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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Especially after the past attempts by other "scientists" to integrate science and religion. However, using the word "God" to denote something that is not god and not religious is questionable. Why use such a loaded word? Of course people are going to read a religious extra-normal power in that. Nature means nature, why call it god? And while I do believe that there is at this time no scientific way to completely understand consciousness and sentience and why beings react the way they do and make the choices they do, that still isn't a reason to point to some supernatural being as the reason for it. It seems like he just decided to use the word "God" to make himself palatable to the people turned off by Dawkins' dogged atheism, and then says it's not religious to placate the atheists (of which I am one). I respect the life of other living beings, but because they are alive and deserve to live, not because they are sacred. Why do I need some weird philosophical reason to respect life? (and I don't mean that in a pro-life/anti-choice way) It's fine if he wants to release a book like this, that's fine, but hopefully one doesn't find it in the science section of the bookstore, but either philosophy or possibly new age.
I tried to pay attention to what Kauffman was saying. I really did. The problem is that when you read closely into what he's saying, he isn't saying much of anything at all.
Living systems obey mathematical laws? For those of us working in bioinformatics, the response to this is a resounding "duh." No one seriously disputes the idea, which Kauffman is advancing as something new and revolutionary, that complex molecular interactions lead to emergent behavior. But his leap from that to something he apparently defines as "God" -- which is, I have to note, very different from the way true believers define the word -- is in the realm of philosophy, and it is an act of shameful deception to use his credentials to present it as science.
His own phrase, "It's not logical but it feels right," should have been the title for this exercise in new-agey double-speak.
Instead of aligning our chakras, science should be helping us to align our opinions with the factual truth. If people like Kauffman would focus on that more than they waste time making up new nonsensical buzz words, then the world actually would be a better place where people more easily got along with each other.
Whew ! This conversation is seeded with so many of Kauffman's linguistic inventions that it exhausts the meaning of meaning: "life, agency, meaning, value, consciousness (of the whole universe, no less), reductionism (sounds like the old deconstructionism from the academic literary scene), and the evolutionary emergence of the human heart". This last one is a real doozie ! Do we need a god to help us express our human "hearts" ? Dawkins' explanations are much more convincing. Read "The Selfish Gene" and the "Blind Watchmaker". No need for heavenly "explanations".
As is revealed in the writings of so many religious apologists like Kauffman, it seems rather clear that he is profoundly frightened and needs to conjure a verbal exposition for denying Weinberg's "meaninglessness". In contrast, Weinberg is sensible and brave enough to face what he sees as evident reality in so far as we can perceive it. And Dawkins, too, is far more cogent than any of the apologists for a god - - out there somewhere.
The universe may indeed ultimately be "meaningless" but our lives are not, and very large numbers of us do not need a god to give it meaning. We have our own meaning, even if it is illusory or temporary. We have each other, people who are real to us, not a lexicon of arcane words hoping to secure meaning. And we have the ineffable beauty of nature in all its manifestations and at all its levels. Any scientist who observes it up close is awed beyond words. And he does not perceive a god somewhere waving a wand to give it meaning - - unless, like Kauffman, he needs that supernatural crutch.
"God is enough for me ?" Most cosmologists prefer to say
"NATURE is enough for us. We do not DENY a god; we simply do not need to invoke one. And we do not need philosophical sophistry to explain nature. But the scientific explanation will take a great deal of time because we need to gather EVIDENCE - - and lots of it because our world and the universe are very complex.
"God" is just an easy way out - - and not a very convincing one.
Where did this dichotomy come from anyway? Obviously, religious nuts and fundamentalist materialists have taken over the world, but do we really have to choose a camp?
All my life I've had the distinct feeling that science is an expression of some kind of authentic spirituality and VICE VERSA. Is that foofy? New agey? I think it's fascinating that people are actually attempting to re-frame this topic in a way that differs from this "A" or "B" choice that we've been given.
Why is everybody foaming at the mouth?
I'll take a combo meal please: 'hard' science with a healthy dose of wonderment, and an intuitive relationship with what you all would call The Supernatural. I agree with the concept that reductionism, while helping us get this far, is the fossil fuel that will soon give way to some kind of 'solar' or other alternative. (And may help us survive on one rock.)
I apologize for any misdirected foofy-ness.
Steward Kauffman has a problem with reductionism and feels uncomfortable with the messy, unpredictable and seemly meaningless nature of the universe. To deal with this Kauffman wants to reinvent the sacred—-a kind o lower case ‘god’ that can well, um… address the awe and the um… reverence and… blah, blah, blah. At one point when Paulson asks him to explain his work on ‘self organization’ and he responds with; “It's harder than you think. I wrote a whole book, "The Origins of Order," and I very carefully never defined self-organization.” Good for you Stewart, you wrote a whole book on a subject without defining what it is. No wonder you have a problem with reductionism; it requires you to get to the point.
I’ve been critical of this ‘Conversations about Science and Faith’ series for the simple reason that I think that science and faith are mutually exclusive terms. But with that said I also like to give some credit where credit is due. In the last nine questions of this interview (actually seven questions and two statements), Paulson does make a noble attempt to get Kauffman to explain himself. He fails. Kauffman prefers to dance around Paulson’s questions by spouting the kind of vague, mystical claptrap that parades as scientific discourse in pseudo scientific coffee klatches.
It’s always sad to see great minds waste so much time on ethereal hogwash.
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