In his review of John Gray's book, 'Seven Types of Atheism' (WSJ, Dec. 18, p. A17), Tim Crane writes: "If Atheism is simply the denial of God's existence then why should it be more of a worldview than the denial of anything else? After all, the denial of extraterrestrial life, or fairies or Santa Claus, does not constitute a world view"
But as I pointed out in my recent letter published in Physics Today, e.g.
"Because a supernatural
domain cannot be approached in any scientific or objective way, then by my
reckoning it doesn't exist. One need not even deny its existence because to all
intents the supernatural entity becomes logically unnecessary or redundant. It
doesn't help us make scientific predictions or explain natural phenomena—say,
coronal mass ejections or auroral substorms"
In other words, the basis of the Atheist-Materialist worldview is not denial but rather the essential redundancy of invoking supernatural artifacts and constructs. This is important to grasp if one is going to debate or discuss Atheism in any kind of intelligent context. In a way, this comports with John Gray's definition (in his cited book) that Atheism "has no use for a creator god."
Well, again, basically true because belief in the entity doesn't help me make any predictions. I can't predict the next class 4 x-ray or optical flare, or when the next supernova will be explode in terrestrial skies. So in that sense science has no use for it - and since Atheism- Materialism is mainly predicated on naturalist science, it doesn't either.
Besides that, as I have noted in multiple previous posts, the
invocation of the generic deity is laden with peril. This is because even if we did
agree some ultimate power started at all there’d still be no agreement on the entity’s specific attributes, nature or powers. The late Carl Sagan, for his part, equated 'God' to the physical principles and laws that govern the universe, which let's be clear, is more a physical God. Albert Einstein himself invoked "Spinoza's God" - which comes to the same thing. The point here is that it makes more sense not to interject the issue of 'God' at all, because no two people can even agree on what the noun means.
However, there exist problems - or perhaps conundrums- where Atheism -Materialism can be put to severe test. Then the different types of Materialism, in particular, can be exposed as useful or not. One such problem I introduced in my book, 'Beyond Atheism- Beyond God' and called "the Camus Conundrum" - after author Albert Camus, as expressed by a character in The Plague.
The essence is embodied in a question Camus’ character Jean Tarrou asks his
friend, Rieux:
Why do you show such devotion considering you don’t believe in God?
Author Greg Epstein puts this in a contemporary
setting, referencing a 2006 book tour by Richard Dawkins for his God
Delusion. According to Epstein,
Dawkins was somewhat startled when a young man approached him and asked
directly: "Dr. Dawkins, I am thinking of committing suicide, what do you have
to say?:
Epstein relates that initially Dawkins was so
nonplussed he could think of nothing to say then suggested the young man (a
student at Harvard) could go to the humanist chaplain or – if he’d been
at Oxford, he
could go to the Anglican chaplain.
In understandable astonishment,
Epstein observed:
Is
that the best we can do? Rage, rage against the dying of the Enlightenment then
shoo our troubled youth back to religion because we’re too distracted or
cerebral or both to spend a few minutes of our deep thoughts on being more loving
and more helpful?
Indeed. But let’s be clear the Camus
conundrum highlighted in modern form by Epstein isn’t just a problem for
Dawkins! I am certain that in a similar situation, all the current hard core
crop of "New Atheists" would be at a loss for words, but perhaps more out of diplomacy. If
they were truly honest and forthright they’d likely answer along the lines of:
"Well,
you are just an assembly of molecules and atoms when all’s said and done.
Killing yourself is therefore nothing to worry over. You don’t have to fear Hell since when you’re
dead, that’s it! You are in the end a complex machine, but only a machine
nonetheless, so killing yourself is no different from pulling your own plug."
What else could the reductionists
say or do, if they have cast their lot with a remorseless meme that sees each
human as merely an assemblage of trillions of inert component molecules? More
to the point, they allocate no quantum mechanical dimension to any of those
constituents, especially for the human brain.
As
an emergent Materialist, on the other hand, I would have told Dawkins’
questioner that emergence of a unified energy whole is more foundational than
matter or apparent separation, as the professed realist-reductionists claim. I
would have encouraged him to learn and become part of that emergent energy
substrate or Being of which his consciousness was part. I’d then have added that this transcending
consciousness conferred meaning and also abhorred extinction via its individual
conscious units. In other words, killing oneself amounted to killing an
expression of Being within oneself. It meant killing a unique expression of
Being manifest in the cosmos, and hence extinguishing a light that might be
there for others.
But let me clear here, lest too many misinterpret my meaning: The Being to which I refer is basically the same physical, nonlocal entity described and discussed by physicist Bernard d 'Espagnat in his book, 'In Search Of Reality'. It is not supernatural nor does it work "miracles'. If I were pressed to pinpoint the nature in more specific terms it would be analogous to David Bohm's holomovement, described in detail in his book, 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order'. See e.g.
In the implicate order proposed by
Bohm, the separateness of the universe is ultimately submerged within its higher dimensional implicate aspect. All seemingly separate entities are ultimately unified into one, much
like the apparently separate ‘waves’ seen on the ocean ultimately dissolve and
submerge into the vastly greater background sea that spawned them. This illustration helps to understand the relation:
INDIVIDUAL FORMS (EXPLICATE ORDER)
___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___
DIRAC ENERGY
SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER)
In human terms, this implies that
at a higher dimensional level all matter, especially as embodied in human
forms, along with human minds, becomes interfused into one reality, one whole
without division. As Bohm describes it:
In the implicate order we have to say
the mind enfolds matter in general and therefore the body in particular.
Similarly, the body enfolds not only the mind but also in some sense, the
entire material universe.
If it is true that not all Materialist
philosophies are created the same, and there is a subset that must be false,
then it is incumbent on us to expose the latter. Contrary to a physicalist model that
incorporates quantum mechanics and mind, we have the hyper-reductionists real
locality models which Graham Smetham dismisses as false. These embody a false
Materialism because they attempt to explain something as complex as thought and
consciousness using simple bio-chemical interactions. As Smetham puts it
In
the most up-to date understanding of quantum theory, it is quite clear that all
apparently material structures and processes, including the brain, are emergent
from quantum insubstantial ‘dream’ stuff, to use a description by Wojciech
Zurek.
In other
words, in the valid theories of Materialism, consciousness is not an epiphenomenon
of material hardware but rather the author of the brain’s running software. In
other words: the material of the brain is ultimately immaterial. (De Broglie waves)
Central to discriminating opposing Materialist
models of mind are qualia. The term refers to subjective properties
perceived in the material world, including colors, shapes and sounds (music).
Arguably, none of these have objective existence but are tied to our neural
processing and mode of consciousness. The qualia problem is often also called the
Mary problem since it presents a hypothetical character (“Mary”) who
inhabits a black and white world, but knows everything about colors in physics
terms. Still, though she knows what color signifies – e.6. a particular wavelength (say 660 nm) in the electromagnetic spectrum – she has never experienced it. The qualia problem helps to distinguish
between what many call monistic physicalism and what I refer to as quantum or nonlocal physicalism.
In monistic physicalism, reality is
structured around locality (predicated on particles), and quantum wave
mechanics and its inherent potentiality never enters the field Y to the extent
of overturning particle dominance. In this way, emergence and holism are kept
at bay. Conversely, J.S. Bell’s awareness of the hidden variable X [7]:
Although Y is a real field it does not show up immediately in the
results of a ‘single measurement’, but only in the statistics of many such
results. It is the de Broglie –Bohm variable X that shows up immediately
each time.
And what of Man? According to physicist Henry
Stapp [8]:
Classical physics portrayed man as a puppet controlled by
the iron hand of destiny ordained at the beginning of time. Man was thereby
removed of all responsibility for his acts.
But this is in contradiction to quantum facts, i.e. (ibid.):
Brain processes involve
chemical processes which must, in principle, be treated quantum mechanically. In particular, the
transmission process occurring at a synaptic junction is triggered
by the capture of a small number of calcium ions at an appropriate release
site.
In a quantum mechanical treatment, the locations of
the calcium ions must be treated quantum mechanically: a quantum mechanical
component must be added to the other uncertainties such as those generated by
thermal noise, that enter into the decision as to whether the synapse will fire.
Which means (op. cit.):
Reinstatement
of human freedom by appeal to quantum theory resurrects human
responsibility...this
approach to the mind-body problem creates a quantum
mechanical
conception of man and his role in nature.
He is no longer a passive observer
of a cataclysmic initial act of creation, but rather an active participant in the process
of creation
Evidently then, we can gather that the choice isn't between "God" or "no God" but between whether we humans invoke a perspective based on monistic physicalism or nonlocal physicalism. In the first we remain as mere assemblies of atoms and molecules, or "puppets controlled by the iron hand of destiny" in Stapp's parlance. In the latter we have the potential for a nonlocal emergence and enhanced freedom as cosmic participants- though not as "souls"- but rather as explicated centers of energy grounded in a higher dimensional implicate order.
David Bohm, p. 209
Graham Smetham, Philosophy Now, No. 93, 28.(Nov./Dec. 2012), p. 30
[7]J.S. Bell,:
Foundations of Physics, (12,) .989
[8] Henry Stapp: Foundations of Physics, (15), 35
