Consciousness

Brainless atoms form brains, lifeless atoms form life, meaningless synapses form a conscious mind. The simple comes together to form the complex. It happens. We’re proof.

Question from Aravind:
the theory of abiogenisis states that we evolved from non living matter and that atoms are nonliving and that the only reason for which the atoms in our body work together is because of Chemical feedback loops acting so if we are made up of non living matter how is it that I am able to perceive my external environment how am i able to think how is it that I am conscious since i am made up of nonliving matter how is it that i am able to perceive my external environment the very fact that i am able to respond to external factors like gravity electricity ,magnetism is because the atoms in my body perceive them??

the very fact that I am sentient and can perceive my external environment conforms that there is something in me which is not nonliving ??we know that atoms are nonliving simply by the fact that they cannot regroup to form an amputated arm or form an eve of a blind person by simply sensing the combination of atoms from the eye of another living being so if we are able to sense the environment it means that there is some other transcendental property in me which is perceiving the external environment(soul???)

if I was made up of nonliving matter i would simply respond to existing code and chemical feedback loops and be unable to form my own thoughts but that is not the case i can even condition myself to starve myself for long periods of time which means that i am not simply responding to existing codes to enable my survival and reproduce The very fact that I do not function to the basic codes of survival implanted in my dna like a robot responds to existing programs shows that there is something inside me (soul???) that is not nonliving????

if the primordial bacteria which replicated itself was already composed of nonliving randomly combined atoms why did the bacteria replicate itself since it was already dead why would it want to shuffle its genes to evolve in order to adopt to the environment if it was composed of dead matter to begin with it would be meaningless for something which was already dead to evolve and preserve its code if it was already dead???

Answer by SmartLX:
An atom cannot be alive, because life as we define it requires a great deal of interaction between atoms. Living tissue, however, is made up of atoms which by themselves or in small groups would be regarded as non-living. All of the remarkable functions of living tissue, including brains, are performed via chemical (and electrical) interactions between individually non-living atoms. It’s like how a computer does its computations with a bunch of silicon and copper atoms. Nobody thinks that’s impossible.

The first self-replicating organism probably did form through random combinations of components, but if you have hundreds of men and hundreds of women at a party you’d be surprised if at least one couple doesn’t form. Once the organism had formed, it replicated not because it wanted to (it couldn’t want anything) but because that’s what its parts could do. It evolved not because it had any evolutionary goal but because later copies of it were slightly different from each other, and had to compete based on their physical qualities.

Our sentience and consciousness are referred to as “higher brain functions” because that’s exactly what they are. The human brain is a network more complex than the world’s biggest computer (though computers are slowly catching up). It does everything it does by receiving input through our eyes, ears, skin, etc. and processing it with nothing but “grey matter” and tiny electrical sparks.

That works because it does an awful lot of simple processing in a short time. A calculator actually only knows how to add, or did until recently. All its other functions are accomplished by complicated sequences of adding (adding negative numbers to subtract, adding multiple times to multiply, etc.) Likewise, the neural network has the capacity to form complex thoughts out of multitudes of simple processes.

We think about things other than survival for two reasons. Firstly, as other animals demonstrate, you can usually survive on far less brainpower than we have. Secondly, our survival is almost assured in the short term because of the stable society in which we live, so we can indulge in the luxury of applying our minds to other matters. As soon as we feel that our survival or that of our friends or family is directly threatened, however, we won’t even notice how quickly our brains abandon extraneous thoughts and focus fully on survival.

Brainless atoms form brains, lifeless atoms form life, mindless neurons give rise to a conscious mind. The simple comes together to form the complex. It happens. We’re proof.

Incidentally, I would suggest to you that what Terry Pratchett has written on the subject of multiple exclamation marks also applies to question marks.

Moral Statements

“The commenter succeeds in ruling out an absolutism in non-theistic morality which shouldn’t be there anyway. That’s not a huge achievement.”

Question from C.L.H.:
I copied the following excerpt from a reader comments section of an online column titled “Is Atheism Livable?”

I was curious if you could respond concerning the the moral scenario described below…

***********************************
So the actual question is “do moral statements constitute propositions that can be true or false”. The naturalists answer is that they do not, but rather codify behaviors which increase our ability to survive. For example, the statement “it is wrong to kill innocent people” is not an objectively moral statement, but rather stems from the scientific fact that human society crumbles when people can murder others at will, thus making it difficult for us to survive. Morality, to the naturalist, is redefined to mean nothing more than “what we do to survive”. So to use a less ambiguous language, the naturalist is actually saying that “it is a fact that we won’t survive if we allow murder, and because we have an impulse to survive, we should all agree not to murder”. This type of thought cannot be legitimately be called “morality” because it doesn’t contain within itself any actual standard of what is “good” or “right” – just what is preferred by most of us. Typically the naturalist is okay with this.

The theist, on the other hand, is more of a realist about morality – he maintains that the moral statement “it is wrong to kill innocent people” not only has the propositional/scientific factual content the naturalist maintains, but also that it stems from a deeper, transcendent law that is tied into the nature of the universe itself. In other words, killing innocent people is not wrong *merely* because society will collapse otherwise, but because killing people is simply *wrong*.

This type of moral realism is the default. The other completely flies in the face of our intuition about morality. For example, the statement “it is wrong to rape and murder young children” is wrong in all cases (I hope we all agree on that). The naturalist would argue that if we allow people to rape and murder young children at will, society will collapse and we won’t survive.

But one can certainly make up a situation in which this isn’t the case. Put the adult and the child on an island with no hope of rescue, the child is in a vegetative state with no sensation and no hope of waking up, and the adult will simply live out his days until he dies. Obviously should the adult rape and murder the child in this context, no society is damaged, and ultimately his action will have no negative consequence.
The naturalist is then forced to acknowledge that there is nothing immoral (by his definition) about the adults action in this situation. I have met one naturalist in my life who will concede this and affirm that nothing immoral has been done in this situation, and that one person is not something who I would say manages to function well on a day to day basis.

In any case, are any of the naturalists here willing to either
1) acknowledge that such an action is not immoral (if so I apologize but you are sick), or
2) explain why it is immoral using a naturalistic definition of morality (without resorting to something silly like “well he may be rescued later” – the situation is defined as described above)?

As I said, moral realism is the default position based on intuition and the obviousness of our collective everyday human experience. The burden of proof lies heavily on the one who claims that moral propositions don’t constitute true or false propositions. And the fact that a biological/evolutionary basis for moral behavior does not accomplish this task. All this does is affirm that the universe is such that moral behavior promotes life, and therefore affirms that life is good.
***********************************

Answer by SmartLX:
Atheists have already answered below the comment itself, but here goes.

In answer to (1), the action he describes is not immoral in the absolute sense he’s looking for, according to the usual non-supernatural view, but then nothing is. It’s immoral according to almost any objective basis you care to apply to it, but none of those count in his reckoning.

Thing is, if you go around saying that such a deed is wrong, the only people who would bother to contradict you are those who object to the absolutism in the statement, not people who actually think the deed is right. It doesn’t actually matter in a practical sense whether or not the universe has an inbuilt moral code which says it’s wrong.

Which is good, because even if it did we’ve got no way of knowing what that code is. Holy texts and philosophical works set rules and guidelines we all seem to agree on, but is that necessarily because they’re deliberately and explicitly instilled in all of us before birth? No, it’s probably just because we’re all human, we were all brought up in roughly the same society and we have many of the same values instilled in us by other people. Not all, of course, because we differ widely on thorny issues like abortion. Intuition only takes us so far.

The commenter succeeds in ruling out an absolutism in non-theistic morality which doesn’t rely on absolutism anyway. That’s not a huge achievement.

A Wife’s Changing Beliefs

“As a public school teacher now and having attended both Catholic and public schools, I can tell you there are just as many drugs and druggies floating around Catholic school.”

Question from Aaron:
My wife, who I’d say comes from a more than average religious family, has become more and more involved in religion lately. This includes attending church and listening to Christian bands, things which she had no interest in doing the first 10 years of our marriage. Asked why she is doing it now, she simply tells me it makes her happy. I don’t have any problem with that, besides the fact that I wished she had the same beliefs as me as an Agnostic/Atheist. But coupled with this, our young daughter is now being indoctrinated with these beliefs as we are having her attend a Christian school. We figured this would be the best choice for her overall education since the public schools in the area are far subpar. I try to get her to think about and question the things taught to her about religion and the bible, but I’m finding it difficult.

Answer by Andrea:
It can be heartbreaking when spouses grow apart but it’s also quite normal judging from the US divorce rate, which hovers at around 50%. With regard to your marriage, maybe it’s just a phase your wife is going through. If it’s not a phase, you might want to do a “Ben Franklin” sheet on the situation in the future, and see if the cons override the pros of staying together. I am a firm believer in divorce if one or both of the parties are suffering in the marriage because 1) I see it as a man-made institution created by other people to instill social control, not a “divine bond” as some theists assert; 2) Life is far too short and there are far too many good people out there to be miserable, and you can bet there are quite a few people looking for someone just like you; and 3) The Internet makes dating in mid-life or old age so much easier these days, especially with all the secular sites out there.

Regarding your child, I subscribe to free emails from a number of nontheistic sites, and what I hear more and more about is parents complaining about the indoctrination of their offspring into religion by well-meaning, but misguided, family members. There are a couple of books out there to help you as a freethinking parent in what seems like a world of theists. Try running a search at bn.com for Dale McGowen, I believe his name is, he have two such books out.

I would be careful about keeping my kid in a religious school if I were you. As a public school teacher now and having attended both Catholic and public schools, I can tell you there are just as many drugs and druggies floating around Catholic school. The nuns were also typically mean and nasty, from my experience. Also, in studies dating back at least the last 100 years, Catholics are overrepresented in the prison system, followed closely by people of other Christian denominations, like Protestants. In contrast, atheists, agnostics and those labeling themselves non-religious have the lowest per capita rates of imprisonment. Atheists also have the lowest divorce rates and the highest educational levels. And when it comes to education, you’ll be lucky if the kids even hear the word “evolution,” which no mainstream scientist denies. Unlike the American public and other than finer points, scientists haven’t debated evolution for the last half century. Perhaps this is the reason why a NASA scientist I know, who regularly judges high school science fairs, says the children from the religious schools always have the lowest quality science projects.

In other words, there are many good private schools that are secular. If you worry about your daughter attending a religious school, you might want to check into them.

Good luck to you.

Assumptions

“I honestly think that common understanding of words like “existence” stretches far enough that people with different positions on the existence of something important can discuss and debate it in a way which is at least meaningful to them.”

Question from Cody:
When Christians and atheists argue, they seem to assume they mean the same thing when they say words like “existence,” “being,” “is,” and “truth.”

I find that they usually do not. Some speak from the modernist/rationalist mindset, some from the classical metaphysical mindset, and others from the post-modern, phenomenological POV.

What do you, and other atheists you know, assume as definitions for these seminal terms. What is the arbiter of truth? What is being and existence? Or, more realistically, what are your working assumptions about these things?

I’m afraid without clarity about our basic assumptions, any attempt to real dialogue is doomed. Help a devout Catholic understand atheist fundamental philosophy.

Answer by SmartLX:
I don’t think there is any fundamental atheist philosophy, Cody. That’s like asking for the common political views of everyone who isn’t a libertarian. Different people may have come to reject it by different routes.

That’s not to deny that many atheists think about this stuff in similar ways. For many or most atheists, questions of existence are rooted in the material. If something exists as anything more than a manmade abstract concept like love or justice (though of course those can be quite powerful in their own way), then it either has a material presence or some practical effect on something in the world. If something were to exist but have no effect on us, we might be strictly wrong but who cares?

The other assumption I think is near-universal is the idea that existence is universal. If an entity exists, again as anything more than a hypothetical construct, it exists for you as it does for me, and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t exist for anyone. “What’s true for me is true for me” is only meaningful when applied to interpretations of the abstract.

Let’s be explicit here: when atheists and Christians or any other believers clash over words like “existence” and “being”, they’re usually talking about God, or a god. This makes the issue a bit simpler. The Christian God and many others share certain qualities: they watch over us, they are capable of intervening in the natural world and they have complete power over whatever’s left of our personhood (our “souls”) after we die. If a god doesn’t do any of these things, then even if it still “exists” in some sense it might as well not.

I honestly think that common understanding of words like “existence” stretches far enough that people with different positions on the existence of something important can discuss and debate it in a way which is at least meaningful to them.

What gives you the right? (New Sticky)

“What I can do is speak for atheism – as defined by enough atheists, and enough prominent atheists, to make for a working definition.”

Hypothetical question from Effigy2000 on Metafilter, i.e. “So if I were to ask this person a question I’d ask…
…What gives you the right, f*%#-knuckle?”

Answer by SmartLX:
What gives me the right to speak for all atheists everywhere? Nothing. I don’t have that authority. And it’s not just me here either. Perhaps the site’s name suggests such things, but askANatheist.com was taken, as was asktheatheistS.com (to which I also contribute).

What I can do is speak for atheism – as defined by enough atheists, and enough prominent atheists, to make for a working definition. I can speak against arguments for the existence of gods when their flaws are evident. And as in all things, I can bloody well speak for myself.

It’s been helpful, I’m sure, to a great many people over the years. Some don’t have a single self-declared atheist in their lives that they could name, much less ask about atheism. This is how myths about atheism get dispelled in communities where it’s a negligible minority: some brave believer goes looking for a spokesperson. It’s also why the great big arguments don’t go unchallenged as often as they might.

Welcome to the Metafilter community, by the way. Thanks to Paragon, who I’d never heard of, for the link.

Responding to Christians

“I have handled what I felt was their ridiculous religiosity in many ways and some have panned out, while others brought me lasting condemnation.”

Question from Patricia:
Most of my family are born again christians, and have been for at least 34 years now. I would like a good response to my father and brother especially,when they answer their phone with Praise God! I have been listening to their ignorant rants for far too long! I would appreciate whatever help you could give. Thanks.

Answer by Andrea:
As a child brought up in a born-again Christian family, and now a proud born-again atheist (after all we’re all born atheist until the culture we’re born into gets their mitts on us), I just want to say, I feel your pain.
I have been maligned by many family members, including my (now) ex-husband, simply because I didn’t subscribe to their delusions.

I have handled what I felt was their ridiculous religiosity in many ways and some have panned out, while others brought me lasting condemnation.

You don’t say how old you are, but when I was in my early 20s, I declined their offers of a Bible as present, my aunts never forgave me for it.

Another aunt now knows that I will not pray to a god for my food at her dinner table (who would I pray to? I once asked her), but she and I are still good friends to this day and get along great provided we don’t talk religion.

When I told my dad I didn’t think there was a god he shook his finger in my face and told me in a quavering fire-and-brimstone voice that I could “rest assured” there was a god. We also never discuss religion anymore. I also don’t want him to spend his old age worrying that I’ll be frying in hell for eternity.
My mom and sister and other family members, in the mean time, are becoming increasingly unreligious, so at least there’s balance.

I could make this into a very long post but to spare you, I’ll just make a few points:

1) If you start trying to talk to people into not believing, you run the risk of turning out to be as obnoxious as born-again Christians and missionaries and anyone else who claims to be privy to “the truth.”
2) Also, maybe your dad and brother don’t have much else in their lives or even hate their lives, and the thought of a heaven is the one thing that keeps them from the depths of depression.
3) The way you approach it should depend on your knowledge of what the person can handle, and approach it with compassion and sensitivity. I have often explained to friends my reasons for my disbelief and at least three of them plunged back into their addictions with drugs and alcohol, so I do feel guilty about that, even though a majority of born-agains seem to be somewhat unstable anyway, so many of my friends say those friends who went back off the deep end would have likely ended up there regardless of what I said about their belief systems.
4) Always be courteous and polite and don’t let yourself be drawn into arguments. You are the more critical thinker, you are the bigger person.
5) There are up to 17% nonreligious in this country, and atheism is the fastest growing ideology in not only the US, but globally, so you’re in good company.

You are a true critical thinker, and that counts a lot in this world.

Answer by SmartLX:
If you are in the mood for confrontation and you’re just looking for straight comebacks, they’re endless, though they’re not all terribly good.

“Praise God!”
“Which one?”

“Praise God!”
“Oh, sorry Praise, must have a wrong number, I was trying to call my brother.”

“Praise God!”
“Why, does he still have low self-esteem after all this time?”

“Praise God!”
“Okay…He’s so loving and good that the whole thing with Jephthah burning his own daughter as a sacrifice was probably a BIG misunderstanding.” (Much is made of the fact that in the other story God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son. Jephthah wasn’t so lucky.)

Mitchell Heisman, and one heck of a suicide note

“…if a man’s willing to write 1905 pages justifying his own death he’s not interested in being talked out of it.”

Question from Rohit:
Sometimes one comes across really rare incidents – and the reaction of the general public to such incidents really saddens one.

I’ve actually taken some time to go thru some of Mitchell Heisman’s 1905 page suicide note. I do not find any flaw in his logic except perhaps too narrow a focus on the concept of equality.
Some of his ideas are actually pretty interesting.
If you go to his site www.suicidenote.info and see his pic you do not see a guy who’s pathetic in appearance. He actually looks a bit intense. If you read his note even in bits and pieces you soon discover that this was a guy who was not pathetic in mental abilities either.

How would atheism sell life instead of death to Heisman? Can it? Can atheism justify life over death?

Religion’s stand on death seems to be pretty solid by the way. I’m not so sure of atheism’s stand.
I am an atheist and I think it is purely a matter of personal choice, social custom, muddied up with an evolutionary survival instinct (will to live – like that of any living organism – an instinct of flight from danger).

But I’d like to hear your comments on it … there’s been no answer to this in another forum till now.

An aside – Heisman’s is a case that has an eerie comparable in fiction – Dostoyevsky’s Kirilov in “Devils”

Answer by SmartLX:
Excuse me if I don’t devote the next several days to ploughing through all 1905 pages. I’m already reading Scott Pilgrim and I Shall Wear Midnight, and I have a job to go to. The sheer size of the piece may have a lot to do with why there’s no full response so far. Another major factor is that he only killed himself last month. Give it another month or two before you really wonder why there are no responses.

I did skim it though. My immediate response based on that, and your description, is that if a man’s willing to write 1905 pages justifying his own death he’s not interested in being talked out of it. He appears to have pre-emptively dismissed the stances of any set of people who he thought might try: Christians, Jews, members of many schools of philosophy, psychologists, scientists, atheists and so on. (His own position, in the vein of pantheism, might be called “technotheism”: God, or the making of God, is technology and He will have fully evolved at the point of the Technological Singularity.) Nobody, let alone atheism, had a chance of selling life to this guy.

Atheism by itself doesn’t justify life, nor can it be expected to. There’s no line of reasoning that goes, “There is no god, therefore don’t die.” The reasoning that keeps atheists alive, when it has anything to do with atheism at all, goes, “Despite the fact that there’s no god, there are such-and-such reasons to live.” We find reasons not in the simple absence which is atheism but in the incredible presence which is the universe. Philosophically or psychologically this can take the form of humanism (humanity is important), altruism (others are important), egotism (I am important), hedonism (while I live, I can find happiness), curiosity (I can’t explore when I’m dead) or any number of other concepts.

When you get right down to it, it is personal choice and social custom, “muddied up” with the hereditary survival instinct. Humans, by their upbringing and their intrinsic nature, generally want to live and most of the intellectual justification for living (religious or otherwise) is rationalisation after the fact. Mitchell Heisman didn’t want to live anymore, and for an educated man like him that took a mammoth 1905-page effort to rationalise.

The sad thing is that his last work may or may not contain the real reason he killed himself. It’s just as likely to emerge from his own circumstances as the last weeks and years of his life are explored by the media. And wherever it comes from, we may not even recognise it among the chaff.

Humanity

“God is the reason most religious people use to feel significant where we otherwise wouldn’t be, and losing that can be a frightening prospect.”

Question from Evelyn:
From what I have read you have a major interest in our humanity and how we can be be significant in an otherwise insignificant world. Why is this important for an Atheist to feel this way?

Answer by SmartLX:
I think it’s important to a human being to feel this way. That’s why I get tons of arguments along the lines of, “If there’s no god then nothing we do matters.” God is the reason many religious people use to feel significant where we otherwise wouldn’t be, and losing that can be a frightening prospect.

What I’ve written on the subject is generally ways to claim significance without referring to an absolute authority, which is necessary to fill that gap. It’s easy, really, because we humans are tremendously significant to each other.

Ultimately I think we are insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe because besides us and any aliens who might come along, there’s no one out there to be significant to. And because of this, it shouldn’t matter to us in the slightest.

Conversions

“It is certainly possible for the mind of a Christian to change. Whether they change as a result of outside influence or internal reflection is more of a philosophical matter.”

Question from Brian:
Is it actually possible to change the mind of a christian? It seems like they’re just so cemented in their ideas that it’s impossible.

Answer:
It is certainly possible for the mind of a Christian to change. Whether they change as a result of outside influence or internal reflection is more of a philosophical matter.

Check out Convert’s Corner on richarddawkins.net, where people describe exactly why they no longer believe in whatever gods they used to. Plenty of the contributors are ex-Christians.

Regardless of former religion, though, you’ll notice as you read that they generally see it as an internal process. What they were reading and who they were talking to is secondary to what they reasoned and realised and how they felt. The other thing you’ll notice is that deconversion takes a good long while, and is rarely complete at the end of a conversation.

Therefore, from your perspective as an advocate of atheism, even if what you say to a Christian is what ultimately convinces them that Christianity is false, they’re unlikely even to admit that you have a valid point while you’re talking to them. Encouraging deconversion often lacks the instant gratification of seeing people go, “Wow, you’re right!” About the most you can hope for is a look of frustration, then confusion.

Two other reasons why you’re not likely to see immediate change are peer pressure and doctrine.
– Evangelicals especially know that their fellow Christians will turn on them, in a sense, if they show doubt.
– It’s a common teaching that any words which sow doubt are ultimately from the Devil, so that doesn’t help your credibility among your audience.

Most importantly, none of this means that you are not having an effect.

– SmartLX

“What are you going to do with Jesus?”

“It’s caught on because it lends immediacy and even more confrontation to the process of witnessing and proselytising.”

Question du jour:
“What are you going to do with Jesus?”

Answer:
“Not much. If he ever lived then he died a long time ago and there’s no indication that he has any stake in what I do today.”

The question probably got its start in the video The Jesus Rant. It’s now popular enough to populate many pages of Google results.

It’s caught on because it lends immediacy and even more confrontation to the process of witnessing and proselytising. Jesus, it implies, is right in front of you, waiting for your answer. No passive response is available because action is required of you; inaction is point-blank rejection.

Importantly, there’s no really polite way to engage and then dismiss it. This is a technique learned long ago by aggressive salespeople and beggars: force the customer to stifle prompted responses, be rude and/or feel uncomfortable and guilty in order to escape signing up or handing it over. Since the question assumes the continued importance (and existence) of Jesus, the only way for a non-believer to answer honestly is to go “off script” and challenge the question itself. That means being more forward than you might like, especially when you’re responding to a friend, family member or apparently nice person. That’s the point.

Another important aspect of the question is what it doesn’t mention. Those who ask it are hardly going to follow up with, “Okay, now what are you going to do with the Buddha?…Mohammed?” To accept Jesus is to reject all other potential objects of worship just as strongly. Considering this goes against the purpose of the question; you’re supposed to accept Jesus and be relieved of guilt. Any mention of other religions, and suddenly it’s like you’re giving a pony ride to only one child out of a group.

I can’t make responding to this question easy, even by supplying an answer as I did first off, because its impact is primarily emotional. Once you understand that, however, you can see it for what it is: simple but effective propaganda.

– SmartLX