Before that, a little about me: I'm a psychology major and anthropology minor at a small, public, liberal arts university. I'm about to be a senior, and my major interest is in human evolution and behavior.
Apparently alone among the entirety of life on the planet Earth, the Homo sapiens is capable of asking fundamental questions about his own origin, his nature, and the origins and nature of the world around him. Given that our humble beginnings are exactly the same as those of our houseplants, it is actually pretty impressive that we are able to ask those questions, and even more impressive that we have established relatively certain answers about them. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We do not know any of this for sure; not anything, not yet.
Method
Before any of the most important questions anyone can ask can be addressed, the means through which that knowledge will be attained must be selected. As far as I can see, there are four options: Instinct, Faith, Rationalism, and Empiricism. For some kinds of knowledge, instinct can get us pretty far. Surprisingly far, in fact. Instinct will let us know whether or not a painting is aesthetically pleasing, whether food tastes good, whether or not to make a decision. Ap Dijksterhuis’ research[1] into unconscious decision making seems to indicate that, at least for males, unconsciously-made decisions frequently are better (when there is an objective measure) than consciously thought-out decisions. Evolutionary Psychology has provided some more insights here. For example, food aversions in pregnant women have been shown to be strongest against foods in which there are harmful teratogens.[2] In some cases, it seems that trusting one’s gut feeling can be fairly beneficial. But it doesn’t get us very far in terms of the fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. For example, it might feel like the Sun revolves around the Earth. We’re very limited here.
Our next option is that of faith. We can turn to religion to answer questions about where we came from, why we’re here, how we should behave, and where we’re going. Religion usually has answers to all of these and this would be a world of benefit, but something should be gnawing at the back of our minds. Our gut feeling should say that there is something wrong here. What faith lacks is any reason to accept one of its answers over another one. Religion as a discipline has a staggering lack of agreement, and the only thing that causes one religious person to accept their religion’s answers is that they were born into them. Even when a person converts to a religion later in life, they do not do so for reasons of faith. They choose a religion because it seems to make sense to them, because they have a gut feeling that it is right. Converts are appealing to intuition, not faith. Only those who are born into a religion accept it purely on faith. When looking for the truth about the universe, though, we need to find one truth by which we can understand everything. Religion is inadequate because we would become lost in a sea of possible answers, each with the same amount of justification. Rationalism might just get us closer to this truth.
In a nutshell, one might describe rationalism as, “well, we’ll sit around and think about it.” This is pretty useless by itself, but with a set of rules and formalities to the logic, a considerable amount of progress can be made. Even within the formal rules and discussions, there is a possibility that a contradiction will occur. And there is a further possibility that the rules of logic will not disqualify either of those propositions. At this point, we find ourselves back where we were with religion. How do we pick one or the other? We need one answer, and choosing what to believe is never going to lead to a satisfying result. What we need is solid evidence, real-world proof.
The only answer is Empiricism. Through direct observations of reality and the establishment of concrete causal relationships between phenomena, we can be as sure as possible that what we are describing is the truth about ourselves and the world around us. Empiricism lacks the major flaw of faith and rationalism: there is a principle whereby one hypothesis is more likely to be correct than any of the rest. The principle of parsimony, a sine qua non of the scientific method, states that all other things being equal, the simplest solution is the correct one. Without this principle, there is nothing to recommend one hypothesis as more plausible than the next, and it would become a logical necessity to rule out invisible fairies, in fact an infinite number of possible explanations, for every effect being observed before a plausible explanation can be tested. In this way, empiricists can pick the most likely two or three hypotheses, test them, and determine if they hold up to observation. Clearly this is the best choice of all of the methods of determining the truth about the universe, as it is less susceptible to bias than the rest, shows real relationships better than any other method, and has a means through which it can determine just one theory about the nature of the universe. There is a bias here in that the only hypotheses that can be offered are limited by our humanity and by our culture. But these hypotheses cannot rightly be ruled out by any of the three previously discussed methods. Only empiricism can solve empiricism’s problems.
The Researcher
But we have another problem, summed up nicely by the old joke: “What did one snowman say to the other?”[3]Our ability to gain knowledge about anything, especially ourselves, is moderated by the main instrument we use to determine that knowledge: ourselves. As long as our senses are capable of picking up ‘noise’ and we are able to be fooled by sensory experiences that are not really there, as long as we are capable of being fooled by things like apophenia, our chief instrument is imperfect.
I’ve often heard physicists same something along these lines: “Have you ever tried to explain mathematics to your dog? It could be that the nature of the universe is similarly entirely beyond our grasp as mathematics is beyond the grasp of dogs.” I find this to be an enormous cop-out. For one thing, the analogy is terrible. A dog is not capable of being taught mathematics simply because a dog is not capable of understanding the language with which one might teach it mathematics. That’s a very prejudicial way to start any kind of instruction. Even more than being a bad analogy, it’s a completely needless speculation. It is in fact entirely possible that we will never understand the whole truth about everything, but to couch that in terms of inabilities due to human nature is to potentiate a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As useful example here is Richard Dawkins’ explanation of the ‘middle-world.’ Humanity has evolved to live within the world that it inhabits, which is somewhere between the most ‘micro’ possible world (among elementary particles, or perhaps among strings?) and the most ‘macro’ possible world (among galaxy clusters, perhaps?). Therefore our reasoning abilities are most suited for use in this middle-world. But that does not by any means mean that we are incapable of understanding the very large and the very small. It just means that doing so will be more difficult than understanding the medium-sized.
And we have learned quite a lot about the micro and the macro, in spite of our limitations. And though what we have learned about the behavior of the very large is not presently compatible with the behavior of the very small, there has been a lot of progress towards a Grand Unifying Theory. It is entirely possible that the GUT will never be fully realized, but the trends of the history of science and particularly physics suggest that the GUT is right around the corner.
And in a sense, it almost does not really matter if what we are learning is the absolute perfect truth about the nature of ourselves and the universe. Any sufficiently satisfactory answer, any answer that cannot be bested by any other answer, is really going to be good enough. If there is a problem with our theory of everything, we’ll search for a better one, a more refined explanation, a la Kuhn’s paradigmatic shift model. If a better theory of everything comes along, we’ll adopt it. For the time being, the possibility that ours might not be right, that there is possible more truth than what we can experience, is more meaningless speculation. If we cannot experience it as a flaw in our system, then as far as we are concerned it does not exist.
For example, and as a matter of intellectual honesty, I cannot rule out that God exists behind all the reality that we do experience. But if He does, then He is not a part of reality and is therefore incapable of influencing it. He might as well not exist. As will be demonstrated later, my consciousness is entirely physical. If there is something supernatural[4] out there, it cannot in any way influence what is natural and material. If God exists, there cannot be evidence for him in the sense that his existence will never have an effect on anything we can experience. His existence, having no bearing on our lives, is useless and irrelevant.
In this way, we can dismiss any speculation of the existence of something we cannot comprehend. If we can experience it, it might be difficult to comprehend. If we cannot experience it, then to us it does not exist.
So what do we know about the nature of the universe and ourselves? What has empiricism taught us?
The Universe
We have learned that everything that can be known and understood started with the big bang. Anything that might have existed before the big bang is by definition incapable of leaving direct evidence behind. We can (and do) speculate as to what might have existed before the big bang, but this is in the realm of metaphysics, not science, because it cannot be empirically tested or observed.
The big bang scattered matter more or less evenly throughout the universe. Gravity acted on all the uneven parts and pulled them together into larger and larger clumps until those clumps of matter became so dense and so hot that they began to fuse themselves into larger bits of matter. Stars are born. The stars churn away for millions of years until taking one of a few paths, depending on weight: they can shrink and start fusing larger atoms into even larger atoms, they can implode and become black holes, or they can supernova and scatter everything they have made across the universe. The big bang produced only hydrogen. Everything on the periodic table from helium on up was produced and scattered by smaller bangs, including nearly every little bit of you.
This matter having been scattered across the universe is present in the next generations of stars as they form from dense, hot clumps of matter. And sometimes, they are too far away from the nucleus of that clump to be included in the star, but close enough to be caught in orbit. Eventually these smaller clumps can become planets. And depending on the size of that clump and the size of the star and the distance between them, there is a narrow belt, a distance from that star on which a planet can form that can support life as we know it.
Life
We have learned that in the right conditions, with the presence of the right chemicals and a little bit of energy, the basic fundamental building blocks of life can form. These can grow in complexity until at some point a replicator is born. The replicator is capable of producing another copy of itself, with occasional imperfections. The vast majority of the time, these imperfections disallow the replicator from replicating itself as successfully as its brethren. Occasionally, one of these imperfections actually improves the ability of this replicator to reproduce itself, and such an imperfection will soon become common among the replicators.
One of the most necessary results of these imperfections is the creation of a more refined, more complicated apparatus for the reproduction process. In this way, cells are created, which in turn beget more complicated cells, which beget groups of cells which will evolve in function and quantity and complexity to become the bodies of the plants and animals and fungi and all the life we can see. Even more life exists that we cannot see. Depending on who one asks, the human body, in terms of mass, is made up of anywhere between 90% and 99% of bacteria. If you took away everything that was human, there would be a human shaped blob of similar density and shape left standing in its place. [5]
Life is everywhere, and evolution accounts for not just its physiology but also its behavior. Even our cultural actions are biological in origin, since culture-acquisition evolved as a means of adapting in real time to specific environmental parameters. A recent study showed that songbird calls, the structure of which is thought to be culturally transmitted, will develop the same way even when that transmission is inactive.[6]When looking for the most ultimate cause of human and animal behavior, we must point to evolution.
This explanation for the existence seems to bother a lot of people, who often, in addition to simple misunderstandings of the nature of evolution, disqualify it as being based on chance or think that the design hypothesis is more elegant. The truth is that evolution isbased on chance. The problem is that the people whom this bothers have no understanding of statistics. Evolution has been at work on this planet for a long, long time. The number of replicators that have existed is enormous. Within this enormous sample size, and given the nature of the replicators, the odds that no random mutations will occur at all are much lower than the odds that a beneficial random mutation will occur. Evolution is based on chance and the chances are very, very high.
The design problem is based on another misunderstanding. They argue that the complexity of life on this planet demands that design be the cause. But consider this: if the human genome were converted from base 4 to binary, it would still be less complicated than the software I’m using to write this, Microsoft Office, which was designed. Because evolution works by tiny movements, the results are much more elegant than things which were designed. In addition, 99% of the species that ever existed are now extinct. To paraphrase Sam Harris: this fact alone would seem to rule out intelligent design.[7] That humans have evolved is not the least comforting hypothesis. To think that humans were designed by such an inept creator should make us more uncomfortable.
But from humans all the way back to the big bang, two uncomfortable truths are certain: everything that has happened has simply happened, without intentionality and without purpose. The big bang, the creation of life…these things happened without reason. By extension, our lives exist without reason.
Determinism
But before I address this fully, there is another uncomfortable truth which demands our attention: almost every thing that happens along the way from the moment you read this going all the way back, nearly every smallest possible detail, has been determined by the state of the entirety of the universe the immediate moment before it. There is a regress that goes back all the way to the big bang. Therefore, from the most ultimate (as opposed to proximate) perspective ever, every single question can be answered: “because of the initial conditions of the universe and the random placement of matter at the moment immediately after the big bang.”
This includes every action undertaken by human beings. Free will as an origin of human or nonhuman action is not even a plausible hypothesis. If every brain state is caused by the position of potassium and sodium in neurons in the instant before that brain state, there is no room for the possibility that one brain state has anything but a chemical cause. The idea that the conscious part of the brain is an un-caused cause of other brain states would require that brain chemistry change without a physical cause. What proponents of free will are asking for is that a sensory experience (consciousness) has a material effect on the brain. Essentially, when one invokes free will, one is invoking magic. We can rule that out as being a highly implausible hypothesis, and psychological research would agree that free will is not possible in the slightest.[8]
Determinism is rule of law in all situations in the middle world and in the macro world. In the most ‘micro’ world, however, indeterminism is the rule. Quantum physics demonstrates that a particle can behave in any number of possible ways, and assigns each a probability. This is not a practical failing, but a theoretical rule. It’s not that we are unable to determine which is going to happen for sure, it’s that there, by definition, is only a range of probable outcomes. Quantum indeterminism has often been invoked as a possibility for the existence of free will in humans, but this gets it wrong on two counts. First, the more particles there are connected and interacting with one another, the smaller the likelihood of any improbable but possible outcome is. It’s possible that if you held your hand up against a wall right now, it could go through the wall. But due to the number of particles involved, it will not happen.[9] In the human brain there are billions of atoms at work. The likelihood of one acting with quantum-style indeterminism is thus diminished by powers of billions. The other reason why the “quantum free will” hypothesis is ridiculous is that even if quantum indeterminism is at play in human behavior, what is being described is not free will: it is randomness. Our options are either determinism or randomness, but not free will. There is not a lot to suggest randomness as the source of human behavior, so we are stuck with determinism.
This seems to bother a lot of people, who set great store in their ability to control their lives. They can hardly be blamed. Most people are insecure enough to think that if they cannot control everything, then everything will go horribly for them. They often find their attempts to control the world around them to be very frustrating. I have a better solution: don’t bother. When you realize that what happened did so because no other outcome was possible, when you realize that your own actions are beyond your control, it allows you to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Meaning
As stated previously, the fact that all these determined happenings did so without an initial purpose makes people uncomfortable, perhaps even more so than the realization that none of their actions are of their conscious origin. I, on the other hand, consider this to be quite liberating. It’s a similar sensation to when one realizes there’s no God: it feels a little overwhelming at first, but then you realize that it doesn’t matter what you do. Just as atheism leads to a life free of the fear of sinning (which can be traumatizing, since much sin is thought crime and, as demonstrated, we cannot control our thoughts), the meaninglessness of life frees us from the obligation to do anything. If life had a purpose, we would be more or less required to fulfill it. But it doesn’t. We allow our lives to go in whichever way they were determined without stressing the fact that we feel like something else ought to happen. So what should happen?
Morality
If life is meaningless, and if we have no control over our actions, than what does that say about morality and the rightness of our actions? From here, we go back to evolution.
Evolutionary psychology has demonstrated that behaviors which benefit those closest to us can be beneficial to us as well. Even though the gene is selfishly motivated, altruistic-seeming behavior to others is not entirely out of the question. Prisoner’s dilemma games demonstrate that peaceful cooperation with others is usually the best way to get what’s best for ourselves in the long run. This is somewhat limited, though. Are we only ethical to those in our immediate family?
It turns out the answer is no. Evolution has not encoded us with a surefire way of telling who is related to us and who isn’t. It has only given us approximations. One of those approximations is proximity itself. By being close and familiar with those around us, we have created a larger surrogate family. This idea is called the “expanding circle” and it’s still expanding. As our world becomes more globally integrated, people feel more compelled to be altruistic to those in need all over the world. The future of morality actually seems quite bright. The more integrated our society is, the less amorality we will experience. And this seems to be the case: in his studies of the history of violence, Stephen Pinker has concluded that violence worldwide has been decreasing dramatically as the world has become more globally oriented. [10]
Conclusion
We’ve come so far. Through empiricism, we’ve learned so much about the nature of the universe and about the origins of our own behaviors. We’ve even ruled out that anything we’re too limited to experience could be worthwhile. I can’t help but feel optimistic about what I’ve discovered about the nature of the world: There is no God, there is no purpose, and we have no control over our actions. We may not have free will, but we have other freedoms: We’re free from expectation. We’re free from frustration at lack of control. On top of all this, the evidence suggests that people can only be getting nicer and nicer to each other. At this point, it shouldn’t matter if life has meaning and there is no free will. We’re better off without them. Considering how far we’ve come, the future is looking pretty bright.
[1] See “Think Different: The Merits of Unconscious Thought in Preference Development and Decision Making” (2004) and “A Theory of Unconscious Thought” with Loran Nordgren (2006)
[2] See, “Pregnancy Sickness as Adaptation: A Deterrent to Maternal Ingestion of Teratogens,” (1992) by Margie Profet in “The Adapted Mind”
[3] “Smells like carrots!”
[4] Definition: Does not exist
[5] Seehttp://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/olivia-judson-whats-in-your-guts/
and also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfmUfr8VPA&feature=channel_page
[6]http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/songbirdculture/
[7] In Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006.
[8] See “Free Will is unnatural” by John A Bargh (2008) in “Psychology and Free Will.”
[9] A musing on the nature of infinity: If you put your hand up against a wall and pushed for an infinite amount of time, you most assuredly would get through the wall eventually. Good luck!
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