Posted inReligions Science

New Scientist looks at the science of religion

Why do so many people believe in God or in other sorts of supernatural beings? Most religious folks would have no trouble answering that question. "Because God is real," they'd say.  Well, that's highly debatable. And I'm being generous to religion. That's ridiculous is closer to how I really feel. The most recent issue of New Scientist dives into these "Why believe?" waters. An editorial does a good job of summarizing core themes in the following articles. It ends with: Secularists would also do well to recognise the distinction between the "popular religion" that comes easily to people's minds and…
No Comments
Posted inReality Science

Einstein was right. Neutrinos don’t travel faster than light.

Love it. Another triumph of the scientific method. Which does so much better at revealing the secrets of reality than religions do. An experiment to repeat a test of the speed of subatomic particles known as neutrinos has found that they do not travel faster than light. Results announced in September suggested that neutrinos can exceed light speed, but were met with scepticism as that would upend Einstein's theory of relativity. A test run by a different group at the same laboratory has now clocked them travelling at precisely light speed. Now, this doesn't conclusively settle the question of whether…
5
Posted inFree will Morality Science

Free will is a limiting, destructive belief

Free will. Who could be against this seemingly wonderful notion? The opposite idea seems to be a depressing downer: Unfree determinism.  After I'd read the first part of Sam Harris' new book, "Free Will," I shared my enthusiasm with my wife about giving up the belief that I can freely decide what I think, feel, or do. She wasn't nearly as enthused, perhaps because of her lengthy experience as a psychotherapist. "But wouldn't people then use I've got no free will as an excuse for doing whatever they want? And wouldn't this take away people's motivation to change, to improve…
6
Posted inBooks Free will Science

The dizzying joy of being freed from “free will”

Free will is an illusion. We're full of wants, desires, thoughts, emotions, and such. But we can't want our wants, desire our desires, think our thoughts, emote our emotions, or freely choose anything. This is the convincing central message of Sam Harris' "Free Will," a short book that I read halfway through today and am enjoying as much as I thought I would. It's only 66 pages long. Yet it could have been even shorter, because Harris necessarily repeats his no free will theme in various ways -- getting his point across from different perspectives. I say "necessarily" since the…
1
Posted inBooks Free will Science

Sam Harris’ “Free Will” arrives today

Ooh, ooh, I'm so excited! Amazon tells me my pre-ordered copy of "Free Will" by Sam Harris should be delivered today. Can't help my excitement. I have no free will. Harris gives away the plot line of his book in The Illusion of Free Will. In that short piece he ends with a great question: How can we make sense of our lives, and hold people accountable for their choices, given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds? His new book is just 96 pages long. Good. I want to learn Harris' answer.
4
Posted inPersonal/Stories Science

Doubt is the stepping stone to truth

I was so sure that I was right. It turned out that I was wrong. But after finding this out, I was able to get on the road to rightness. What got me facing in the right direction was doubt. Thank you, doubt! If it weren't for you, I'd have headed in the wrong direction for quite a bit longer. I'm not talking about a religious belief, though I could be. The lesson I learned last week is universal: don't be completely, absolutely, 100% sure about anything. Even when we're super confident that we're correct, it's important to leave open the…
4
Posted inScience Universe

“Nothing” replaces “God” in modern cosmology

Nothing is a big deal in physics nowadays. As noted in a previous post, scientists have found that even seemingly empty space actually is seething with energetic activity.  So much so, as cosmologist Lawrence Krauss describes in his new book, "A Universe from Nothing," nothing can reasonably be viewed as the creative principle which brought the universe into being -- a job most religions give to God. We have discovered that we live in a universe in which empty space -- what formerly could have passed for nothing -- has a new dynamic that dominates the current evolution of the…
1
Posted inGod Science Universe

Science’s “nothing” different from religion’s “nothing”

You'd think that if secular scientists and religious true believers could agree on anything, it'd be the nature of nothing. After all, isn't nothing, well, nothing? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Absence. Void.  But, no, here too science and religion are butting heads. Scientific nothing is quite different from religious nothing. And while I used to be more on religion's side when I thought about what nothing meant in the Big Question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", now I strongly lean toward the headbutt (or to the faithful, butthead) of science. Physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss does a great job laying out…
7
Posted inReality Science Universe

Universe may not be eternal, but existence is

Believers in God who follow modern science will be heartened by a recent article in New Scientist, "Why physicists can't avoid a creation event."  While many of us may be OK with the idea of the big bang simply starting everything, physicists, including Hawking, tend to shy away from cosmic genesis. "A point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God," Hawking told the meeting, at the University of Cambridge, in a pre-recorded speech. For a while it looked like it might be possible to dodge this problem, by…
1
Posted inFree will Morality Science

There’s no free will, so you’re unable to believe me

I gave it my best try last night -- arguing that we humans don't have free will, though it seems ever so obvious that we do. (Of course, it also seems obvious that the sun goes around the Earth, which demolishes the "obviousness" argument for anything.) My wife and I belong to a three-couple book/article discussion group. Yesterday the subject was the justice system. When it came time for me to share my thoughts, I started off by quoting from Jerry Coyne's column in USA Today, "Why you don't really have free will." The issue of whether we have of…
16
Posted inReligions Science

What would a new scientific religion look like?

The world needs a new religion. The ones we have are outdated. Every major religion -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism -- dates from prescientific days. Apple comes up with a new and improved iPhone every year or so. Why should we be content with ancient forms of spirituality concocted by people who didn't even know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, much less about quantum theory, relativity, the big bang, and evolution? Our old religions are deeply problematic. A short piece from the National Academy of Sciences on "Compatibility of Science and Religion" pinpoints the problem. Science and religion are…
9
Posted inScience

Brian Greene shows why science surpasses religion

Physicist Brian Greene has ably taken on Carl Sagan's role as TV's best popularizer of science. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed his recent "Fabric of the Cosmos" series on PBS. I've read his book by the same name, as well as his recent "The Hidden Reality."  This afternoon, while exercising at an athletic club, I listened to an interview with Greene on a Point of Inquiry podcast. (I've discovered a bunch of interesting new podcasts to supplement my Philosophy Talk listening after spending $1.99 on the terrific Instacast iPhone app; highly recommended.) Listening to Greene talk with Chris Mooney,…
19
Posted inBooks Science

God didn’t design the world. Neither do humans.

Scientifically-inclined people like me dismiss the idea of "intelligent design" when it is applied to the universe as a whole, or Earth in particular. It just is extremely unlikely that our world was designed by an intelligent being, rather than coming to be as it is through evolution's process of natural selection. Strangely, though, even most scientists assume that history is the record of how we humans have designed cultures, civilizations, and such. So intelligent design isn't accepted as an explanation for how the natural world came to be, but it is accepted as an explanation for how the "built"…
1
Posted inScience

Shocker! Thoughts really aren’t about anything at all

Thoughts. Desires. Intentions. Plans. Interpretations. Meanings. These seem to be so important, so vital, so much a part of being human.  We think about stuff. We have feelings about stuff. We argue, debate, laugh, cry, discuss, cogitate, agonize over, dream about stuff. Yet there are good neuroscientific reasons to say, "We're totally mistaken. It's impossible for our minds to be about anything." So argues Alex Rosenberg in his book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality." A few days ago I blogged about it here, ending with a quotation that stimulated this post: Ultimately, science and scientism are going to give up…
16
Posted inReality Science

“Atheist’s Guide to Reality” answers life’s biggest questions

Here's a gift idea for the atheists and agnostics on your Christmas shopping list: Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions. I'm enjoying it a lot, having bought it at Powell's Books in Portland (best bookstore in the world!) a few weeks ago. Rosenberg, chair of the Philosophy Department at Duke University, is a powerful writer. He is utterly fearless in proclaiming his atheistic thesis. Here it is in a nutshell, on pages 2-3 of his new book where he confidently answers life's biggest questions in a few words: Is there a God? No. What is…
22
Posted inScience Wu Project

Nothing is the heart of reality

There's something fascinating about nothing. Yes, that's a paradox. Necessarily so, because "nothing" is an abstraction, an impossibility. If nothing actually existed, it wouldn't be nothing. And even if somehow there could be nothing, no one would know about it. A recent issue of New Scientist largely was devoted to exploring the nature of nothingness. In one page, physicist Brian Greene summarized the main themes in "Nothingness: why nothing matters."  SHAKESPEARE had it right, even in ways he couldn't have imagined. For centuries, scientists have indeed been making much ado about nothing - and with good reason. Nothing, or rather…
5
Posted inScience

“Boy with no brain” isn’t spiritually significant

Can human consciousness exist without a brain? There's no solid evidence in support of this hypothesis, which lies at the core of most religious dogma and mystical practices. Sure, the notion of an immaterial conscious soul is appealing, as this would survive bodily death.  Almost everyone would agree that immortality is more desirable than the alternative: dying and not existing, forever. So I understand why people cling to the possibility that brains aren't the real us. After I wrote a blog post, "Unmediated experience doesn't exist," where I said that experience isn't possible without a brain, I got an email…
6
Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Why ask “why” if the question is unanswerable?

Why fascinates me. I don't know why. It just does.  Is there a problem with that? I respond "no." But asking that question belies the answer. Better to say, "sometimes there's no why, just is." Reasons lie on a sliding scale, though. In some areas of science causes and effects can be determined in amazing detail. If such wasn't the case, I wouldn't be able to type this blog post on a computer and publish it on the Internet where you can read it. Nor would space probes be able to reach the most distant planets in our solar system…
6
Posted inGod Science

Don’t mistake God for your intuitive brain speaking

Over on my other blog, yesterday I made fun of a bunch of Republican presidential candidates (Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Santorum) for believing that God had told them to pursue their political dreams.  But it would have been just as easy for me to make fun of myself -- or anyone -- because we all are prone to mistaking messages from the hidden part of our own brains for guidance of cosmic import. If you've ever said, "I think the universe is sending me a message" (I sure have), this is an indication that the difference between you and someone who believes that…
No Comments
Posted inScience Universe

“Empty” space really isn’t — but don’t jump to spiritual conclusions

Wow! That's my one-word review of the first episode, "What is Space?," in NOVA's The Fabric of the Cosmos series. (You can watch it online.) I already knew many of the facts presented by physicist Brian Greene. Such as: -- Matter is mostly empty space. Take out the space, and Greene said that the mass of the Empire State Building would condense to the size of a super-heavy grain of rice.  -- Space isn't really empty. It is seething with activity at the quantum level. Particles are continually flashing in and out of existence. -- TIme and space are intimately…
2