Einstein famously said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I believe one of the reasons this quote is so famous is because it hits upon a fundamental truth – past experience is a good predictor of future experience. Put more formally, inductive reasoning is conditionally valid. The condition being that any conclusion drawn from inductive reasoning can be thrown out if enough conclusive counter examples are found.

How does this work in everyday life? It’s fundamental to our everyday functioning. When we get hungry, we eat because past experience has shown that eating satiates hunger. We expect our future behavior of eating to have the same outcome as our previous experiences of eating. When we drive, we press the gas pedal to accelerate. Why do we not hit the brake pedal to accelerate? Because past experience has proved to us that braking decelerates the car. Inductive reasoning is so fundamental to our experience that Einstein uses the rejection of it, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” as the very definition of insanity.

What I find interesting is that this axiom of experience is rationally unfounded. The Scottish philosopher David Hume pointed this out in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Thus the fact that we all accept induction as valid makes it an article of faith (defined as belief without rational justification). I believe that induction qualifies as an axiom (often called a postulate as well) – a simple claim accepted without proof on the basis of being self-evidently true.

Axioms function as starting points upon which other statements can be logically derived. For instance, in geometry, one of Euclid’s axioms is that a straight line segment can be drawn connecting any two distinct points. This is not proved via geometry but instead used with other axioms to derive all of geometry. Similarly, induction serves as a starting point for or experience of reality. It cannot be proven by experiencing reality, but can be used to understand our experience of reality.

Thus I call inductive reasoning the fundamental axiom of experience. This has some interesting implications which I hope to explore in future posts. What do you think?

Theologically speaking, I self-identify as a ‘deist-agnostic’, which really functions no differently than modern atheism. I live my life as if there is no God. So why even use the ‘deist’ label, why not just use ‘atheist’ or even ‘agnostic’? Sometimes I do. It depends on the situation, the audience, and the level of detail I feel like going into at the time. It’s impractical to list all situations where a theological label would come up, but I’ll give you a few. I’ll use ‘deist’ is social situations in which I know ‘atheist’ will cause unwanted trouble (I live and work in the Bible Belt of the United States). I use ‘atheist’ when discussing particular religions since I don’t believe in the god(s) of that religion. Also, I use the more precise ‘deist-agnostic’ when discussing theology and/or am interested in starting such a discussion.

My deist identity came up when discussing an interesting post about deism and skepticism with Thor’Ungal. I ended up explain the basis of my deism in light of my skepticism. The answer is the cosmological argument (CA):

1. A contingent being (a being that if it exists can not-exist) exists.
2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation[1] for its existence.
3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
6. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists cannot not-exist) exists.

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In a previeous post, I promised to write about a rebuttal to Jonathan Haidt’s model of human morality. The one I found most interesting was from Norm Doering.

Haidt is trying to demonstrate that liberal morality is more contracted than conservatives. In particular, he describes five foundations of morality of which, liberals only concern themselves with two. Doering argues that Haidt’s five foundations are incomplete. In fact, he thinks that the five are only half the story – that each represent only one polar end of continuity. Thus according to Doering, Haidt did not discover three moral foundations exclusive to conservatives, but the conservative end of three continua. Here is Doering’s expanded moral foundations:

1) Harm/Care____________|________Punish/Judge
2) Fairness/Reciprocity___|________Privilege/Bully power
3) Inclusive/Expansive______|________Ingroup/Loyalty
4) Question authority_______|________Authority/Respect
5) Rights/Secular Freedom___|________Purity/Sanctity

The ones in bold represent Haidt’s original five. The left side represent the foundations of liberal morality and the right represents conservative foundations. Note, however, that Doering relabels the sides as ‘secular’ and ‘theocratic’ respectively, assuming that all conservative morality is religiously based.

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One of my favorite publications, Skeptic has weekly online content called eSkeptic. This week’s eSkeptic linked to an article on one of my favorite sites, Edge.org, by one of my favorite thinkers, Jonathan Haidt. Needless to say, I was excited.

I blogged about Haidt in the past. Some of you may even remember the moral survey he created based on his theory of morality. If you don’t, it’s not too late to take his survey and many others (his is entitled “Moral Foundations Questionnaire”).

His new article is somewhat a suggested application of his Moral Foundations Theory. First, he identifies how psychologists have answered the question “What Makes People Vote Republican?” in the past.

…conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer “moral clarity”—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate.”

In other words, the electorate’s fears and simple mindedness are exploited by conservatives. I’m sure that you’d be shocked to learn that most psychologists are liberal.

Using Haidt’s theory, this is not the case at all. There are aspects of human morality that are completely ignored by liberals. These other aspects emphasize the role of the group in society over the role of the individual. The group is a tool with which individual selfishness is repressed and the good of society is promoted. For most conservatives, ‘the group’ is actually a number of interdependent entities such as the family, the church, and the country. Group cohesiveness is enhanced by in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and exemplifying purity.

Haidt’s research shows that almost all humans intuitively recognize these as moral virtues, but to different extents. Conservatives speak to these moral intuitions. You can see it in Republican policies – loyalty to the country in banning flag burning, respect for authority in their patriotic fervor, and purity in their stance on homosexuality. These policies resonate with people who see themselves not only as individuals but members of groups. That is why people vote Republican. It’s not fear or ignorance, as temping as it is to blame those things, it’s their moral intuitions.

“Duh,” you may be thinking. “We’ve known that ‘values’ voters tend to vote Republican.” That need not be the case, though. With Haidt’s theory, we have a way that Democrats can reclaim some of this moral territory. We Democrats can do so without compromising our ideals by simple re-framing our rhetoric. Talk about environmental issues in terms of keeping our bodies pure through clean air, water, and food. Promote labor unions as groups that promote the greater social welfare. And, just as FDR did, Democrats can promote in-group loyalty for the economically oppressed. The latter would be especially effective in this climate of economic uncertainty.

In any event, read the article and some of the responses below. I hope to write more about some rebuttals later.

There was an astonishing article in the New York Times yesterday. Basically, it’s about a team of researchers that found the first empirical evidence that supports a hereto-now theoretical explanation of how the brain recalls memories. When remembering something, the brain re-experiences the events being remembered to some extent. The very same neurons that fired during the event fired during the recollection of that event.

The researchers recorded the activity of certain neurons of subjects while they watched television clips. After being distracted for a time, the researchers then asked the subjects to recall the clips. This was how they confirmed that the same neurons were firing at least when recalling short-term memories. The firing patters were so well reproduced during recall that the scientists could tell which clip the patient was remembering…

Or, more precisely, which clip the patient was about to remember.

The scientists asked the subjects to remember any one of the clips. The scientists were able to determine which clip they are recalling one to two seconds before the subject knew which they ‘chose’ to recall. What is choosing the clip? I ask because it certainly isn’t the subjects’ consciousness. This is even more evidence that human consciousness is not free but determined.

The above image was created and licensed by jurvetson.

If you want to answer the question and skip the back story, click here.

Scientific American recently published an article about free will and morality. Previously, I’ve written about studies that demonstrate that not all of our apparent choices are free and how that impacts morality.

Furthermore, there was an extended discussion about how free will is the cause of some evil in the world. Well, this new study turns that idea on its head. They demonstrate that determinism may cause immoral behavior! That is, at least belief in determinism correlates with small-scale cheating.

Basically, a group of research subjects were asked to read an anti-free will text (the control group read text from the same publication that makes no mention of free will) and then take an computer-based arithmetic test. The trick was that the test enables the subject to cheat. Moreover, it required the subject to take an action (press the space bar) to prevent the answer from appearing prematurely on the screen. The subjects failed to press the space bar more often than the control group. Furthermore, the frequency of cheats correlated to the extent to which the individual believed in determinism.

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This talk gives such great perspective on our ability to understand the universe. Insight like this is why Dawkins is one of my intellectual heroes.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

I didn’t intend to write a Part III for this topic, but it seems I have started a bit of a trend. Five days after I published Part I, the New Yorker publishes this article about the Problem of Evil (PoE)! I had no idea that their writers read my blog!

Okay, the article is a review of a book (Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem) on the subject and it’s more likely that the PoE was on their minds for the same reasons it was on mine – the recent natural disasters in Myanmar and China that killed about 200,000 people. Regardless, James Wood wrote a great article on the topic. For those of you who prefer more of a narrative style to my philosophically-centered writing, I recommend giving it a read. Here’s an excerpt:

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We humans are so self-important. We once thought that we lived in the physical center of creation: everything revolved around us. Then, in the mid-16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Copernicus removed us from our priviledge place in physical creation. We are not the point of the universe.

The importance of this discovery may seem obvious; he founded modern astronomy. Yet what is sometimes missed is a subtler point. There is nothing special about our point of view. Our perspective is not special. Copernicus objectified observation which paved the way for the subsequent scientific revolution, which is built upon objective observation.

Eventually, mankind adapted (as we are so apt to do). After all, we were still the center of biological creation. We were the only ones with cognition. We were the ones with free will. We were given dominion over the plants and animals by God Himself. We were the point of all life; superior and self-aware.

Then Charles Darwin came along. His objective observation of the evidence he collected from 1831 to 1836 led him to a startling conclusion… We are not the center of biological creation. The other creatures were not created for us to have dominion over and in many cases they were here first. Furthermore, there is nothing special about our particular ‘position’ in the evolutionary tree. Mutations occur randomly (though they are selected non-randomly), we are but one of many possible outcome of a natural process.

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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

This is Part II of my post on The Problem of Evil (PoE). The first post garnered quite a response! The responses generated three separate rebuttals to the PoE (theodicies). I’m sure there are more. If you have your own reason for why the PoE is wrong, let me know! I’m always up for a challenge. Thanks to Snurp, Scott, and sawaz for contributing!

This second part explains why the PoE has significant personal interest to me. It’s what caused me to lose my religion. Before even being exposed to this argument against the existence of God, I thought up a simplified version of it in my teens. At the time, I was a Republican-loving, Christian fundamentalist. What’s odd is that the idea of the PoE came to me as a result of this tasty little piece of Christian fundamentalist propaganda which was shown to me by the youth pastor at my Baptist Church. It’s a film aimed at scaring the shit out of Christian teens via that tried-and-true religious motivator: guilt.

I probably forget many of the details, but the following is how I remember my experience of the film. The basic idea was that four teens die in a car accident only to find themselves in a dramatized Christian afterlife. The four eventually make their way to a line in front of a receptionist at a computer terminal. One of the four is ‘saved’. During the wait, the other three have plenty of time to poor the guilt on the fourth for not sharing the “Good News” (as if they haven’t heard it before). They watch as each person walks up to the receptionist. The receptionist then takes their name, types it into a computer, which then brings up their personal info as well as their ‘reservation’ status. Those with reservations step off to the right (how politically symbolic) into the light. Those without reservations are directed to a scary elevator on the left that only goes ‘down’. The ‘saved’ teen watches with mounting guilt as his three friends enter the elevator before his reservation is confirmed.

The film ends with a shot of the computer screen listing name after name color coded according to their reservation status, which, if it isn’t obvious by now, indicates whether or not that person is ‘saved’ or not. The name is in red is the person is unsaved, and green if saved. If you pay close attention, approximately one-in-four names is green, the same ratio as the group of teens had, hmm. This coincidence is confirmed as the names blur and a statistic is placed on the screen claiming that only one-in-four humans on the entire planet are saved. This was one of the biggest shocks of my life.

I know the film’s purpose was to motivate us teens into evangelizing. “Don’t end up guilt ridden, like the main character”, was the message, “You never know how much time you have”. It had a very different impact on me. I had thought most people were ‘saved’. I immediately asked myself how God, who is all-powerful and loving, could allow this to happen to his creations? Three in four suffer eternal torture? Where is God’s love? Where is His mercy? Where is His justice? Why doesn’t God have a higher ‘win’ ratio?

I didn’t lose my faith immediately. It took time. Those question and related ones slowly undermined my world view. Eventually, those questions, combined with some deep, personal suffering experienced in my late teens and early twenties, and exposure to the multitude of other word views did my belief in Christianity in.

I now imagine my name switching from green to red on that fictional, 1980s style computer monitor and laugh.