After posting my introduction a friend asked me if believed in absolute 'truth'. I am just a curious layman myself not a professional philosopher. As it happens however, there was a recent conference of highly respected philosophers and scientists that addressed this question and others.
The conference was called 'Moving Naturalism Forward' - Described here
and the videos of the entire conference are posted here.
This post only covers participant intoductions. In future posts I plan to summarize views presented at the conference and give my take as well.
Comments regarding the participant introductions:
A common thread exhibited by the majority of the participants pertains to a strong cross-disciplinary emphasis in both interest and experience. The philosophers have a strong scientific background and the scientists have an interest in philosophy. The lone participant who focused on one primary field is StevenWeinberg, but I suppose that if you are going to win a Nobel prize, and be considered by many to be the preeminent living theoretical physicist a certain career focus is useful. Jerry Coyne also appears less conversant than others with the lingo of the philosophers which is a bit surprising to me given his hard line public stance on the topic of free will.
Despite the consensus in the group on the general topic of naturalism there does appear to be clear differences present among the participants relating to the topics that will be covered. Terrence Deacon and Don Ross hold the most holistic views which are closest to mine, while Alex Rosenberg appears to hold the most radical reductionist view. I was struck by Rebecca Goldstein’s comments on the resiliency of what she calls core philosophical intuitions. Despite pronouncements of wanting to have minds changed it will be interesting see how the core intuitions that guide each participants belief systems will respond to the arguments presented. I will be mindful of whether the arguments have any effect on the core of my somewhat less informed opinions as well.
I am not sure that there is a guiding goal or purpose to the conference. It is called ‘Moving Naturalism Forward’, but the format is for informal discussion and sharing of ideas on broad philosophical topics related to naturalism. The goal does not appear to be defining some sort of consensus naturalistic views or developing a strategy for communicating ideas to the larger public. Nevertheless the discussions should be interesting.
Those with strong religious allegiances will likely not find much to agree with here.
Day one, Morning Session Video: Introductions by participants
Blow by blow notes on the video:
Nick Pritzker – Pritzker helped organize the event, sees himself as a generalist and is mostly in attendance to observe and learn.
Sean Carroll – Astronomer by training tells of his interest in philosophy in which he was an undergraduate minor. Carroll has written popular books on physics topics and papers on the relationship between science and religion. His view is that being a good scientist requires one to not be religious. He tells a story about book publisher asking if he (Carroll) wanted to write a popular book about physics years ago. When Carroll replies that he would like to write a book about atheism (not physics) the publisher says nobody would buy such a book. The group finds this amusing given the number of high selling books of this type that have come out in recent years. Carroll would like the participants to state something they might change their mind. Carroll is willing to change his mind on the topic of free-will if properly persuaded. Carroll is currently a compatibilist, which means he believes that free will exists despite being a determinist. This is because he sees the best understanding of the free will concept through a theory at the level of people (not fundamental particles).
Richard Dawkins – Zoology at Oxford. Dawkins’ primary interest is in science education, naturalism, and atheism. He would like to be able to change his mind about the possibility of ‘super-naturalism’ but cannot conceive what the evidence would look like. Carroll then jokes that if he changes his mind on that concept then this workshop would have been a failure (again to laughs from the group).
Don Ross – Philosophy of Science, is currently a dean in two economics departments. Ross co-wrote the book ‘Everything must go’, which aims to root philosophy in the best current physics we have available. Ross makes the provocative claim that virtually all analytical philosophy currently taught and practiced in the top schools is nonsense based on false physics. He rejects reductionist accounts of objects and states indicating that we should not expect to specify in a natural language ‘true and interesting things about the general structure universe’. I find it interesting that this is similar to the 1st chapter of the tao te ching which states that the ‘way’ cannot be known through words. Ross is now working on a popular more accessible version of the book. He would like to change his mind about his philosophy of mathematics which he already changes every month.
Alex Rosenberg – Started in physics and moved to philosophy which he now regrets. His current focus is philosophy of biology. Rosenberg views naturalism as incompatible with a philosophy term he introduces called ‘the manifest image’. This term ‘manifest image’ comes up quite a bit in the conference and refers to something akin to an informed version of common sense based on introspection. This is what he would like to change his mind on (so he says anyway). Rosenberg takes a hard line in his book, ‘The atheist guide to reality’. His conclusion is that naturalism commits us to reject almost all that constitutes the manifest image.
Owen Flanagan – Flanagan leads off by saying that he has been trying to change Rosenberg’s ‘mad dog’ mind for a long-time (Rosenberg then chuckles in response). Flanagan feels it would be nice to have a unified theory of how things work. He would like to mesh science and common sense. Flanagan grew up as a nice Catholic boy and has been committed to naturalism since the 1970’s. He has done a lot of work on consciousness and ethics (naturalizing mind & naturalizing morality). Flanagan wants to provide an up-beat philosophy on how we can find meaning in what he calls a fully material world. He is interested in other traditional conceptions classical Chinese and Indian philosophies and how free-will is not an issue from their perspective (which he thinks is a good thing). He also speaks about literature on ‘positive illusions’ and how those with realistic beliefs tend to be more depressed. Flanagan feels that false beliefs are always the enemy but sometimes worries about this feeling.
Simon DeDeo – DeDeo trained as a physicist, but branched out into animal and human behavior. He tries to take methods of physics seriously when studying social systems. De Deo believes that mental states are multiply realizable (functionalism) and he focuses more on explanation than prediction. DeDeo would like to change his mind on his current belief that mental states do not reduce to computations.
Terrence Deacon – Deacon began in physics, but quickly moved to cybernetics, information theory, and then to the philosophy of Charles Peirce. He went to study at Harvard where Peirce’s work had been taken place, but after arriving found no one there was interested in the work at the time. Deacon then went to MIT and was taken on by a neuroscientist and moved into biological anthropology. He worked in the field of cross transplantation (pigs, monkeys, humans) which he later regretted for various reasons including non-disclosure forms. Through the 90’s Deacon work was driven by the attempt to discover what it is that differentiates human brains from other animals. He wrote an important book called ’The symbolic species’ which layed out a theory for the evolution of language. Around 2000 Deacon moved to Berkeley and re-immersed himself in earlier work with Peirce and the study of the evolution and emergence of new functions in brains. He has often been invited by religious groups to discuss his work on emergence and feels the dialogue is important. This is likely because Deacon feels there is a place in naturalism and science for teleology (purpose). Deacon is interested in the question ’How is it that a molecule becomes about something’ and doesn’t think brains are like computers (our understanding of computation is not big enough to account for meaning). Deacon indicates he is willing to be convinced, but has not seen convincing science regarding a computational model for the human brain.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – Goldstein humorously describes being brought up as a ‘very’ good Jewish girl. She states that the idea of an ‘ambitious girl’ was inconceivable in her families culture. The book ‘our friendly atom’ rocked her world as a little girl. Her greatest hope was to someday meet a scientist. Goldstein read Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I am not Christian’ at age 12 and describes it as so good that it worked on a Jew. She started out in physics but couldn’t get around her need to interpret quantum mechanics philosophically so she moved into philosophy. She was later influenced by Tom Nagel’s ‘What does it feels like to be bat’. Goldstein is very interested in peoples ‘core’ intuitions and how inflexible they can be. She felt this issue could be best addressed in philosophical novels through characters. She is convinced by the implications of Goedel’s work leading to mathematical realism and also the view that core philosophical intuitions cannot be resolved. She would like to be unconvinced of both.
Dan Dennett – Dennett came from a family that focused on the humanities not the sciences. He was interested in science, but was not encouraged to pursue that direction. Only in graduate school did he decide it might be useful to know something about the brain when doing philosophy on the mind. Dennett describes this as a novel idea at Oxford at that time. He then describes spending more time at Oxford studying science than philosophy and describes how he received his education from a world class list of science tutors through informal relationships. Like Flanagan, Dennett is appalled by what he calls the armchair philosophy of mind currently en-vogue. He describes that the job of a philosopher is to help people with putting the manifest image together with the scientific image. ‘We know it doesn’t go easily’. Ross points out that if the goal is the bring the two concepts together (manifest & scientific ) it is important not to put restrictions on the latter to accommodate the former. Dennett feels that free will is a pivotal issue and states ‘It is the literal non-metaphorical truth that compatabilism is true’. He states he would like to have his mind changed or a case made for why the manifest image should be usurped by the scientific image.
Massimo Pigliuchi – Training and serving as a biologist for 20 yrs with 100 publications, Pigliucci tells of a mid-life crises that led him to NY city where he pursued and obtained a PHD in philosophy. Science and philosophy are described as both originally belonging to the field of ‘sceintia’ what used to refer to the larger concept of knowledge acquisition. His view is that the best we can do is to intellectually respect both science and philosophy. Pigliucci is currently writing a book about progress in philosophy. Talking of how he has ‘sparred’ with several of those in the room, Pigliucci quotes Hume; ‘Truth springs from argument amongst friends’. He also tells of how he has changed his mind recently regarding certain aspects of meta-physics based on Ross’ book ‘Everything Must Go.
David Poepple – Began in cell biology and linguistics, then became an actor, then became a neuroscientist and runs a lab at NYU in human brain science. His focus is on the temporal structure of perceptual experience. He Is impressed by many fields (cog psych, philosophy, etc…) in what has been achieved, but feels neuroscience has failed for the moment. ‘Maps are getting better but the conceptual resolution has not’.
Jennifer Willette - Science Writer Specializing in physics– Grew up in an evangelical religious family. She is mainly here to observe and is more interested in what may come out of this type of conference than in rehashing old arguments religion vs science over and over again.
Jerry Coyne – Evolutionary Biologist – Became atheist in reaction to what he calls religionists. He is writing a book on the incompatibility between science and religion. Coyne state specifically that he is here to address the question of free will. He describes himself as one of the few incompatibalists in the room (along with Rosenberg feels free will is an illusion). ‘We are collations of molecules that obey the laws of physics and sometimes it appears that we do that rationally, but a lot of times we do not’. ‘Our decisions are made by internal factors we do not understand’. Coyne states he would like to change his mind to believe there are other ways of knowing besides science. On the other hand he indicates he would like to think that science answers all questions which would boost his arguments against religion. Coyne asks for jargon to be limited as he has no idea what humuncular functionalist means.
Steven Weinberg Nobel prize in particle physics 1979 – Always wanted to be a theoretical physicist. Works in quantum field physics and cosmology. Indicates he doesn’t have a good understanding of what ‘reality’ and ‘naturalism’ mean (wide open mind). Knows what consciousness and mathematics but doesn’t see how they fit into natural science. As for emergence morality and free will he has strong views that are unlikely to change.
Jenna Levin is a physicist who is late to arrive and will introduce herself at that time.
No comments:
Post a Comment