Religion, Science, and Einstein

     It was common in the twentieth century, following the trajectory of the Enlightenment, to think that religion has no place in scientific inquiry. Religion adds no explanatory value to science, and if anything muddies the water. The ghost in the machine!

    Yet the motivation for religion and science, the desire to know answers to the big questions (why we are here?) are the same. Both are inspired by a type of wonder, as noted by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.

     Einstein held firm to a scientific realist account of the world by which there is a reality that is independent of us and has causal laws about which we could come to know. He resisted quantum mechanics as it suggested subjectivity was part of the universe (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle), the idea that two events could be not causally connected but related (quantum entanglement), and other types of spookiness. In his famous phrase, God made the world a certain way, one that was simple and predictable, everything the quantum view was not.

     His scientific views, then, have a religious tenor. His religious views are more philosophical than the average Christian, what he called “Spinoza’s God,” which is very close to the Hindu view, that is, there is no personal deity, but a pervading or co-extension of the one and many. Scientists’ beliefs often bring with them a strong belief system, which in theory they are willing to discard with appropriate evidence. But as Einstein showed that it's not an easy go of it.

    On the one hand, religious views can be useful, providing a framework for our intellectual pursuits, even us helping make sense of them at their most difficult points, the outer edges. Yet they also bring with them some type of belief preservation where we can be resistant to upend our thinking about the world. Sometimes our religious views, as in the Hindu case, are general enough to absorb various debates: Is the universe accelerating? Is it rotating? What is its shape? Does it contain dark matter and dark energy? A lot of the details have to be worked out by scientists, but the more we get to know the more attractive religion seems, because what we have come to know through reason is just so out of this world.

 

Hinduism and Being Pro-Gay

    Even a cursory look at the news, one could note that those opposed to gay rights are often drawn from religious sects: fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and others. (Ironically, lefties that show up to support anti-Islamophobic rallies, will be at cross purpose at gay rights events.) Though Hindus tend to keep a low profile in Western countries, it is disappointing that generally in India—the geographic heartland of Hinduism—they have spurned gay rights.

    There is no Ten Commandments in Hinduism, and no specific prohibition against gay behaviour. So on what basis do Hindu elites base their anti-gay sentiments? Probably it is more of a traditional and cultural element mixed up with Hindu theology. Being gay is not normative and does not belie traditional families (man and women etc.). Since Hinduism is generally inclusive—there is no tradition of conversion—as they believe that “all boats lead to the ocean,” it is sad to see them fall in with other religions-minded. 

    Further, as we know that being gay is generally not a choice, but a biological given, it would be absurd to condemn someone for their sexual orientation anymore than if one is left- or right-handed (or ambidextrous). When I was in high school, my friends were active in a variety of movements (animal rights, environmental, labour, feminist, and so on), but gay rights was not one of them; it was only something I learned about later, in university. It is, thus, a matter of education.

    Generally, Hindus believe that God exists in all things, hence both in gays and straights. They have a reverence for all of life, having an “Live and Let Live” philosophy. It is well known that they are largely vegetarian, respecting the life of animals.

    So how should Hindus view gay rights within their philosophical framework? In Hinduism, there are thought to be four different stages (ashramas) of life. According to Hindu scriptures: the student phase (brahmacharya); the householder phase (grihastha), which involves us with the accumulation of wealth (artha) and desire (kama); the hermit phase (vanaprastha); and the wandering-ascetic phase (sannyasa), where someone renounces the world in search of God.

    Gay marriage would fall within the householder phase of Hindu life, where one is accumulating wealth and fulfilling desires. There is no reason that a gay life could not be any less appropriate than a straight one. The problem, from the Hindu point of view, is not being gay or straight but desire more generally, which involves entanglements—and medley of attachments—with the illusory world. The goal of life is to be free from the cycle of birth and death and not be born again.

    Just as one can go astray in striving for money, status, and a plethora of other addictions (drugs, gambling, pornography and so on) and make one lose one’s senses, leading to self, and other, destruction. Instead of being free of maya one becomes further lost in it. Again, the problem is not being gay or straight, but desire. However, since there is a place for desire in the Hindu human life cycle, here one could be gay or straight—and a respectful member of the society (samaj). Many of the Hindu elites of the day are wrong about Hinduism. Hindus should be pro-gay.

The Irrelevance of the Issue of Race and Genetics

     Over the holidays of 2023, I read many of the biographies written by Isaacson, and the one on CRISPR rehearsed the episode of James Watson and his infamous remarks about race. Though known for his discovery, along with Crick, of the double-helix structure of DNA, he will also be known for claiming, several times now, that those from Africa have lower IQ.

     To broach this topic as an academic would be for two reasons:

     1. One wished to present countervailing evidence to Watson’s claim.

     2.  One fancied oneself a renegade that was going to speak to “truths” that                        opposed to the prevailing view (namely, variation among individuals is more              important than that between groups).

    In either case, basic common-sense dictates to write about race and IQ is a virtual Kiss of Death for an academic career. One does not wish to be associated with this unsavoury debate in any shape whatsoever, even as a critic of Watson.

    My purpose is to explore the nature of social science research here. Social science research is prescriptive as much as it is descriptive. Often research, even if not intended, is to usher in a world as it should be. We create new categories (learning disability, IQ, SES, a plethora of mental illnesses and so on) by which to understand ourselves, which in turn change who we are and how we experience the world.

    In a society aiming for inclusion, “discoveries” about difference between groups (any groups) are counterproductive. At face value, I do not doubt there are differences between groups (e.g., some that live at high altitudes have been shown to have better abilities to oxygenate their blood).

    The issue of intelligence has a long and sordid racist history rooted in colonial views about the world. It is possible, but not clearly how relevant, it would be if one discovered that gays were more intelligent than straight people, or on two islands, the blacks had higher IQs than the whites. At an individual level, we all recognize some people have better genetic luck, having better looks, being taller, or having a better memory. It’s a fact of life. All of such talk of genetic diversity, especially at a group level, flies in the face of the ideal most Western democracies are striving for. We are human. We are all basically the same. Made in the image of God. We all deserve respect.

    The ethical imperative—respect—however, has no clear link, to my mind to intelligence. Intelligence, whatever it is, we know what it is not. It is not a measure of wisdom, ethics, or rationality. I do not doubt that Joseph Mangle, the Angel of Death, was intelligent (having a medical degree and PhD in anthropology, he was at least educated). But I don’t think him a good man. Even if we consider what IQ is, there are environmental factors at play, too.

    In an educational and social setting, the entire talk of intelligence and genes is unsavoury. Making the world better through science is something we should all worry about, not just the Nazi version, but the more innocuous variations, too. And as for Watson, it is good to remember (though there is probably debate about this too now), that we all hail from Africa, and before that, bacteria. The philosophical lesson of biology should be, though it is not, that all life has commonalities. From a Hindu point of view, everything is a reincarnation of God. We should respect all life, including animals, and people of different cultures.

    Watson’s comments show he was deaf to the environment he was working in (so in this sense he was stupid), and his views about race could be either wrong, irrelevant, or counterproductive. Part of what counts as knowledge is things we value. “True” is not just true, and even basic understanding of mathematics teaches us that.

    I’ve tried to say something intelligent about Watson’s remarks that are not insane, that is, not purely condemning (he’s a racist; although his view buttresses such views) or dismissive (there could never be a case for differences between groups rooted in genetics). As to the thorny issue of IQ and race, I avoid it because it serves no clear positive purpose, which is the agreed upon consensus in academics and why no one is getting funding to do such work. Of the many things that interest me, this is not one of them.

The Many Problems of Philosophy

    Philosophers busy themselves with a host of problems, not the least of which has been the nature of the discipline itself. In the twentieth century almost every major philosopher has spoke about the end of the discipline, or the need to bring it to a close. As Wittgenstein said, the goal is to show the “fly the way out of the fly bottle.”

    The problem with philosophy could be discerned by most high school students, and hence often informs their decision not to pursue such a course of study. Philosophers pose questions which it is often not possible to answer, in principle. (In addition, and perhaps because of lack of tangible progress among other reasons, there is little market demand for philosophers.) There are no agreed upon methods of coming to consensus, leading to raucous debates where members of one camp accuse the other of engaging in “non-sense.” From afar, this is amusing of course precisely because there are no agreed upon standards to determine truth from falsity in the field. So either philosophers do make progress, providing answers to questions, or they provide entertainment; currently, they are doing poorly by both metrics.

    We can say that philosophers who advocate the end of the discipline at least showed a modicum of integrity, but this is not always the case. Naturally, philosophy as part of the education market is a business, and it needs clients, namely, students. So at the University of Windsor (which seems to be typical in this respect), philosophy is promoted, among other reasons “because we can study the best minds in history.” Studying the best minds in history is perhaps a spurious strategy, since it forces us to tacitly assume that doing so will lead us be have at the least very good minds. But we have reason not to believe this to be true: much better often to actually seek out problems and solutions ourselves, by employing empirical or mathematical methods. Many of the so-called “best minds” were so because they spoke to some need at the time; and not a few of them have held social views that we may find far from savory today, making them questionable role models.

    When philosophers have problems, they go to the library. Among the stacks, they read what other people say about an issue, agreeing, adding their own twist, or developing a new position. The discipline, then, is both backward looking, that is historical, and inward looking, depending almost solely on archival research.

    But perhaps philosophers serve some high social role linked to social justice. We have reason for doubt. Compounding matters, the humanities generally, and philosophy specifically, tend to be populated by people of European descent studying and writing about their own intellectual history, with a myopic view of "the other," as they call it; at least in Canada, I have not met a Black philosopher. Compared to the humanities, the natural sciences seem more human by being more open to involving people from diverse backgrounds, which is ironic.

    The only thing capping philosophical activity is administrative leaders that determine how much money to allocate to the study of the classics, and how much to engineering. Also, as mentioned earlier, student enrollment is a factor.

    Sure, at its best, philosophy still can engage us with the big questions and be interdisciplinary. But anyone with a fleeting exposure to the discipline knows it can be one of the most conservative in every respect, involving us in debates where really nothing is at stake. I have always held that philosophy is like prostitution; it has been around for a long time and is probably not going away anytime soon. But even in the “oldest profession,” books must be balanced, and this can likely only happen in philosophy if it is deemed to be relevant and inclusive, two things that are far from clear.

    For my part, after not finding employment in philosophy, I was somewhat forced out of the fly bottle. Being educated first in philosophy, I had struggled to define myself, not fitting into a neat pigeonhole like “Hume scholar”; this was compounded by doing further studies in the social sciences and conducting interdisciplinary research. I admit it. It is fulfilling to have contact with the external world, to pursue a course of understanding that relates to my life, and to be able to help others purse passions that can have a high probability of terminating in employment. It is a new day, but not every day.

Falling like Flies: Dictators, Iraq, and Revolution

    In the Middle East, beginning with Tunisia, and spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, among others, dictators have been falling like flies of late or at least made to sweat it. And then there is Lybia, where Momar Gaddafi, having been ruler for forty-one years is being pushed from power. The spectacle of his son, Safi Gaddafi, attempting to besmirch the protesters was pathetic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iNtStzbhKw ); it is hard to say if he believed his own fallacious arguments, or just wanted to maintain his family’s privilege. But that is a story for another time. Today’s tale goes back a bit further to 2002.

    George W. Bush asserted, in building up his case for war in Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003, this. According to Bush, Iraq would become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Other countries would follow suit. Dictators would topple. This hardly happened. Almost nothing happened, no repercussions of the liberalizing sort, outside of Iraq. Now, almost a decade later, quite unexpectedly by almost any measure, a whole slew of countries face major reforms if not revolution.

    The question, then, arises: perhaps democratization cannot be imposed from the outside easily. Revolutions have to arise spontaneously from below, from the pent up needs of the people when there is a chance of success.

    I am not going to be brazen enough to suggest an algorithm by which revolutions happen. One thing is clear. Bush was not only wrong about Saddam Hussains’ weapons of mass destruction, but the effect that toppling the Iraqi regime would have. The revolutions we are seeing across the Middle East, do not have any clear link to what happened in Iraq, and there is reason to believe they would have happened one way or another. In fact, if we had not invaded Iraq, it may have also undergone regime change, notice, without the loss of American life and treasure.

    Revolutions are something we have read about. Sometimes the term is used to help sell books. So there is the information, digital, green, and scientific revolutions. And so on. It is hard to think in our day and age of ravages in the streets. Sometimes revolution can be foisted from above, sometimes helped from without; but it will never, I believe, be greatly successful without the will of the people. Perpetual peace interspersed with perpetual revolution—that is our fate, and here is why.

    The condensation of power in the hands of a few is a fact of life. Even in our capitalist economy, when companies do too well, we have to limit their success, lest they monopolize the market. So we have all sorts of requirements on companies—how big they can get, how much of the market they can control, and so on. We even limit, or try to, how much they can influence the political process. Because of their kinship, I do not bother to distinguish between economic and political power here.

    In the end, the bigger they are the harder they fall. And powers do decline, fall, and crumble. The task, I think, is to attempt to be good, to be sensitive to the times, and moderate our success, as required. These are prerequisites of sustainable success, of great success. This is a message has been lost on the Gaddafi clan, who, like Bush, adhered to litanies of false, self-serving prophesies.

The Good Things about Capitalism

    Getting angry with the capitalist system is a pastime among academics, especially tenured radicals and leftist groupies that have built a career out of indignation; but we often forget why we are angry, or misplace it. I want to suggest that it is not capitalism that is the foe, but injustice, and the two have no innate relationship.

    The early industrial capitalism of the eighteenth century brought with upheavals and horrors that rightly gave way to protest from many different quarters, and continue to do so. So even back in the day, it was industrial capitalism that we the evil. It was not, that is, even capitalism itself that was the true object of our abhorrence. We were not, for example, against the ownership of property or the selling of it to accumulate capital. Even when we consider other social evils, like the exploitation of children and women, destruction of the environment, and the abuse of animals, the culprit is not obviously capitalism; but rather our values. The environment is not a victim of capitalism, but our lifestyles that we so cherish.

    Now, some would say, however, that it is the capitalist system that has created needs, making us what the things we do—video games, certain types of food, the ornamentation with which we decorate ourselves, as well as education itself. Yet surely we also have some role in the lifestyles we live, even as a social group. The choices we make can, in fact, shape the direction of the market. The animal rights movement is a perfect example. The market has changed to cater to consumers that have demanded products that are “cruelty free”; this was not foisted upon us from atop, but came from a groundswell from below. So what I am suggesting is that capitalism is only a vehicle, and at best one that amplify our own values and behaviors.

    The title of this post will annoy some people right of the bat, or at least make the search their minds for what is to come, with a seething skepticism. For that group I say this: good, this post is for you. A word is in order about the annoyance felt by this group, too, because it relates to another virtue of capitalism: freedom. In liberal society we purport to value diversity of people, of lifestyles, and of ideas.

    Psychologically, however, it is quite unnatural to have a favourable opinion of someone that is different than us. In fact, it takes a good deal of training to be objective to any extent at all. The reason is simple: we like what we know; and we dislike what we do not because we are apt to think it poses a potential threat to our well-being. It is quite natural, also, to try to fit in with the organization we are part of. We try to be like those around us. And those that are not like us are misfits that are either deranged to varying degrees, victims of circumstance, or ahead of the social curve.

    The problem comes like this, then: on the one hand, we want to belong to the group, adhere to its values, patterns of behavior, and so forth; on the other hand, we extol the liberal virtue of tolerance for difference. But how much do we really respect difference in practice? Yes, we often make tall proclamations about diversity, but when was the last time a hiring committee, for example, sought out a candidate that was ideologically opposed to their research ideology. It rarely happens: they seek someone that “fits in”. And there may be good reason for seeking the like-minded; it may make the organization more efficient in reaching its goals, the environment more amicable, and the people within it consequently happier and more secure.

    On the flip side, there is a reason we, as a society, have come to embrace liberalism, and I will not re-tell the story here. But in short, change is the one rule of human history, and we need to use our awareness for the reason we likely have it in the first place: to deal with the anomalies that arise with change. Adapting to change is the one thing that agents in the market are very good at doing, that is, if they are to stay in business.

    For a philosopher, the unpopular task is left to consider things not just from afar, in the halls of power, but up close and personal. And up close and personal requires fitting in with the society in which we live—and in liberal society, paradoxically, that requires some amount of tolerance for deviance.

    Like the changing shape of the market itself, we have to cater to the market and we have to help shape one. As one can infer from the title of this piece, capitalism also has a down side. But this has already been addressed in principle; as is well-known, we live in a mixed-economy, where the excesses of capitalism are regulated by the state. World-making is a business, a brutal one at that.

The Many Moons of Senator Clinton

    When things started to go wrong in 2007, Senator Hillary Clinton changed her view about the nomination process; and her surrogates did so, too. I take a look at how far Senator Clinton has gone to redefine victory in the democratic nomination process.

    Looking back to the time in Nevada, people supporting her asked a judge to stop caucuses from being held in casinos, a measure taken by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to accommodate workers that could not leave their jobs, often thought to support Obama. Also in the same vein, early on, she accepted that the Florida and Michigan elections were invalid. She held that the nominee needed 2025 delegates to clinch victory. According to Senator Clinton's new position, nothing is more sacred than counting every vote. She contended that Michigan and Florida must count, which appears to contradict her earlier view.

    According to Senator Clinton, when she was ahead in super delegates, we are advised to choose the strongest candidate--period. She held that the number needed to win the nomination is 2118, though she is in the process of contesting that, too. According to Senator Clinton's new position, super delegates should support the person that has won the popular vote, the only scenario, using her calculations, she could be considered victorious.

    Further, in order to change the rules of the game, her surrogate Harold Ickes presented two arguments to the Democratic Rules and Bylaw Committee that are curious and are various types of false analogies. Arguing that Michigan and Florida should be counted, Ickes said first this: If we had such stringent rules as the DNC requires, no one would be recognized as "elected". He concluded, "All elections are flawed". His argument is the fallacy called "converse accident": Just because all elections are often flawed does not entail this one need be. Specifically, since we cannot count votes that are deemed "unacceptable as per the regulations", does not entail we should not try to count the ones that do fall within the regulations.

    Second, arguing in an opposite direction, he claimed, referring to people that did not vote in Michigan and Florida, that sitting out the election is okay because people often do not vote. This argument is often called a "accident". Just because some people do not vote is not a sound rationalization to mislead people about their access to vote. As any reasonable person can understand, some voters just will not carry out their civic duty if told their vote will be void--as happened in Michigan and Florida. So the vote in these states will unlikely be representative of the will of the people because people did not vote.

    Whatever the merits or demerits of any one candidate, we should be appalled at the inconsistency and fallacious reasoning Senator Clinton and her surrogates have employed to win. I would be going too far to say she is worst than the Republicans when it comes to policy, ability, and accountability; but her means are equally sinister, an affront to reason and a mockery of democracy by flouting the rule of law.

Union Efficacy: Political Aspirations and Cultural Failings

    In the present contest for the Democratic nominee, there have been efforts to secure the endorsement of unions. The unions' leaders often claim memberships of upwards of a million, assisting with advertising and organization on behalf of the endorsed candidate. Yet in many states, union members have endorsed the losing candidate. I shall argue that union leaders’ inability to galvanize support of their members comes from the fact they rarely become cultures.

    Union leader's concerns may be far too left-wing to gain traction. At least this is clear: union leaderships do not always have the support of its members, and political action is a case in point.

    The inability of union leaders to galvanize support for a candidate is significant. The socialist ideal, going back to at least Marx, is that working together results in a collective consciousness of the proletariat. How we earn our bread, if held in common, is supposed to bonds us together.

    We find, however, that certain demographics tend to vote in blocks, as women; young or elderly, rich or poor, as well as based on ethnicity and race. African-Americans tend to vote as a bloc; their experiences, concerns, and aspirations often are very similar: they have a collective consciousness, in the Marxist sense. Though participating in the same mode of production may have been a cohesive force in agrarian societies, it rarely does so in industrialized ones.

    Unions have tried to breed a collective consciousness that approaches culture with little success, and the reason is thus. The ties that have bound people together are related to religion, geography, ethnicity, and race, not where we work. What binds a group together is, negatively, the collective fear of a common threat, and positively, shared values expressed in an organic way of life. Work, unlike culture, is something in the modern industrial context, done for remuneration, not because it expresses, or leads to, our deepest beliefs. Union membership rarely engenders a worldview.

    A union endorsement is a benefit, but unlikely to be of substantive help either. The reason, I have suggested, is that unions have not formed cultures and have not led to a collective consciousness.