Metadelusion: June 2012

Friday, June 29, 2012

Science background reading

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

There's stuff, in patterns. Patterns emerge from the stuff. Stuff emerges from the patterns. One or the other description may be more useful, depending on the goal. We differ from most stuff/patterns in an important respect: given sufficient time and effort, we can explain how stuff works with increasing accuracy. Our explanations are valuable because they allow us to correctly predict what stuff will do. Worrying about whether stuff is real wastes time that would be better spent understanding stuff. Stuff is real enough, and there's lots of it, and it's complicated and potentially lethal and moving fast, so there's no time to waste. This is the essence of pragmatism.

"A theory that proves itself more successful than its rivals in predicting and controlling our world is said to be nearer the truth. This is an operational notion of truth employed by scientists."
-Wikipedia, Pragmaticism

"Einstein liked to say that the Moon is 'out there' even when no one is observing it."
-Wikipedia, Local realism

Monday, June 25, 2012

Question 4 appears to be a trap. If I say that science is aesthetic, then it's merely subjective, in which case how is it any more "true" than art? On the other hand if I say science is objective, then how do scientists make value judgments? This trap was a major theme of Robert Pirsig's classic philosophical novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". He attempted to solve the dilemma by positing the existence of "Quality," a preconscious, instinctual value awareness that was neither subject nor object. He explicitly equated Quality with Zen, e.g. by stating "The Quality that can be defined is not the real Quality" (paraphrasing Lao Tze).

Unlike Pirsig I'm not going to retreat into mysticism. The scientific search for better explanations may involve aesthetics, but that's not what makes it scientific. What makes it scientific is the requirement that explanations be testable and predictive. This requirement is what distinguishes science from other human endeavors.

If we generalize aesthetics by equating it with value judgments, ALL endeavors involve aesthetics, and not only human endeavors either. Dolphins and ants also make value judgments, though we might find them hard to relate to. But even if you reject my broad definition of aesthetics, clearly many if not most human endeavors involve aesthetics. However I challenge you to identify a non-scientific human endeavor which requires all explanations to be testable and predictive.

So far the only thing I've described as "boring" is mysticism. Mysticism bores me because it's childish and defeatist. Creationism is a good example. Faced with one of the most challenging, fascinating questions of all time--how complex life came to exist on earth--Creationists say: "don't ask." What could be more boring than that? There are no mysteries in science, only unsolved problems.

Freedom is such a vague and overloaded term that I can't even begin to answer questions 1-3 until we've agreed on a definition of freedom in this context. The same goes for autonomy.

I will look at Hubble before I respond to post below or write more myself. I haven't yet read your post below before posting these questions. After looking at Hubble, I will repond to Hubble experience and to your post below. But I would like to post the following questions I've composed for your consideration in upcoming posts.

1. Do you see any notion of a claim to freedom or autonomy on the part of scientists? If so, what's the nature of this claim to freedom? Is it freedom "to" something, or freedom "from" something?
2. Does this claim to freedom relate in any way to the claim to freedom or autonomy on the part of artists?
3. Does this claim to freedom relate in anyway to the claim to freedom of capitalists?
4. Is science an aesthetic activity?
5. Are scientists artists? (or visa versa) Is there some relationship between art and science?
6. How does this relate to the ideas of "interesting" versus "boring" that you mention. In other words, what is the significance to you of the spectrum of interesting--boring as a measure of value?

Sunday, June 24, 2012

From my point of view the allegation that science is a delusion is as bizarre as Christians claiming to talk to Jesus every morning. It's as if we're standing in front of the pyramids at Giza, and you say they're a delusion. I have an urge to bang my (or your?) head on them until you agree they're real. I don't see how to proceed unless we can agree that the universe is real, and that its properties and behavior can be determined with increasing accuracy, given sufficient time and effort.

The Pythagorean theorem relating the three sides of a right triangle has at least 270 known proofs. If you somehow managed to disprove it, reality would come unglued. We'd be unable to measure the distance between two points. Maps would be rubbish. Astronomy and navigation would be impossible. Whole branches of mathematics would disappear, taking most of science with them. Social and physical structures built in accordance with Cartesian geometry would collapse in an avalanche. You might enjoy that, but I assure you it won't happen. The Pythagorean theorem is as true as anything can be. I propose to use it as a proxy for the definition of "truth" in the scientific sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem

People can claim whatever they like as personal, subjective truth, but that doesn't make it true for others. Science is concerned with explanations that are predictive, regardless of whether people believe them or not. Most people refused to believe Copernicus at the time, and Galileo was forced to recant, but even if the geocentric model were accepted today, it would still be false, because it always was. You can believe that the sun won't come up tomorrow, and if you're schizophrenic, maybe it won't from your point of view, but for the rest of us, it most assuredly will. Or as Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying, "You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts."

I find it disheartening and surreal to be debating such elementary matters in this day and age, and I increasingly empathize with the tribulations of science teachers, and not only in the red states. According to a recent poll, nearly half of American adults believe "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." This ghastly result did not vary significantly with degree of higher education, suggesting that whatever people are studying in American universities, it usually isn't evolution. See:

http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm

I wasn't kidding when I said we've included Pythagorean proofs in the messages we send to extraterrestrials, by the way. You might be interested to know what else we've sent. We've sent the atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up DNA, to demonstrate that we've grasped not only chemistry but also the chemistry of life. We've sent the relative position of the Sun to the center of the Galaxy and 14 pulsars, a diagram of our solar system, and many other hard-won truths which you apparently consider unimportant, delusional or both.

You also allege that science is an expression of shame at the ephemeral nature of existence, but again this indicates a crucial misunderstanding about science. In fact science squarely faces impermanence, far more so than any other human endeavor. Geology and paleontology routinely deal with events that occurred millions or billions of years ago. Cosmology investigates the origins of the universe, and predicts events in the distant future, long after Earth is destroyed by the sun. Scientists don't expect perfect explanations during their lives, or any number of lives. They do however hope for explanations to improve with time and effort. The scientific enterprise is cumulative, and must be sustained over many generations to be effective. Science thus depends on the continuity provided by civilization. Science is also communal: scientists collaborate, and both criticize and build on the work of their peers. If each scientist had to discover everything from scratch by himself, we wouldn't have made it past the Renaissance.

Regarding Jasper Johns, you misunderstand me. I am NOT claiming that his paintings are universal or in any way similar to scientific facts. Science has both required and enabled power, and the consequences have proved corrosive to traditional human ethical structures. Humanity may not be capable of adapting quickly enough to the disturbing, "disruptive" truths revealed by science. Some would plunge us into a prescientific dark age in order to avoid this outcome. From my point of view this is similar to destroying modern paintings because they're products of civilization. In both cases the impulse is regressive.

"whether our 'true nature,' fate and destiny is to live in competition and domination (power) or symbiosis and mutuality (wholeness, self-regulation)."

This is another false distinction. All species survive by some COMBINATION of competition and cooperation. The details are complex and vary from place to place, even on tiny scales.

For example, of all animals, ants have the second most highly organized societies, after humans. They exhibit extraordinary degrees of specialization, cooperation, and altruism. Ants normally sacrifice themselves heroically for the welfare of the colony. Ant colonies also periodically conduct all-out wars with other colonies, regardless of whether the colonies are of the same species. These are wars of extermination which only end when one of the colonies is completely destroyed, its territory occupied and its members enslaved or cannibalized. See e.g. Edward O. Wilson for electrifying descriptions of ant life.

Biologically, evolution is the differential survival of self-replicating organisms. Attributes that contribute to survival tend to become more prevalent, while attributes that detract from it tend to die out. On Earth at least, self-replication is an elaborate chemical reaction involving DNA. The attributes themselves are not necessarily competitive or cooperative. The competition in evolution comes from the fact that the energy supply (ultimately sunlight) is limited, and therefore increase of one organism often comes at the expense of another.

Other applications of the term evolution, e.g. to the development of human social systems, or to the spread of ideas or computer viruses, are purely metaphorical, so to avoid confusion I would prefer we restrict use of the term to its biological meaning as stated above.

Your denial of non-human perspective doesn't prevent me from achieving it. In fact this perspective is the source of antihumanism. I reject the statement that "in relationship to cosmic time, nothing matters." To me, the notion that value exists only for humans is just another example of narcissistic humanism. Why should we assume that other organisms don't value their existence? Why shouldn't the universe have intrinsic value?

A note about blogging:

Because I have never blogged before, as we discussed, I am experiencing culture shock about how radically the blog format disrupts the way I'm used to understanding a discussion by ordering in terms of most recent comment first. I can't imagine how anyone could make sense out of it reading it in backwards order, but it encourages people to read it backwards and makes it difficult to read it forwards. It seems to me literally like what it would be like to read a novel from back to front. Have you really read that novel?

It almost seems like the blog format is a way of creating incoherance in a discussion. But I know this is a paranoid anti-technological conspiracy theory....or is it?????

"Are you opposed to power, on the grounds that authority is impossible without it?"

This question is unanswerable to me because I don't understand what you mean. Could you ask it in a more specific way?

I do think that science system concentrates power and is disruptive and destabilizing as the market system does, or rather that they are actually part of the same system.

With the question do I feel lucky not to be bacteria? When I said I didn't understand this question before, you said this question had to do with the risk of being a mammal, and facing extinction, versus the security of being a lower life form and surviving as long as the planet?

I think this question again involves attempting to transcend the human perspective. But instead of getting really huge in scale, you're going in the opposite direction. I still think it's a delusion for a human scientist to think they could transcend the human perspective, the human measure. But the interesting thing is that after doing that, you then embrace being human, with relief. And it seems to see the human from this perspective as being more heroic, rather than just accidental, in being willing to exchange security for the rewards of culture and human progress.

This question also brings up symbiosis and the idea that there is no clear separation between our identity and that of the bacteria, fungus and viruses. Inside our cells are a collaboration of different life forms that came together, according to Lynn Margulis. "I am we."

It also relates to the different uses of evolution, between the conflictual, competitive, winners-losers, best fit for the environment view, and the symbiotic view of mutual influence, in which every being is somethings else's environment, and beings produce their environment, are not just impacted by it.

The relationship between evolution and human progress and the cultural struggle over the definition of evolution in the service of ethical or political goals is underneath this conversation all over the place. Evolution is made into an image of progress, they become like mirror images. Evolution becomes the prototype for the market, science, arts. I haven't read much about evolution, but it's a ground where are the cultural battles are played out, similar to the art world issues of the '80's. A site for a contest of meaning about the possibility of transcendence. And people like Richard Dawkins and David Dennett -- I don't think it's just about them attacking religion, I think they also are opposed to the believers in transcendence who are evolutionary scientists.

And I definitely think the contest of meaning is over whether our "true nature," fate and destiny is to live in competition and domination (power) or symbiosis and mutuality (wholeness, self-regulation). Debates over evolution become a way to define what's possible...Like the contest of meaning about pre-civilization, the short, brutish life versus utopianism of John Zerzan, and Ted Kaczynski's pragmatic middle ground.

On question 4, concerning the fate of the human species in terms of millions of years, this is the kind of question that contains so many of your own assumptions that I can't answer it on that level.

You are proposing questions from an inhuman perspective upon being human. In relationship to cosmic time, nothing matters. I am a human being, not the creator of the universe looking down upon all of time and creation. It's a question of scale. You are framing the question within a timescale within which human agency doesn't even exist. And then you are asking me to express my human will (my sense of agency) about what should be done. To me this is like arguing about how many angels fit on the head of a pin. It evokes a longing for God-like power and control over our fate that can never be satisfied, while annihilating the "zoomed in" realm of our own human-scale existence (our collective human subjectivity) in which we can meaningfully participate.

It also suggests a longing for humanity to have some kind of absolute, eternal value.

Can any human, even a scientist, actually does transcend their humanity, for even a second? Is the objective, third-person (out-of-self) perspective of science, which claims to be the unique truth, a scientific delusion? And in fact a shame at being human, vulnerable, and transient?

Finally, does that third-person, objectifying and aestheticizing perspective lead to the legitimation or rationalization of dehumanizing practices and treating people as objects, simply by treating their experience as unreal and off-the-books, externalized out of the system of thought, in the same way that mainstream economics excludes the lifeworld?

I'm thinking of how marginal groups are first dehumanized by the power structure, to prepare acceptance for violence against them.

So the question is, whether the objective point of view promoted by "scientism" lays the ground for violence or oppression of those objectified.

You have said that the Hubble perspective confers humility by showing that humans are mere accidents. That a human-centered perspective is narcissistic.

This brings up the issue of "man is the measure of all things" which is what you say is at the center of what you define as Humanism in the Anti-Humanist manifesto. I think the implications of whether to use a human scale -- in regards to your question 4 on the lifetimes of species -- could have a different relation to humility than you say.

There is an issue of humility in the perspective, and not just in what's being contemplated.

A first thought. I am using the term "pure science" to refer to that science which distinguishes itself from applied science, and the ethical issues associated with it. To you the word "pure" is redundant, because you already assume that science is pure. Thus, according to you, a scientist would reject the term because it implies that there could be such a thing as "impure science" and that would violate the definition of science as inherently pure. In other words, if it's not pure, it's not science.

I am inventing the term "pure science" to draw attention to science's claim to be pure, so that claim to purity (ultimate truth) can be seen for what it is, only a claim. Science's claim to inherent purity (truthfulness) and indeed a unique claim to truthfulness, is what I want to question. First, that there actually is any separation between applied science and "pure science" or what you would call "science." The definition of science, as scientists use it, is self-serving and ideological. Scientists do not have authority over the definition of science. Scientists would like to disassociate themselves from applied science, in the name of their autonomy, the universal value of their work. This universal, autonomous quality, or transcendent quality, is also ascribed to art in our culture.

Therefore it's very relevant that you also invoked Jasper Johns as being sacrosanct. I wouldn't say that Jasper Johns paintings should be destroyed, but I would say that they have no more claim to universal, transcendent value than does science. This also draws attention to the aesthetic value that you ascribe to science. I'm very interested in the ideas about freedom and autonomy (and independence from or transcendence of social conditions and power) that are invoked in three areas: science, art, and the market system. There is something very similar and interrelated about the ideal of freedom in these three pursuits.

I haven't yet looked at the Hubble images. I have had it as an intention, but since I haven't done it, although I am also busy, I clearly am resisting doing it. My first thought is that I'm not interested, because I can't imagine how it would impact on my view of things, it seems off the track of what I'm thinking about (I am preoccupied with the subjective). The perspective of the Hubble seems diametrically opposed to the perspective that seems humanly relevant to me. So the block in me is, "Ok, I need to look up that image, but it's irrelevant to what we're talking about; and I'm not going to see the significance in it that Chris sees." I will make myself look at it and try to understand the significance that it has for you......when I can make myself! I promise I will.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Unanswered previous questions

What scientist would willingly be called impure? Where is the journal of impure science?
Should Jasper Johns' paintings be destroyed because he used acrylic, which is a type of plastic?
Are you opposed to power, on the grounds that authority is impossible without it?
The average mammal exists for a million years. So far we've managed 100,000 years, a mere tenth of the average. What is it exactly that you hope for? Another 900,000 years? Do you wish for a kinder, gentler period in human history? If so, how long would you expect it to last? Is there any precedent for it in human history? In non-human history?
Many parasites are born, live their entire lives, and die of old age entirely enclosed in food (e.g. many of the bacteria in your body). Should we be jealous of this? Or should we feel lucky?
Why haven't you looked at the Hubble telescope images even though I sent you links to them twice? Are you prejudiced against them and if so why?

Reminder notes: issues arising within this conversation:
what is the purpose of the conversation? - is the aim that one convinces the other (capitulation)? or dialogue as mutual development, revealing of assumptions
Discussion of how emotionalism in conversation indicates our dependency upon and investment in ideas that are being threatened. Emotionalism as tracer dye, investigating the conflicts in assumptions is fruitful, rather than angry conflicts being a problem to be avoided.
autonomy: art science market/embedded-means/ends
freedom from what? their work and discoveries of universal value to humanity?
Are scientists like artists, in their social function? (Bohemians)
is ethics separable from science?
Are scientists responsible for how their discoveries are actually used?
Science or "pure science" (does "science" already mean pure?)
authority over terminology, definitions and rules of conversation
science as a system - like tools versus technology - is it neutral?
systems of knowledge - how do you evaluate them? what makes them truthful?
does the word science need to be subdivided? or is everything using the scientific method one thing called science? Is science really about it's method?
Is science an accumulation of true facts and the progressive elimination of errors and superstitions?
Spirituality=errors, delusions, confusions, superstitions Science=facts
Spirituality=first-person perspective, subjective (error) Science=third-person perspective, objective (true)
Spirituality=childish, irresponsible, wishful thinking; Science=adult, responsible, facing the truth
Is science a higher level of knowledge above all other knowledge systems (tradition, religion, mysticism) Kuhn putting everything on level ground.
Is science a religion? Christianity and science - is science really opposed to Christianity, or is it an outgrowth of christianity?
Meaning of the third person perspective (power) (I-It relationships)
Point of view
Time frame (cosmic history? lifetime? 7 generations?)
Is objectivity more truthful than subjectivity?
Science as separating the wheat from the chaff, conclusively proving what is true.
What does "falsifiable" mean?
Determinism
Buddhism
Science as the best of the human. "do science well, but do ethics badly" idea.
Progress
"People are expecting scientists do do something they can't do, they can only provide the facts, they can't solve the political problem."
Political domain is psychology and sociology
I think about psychology and sociology, non-objective; Chris involved with objective;
Mutually exclusive ways of thinking?
Can we even communicate, or are we always going past each other, and not making contact?
Chris: he's asking important questions that I don't answer. Accountability for meeting the points that have been raised. I feel same thing.
First, huge issues being raised, a kind of pile-up. Second, you can't answer a question if you don't concur with underlying assumptions. It's meaningless. You can only answer by starting to talk about the assumptions.
Mutual meaninglessness of our questions and answers.
Thomas Kuhn addresses this!
Idea of trying to slow down the conversation and keep it focused.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Hi Chris ! Can't believe you got all this in here. Is there a way to reverse the order or is always latest most recent?

I hope you'll include this discussion of the title in the blog!

sounds good.

FWIW here's a style reference supporting my contention that the hyphen is unnecessary.

meta-analysis <= hyphen is required because the prefix ends and the base word begins with the same vowel
metadelusion <= acceptable

Hyphens aren't allowed in the blog URL, but I'm OK with using one in the title (which appears on each page) if you think it's important. In my opinion it's unnecessary as many common words have a meta prefix without the hyphen, e.g. metaphysics, metaprogramming, metatheorem, etc. Whether the hyphen is required is merely a typographical convention subject to change. It seems words that begin with a vowel commonly have the hyphen, e.g. meta-economics not metaeconomics.

BTW what meta-delusion means is delusion about delusion, according to Wikipedia:

'The modern sense of "an X about X" has given rise to concepts like "meta-discussion", a discussion about discussion, "meta-joke", a joke about jokes, and "metaprogramming", writing programs that write programs.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta

It sounds right to me! Shall we go with it??

Sounds ok, but would a hypen be good?

I like structuraldelusion, but not collapseofcivilization which seems too general.

Spiritual Liquidation was actually an anti-spiritual thing at the time! I did a book burning. Literally, "everything must go!"

But I understand how it could be distorting. Structural delusion seems even handed and specific.

How about metadelusion??

It has a similar meaning but it's shorter and catchier and only has very few hits in Google which is good.

I understand about the Ted issue and agree. I guess I don't want to use the word spiritual because I equate spirituality with delusion whereas you don't, so it makes it appear that I'm conceding the point when I'm not. Also it's a heavily loaded term, and associates with religion and religious blogs. So far I like structuraldelusion the best but I'll keep trying.

also available:
collapseofcivilization

structuraldelusion

I don't like surrogate activities, because that's Ted's thing and I don't want to have Ted's ideas about science come into it at the level of the title and confuse things.

Here are some ideas:

do you like "spiritual liquidation"? That was the name of a project I did when I went back on drugs. I don't know if I showed it to you, but I made a prayer card you would probably enjoy that said "cease all spiritual activities" It also had a little button, "did you find everything you were looking for?" If you wanted we could put the image up, which is a really good image.

surrogateactivities is available!

It's from a list I have of slogans you came up with.

I tried mistakesweremade but it's already taken...

I'd just like to understand whether it's a blog that only we know about it, or if it's public in the sense of being of being part of the COE website.

OK I'll see what I can do. I think a blog would be the easiest, because they're dead easy to set up and don't require any maintenance.

That sounds fine, except that I wouldn't want to have to worry too much about expressing myself in good form. I'm not sure if you mean it would be a public page on COE. Trying to write well is so arduous for me, that I don't want to have to do that. So if you don't have standards of quality of writing, it sounds and helpful. That would be good to excize anything that might violate someone's privacy. Also then we could add things as they occur to us and not be in haste to keep up with email pace.

Would you be amenable to my making our dialogue into a web page? I could redact it to remove names or any other personal or identifying information. This would also make it easy for you to keep track of what's been said previously and/or download the content into a Word file.

I'm at work. I'm sorry for not responding to the questions you raised, and I can't spend time right now with your current email, but thank you for responding so fully. I meant to just briefly address the "confusing ethics with pure sciene" and got carried away. Also I haven't yet had a chance to look at the Hubble images.

Interestingly enough, Mitch Hampton is working on a written piece about "scientism" right now.

His focus is "is experience real?"

The whole thing is a little overstimulating!

Actually, when you mention art, I think there is a strong relationship between the idea of autonomy in science, the market and art. The autonomy of science is the idea that I am raising. Or even more, the meaning of the idea of autonomy.

Have you read woody allen's short story about a chess by mail game when the order of interchange starts to get confused? It reminds me of what we're doing.

I think its about subjective versus objective concept of "truth". The main point about Buddhism is that it's subjective, but using a subjective method to try to transcend subjectivity (ego); almost like trying to become aware of instinctive nature so as not to be ruled by it.

Do you know a way to copy emails into a word file? I'm getting lost in all the emails.
Anyway, can't respond today, I got very excited last night about a new article about mental illness.

The distinction you make between science and pure science has no basis in fact. There is no such category as pure science. What scientist would willingly be called impure? Where is the journal of impure science? Science either conforms with the definition of science as previously stated, or it isn't science. Jeremy Jackson's ethical polemics are NOT science, they are his opinions, and he would be the first to admit this. However any results he publishes in peer-reviewed journals ARE science, and in this area he is obliged to conform to the same standards as any other scientist. His peers check his methods and results, and if they are found wanting he is refuted mercilessly, regardless of how popular he may be.

Biology is as falsifiable as any other science and Jeremy Jackson would be horribly offended if you accused him of practicing non-hierarchical science. Conversely Richard Dawkins would be equally offended if you accused him of being a tool of the power structure. Dividing scientists into good guys and bad guys may be rhetorically convenient, but it's not supported by the evidence. Bad guys do great science, and vice versa. Robert Oppenheimer was reviled for his political views, but his science was sound. Albert Einstein was a pacifist hero but he spent half his life refining a theory that was bunk. Scientists try to explain phenomena, they make errors, the errors are eventually caught, and that's how science advances.

Science depends on the power and leisure provided by civilization, in order to develop the critical infrastructure of logic, mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. The entire scientific enterprise develops hierarchically; more specialized fields are built out of blocks provided by more fundamental fields. You may dislike science because it depends on civilization, but the same can be said of modern art. Should Jasper Johns' paintings be destroyed because he used acrylic, which is a type of plastic?

Pythagorean geometry hasn't changed in 2,500 years, regardless of whether it was useful to the many power structures that have come and gone since then. The power structure of ancient Greece is long gone, but their geometry is still with us. It was always true, and it will remain true after humanity disappears. That's why we include Pythagorean proofs in our messages to extraterrestrials.

Of course science has intensified humanity's ethical problems. No one is saying otherwise. That's what I mean when I say science has revealed disturbing truths. Science both requires power, and enables power. It's a positive feedback, and positive feedback is notoriously hard to control, as we're currently discovering with climate change. Power could be directed towards egalitarian aims, but that's determined by ethics, not science. As I said previously, humans could turn out to be great at science but lousy at ethics. On the other hand, there's no scientific proof that humanity has to use its power to destroy itself. In the absence of intergalactic distress calls, E.O.Wilson's claim that intelligence tends to snuff itself out remains merely his (and my) OPINION.

I sometimes wonder if you're simply opposed to power, on the grounds that authority is impossible without it. This would at least make sense. The problem is that power has always been with us, the myth of the noble savage notwithstanding. Early humans wielded power, exerted authority, and modified their environment, just more slowly and on a smaller scale. Fire is power, and we can accuse Homo erectus of abusing it, but I'm sure they were glad to have it.

I asked some questions at the end of my previous reply, which I believe cut to the heart of this whole matter. I look forward to receiving your answers.

There are two easy to address areas where I think you misunderstand me.

One is, I am not at all confused about the separation between the application of science and science itself. That claim to separation is explicitly what I am addressing and questioning. I think that the very severing of application or ethics from science, and the idea of a pure science, is the very guise under which science gains it's authority. The idea of "science for science" sake is, I think, very related to the idea of "art for art's sake" -- a universal zone that transcends the realm of social power. I believe that this very idea of purity and transcendence of science acts to veil the relationship of science to the power structure, and allows the power structure to legitimate itself through science and expertise.

I'm wondering if there could be a distinction made between scientific activity that is about a relationship of love for "creation" (like Rachel Carson, or Jeremy Jackson), a kind of egalitarian, participatory or non-hierarchical science; these are essentially dissidents expressing a sense of responsibility and involvement, emotion, subjectivity, value, respect, humility, etc. Spiritual values, if you will. Then there is scientific activity that is aimed at gaining new powers. Like genetics.

In my view, those who investigate new means of power, even at the pure level before it is applied, are part of the process of providing more power to those who already hold power, military, commercial,and social; and who will use whatever power is available to them for political purposes. Using science as being objective/technical/apolitical, the power structure then can make political decisions but claim that they are scientific and technical decisions. So I don't think pure science is autonomous. The applied science of today is the pure science of yesterday. The ethical problems raised by the exercise of new powers could be seen as having been there all along, unacknowledged, as the groundwork for new power-concentrating technologies was being laid.

I think artists and scientists are actually alot alike, in their supposed autonomy.

The other thing I wanted to note is that I do have strong emotions about psychiatric drugs, but I too had my life saved in a hospital by the medical system when I almost died of spinal meningitis.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I am furiously applying my Buddhist awareness to your latest missive.

Have you heard the Mark Twain, "He had the cool, calm confidence of a Christian with four aces."

PS: One of my all-time favorite quotes is from the movie "Providence" (dir. Alain Resnais). Towards the end, Clive Langham (played by John Geilgud) says: "I disapprove of death. You begin to sniff the temptation of believing in something."

I included a link to a famous Hubble telescope image in one of my previous replies. Here it is again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhilcUK-1274438506.jpg

Or are you saying you're opposed to looking at such images on principle? If so, on what grounds? In case not, here's a link to the official Hubble repository, where you'll find many other famously spectacular images:

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/

Perhaps the most famous of all is this one:

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr1995044a/

Thanks for the detail and I will think about it (I'm at work), it's very interesting. It's funny but one reason I thought of Kuhn was because he discusses exactly what I think is happening in our discussion as a paradigm phenomena. I'll try to find it.

I will have to wonder about what measures the superiority of a knowledge system, and the relationship of truth to facts.

I should mention that I've never looked in a hubble telescope thought, or knowingly seen a hubble image.

I haven't read Kuhn but I already understand his premise (as described e.g. in Wikipedia) well enough to know I'm not interested. I'm certain that science is different in nature from and superior to other knowledge systems, and Kuhn is unlikely to persuade me otherwise. As I said he's a minority position at best. It seems bizarre to me to argue that science is not gradually progressive and cumulative, when there is such an abundance of evidence for the opposite conclusion. The fact that the structure of DNA couldn't have been discovered without electron microscopy is just one of countless examples.

Suppose I built a time machine, and personally took you on a journey to the past, to the future, and to distant galaxies. Afterwards you might agree that science is superior to other knowledge systems. Many people would anyway. My point is that this machine already exists. It's called the Hubble telescope, and both of us already took the journey. The difference between us is that for me the journey was a game-changer, but you weren't impressed by it.

I think the primary source of heat in this discussion is that you're determined to prove that science is ordinary, just another knowledge system. I reject that assertion, and as far as I'm concerned you haven't even come close to proving it, any more than Kuhn did. Nor do I agree that Buddhism can be equated with science because they're both observing "nature". This is just a backhanded attempt to make science ordinary, by hiding the fact that science is a superior mode of observation, superior in the sense that it allows us to actually to learn what's true and what's rubbish. Science has revealed more factual information about the universe in the last 200 years than Buddhism revealed in thousands of years of navel-gazing.

I dislike Buddhism precisely because its adherents try to pass it off as compatible with science, when in fact it is clearly an inferior system, filled with self-justifying assumptions that are neither falsifiable nor predictive. Buddhism shares this attempted elevation to scientific status with many other cults, including Scientology, and I assume the purpose is to make occultism more palatable to an increasingly well-educated and skeptical public, particularly in developed countries where superstition is now often regarded as a sign of childishness. Throughout most of history people were so ignorant that they were trivially manipulated by unjustified religious authority, but this has changed rapidly in the modern period (e.g. in Northern Europe) as a consequence of widespread access to higher education.

I don't dispute that we use paradigms in science, and that they occasionally change. However that they don't just change willy-nilly because some guy in a yellow robe says he's become enlightened. Scientists have to prove their cases, and formulate their thoughts rigorously. A scientific paradigm changes when the overwhelming majority of people possessing demonstrated competence in a relevant field agree that the new paradigm fits the existing evidence better than the old paradigm did. Scientific understanding evolves over time, and as with most phenomena, the changes are often non-linear.

I need to consider your responses, and appreciate the detail.

But you misunderstand me if you think I want to fight the universe so that humanity will last forever. My concern is for how we live in the present, during our existence.

Another quick note is that I'm not talking about limits to sense perception.

Regarding subjectivity, it's interesting to note that you feel science saved your life, and I feel science fucked me (and many other things) up.

My (chilled down) question would be, have you read Thomas Kuhn? I don't mean you should have, but the comment you made about Kuhn -- and I'm sure that he has his critics -- has nothing to do with what I took from Thomas Kuhn, which was that we see reality through wholistic paradigms, knowledge systems have a certain tautological quality (paradigms) and have to filter out what conflicts with their assumptions.

His book was seen as undermining the idea of science as gradualistically progressive and cumulative, and totally different in nature from and superior to other knowledge systems.

He argues that we always have to have a system of selecting what counts as real, what questions can be asked, what methods can be used. There is no such thing as working without reducing and keeping things out of your perceptual system. Then he talks about how paradigms are defensive, and collapse when anomalies become unavoidable. Kuhn is writing as much about psychology as anything else.

I'm not critcizing your comment, just saying I have no idea what it's referring to in terms of how Kuhn provided a way of seeing things to me.

I unsuccessfully tried to persuade Ted to read it. I'm not trying to say you should read it, but that I think it's to me it is a breakthrough kind of book that comes to mind for me over and over since I read it.

I wanted to write you an email before reading your reactions to my emotional and impulsive emails written last night. I really want to explore these things without being combative about it. I apologize for being aggressive, and also I realized it wasn't appropriate for me to bring up the market thing.

I have trouble holding my own with you on these matters, so I overcompensate.

I would like to understand the way our world views conflict or even are mutually negating.

But I don't want to be getting angry or provoking you to anger and setting off a chain reaction as keeps happening. This is the third time we've entered into this pattern, which arises with me reading something you've written, and reacting to it, etc. and we get more and more polarized.

So I'm going to read your emails, but just want you to know that I regret overreacting last night.

"Are you saying that your don't think that your human brain imposes a reductive structure upon your perception of reality?"

The human brain is limited, and that's why science is interesting and powerful: because it allows us to overcome those limits, expanding our reality to include phenomena that can't be perceived directly with our unaided senses, but are nonetheless real. We can't see ultraviolet radiation (though other animals can), but we can "see" it with appropriate instruments. We can't actually look at the surface of the sun, because it's too far away, and because it would blind us, but we now routinely "watch" storms on the surface of the sun. A more pertinent example: you can't see bacteria, and throughout most of human history their existence wasn't even posited. I can't speak for you but I'm glad my doctor knows about bacteria.

I understand this last example is painful for you, because you feel you were harmed by psychiatric medicine. That's why I'm using it! I'm highlighting the fact that your dislike of medicine is subjective, as is my gratitude to medicine for saving my life on Sleeping Giant mountain. However the existence of bacteria is NOT subjective. The discovery of bacteria could be good or bad, depending on your point of view: Medical outcomes have greatly improved, but the reduced mortality has contributed to overpopulation. Ethics isn't simple! Humans could turn out to be great at science but lousy at ethics.

"Are you saying that "falsifiability" isn't a filter than excludes information ?"

No. Information is an imprecise term. I'm saying falsifiability excludes everything that isn't science, and that's a good thing for science. In fact it's a description of how science works. In other words, falsifiability is an AXIOM of science. When I'm doing science, I expect assertions to be falsifiable, otherwise they're just rubbish. When I'm making art, I can assert nonsense all day long (think of Dadaism), and that's fine because art isn't falsifiable.

"Do you think that everything is theoretically knowable by humans?"

This is way outside my area of expertise! But based on my limited knowledge I'd say: probably not.

"Why are you so invested in determinism?"

I'm not. Determinism is simply a description of a common situation in science: given inputs that generate a known and repeatable outcome. What you're really asking me is, why am I so invested in the scientific method, and the answer is, because I'm inspired by the results. I like the truth, no matter how disturbing it may be. (c.f. Hubble telescope)

"Is not the shifting baseline an egocentric assumption that is delusional?"

No. It's a failure of perception. Our senses aren't adequate for perceiving very slow change, and this exactly the type of area in which science excels. The only reason we even KNOW that our baseline has shifted is because of science, specifically Jeremy Jackson's science in this case.

"I feel as though when I question your ideas you get pissed off or hurt."

I'm neither. Really! I believe my arguments seem paradoxical and conflicted to you but I assure you that vice versa is also the case. From my point of view, humans are both capable of grasping the truth and capable of willfully ignoring it. I wouldn't call that a paradox but I might call it poetic justice.

"If you send me your ideas you should also be willing to consider my ideas."

I do consider them! I just don't agree with them. I also feel that in certain cases they lack sufficient justification or assert unsound reasoning, but this could just be a problem of rhetoric. I'm used to defending my ideas tenaciously and in excruciating detail, after years of practice.

"If I can change, or you can change, anything can."

Lots of things can't change, on all scales, from your (and my) mortality to the destruction of earth by the sun in approximately one billion years from now. The average mammal exists for a million years. So far we've managed 100,000 years, a mere tenth of the average. What is it exactly that you hope for? Another 900,000 years? Do you wish for a kinder, gentler period in human history? If so, how long would you expect it to last? Is there any precedent for it in human history? In non-human history? All species survive by some combination of competition and cooperation. Some have it easier than others. Many parasites are born, live their entire lives, and die of old age entirely enclosed in food (e.g. many of the bacteria in your body). Should we be jealous of this? Or should we feel lucky? I feel lucky!

I feel as though when I question your ideas you get pissed off or hurt.

I need to respond because you are putting out very powerful arguments for ethical positions I disagree with.

Further, I find your own arguments to be paradoxical and conflicted in a way I have yet to be able to clarify to myself or articulate. I have been trying to do this, and I feel that we have differences that relate to buddhist principals, especially concerning individualism, determinism, dichotomizing/purifying, etc. By the way, I am not a buddhist, I am interested in the method of inquiry of buddism.

I know you mean to be provocative, and you are provocative.

If you send me your ideas you should also be willing to consider my ideas. I'm not a passive receptacle for other people's ideas. If your ideas are worth thinking about, mine are too. There's a way that when you respond to me you don't seem to actually entertain what I'm saying. It feels like you just block it out. You don't even respond to the problems of human psychology or how we represent things.

I am starting to feel more affirmative about my own ideas, as though I were waking up. I don't care whether I have a good memory or not.

I do very much appreciate your providing me with good information and sources, like jeremey and kevin anderson. I also appreciate much of what you observe and synthesize, your rhetorical capabilities, and creative expression, writing, emotional/visionary expression, etc. . I was thinking you could have a youtube channel called The Weather Report.

But, as you said, it comes down to ethics, i.e. spiritual values, not facts.

It comes down to what you choose to make of the facts.

The ideas you put forth create a situation of either/or. I don't accept that either/or.

Also, I cannot buy into hopelessness. If I can change, or you can change, anything can.

I am planning to do interviews with people concerning collapse! Should be interesting, and I hope you will consent to an interview... I just feel like I have to start doing some kind of inquiry type work or social engagement so it's not all bouncing around inside my skull. I'm most interested in the psychology of it.

I meant "I hope you don't experience this as hostile" because the previous two time it seemed to become hostile. You know that I have great respect for your intellect, knowledge, creativity and expressive, rhetorical capabilities.

Thomas Kuhn held that theory choice is irrational. This is a minority position in the philosophy of science. He by no means succeeded in refuting Karl Popper's work on falsification.

"This entry has no concept of what Buddhism is about."

You make it sound like there's one definition of Buddhism but that's demonstrably not the case. Anyway that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I'm not threatened by Buddhism, I just find it absurd and boring, an insult to my intelligence. I'd much rather look at the images from the Hubble telescope. If those images don't inspire humility, I don't know what will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhilcUK-1274438506.jpg

If devastation is the price we have to pay for trying to face the truth, in my view it was definitely worth it. I have no regrets. I like your new idea from last night: I should be publicly defending science since I feel so strongly about it! Like Richard Dawkins on acid.

"let's take geoengineering as an example of science in action."

You're confusing science with the ethics of its application. We've gone over this before. Quantum mechanics is sound science. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to build a hydrogen bomb, or a nuclear reactor for that matter. On the other hand nuclear reactors could help slow climate change. Things aren't simple, no matter how much we'd like them to be.

Anyway humans have been geoengineering all along. Aboriginal societies drastically modified their environment via fire and predation. Climate change IS geoengineering, it's just UNINTENTIONAL geoengineering. The main problem (or advantage?) of geoengineering is that it's unlikely to work quickly or completely enough to avoid the collapse of civilization.

Buddhism is the opposite of narcissism. This entry has no concept of what buddhism is about. There is NOTHING comforting about buddhism. Buddism is realism and humility. Buddhism is just as much about truth as science is, but unlike science, Buddhism doesn't exclude things from the field of inquiry, or pretend to be objective or value free, when there is no such thing.

Have you read Thomas Kuhn? About paradigms? He make it very clear that there is no such thing as objectivity, and that all knowledge systems filter out what conflicts with their ideology.

Every knowledge system is ideological and reductionist, including science.

Buddhism is the opposite of feeling that that we are the raison d'etre of the universe. Buddhism is a stance of interconnectivity, transcience, not priveleging the human species or any individual. The idea of the separate self (such as the migrating baseline) is what Buddhism questions. There is nothing that science has come up with that conflicts with buddhist principles, as far as I know (which is little). Indeed, it seems to me that science is discovering buddhist principals as it goes. such as complexity and systems.

why are you so hostile towards buddhist ideas? What is it that you think needs to be demolished?

I totally don't understand what you find so threatening about it.

what is it that most bothers you?

It's weird to me, because science so obviously has massive destructive impacts, including all the devastastation that concerns you. what is the destructive impact of buddhism?

It's very hard for me to express to you how powerfully you impose your structure upon the conversation.

Are you saying that your don't think that your human brain imposes a reductive structure upon your perception of reality? Are you saying that "falsifiiability" isn't a filter than excludes information? Do you think that everything is theoretically knowable by humans?

I hope we can get to the bottom of this. Whenever we talk about these things I feel like I'm on a playing field where my entire way of thinking is ruled out.

Why are you so invested in determinism?

I think we should try to stick with this friction and try to understand what it's about.

My experience of science is from reading innumerable abstracts from scientific research on psychiatric drugs, nutrition and health hazards, (medical science) from being an object of science, from undergoing physical harm from science, from watching others undergo physical harm, and most recently seeing geoengineers propose to fuck with the atmosphere, which will be the next horror. I think geoengineering is the scariest thing I've encountered so far, and I think it will be promoted by people like Obama. It's the ultimate Business as Usual.

What is your response about the fermi paradox? why would other life forms be involved in our technologies and aspirations?

What is it that you object to in terms of what I'm saying about Buddhism and becoming aware of ego-centric assumptions? Is not the shifting baseline an egocentric assumption that is delusional?

There's a way that our arguments make no contact. This means that we have entirely different paradigms, if we don't even make sense to each other.

By the way, I really like jeremy Jackson, he reminds me of Jay, and I enjoy his sarcasm, he's very sweet in a way...

"I hope that you do don't experience this as hostile,"

LOL! Which is it, do or don't? Could this be a Freudian slip??? :P

what does "falsifiable" mean?

let's take geoengineering as an example of science in action.

Isn't it delusional?

for instance, malignancy just means "bad". It's a value judgment, not a fact.

PS: I agree 100% with the enclosed.

"All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d'être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can."

Excerpted from a post titled "Buddhist Retreat: Why I gave up on finding my religion." I Googled the phrase "Buddhism is not science", and this post was the first link returned.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/02/buddhist_retreat.single.html

In human beings, the inputs and the outputs are unpredictable.

It's late, and I can only read this quickly now,

But I appreciate your responding.

There is an extreme mismatch in the way we think.

I will read this later and try to understand what you're saying and respond.

I hope that you do don't experience this as hostile, because I think these are important issues,

I couldn't disagree more, sorry to say. Our positions seem totally irreconcilable.

"humans have thought structures that they mistake for reality, i.e. they think their brain is a non-distorting medium that transmits full reality, and this produces delusion."

You're either misunderstanding science, or possibly confusing science with something else. This position doesn't square with the accepted definition of science, or with my personal experience of science. Science is "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." [Wikipedia] But I've already stated this previously, and restating it is unlikely to help matters.

"So real Buddhism is its own kind of science, and critiques scientific positivism as a thinking structure that is delusional."

I don't accept Buddhism as any kind of science, because it's not falsifiable.

"I think determinism is one of those thought structure delusions."

Again it's a dead end. I like to use the example of bacteria in bottle. Assuming an unlimited supply of nutrients, the bacteria will fill the bottle and choke on their own waste, every time. In fact we rely on this deterministic outcome to make alcohol. In science, determinism isn't a philosophy, it's simply a description of a situation in which the output for a given set of inputs is known and repeatable.

"We can't imagine how we could have failed to come into being."

Individuals may believe this but it has nothing whatever to do with science. Physics and astronomy routinely explore situations in which we couldn't and wouldn't have existed. Genetics proves conclusively that evolution doesn't converge on anything except fitness for prevailing conditions. There is no top or bottom, and malignancy is as natural as anything else. Life evolved from bacteria, and regardless of what people do or don't do, life will return to bacteria: only the timing is in doubt.

"But the problem is that determinism leaves us totally helpless,"

Not really. Unlike the bacteria in the bottle, we can choose not to choke on our own waste. The outcome is only determined on the macro timescale, i.e. hundreds of millions of years. As I tried to express in "Less," the main variable in play is the degree of suffering we're willing to inflict on future generations. My personal point of view is--and has always been--that humans are quite capable of inflicting maximal suffering on future generations. Recent events provide plenty of support for my position, but that doesn't make it deterministic.

Monday, June 18, 2012

I think that generally, a delusion is that we see content, but don't see structure (the higher level).
For instance, people see individuals (content) as producing the social structure (which again is a self-centered idea) but don't see how social structure produces individuals as content. Similar to seeing themselves as choosing the technologies they use. Structural change would produce different human behavior. So I don't think human nature should be inferred by how people behave in the structure we're in.
(Which is all the ridiculous critiques of digital addiction that call for people to simply choose to limit use.)

Seeing technology as a neutral tool is similar to seeing our thinking structures as media that don't produce perception, but simply transmit reality.

So I guess this all goes to the delusion produced by the hidden power of structure, and how you can't intervene at the level of content, because structure is stronger than content.

Well, this is my monologue of after thoughts to our conversation.

I was thinking about an idea about translating the stock market index number into musical tones so that you could hear the stock market. Also about generating a video representation of the stock market, almost like a medical machine that records heart beat, having that line going across the screen. It would sound really different at different "resolutions" like a day, versus a year, a decade, etc. It would smooth out the longer the period covered I guess. There are archives of all the stock market data. If there was a database, then you could set conditions for playing the data as music and image, like range of date, frequency of sample (i.e.1x day), and range of tones from high to low that numbers would be interpellated to. It is a historic time line, as well as a melody line.

Thinking of it as a kind of life sign of the market. The idea was that this might be the sound and background for a "stock market rain dance".

I was wondering if you would be at all interested in exploring this idea.

I'm thinking about doing an Into Collapse event in October.

The other thing is that after our conversation the other night I thought alot about the influence of thought structures, and the thing about Buddhism isn't spiritualism at all, it's about becoming conscious of the role of unconscious thought structures, that humans have thought structures that they mistake for reality, i.e. they think their brain is a non-distorting medium that transmits full reality, and this produces delusion. Buddhism is becoming aware of the mind itself and the delusions it produces. So real buddism is its own kind of science, and critiques scientific positivism as a thinking structure that is delusional. That doesn't mean it's not useful to employ those thinking structures for particular purposes, but in the larger sense, both scientific positivism and mainstream economics are delusional. I'm really interested in the kinds of delusions that our thinking structures produce, the migrating baseline being one example (using our own birth as the beginning of time.) ("Neurotic" delusions are from generalizing the family conditions we were born into as universal rules of existence.)

I also felt aware of very powerful structuring ideas that you use around individualism, dichotomizing and determinism. I think determinism is one of those thought structure delusions.
I think it starts out with delusion that the present is an inevitable determined outcome. There could have been no other present conditions that what is. Like mind centering around the present and inferring everything else from that reference point. The present is natural and inevitable. Everything led up to this and could only have lead up to this. No other outcome was possible.

From thinking of the present as an inevitable outcome, the past process is inferred as a deterministic process that had to lead to the present, and from this is projected a determined future. Since humans participated in this process, then humans must also be determined, because if humans didn't have a determining essence, then the whole process couldn't be determined.

So the outcome of a kind of "self-centered" intuitive notion that I and the here and now are the only thing that could possibly have existed, comes a whole deterministic vision. I think it comes of out a delusion based on the protection of the sense of self. We can't imagine how we could have failed to come into being.

But the problem is that determinism leaves us totally helpless, trapped, complicit, even against our will. It leads to hopelessness, guilt, and anger. Like any trapped animal.

So I think it's really interesting and important to try to become conscious of the way we as humans structure our perception of reality, and continually transcend our brain structures, and by doing this, and only by doing this, do we actually become free. Human freedom is only a potentiality of our intelligence.

What's called spiritualism is really just the accurate perception that everything is interconnected, and denying that is the delusion of technological progress.

So to me the Buddhist perspective is really about becoming more realistic.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Antihumanism is a relatively new philosophy, which emerged along with critique of industrialism in the modern era, particularly after WWI. Antihumanism gathered strength from the nihilism of post-1960s counterculture and is now evolving rapidly, so there's already a wide spectrum. At the moderate end are mainstream novelists such as Kurt Vonnegut ("Breakfast of Champions"), Margaret Atwood ("Oryx and Crake"), and Paul Theroux ("O-Zone"). All of these books contain antihuman concepts and observations, though their authors probably wouldn't use the word. There are also many antihuman movies, too many to list, but at a minimum "Eraserhead" by David Lynch, "THX-1138" by George Lucas, and "Soylent Green" should be mentioned. At the extreme end are actual organizations such as The Church of Euthanasia, VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement), and GLF (Gaia Liberation Front).

In the sciences antihumanism is usually expressed by paleontologists and biologists, and increasingly by climate scientists. Some current examples are Jeremy Jackson and Kevin Anderson (see links below). Edward O. Wilson is best known for his work on biological diversity, but he was also the first biologist to seriously propose that intelligence snuffs itself out, and that this solves Fermi's paradox: we don't receive messages from the stars because by the time an alien life form has enough power to transmit that far, it's already on the threshold of annihilating itself, and the odds of its brief blaze of glory lining up with ours are infinitesimal. This is closely related to the view that life (particularly human life) creates short-term order at the cost of accelerating the entropy of its environment, in stark contrast to the idealistic Gaia theory. For example paleontologist Peter Ward's "Medea Hypothesis" demolishes the notion that life is self-regulating, and compares life to a drunk stumbling around in a darkened room.

Antihumanism can be usefully contrasted with humanism. Humanism derives from the ancient Greek notion that man is the measure of all things, and that without human existence nothing would have value. Concealed within this is the assumption that only humans experience value. This assumption has no basis in biology, but is nonetheless one of the pillars of modern civilization, because it provides justification for extermination of other species. The denial of intrinsic value to non-human life is the essence of speciesism, and is closely related to the dogma of dominion, i.e. that it's man's destiny to subjugate all other living things (a concept that Edward O. Wilson attacked in his "Consilience").

Beyond humanism is transhumanism, sometimes known as futurism or extropianism. This is the belief that not only is man the measure of all things, but the only part of him that matters is his mind, and the sooner his mind is freed from the limitations of biology the better. The moderate form is life extension and cryogenics, while the extreme form is downloading human intelligence into robots and conquering outer space, like the Daleks on Dr. Who. Famous transhumanists include Ray Kurzweil, and Stephen Hawking who recently stated that humanity's only hope is to escape to other planets before we destroy this one. Antihumanists regard transhumanists as archenemies, due to their flagrant unconcern for non-humans. From the antihuman point of view, transhumanism bears a striking resemblance to Christianity. Both are escapist, characterized by unshakable belief that humans belong somewhere else, i.e. Heaven/Outer Space. Both express contempt for biology, e.g. Catholic repression of sexuality, and transhumanist use of derogatory terms such as meatspace. Both are motivated by fear of death, and presumably of life too, since one engenders the other (literally via natural selection). Both reject the limits of existence on earth, and promulgate a fantasy that justifies exceeding those limits. The danger isn't that the fantasy will be realized, but that deluded people will make earth unsuitable for life far sooner than would have otherwise been the case.

Unlike mere misanthropy, antihumanism is distinguished by reverence for non-human life. Biological diversity is considered an axiomatic value, and contrasted with the ugliness and sterility of human monoculture. Earth is described as a "wrecked planet" (Kurt Vonnegut), and various measures are called for to prevent further damage, the most obvious being drastic reduction or elimination of the human population. The pre-human fecundity of earth is idolized, and provides a reference for demonstrating impoverishment of ecosystems. This relates to the shifting baseline syndrome posited by Jeremy Jackson and others, in which each successive generation wrongly assumes the degree of biological diversity they observe was also seen in previous generations.

The central paradox of antihumanism is that humans evolved, and are therefore no more or less natural than any other living thing. Stephen Jay Gould argued convincingly that evolution doesn't converge on anything except fitness for conditions: there are no good or bad organisms, just ones that survive, and mostly ones that don't. Richard Dawkins went even further and described organisms as mere transport for genes, in which case the DNA we share with all other eukaryotes is the winner, regardless of what humans do. One proposed resolution is that humans are malignant life, as argued by A. Kent MacDougall in "Humans As Cancer". This sidesteps the problem however, because cancer is also natural, and closely related to viruses. The higher-order question is ethical: why is malignancy bad, and from what point of view is its badness determined?

The paradox of human naturalness could possibly be resolved by arguing that sentience is not intelligence but the ability to feel pain and pleasure. What distinguishes humans from other primates is the existential suffering that results from self-knowledge, particularly fear of death. Since humans have such capacity for suffering, we should have equally developed empathy, but instead we succumb to corruption, creating hellish conditions for humans and non-humans alike. Thus despite our naturalness, humans can and should be blamed for wrecking the planet, precisely because we're capable of feeling remorse for having done so. If we're unable to reform ourselves, as seems increasingly to be the case, we should have the decency to step aside and give other organisms a chance. Apes might re-evolve back into us, but they might not, and either way it won't be our fault.

Dan Miller: "A REALLY Inconvenient Truth"
http://fora.tv/2009/08/18/A_REALLY_Inconvenient_Truth_Dan_Miller

Peter Ward (The Medea Hypothesis):
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_ward_on_mass_extinctions.html

Professor Kevin Anderson, Tyndall Centre for Climate Research - Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous
http://www.slideshare.net/DFID/professor-kevin-anderson-climate-change-going-beyond-dangerous

Brave New Ocean - Jeremy Jackson
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7530487

Church of Euthanasia
http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
http://www.vhemt.org/

Metadelusion