for philosophers in ancient Greece – and later! As the mathematician and philosopher Alfred Whitehead wrote in 1947:
I am fond of pointing out to my pupils that to be refuted in every century after you have written is the acme of triumph. I always make that remark in connection with Zeno. No one has ever touched Zeno without refuting him, and every century thinks it worthwhile to refute him.
And although Zeno’s paradoxes did provide later philosophers with many challenges, more important was Zeno’s method: he applied to philosophical questions what’s now called the method of reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to absurdity”), which may have already been available in mathematics in the Pythagorean school. Thus, as stated by the Roman writer Apulius in his book The Defense (Sec. 1, Pt. 4), Zeno “was the first to discover that most ingenious device of refuting hypotheses by the method of self-inconsistency.” The method became known in ancient Greece as “the dialectic”, from Greek dialektikē, meaning “(art) of debate”, from dialegesthai, meaning “converse with”. Stated differently, Zeno thereby realized that paradoxes can’t exist, because A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A.

Apparently, though, Zeno didn’t realize that the method to resolve any apparent paradox (obtained by sound reasoning) is to check the premisses, because at least one of them must be wrong – or if he realized the method, he wasn’t able to apply it. If Zeno had applied the method, he might have made some amazing discoveries, including calculus, how to sum infinite series, and maybe even quantum mechanics!

Nonetheless, Zeno still deserves substantial credit, because he was smart enough to notice that something was wrong, posing some paradoxes. Instead of doing a simple calculation to determine the time when Achilles would overtake the tortoise, Zeno apparently claimed that his argument demonstrated that Parmenides was right (that change was an illusion) and that our senses couldn’t be trusted. And in a way, he was right: our senses have their limitations. It’s usually a good idea, however, to trust “common sense”, because for every one of the few times that it may mislead, there’ll be a thousand-or-more times that common sense will be more reliable than any philosophical or religious argument! And when someone reaches a nonsensical conclusion such as runners can’t pass one another, or all invisible flying elephants are pink, or God made us in his image, then a reasonable response would be something similar to: “Have you spent much time trying to identify either errors in your reasoning or your incorrect premisses?”

In particular, Zeno’s arguments contain many faulty premisses: 1) His failure to understand the concept of instantaneous speed (which, about 330 years ago, Newton and Leibniz independently resolved by taking ratios of infinitesimals, thereby creating differential calculus), 2) His assumption that forever cutting the distance between Achilles and the tortoise in half (with words such as “and so on, to infinity”) would still leave a finite distance between them, and thereby, his assumption that the infinite series wouldn’t converge (which, about 250 years ago, Euler showed was wrong), 3) His assumption that infinities weren’t countable (which, about 140 years ago, Cantor resolved with his theory of transfinite numbers), 4) His assumption that the positions and speeds (or momenta) of both Achilles and the tortoise (even when the differences in positions shrunk to atomic sizes) could always be specified exactly (which, about 80 years ago, Heisenberg showed was wrong, providing the foundation for quantum mechanics), and 5) His assumption that infinities exist in reality, an assumption that has no evidential support even though the idea is routinely used in pure mathematics and essentially all religions.

About 100 years after Zeno, Aristotle proposed a resolution of Zeno’s paradox about Achilles and the tortoise. It’s a rather tortuous explanation (given in pts. 6–9 of bk. VI of his book Physics), because he first tries very hard to understand and describe ‘time’, ‘motion’, and ‘continuity’, but the essence of his argument is correct:
Now since the motion of everything that is in motion occupies a period of time, and a greater magnitude is traversed in a longer time, it is impossible that a thing should undergo a finite motion in an infinite time…
In fact, if Aristotle had gone just a little further with his ideas, he probably would have discovered the concept of instantaneous speed and differential calculus. Still, Aristotle's analyses of the meaning of ‘continuity’ (and “the continuum”) formed the basis of all “continuum mechanics” (e.g., of solids, liquids, and gases), which was universally used in mechanics until the start of the 20th Century, when the discrete nature of some things and processes was found to be important, leading to quantum mechanics.

“Measure for Measure”
After the mistakes made by Parmenides and Zeno, there were many generations of quiet-muddled thinking (especially by Plato), until Aristotle put reasoning back on track. In the first generation after Parmenides, Protagoras (c.485–c.415 BCE) made a little progress with logic. He was the fellow whom I mentioned two posts ago who was charged with “impiety” and whose books were burned because they contained the honest and totally justifiable (agnostic) statement: “Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist”. One of his few other statements that survived the clerics’ burning of his books was: “Man is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not.” That’s a great statement, both understandable and correct, but it’s more a statement about humans than about Nature’s principles that A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A.

Maybe Protagoras was responding to the clerics who promoted people’s “belief” in the existence of various gods (if not invisible, flying, pink elephants!); it’s then a great “declaration of independence” to say: “Man is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not”, i.e., “I’ll decide whether or not invisible flying elephants are pink!” Or maybe Protagoras was responding to the silly statement of Parmenides, “Whatever can be… thought of necessarily is…”; it’s then a great response to say: “Man is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not”, i.e., “I’ll decide what is and what isn’t!” On the other hand, any implication from Protagoras’ statement that an individual’s decision (about what exists) being a valid “measure” of anything’s existence in reality would be quite wrong: just because someone decides that gods exist doesn’t mean that they do! As Aristotle wrote (Metaphysics, XI, 6):
The saying of Protagoras is like the views we have mentioned; he said that man is the measure of all things, meaning simply that, that which seems to each man also assuredly is. If this were so, it follows that the same thing both is and is not, and is bad and good, and that the contents of all other opposite statements are true, because often a particular thing appears beautiful to some and the contrary of beautiful to others, and that which appears to each man is the measure… But to attend equally to the opinions and the fancies of disputing parties is childish; for clearly one of them must be mistaken.
In the same generation as Protagoras (about 10 years younger) was Socrates (469–399 BCE). As I mentioned two posts ago, what’s known about Socrates is only what others recorded, and most of what was recorded was by his student Plato (c.428–c.348 BCE). It’s then essentially impossible to know the origin of ideas that Plato attributed to Socrates – or attributed to others. Thus, although I don’t know the source of it, the idea that A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A was recorded by Plato in about 380 BCE in his book Euthydemus.

More of Plato’s Word Games
It appears that Euthydemus was a student of Protagoras, and I’d like to quote a portion of the (alleged) dialogue between Euthydemus and Socrates (as reported by Plato), because some of this dialogue provides an example of the “muddled mess of thinking” that existed before Aristotle, a mess that Socrates (or Plato) partially straightened out and that, later, Aristotle almost straightened out. The alleged conversation starts with the following:
“Then tell me,” he [Euthydemus] said [to Socrates], “do you know anything?”

“Yes,” I [Socrates] said, “I know many things, but not anything of much importance.”

“That will do,” he said. “And would you admit that anything is what it is, and at the same time, is not what it is?” [That question contains the ambiguity derived from the verb “to be”. Thus, one doesn’t know if the question refers to existence, identity, or set membership.]

“Certainly not.” [i.e., I, Socrates, maintain that what is, is, and is not what it’s not.]

“And did you not say that you knew something?”

“I did.”

“If you know, you are knowing.”

“Certainly, of the knowledge which I have.”

“That makes no difference. And must you not, if you are knowing, know all things?”

“Certainly not,” I said, “for there are many other things which I do not know.”

“And if you do not know, you are not knowing.”

“Yes, friend, of that which I do not know.”

“Still you are not knowing, and you said just now that you were knowing; and therefore you are and are not at the same time, and in reference to the same things.”

“A pretty clatter, as men say, Euthydemus, this of yours! And will you explain how I possess that knowledge for which we were seeking? Do you mean to say that the same thing cannot be and also [cannot] not be? And therefore, since I know one thing, that I know all, for I cannot be knowing and not knowing at the same time. And if I know all things, then I must have the knowledge for which we are seeking. May I assume this to be your ingenious notion?”

“Out of your own mouth, Socrates, you are convicted,” he said.
Euthydemus (i.e., in reality, Plato) then goes on with similar absurdities to “demonstrate” that Socrates knows all things, knew all things when he was born – because it was knowledge possessed by his immortal soul!

A second strange feature of the above report is that Plato seems to have believed the result (i.e., that each person has a “soul” that knows all things and always knew all things), and yet, Plato reports how Socrates demonstrated Euthydemus’ errors. Thus, Plato reports that Socrates states (to someone else who was “tripped up” by Euthydemus or his brother):
The two foreign gentlemen [Euthydemus and his brother] perceiving that [you] did not know, wanted to explain to you that the word ‘to learn’ [or the word ‘know’] has two meanings, and is used, first, in the sense of acquiring knowledge of some matter of which you previously have no knowledge, and also, when you have the knowledge, in the sense of reviewing this matter, whether something done or spoken by the light of this newly-acquired knowledge; the latter is generally called ‘knowing’ rather than ‘learning,’ but the word ‘learning’ is also used; and you did not see, as they explained to you, that the term is employed of two opposite sorts of men, of those who know, and of those who do not know. There was a similar trick in the second question, when they asked you whether men learn what they know or what they do not know. These parts of learning are not serious, and therefore I say that the gentlemen are not serious, but are only playing with you. For if a man had all that sort of knowledge that ever was, he would not be at all the wiser; he would only be able to play with men, tripping them up and over setting them with distinctions of words. He would be like a person who pulls away a stool from some one when he is about to sit down, and then laughs and makes merry at the sight of his friend overturned and laid on his back.
Plato thus reported that Socrates saw that these disciples of Protagoras (“Sophists”) were just playing “word games”, and yet, although Plato was apparently aware that the Sophists were capitalizing on failures to define words carefully, Plato in his writings trapped himself in his own word games! He appears to have relied on the foolishness of Parmenides’ statement, “Whatever can be… thought of necessarily is…”, and from that blunder (plus not being careful with definitions), he made an enormous number of mistakes, mistakes that, to this day (as I tried to outline in the previous post) continue to be perpetuated by all ideologues, including the promoters of all religions.

Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma
Still another mess left by Plato is associated with what’s now called “the Euthyphro dilemma”. Unlike paradoxes (which can’t exist – at least so long as the scientific principles that A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A remain valid!), dilemmas can exist (e.g., not being able to have your cake and eat it, too – or whether to pronounce 'Euthyphro' as “u-THY-froh” or “U-thuh-froh”!).

The source of the dilemma is Plato’s statement (allegedly quoting Socrates) in Plato’s book Euthyphro:
… whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
A more modern version, stated as a question for monotheists, might be:
Is something moral because God said so, or did God say so, because it’s moral?
The dilemma follows from consideration of the two options. Thus, on the one hand, if something is moral because God said so, then morality seems to be nothing more than God’s whim: if God orders people to kill their children or if God murders homosexuals, drowns people, kills children and unbelievers, promotes rape and genocide, kills his own son, etc. (as He allegedly does, according to the Bible), then what hideous person would want anything to do with the morality of such a monster? And on the other hand, if God says something is moral because it is (that is, because morality is somehow “built into the fabric of the universe”, as the ancient Hindus maintained about Ritam, the ancient Egyptians maintained about Ma’at, Zarathustra maintained about Asha, etc., including the Chinese Tao), then why don’t people just skip what God (i.e., any “holy book”) has to say about morality and seek to discern “the moral order” to which the wimpy God is required to conform?

In general, if one encounters a dilemma that can’t be resolved, one is forced either to live with the dilemma (which most people find difficult to do) or to choose one of the available options. In the case of the Euthyphro dilemma, Jewish and Muslim clerics advocated (and still advocate) choosing the option that God is all-powerful (and that his ways are too mysterious for mere humans to understand). That is, consistent with the primitive, patriarchal, tribal customs that they “deified”, Jewish and Muslim clerics maintained (and still maintain) that whatever the all-powerful Yahweh or Allah said or did (as alleged in their “holy books”) is right, by definition, fundamentally because they adopt the law of the jungle (“might makes right”) – and wouldncha know, the clerics just happen to be the powerful god’s earthly representatives, so you’d better do exactly as they say.

If a resolution to a dilemma is possible, then in principle at least, the resolution can be found in either of two ways: by uncovering faulty logic or by removing unjustified, faulty premisses. For example, upon being told that they can’t have their cake and eat it, too, many children will recognize that the dilemma is derived from the “false dichotomy” logical fallacy – and proceed to eat only a portion of their cake! Similarly, Plato’s (and subsequent Christian clerics’) proposed resolution to the Euthyphro dilemma was to assume that God is “all good” and, therefore, He would never prescribe anything evil as being moral. Consistently, in The Republic, Plato proposed censorship of all suggestions (such as those in Homer and Hesiod) that the gods behaved immorally – and subsequent Christian clerics followed Plato’s recommendation to kill anyone who said otherwise. (And actually, subsequent Muslim clerics adopted similar policies, e.g., “kill the infidels”, even though they also adopted and still promote the option that whatever God says is right, because “might makes right” – illustrating that clerics don’t feel constrained by logic, so long as they can continue to be parasites.)

The alternative (resolving dilemmas by identifying one or more faulty premisses) is the same method used to eliminate all paradoxes derived from sound logic. Such is the method used by scientific humanists to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma. Thus, given the substantial evidence [which I’ve at least sketched in early posts (e.g., here) and chapters (e.g., start here)] showing that morality is derived from experiences gained by social animals (such as dolphins, monkeys, elephants, and humans) in how to live together cooperatively, scientific humanists reject the data-less, unjustified premiss (or better, “mere speculation”!) that any god exists or has ever existed. Thereby, the Euthyphro dilemma collapses into meaningless mumbo-jumbo, typical of Plato’s mystical ramblings (and similar balderdash in all “holy books” promoted by clerics).

Aristotle
In contrast to Socrates’ student Plato, Plato’s student Aristotle surpassed his teacher. Two examples are Aristotle’s analyses and rejections of Plato’s ideas of Forms (outlined in the previous post) and Plato’s idea of souls (outlined in an earlier chapter), leading to Aristotle’s famous statement: “while both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”

There’s no doubt that Aristotle was brilliant. He was in the same league as Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume, Jefferson, Darwin, and Einstein. He was also a prolific writer – and now, it’s wonderful that his 29 books are just a few clicks away, courtesy computers, the internet, and tremendous websites such as Greek Texts and the Internet Classics Archive at MIT. Some praise of Aristotle, however, may be too profuse, e.g., Cicero described his books as “a river of flowing gold”; instead, readers might agree more with the assessment that Aristotle drowns his readers in a flood of unnecessary repetitions and pedantry – even while agreeing that his books contain nuggets of brilliance.

For purposes of this series of posts dealing with the God Lie, however, it would be a distraction to try to survey all of Aristotle’s brilliant accomplishments. Instead, I’ll focus on some of the ways that he corrected Plato’s erroneous ideas and then comment on some of Aristotle’s own errors. I should also include at least a brief version of Aristotle’s biography, since he participated in initiating many ideas whose repercussions continue to this day.

The Greek Texts website reviews that Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was born in Macedonia, where his father was court physician. At age 18, he traveled to Athens and studied under Plato. When he was 37 (when Plato died), Aristotle left Athens for Atarneus in Asia Minor and married the ruler’s niece. A few years after Aristotle moved to Atarneus, King Philip II of Macedonia summoned him to become the tutor of his 13-year-old son Alexander, later known as “Alexander the Great.”

Relevant to the next post (dealing with the accomplishments of Epicurus, Zeno the Stoic, and others), I want to add that, accompanying Aristotle to Atarneus was another of Plato’s former students, Xenocrates, whose later lectures were said to have been attended by Epicurus and Zeno the Stoic. Similar to Aristotle, Xenocrates was a prolific writer, writing books on topics similar to those addressed by Aristotle. In contrast to Aristotle, however, Xenocrates promoted Plato’s Theory of Forms. In addition, Xenocrates attempted to resolve the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea by proposing (without justification) that some magnitudes were indivisible.

In about 335 BCE, when Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) started his Asiatic campaign, Aristotle returned to Athens and opened his own school. It’s reported that, similar to Plato, Aristotle expounded his philosophy in “popular language” in various Dialogues, which were lost; what we have are his 29 more formal treatises (which may have been lost or hidden for ~200 years after his death, a year after Alexander’s death). It has been suggested that some of Aristotle’s surviving books were lecture notes recorded by his students, but from my experiences, it's difficult for me to imagine how any student could have recorded such details as appear throughout his books. Below, I’ll briefly review a few of his ideas, including his ideas about souls and gods – although in some cases, it’s difficult (and even inappropriate) to isolate such ideas from his other ideas; for example, his erroneous idea about God followed logically from the errors he made in physics.

Some of Aristotle’s Accomplishments
In the previous post I already showed at least a little of Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s Forms. Here, I’ll add only a few more comments. As readers can find, Aristotle devotes most of his book Metaphysics to debunking Plato’s (or Pythagoras’) idea of Forms and a “good” god, involved in human affairs. As an example, Aristotle struck devastating blows to the foundation of Plato’s attempt to meld Pythagorean ideas about numbers and Socrates’ ideas about “the Good” (with a capital ‘G’, no less) with his comments: “but the mathematical sciences take no account of goods and evils” and “the impossible results of this view [Plato’s] would take too long to enumerate.”

With respect to the setting for Aristotle’s ideas about souls, recall (e.g., from the previous post) that Plato proposed some bizarre ideas about souls and “eternal life”, which were subsequently used to construct the theoretical abominations subsequently called Christianity and Islam. In turn, Plato probably obtained his ideas from the Egyptians and from the Pythagoreans, and in turn, Pythagoras probably picked up his ideas from the Egyptians and perhaps from the Zoroastrians and Hindus. In contrast to the possibility of automatically adopting such ideas from “the ancients” and in conformity with Socrates’ recommendation to be careful with definitions, Aristotle started his book On the Soul by carefully examining what “the ancients” seemed to have meant by the word ‘soul’.

Thus, in Part 1 of Book I of On the Soul, Aristotle states: “The soul is in some sense the principle of animal life.” He then summarizes his investigation of the meaning of the word ‘soul’ (bk. II, pt. 1):
We have now given an answer to the question, What is soul? – an answer which applies to it in its full extent. It is substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence.
Stated differently, if Aristotle could have used modern terminology, he might have said: “the soul is the DNA sequencing that defines any life form’s genetic code”! Aristotle then proceeded to the obvious conclusion:
From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its body…
Thereby, Aristotle not only undermined Plato’s (and Pythagoras’ and the Zoroastrian/ Hindu/ Egyptian – and subsequent Christian/ Islamic…) idea of soul, he prepared the way for what, still today, should destroy all religious people’s silly ideas about “immortal souls” – if only religious people would begin to base their idea on evidence rather than on dreamy speculations!

That is, consistent with Aristotle’s idea that “the soul is inseparable from its body”, modern neurology has provided a vast amount of evidence that a person’s character, outlook on life, behavior, etc. (or, as religious people would say, a person’s ‘soul’) can be changed dramatically by physical or chemical changes in the brain. The obvious conclusion, then, is that there’s no “ghost in the machine” (i.e., ‘soul’); instead, the brain, itself, is what religious people are wont to call ‘soul’. As “Ebonmuse” recently wrote at his blog:
As Carl Sagan observed, the history of the human species is a series of great demotions. The first was the Copernican revolution, demoting Earth from the center of the universe to one planet among many. The religious conservatives fought against this for a long time, but for the most part, they’ve come to accept it. The second was the Darwinian revolution, making human beings just one species among many, rather than the apex of creation. The religious conservatives, for the most part, have refused to come to terms with this and are still fighting against it. The third one, I think, is going to be the neurological revolution – the one that shows our mind is the result of physical causes, rather than the product of a supernatural soul. For the most part, religious conservatives haven’t even felt this blow yet. But I think, when its full force is recognized, it’s going to be the most decisive one of all. The knowledge that the mind is a physical phenomenon strikes directly at religious belief, far more so than evolution or heliocentrism do.
Stated differently, now that ample evidence is available to debunk Plato’s (and earlier people’s) idea of ‘soul’ (a “ghost in the machine”), maybe religious fundamentalists will finally accept Aristotle’s idea!

Aristotle made many other contributions, but attempting to outline them all would distract from the goal of this series of posts. Earlier in this post and in an earlier chapter, I outlined some of his astounding accomplishments in logic; in summary, it’s a testament to his brilliance that limitations on “Aristotelian logic” have been uncovered only during the most recent century. In earlier chapters, I already addressed some of his ideas about ethics (e.g., here and here) and about politics (e.g., here and here).

In this post, I should at least mention that, in addition to demolishing Plato’s ideas about Forms and souls, Aristotle demolished Plato’s damnable ideas (described in Plato’s Republic, which I criticized in the previous post) about “the ideal society” (i.e., a communistic, totalitarian, theocracy, much like today’s Iran). Instead, Aristotle’s analysis in his Politics led to such gems as the following:
• Man is by nature a political animal.

• Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

• The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection [are] that a thing is your own and that it is your only one [which undermines not only communism but also the polygamy of Islam].

• If liberty and equality… are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.

• The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

• The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

• Law is order, and good law is good order.

Some of Aristotle’s Major Mistakes
Unfortunately, Aristotle also made many mistakes, and as inconsistent as it may seem, reliance on logic was his nemesis – as it is, to this day, with all religious philosophers who claim to be logical. Thus, although Aristotle obviously realized that sound logic provides knowledge consistent with assumptions, yet he apparently didn’t realize (what modern-day religious philosophers still don’t seem to realize) that logic can never produce new information – only knowledge that’s consistent with existing information. Therefore, for example (as I’ve described in detail elsewhere), it’s impossible to use logic to prove that any god exists (or has ever existed), since such a demonstration would yield new information. Thereby, all the claimed “logical proofs of God’s existence” are, as Kant said, “So much… labor lost.” Instead, the only way to demonstrate that any god exists would be to provide relevant evidence.

Many of Aristotle’s errors can be traced to his major mistake of starting from Socrates’ unproductive (even counterproductive) view of science, which Aristotle described as follows:
For two things may be fairly ascribed to Socrates – inductive arguments and universal definitions, both of which are concerned with the starting-point of science.
That assessment is consistent with Plato’s reports that Socrates spent his time talking to people, trying to determine what they meant by various concepts (such as honor, truth, wisdom, etc.) and then trying to find some common features of these concepts from which he could generalize (i.e., some common features from which, by induction, he could infer general principles). Such a procedure is, however, not the “starting-point of science.” Instead, as emphasized and repeatedly demonstrated by (especially) “the father of modern medicine” Hippocrates (c.460–377 BCE, a contemporary of Socrates), the “starting point (and essence!) of science” is the scientific method, i.e., observe, try to infer some hypothesis from the observations, and then perform experiments to test predictions of the hypothesis.

Aristotle’s failure to appreciate the essence of science (i.e., his emphasis on definitions rather than data), as well as historical consequences of his failure, were well summarized by the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper in Section II of Chapter 11 of his book The Open Society and Its Enemies and in Chapter 6, entitled “Two Kinds of Definitions”, of Popper Selections (David Miller, Ed., Princeton University Press, 1985). Below, I’ve melded quotations from those two sources.
In science, we take care that the statements we make should never depend upon the meaning of our terms. Even where the terms are defined, we never try to derive any information from the definition, or to base any argument upon it. This is why our terms make so little trouble. We do not overburden them. We try to attach to them as little weight as possible. We do not take their “meaning” too seriously. We are always conscious that our terms are a little vague (since we have learnt to use them only in practical applications) and we reach precision not by reducing their penumbra of vagueness, but rather by keeping well within it, by carefully phrasing our sentences in such a way that the possible shades of meaning do not matter. This is how we avoid quarrelling about words.

Our “scientific knowledge”, in the sense in which this term may be properly used, remains entirely unaffected if we eliminate all definitions; the only effect is upon our language, which would lose, not precision, but merely brevity…

There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between this view of the part played by definitions, and Aristotle’s view. For Aristotle’s essentialist definitions [i.e., in which a word is burdened with “capturing the essence” of some thing or process] are [imagined to be] the principles from which all our knowledge is derived; they thus [are imagined to] contain all our knowledge; and they [are imagined to] serve to substitute a long formula for a short one. As opposed to this… scientific… definitions do not contain any knowledge whatever, nor even any ‘opinion’; they do nothing but introduce new arbitrary shorthand labels; they cut a long story short.

The problem of definitions and of the “meaning of terms” is the most important source of Aristotle’s regrettably still prevailing intellectual influence, of all that verbal and empty scholasticism that haunts not only the Middle Ages, but our own contemporary philosophy [and all religions!]; for even a philosophy as recent as that of L. Wittgenstein suffers… from this influence.

The development of thought since Aristotle could, I think, be summed up by saying that every discipline, as long as it used the Aristotelian method of definition [such as in all religions!] has remained arrested in a state of empty verbiage and barren scholasticism, and that the degree to which the various sciences have been able to make any progress depended on the degree to which they have been able to get rid of this essentialist method…

…Aristotle’s doctrine of definition… led to a good deal of hairsplitting. But later, philosophers began to feel that one cannot argue about definitions. In this way, essentialism not only encouraged verbalism, but it also led to the disillusionment with argument, that is, with reason. Scholasticism [,] mysticism [,] and despair in reason [the hallmarks of all organized religions!]… are the unavoidable results of the essentialism of Plato and Aristotle…
In spite of Aristotle’s major error to emphasize definitions rather than data, Aristotle did appreciate that all his analyses relied on certain “primary premisses.” He didn’t see, however, that the reliability of his primary premisses could be judged only through experimental tests of their predictions, instead proposing and promoting the blatant stupidity (Posterior Analytics, I, 31):
Scientific knowledge is not possible through the act of perception.
In Posterior Analytics (II, 19), he went on to propose the following nonsense (to which I’ve added the italics):
From these considerations it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premisses, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premisses – a result which also follows from the fact that demonstration cannot be the originative source of demonstration, nor, consequently, scientific knowledge of scientific knowledge. If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing, intuition will be the originative source of scientific knowledge. And the originative source of science grasps the original basic premiss, while science as a whole is similarly related as originative source to the whole body of fact.
Aristotle’s bizarre proposals that “intuition [apprehends] the primary premisses” (a proposal that, during the 20th Century, Kurt Gödel pursued, even after he proved his incompleteness theorem, and drove himself insane attempting to prove) and that “intuition [is] the originative source of scientific knowledge” led Aristotle to another major mistake, which I’ll summarize as follows: by failing to see that the only authority in science is evidence and by claiming, instead, that intuition is the source of scientific knowledge, Aristotle became an authoritarian, demanding that others acknowledge his intuition (and resulting pronouncements and definitions) as “the authority”.

To illustrate and try to explain what a I mean, as well as to suggest why Aristotle’s authoritarianism was successful for so long, I’ll start with his famous statement (from his Metaphysics, I, 1): “Man by nature desires to know.” Thereby, although Aristotle didn’t realize how knowledge of the world external to our minds can be gained (i.e., via the scientific method), yet he not only saw that humans have a desire to know, he also saw (perhaps intuitively!) that humans unfortunately have a propensity to accept even crazy “explanations” (such as the existence of various gods) as “knowledge”, if such explanations are presented with sufficient authority and give superficial appearances of explaining the unknown (e.g., “our holy book says…”). As a result and with his connections to the most powerful political authority of his time, Alexander the Great (Aristotle’s student), Aristotle became one such arrogant “authority”, dictating superficial “explanations” as “knowledge”, thereby trampling on the two-centuries-old wisdom of Xenophanes: “all is but a woven web of guesses”.

Many illustrations of Aristotle’s authoritarianism are available. One is his statement in his Metaphysics (II, 2): “Nothing infinite can exist [in reality].” That may be correct, but such a bold pronouncement can’t be justified; instead, he should have stated something similar to: “To date, nothing infinite has yet been found in reality.” Another illustration is his statement in his Physics (VIII, 1):
…that which is produced or directed by nature can never be anything disorderly: for nature is everywhere the cause of order.
He provided no justification for such a claim, and (of course) we now know that his claim is exactly contrary to the second principle of thermodynamics, one of whose statements is that, in isolated systems, nature always seeks to produce maximum disorder!

Still another example of Aristotle’s authoritarianism is in his Metaphysics (IV, 4) where he attacks those who disagree with the scientific principles that things exist and are distinct (i.e., A ≡ A and A ≢ ¬A):
There are some who… assert that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be… But we have now posited that it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by this means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all principles. Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.
That’s terrible authoritarianism, and moreover, it’s plain stupid! In fact, if it weren’t for the appearance of similar statements elsewhere in his writings, I would wonder if it were a translation error – for it rather hurts to see such a brilliant mind make such a colossal error. That is, Aristotle was totally wrong to suggest that it is “for want of education” or “the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not” that someone would demand a demonstration of any fundamental scientific principle (or axiom). In contrast, what Aristotle should have said is that the instances of demonstrations that things exist and are distinct (i.e., that A ≡ A, that A ≢ ¬A) are so numerous that even monkeys and babies have wholeheartedly adopted these hypotheses!

Stated differently, what Aristotle should have written is that if anyone should suggest (in seriousness) that one of the fundamental axioms (or scientific principles) of logic is wrong, then the person should be strongly encouraged to demonstrate how the principles are wrong – guaranteeing a prize to anyone who can demonstrate that it’s wrong! Stated in the vernacular, if anyone should say something as horrible as the Bible’s “it’s a wicked generation that wants a sign” or Aristotle’s “[it’s] the mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not”, then that person should be invited to blow it out his ear!

Some of Aristotle’s Specific Errors
Aristotle’s misunderstanding of the essence of science, his failure to test predictions of his hypotheses and, instead, his reliance on definitions, intuition, and authoritarianism, led him to sometimes silly and sometimes serious errors. An example of one of his silly errors was his hypothesis that women have fewer teeth than men – and he apparently never took the trouble to ask his wife (or any other woman) to open her mouth, so he could count her teeth! Yet, maybe he wasn’t on speaking terms with his wife, for as Aristotle the philosopher said:
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. [!]
Some illustrations of Aristotle’s more serious errors are available in his book Physics. As a first example, consider his fundamental premiss (from Physics, I, 5):
Our first presupposition must be that in nature nothing acts on, or is acted on by, any other thing at random, nor may anything come from anything else…
One can understand why Aristotle would make such an assumption, and one can admire Aristotle for trying so hard, so long ago, to understand Nature, but we who are accustomed to the scientific method would now inquire: What evidence supports such assumptions? What predictions follow from such a hypothesis? What are the results of experimental tests of those predictions? And, of course, we now know that, for example, all 20th century results in quantum mechanics show that both aspects of Aristotle’s “first presupposition” are wrong.

Another serious error also appears near the beginning of his book on Physics. Thus, by considering the behavior of plants, animals, and people, he concludes (bk. II, pt. 8):
If purpose, then, is inherent in art, so is it in Nature also… It is plain, then, that nature is a cause, a cause that operates for a purpose.
Unfortunately, however, he reached his generalization considering only animate parts of nature; meanwhile, as far as is known, rocks, stars, galaxies… don’t have purposes – or stated more meaningfully, ‘purpose’ is a concept attributable only to life. Stated still differently, life has a purpose (namely, to continue living), but no evidence supports Aristotle’s assumption that inanimate Nature has any purpose. Thereby, Aristotle made the mistake of arguing by analogy, apparently not appreciating the conclusion reached by another of Socrates’ students, Euclid of Megara (c.435–c.365 BCE), that arguments by analogy never constitute “proof”. A still more serious example of Aristotle’s error of relying on an argument by analogy is his disgraceful “justification” of slavery.

Similarly, by relying only on logic (based on incorrect premisses), Aristotle erroneously concluded in his Physics (IV, 7 & 8) that a vacuum cannot exist:
It is clear, then, from these considerations that there is no separate void.
Further, in his Metaphysics (XI, 8) he erroneously added:
If, then, luck or spontaneity is a cause of the material universe, reason and nature are causes before it.
Aristotle gave no justification for such claims. We could now argue that if (for example) the universe was created by a symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation in the original total void, then “before” such a “creating fluctuation”, nothing existed; therefore, neither reason (based on existence and uniqueness) nor “nature” had any meaning; therefore, they couldn’t have been “causes before it.” Instead, the “cause” of the “spontaneity” would have been simply that, similar to other quantum mechanical systems, “total nothingness” fluctuates (and some such fluctuations are unstable). But Aristotle certainly can be pardoned for taking the easier route: he assumed (e.g., Meteorology, I, 14) that “the universe is permanent”.

Relative to Aristotle’s influence on religions, his most egregious error followed from his unsupported and incorrect assumption (Physics, VII, 1):
Everything that is in motion must be moved by something.
The above error led Aristotle to conclude that there must have been a “prime mover” (God) who set things in the universe in motion, a conclusion later copied by many foolish religious philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). Unfortunately, Aristotle (and later religious philosophers) apparently never observed and considered motion resulting from, for example, a bubble bursting. That is, there’s no need for any external force (putting the water droplets from the bubble’s burst into motion); there’s need only that momentum be conserved (i.e., that the momenta of all exploded components of the bubble sum to the same value they had before the explosion, i.e., zero). In contrast to his silly conclusion that a God must have started all motions, if Aristotle had thought about an exploding bubble (or similar), he might have concluded that motion in the universe could have been started by a Big Bang!

Aristotle repeats the same erroneous idea in his Metaphysics (XII, 6):
… it is impossible that movement should either have come into being or cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that time should. For there could not be a before and an after if time did not exist.
Relative to the first part of the above statement (i.e., his claim that movement can’t come into being or cease to be), Aristotle apparently never saw either a bubble burst (i.e., motion come into being) or something stop moving (e.g., a ball, stopped from rolling because of friction). And relative to the second part of his claim, he can be forgiven for not seeing that time is meaningless without energy; therefore, before the Big Bang (which created motion), i.e., before there was energy, there was no time.

The culmination of his errors about motion and time appears in his Metaphysics (XII, 7), where he introduces his god as the prime mover, who (he decides, siding with Plato) must be “good”:
…The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses – that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.
Then, stuck with the assumption that his prime mover is “good”, Aristotle produces the following gobbledygook:
… If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.
And with that error, he manages to dig himself into an even deeper hole (Metaphysics, XII, 9):
The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves difficulties. For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something else, then (since that which is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it. Further, whether its substance is the faculty of thought or the act of thinking, what does it think of? Either of itself or of something else; and if of something else, either of the same thing always or of something different. Does it matter, then, or not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there not some things about which it is incredible that it should think? Evidently, then, it thinks of that which is most divine and precious, and it does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and this would be already a movement. First, then, if ‘thought’ is not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. Secondly, there would evidently be something else more precious than thought, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking and the act of thought will belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there are even some things which it is better not to see than to see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
Thus, according to Aristotle, after God set things in motion, then (in the vernacular), God has spent eternity contemplating his own navel! Well, sorry to burst Aristotle’s (and Thomas Aquinas’, and…) bubble, but if they’d watch a bubble bursting, then they’d see no need for “a first cause” (of motion); i.e., God isn’t needed – except, of course, in the case of clerics such as Thomas Aquinas and all other clerics before and since, God is needed for them to have the time to contemplate their own navel, rather than go out a produce something useful for other humans.

But even though we can now see that Aristotle made many major errors, he was obviously an astounding genius, contributing such gems as: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." In that regard, consider the wisdom of what he wrote in Metaphysics (II, 1):
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately [as Xenophanes said], while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit [is the proverb about hitting a barn door that old?!], in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it… It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views [such as, as he points out, Pythagoras and Plato]; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
By the same token, although Aristotle was wrong about much, he quite likely contributed more to “the powers of thought” than has anyone else!

Still more to his credit, Aristotle demonstrated in his Metaphysics his disdain for all theologians:
The school of Hesiod and all the theologians thought only of what was plausible to themselves, and had no regard to us. For, asserting the first principles to be gods and born of gods, they say that the beings which did not taste of nectar and ambrosia became mortal; and clearly they are using words which are familiar to themselves, yet what they have said about the very application of these causes is above our comprehension. For if the gods taste of nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, these are in no wise the causes of their existence; and if they taste them to maintain their existence, how can gods who need food be eternal? – But into the subtleties of the mythologists it is not worth our while to inquire seriously… [Italics added]
Aristotle adds a point that is especially appropriate for those who claim so many meanings for the word ‘God’ (e.g., God is Good, God is the creator of all, God is love, etc.):
If, however, they [i.e., definitions of words] were not limited, but one were to say that the word has an infinite number of meanings, obviously reasoning would be impossible; for not to have one meaning is to have no meaning, and if words have no meaning our reasoning with one another, and indeed with ourselves, has been annihilated…
Similar continues to this day. Thus, if you engage in discussions with religious people about their god, then if you don’t want “reasoning… [to be] annihilated”, first demand a clear and unique definition of their ‘god’ – rather than their usual definition, which is some version or other of: “I dunno”!

But in the end, Aristotle was unable to overcome the entrenched, self-serving interests of the clerics in ancient Greece: they (and after them, Christian and Muslim clerics) lapped up Plato’s ideas like warm milk (and are still doing so, 2400 years later), causing Aristotle major problems. Thus, as described in the Wikipedia article on Aristotle, which also refers to Aristotle’s former student, Alexander the Great:
Upon Alexander’s death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Eurymedon the hierophant [a priest who “interpreted sacred mysteries”] denounced Aristotle for not holding the gods in honor. Aristotle fled the city to his mother’s family estate in Chalcis, explaining, “I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,” a reference to Athens’s prior trial and execution of Socrates.
Looked at differently, the real “sacred mystery” was how clerics managed to dupe and enslave so many people for so long! But Aristotle saw how power mongers used religion to their advantage:
Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these bodies [the planets] are gods, and that the divine encloses the whole of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency… [For example] A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
As the Greek historian Polybius (c.204–c.122 BCE) later summarized:
Since the masses of the people are inconsistent, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless of consequences, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods and the belief in punishment after death.
Thus, the clerics duped and enslaved people (and still do) by capitalizing on people’s ignorance, egotism, fears, and greed (e.g., for eternal life).

It’s clear why the Greek clerics were so opposed to Aristotle’s idea of God – and why, still today, all clerics continue to oppose his idea, instead promoting Plato’s prattle: if God is consumed by contemplating his own navel (or, according to Aristotle, thinking about himself), than there’s no need for clerics. The clerics therefore realized that Aristotle’s “heretical ideas” had to be stopped, since they undermined the clerics’ con games, threatening the clerics with what frightens them the most: the possibility that they might need to actually do something productive, like go out into the real world and work for a living! No cleric will willingly work; so, the ancient Greek clerics (and all clerics ever since) chose the easier route: stir the rabble to reject Aristotle’s idea.

And thus, once again, the clerical quacks stymied science and humanity with their God Lie, just as they subsequently have done for more than 2300 years. Fortunately for us in the West, progress has been made constraining the clerics, permitting science and human rights to advance (although much still needs to be done to constrain the damnable Christian clerics in the U.S.), but unfortunately for all of us, Islamic clerics still enshroud most of the Muslim world in their version of the Dark Ages, caused by clerical power-mongering and the people’s ignorance, egotism, fears, and greed. With the internet, maybe it won't be too much longer before such ignorance and arrogance are dispelled.

www.zenofzero.net

21 comments:

  1. How would you explain that quite a few great men of physics were religious and saw no conflict between their religious faith and their science (e.g. Newton, Maxwell, Planck)? For the sake of clarity let me just quote from Maxwell’s 'Discourse on Molecules' (1873):

    “though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built—the foundation-stones of the material universe—remain unbroken and unworn. They continue this day as they were created—perfect in number and measure and weight; and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”

    I would appreciate if you can refer to a good atheistic explanation of these theistic physicists.

    Thanks.

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  2. Thank you for your comment. It would, however, be a major challenge to respond thoroughly to your question, ”How would you explain that quite a few great men of physics were religious and saw no conflict between their religious faith and their science (e.g., Newton, Maxwell, Plank)?” Instead of trying to be thorough (because of time constraints), I’ll try to make only a few points and provide some references - split into multiple posts, courtesy blogspot's limitations.

    1. The more general and certainly a challenging question is: Why are people religious? I already devoted two chapters exploring that question (at http://zenofzero.net/docs/X02_EXcavating_Reasons.pdf and at http://zenofzero.net/docs/X03_EXamining_Reasons.pdf ). To illustrate some of the complexity, here is an abbreviated list of possible reasons (from the first referenced chapter):

    Addiction, Animal-training, (seeking) Answers, (out of) Arrogance, (wanting) Assurance, (feeling) Awe, (feeling) Betrayed, (desiring to) Belittle (others), (seeking) Career-advancement, (seeking) Certainty, Childhood Conditioning, (seeking) Comfort, (seeking) Company, (seeking) Control, Cowardice, Credulity, (seeking) Customers, (fearing) Death, (lost in) Dreams, Egomania, Epilepsy, (seeking) Eternal Life, (out of) Fear, Following (leaders), Foolishness, (seeking) Friends, (out of) Frustration, (desiring) Goals, (out of) Greed, (seeking) Guidance, (out of) Guilt, (to get out of the) Gutter, (seeking) Happiness, Herd instinct, Hero worship, (seeking) Hope, Hypnosis, (unconstrained) Imagination, Ignorance, Indoctrination, (out of) Inquisitiveness, (lacking) Judgment, (seeking) Kinship, (desiring) Kindness, (seeking) Knowledge, (intellectual) Laziness, (out of) Loneliness, (searching for) Love, Megalomania, (seeking a) Mate, (searching for) Meaning, (out of) Misery, Narcissism, (fear of) Ostracism, (an) Opiate, Pack instinct, Parental pressure, (seeking) Peace, Political (purposes), (some other) Psychosis, (seeking) Purpose, (unanswered) Questions, (sheer) Rationalization, Revelation, Savagery, Schizophrenia, (seeking) Security, Selfishness, Selflessness, Socialization, (seeking) Support, (following) Tradition, (simply) Training, Tribalism, (unease caused by) Uncertainty, (to relieve) Unhappiness, (because of) Visions, (marriage or other) Vows, (out of) Weakness, (seeking) Wisdom, (living on) Wishes, Xenophobia, Yearnings (for assurance, brotherhood, comfort, development, empathy, friends, guidance, heaven, insight, justice, kindness, love…), Zonked out (on drugs).

    Of those possible reasons, data show that indoctrination is usually the prime reason why most people adopt a specific creed. Further, speculation seems sound that prime reasons why many people accept their indoctrination is out of fear (of their parents, of cultural sanctions, and of death), out of greed (for eternal life), and egotism.

    2. To understand why a particular person is religious requires understanding the person’s experiences and mental health, which, of course, is usually extremely difficult to do.

    3. One should be careful about crediting specific intelligent people, such as those you listed, with more “authority” than is appropriate. A particular person can possess substantial knowledge about a particular subject, while being spectacularly incompetent in other subjects. I could list some Nobel Prize winners as examples, but it’s probably unnecessary; instead, in the continuation below, I’ll provide a few comments on the people you mentioned.

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  3. 4. As you probably know, Newton was amazingly competent in many scientific specialties, but he’s also generally regarded a “fruitcake” when it came to alchemy (which probably led to mercury poisoning and his “mad-as-a-hatter” behavior in his later years). As for his religious views (see the Wikipedia article on him), I would be hard pressed to say that he “saw no conflict”. He seems to have thoroughly rejected the Christianity of his culture and seemed to be almost consumed by trying to find a more acceptable worldview.

    In addition, one should consider both his own assessment of himself and the time in which he lived. He famously said that he felt “like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Thus, he realized how astoundingly little he knew. But what would have been clear to him, during those times when the Catholics were purged from England, was that, not to show allegiance to the Church of England was dangerous.

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  4. 5. My brief review suggests to me that, although he was brilliant, Maxwell was a specialist, primarily a mathematician, whose worldview was permanently colored by his childhood indoctrination and then constrained by his upper-class position in the Victorian straight-laced society in which he lived.

    When Maxwell was a child, his mother indoctrinated him in Christianity: by the age of eight, he could recite the 119th Psalm (176 verses) and could “chapter and verse for almost any quotation from the psalms.” [ http://silas.psfc.mit.edu/Maxwell/maxwell.html ] His expressing doubts about Christianity would have been disrespectful to his mother.

    Also, whereas he was reported to be a very kind person, I expect that he would say nothing against the religion of his wife, who nursed him back to health, once risking her life from his “dangerous attack of smallpox”. I think that the following quotation (from the same book) is illuminating:

    “The second illness was in September 1865, also at Glenlair. Maxwell had been riding a strange horse, and got a scratch on the head from a bough of a tree; this was followed by an attack of erysipelas, which brought him very low. Mrs. Maxwell was again his nurse, and to listen, as he insisted on doing, to her quiet reading of their usual portion of Scripture every evening, was the utmost mental effort which he could bear.”

    As for Maxwell’s being primarily a mathematician, notice what he wrote in a letter to his friend Lewis Campbell when he was student at Cambridge:

    “Is truth nowhere but in Mathematics? ... Must Nature as well as Revelation be examined through canonical spectacles by the dark-lantern of Tradition, and measured out by the learned to the unlearned, all second-hand… There are extensive and important tracts in the territory of the Scoffer, the Pantheist, the Quietist, Formalist, Dogmatist, Sensualist, and the rest, which are openly and solemnly ‘Tabooed’…

    “The Old Testament and the Mosaic Law and Judaism are commonly supposed to be ‘Tabooed’ by the orthodox. Skeptics pretend to have read them, and have found certain witty objections ... which too many of the orthodox unread admit, and shut up the subject as haunted. But a Candle is coming to drive out all Ghosts and Bugbears. Let us follow the light.”

    Notice, also, that although we call them “Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics”, yet in reality, “all” he did was to see that Ampere’s “law” was mathematically inconsistent with the known continuity equation for electrical charge; so, he added a single term, “D dot” (the time rate of change of the “displacement current”). [continued below]

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  5. Meanwhile and unlike Boltzmann, Maxwell seems to have showed no interest in the revolutionary scientific advances of the 19th Century that undermined the silly Biblical stories, i.e., the results in geology, paleontology, and biology (the latter of course contained in Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species). And while such advances were undermining the foundation of Christianity, yet in 1876, Maxwell wrote to Bishop Ellicott the following lame - even insulting - statement:

    “But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis… The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.”

    For Maxwell, too, it’s useful to consider the times in which he lived: Victorian times in which he was a member of the upper class, one of whose mottos was (in essence): don’t upset the rabble. I see some of that in his 5 March 1858 letter to R.B Litchfifed (p.153 of The Life of James Clerk Maxwell at http://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/maxbio.pdf ), in which he described one reason why some people are religious - and its advantages and disadvantages:

    “People get tired of being able to do as they like, and having to choose their own steps; and so they put themselves under holy men, who, no doubt, are really wiser than themselves. But it is not only wrong, but impossible, to transfer either will or responsibility to another; and after the formulae have been gone through, the patient has just as much responsibility as before, and feels it too.”

    Yet, in the draft of his letter to the Secretary of the Victoria Institute, I think I see someone troubled by his religion:

    “Sir–I do not think it my duty to become a candidate for admission into the Victoria Institute. Among the objects of the Society are some of which I think very highly. I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society…”

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  6. 6. In the case of Plank’s religiosity, I think that one should consider not only his indoctrination (both his paternal great-grandfather and his grandfather were theology professors) but also the many tragedies in his personal life, including the death of his first wife in 1909, the death of his oldest son at Verdun, the imprisonment of his second son by the French, the death of both of his twin daughters giving birth to his granddaughters, and then the execution of his son for participating in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. Few people can survive such tragedies without clinging to the hope of an afterlife.

    In addition, one should realize that, although Plank laid the foundation for quantum mechanics, he did so using a “trick” (in the sense of “trick” for which climate scientists have recently received substantial, unjustified criticism). Thus, working to avoid “the ultraviolet catastrophe”, he explored the possibility that molecules of the walls of a blackbody container could only vibrate at discrete frequencies. To be sure, it was a brilliant “trick”, but it’s not the kind of scientific breakthrough that leads one to question one’s worldview.

    In fact (or at least as given in the Wikipedia article on Plank), he described his trick as merely “an act of despair… I was ready to sacrifice any of my previous convictions about physics.” He considered that quantization was only “a purely formal assumption… actually I did not think much about it.” In addition, note that Boltzmann had proposed something similar, almost a quarter of a century earlier, and it was Einstein (in his paper on the photoelectric effect) who “should be given credit for quantum theory, more so than Plank, since Plank did not understand in a deep sense that he was ‘introducing the quantum’ as a real physical entity.” As Max Born wrote about Plank: “He was by nature and by the tradition of his family conservative, averse to revolutionary novelties and skeptical towards speculations.”

    Besides, again from the same Wikipedia article: ”The God in which Planck believed was an almighty, all-knowing, benevolent but unintelligible God that permeated everything, manifest by symbols, including physical laws.” To me, that’s close to describing God with the phrase: “I dunno.”

    7. Finally, in response to your, “I would appreciate if you can refer to a good atheistic explanation of these theistic physicists”, not only do I doubt that such “explanations” are available, I doubt that any atheistic would be interested in producing such. They would be, on the hand, defensive (and I know no atheists who feel need of marshaling such a defense) and, on the other hand, irrelevant. More relevant is that any modern scientist worth his or her credentials dismisses the god idea as childish speculations of the misinformed, the ill informed, and the mentally challenged or unstable.

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  7. Two typos:

    • In Point 5, paragraph 6 (at the end of the third post, dealing with "Maxwell's equations"): change last word from 'current' to 'vector' (i.e., "D dot", itself, is, of course, the displacement current).

    • In Point 7, first sentence: change second 'atheistic' to 'atheist'.

    Sorry.

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  8. P.S.

    By the way, the quotation from Maxwell that you posted actually undermines your argument. To see what I mean, consider first what the Christian promoter Ian Hutchinson wrote in his article on “James Clerk Maxwell and the Christian Proposition” (at http://silas.psfc.mit.edu/Maxwell/maxwell.html ) about Maxwell’s idea that you quoted:

    “This was not an original idea of Maxwell’s and he gives the original Herschel reference, dated 1851, but it is interesting to realize that Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was first published in 1859, a year before Maxwell’s first oblique reference to molecular perfection. Clearly, he was well aware of the extent to which the fashionable liberal academics’ argument from design, based on the perfection of biological adaptation, was undermined by discoveries pointing to evolution. And though Maxwell was no theological liberal but accepted the revelation of God through Jesus Christ, he is pointing to a different perfection in creation, one which he emphasizes cannot be attributed to evolutionary adaptation.”

    But what I would call to your attention is that Maxwell’s God-belief thereby hampered his science. With his accomplishments in thermodynamics and kinetic theory, he had an ideal background to attempt to extend Darwin’s idea of evolution to the physics of irreversible processes. Maxwell’s religious beliefs, however, apparently blinded him, leaving the opportunity open to Boltzmann, who seized it and thereby derived his revolutionary expression for entropy (carved into his tombstone): S = k ln W.

    In summary, you questioned why “quite a few great men of physics were religious and saw no conflict between their religious faith and their science” and then illustrated your assessment with the quotation from Maxwell. But your quotation illustrates that Maxwell was aware of the conflict, and what we can now see is that his unsubstantiated religious beliefs limited his vision (like blinders on a horse’s harness), substantially weakening his science.

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  9. Thanks a lot for your informative response.
    Since you are talking about “the war between science and religion”, it seems to be important to understand co-existence of theists and atheists among great physicists and biologists. After all who are more free, independent and rational thinkers who are concerned with empirical validation of their mental pictures of the reality?
    Having in mind this kind of human recourses, I would rely on the minimal but most basic definition: theist is a person who does need a notion of God for his/her inner discourse – let’s say, in the person’s diary or in a dialogue with close friend – regardless of specific scriptures, dogmas and rituals. It seems to be the very first step in religious self-identification, if it is for real rather than just for social mimicry. Sometime it is also the last step. All the rest beliefs about scriptures, dogmas and rituals could be acquired on the next steps of theistic self-identification.
    On the other hand any real atheist needs no such notion of god for inner use at all and doesn’t need religious phrasing that couldn’t be translated into atheistic language. Unlike phrases “thanks god” and “god forbid” there are untranslatable ones, e.g. “God is your judge”.
    It is what Einstein wrote about: “I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality insofar as it is accessible to human reason.” Having been traditionally deeply religious in his childhood, he did understand common meaning of the word.
    Your quotations from Maxwell, to my mind, quite clearly show that he combined free and independent thinking, true personal theism with understanding how much people could differ from him – those who “get tired of being able to do as they like, and having to choose their own steps…”.
    As to Maxwell’s achievements in theoretical physics, both atheist Boltzmann and pantheist Einstein thought they were of the highest level. Whether Maxwell’s achievements could be even higher is a debatable question. Your hypothesis that his God-belief hampered his science could be countered with Einstein’s phrase: “Our moral leanings and tastes, our sense of beauty and religious instincts, are all tributary forces in helping the reasoning faculty toward its highest achievements”. But I would correct this Einstein’s observation in your direction: “…helping or hampering”. Any genuine discovery has to have an illogical ingredient, otherwise it’s not a discovery. Everybody has his own personal blinders which could be of help in directing attention (just like in the case of a horse’s harness). In the history of scientific discoveries sometimes even ignorance is helpful.
    I see no connections between Darwin’s natural selection and the statistical physics of irreversible processes. But apparently you believe that Darwinism is incompatible with religion. A counterexample is Th. Dobzhansky, a prominent figure in unifying genetics and evolutionary biology. One of his articles was titled "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” but he was a religious man and churchgoer. His collaborator E. Mayr, being an atheist, had no problems with his colleague’s religion within their scientific work although was unable to comprehend what made his friend to be a believer.
    Among your hundred reasons to consider an idea of God I see a few of quite decent ones, like Inquisitiveness, seeking Knowledge, searching for Meaning, and Rationalization. But the result of consideration could be atheistic as well.
    That is why I think that atheists like you and Dawkins have to seek an explanation of theists among the greatest physicists and biologists. Otherwise people like your granddaughter would have to think how those great scientists the theists could choose the side in “the war between science and religion” you are talking about.
    It seems to be much easier for theists to explain why there are atheists, since every theist has powerful “God’s will” as an explanatory tool.

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  10. Thanks a lot for your informative response.
    Since you are talking about “the war between science and religion”, it seems to be important to understand co-existence of theists and atheists among great physicists and biologists. After all who are more free, independent and rational thinkers who are concerned with empirical validation of their mental pictures of the reality?
    Having in mind this kind of human recourses, I would rely on the minimal but most basic definition: theist is a person who does need a notion of God for his/her inner discourse – let’s say, in the person’s diary or in a dialogue with close friend – regardless of specific scriptures, dogmas and rituals. It seems to be the very first step in religious self-identification, if it is for real rather than just for social mimicry. Sometime it is also the last step. All the rest beliefs about scriptures, dogmas and rituals could be acquired on the next steps of theistic self-identification.
    On the other hand any real atheist needs no such notion of god for inner use at all and doesn’t need religious phrasing that couldn’t be translated into atheistic language. Unlike phrases “thanks god” and “god forbid” there are untranslatable ones, e.g. “God is your judge”.
    It is what Einstein wrote about: “I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality insofar as it is accessible to human reason.” Having been traditionally deeply religious in his childhood, he did understand common meaning of the word.
    Your quotations from Maxwell, to my mind, quite clearly show that he combined free and independent thinking, true personal theism with understanding how much people could differ from him – those who “get tired of being able to do as they like, and having to choose their own steps…”.
    As to Maxwell’s achievements in theoretical physics, both atheist Boltzmann and pantheist Einstein thought they were of the highest level. Whether Maxwell’s achievements could be even higher is a debatable question. Your hypothesis that his God-belief hampered his science could be countered with Einstein’s phrase: “Our moral leanings and tastes, our sense of beauty and religious instincts, are all tributary forces in helping the reasoning faculty toward its highest achievements”. But I would correct this Einstein’s observation in your direction: “…helping or hampering”. Any genuine discovery has to have an illogical ingredient, otherwise it’s not a discovery. Everybody has his own personal blinders which could be of help in directing attention (just like in the case of a horse’s harness). In the history of scientific discoveries sometimes even ignorance is helpful.
    I see no connections between Darwin’s natural selection and the statistical physics of irreversible processes. But apparently you believe that Darwinism is incompatible with religion. A counterexample is Th. Dobzhansky, a prominent figure in unifying genetics and evolutionary biology. One of his articles was titled "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” but he was a religious man and churchgoer. His collaborator E. Mayr, being an atheist, had no problems with his colleague’s religion within their scientific work although was unable to comprehend what made his friend to be a believer.
    Among your hundred reasons to consider an idea of God I see a few of quite decent ones, like Inquisitiveness, seeking Knowledge, searching for Meaning, and Rationalization. But the result of consideration could be atheistic as well.
    That is why I think that atheists like you and Dawkins have to seek an explanation of theists among the greatest physicists and biologists. Otherwise people like your granddaughter would have to think how those great scientists the theists could choose the side in “the war between science and religion” you are talking about.
    It seems to be much easier for theists to explain why there are atheists, since every theist has powerful “God’s will” as an explanatory tool.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Some itemized responses:

    1. You state: “Since you are talking about ‘the war between science and religion’, it seems to be important to understand co-existence of theists and atheists among great physicists and biologists.” I don’t see that it’s “important”.

    I agree that such “co-existence” occurs - even among lesser scientists. For example, when I was a “practicing scientist” (I retired more than a decade ago), many of my colleagues and three of my best friends were very religious (one Jewish, one Muslim, and the other, a fiery, born-again Christian). We had some good arguments, especially between me and the brightest of the three, i.e., the Jewish fellow. I loved the guy (and still do), he was one of the kindest and considerate fellows I’ve ever met, but when it came to religion, he just couldn’t think outside the box in which his culture had placed him.

    In general, however, “the war between science and religion” wasn’t (and isn’t) a war among scientists: when I’d argue with religious scientists about religion, it was “for the fun of it”, usually over a few beers. I think that both sides tried to understand how the other side could be so dumb! When we’d argue over scientific topics, on the other hand, we’d be serious.

    Instead, the war is generally between scientists and dumb public policies promoted by clerics (and religious politicians). A current example is the skirmish between Sam Harris and the embarrassment to science, Francis Collins (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27harris.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=science%20is%20in%20the%20details&st=cse ).

    Further, in response to the suggestion that it’s “important to understand [such] co-existence”, the obvious question is: “important” to what? I don’t consider either arguments or accommodations among scientists to be particularly “important”. In contrast, what I do consider important (toward the goal of solving our problems more intelligently) is to stop indoctrinating children with foolish ideas about gods: people should be permitted to decide such matters for themselves, when their critical thinking skills permit. As Schopenhauer wrote:

    “No child under the age of fifteen should receive instruction in subjects which may possibly be the vehicle of serious error, such as philosophy, religion, or any other branch of knowledge where it is necessary to take large views; because wrong notions imbibed early can seldom be rooted out, and of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to arrive at maturity. The child should give its attention either to subjects where no error is possible at all, such as mathematics, or to those in which there is no particular danger in making a mistake, such as languages, natural science, history, and so on. And in general, the branches of knowledge which are to be studied at any period of life should be such as the mind is equal to at that period and can perfectly understand.

    “Childhood and youth form the time for collecting materials, for getting a special and thorough knowledge of the individual and particular things. In those years it is too early to form views on a large scale; and ultimate explanations must be put off to a later date. The faculty of judgment, which cannot come into play without mature experience, should be left to itself; and care should be taken not to anticipate its action by inculcating prejudice, which will paralyze it for ever…”

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  12. 2. On the other hand, I agree with your (and Einstein’s) generalization about the meaning of ‘religious’. As you probably know, questions continue about the etymology of the word ‘religion’, but if one accepts the possibility that it’s something similar to “cling to”, then scientists certainly are religious about (cling to) the scientific method, and in particular, theoretical physicists are religious about (cling to) the beauty (simplicity, symmetry, etc.) of their equations. Thus, I relish Einstein’s statement (in which I’ve changed a few words, e.g., ‘he’ to ‘we’, to make it more “politically correct”):

    “We humans are part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of ‘humility.’ This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

    Incidentally, it was in that sense that I took the remark from one of my older brothers who said to me, a decade-or-more ago, that I was the most religious person he knew.

    Consequently, I would agree about an absence of any war between science and a more general conception of ‘religion’, but that’s not the common meaning for the past, current, and (no doubt) future war between the two sides. What scientific humanists are fighting against are, for example, Catholic idiocy about sex, birth control, and our finite environmental resources, Protestant idiocy about consumerism and about homosexuals, Muslim idiocy about supremacy and women’s rights, Fundamentalist idiocy about evolution, life-after-death, and of course, terrorism, and in general, the idiocy of all clerics who claim knowledge of “the truth”, apparently without knowing even what “truth” means (e.g., see http://zenofzero.net/docs/T1_Truth_&_Knowledge.pdf ). Thus, we have no quarrel with anyone’s personal religiosity, but we do object when clerical dogma infringes on public policy.

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  13. 3. With respect to Maxwell: certainly his scientific accomplishments were astounding and certainly we’ll never know if he could have accomplished more without his childhood indoctrination in Christianity. With respect to the connection between’s Darwin’s theory of evolution and the statistical physics of irreversible processes, it’s fundamental, but it would take me too long to provide details. In a nutshell: the statistical physics of irreversible, nonequilibrium, nonisolated, and usually nonlinear processes explains how entropy can decrease in evolutionary systems. To see how Darwin’s ideas were the basis of Boltzmann’s, you might enjoy the two BBC videos that I recently bumped into, the first of which is at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8492625684649921614# . To see more current and more technical links between evolution and irreversible processes, I’d encourage you to look at Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine’s book “The End of Certainty” (partially available at Google Books) and also his book “From Being to Becoming.”

    4. You state: “But apparently you believe that Darwinism is incompatible with religion.” My response is: it depends on what you mean by religion.

    If you are referring to the more general meaning (e.g., in the above quotation from Einstein), then “No”, but if you are referring to the more usual meaning (that some “supernatural” process is “behind it all”), then “Yes”. That is, there’s no scientific justification for invoking any deity’s involvement; that’s the “god of the gaps” nonsense, deifying “I dunno”. Let’s just admit that there’s much that we don’t know – and do what we can to try to find out.

    And thus I disagree with the final two points in your comment. Physicist and Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann said something similar to your first point:

    “I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.”

    But I would tend to agree more with the conclusion by clinical neuro-psychologist Rosemary Lyndall:

    “Beliefs, including religious ones, are learned, which makes atheism a normal state of affairs and religious beliefs a learned ‘abnormality’. No psychological theory is necessary to explain the causes of a normal base state. Any psychological theory of learning, attitude change, or socialization can explain the causes of religious belief.”

    And with respect to your second point, dealing with theists “explaining” why there are atheists”, “since every theist has [the] powerful ‘God’s will’ as an explanatory tool”, I couldn’t disagree more. That’s not a “powerful… explanatory tool”: the use of “God” as an “explanation” is a total cop out; it introduces more questions than it proposes to answer; once again, it’s equivalent to saying “I dunno.” As Eliezer Yudkowsky summarizes [at http://yudkowsky.net/rational/technical ]: “If you are equally good at explaining any story, you have zero knowledge.”

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  14. Many thanks for touching details of your multi-confessional environment and for interesting links.
    Do you think that those three religious friends of yours were not smart (or free, or brave) enough to choose their places in Big culture (which have included atheism long ago) on their own, independently, what apparently you were able to do?
    You (and Schopenhauer) warn off dangers of childhood indoctrination, but how could a loving parent conceal his dearest views (either theistic or atheistic) from his beloved child? And what about quite a few of clear atheists who were born to families of clerics like Nobelist physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who even graduated from seminary? Isn’t it true that all the atheists of the first generation were indoctrinated otherwise in their childhood?
    By the way, you wrote that the very first atheist (naturalist) Thales “perhaps absorbed some of his ideas from travels in Mesopotamia and beyond”. Do you have something specific in mind? In the folklore of Mesopotamia…? It’s most interesting what prompted the first atheistic worldview.
    When I read that in your arguments about religion “both sides tried to understand how the other side could be so dumb” I recalled Prof Higgins’ amazement “Why can't a woman be more like a man?” As somebody suggested: “Woman is created not to understand her but to love her”. Maybe the same is true for atheist and theist?

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  15. Thank you again. I'll number and quote your questions and then respond.

    1. "Do you think that those three religious friends of yours were not smart (or free, or brave) enough to choose their places in Big culture (which have included atheism long ago) on their own, independently, what apparently you were able to do?"

    I expect (but don't know) that they couldn't overcome or didn't desire to overcome their childhood indoctrinations and the positions they acquired within their sub-societies. Carl Sagan's statement comes to mind:

    "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge – even to ourselves – that we’ve been so credulous.”

    2. "You (and Schopenhauer) warn off dangers of childhood indoctrination, but how could a loving parent conceal his dearest views (either theistic or atheistic) from his beloved child?"

    By being less egotistical and more loving, not seeking that their children be replicas of themselves, loving them enough to let them form their worldviews on their own. For our three children, our mantra was: “You figure it out for yourself, when you’re older.” Now, we’re very pleased that all three (in their forties) are helping to solve the world’s problems intelligently, as scientific humanists.

    3. "And what about quite a few of clear atheists who were born to families of clerics like Nobelist physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who even graduated from seminary?"

    Yes, exceptionally bright and sufficiently strong-willed people are able to overcome their childhood indoctrination on their own. My wife of 50+ years is an example. Others can overcome their childhood religious indoctrination with help of those who were able to do so on their own.

    4. "Isn’t it true that all the atheists of the first generation were indoctrinated otherwise in their childhood?"

    Well, yes, obviously so, assuming that their parents were religious.

    5. "By the way, you wrote that the very first atheist (naturalist) Thales “perhaps absorbed some of his ideas from travels in Mesopotamia and beyond”. Do you have something specific in mind? In the folklore of Mesopotamia…? It’s most interesting what prompted the first atheistic worldview."

    As I mentioned in one of the posts, in those days he couldn't have predicted an eclipse without a substantial database; it therefore seems most probable that he traveled to Egypt, Mesopotamia, or beyond to gain the necessary information. Yet, I doubt that he was the “first atheist” (if he even was an atheist); I expect that, for as long as there have been people, some of them rejected their culture’s (silly) “god idea”.

    6. "When I read that in your arguments about religion “both sides tried to understand how the other side could be so dumb” I recalled Prof Higgins’ amazement “Why can't a woman be more like a man?” As somebody suggested: “Woman is created not to understand her but to love her”. Maybe the same is true for atheist and theist?"

    As I mentioned in the previous response, I don't think that the problem is so much between people as it is between policies. Yet, because of the policies derived from silly, childish "holy books" written by people who barely knew which way was up, we shouldn't neglect additional advice from Shaw (this advice not from Pygmalion but from Man and Superman): "Beware of the man whose God is in the skies." In addition, there’s wisdom in his statement (from The Devil's Disciple): "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."

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  16. I can understand your historical caution re Thales as the FIRST atheist, but could you explain your doubt if he was an ATHEIST? Do you see a philosophical difference between his postulate of a natural element as the ONLY basic building element of everything in this world and the atomic postulate of Democritus and Epicurus?
    I share your view that, for as long as there are people, some of them did, do and will wholeheartedly «reject their culture’s (silly) “god idea”». But as far as I can see historic evidence, another fraction of population, regardless of their intellectual rank, did, do and will wholeheartedly accept the (great) idea of God – since the time of the discovery (not later than 7th century BC). These two fractions are minorities of about 10-15% each, while the rest – conformist majority of about 70-80% - merely adjust their behavior to the dominant ideology or fashion, because they simply don’t care about coherent worldview and too soon “get tired of being able to do as they like, and having to choose their own steps” (thank you for these words of Maxwell).
    Therefore, profoundly honest atheists and theists have something of intellectual importance in common that distinct them from the “tired” majority. That is why I am not surprised that you don’t mind to be “the most religious person” your brother knew.
    And that is why I am happy to hear that “the war between science and religion” is just a name for fighting of “scientific humanists” (aka atheists?) against clericalism and different kinds of bad policy promoted by means of religious phrasing.
    But, as far as I know, the very first fighting against clericalism was launched and the first victory (separation of church and state) was reached by religious people, wasn’t it?
    And, secondly, what about bad policies promoted by means of atheistic phrasing? Should only religious people fight against them?
    I guess you are aware that for seven decades the ruling ideology in the USSR included so called “Scientific Atheism”. It was an obligatory subject in every institution of higher education even if the major was physics or biology.
    I am sorry to say that great B. Shaw as well as other freethinking and good Western writers who visited Soviet Union in Stalin times managed to basically endorse “the great social experiment” that resulted in killing millions of Soviet human beings – conformists, theists, and atheists – with the only purpose to secure the dictatorship of Stalin.
    I am thinking of those in GULAG who might read Shaw’s phrase on the worst sin of indifference and on the essence of inhumanity and who might recall that the words "love your neighbor" were originally deeply theistic.
    That is why I think that atheism is just an intellectual – philosophical – orientation rather than a virtue.

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  17. Continuing the same procedure as for my previous response:

    1. “I can understand your historical caution re Thales as the FIRST atheist, but could you explain your doubt if he was an ATHEIST?”
    As I quoted Aristotle in the first post in this series dealing with Physics vs. Metaphysics in Ancient Greece, the more complete statement from Thales is: ”Water is the cause of all things, and all things are filled with gods.” It therefore appears that he wasn’t an atheist, although it’s unclear what he meant by “gods”.

    2. ”Do you see a philosophical difference between his postulate of a natural element as the ONLY basic building element of everything in this world and the atomic postulate of Democritus and Epicurus?”
    Clearly there are similarities in the two postulates, but I think it’s an important distinction that Thales identified one thing as “the cause” whereas Leucippus identified one thing (atoms) as a building block, and then, he and Democritus went on to suggest how atoms were associated with and involved in any body’s extent, motion, sight, odor, etc. Thus, there seems to be the difference that Thales identified one cause, whereas the atomists identified one thing that, in a variety of ways, caused many effects.

    3.”But, as far as I know, the very first fighting against clericalism was launched and the first victory (separation of church and state) was reached by religious people, wasn’t it?”
    That’s an interesting question. It would be better if a historian addressed it rather than a physicist! But from what I’ve seen (and reviewed in earlier posts), the first two fights “against clericalism” were contained within the world’s first two social revolutions. The first was led by Urukagina in Lagash in about 2350 BCE (see http://zenofzero.blogspot.com/2008/09/basic-ideas-borrowed-for-bible.html and http://zenofzero.blogspot.com/2009/02/law-lie-2-justice.html ) and the second was the upheaval in Egypt that occurred in about 2100 BCE (see http://zenofzero.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html ). In both cases it appears that, as you suggest, the revolutions were launched by religious people – but then, most people were superstitious and therefore religious.

    In those two cases, however, the “victory” didn’t include any separation of church and state. Instead, another group of clerics gained control over the people’s imagination. Similar occurred, of course, associated with Pharaoh Akhenaton’s introduction of monotheism in about 1350 BCE – as well as with the subsequent overthrow of clerics associated with his religion. Perhaps a historian would make the case that the first instances of the separation of church and state were promoted by the Buddha and by Confucius, and during more recent history, many of us “nonhistorians” would point to the accomplishments of Paine, Jefferson, and Madison in separating church and state, undoubtedly leading to controversies about their religiosities.

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  18. 4. “And, secondly, what about bad policies promoted by means of atheistic phrasing?”
    Well, I think it would be good to be careful making such statements. The “bad policies” promoted, for example, by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, et al., had little or nothing to do with atheism; instead, their policies followed from their ideology (communism), which they held “religiously”. In general, an atheist is simply one who has concluded that the probability of a particular god’s existence is less than 50% (e.g., see http://meansnends.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-reducing-rancor.html ), just as I presume that even you are an atheist when it comes to Thor or Zeus. The only policy that normally follows from atheism is not to worship a particular, fictitious god.

    Subsequently, however, atheists normally choose some set of policies, e.g., contained within humanism, capitalism, communism, fascism, or whatever. Theists (i.e., those who have concluded that the probability of a particular god’s existence is greater than 50%), similarly, then go on to choose a set of policies. And, of course, what I consider damnable, is that theists usually choose policies defined in their moldy, outdated “holy books”, containing too many polices that are no longer appropriate, e.g., dealing with women, sex, homosexuals, patriarchy, tribalism, racism, terrorism, etc.

    5. “Should only religious people fight against them [bad policies promoted by means of atheistic phrasing]?”
    No, of course not: let’s use best available knowledge (acquired by the scientific method) to try to eliminate all “bad policies”, regardless of how they’re “phrased”.

    6. ”I am thinking of those in GULAG who might read Shaw’s phrase on the worst sin of indifference and on the essence of inhumanity and who might recall that the words ‘love your neighbor’ were originally deeply theistic.”
    Well, arguably the worst of the Gulags (and similar inhumanities that have occurred throughout history) was the indifference people showed to other humans. Also, as I’ve argued already (e.g., at http://zenofzero.net/docs/KindnesswithKeenness.pdf , http://zenofzero.net/docs/Love_within_Limits.pdf, http://zenofzero.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-judeo-christian-morality-junk.html and http://zenofzero.blogspot.com/2009/01/law-lie-1-morality.html ), moral codes such as “love your neighbor” are not “deeply theistic” but “simply” behavior that evolution has selected, since such behavior provides social animals with survival advantages. For example, a dolphin will swim beneath a wounded dolphin, periodically lifting it to the surface, so it can breathe – presumably without any “theistic” motivation on the dolphin’s part!

    7. ”That is why I think that atheism is just an intellectual – philosophical – orientation rather than a virtue.”
    Well, as I’ve argued already (e.g., http://zenofzero.net/docs/BoardMeeting.pdf , http://zenofzero.net/docs/J2JusticeandMorality.pdf , and
    http://zenofzero.net/docs/V_Values_&_Objectives.pdf ), any value or act can be judged as virtuous or otherwise only with respect to some objective. Atheism, however, has no objective: it simply reflects an estimate for the probability of any god’s existence. On the other hand, I consider scientific humanism to be of the highest virtue, judged with respect to the goal of helping humanity to solve our problems more intelligently. Simultaneously, I consider organized religion to generally be a horrible vice, as judged relative to the same objective.

    And now I’m sorry: although I have found this “conversation” to be stimulating, I need to discontinue it, because it’s making it more difficult for me to finish the already difficult set of tasks associated with the next post. Perhaps we could continue the conversation when I’m closer to the end of this long haul dealing with “The God Lie”.

    Thank you for your comments and for your consideration.

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  19. Thanks a lot for the conversation and for your patience in answering my questions - the questions asked by a Russian historian of science who is concentrating on biographies of remarkable Soviet theoretical physicists. So I have some knowledge about the Soviet form of organized scientific atheism – both professionally and personally. I have just taken a look into my course listing attached to my university diploma and found that it does not include a separate course of “scientific atheism”. It could be a part of courses “Marxist-Leninist philosophy” or “Scientific communism”. I remember very well my textbook with the title “Scientific atheism”, and I think you underestimate the role of atheism in the Soviet ideology.
    Since the name of Andrei Sakharov and his dealing with bad policies are familiar to you, I would suggest for your consideration his views on religion. Let me quote from my article.
    Sakharov’s mother and grandmother were believers (and churchgoers), while his father was not. At the age of thirteen, Andrei decided that he, too, was a nonbeliever. However in his fifties he described his creed in his diary:
    “For me all the religions are equal; I have no affinity to any of them. For me God is not the ruler of the world, not the creator of the world or its laws, but the guarantor of the meaning of existence—despite all the apparent meaninglessness.”
    A decade later in his Memoirs he articulated the stance amazing most of his colleagues:
    “I cannot imagine the Universe and human life without some meaningful element, without a source of spiritual ‘warmth,’ lying outside matter and its laws. Probably that feeling could be called religious.”
    Addressing an audience of French physicists and referring to a few centuries when “it seemed that religious thought and scientific thought contradicted each other” he expressed his belief that the apparent contradiction would have “a profound synthetic resolution in the next stage of the development of human consciousness.”
    In no way did Sakharov consider himself a prophet or the like: “I am no volunteer priest of the idea, but simply a man with an unusual fate. I am against all kinds of self-immolation (for myself and for others, including the people closest to me).”
    Most of the people closest to him were atheists: his father, his mentor in science and life Igor Tamm, both his wives, colleagues in physics and comrades in arms in human right movement. While in his - Soviet - time he advocated freedom of religion, he wrote that in a clerical state he would advocate atheists and heretics.
    (You can find more details of Sakharov’s biography at )
    In case if you would like to resume our conversation please let me know via gorelik@bu.edu

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  20. i read your impression of islam. the writing reflects the writer soul identity.
    the one that must be comphrehend that wisdom. your writing is souled by hartred.
    it is not nice way in observation.
    how you neglected so many scholars that devoted their loves and effort to appreciate the inimitable symphony, the very sound of wich move man to tears and ectasy.
    i recommend you first to learn the arabic then learn the quran without prejudice hate.

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    1. It's relatively easy to "move man [and women and children] to tears and ecstasy"; for example, actors commonly do it; the trick is to stimulate emotions. More challenging is to move men to understanding, which requires stimulating their intellectual capabilities. Apparently, you're still similar to a chid: driven by emotion rather than understanding.

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