Nowism

A key component to religion is personal survival after bodily death; that our "soul goes somewhere". One could view religion as a risk/reward situation, in which, the risks of living a "good" life, avoiding the temptations of "badness", are rewarded with an eternal afterlife. The pious gain an eternity of goodness, and the evil an eternity of suffering in the common view. The neutral? Hard to say. As morality can be attributed, at least in part, to religious principles, what would be the point of being moral, of being good, if there was no afterlife? Is it even plausible to consider that religion could survive the extinction of an afterlife, that once we die, we die for all time?

With the prevalence of religions ascribing a continuation of life beyond the grave, one could assume that no religion could "survive" without allowing for a continuance of life. The very concept of an afterlife plays upon the apparent human vanity of needing to believe that something lies beyond our comprehension, beyond simple mortality. It is akin to gamblers spending their money on the "sure thing", hoping that eventually it will pay off.

It seems impossible that a religion could be viable if it did not offer something for its worshippers that did not entail supernaturality. The struggle would be to convince people that while this is the only life that they will ever know, that once their mortal life is over, nothing comes after. As such this religion must find a compelling argument that it is in this existence that a person can find a kind of salvation that has meaning. And this is where the religion without an afterlife must find a way to counter the warning of Shelley's Ozymandias.

This religion, call it Nowism, must be founded on the belief that it is in this mortal life a person must strive to become the purity of its god. Since there is no afterlife to segregate the pious from the non, reward and suffering must manifest itself in the now, and be a direct reflection of the individual. If a person lives his/her life poorly, evilly, then the person will find naught but evil returning and plaguing his/herself.

Nowism has many examples as tools to convince people of its possibility. One could argue that the vanity, the covetness, of people have brought great suffering to the world. Global warming, wars, genocide, and crime in general, are indicators of evil wrought by one's own hands. Nin attributes it to maleness and passivity of women. It is not the role of god to end these violations, but squarely in the hands of the followers. If they were to examine their lives, as Socrates urged, they would know that they have not lived in piety, but in irreverence, and as such, the forces of the universe have repaid them with the penalties of their actions.

Instead of offering salvation at some later time, Nowism could offer salvation every day with every action. At the same time it would offer damnation at every action as well. Nowism would border closely to the Sartreian maxim of man, in the absence of god, creating himself. But man creating himself would not be to establish morality from situation to situation, but through reflection of end results. If killing a bad person would save a community from evil, then is it the moral thing to do? Hegel has made the point that the punishment of the criminal must not be determined as though he were a "harmful animal" that must be made harmless.

Since that is so, punishment is regarded as containing the criminal's right and hence by being punished he is honoured as a rational being. He does not receive this due of honour unless the concept and measure of his punishment are derived from his own act. Still less does he receive it if he is treated either as a harmful animal who has to be made harmless, or with a view to deterring and reforming him. (Philosophy of Right, §100).

It puts the emphasis for actions squarely in the hands of the individual.

And an interesting possibility for Nowism is that a god of some sort would not be necessary. In this regard it would more closely approximate the Eastern religions which weigh a person's life by their actions. What would be missing from Nowism though would be reincarnation. It would be an escape from Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. A person would have but one shot at living a pious life, to generate as much good as possible. Since humanity seems to need something beyond the grave, Nowism could emphasize the reward of eternal recognition, much the way that Gandhi is venerated. There is no proof that Gandhi lives in some supernatural world, but memory of his actions and of him are quite alive still.

As interesting as Nowism would be, it would most likely fall by the wayside, would lose out to the religions that offer something more beyond this life. Nowism would face an uphill battle to win converts from the self-obsessed, from those that an afterlife must exist for. It is because of this that a religion without an afterlife is not viable. It offers mankind nothing more than is available now. And yet, Nowism appears to be a more plausible answer to the question of life.

Sartreian Freedom

As an atheist, Sartre denied that man is born with certain values, that man is born with universal ethics. As such, man must define freedom through his own actions. Freedom, in a classical definition, is to be without restraint. Sartre attempted to expand that definition by asserting that man was a prisoner of his own freedom, and that freedom was the only source of values. In short, man decides his values as he discovers his freedom.

As such, it matters not what side of a battle man sides with, so long as man acts with "good faith", chooses the good of an action. Man, being his own source of freedom, establishes his own values. To deny introspection, to not choose to act for the good, leaves man in anxiety and acting in "bad faith". Man must not act as others act, in a universal good, because that would remove introspection, would render the decision bad.

Being born without a hierarchal system of values, man continually builds his own. As such, man is able to destroy the hierarchy with each choice and establish a new one. Man, realizing that he is the source of values, the fount of freedom, will only choose to adhere to his freedom. Man then, with a god removed, is his own judge. Sartre was emphasizing that freedom is subjective, in that, man and man alone is capable of understanding his own freedom.

Sartre believed that most men hide from their freedom, in denial of it, and adopt the deterministic values of society and/or theology. Attribution to external sources is utter denial of inherent freedom. Things influence things, but man, as an actor, is not a thing. Man is responsible for himself. To act differently makes man inauthentic, and man renounces his humanity.

To further extend freedom, no man has rights, as rights are external things. Rights are determinism. A ruler has the right to rule because the citizens deny their freedom in a Nietzscheian slave-morality as they accept passively the values set before them. Rights have no ability to guide one's action, to determine conduct. Man, being aware of his freedom, creates his own values, his own hierarchies. As such, even a revolutionary, one who battles for the freedom of all, denies his own freedom, as a revolution carries its own values and rules of conduct, ethics.

Sartre has established that man being free determines his own values, and as such, those values are mercurial, changing with each situation. A man who must choose between family and country can not rely on established values, but must determine his own action. Man must act for the good. How each man determines the good is man's freedom. Freedom then is an active form, is not in stasis. Man who resists freedom is in a continual form of anxiety, as he must determine to act for the good, to create his own values with each situation.

Dennett and Game Theory: Voodoo Mathematics?

Dennett's use of game theory (Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks) as either an explanation or a support for adaptationism is curious. Game theory in evolutionary study seeks to understand the mathematics behind the moves taken by an organism (rational or bounded rationality) to explain why some organisms survive while others do not. Dennett surely has given himself to this mode of explanation, and
ascribes also to defection over cooperation. While he makes allowances for instances where mutual cooperation is the norm, he weighs heavily on the side of defection. It is in this instance where the curiosity comes. Can mutual defection explain an organism's continued existence?

A basic idea of game theory is that when a player is given two choices, to defect or to
cooperate, the most rational choice is made, based on a payoff matrix. In a perfect world, the player will choose the optimal path, mutual cooperation. But since the game is played against other rational players, the optimal is not always the best choice, but the suboptimal one. Anticipation of the moves of the other player enter into the decision-making process. At the human level this involves emotional guesswork and greed, and a learning curve of the opponent's most-likely move. In short, the Prisoner's Dilemma.

A player knowing that mutual cooperation is the optimal choice will not always make
that choice. This is because his opponent may choose to defect, and the resultant would be for the player that chose to cooperate, would have a great loss. It is this knowledge that leads to the suboptimal decision to mutually defect. The players acknowledge that there will be a minor loss on both parts, but neither player will achieve advantage over the other. Stasis at the suboptimal is the norm, whether it is the Evolutionary Stable Strategy or the Nash Equilibrium.

Dennett uses a quote by Dawkins (254) to illustrate his stance on game theory, in that,
an organism “seeks” to dominate its population. This domination is the suboptimal mutual defection of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The organism allows for a minor loss by selecting defection, while taking the chance that its “opponent” will choose to cooperate, thereby enhancing the payoff for the organism that defects. This is akin to the nuclear arms race. The US and the Soviet Union stockpiled weapons, thousands more than necessary, to reach a state of potential mutual obliteration. Both sides chose mutual defection as their strategy, with the side-hope that their opponent would eventually make the choice of cooperation at the wrong moment.

Dennett allows for mutual cooperation, under the correct circumstances. One must
assume that by this he means an abundance of resources, or a period of stasis, one which would not give an organism a large payoff if it chose to defect. Of course, this is then game theory working at the optimal level. But since both Dennett and Dawkins adhere to organisms needing to dominate their population, the optimal level is most-likely a short-lived state (dozens, hundreds of generations?). This is what Dennett refers to as “evolutionary unenforceable” states (256). In short, Dennett believes that unselfish states, mutual cooperation, “must be designed (256)”. It is here that Dennett swings the optimal state, mutual cooperation, into the field of aberration.

Dennett goes further to state that cooperation is exceedingly rare in nature. The trees
grow tall because they are “selfish”, and as such, organisms benefit from this selfishness. Without tall trees, selfish trees, “beautiful forests...could not exist (256)”. Dennett acknowledges that this is a damning view of evolution. It is not because it is loathsome, but because it equates all organisms to selfish desires, conscious or not. In general, if an organism can succeed by taking an advantage over another organism, it will. Mutual defection is the norm, not the exception.

This state is beautifully illustrated in Hofstadter's Wolf Dilemma (Hofstadter, D.R.
(1985) Metamagical Themas: Questing for the essence of mind and pattern, New York: Basic Books, Inc.). Basically it is a modified Prisoner's Dilemma, but with a much larger payoff for mutual cooperation. Hofstadter invited twenty friends to submit their rational choice, one without emotional baggage, to him. The payoffs were skewed towards mutual cooperation. In short, if everyone chose mutual cooperation, they would receive a larger payoff ($57) than if they all chose mutual defection ($19). Dennett himself participated in this experiment and chose mutual cooperation. His choice was the minority choice. At the end, 70% of the participants chose to defect.

So it seems that defection is a kind of ingrained rationality. The question must be
raised though, that if selfishness is a norm, is this not anthropomorphising organisms? Can we equate a human emotion to the selection process of a gene? While it is a stretch, there does not seem to be any other explanation as to why mutual defection appears to be the rule. Selfishness appears to be a genetic predilection.

Gould has brought about the idea of hidden constraints, ones that seemingly effect game theory, and in his view it seems, invalidates game theory as it applies to adaptation (257). Dennett makes the point that adaptationists already allow for hidden constraints. A hidden constraint is one that limits the choices of an organism, with or without conscious knowledge of the constraint. Dennett makes the case of a butterfly that is perfectly camouflaged on the forest floor (260). The butterfly dominates other butterflies because of its coloration advantage. But as Dennett points out, if the forest floor were to change, the butterfly would either adapt or not, and if it does not “it will find some other adaptation in its limited kit of available moves or it will soon disappear (260)”. This is a hidden constraint and not necessarily counter to game theoretic approach.

Here is where Dennett ties hidden constraints to game theory, and brings it all into the
adaptationist's fold: hidden constraints allow for all possible “habitable” moves, and as such, falls within the realm of game theory. Selfish intent is only constrained by what is possible. In a sense, this is not a constraint at all. How could anything choose to move in an impossible way? And even if it could somehow make the impossible possible, could it survive? Would an organism that exists in an oxygen breathing world benefit from being able to breathe nitrogen? Surely it would be a mutant and if it lost it's ability to breathe oxygen, it would become extinct.

In the end, Dennett has done a remarkable job at tying game theory to adaptationist
evolutionary theory. While his ideas are not without their detractors, he seems to have built what can not be successfully assailed. Selfishness, whether conscious or unconscious, are merely gears in the machine of design. It is the “intent” of organisms to take advantage of all possible habitable moves, within the constraints of possibility, to adapt. It is an either/or position. Either an organism adapts, or it does not. If it does not, it will tend towards extinction, it will be the player that chooses to cooperate in a field of defectors.

Sartreian Freedom

As an atheist, Sartre denied that man is born with certain values, that man is born with universal ethics. As such, man must define freedom through his own actions. Freedom, in a classical definition, is to be without restraint. Sartre attempted to expand that definition by asserting that man was a prisoner of his own freedom, and that freedom was the only source of values. In short, man decides his values as he discovers his freedom.

As such, it matters not what side of a battle man sides with, so long as man acts with “good faith”, chooses the good of an action. Man, being his own source of freedom, establishes his own values. To deny introspection, to not choose to act for the good, leaves man in anxiety and acting in “bad faith”. Man must not act as others act, in a universal good, because that would remove introspection, would render the decision bad. Being born without a hierarchal system of values, man continually builds his own. As such, man is able to destroy the hierarchy with each choice and establish a new one. Man, realizing that he is the source of values, the fount of freedom, will only choose to adhere to his freedom. Man then, with a god removed, is his own judge.

Sartre was emphasizing that freedom is subjective, in that, man and man alone is capable of understanding his own freedom. Sartre believed that most men hide from their freedom, in denial of it, and adopt the deterministic values of society and/or theology. Attribution to external sources is utter denial of inherent freedom. Things influence things, but man, as an actor, is not a thing. Man is responsible for himself. To act differently makes man inauthentic, and man renounces his humanity.

To further extend freedom, no man has rights, as rights are external things. Rights are determinism. A ruler has the right to rule because the citizens deny their freedom in a Nietzscheian slave-morality as they accept passively the values set before them. Rights
have no ability to guide one’s action, to determine conduct. Man, being aware of his freedom, creates his own values, his own hierarchies. As such, even a revolutionary, one who battles for the freedom of all, denies his own freedom, as a revolution carries its own values and rules of conduct, ethics.

Sartre has established that man being free determines his own values, and as such, those values are mercurial, changing with each situation. A man who must choose between family and country can not rely on established values, but must determine his own action. Man must act for the good. How each man determines the good is man’s freedom. Freedom then is an active form, is not in stasis. Man who resists freedom is in a continual form of anxiety, as he must determine
to act for the good, to create his own values with each situation.

Epistemology and Analogical of the Teleological Argument

The epistemological and analogical methods of the teleological argument are attempts at proofs for the existence of a god. Epistemology (knowledge) relies on the Platonic idea that knowledge is composed of truths and beliefs. It is the beliefs part that makes a proof for god difficult, if not impossible. Analogical arguments rely upon building logical proofs that combine humans with natural entities, cosmos. A common objection to this method is that humans are not like natural entities.

An argument from belief is deux visage in nature. Belief generally can not be provable as probable. To counter this argumental style, one could assume that the belief portion would be the easiest to target. Because of this, it is upon the believer to prove that one's beliefs constitute fact, as in:

I believe in X.
There must be at least one X.
Therefore, X is true.

The believer could use the tactic that belief is not something that can be measured by scientific principles. This is a quite defensible position. Semantical arguments, Wittgenstein's language games, sever a need to justify belief by the standards of science. The basic argument is that belief is written in the language of a divine being, and science is an artificial creation by man. As such, they are not cohesive nor interchangeable. Belief becomes a function of a purely religious realm.

In reality, disproving that “at least one” is key. The reason for this, is that for every argument made against belief, the believer can counter. Also, because belief is not tangible, it is a theoretical possibility. More simply, if someone believes that god is a rock, and states that there must be at least one rock that is god, the disproof of god being a rock is impossible. But one could show through a preponderance of evidence that no known rock is god. Following Ockham's Razor, because no known rock is god, then it would go to reason that there is no rock that is god. And even so, the argument can quickly turn circular. The believer might then simply counter that while every known rock is not god, one has not found the god rock. While Ockham works for science, it does not necessarily work for belief. And again the argument swings back to language games.

For analogical arguments, a logic proof is established. It systematically develops from the regularity of the universe, to its relations to humans, the to necessity for a god. For example:

The universe is ordered by laws.
Man is ordered by laws.
Laws are not spontaneous.
Neither the universe nor man created these laws.
Therefore, a creator established the laws.

Another version of the argument is to claim that:

The universe is ordered and like a machine.
Man is ordered and like a machine.
A machine can not create itself.
Therefore, a creator made both man and the universe.

This method of argument uses both induction and scientific fact to support itself. As one is unlikely to disprove scientific fact, the inductive process must be found fallible. While it is both true that man and the universe is bound by laws and have machine-like qualities, it is not necessarily true that those laws and qualities are the same. But even so, variability in law or quality does not disprove the theory. Given that:

A is non-B
C is non-B

are both perfectly logical. It is the conclusion that can be fallible. To state that A and C are non-B, requires extra steps to prove so, because while neither is non-B, there is no necessitation that A and C are the same. Doing so, is a false analogy and possibly tokenism. Does either system of argument have merit? The epistemological argument appears to be the most fallible of the two, in that, arguing from belief and trying to incorporate it as fact is improbable and most likely, impossible. If belief was an acceptable argument style, then anything would be possible. One could claim that they believe that they are god and as such then, would not be disproved. There are simply too many inherent flaws in the epistemological method.

As for the analogical argument, establishing a valid logical proof is also difficult. It is the transition from observable, scientific fact to supernatural necessity that is questionable at best. To make the leap that one can go from the observable to the unobservable is comparing disparate things. An orange is not an acorn. It seems also, that the analogical argument is better window dressing on the epistemological argument. But what it can not avoid is belief. Something that is unobservable requires an element of belief. And yes, belief has been responsible for amazing scientific discoveries, but those discoveries did not stem solely from belief.