I have written numerous posts advocating that because humans are animals they should be recognized as such (for example, see here , here, here , and here). For zoologists and others who study animals, it is obviously true that we are animals. We do hundreds of things that the other mammals do, plus a few extra. You can see it every day when you eat, breathe, emote, poop, become fatigued and fall asleep. Yet millions of Americans are horrified by the thought that human beings are animals.
Consider that we aren’t simply animals. Our species is a carefully defined type of animal. We are apes. Frans de Waal explains:
Darwin wasn’t just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes—he didn’t go far enough . . . We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.
If you want even more detail on what type of animal humans are (we are in the ape sub-division of primates), watch this brisk video by Aron-ra.
Again, this sort of information is really disturbing to many people, especially religious conservatives.
So why don’t I simply leave religious conservatives alone? Why do I persist on standing on rooftops and proclaiming this message that humans are animals? Why don’t I just whisper this sort of information only to my closest of friends: “Pssst. Human beings are animals.” Why don’t I just let it be, and keep it all to myself? What could possibly be at stake that I feel compelled to spread the word that human beings are animals? I was in the process of assembling my own list when I just happened to read Chapter 12 of Mark Johnson’s new book, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding.
Johnson is well known for his work with metaphors and embodied cognition with George Lakoff. Chapter 12 of his new book contains a section that leaped out at me: “The Philosophical Implications of the Embodied Mind.” In that short section, Johnson sets forth nine reasons why it really and truly matters for people to acknowledge that they are animals and to fully accept that their minds are embodied, not free-floating entities independent of physical laws.
Johnson’s biggest target is the “objectivist theory of meaning,” the idea that meaning “gets defined without any connection to the experience of the creature (i.e., the human) for whom the words are meaningful. Johnson points out that those who follow the objectivist theory of meaning believe that words and sentences somehow “carry” meaning without even trying to explain how words and sentences ever come to acquire meaning. It should send up immediate red flags that the predominate theory of meaning relies on floating thoughts, a theory of meaning that is not biologically anchored. Reacting to (and rejecting) this objectivist approach, Mark Johnson premises his analysis “with a mind that is not separate from or out-of-ongoing-contact with its body and its world.” His worldview includes a specific definition of body and his impressive list of why it matters for human beings to take seriously “the embodiment of mind and meaning.” Here are those reasons (I will be borrowing liberally from Johnson’s book with these descriptions, beginning at page 279):
1. Mind and body are not two things. Johnson points out that the mind “is not a mysterious metaphysical guest that just happens to drop in for a temporary visit at the home of the body.” A human being is not a body plus a mind. Rather, it is a “body-mind.”
2. Human meaning is embodied. It is possible to understand meaning only because we learn meanings “at the most primordial bodily level. Things are meaningful by virtue of their relations to other actual or possible qualities, feelings, emotions, images, image schemas and concepts.” We never cease accessing meaning through feeling, even while we communicate using abstract concepts.
3. Understanding and reasoning are embodied. Ideas don’t float over our heads. Our meaning-making capacities are entirely embodied. See here. “Our resources for making sense of our world are based primarily on our sensory motor capacities, which have neural connections to other parts of the brain responsible for planning, deliberating and reasoning.
4. Human beings are metaphorical creatures. Johnson, a co-author of Metaphors We Live By (1980), reminds us that “conceptual metaphor is a nearly omnipresent part of the human capacity for abstract conceptualization and reasoning. As Johnson and George Lakoff have clearly shown, “metaphor shows up in virtually all our abstract thinking.” The fact that we depend on conceptual metaphor must be contrasted with “literalism” causes people to reject the importance of conceptual metaphor. Literalism claims that all our concepts can be spelled out clearly, which is false, misleading and very dangerous [because] literalism lies at the heart of fundamentalism.”
5. There is no absolute truth but there are plenty of human truths. Johnson makes a strong case in this book, and elsewhere, that “human life does not require absolute truths.”
Neither science, nor morality, nor philosophy, nor politics, nor spirituality really need absolute truths, even though most of our traditional theories in these areas assume that they are founded on absolute (disembodied, universal, eternal) truths. Human truth, by contrast, arises in the context of human inquiry, relies on embodied meaning, and is relative to our values and interests.
6. Human freedom. Johnson challenges the idea of the Kantian notion of “radical freedom.” This is Kant’s view that “we are, or possess, a transcendent ego that is the locus of our capacity to negate any bodily, social, or cultural influence, habit or tendency.” Many people believe in this radical freedom because it supports their notion of moral responsibility and religious aspirations. Johnson argues for a “naturalistic idea of the body-mind as [giving us] a modest freedom to contribute to transformations of our situation, and therefore to self-transformations.”
7. The person you are cannot survive the death of your body. Johnson recognizes that this is a “controversial and distressing” idea for many people. To the extent that anything survives your death, Johnson argues that “it could not be the you that we know and love,” because that you is possible only due to the workings of your human brain engaged with its human-related environment. Johnson points out that a brainless soul “would lack your memories, your experience, your emotions and your grasp of the meaning of things.”
8. Embodied spirituality. Johnson rejects “vertical transcendence,” which he describes as the “alleged capacity to rise above and shed our finite human form and to ”plug into the infinite.” Johnson would allow for “horizontal transcendence,” the ability to sometimes “go beyond our present situation in transformative acts that change both our world and ourselves.” Horizontal transcendence relates to our ability to see ourselves
as part of a broader human and more-than-human ongoing process in which change, creativity, and growth of meaning are possible. Faith thus becomes faith in the possibility of genuine, positive transformation that increases richness of meanings, harmony among species, and foraging, not just at the human level, but in the world as an ongoing creative development . . . none of this is grounded in the infinite, but rather in the creative possibilities of finite human experience. It gives each of us more good work to do than we can possibly realize within our lifetime.
In short, we can leave our imprint in this world after we die, but it’s only because of the work we’ve done on earth before our brains die. No hovering. No ghostly meddling post-death.
9. Philosophy as a search for meaning. Johnson recognizes that we are seriously limited as embodied creatures. We delude ourselves to the extent that we search for “absolute truth.” Embodied meaning and mind limit us to reflecting on “the fullest, richest, deepest meaning of experience, as a way of helping us deal with the real problems of human existence that define our existential condition. This is the hallmark of genuine pragmatist philosophy, which is about “discerning the full meaning of experience and transforming experience for the better.”
Johnson concludes that human beings are forced to live in a human-related world and we would be much better off if we could only recognize this. The alternative world that many of us attempt to live in, “the more-than-human world “can only be understood and engaged by us via the structures and processes of human understanding and action. We should be spending our energy to make our world a better place rather than trying to “escape our bodily habitation.”
Where does Johnson’s worldview make a difference? In the heat of almost every major moral dispute. What if all of us fully accepted the idea that there weren’t any unembodied thoughts? In other words, what if people didn’t believe in supernatural (the term I prefer is sub-natural) souls? This foundation would substantially reframe abortion, stem cell and birth control arguments, since the lack of the equipment for thinking in a one-day old embryo would mean there is not yet any thought process. The lack of the brain means (to those of use who understand even the slightest bit of biology and neuroscience) that there is no thought process. The more I study neuroscience, the more a dark thought creeps into my mind. The thought is that those who, after being exposed to the clear findings of the science, nonetheless believe in souls, need some sort of therapy. Consider that many courts define “insanity” as follows:
If a person persistently believes supposed facts, which have no real existence except in his perverted imagination, and against all evidence and probability, and conducts himself, however logically, upon the assumption of their existence, he is, so far as they are concerned, under a morbid delusion; and delusion in that sense is insanity. Such a person is essentially mad or insane on those subjects, though on other subjects he may reason, act, and speak like a sensible man.
Under this definition, how could it be that believing in brainless thoughts is not insane. Nor does it take any elaborate scientific demonstration. If some sort of “soul” does our thinking, then why do person black out when struck hard on their heads? Why do people with brain tumors suffer thought disturbances? Is it because their souls simultaneously suffer parallel ethereal brain tumors? Come on . . .
Johnson’s discussion should also re-frame end of life issues. If Terry Schaivo had no functioning brain, she could not possibly have had any conscious thoughts. To believe that people without brains can nonetheless think is as silly as concluding that a destroyed computer can run software programs in computer heaven.
Philosophy would also be reframed pursuant to Johnson’s analysis. For instance, there is not any such thing as pure thought or pure rationality, contrary to the views of many philosophers. It is thus impossible to set the body aside in order to “think clearly.”
These are merely some of the many ways in which our culture would revamp the way it considered major moral issues, if only we could accept the clear evidence that without functioning brains there are no such things as thoughts.
Mark states – "In any event, hoisting credentials is a poor way to make a point."
Wrong. You guys are always asking people to back up their posted information by citing credible sources and current research (with links). One qualifies the credibility of sources by "hoisting" their credentials. I supplied sources with credentials (Ph.D. in Biochemistry, and a Nobel Prize winning Physicist) and links to the research and here's what I got regarding these sources in reply:
Jim: "Fringe"! "Whacky"!
Erich: "Mumbo Jumbo"!
Mark: "Nonsense"!
If you can't be honest with me, be honest with yourself. You don't want to look at the current scientific research because you don't like the subject matter. So you hold forth with sweeping dismissals of areas of study you know little, if anything, about. You denounce the science, and the research, and the experiments, and the published results, and the researchers themselves without (I'd bet) ever glancing at said research. You often rail against "pseudoscience", but your armchair ignorance and lazy dismissals seems more fraudulent to me.
Mike M.—you misunderstand. If the work doesn't hold up, the credentials won't make it right. Certainly we cite sources and give links, etc. But it's the work we expect to stand up for itself.
If Einstein had invented Noetics I'd call it nonsense.
If someone calls the work into question and all you can say in its defense is "but the guy's a Ph.D.!" then you have no argument.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. No proof, no truth to the claims. Simple science.
Lazy dismissals? Ouch.
I can only speak for me, but I pull the thread on these things that intrigue me and look for convergence. If supported by a spectrum of sources, then dismissal is and should be hard. If all the support seems to come from one or two often recursive references, then I look for a different convergence – of dissent. Of course, one needs to look at the sources converging – there are innumerable converging opinions on creationism. Look closely and even a layman can see they are without substance, but the convergence exists. Anyway, dissent from recursive opponents is equally suspect. Dissent from variety, less so.
Lazy dismissal? No. Years of honest skepticism, critical assessment, critical thinking and years of reading about the failure of any paranormal or supernatural claims to prove true create a convergence of pattern. It becomes easier to dismiss the claims because we've seen all this before – or at least I've seen a lot of it before; I assume others here have as well – have already done the research (see Mark's note on his checking on noetics) and are tired of rebutting every single line of every claim.
Armchair ignorance? Ouch again. But I beg to differ. It's not ignorant to disagree with something you checked out. It might be ignorant to dismiss without investigation, but my dismissal of something out of the norm that you happen to be fond of is not a product of ignorance.
Jim, you state: "Mike, you cited published sources. They are probably strong and legitimate in the world of noetics."
No, Jim. I provided strong and legitimate sources in the worlds of Physics and Biochemistry, and you know that.
Your language is dishonest and misleading.
Mark, you ask "Consider one thing: if telepathy had ever existed as, say, a genetic trait (and what else would it be?) then you have to ask if it had sufficient usefulness to be selected for. So since we do not have large groups of blatantly demonstrable telepaths, either it had no real utility from an evolutionary standpoint and was selected against, meaning it no long exists in any meaningful way, or it never existed in the first place."
I answer -What if telepathy is a latent genetic trait, which is currently in the process of evolving prior to widespread and demonstrable manifestation? After all, evolution EVOLVES, it doesn't just suddenly burst onto the scene. Do you think this possibility is at all viable or worth exploring?
And you state, "If the work doesn’t hold up, the credentials won’t make it right."
I suspect, with 99% certainty, this work by Sheldrake that you say "doesn't hold up" and is "nonsense" is work you never even looked at before making your proclamations. And I'm talking about any one of Sheldrake's 80+ scientific papers in which you can find the details of his experiments and the statistically significant evidence of telepathic phenomenon.
Well, Mike M, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. I can't prove to you (certainly not in the space of a comment section) that I looked at this work long ago and made what I considered then a reasoned judgment, just as you can't prove to me that you looked at any of the refutations which (no, I can't point you in a specific direction, I didn't continue looking at this stuff) with any kind of depth. So—here's something you think has validity which I think is lacking validity. When I hear someone like, say, Oliver Sacks or Daniel Amit start talking about emergent psychic potentials as productive areas of research, I'll look at it again.
However, just to answer your other, perfectly valid question. Why should we evolve telepathy? We have already reshaped our environment sufficiently to make it not only unnecessary but quite likely detrimental. What we're basically talking about is the transmission of information from one brain to another. We do that now. We have evolved an entire biology that does so even without the very sophisticated artifact of language. Once you establish factors that diminish the environmental pressure for the evolution of a new trait, you diminish the possibility of that trait ever emerging as anything other than a novelty.
Furthermore, all such traits develop through use. People who do not use language, lose it, just like any other skill. The development of telepathy as anything other than a crazy-making distraction would require an ability and opportunity to use it in such a way that the skill takes a form that provides a benefit. Which would mean a community of telepaths, all "practicing" on each other. Language did not arise in isolation, nor did it develop from insulation, so that demands an answer to the question of who a telepath would hone his or her skill on. Which leads to the further expectation that there would be a community.
So now we're poised on the edge of the plot of a Dan Brownesque novel—where are the telepaths?
The randomness of samples that defy statistical codification into a meaningful demonstration suggests that with all that we have done in the last score of millennia, if not before, we are building an environment in which telepathy has no beneficial use.
And frankly, ask yourself—could it? I mean, do we really want to know what's going on in someone else's mind? I think telepathy would be a negative trait and lead to no end of unpleasantness.
More than likely, though, the brain has developed in such a way as it has as the optimal mechanism for encouraging species continuation. My opinion.
Mark, You're right- I do think telepathy has some validity to it, based on the research I've studied. Even so, I really enjoyed your last post- found it very thought provoking and chock-full of valuable info and sound reasoning (not to mention written with flair). You bring up a few intriguing points regarding the evolutionary function of language development and the possible "downside" to telepathy. Good stuff. You've inspired me to dig deeper into these areas.
Also I did explore a lot of the telepathy refutations, both on Sheldrake's website and off it (incl. The Skeptic's Bible). I studied what Shermer, and Randi, and Dawkins and Rupp all had to say on this subject, and then circled back to Sheldrake's rebuttals.
Here's my quick distillation:
Sheldrake -"So, did you see my research? What do you think?"
Shermer, Randi, Dawkins, Rupp, etc – " I think I looked at some of that, but don't remember exactly..anyway, it's all bunk."
Sheldrake – "Which study, and which results, do you take issue with?"
Shermer, Randi, Dawkins, Rupp, etc – "I don't want to get into the specifics, but it's false."
Sheldrake – "Why don't you want to look at my stuff? Please just look at my stuff so we can have a decent debate."
Shermer, Randi, Dawkins, Rupp, etc – "I don't want to discuss the evidence..it's too complicated. Anyway, it's pseudoscience."
Sheldrake – "I wrote some books on this too, did you read any of my books? Or my papers? Why won't you look at my stuff?"
Shermer, Randi, Dawkins, Rupp, etc – "Whatever. Take your Woo-Woo somewhere else. I gotta go."
Mike M., I went back over the comment thread and didn't see published sources in the fields of physics and biochemistry – I saw that you cited sources from a biochemist and a physicist. I did not see peer-reviewed published sources on the subjects. Google Sheldrake using the term "peer review" and lots of references pop up, mostly his claims of published papers in peer reviewed journals. Now, having peer reviewed publications and having publications on something that would not pass review are obviously two different things.
And, if you refer to the published cite from physicsworld.com, I did go back and learned it was free to sign up. I read the article, but it mentioned nothing of "cold fusion" and the quote you posted was from the comment section (I was right in my guess – it was Josephson). I won't say that linking that article as support of cold fusion was dishonest or misleading, but it wasn't about cold fusion – it was a 2007 interview with Didier Gambier, incoming director of ITER (who left in 2010). Hot fusion. Not cold. Josephson chimed in on the comment thread.
Fleischmann joined up with D2Fusion in 2006 and the company promised a working prototype within a year. The company doesn't appear to exist anymore and no working prototype has been heard of.
Pons is out of the business altogether (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2Fscin.2009.5591750622 – I don't have access to the whole article, but may see if I can get it through my library resources), seemingly giving up in 1998 when the Toyota lab in France closed down (supposedly after spending ₤12 million) with no known success.
Produce results, publish them, prove the physics community wrong – maybe someday, but it doesn't appear to be any time soon.
And I thought it interesting that Sheldrake misrepresented research cited in his Psychic Dog book (the study authors rebutted Sheldrake here: Psychic Dog reply) to support how a dog supposedly knew when its owner was coming home. The real study concluded that such was not the case and Sheldrake
Oops.
Nice distillation – please [provide the actual sources. I read Sheldrake's account of an encounter with Dawkins. Heresay and anecdotal. But Dawkins has been tending towards the dismissive of nonsense (he just turned 70…I guess he is tired of the battles; his early work is quite intense).
I've read a lot of Shermer and of the four you cull, his research (he has a PhD in psychology, for what that's worth) and analyses are quite rigorous, impartial and factual. I've never read anything from him remotely sounding like the distillation – can you point to an independent source where he said anything like that?
Randi? In your face, dismisses everything supernatural equally with loud cries. Because none have ever passed the test. I can see him actually saying those things. (If only someone actually could prove him wrong.)
I've never read any Shannon Rupp (I assume that's the Rupp; he criticized Sheldrake's stuff), so won't comment on that.
Jim: Thanks for digging down and helping to clarify the information.
I found this Scientific American article in which Michael Shermer pans Sheldrake's work. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=… . Shermer asserts that the burden of proof of unusual claims (e.g., regarding the staring experiment) is with the believer, and I agree with Shermer that this is the best approach for the orderly advance of dependable knowledge.
Here's Sheldrake's response. http://www.dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2005/11/… Sheldrake calls Shermer a "partisan" and accuses Shermer of being the "believer," and suggests that he bears the burden of disproving Sheldrake's claims. Here's an entire page of links to Sheldrake's papers regarding the sense of being stared at. http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/s…
From what I've read (and I admit that it hasn't been much,but it includes most of one of Sheldrake's papers), I'm suspicious of Sheldrake's claims and rhetoric. If we really "feel" someone's staring at us, then rigorous experimentation that demonstrates this strongly (more than 55% versus 50%) and repeatedly will be applauded by me and most or all of Sheldrake's current skeptics.
Erich, thanks for the Shermer link. Impartial, clear, concise, well reasoned and clearly non-belittling. As I expected for the interviews, debates and writings I've read, seen and read of Shermer. He's one of the best. He's not out to debunk; he examines the evidence critically and presents his analyses. I've thought many times in the past that he was too soft, but with the past couple of years of the big three (Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris) getting so much more vocal, I rather like Shermer's approach.
Jim: I agree with you about the tone of Michael Shermer. He communicates like an gifted educator rather than an advocate.
I should let Mike know that I refer to the psychologic (coined word – red squiggle tells me it is not real) sciences as statistical or quantum sciences, because the variances and indeterminables (another squiggle) are so enormous that any predictions pretty much tend toward the convergence of observed results, but are not guaranteed to be the same for every event or even for every observer/predictor. There is an Uncertainty Principle of Psychology that really means we can't know for sure. Maybe it's the Agnostic Principle.
Physics can predict the impact speed of a dropped object with great precision. Chemistry can predict the outcome most often expected from a mixture of compounds (less accurate than physics). Biology makes best guesses. Psychology…maybe less best guesses. No one knows why I do something – they might think they know, but they can never really know. No certainty.
Psychic drops the "olog" and can make so few predictions of any accuracy as to be indistinguishable from random chance. It's not science. One can wrap science around it, with double blinds and controlled experiments. Or one can use scientific critical thought to observe the practices of "readers" and play one's own games. Shermer recounts his acting the part of a psychic in Science Friction, and doing quite well at it. But the art or act is not science.
Okay. I read some of Sheldrake's responses. He comes off pretty (petty?) petulant to me. I need to be done with this thread. Time to move on.
Jim, regarding your post of March 31, 2011 at 10:40 pm: Bravo- well said. I fully agree with you.
In the fuzzy jungle of Noetics, you'll surely find far more nuts than berries. But that's not a good reason to clear-cut the whole jungle. When investigating areas of non-ordinary reality, it's best to have your Bullshit Detection Meter cranked up to the highest setting. First you consider the credentials of the source, then you actually have to look at the data, next (with a critical eye) run it through your personal BSD Meter, and finally apply Occam's Razor. If after going through this gauntlet the evidence doesn't disintegrate –it deserves the benefit of the doubt and open minded consideration of its possible validity.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I still have a burr under my skin on some statements you made regarding the credentials of my quoted sources, the cold fusion topic, and my distillation re. Shermer.
I cannot just let stand your comments stand unanswered – stay tuned. Language is elastic, and I still feel you're guilty of semantic stretching in an effort to distort my meaning and bolster your agenda.
Jim says, "I need to be done with this thread. Time to move on."
I agree; I'm going to stand down. I'm actually content with the shaky middle ground we've seemed to reach, and I think I understand your p.o.v. better now as well. In the end, I found this to be a fruitful thread–I've moderated my position a bit, and walked away with some valuable feedback from you, Mark and Erich. I apologize for my previously snappish attitude, but some of my hot buttons were pressed.
Mike M. You really pissed me off with your comments and I'm banning you from this website.
Mike M: April Fools!
"If after going through this gauntlet the evidence doesn’t disintegrate…" – these things never make it that far with me. The detector clips them early.
But, fair enough, Mike. Except…
If you haven't read Shermer's works, I recommend Science Friction, then Why People Believe Weird Things (it's at all offensive as some might think the title suggests) and How We Believe – I have, but haven't gotten to yet, the conclusion to the trilogy The Science of Good and Evil.
I stand by what I said about his analyses. They are the most clinical and dispassionate debunkings I've come across since Martin Gardner. Well, not all are debunking – many simply share the conclusion that the facts don't support the claims…not always that the claims are false. His analyses are quite rigorous.
Randi is an entertainer and as such is very much in your face. He also happens to be right. Or at least no one has proven him wrong.
I like Dawkins, but I feel where his early work was too technical for mainstream, his latest works are too Carl Sagan-ish for much use in an argument. And he is dismissive. Every time he speaks, he hears the same, tired questions and get the same protesters from a different state/country. That does wear thin.
Okay. Now, I'll move on.
Jim, I found Shermer's 'Science Friction' and 'Why People Believe Weird Things' at my local library today. Book reviews coming soon.
May I recommend 2 books for you?
1. 'The New Inquisition – Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science' by Robert Anton Wilson (out of print and difficult to find but guaranteed to spin your head and chip away at the concrete dogmatism of fundamental skepticism. HIGHLY recommended.
2. 'Science and the Akashic Field – An Integral Theory of Everything' by Ervin Laszlo (sorry, he's another multi-Ph.D. (Sorbonne)- and Nobel prize nominee).
Mike – I need to disclose that I wasn't happy with Shemer's conclusions in "Why People…". But his research was deep – reading every Duane Gish book? That's dedication. I'm recommending Shermer's writings so that you can see he's not like the others you lumped him with.
I'll add the two you recommended to my "to read" list, which is very long and not a FIFO or FILO list at all, so I don't know when I'll get to them.
Akashic Fields sound suspiciously like a concept I had for a sci-fi/fantasy novel back when I was 17 (I might still have the notes in a box somewhere). Laszlo unfortunately loses points immediately with "quantum consciousness". If I read his stuff (like, for example, when I examined Carlos Casteneda) as fiction, it might be go over easier. Correction – I started reading Casteneda as non-fiction, but quickly changed my assessment.
I was unfamiliar with Wilson. Kristin Buxton seems to have a good grip on his material; I'll see if my (eventual) assessment agrees or not if I can find the book.
I freely admit that anything paranormal is an instant flag for me. Start weaving in ancient myths, add a few scientific phrases to disguise an absence of reproducible, verifiable findings, to try to clothe paranormal as normal, and it eventually devolves to either the adapted agnostic "we cannot know, so why couldn't this be right?" or worse, "your mind is closed so you'll never understand" accusations. I read Von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" and "In Search of Ancient Gods" and was totally wowed. Of course, I was 12. It wore off.
And it really matters not what credentials you have – multiple PhDs, or even just one, only mean(s) a perseverance in academia. An acquaintance 31 years ago had a PhD in math. For his dissertation, he invented a game and ran the numbers on game theory. I thought, that's it? I mistakenly associated a doctoral degree with something groundbreaking. I am a registered professional engineer – it means I passed a test. But it is the only way to practice engineering in the U.S. Moreover,
Now, I did see that Laszlo was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize…not for anything academic. He has four honorary doctorates, but I stopped pulling the thread on his credentials to find out what "the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate)" actually means, because I could not find anything on what his degree was in and the only use of those words are in his bio. Nor could I find anything on his academic background. But that really doesn't matter if an idea has merit. And Nobel? Why did Einstein get his for the service to theoretical physics, especially the photoelectric effect and not really for the most important work of physics in 200 years?
I was disturbed by the GERG focus on developing a "general theory of evolution that might serve as a road map for our species out of the mounting chaos of our times to the reassuring order of a better world"? Stuff like that gives evolution a bad (worse?) name.
You seem to want to beat down skepticism and I seem to not want to abandon what has served me well. You seem to have a more open mind when it comes to things outside of accepted science, and I don't have a problem with that. It's just not for me. I am comfortable rejecting mysticism, religious beliefs, paranormal, psychic anything. I was disturbed (and profoundly annoyed) with Pascal Boyer's revelation that religious belief is hardwired. But now it makes sense. And sheds enormous light on why people believe …things…whether weird or not.
I hope you realize that we're not going to change each other, right?
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I read Wilson's Quantum Psychology, started The New Inquisition, and just finished The Universe Next Door in the Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy. I made extensive notes on Quantum Psychology as I followed up on his declarations, direct cites, and off-hand references, but I want to get through all three before I write my reviews. I'll probably post those over on my personal blog, but I'll link them in one of these threads when I get done.
I'm not liking Schrodinger's Cat because it is utter nonsense so far and I read some of it in Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five 30+ years ago and didn't like it then. But I'll slog through it. And the first book is nowhere as "deep" as the selected quotes would have me believe. Disappointed.
I seriously doubt I'll read Laszlo's book. I got enough when I was researching Wilson's references of him in Quantum Psychology.
Jim, you appear to be quite a speedy reader. Evelyn Wood? (jk!). I feel sloth-like in comparison.
The first time I read Schrodinger's Cat I couldn't finish it, then picked it up again a year later and pushed my way through it. I now understand what Wilson was probably "going for" with SC, but walked away not liking the trilogy much – it's my least favorite of Wilson's work (and I've read it all). One reviewer called SC "deliberatly annoying" and it's a comment Wilson himself enjoyed immensely and fully agreed with, and I wouldn't argue with it either.
As far as his 'Quantum Psychology', I have to say I'm looking forward with great anticipation to your full review and notes. It may not have been as "deep" as you thought it would be, but I don't believe you'd deny that it was thought provoking, written with zippy style, and highly entertaining (at least I think so). I'd also like to check out your personal blog if you'd like to post the web address. I'm intrigued by your mind and pov (reminding me a bit of my dad who was a super rational non-religious skeptic and both a chemical and electrical engineer).
If you approach "The New Inquisition" with an open mind I suspect (and hope) it could be a real game changer for you, potentially superimposing a whole new paradigm of thought on your current view of skepticism.
Stay tuned for my reviews of Shermer's stuff (keeping in mind that I'm a slow and deliberate reader, and reading 3 books concurrently).
Mike M. – actually, I'm not most of the time. Depends on the subject. Took me a year to get through Religion Explained (Pascal Boyer). I wanted to make sure I really understood what he was saying – I don't do well with biology – but that was thought-provoking for me.
But also for me, Wilson's work is not as much. So far, anyway. I've seen some of it before, and I have a reasonable understanding of quantum physics – without the math, if that can be considered reasonable. Where I get bogged down is running off to look up an extraneous name drop, or to follow up on what he was trying to imply when he summarizes someone.
He's a conundrum. He was obviously skeptical and areligious, and yet defends the oddest things from the very type of person he tries to be with mainstream science (those thoughts were provoked, I guess). I thought it funny when he was going on about escaping "isness" and in the same chapter making absolute pronouncements against Martin Gardner (quite unfounded, I think – I'll elaborate when I write up the reviews) or the Catholic church, or people that criticize his pet likes and interests.
I already said I tried his Cat trilogy and didn't get far. I'm forcing myself this time, but maybe I'll be surprised by the second two books. I concur with "deliberately annoying", and while Wilson may have delighted in that assessment, my left-brained take is "that's not art" – he's not as clever as he thinks he is. Or was. Or is/was if you're the cat.
I'm not sure I'm going to make it through "The New Inquisition" – so far it's one chapter "see what I read about quantum physics", and two chapters rant against Gardner/CSICOP (with very little discussion to support the rant and why just Gardner) and lots of National Enquirer type stories done in the Fox News "we report, you decide" juxtaposition of sensational anecdote and unrelated leading statement that an undiscerning (non-skeptical?) reader might connect. Unlike Quantum Psychology, where he had a couple points of lucidity, I'm not seeing it yet in this book. But I'll keep trying. Until I can't take it anymore.
I was not kind: Schrodinger's Cat – review.
I haven't finished The New Inquisition. It's like a highly viscous fluid…the deeper I get the harder it is to push forward. He's scattershooting just about every National Enquirer and Weekly World News story he ever saw.
Jim,
Much as suspected. I bounced off Wilson long ago and briefly thought it was me. But I took another shot (The Illuminati) and thought it sounded like wannabe PKD without the sublimity.
But…Ulysses? Worst book you ever read? Hmm…
Mark,
I was trying to think of books that I considered awful. Hemingway was a no-brainer for me, although I fibbed – I could never finish even that as-short-as-it-is Old Man – so I guess nothing of Hemingway qualifies as the worst I ever read because I never finished them. "Alice in Wonderland" is close – even with Gardner's annotations. But "Ulysses", also one I could never finish, qualifies regardless of how much I read. I was remembering from youth of 30 years ago, so I pulled it off of my "literature" shelf and checked last night. In my own opinion, for none other really matters, it is still rot. I cannot stand stream of consciousness, stream of nonsense, stream of no sense. Like rhymeless, meterless "poetry" – something I call prose, but the poets don't – I didn't "get" Joyce. More's the pity, apparently, because I understand the work to be full of puns, which I happen to enjoy immensely. I re-thought of it a couple of weeks ago when I saw an article on Slate.com (Is Ulysses Overrated?) but I haven't tried to read whichever chapter he thought was worth reading. Wilson was enough for now. The Trilogy was bad enough, "Quantum Psychology" taxing with all the research I did when reading it, but that "New Inquisition" is exhausting – I'm about to toss in the towel. I read to learn or to be entertained and Wilson's stuff teaches me nothing and is too irritating to entertain.
Now, off the original topic, yet on somewhat for this comment, I ask this every time a Facebook list comes around and "The Great Gatsby" shows up near the top: given your occupation, your involvement with the Missouri Center for the Book, and an apparent life of reading, why is that considered "literature"? (I refer you to my old post on not "getting" movies, art and "literature".)
Heavens, Jim. Why is something considered Literature (capital L "lit'rary")? That could take a weekend…
Let me start by asking you for three titles you consider Literature.
(I usually come from a slightly apposite direction—if X, Y, and Z are so consider, how come A, B, and C are not?)