On his blog at the Centre for Science Writing ,John Horgan has been looking at Free Will, ethics and science, his latest post skewering an Einstein quote using a quintessential classical physics analogy (lunar orbits) to suggest that Free Will is an illusion.
I agree with John’s broad thesis, about the importance of not undermining people’s sense of Free Will, as it can only lead to all sorts of confusion in ethics. I disagree with John’s line of reasoning that consciousness can emerge from classical physics with complexity, but this is relatively minor point. It seems clear enough to me that the quantum theory re-established the ideal aspect of reality that classical physics was missing. Henry Stapp has provided the best account I know of this in Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer, so John’s choice of Einstein was perfect, Einstein himself clearly identifying the ideal aspects of the new physics as objectionable and fingering Berkeley, who saw immediately the problems of scientific materialism, and has been quite vindicated. I said this in a comment to the post.
The most important point on which I agree with John is on coming back to first principles of experience, where science and ethics (and anything worthwhile) are supposed to be grounded. Science may adopt this and that metaphysical framework to build successful explanatory and predictive theories, but one would be a complete fool to believe that these metaphysical and methodological frameworks *are* reality, and proceed to smash up ethics and disregard our own first-hand lived experience. By propagating such irresponsible dogma the foundations of ethics are undermined because ethics is critically dependent on the psychology. John gets this. Many of our moral philosophers don’t seem to.
A materialist ontology is great for working out lunar orbits and a great deal of natural science, but note, not atomic physics. Dogmatically insisting that it is reality is not wise, and actually goes counter to experience at the most basic level. It is the mark of a fanatic. But more to the point it is as inappropriate for thinking about ethics as it is appropriate for thinking about classical physics. Ethics is founded in psychology, as classical physics is founded on physical causation (as Joseph Butler understood), but if you deny the reality of the mind you undercut ethics.
Looked at another way, psychology is a critical factor in determining whether folks act ethically or not. If I am in a blind rage with someone then that will predispose me to act unethically (but with the right preparation I still ought to be able to restrain myself, clearly). Similarly if I am confused by sophists into believing that Free Will is an illusion then that confusion will make it more difficult for me to counter temptations to follow reactive impulses so that I can do what is best for the longer term and wider good.
Which brings me to the brouhaha over Superfreakonomics.
Superfreakonomics
Thetubeshavebeenhumming over the ‘Global Cooling’ fifth chapter of Levitt and Dubner’s nearly-published Superfreakonomics. I hold some quite contrarian views myself and, while Quiggin@CT, reflecting on the kerfuffle, opines that ‘“contrarianism” is mostly contrary to reality’, I am far more sceptical, and quite suspicious of any use of ‘reality’ in such a general context. Healy@CT, following Gelman’s pondering of why ‘”pissing off liberals” is so delightfully transgressive and oh-so-fun, whereas “pissing off conservatives” is boring and earnest’ concludes that the earnestness derives from it being ‘really an effort to rebut some ridiculous charge’—reinforcing Gelman’s point about liberals taking themselves too seriously and making themselves into easy targets.
I have too much respect for reality to allow it to be so abused, and so biased to my own side and/or Conventional Wisdom.
That said I am heartened to see Superfreakonomics being promptly and closely scrutinised, because, unlike its predecessor, it is dealing in a serious subject—the future of the biosphere—in a frivolous way (see also Klein, who looks at the book’s very first example). Contrary to general opinion, the Kyoto protocol worked pretty well, and as Nicholas Stern explains in today’s observer, there is a real prospect to make meaningful progress. (Update: Yglesias has a good post explaining some more careless assumptions that Levitt and Dubner seem to be making on this.)
The stakes are high and the rational course is to act decisively now. I would love to find that some ghastly mistake, but, quite apart from the global temperature data, I keep reading stories like the Thames barrier having to be raised more and more frequently because of sea-level rises, and of a sudden geopolitical scrap for the Arctic mineral resources because of the retreating ice caps.
Yet, in my experience, whenever the claims of the so called global warming sceptics are subjected to scrutiny they fall apart, and there is no consistency to their critiques, often embracing contradictory positions, pushing the idea that there is no global warming one day and that global warming is not the consequence of industrial activity the next. And so we seem to see this here, with ‘Global Cooling’ appearing in the first words of the subtitle of their book and Levitt now claiming on their blog that The Rumors of Our Global-Warming Denial Are Greatly Exaggerated.
We have to get this right. I have no problem with contrarian analysis carried out responsibly and in good faith. Sowing this kind of confusion is deeply irresponsible. Which brings me back to Rowan Williams’s talk in Southwark Cathedral on the climate crisis.
The Ecocidal Moment: Fashioning a Christian Response
Rowan Williams’s talk (html,mp3) uses Genesis and the story of Noah and the Flood to emphasises ‘the possibility of life, the transmission of life and the interrelated diversity of life’. In short we are being told how our reality is thoroughly interdependent, and humanity has a sacred responsibility towards the environment.
Now Buddhism—my own tradition—is built on this idea of interdependence. Some might think a theologian placing such emphasis on it would validate the Budhist way of seeing things over the Christian one, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is my experience that the main currency of great religions like Christianity is reality itself. (Here as always I am talking about best practitioners, who should always be used in evaluating the worth of any field of thought, and they generally always are, except by some people in assessing religion, in which case the most corrupted and confused practitioners get used). If great religions are founded in reality, then I expect certain features of reality to make their appearance in their discourses, and I have yet to be disappointed in this. Quite the reverse, it seems that I will never cease to be surprised and delighted by it.
Williams is discussing Alisdair McIntosh’s Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and The Human Condition, and in one passage explains how the breakup of our environment is reflecting our psycho-spiritual state: when one breaks down, the other won’t be far behind. (Note he also talks about being ‘liberation from a cycle of behaviour that is keeping me, indeed most of us, in a dangerous state’—another recurrent theme in Buddhist teachings).
Start from here and the significance of small changes is obvious. If I ask what’s the point of my undertaking a modest amount of recycling my rubbish or scaling down my air travel, the answer is not that this will unquestionably save the world within six months, but in the first place that it’s a step towards liberation from a cycle of behaviour that is keeping me, indeed most of us, in a dangerous state – dangerous, that is, to our human dignity and self-respect. McIntosh writes that ‘unless the psycho-spiritual roots of this are grasped, our best efforts will amount to no more than “displacement activity”‘ (p.219). So we must begin by recognising that our ecological crisis is part of a crisis of what we understand by our humanity; it is part of a general process of losing our ‘feel’ for what is appropriately human, a loss that has been going on for some centuries and which some cultures and economies have been energetically exporting to the whole world. It is a loss that manifests itself in a variety of ways. It has to do with the erosion of rhythms in work and leisure, so that the old pattern of working days interrupted by a day of rest has been dangerously undermined; a loss of patience with the passing of time so that speed of communication has become a good in itself; a loss of patience which shows itself in the lack of respect and attention for the very old and the very young, and a fear in many quarters of the ageing process – a loss of the ability to accept that living as a material body in a material world is a risky thing. It is a loss whose results have become monumentally apparent in the financial crisis of the last twelve months. We have slowly begun to suspect that we have allowed ourselves to become addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost. A good deal of the talk and activity around the financial collapse has the marks of McIntosh’s ‘displacement activity’ – precisely because it fails to see where the roots of the problem lie; in our amnesia about the human calling.
This shifting around, changing of the subject and inability to focus—displacement activity—as I have already pointed out, seems to be a common feature of climate-change sceptics. McIntosh and Williams seem to be hinting (or perhaps more than hinting) that the modern displacement activity is a sign of a kind of psycho-spiritual malaise that undermines ethics. Indeed if ethics is based in the mind then this makes complete sense. Interestingly, I conclude that this is the central theme of Mansfield Park.
Update
Stephen Dubner has come out swinging with a post on the Freakonomics blog. As Krugman says process arguments won’t cut it as there are real problems with the ‘Global Cooling’ chapter, which Brad De Long explains in meticulous detail. Krugman’s article has a good round up, concluding that they Levitt and Dubner have kicked off an interesting discussion, though probably not the one they wanted. Just so. Part of the problem is that Levitt and Dubner see themselves as the little guy trying to question the status quo, but as Yglesias points out, this is preposterous. They might be going up against the hard won consensus in climate science, but in every other way they are representing the status quo interests of the rich and powerful.
Update the Second
Brad De Long has an inspired overview of what is so wrong with the ‘Global Cooling’ chapter of Levitt & Dubner. In De Long’s view Levitt isn’t thinking like an economist, which is of course quite compatible with the notion of him not thinking clearly, but we get a marvellous explanation of how good economists think to avoid the dismal traps of their trade. (That it is so easy to do lazy economics underlines how difficult it is to do insightful economics and increases my respect for good economists.)
Free Will, Super Freakocide and Mansfield Park
(See below for updates.)
Horgan on Free Will
On his blog at the Centre for Science Writing ,John Horgan has been looking at Free Will, ethics and science, his latest post skewering an Einstein quote using a quintessential classical physics analogy (lunar orbits) to suggest that Free Will is an illusion.
I agree with John’s broad thesis, about the importance of not undermining people’s sense of Free Will, as it can only lead to all sorts of confusion in ethics. I disagree with John’s line of reasoning that consciousness can emerge from classical physics with complexity, but this is relatively minor point. It seems clear enough to me that the quantum theory re-established the ideal aspect of reality that classical physics was missing. Henry Stapp has provided the best account I know of this in Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer, so John’s choice of Einstein was perfect, Einstein himself clearly identifying the ideal aspects of the new physics as objectionable and fingering Berkeley, who saw immediately the problems of scientific materialism, and has been quite vindicated. I said this in a comment to the post.
A materialist ontology is great for working out lunar orbits and a great deal of natural science, but note, not atomic physics. Dogmatically insisting that it is reality is not wise, and actually goes counter to experience at the most basic level. It is the mark of a fanatic. But more to the point it is as inappropriate for thinking about ethics as it is appropriate for thinking about classical physics. Ethics is founded in psychology, as classical physics is founded on physical causation (as Joseph Butler understood), but if you deny the reality of the mind you undercut ethics.
Looked at another way, psychology is a critical factor in determining whether folks act ethically or not. If I am in a blind rage with someone then that will predispose me to act unethically (but with the right preparation I still ought to be able to restrain myself, clearly). Similarly if I am confused by sophists into believing that Free Will is an illusion then that confusion will make it more difficult for me to counter temptations to follow reactive impulses so that I can do what is best for the longer term and wider good.
Which brings me to the brouhaha over Superfreakonomics.
Superfreakonomics
The tubes have been humming over the ‘Global Cooling’ fifth chapter of Levitt and Dubner’s nearly-published Superfreakonomics. I hold some quite contrarian views myself and, while Quiggin@CT, reflecting on the kerfuffle, opines that ‘“contrarianism” is mostly contrary to reality’, I am far more sceptical, and quite suspicious of any use of ‘reality’ in such a general context. Healy@CT, following Gelman’s pondering of why ‘”pissing off liberals” is so delightfully transgressive and oh-so-fun, whereas “pissing off conservatives” is boring and earnest’ concludes that the earnestness derives from it being ‘really an effort to rebut some ridiculous charge’—reinforcing Gelman’s point about liberals taking themselves too seriously and making themselves into easy targets.
I have too much respect for reality to allow it to be so abused, and so biased to my own side and/or Conventional Wisdom.
That said I am heartened to see Superfreakonomics being promptly and closely scrutinised, because, unlike its predecessor, it is dealing in a serious subject—the future of the biosphere—in a frivolous way (see also Klein, who looks at the book’s very first example). Contrary to general opinion, the Kyoto protocol worked pretty well, and as Nicholas Stern explains in today’s observer, there is a real prospect to make meaningful progress. (Update: Yglesias has a good post explaining some more careless assumptions that Levitt and Dubner seem to be making on this.)
Yet, in my experience, whenever the claims of the so called global warming sceptics are subjected to scrutiny they fall apart, and there is no consistency to their critiques, often embracing contradictory positions, pushing the idea that there is no global warming one day and that global warming is not the consequence of industrial activity the next. And so we seem to see this here, with ‘Global Cooling’ appearing in the first words of the subtitle of their book and Levitt now claiming on their blog that The Rumors of Our Global-Warming Denial Are Greatly Exaggerated.
We have to get this right. I have no problem with contrarian analysis carried out responsibly and in good faith. Sowing this kind of confusion is deeply irresponsible. Which brings me back to Rowan Williams’s talk in Southwark Cathedral on the climate crisis.
The Ecocidal Moment: Fashioning a Christian Response
Rowan Williams’s talk (html,mp3) uses Genesis and the story of Noah and the Flood to emphasises ‘the possibility of life, the transmission of life and the interrelated diversity of life’. In short we are being told how our reality is thoroughly interdependent, and humanity has a sacred responsibility towards the environment.
Now Buddhism—my own tradition—is built on this idea of interdependence. Some might think a theologian placing such emphasis on it would validate the Budhist way of seeing things over the Christian one, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is my experience that the main currency of great religions like Christianity is reality itself. (Here as always I am talking about best practitioners, who should always be used in evaluating the worth of any field of thought, and they generally always are, except by some people in assessing religion, in which case the most corrupted and confused practitioners get used). If great religions are founded in reality, then I expect certain features of reality to make their appearance in their discourses, and I have yet to be disappointed in this. Quite the reverse, it seems that I will never cease to be surprised and delighted by it.
Williams is discussing Alisdair McIntosh’s Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and The Human Condition, and in one passage explains how the breakup of our environment is reflecting our psycho-spiritual state: when one breaks down, the other won’t be far behind. (Note he also talks about being ‘liberation from a cycle of behaviour that is keeping me, indeed most of us, in a dangerous state’—another recurrent theme in Buddhist teachings).
This shifting around, changing of the subject and inability to focus—displacement activity—as I have already pointed out, seems to be a common feature of climate-change sceptics. McIntosh and Williams seem to be hinting (or perhaps more than hinting) that the modern displacement activity is a sign of a kind of psycho-spiritual malaise that undermines ethics. Indeed if ethics is based in the mind then this makes complete sense. Interestingly, I conclude that this is the central theme of Mansfield Park.
Update
Stephen Dubner has come out swinging with a post on the Freakonomics blog. As Krugman says process arguments won’t cut it as there are real problems with the ‘Global Cooling’ chapter, which Brad De Long explains in meticulous detail. Krugman’s article has a good round up, concluding that they Levitt and Dubner have kicked off an interesting discussion, though probably not the one they wanted. Just so. Part of the problem is that Levitt and Dubner see themselves as the little guy trying to question the status quo, but as Yglesias points out, this is preposterous. They might be going up against the hard won consensus in climate science, but in every other way they are representing the status quo interests of the rich and powerful.
Update the Second
Brad De Long has an inspired overview of what is so wrong with the ‘Global Cooling’ chapter of Levitt & Dubner. In De Long’s view Levitt isn’t thinking like an economist, which is of course quite compatible with the notion of him not thinking clearly, but we get a marvellous explanation of how good economists think to avoid the dismal traps of their trade. (That it is so easy to do lazy economics underlines how difficult it is to do insightful economics and increases my respect for good economists.)