The argument from design

    Many people want to prove that God exists. A common argument (or proof) is to point to something designed and made by humans, such as a watch. These are obviously designed. So anything that looks like it's designed must have been designed, which means there's a designer. Natural objects such as flowers and bees, etc look like they've been designed, so there must be a designer. That designer is God.

 This is the "argument from  design", and it doesn't work. Actually, there is no proof of God's existence. And there is no proof of God's non-existence, either.

If you want to prove God's existence, then the general form of the proof will be:
1) If some statement about XYZ is true, then God exists.
2) The statement about XYZ is true.
3) Therefore God exists.

   There are at least three problems with this.

   ONE. The premise "The statement about XYZ is true" is either an axiom (an assumption), or else it is a theorem (a statement proven by reason). Either way, the argument makes God's existence logically dependent on or derived from some statement about XYZ. But for a statement about XYZ to be true (or false), XYZ must exist. So God's existence logically depends on or derives from the existence of XYZ. But that's absurd, since by definition, God's existence cannot depend on or derive from the existence of anything else. Hence, you cannot prove God's existence. QED.

   TWO: If the premise is an assumption, then the argument from design is circular. It assumes what it is designed to prove.The assumption is: "If something looks like it's designed, then it is designed; and if it is designed, there must be a designer." But if there is a designer, then things will look like they're designed. Therefore there is a designer. Therefore things will look like they're designed. Therefore there is a designer. Therefore... See?

   THREE: So you've proved God is the Designer of the Universe. Now what? What kind of God is this Designer? Did he design parasites, which can cause their hosts to die horrible and painful deaths? What about diseases that have wiped out millions of people, like the bubonic plague? Where will the claim that only God can design living things go when humans design and make them? Actually, humans have already done that.

   In other words, conclusions raise as many questions as they answer. Once you've proven something or other, it becomes a premise for further proofs. It becomes a basis for further questions. Some of those questions will not be the kind you wanted when you set out to prove your point. That's the way logic works.

   A local pastor once asked me to participate in a "debate" about the existence of God. I refused. I said than any true Christian will not worry about such arguments, since for a Christian "God exists" is a given. It's an axiom. It's one of those statements you use to prove things you want to prove. The pastor understood my point, but I don't know what he told his youth group.

   Of course, you need other axioms in order to get anywhere. And that's where the trouble starts. You can prove anything you want if you select axioms that produce your conclusion. Religious people of a certain kind just love proofs. Proofs mean that they are right and everybody else is wrong. And once you've proved that to your satisfaction, you can do whatever you want to those evil people who disagree with what you have proved is God's will.

   You don't have to start this process with God. You can go with Historical Necessity. Or the Supremacy of the Aryan Race. Or that Capitalism equals Democracy. Or whatever.

   Ideology is simply a religion without a god.

   2013-08-08

R. Sekuler & R. Blake. Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds (1998)

     R. Sekuler & R. Blake. Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds (1998) I found a marginal note by me, so I have read this book before. Perhaps I can’t remember as well as I could, or perhaps the book is forgettable. I lean towards the latter, because yesterday I found I could remember most of a book that I’d read a couple of years ago, merely from reading the back cover blurb.
     This book ranks lowest of the Star Trek spinoffs that aped The Physics of Star Trek. Its authors are no doubt nice people and decent fellows, to judge from their jacket photos. Professors at a couple of minor liberal arts colleges, they no doubt enjoy a good reputation among students. If this book constitutes evidence, their courses don’t demand much, and offer a deal of mild entertainment. But as a discourse on the nature of mind and behaviour, this book falls short.
     The defects show up most strongly in the section on memory, in which the two authors waffle around the concepts of memory as storage and memory as a process, without ever making clear what either conceptualisation entails, and how, if at all, Star Trek illustrates or exemplifies them. In particular, they use the notion of “procedural memory” for what are clearly behaviours shaped by operant conditioning. That people can “learn new skills” supposedly shows that procedural memory can remain intact even while trauma has damaged or destroyed “declarative memory”. The authors imply that this is a mystery, which it isn’t. Our behaviours are shaped by operant conditioning, so it should be obvious that damage to one part of the brain shouldn’t affect the shaping of behaviours mediated by other parts of the brain. If it were otherwise, it would be a mystery that some strokes impair the ability to walk but not to talk, and vice versa. Actually, the fact that “procedural memory” can remain intact when other kinds of remembering are impaired supports the concept of memory as behaviour. Similar muddles show up in other sections.
     The authors are best when they deal with interactions between people, at which level questions of how to conceptualise the way the brain actually functions are irrelevant. Although they don’t use the word “conditioning”, much of their talk about phobias, for example, makes it clear that phobias are glitches in behaviour, and can be fixed by working with sufferers to change their responses to the triggers of phobic behaviours.
     The central question, whether we can in fact imagine truly alien minds, is dealt with briefly. We can to some extent imagine the sensorium of other creatures. Technical advances in making visible details that can be seen only in UV light show that we can get a vague sense of what it would be like to see like a bee. In some circumstances, a human can actually do so, sort of: the authors cite the experience of a man whose cataract operation permitted UV to enter his eyes, which resulted in unusual responses in the retina, and affected his sense of colour. But all aliens that we imagine will share human traits with us. Those are the only traits we can imagine. We can imagine aliens that resemble the more exotic terrestrial creatures in looks or actions (think of the alien in Alien, for example), but again, our imaginings are based on what we know. It cannot be otherwise. The truly alien is unimaginable by definition. Thus, the authors very sensibly draw attention to how both human and non-human characters in Star Trek exemplify human traits, and so help us understand ourselves.
     All in all, this is a lightweight and forgettable work. But I already said that, didn’t I? ** (2007)

Edna O’Brien. Mrs Reinhardt (1978)

 

    Edna O’Brien. Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories (1978) I see by the flyleaf note that I bought this book in 1980: I can’t recall reading it. Reading it now, it seems dated in its themes and above all its tone. The stories deal almost entirely with broken relationships, and usually with domestic violence, sometimes physical but always psychological. Gloomy and depressing for the most part. A few are milder, perhaps O’Brien wrote them for women’s magazines, which wouldn’t tolerate the franker and more brutal language of the stories she wrote for literary journals. Some are quite self-consciously Irish, which doesn’t help: their aim seems to be to epater les curés, and perhaps shocked the naiver sort of priest; but the religious that I’ve met are not as easily shocked as their parishioners.

    O'Brien writes well, which makes for a pleasurable read. But I don’t have much sympathy for her characters. Either I’ve become callous, or the time for this sort of story is past, and I’m as much a creature of my time as anyone else.  Which makes this collection a witness to its time, and my reaction a witness to mine. ** to *** (2007)

Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer.

     Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer. I can’t judge the quality of this translation, except indirectly. It looks like Bayer had difficulties with Sayers’ style. It’s allusive, and accurately reproduces the class as well as regional dialects. Difficult to do in German. Most difficult is Wimsey’s constant (and quite self-conscious) shifting of register. To reproduce this in German takes a good ear for this sort of thing in both languages. Bayer struggles, but succeeds only intermittently. What this translation shows is that Sayers was above all a great stylist. I also found it tough sledding to read German, perhaps because Bayer’s colloquialisms are German and not Austrian. Oddly enough, the brief bio and commentary in the afterword was easier to read, more academic, therefore more impersonal. ** (2007)

Iain Rice. Mid-sized and Manageable Track Plans (2003)

     Iain Rice. Mid-sized and Manageable Track Plans (2003) Rice is one of the worthy successors of John Armstrong. He designs layouts rather than track plans, but beginners and moderately experienced model railroaders, who are the intended audience of this book, either haven’t understood the difference or haven’t come to understand its importance. Every layout is based on an actual prototype (one of which is John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid), and each displays Rice’s ability to think in terms of the layout as a whole. Close study reveals some typos and a couple optimistic grade calculations and other technical glitches. But these hardly detract from the book’s success. Rice wants us to imagine what we can do with our space, and in this he succeeds brilliantly. *** (2007)

Dick Hafer. Sometimes You Gotta Compromise (1995)

     Dick Hafer. Sometimes You Gotta Compromise (1995) Hafer’s cartoons in Model Railroader received enough compliments that Kalmbach risked a collection, which turned out to be successful enough to warrant both a 2nd printing and a second book in 1996. The cartoons range from pretty lame to sly and subtle, most with enough of a satiric edge to raise a smile if not a guffaw. However, like most themed humour, insiders will find the results more amusing than outsiders. The draughtsmanship is very good, and Hafer has the sense to make himself the object of much of the satire. **

    Dick  Hafer. This is Not the Honeymoon I had in Mind (1996) Same quality as the first book. ** (2007)

James G. Robins. World Steam Locomotives (1973)

     James G. Robins. World Steam Locomotives (1973) Robins’ artistic skill nicely complements his discussion of steam locomotives, which, though he admires them, he knows to be uneconomical and inefficient. Writing in the early 70s, he has a tad too much optimism about the longevity of steam in those parts of the world where labour is cheap and coal plentiful. Apart from that, hindsight can find no fault with his discussions, and his pictures are lovely. *** (2007)