• Articles on Religion & Philosophy Issues
• Rationality FAQ
• References to books & articles, Book Reviews

The most unifying element between races, religion or nations is science. Here all speak the same language. It is common to see a Chinese scientist discussing research topics with say an Arab scientist in a conference, academic institution or research laboratory. There is a universal aspect of scientific laws, principles that crosses racial, geographical & cultural boundaries that is absent in other branches of knowledge(e.g history, arts, economy, law etc which are taught, developed and adapted to suit their respective nation or society). The programs in Physics, Chemistry etc. in an Arab, Chinese or US University cover the same topics and principles. The theologians of different religions have widely differing views but the scientists of all religions have identical "views" of scientific principles. A vindication of the point I am trying to make is nicely illustrated by the noted British American elite Physicist & Philosopher from Princeton, Freeman Dyson who, in his insightful book "Infinity in All Directions" credits a Bangladeshi Muslim (Dyson's own word) Physicist Jamal Islam as having inspired and helped him in his quest for understanding of what the possible ultimate fate of the universe might be, and to a Japanese Biologist Kimura for having helped him in a mathematical way in his quest for the understanding of how Life on Earth might have evolved (genetic drift through random statistical fluctuation). Incidentally, Jamal Islam is also mentioned in Frank Tipler's mind boggling book "Physics of Immortality" on page 116. As Physicist and former president of the New York Academy of science Heinz Pagels said: "What distinguishes scientific theories from the pictures of reality provided by religion, culture or politics is the intention of their creators that they be useful theories independent of their user's religion, culture, politics, sex, race, personality, feelings, or opinions (p-172, "The Dreams of Reason"). Nobel Physicist Steven Weinberg remarked: "The experience of listening to a discussion of Quantum field theory or weak interactions in a seminar room in Tsukuba or Bombay gives me a powerful impression that the laws of physics have an existence of their own." (From "Dreams of a Final Theory, p-47-48). Physics is the right choice as the laws of physics are fundamental laws of nature that are universal and any explanation of any aspect of nature eventually reduces to explanation in terms of these basic laws. All other branches of science are derived from these basic laws of physics with some additional assumptions reflecting the complexity of the individual instances. Pleasee refer to A scientific view of Life, death, Immortality for quotes from scientists substantiating this conclusion. The principles of medicine etc are not fundamental laws either but reflect empirical rules that can and sometimes indeed seem to be violated, but are nevertheless universal i.e not culture or tradition dependent. A nice illustration of this universality is by listing the following Nobel Laureates in Physics (with diverse ethno-religious backgrounds) and their work:

1. Subrahmaniam Chandrashekhar(Indian/Hindu): Theory of Black hole and the structure and formation of Stars.
2. C.N. Yang and T.D.Lee(Chinese/Buddhist): Theory of Parity violation in nature (A subtle aspect hard for me phrase it for laymen).
3. Abdus Salam(Pakistani/Muslim): Unifying the Weak and Electro-magnetic forces of nature (same comments as above).
4. Tomonaga(Japanese/Buddhist?): Work on Quantum Electrodynamics.
5. Landau(Russian/Aethist(?)): Work on Superfluidity.
6. U.S, and other European physicists too numerous to mention.

Often a cavalier view and misconception exists among many laypeople about scientists, scientific truths and scientific methodology itself. There was a common perception before (and still is among some) that the laws of science are discovered by bespectacled, absent minded scientists, working quietly away in their labs, dabbling with microscopes and playing with simple equations or graphs of the kind that one is familiar with in their high school math, adding here, subtracting there, tweaking numbers until they are hit by a piece of good luck. In fact the math that is used in contemporary science is quite sophisticated. The simple math of the early Greek and medieval times has evolved into an incredibly complex edifice of advanced math today that are applied to scientific research. This complexity is not just in quantity, in the sense that an entire page of equations of high school algebra or calculus being needed to express a physical law, but rather in the complexity and novel concepts, notations and structures needed to express a physical law precisely. The new notions themselves often require mathematicians to delve metaphysically into the realm of higher dimensions, far removed from ordinary experience, sometimes to a 11 dimensional world, for example in developing the superstring theory of spacetime-matter at the fundamental level. Also the stereotypical image of scientists diligently engaged in trial and error with experiments and equations until finally they hit upon something revolutionary is a myth as well. It is not realized by many that all the profound breakthroughs in scientific ideas are not due to just the patient and diligent tinkering of instruments and numbers, but due to the painstaking, disciplined mental work through mathematical analysis and observations following the scientific method. Although the inspirations behind the discovery of certain scientific truth may be epiphanic, but the formulation, verification and communication of such scientific truth requires the use of scientific methodology before it can attain the status of a universally accepted scientific law. Scientific method is the "conscience" of the scientists, so to speak, that guides the scientists and prevent them from succumbing to individual whims and wishes. It enforces a uniform rule of engagement for any scientist irrespective of affiliations to search for the objective truth about reality based on observations, evidence and logic. Technological marvels, which are results of applying those scientific principles through ingenious ideas using both theoretical and experimental techniques, however at times do require diligence and tinkering. Some layfolks even think that the laws of science are just the result of some abstract imaginations or mental constructs of scientists reflecting their bias for what they perceive to be true, and the scientific laws are just a post hoc mental constructs to explain away observations, denying the objective reality of scientific laws. They seem to equate the claims of truth by religions with scientific truths. But unlike religious and personal beliefs, which are considered true just by thinking it ot be true, scientific beliefs are arrived at and inspired by a desire to seek the truth through a systematic, repeatable, testable experimental and theoretical endeavors. Such endeavors have to be necessarily objective in nature for it to be verifiable by scientists collectively regardless of their affiliations. A scientific truth does not result from haphazard attempts. It emerges from a systematic series of tests and observations inspired by intuitive thinking, reasoning and evidences, aided by theoretical or mathematical analysis. The level and complexity of the mathematical analysis is often beyond that seen even in graduate level math courses. One need only glance through the pages of the book "The large Scale Structure of Space Time" by Hawking & Ellis or "The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" by Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar to appreciate this fact. Oftentimes lay persons are illusioned and take the profound scientific statements of reputed scientists for granted as obvious,simple, or armchair speculation, not realizing that pages and pages of sophisticated math that went into arriving at such a scientific conclusion in a precise way (An example being Hawking's mathematical derivation of a Universe with no beginning or end and the notion of "imaginary" time) and developing a theory based on such math that can predict any result that is a logical consequence of the theory, testable by the scientific community in a repeatable way. A full consensus of the scientific community crossing national, racial borders is an absolute prerequisite as well. The most important aspect of scientific methodology is its ability to predict and a scheme of verification/falsification of this prediction. All known scientific laws were established through verification of the predictions it made. A lay person is hardly aware of the ruthless and exacting rigor with which the prestigious scientific journals and their international referees screen a prospective article publicizing a scientific principle. Such is the firmness of an established scientific law or truth. A scientific law is not introduced in a cavalier way like the pseudoscientific theories of "Scientology", "Quantum Healing" and similar other new age myths that are not accountable and subject to any rigorous peer review and testing. One simply has to remind oneselves that there is good reason for these never being taught in the regular programs in any general Academic Institution, private or public. It is important to remember that only one violation of a scientific law is enough to topple it whereas a series of evidence/verification together with a mathematical and logical consistency tested repeatedly by peers help to establish one.

Many laypeople hold the view that something that cannot be "seen" by their eyes cannot be said to exist in a certain way but only conjectured. To them an electron or atom is thus not a real object, but a scientific conjecture. They miss the point that our individual senses are no longer the only reliable means of verifying, testing or predicting a truth or proving the existence of some entity. Our observable universe consists of visible and invisible domains, the macrocosm and the microcosm. The entities of the microcosm can be "seen" by more sensitive means than our limited senses. Scientific methodology has, over hundreds of years been able to perfect an objective systems of observations through the design of extremely (Cannot overemphasize this word) sensitive equipments & procedures that can measure one billionth of the thickness of a hair to give an example. Scientists today can "see" an atom by a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope. Add to that the extremely complex, sophisticated mathematical structure & language to express a scientific truth that defy human words. Scientists spend a substantial amount of time mastering this complex language before even beginning to express and converse about the truths with their peers. Our entire assortment of technological boons like T.V., microwave or for that matter any electrical/electronic appliance is based on the same principle that asserts the existence of electron, even the computer that the Software Professional was writing programs for. Saying that the existence of an electron is a perceived truth by the scientists is like saying that the existence of the computer he is operating is the result of his believing that it exists! Many educated people even doubt about the objectivity of Einstein's Relativity particularly its implication of time dilation etc. They don't realize the "Nuclear" bomb, whose existence no one dare doubt, is built and devised from the very same law that yields time dilation as its natural consequence. It is also sad to see the cavalier way some lay people and non-specialists dismiss many scientific theories/speculations just because it contradicts their subjective perception, belief or "common sense". Examples are "Big Bang", "Black Holes", "Time Warp", Superstring Theory, Antimatter, prediction of machines having consciousness beyond 2050 etc(As believed by Nobel laureate Scientists Crick and Edelman, Computer Scientist Marvin Minsky, Philosopher Daniel Dennett). The noted philosopher of this century Martin Gardner commented in 1983 in his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" : I cannot say it is impossible for humanity someday to build a computer or a robot of sufficient complexity that a threshold will be crossed and the computer or robot will aquire self-consciousness and free will (p-114). Notice he is not saying that this WILL happen, only that it cannot be dismissed as impossible. Scientific theories are based on painstaking mathematical derivations based on well established fundamental laws of science or are propounded in a mathematical expression derived on the basis of some premise that seem plausible from observations. Once enough observational evidence in support of the consequences of the theory is accumulated the theory becomes a fundamental law itself. Scientific speculations are predictions based on existing natural laws but project its future extensions far beyond its current range of validity. For a lay person to dismiss or disbelieve such a theory or speculation, he/she has to point out the flaw (if any) in the mathematical derivation of the theory (For that he/she obviously has to master enough technical proficiency in the sophistication of the mathematical framework) or put forward an observational evidence to contradict the theory (Also has to be able to master the observational skill needed in the experimental field of that theory). A lay person is intellectually dishonest/wrong to dismiss the result of the painstaking work of the scientists. Here by lay person I mean those not trained in science, they can have PhD in non-scientific discipline. A lay person can with good conscience only confess that they don't understand or are not capable of comprehending or analyzing it because of their lack of necessary background. They can either accept the words of the science experts, read up enough to get a reasonable grasp, or just stay neutral. See http://www.csicop.org/sb/9803/reality-check.html for a related interesting article by Victor Stenger. Some post modernist social theorists also audaciously characterize Science as another cultural construct of human and question science's claim to objectivity. Interestingly these postmodernists use the same scientific results to propagate their outrageous propositions while declaring science as relative and not objective! This is a gross mischaracterization of science and scientific truths, which although tentative, but are nevertheless objective. As Werner Heisenberg said "In science a decision can always be reached as to what is right and what is wrong. It is not a question of belief, or Weltanschaung, or hypothesis; but a certain statement could be simply right and another statement wrong. Neither origin nor race decides this question: It is decided by nature, or if you prefer, by God, in any case not by man" (Quoted in p-267, "Dreams of Reason, by heinz Pagels). The truth about these postmodernists is that they are suffering from "science envy" and since scientific knowledge undoubtedly commands glory and respect, they cleverly try to wrest more respect by pretending they know more than scientists by proving that science is wrong. After all, if science requires high intellect then surely discounting science must require even higher intellect, so why not pretend to "debunk" science if you cannot understand it? Thats the ploy of these postmodernists. Another reason for these posmodernists to pretend to debunk science is because that would provide a convenient excuse not to go through the hard route of learning the difficult principles of exact sciences and apply them correctly to the social sciences. These postmodernists are nothing but armchair social scientists incapable to face the challenge of the hard sciences, who unlike some of their fellow social scientists (who have successfully tackled the scientific challenge) are threatened by the incursion of scientific paradigms and principles in their field. For them the appropriate maxim is "If you can't join them beat them" rather than "If you can't beat them join them" ! There are even some outrageous views like "scientific truths are the results of the mental constructs of the white males of Western society !". Thereare those who propose "Islamic Science", "Vedic Science" etc. Then there are feminist sociologists who take this post modernist view and advocate feminist science! (For debunking of such ludicrous view, see an article by a female philosopher Susan Haak where she takes on the preposterous position of Sandra Harding on feminist science at www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html. For another rebuttal of post modernist views,see http://www.godless.org/eth/round.html. Philosopher of science Noretta Koertge criticizes feminists' position of science at http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/fem/KOERTGE.html . A Female freelance journalist Elizabeth Larson mocks feminist science in the April/May 1997 issue of Heterodoxy maganzine. The famous Sokal's Hoax lucidly illustrates this ridiculous attitude of some non/pseudo-scientific social theorists who pass irresponsible armchair commentaries on the value of scientific principles. For more on post modernist's abuse of scientific ideas check out Alan Sokal's Book: Fashionable Nonsense

Here are some excerpts from Fashionable Nonsense: :

"Science is not a text. The natural sciences are not a mere reservoir of metaphors ready to be used in the human sciences. Non-scientists may be tempted to isolate from a scientific theory some general "themes" that can be summarized in few words such as "uncertainty", "discontinuity", "chaos", or "nonlinearity" and then analyzed in a purely verbal manner. But scientific theories are not like novels;in a scientific context these words have specific meanings,which differ in subtle but crucial ways from their everyday meanings, and which can only be understood within a complex web of theory and experiment. If one uses them only as metaphors, one is easily led to nonsensical conclusions."

1. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science
2. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science

The Nobel laureate scientist P.B. Medawar said that "there are some fields that are genuinely difficult, where if you want to communicate you have to work really hard to make the language simple, and there are other fields that are fundamentally very easy, where if you want to impress other people you have to make the language more difficult than it needs to be." ("Third culture - By John Brockman, p-23). As Alan Sokal says in his book "Fashionable Nonsense": "Not all that is obscure is necessarily profound" (p-186). The renowned Biologist & author thinker Richard Dawkins says:

"And there are some fields in which--to use Medawar's lovely phrase-- people suffer from 'physics envy'. They want their subject to be treated as profoundly difficult, even when it isn't. Physics genuinely is difficult, so there's a great industry for taking the difficult ideas of physics and making them simpler for people to understand; but, conversely, there's another industry for taking subjects that really have no substance at all and pretending they do-- dressing them up in a language that's incomprehensible for the very sake of incomprehensibility, in order to make them seem profound."

Interestingly neither Medawar or Dawkins are physicists, but are biologists. Dawkins also said, apparently saddened by those pseudo/non-scientifc intellectuals who argue that science alone cannot answer ultimate questions about existence that:

"They think science is too arrogant and that there are certain questions that science has no business to ask, that traditionally have been of interest to religious people. As though *they* had any answers. It's one thing to say it's very difficult to know how the universe began, what initiated the big bang, what consciousness is. But if science has difficulty explaining something, there sure as hell is no one else who is going to explain it". (From End Of Science - John Horgan p-119)

Dawkins is right on the mark here. My point here is that when laymen, mystics or new age thinkers etc assert that "scientists or science cannot answer all questions or that one cannot/should not try to understand life, consciousness/soul/Creation of the universe etc using science", they are in fact themselves arrogantly claiming that their way (mystical meditation, pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo etc) is the "right" way to know them! So much for consistency! At least scientists are always basing on objective evidence and reasoning as their guide and constantly making room for revision and revocation and humbly confessing not knowing all the truth at any time. It is one thing when scientists say science is yet unable to explain some mystery and another when a layman or mystic says that. The laymen's assertion is an uninformed biased view. The scientists' assertion is an informed verdict. The two assertions are not by any means of the same weight or consequence. One may accidentally hit on the truth by random guessing, but it is not the same as arriving at the truth by systematic reasoning. The truth is not always what appears to be most likely from common sense. Our senses can be easily fooled as amply borne out by history.

Another unfounded view held by many non-scientific leftist intellectual is that it is impossible if not difficult to change the existing scientific paradigm by fresh new minds brilliant ideas specially if theses new minds happened not to be from the elitist white western male scientist etc, i.e basically they contend that the objective content of a new scientific theory is not judged in isolation but that the affiliation of the proponent figures in its acceptability. A single landmark exception will suffice to debunk this preposterous belief. Until 1956 the overwhelming majority (In fact 100%) of Physicist believed that Parity conservation is never violated in nature. Any new theory without evidence that went against this ingrained belief would almost certainly be dismissed. The belief in parity conservation was too strong an accepted paradigm to be challenged. Then in 1956 two Chinese physicist Yang and Lee first pointed out the exception and theoretically predicted non-conservation of parity. Initially there was predictable skepticism and it took further convincing work and subsequent experimental verification by another Chinese woman Wu and her colleagues and in 1957 the physicist community abandoned a long held belief in conservation of parity. Yang and Lee were not only vindicated,they received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this intellectual feat. So much for conservative western scientist clinging on to their scientific "beliefs" and refusing to accept any new ideas specially if proposed by scientists from different affiliations. This debunks two myths in one stone:

1. That revolutionary new ideas that go against the current paradigm is always rejected by reactionary mainstream scientist community and
2. That the affiliation of a scientist offering a revolutionary new idea may be a hindrance to an objective assessment of the merit of the new idea.

Another example debunking the first myth is that of Nobel physicist Paul Dirac's suggestion in 1928 of the existence of anti-matter purely on mathematical symmetry considerations. As bizarre and far out this idea may have sounded back then in 1928 physicists didn't ridicule it even though they didn't accept it either for lack of observational evidence. When observational evidence did come in 1932 his idea was accepted and rewarded with the Nobel prize. Truth, however tall sounding, ultimately manages to shine out. A very opportune note can be found at by a female Professor emiriti of Physics Nina Byers (See her page at http://www.physics.ucla.edu/faculty/emeriti/byers.html) and Claude Pellegrin, professor of Physics at the University of california at Los Angeles, at: http://www.soz.uni-hannover.de/isoz/SOKAL/NYTREV6.htm. It is equally disingenuous for laymen to observe "Of course, that's obvious, I knew it all along" etc when commenting on some superficially trivial sounding but truly profound statements by top scientists like Roger Penrose's assertion that "Human mind/brain cannot be simulated by a computer (Turing machine)". This assertion has a deep scientific connotation and is made to refute the opposite viewpoint taken by top scientists in Artificial Intelligence theory. This disagreement between Penrose and AI people (Dan Dennett, Marvin Minsky etc) for example) is of a highly technical nature and Penrose was not making a cavalier remark to echo what mystics and pseudoscientists often make while discounting the role of science in metaphysics and what laypersons perceive by their gut feeling and common sense. This trivial sounding statement is a result of a laborious research (Summarized in the two books, "The Emperor's new mind" and "The shadows of the mind" in hundreds and hundreds of pages). For a layman to quip "Oh that's obvious" is an arrogant, flip remark implying he/she already is in possession of the insight that is reflected in Penrose's conclusion based on his painstaking cerebration and whose conclusion is nevertheless debated by top scientists from Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon etc. Similarly when top scientists express the views that in about 50 years it may be possible to create intelligent machines possessing consciousness it should not be cavalierly discounted by laymen but should be debated with authoritative expertise in artificial intelligence, brain research and mind/matter research based on Quantum theory. Laymen and quacks etc seem to thrive on dissenting views of scientists. They quote the views of the side which seem to be favourable to theirs and claim that their view is supported by scientists! The fact is that the two dissenting views of scientists on an issue differ on a fine level and the two sides nevertheless agree on 80% or more of a detailed and technical knowledge of the issue on which their dissension is based. The quacks and laymen are totally ignorant about those detailed technical background. So for a layman or quack to claim that their view is supported by scientists is nothing but and disingenuous. In other cases the laymen or quacks point to the dissenting scientists and conclude that since the scientists differ with each other so they are all wrong and its them (laymen/quacks) who are correct ! (conveniently ignoring the the broad area of agreement between the two dissenting scientists). As a final example, when cosmologists state that vacuum has no weight, laymen should not jump to a derisive laugh and say "Phew. Isn't that obvious? How can empty space have weight anyway?" etc. Emptiness(vacuum) is more than meets the laymen's eye. A deep study of quantum theory and general relativity reveals empty space to contain virtual particles in various modes of excitation and the fact that ordinary vacuum has zero weight is a fortuitous result of the Grand Unified theory of matter. Another example is the question why is the night sky is dark. To a layman this may sound like a silly question, but it is not, according to Physics it should not have been dark IF universe was infinite with stars or space was not expanding, So there IS a deep cosmological reason behind night sky being dark. The bottom line is that so called "common sense", "gut feeling", "intuition" etc are not always guaranteed to be a reliable guide to an objective truth. They all reflect to some extent our desires and wishful thoughts deeply ingrained inside, though in many cases they are indeed right, but NOT ALWAYS, and it is this exceptional cases that a true scientists ruthlessly tries to guard against any veil of illusion and deceptive appearances that might creep in through fond wishes and habits, by deductive, objective cerebral work. And it is through these deductive cerebral intuition that some of the the most bizarre yet valid predictions and theory have sprang forth that defy usual common sense and intuition of laypeople, like time dilation, quantum non-locality, matter from vacuum, many worlds etc. A layman's intuition is almost invariably based on his/her wishful desires and is believed in naively by him/her but is constrained by his/her refusal to think in a more detailed and careful way. A scientist's intuition is almost always based on an assumption of symmetry and simplicity of nature, but is refined by deeper and careful thinking and is always considered tentative. So it must be emphasized that just as in order to establish a theory one has to get it screened and reviewed through highly respected journals by a wide body of scholars crossing national boundaries and actively involved in the field and most importantly borne out by clear objective (indicated by unanimity of scholars of diverse background) evidences, it is equally true that to declare an established theory wrong one has to go through the same rigorous path. Unfortunately often one is seen to cavalierly dismissing a theory just because it seems too abstruse to him/her. Humans have learened enough sobering lessons not to jump so quickly in accepting or dismissing any notion without careful investigation.

SCIENCE VS. MYSTICISM & PHILOSOPHY - Aparthib Zaman

It is commonly thought that understanding of mind, life, consciousness etc belonged to that vague discipline called "Mysticism" or religion and that science cannot, or should not try to deal with them. Layfolks often defend Mystics & Theologians by saying "You cannot judge their approach to truth as wrong using logic or science". Laymen, mystics and theologians also feel that questions of life, consciousness etc should be handed over to mystical philosophers, spiritualists and, theologians, not scientists. Nothing could be further from the truth. By their aversion to materialistic pursuits and adhering to ascetic life style, the "mystics" may seem to create an aura of wisdom and superior cognitive power. This is not to question the sincerity of ALL the mystics, many do have the genuine yearning to grasp the meaning of the ultimate, but to question the means they are adopting and more importantly their claim (or putative claim by their defendors) to having the most priviledged, if not the sole access to the ultimate reality and their disdain for scientific methodology. Some may not disdain scientific methods but still belittle science by calling it just "another way" among many in the the effort to learn about reality. By implication they view scientific way as no better than any other way, mystical, religious etc. It is a serious mistake to equate the objective methods of science with just any other subjective belief systems. If someone claims to experience a very personal feeling of higher state of consciousness (in whatever subjective sense), or a sense of heightened illumination about some transcendent reality, that is perfectly acceptable as long as he/she characterizes it as such (i.e subjective). But when these experiences are attempted to formalize and made into an "ism" such as "mysticism" or when such personal subjective experiences are defended by others as equally "real", "objective", "true" like science, that is going a bit too far. "Divine" experience, if such existed, cannot be obtained through a prescribed set of regimens which when followed will yield that privileged experience to any individual. If that was the case it would become a routine mechanical method for anyone to attain ultimate insight and thus would be amenable to a scientific analysis and would be integrated with mainstream science. Such a prescribed regimen for any Moe/Joe to follow by "joining" the exclusive mystical school in order to experience the same personal subjective senses of illumination, ceases to be of any spiritual or transcendental nature. A divine experience or truth (about a transcendent world or entoty), IF it exists at all, cannot be acquired through pure procedural regimen. Truth about nature (non-transcendental,phemomena), on the other hand, may possibly be obtained in an epiphanic flash like it came to Einstein (Any such about nature, i.e a platonic truth, can be viewed as divine/religious in a sense, since that truth is not the creation of human mind, but a discovery), who out of pure metaphysical intuition grasped the truth that the space time we live in is curved (This concept has a precise objective meaning that can be shared with others, which no mystical "truths" possess). His insight is an enlightenment about objective reality and is not tangible through ordinary intuition but is amenable to the objective language of mathematics and physics, and to empirical observations of a very high sophistication. That's how his metaphysical insight was elevated to a universal truth. A divine "feeling" of enlightenment on the other hand cannot be translated into an expression capable of objective communication and so has to be solipsistic. Any belief in such amounts to a belief in testimony. Moreover a pure procedural regimen to stimulate such feeling will necessarily imply a non divine nature of the same, because the outcome of a mechanical procedure is necessarily a phenomenon, not a noumenon. Any attempt by mystics to elevate a personal subjective "feeling" of spiritual enlightenment and call it a universal truth and prescribing some regimen for others to experience the same would be disingenuous. It is true that through meditation and other induced means brain can go into an altered state which can produce a feeling or sense of enligtenment, joy, fulfilment, unity etc. That in itself does not imply that a contact with a transcendent entity/truth has been established, although any individual may justifiably believe it to be so in their own mind. At the end of the day it is really to each his own. Anyone can "subjectively" claim to have grasped the ultimate mystery of life. It is quite possible that mystics, meditators etc may experience some subjective feeling of enlightenment/vision/hallucinations etc, (Aviators when subjected to severe and sudden change of motions causing substantial oxygen deprivation to the brain also report similar psychedelic experiences, sort of induced effect of mystical mediation. In fact Harvard researchers have concluded that the experience of mystical meditation is indistinguishable from altered brain states induced by certain drugs. So for the mystics, theologists & laymen to go one step further and assert that they have gained access to the ultimate truth and reality is a stretch. No real substantive or cerebral work goes into their pursuit to back up their presumptuous (though repetitive and often self evident truisms) talks and preachings. If at all any truth is arrived at through mystical means (meditation etc), then it cannot be communicated to others because it is bound to be highly subjective and subjective thoughts and realizations cannot be communicated unambiguously to others and generate the SAME subjective perceptions in them unless an objective language (symbolic/mathematical) is developed. No mystical studies have ever developed such objective language. Subjective perceptions or sensations may be stimulated in others through communication of rituals/regimens prescribed by some "mystic", but understanding or knowledge cannot. There is a crucial difference. Understanding inevitably involves knowing truth (Not personal perception of such). And truth requires an objective means for its expression and verification. And objective expression requires an objective language (Math & Logic, Natural Laws, as expressed in terms of well defined concepts etc) to be unambiguously communicated. Mystics, New Age thinkers emphasize cognition through intuition. But the cognition that their non-inferential intuition results in cannot lead to the truth, at best a perception. Scientific intuition is inferential, and is necessarily a prelude to en eventual expression of an objective truth, once the intuition is developed , refined and verified. Intuition, does play a crucial role in science. But unlike mystical intuition, scientific intuition does not end by a vague verbal assertion. A truth in the real sense must lend itself to a universal objective expression or an inferential derivation for it to be communicable and an objective criterion for its verification/ falsification. For, without a consensus reached through such communication the mystic's "truth" becomes a solipsistic concept devoid of any substantive value. No mystical studies have ever developed such objective expression of truth and its verification, and so cannot honestly claim to communicate the "TRUTH". On the other hand the hard sciences (Specially physics) do have the sophisticated objective language to not only communicate but to understand in a fundamental way subjective perceptions on such issues as mind, consciousness, life and reality in general. This is what has been and being done by scientists like Roger Penrose, Henry Stapp, David Deutsch, Paul Davies and others. None of these great yet humble physicists claim that Physics in its present form has solved the problem of explaining consciousness/mind/reality but that it may be explained fully in future by extending the present structure of physical laws through further discoveries and break throughs, if not within its present purview. The boundary between science and metaphysics & philosophy is getting thinner each day. It is inconceivable that one could grasp the mystery of mind or consciousness without ever knowing the facts of Quantum coherence or collapse. To appreciate this one need only to check this link out on the attempt of a theoretical Physicst from Berkeley to understand consciousness. Here's another link of another PhD Physicist Evan Harris Walker's attempt to understand consciousness, and another on the inevitable role of Quantum Physics on consciousness research.

It is fair to say the ultimate truth about reality, if ever is explained, will be done so not by just by pursuing a formal study of reductionist Physical principles or non-cerebral meditation of mystics, but through a combination of a strong grasp of the reductionist principles of Physics and preceded or accompanied by metaphysical reflection/intuition. So either a Physicist has to become a "mystic", or a " mystic" has to grasp the fundamental truths of nature through a thorough grounding of the reductionist principles of Physics and mathematics in order to seek the truth about reality. That's why most of the leading minds in the area of consciousness and mind research are either from Philosophy, neuroscience or mathematics who have spent enough time to train themselves in the advanced principles of Physics and mathematics (Dennet, Lockwood, Chalmers et alia) or are Physicists who are equipped with the knowledge of the workings of brain/neurons (Penrose,Stapp et alia) and spent enough time in metaphysical intuition and thinking. In their book "Where God resides in the brain", authors Allbright & Ashbrook says in p-xxv that theoretical physicists are exceptions in the usual dichotomy of mystics and scientists. They appreciate the particular but also seeks order and theoretical beauty in ways reminiscent of mysticism. And on page 32 they comment that neuroscience resides between physics and metaphysics.

Dan Dennet is a distinguished philosopher (Educated in Harvard and Oxford) who is well versed in science and bases his philosophical ideas on solid scientific insights in an authoritative way unlike pseudoscientists and mystics. Richard Dawkins, the celebrated Biologist who insists on precision, has even objected to labelling Dennet as a philosopher rather than a scientist!. After all, bare mysticism/metaphysics strives to deal with intangible entities and constructs to arrive at some higher level of reality/truth based on the fundamental intangible entities. But lacking the necessary tool, it is bound to fail. On the other hand that's exactly how physics works. After all, uncertainty principle, quarks, superstrings, curvature of spacetime etc are the most intangible concepts which through series of intricate deductive mechanism give rise to higher level of reality of forces, matter and most all phenomena in the visible world and life. Traditional mysticism is a poor man's (intellectually, figuratively speaking) attempt to connect to the platonic reality. Metaphysical reflection based on the principles of Physics and Biology etc, on the other hand are the sophisticate's way. I must emphasize that no derogatory connotation is implied here. Its just that a well-intentioned effort is misdirected in the former case. It requires both the necessary tool and the proper mind frame to get the best possible grasp on reality. Some of the mystics may be well intentioned and have the desire and mental capacity but lack the necessary tool (A deep knowledge of Physical laws and mathematical logic) and hence do not really achieve anything substantive, in terms of contributing to out understanding on the fundamental reality for others to share. Metaphysics without Physics is like a car without fuel. It can go nowhere. The noted Cambridge Philosopher Michael Redhead says "Physics and Metaphysics blend into a seamless whole, each enriching the other, and that in very truth neither can progress without the other" (From "Physics to Metaphysics", page-87). Just as those who undergo rigorous and arduous physical training and exercise are the most capable of performing tasks that require physical skill by the same token the principles of advanced Physics and mathematics enforce a rigorous mental exercise and training that makes one prepared for an effective metaphysical speculation. What could be intellectually more rigorous a training than say the mathematics of the 11 dimensional hyperspace of Superstrings? Metaphysicians/mystics with no reductionist training cannot in an unambiguous and objective way, formulate/express reality of life and universe but do so in a vague and highly subjective manner that is only amenable to blind veneration and subjective acceptance, prompted by biased and wishful desires and. Also merely quoting or paraphrasing the truths of Physics (Quantum non-locality etc) by so called Quantum healers/mystics to back up their vague mystical affirmations does not/should not impart legitimacy to such assertions. One has to pay their dues through a formal training in the natural laws of Physics. It is simply an intellectual dishonesty to assume that all the fundamental facts and truths of nature discovered by painstaking mental efforts of brilliant minds are all useless or irrelevant and one can bypass them and gain direct access to some ultimate truth about reality by some vague mediation efforts alone. As physicist/skeptic Victor Stenger says his book "Physics and Psychics": "Despite widespread belief to the contrary, mo mystical revelation has ever told us anything about the universe that could not have been inside the mytic's head all along. The most basic truths about the universe - its size, constituents, the fundamental laws these constituents obey, and humankind's place in it -- are nowhere even hinted at in the sacred scriptures that recorded the supposed revelations of history's leading religious and mystical figures" (p-10-11, Physics and Psychics). Even if it was true that some special soul by some freak did gain access to ultimate reality through some meditation (Or may be without it, why even mediation, if it is a divine gift?) then he/she would be a lone inhabitant of an island of enlightenment since no other ordinary human being can ever grasp what the special person knows or feels, there is simply no mechanism to communicate it, other than a blind belief on his/her words generated in the minds of the ordinary folks through their charismatic traits (Ascetic life style, detachment from materialistic pursuits etc). It may be noted as a side that it is far easier for a physicist to get up to speed with neuroscience than it is for a neuroscientist to get up to speed with quantum theory, due to the inherent difficulty of grasping Quantum principles let alone its mathematical complexity. It should also be noted that it is Physics which is APPLIED TO neuroscience and not the other way around in the attempt to understand mind/consciousness. It is no surprise that most of the leading brain/consciousness researcher are from Physicist background, like John Hopfield, a quantum physicist turned brain scientist (Pioneer in neural net) appled Q.M. to neurons. Miguel Virasorz is a superstring theorist turned brain scientist (neural net. bottom up approach). Particle Physicist Leon Cooper (Nobel Laureate Physics) also turned into brain scientist. Physicist Eric Harth (Author of the book "The Creative Loop" and "Windows of the mind") also worked on mind/brain research for many years which has added valuable insight. For examples of physicist turned mystic check this link and this Also to understand the importance of Science and other worldview in understanding reality click here. Even Russell envisaged the role of physics in brain/consciusness very early in his essay "Cosmic Purpose" from his book "Religion and Science" where he said that Physics and Psychology will eventually be merged into one science. Mind and matter will not be the issue, but events". He also says in that essay that the belief that personality is mysterious and irreducible has no scientific warrant, and is accepted chiefly beacause it is flattering to our human self-esteem. (from "Critiques of God").

In more recent time distinguished scientist and editor of prestigious Science magazine John Maddox in his book "What remains to be discovered" says on p-278: "Psychology will be a branch/handmaiden of Neuroscience".

Let me now move on to the meaning and relevance of Philosophy in the classical sense, in the context of today's world. The word Philosophy literally means love of knowledge. In ancient times the body of knowledge was too small and there was no division of labour among knowledge seekers. Philosophers were people who tried to understand everything in life including the structure of matter, origin of the universe, life/afterworld, consciousness etc. Not being aware of the natural laws that we know now they came up with unique and often ridiculous theories to explain everything. As you can see Zeno's paradox baffled scholars at that time, whereas today an average college student can figure out the flaw. Calculus was not known in Zeno's time. Here's an interesting quote by Dawkins from his BBC lecture in November 1996 : "You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues." (For the remainder of Dawkin's lecture see: http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/dimbleby.htm

Another Scientist and renowned author E.O. Wilson writes in his book Consilience(From http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm):

"Now, this formulation has a comforting feel to it, but it makes no sense at all in terms of either material or imaginable entities, which is why Kant, even apart from his tortured prose, is so hard to understand. Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong. This idea does not accord, we know now, with the evidence of how the brain works." (referring to Kant's idea of categorical imperative)

..

"Had Kant, Moore, and Rawls known modern biology and experimental psychology, they might well not have reasoned as they did. Yet as this century closes, transcendentalism remains firm in the hearts not just of religious believers but also of countless scholars in the social sciences and the humanities who, like Moore and Rawls, have chosen to insulate their thinking from the natural sciences"

For another example lets take Hume's reasoning in Inquiry V II:

"Although many past cases of sunrise do not guarantee the future of nature, my experience of them does get me used to the idea and produces in me an expectation that the sun will rise again tomorrow. I cannot prove that it will, but I feel that it must."

This is ridiculous and simplistic by today's standard. We can certainly "prove" that it will, based on geometry and theory of gravitation. Its not just a belief based on past observations. Of course it will be a truism to say that there is no guarantee that the proof itself is not a guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow. But then that is simply playing with words, one is not saying anything deep. After all what would mean by "guaranteeing" in this context? The proof is certainly there, however it is defined. In light of modern knowledge in Physics, Evolutionary and molecular biology, psychology, neuroscience, all the speculations, questions, reasoning etc of classical philosophers seem puerile today and reflects an ignorance of the deep knowledge of the Laws of Physics, Biology (evolutionary/ Molecular/Neuro). Nevertheless they stand in high esteem for the manner in which they reasoned and thought despite the primitive knowledge database that existed in their time. No one really needs to study them now to gain insight in life and nature. For that they need to study Physics/Cosmology, Evolutionary and molecular biology in depth AND (that's the vital part) try to understand the meaning of it all (i.e think metaphysically). Mere reading in a fact gathering manner, like feeding data into a computer is not adequate for human insight.

Humans today have been passed down a gene pool that contain the cumulative knowledge over millions of years and a research Physicist or a Molecular biologist today knows more about nature and life than the combined knowledge of all these primitive philosophers of ancient days. Even religion (eschatology) now is a more properly addressed by Cosmologists. The incredible level to which Physics and the Biological sciences have progressed has radically changed the traditional meaning of Philosophy in modern context. Philosophy today is primarily study of logic and epistemology. Logic is more an integral part of mathematics, and the rest of philosophy is only meaningful as a historical study of the evolution of human thought, epistemology and reasoning. Basically, Kant, Hume, Heidegger, Wittgenstein etc have put to rest all philosophical/metaphysical speculations by showing that they are just constructs of words with no meaning beyond that can be conclusively arrived at by consensus thru any objective means. All previous philosophical ideas are nothing but subjective verbiage of individual abstract ideas which can never be tested/verified or agreed upon in an universal way except for the obvious statements of individual perceptions that are common to all in an intuitive way (The feeling of mystery and awe about the infinite universe and its creation and existence etc). Here' s an interesting excerpt from cognitive scientist Roger Schank (See his bio at http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/misc/rcs.html) who held triple faculty positions in Computer Science, Education and Psychology, referring to the remarks on consciousness in Mortimer Adler's "Syntopicon" by old philosophers like Aquinas, Montaigne, Aristotle etc : "These people have vague hand-waiving notion of what consciousness is about, with a religious tinge to it. Their work wouldn't fly at all in modern academics. Yet we're being told that if you haven't read them you aren't educated. Well, I'm reading them, but I'm not learning much from them. What I'm learning is that people have struggled with these ideas for the last two thousand years and haven't been all that clever about it a lot of the time. Now, with the computer metaphor, and a different way of looking at the idea of consciousness, we have entirely different and new and interesting things to say.." Stephen Hawking, in the final chapter of his celebrated book "A Brief History of Time" quotes the eminent Philosopher of this century Wittgenstein as saying that the only meaningful work left for philosophers today is the analysis of language ! Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman has commented: "Philosophy is the graveyard of isms". Another nobel laureate Francis Crick (Codiscoverer of DNA) has said "Philosophers had such a poor record over the last two thousand years that they would do better to show a little modesty rather than the lofty superiority they usually display" . All the so called deep philosophical verbosity on Life, Soul, etc be it in Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Hellenic Philosophy etc, can never be boiled down to any tangible fact or a precisely formulated truths of life/nature i.e there is no real substance but some rich literary/poetic/romantic imageries. To be a true seeker of knowledge (i.e philosopher) one has to understand the deep laws of Quantum Theory, Cosmology, Chaos theory, Molecular Biology. Reading on the early Philosophers and their works are only for historical interest and to understand how human thoughts have evolved and advanced with time to the sophistication today. The theories of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus appear so obvious and elementary today. But they were the pioneers of their days. But the combined knowledge/insight of top Physicist, Molecular Biologists and all the other disciplines today will far surpass the combined insight of all the ancient "philosophers" in existence. Today's hard sciences are ready to tackle even issues that were considered the exclusive realm of religion/ ethics/spirituality etc. In fact the laws of physics ARE the Laws of nature and the laws of biology are the laws of Physics (in the emergent form), so ultimately, Life/Consciousness, End of the World, etc will all be in the domain of Physics ("The Fabric Of Reality" by Oxford Physicist David Deutsch states this premise in a remarkably elegant and convincing way). In fact all contemporary philosophers (who still survive as a species) of today are either former professional Physicists/Mathematicians/Life Scientists or have strong background in such and constantly invoke the deep truths of those disciplines to construct their philosophical ideas. Science provides the "raw material", so to speak, for the philosophical speculations and views. Scientists themselves are so occupied in the actual hunt for the truth and refining it through painstaking series of precise tests and observations that they can hardly afford to pause and speculate about the metaphysical implications. But many do, and they are to me truly the true philosophers, like Paul Davies, Roger Penrose, Richard Dawkins etc. For example Philosophers have debated and written profusely on morality, ethics etc, but they all in the end analysis, reduce to verbal meanderings with no remarkably significant insight. But if these issues of human life is viewed in the light of the profound truths of evolutionary biology, genetics etc they do provide some remarkable insights into it, an example would be the ideas of Richard Dawkins as outlined in his book. "The Selfish Gene". Even the concern of the philosophers on the issue of the limit of human knowledge is more effectively dealt with through mathematical principles and Quantum Theory. So my whole point is that there is no such viable thing as philosophy in isolation from Science. Philosophy is just the pursuit of understanding of life and nature through "thinking" and this understanding is only possible, if at all through Science. Up until the thirties, there were intellectuals devoid of scientific background who were monopolizing the profession of "thinkers" while scientists merely writing technical books on scientific principles, forming two distinct cultures. Now it is the time of the Third culture where Scientists themselves are taking the role of thinkers since nobody with little or no scientific background can even dare think on the profound issues of life which are so intimately a part of scientific pursuit today. Modern philosophers of Science are really doing their thinking on ideas and issues that are already the result of the work of scientists by first mastering the ideas and then working on the implications and/or extrapolations thereof. For example look at the 1988 article at : http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/uncaused.html, to see what a 36 year old PhD in philosophy had to say about the origin of the Universe (Warning: Maybe too mathematical for you). All the contents of this article refer to the work of cosmologists(Scientists) like Einstein, Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, James Hartle etc. For other examples of philosopher's subject of study see the other articles by Quentin Smith at www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/. Finally the book "The Ends of Philosophy" by Harry Redner does a post mortem of traditional philosophy and the attempts to revive it new form. Click here for excerpts from the book. Einstein in an obvious sense of pity for the moribund state of philosophy commented in 1932 "Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the other sciences. Therefore one should not scorn her in her nakedness and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into philistinism. (From p-150, "The Quotable Einstein")

SCIENCE, LOGIC, FAITH & BEAUTY ETC - Aparthib Zaman

Finally some speculations(Speculation is not inconsistent with LRS!) Why is there a sort of instinctual fear and aversion towards LRS by the NLRS? Two different plausible reasons at different level comes to mind. Is it that there is an instinctive fear of logic, rationality, science due to their potential in leading us to unpleasant truths that one wishes not to face or admit? A truth which may shake up long cherished values that we all harbor deep inside? If so then it seems natural to express that fear by dehumanizing or demonizing the LRS and rob them of these lofty human qualities by portraying them as devoid of all softer qualities like love,compassion, filial piety etc. After all, these are valued by ALL of humanity, so by cleverly manipulating popular perceptions against LRS by stripping them of these valued traits, the NLRSs can successfully marginalize the LRSs. thus minimizing the risk of facing the unpleasant truths that only LRS can expose! I am not saying this is consciously done, but may simply be instinctual. The second reason at a more fundamental level may be due a evolutionary legacy. Humans in past had to rely on intuition and reflexes a lot to survive and make quick decisions, to avoid predators for example. So intuition and impulses may have had adaptive value in past, logic and rationality were not. We are reminded of the famous fable of Buridan's ass, where an ass starved to death becasue he stood in the middle of two identical haystacks but could not decide which one to eat first! Humans still have an atavistic tendency to discredit traits that were not evolutionarily adaptive in past, even though it may be vital today.

SCIENCE, MIRACLES & THE PARANORMAL - Aparthib Zaman

One need to realize that all the physical laws that are known now (e.g Einstein's theory of relativity, Quantum theory of matter, Newton's Laws, etc) were true and were at work in nature even before their discovery. In the same vein their can be many undiscovered laws at work in nature at present which may explain those phenomena. This is exemplified in the views of Roger Penrose of Oxford that some new principle in Physics must be integrated within existing Quantum Theory and Theory of Gravitation to explain consciousness. Nobody can say if all of the undiscovered laws will even ever be known. Nobody could have guaranteed the discovery of Einstein's theory, it just happened coincidentally. The subtle undiscovered laws of nature, if any, might potentially be a manifestation of the so called Theory of Everything (TOE) that scientists believe exists and are striving to discover. It may be that we may approach incrementally to that nirvana of knowing the ultimate law and thus increase our understanding continually and incrementally but never quite reach there. After all, science is more a process of getting closer to the absolute truth, not necessarily discovering THE truth of nature. But also one should NEVER ignore the fact that within a certain domain of applications the truth may be known in 100% accuracy, for example the fact that computers, TV, microwave, Rockets, Atom bombs etc work certainly proves that the truth of natural laws is known with certainty within some domain of applicability. The whole point is by recognizing the possibility and keeping one's mind open on the possibility of paranormal phenomena one is asserting this view, rather than contradicting their rational thoughts or their non-belief in institutional religion. For example reports of Poltergeist,apparition,spirit etc have been quite common in human history, some even by persons of credible reputation. There may indeed be such phenomenon, which may be manifestations of purely natural laws (Not anything divine as the religious books hypothesize). In fact there are quite a few plausibility (ad hoc) arguments to explain its existence. An example of such is the after shock of an unnatural death which gets recorded in the ambient articles (walls, furniture, etc) of the place of the death and this recorded aftershock replaying itself like a phonograph record playing back to reproduce the song that was recorded from a real human voice. Brain chemistry with a Qunatum coherence in the nerons, or sensitivity to earth's magnetic fields have been putatively invoked to explain Psychic abilities. Underwater streams, High voltage electromagnetic fields etc have been attributed to hauntings in houses and dowsing for example. These are not scientific explanations, but still an attempt to explain through plausibility arguments based on natural laws. Poltergeist events have been attributed to brain's ability to influence matter, or brain's ability to create a perception of movement of objects. On the other hand there has also been recorded incidence of man made Poltergeist activity called "Hutchison Effect" where poltergeist like movements of articles were induced in a non-repeatable way by purely physical means (But without any explanation). Click here and here for discussions of such effects. Click here for a plausible explanation of Hutchison effect. And this is the website for all about Hutchison effect. But interestingly none of the phenomena that are reportedly perceived in a haunted house VIOLATES a known law, only that the haunted events cannot be explained by any law. No one has ever conclusively shown that an object floated still in space without support (Can be a hallucination but to prove it actually happened needs objective demonstration and witnesses), an example of violation of a physical law. Reports of flying object SEEN in a deserted, haunted house sound spooky, unexplainable by any law, but it DOES NOT violate any laws of physics, since SEEING is a subjective perception not susceptible to scientific scrutiny.

The most scientific attempts in explaining Psi phenomena has been by invoking the concepts of Quantum Physics. Nobel Laureate Brian Jospehson (mentioned in Science & Metaphysics-2) has remarked that if Psi events had not been reported, an imaginative theoretician could have predicted from Quantum Theory that they should occur! (p-141, "Explaining the Unexplained: Mysteries of the Paranormal" by Eysenck & Sargent). Physicist author Amit Goswami goes even further and says more explicitly on page 136 of his book 'The Self-Aware Universe': "Psychic phenomena, such as distant viewing and out of body experiences, are examples of the nonlocal operation of consciousness...., Quantum mechanics undergirds such a theory by providing crucial support for the case of nonlocality of consciousness". Physicist Olivier Costa de Beauregard of the Louis De Broglie Foundation(formerly of University of Paris) has remarked that the most Fundamental axioms of Quantum Mechanics demand that Psi events must occur as a result of the spatial temporal (Lorentz)invariance elements of EPR paradox. Prof Beauragrd has worked on an aspect of Quantum theory that asserts that the present decisions can influence the past, a phemnomena callled "retrocausation" in Quantum jargon. This was first suggested by Physicist Wheeler, it has also been developed more recently by Physicist Stapp of Berkeley mentioned in Science & Metaphysiocs-2" before. This retro-causation has been extrapolated (metaphysically of course) to an extreme by some physicist to theorize that the creation nof the universe itself may be a retro causation by the conscious act of observation by humans. This is the position taken by Physicist Amit Goswami in his book "The self-Conscious Universe". Anyway this spatio-temporal inavariance of Quantum Mechanics has also led to a prediction of what is known as retro-PK in Psi phemomena, which is testable. In retro-PK, a psychic can supposedly alter the past output of a Random Event generator by proper mental concentration at present! Although claims have been made to the actutal observation of retro-PK by researchers like Schmidt, they remain controversial without sufficient scientific scrutiny. Probably the physicist who went the furthest to apply Quantum Physics to Psi phenomena has been Evan Harris Walker whose name was also mentioned in Science & Metaphysics-2. In a series of papers and his book he has proposed a model using the notion of Collapse of Wavefunction and the notions of observer, observation process and the observed. His work is summarized in the book cited above. Many paranormalists invoke ideas of Quantum Mechanics to explain Psi phenoena, although such theories are not truly scientific, because thay are not falsifiable, and do not have preditive power. For example Physicist/Paranormalist John Hasted of the dept of Physics at the Birkbeck College of the University of London has speculated that Psi events can be explained by the "Many World" theory of Quantum Mechanics by Evertt and Wheeler. Walker's work however do have testable consequences. A very nice illustration of a purely scientific (i.e natural) way of giving plausibility arguments to explain the alleged psychic phenomenon of mind influencing matter (A random number generator in this case) is to be found on line at: http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v50/i1/p18_1 This is a highly technical paper. The psychic phenomenon is disguised in the technical jargon "Causal Anomaly". The author (Stapp) is a theoretical physicist at Berkeley and the paper was published in the Physical Review, a highly prestigious journal and as a testimony to the genuine scientific nature of this work By Stapp one just needs to take note of the fact that the work was supported by U.S. Department of Energy ! (P.S. Unfortunately access to the details of the paper now requires subscription. I read the article when it was open to all. The fact that mind can influence matter is also reported informally by many. Nobel Laureate Physicist Wolfgang Pauli was notorious for his alleged influence on laboratory equipments, which reportedly used to stop functioning in his mere presence.!

Parapsychology is a discipline that is contorvesrial in its place in adademia. It is not totally dismissed as outside maintream science, nor intergrated as equal peer with others. One skeptical psycgologist was asked when would he take parapsychology seriously. He answered "When I see it in Hilgard and Atkinson" referring to the respected textbook on Psychology used widely in US and other countries. The 1990 edition of Hilgard & Atkinson did include a 7 page section on parapsychology where the authors expressed the opninion that while most of the skepticism towards PSI is well founded, some are not. Parapsychology is increasingly becoming integrated with main stream psychology. That is because many Physicist and Psychologists have joined in this field to try to discover whether Psi phenonmea is real or not. This is unlike Astrology where a very pseudoscientific rationale is provided for the validity of astrological claims, and astrology has also attached to it the stigma of fleecing the public exploiting their weakness and sense of insecurity. It may be that the data of the Gauquelins on the supposed correlation between planets' position and the birtn of many genius, poets, and sports champions is true. But correlation does not indicate any causation. Its like trying to see what a lottery winner did on the day he picked the lucky number and try to relate some of his activities on that day to his winning the lucky number. Coincidences are possible both for individuals and for a collective group. The rules of Probabilty does not rule out any concidences. Theorizing causation based on correlation is a clear logical fallacy. Many of the data that supposedly establishes the validity of Psi phenomena have been produced and collected by scientists from academia. For example Psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson published two papers in the prestigious Journal of Nervous and Mental disease based on his reincarnation studies that point to many unexplained cases of "reincarnation". But many results have been controversial. While many of the work by Physicists and scientitts do indeed show a definite non-random evidence of Psi, the very statistical nature of the evidence and the lack of any scientific usefulness (no model to work with, no predictive value etc) makes them less appealing to mainstream science. Add to that the impossibility of reproducing the exact obseravtion by others. While the existence of "dark matter" can be easily verified by astronomers/physicists anytime with the proper tool and training, these parapsychological data are results of decades of individual painstaking effort, which would be diificult for anyone to duplicate. On the other hand, the REG work by Physicist Helmut Schmitd of Boeing, Robert Jahn of Princeton Engineering Anomaly Research(PEAR) group has shown somewhat convincing (but not truly scientific) experimental statistical evidence of Psi ability of human mind. JB Rhine of Duke University in the late 30's also used ESP cards to show the reality of Psi ability of mind. Another pioneer Charles Honorton, also from academia, introduced the Ganzfeld experiemnts where barins psychic ability were allegedly enhanced by sensory deprivation. But again, all these being not in the line of true scientific method, such works are not considered "proof" of Psi phenomena, nor any proof of any "divine", "spiritual" nature of such, but nevertheless they help to counter a curt dismissal of its non-existence by critics. For a detailed discussion on Psi phenonmena from the parapsychologists' view point the book "The Conscious Universe" by Parapsychologist Dean Radin is a good refernece. Radin does a meta-analysis of many ESP experiments that allegedly shows that while individual psi experiemnets may not be significant, as a whole they do point to a significant bias towards its existence. Not surprisingly many scientists, like Victor Stenger have discounted meta analysis as unreliable. It should be mentioned that even though, science or scientists as a community may not have fully integrated parapsychology in science, but MANY scientists exist who belive in the actual EXISTENCE of paranormal phenomena (e.g the names mentioned above), in view of the statistical results of the PK experiments. But these beliefs are in no way comparable to the belief by some "scientists" in the traditional religious scriptures and God. The latter is not consistent with rationality. Not each and every "scientist" need be rational in their personal beliefs.

Other cases in point are faith healings. Although faith healing is not conclusivley proven by controlled methods, there are anecdotal cases. Even hypothetically assuming some faith healings work, there may be plausible natural explanations. The cases of faith healings cannot however qualify for miracle label. Because no known natural law is violated. Besides the usual placebo effect explanation, we cannot rule out other plausible natural explanations. The point I wish to make is that one need not invoke divine explanation. Even a a vague speculative explanations based on science is a better explanations than ones based on appeal to the unknowen or blind faith. For example one can try to explain it by a strange concept called counterfactuals in Quantum Mechanics where it is known that the mere act of opening up of the possibility of an event "A" can influence an event "B" even if "A" did not actually happen. (cf. "The Shadow of the Mind" by Roger PenRose). In a similar vein it is possible that the act of merely placing firm belief in something (God) through intense meditation (prayer/faith/can open up the possibility of certain unknown event "A" (possibly some neuronal rewiring in the brain), that can counterfactually influence another event "B" to happen ("healing" in this example), even though the target of the faith (a personal God) may be non-existent or false. i.e the fact that faith in prayer to a personal GOD actually helped in a given instance of healing does not guarantee that the object of the faith (personal GOD, divine revelations etc) are true, but that the *act* of placing a faith in such an object had a favourable tangible effect through the workings of natural laws. It might just be a purely quantum mechanical effect. The above was not a scientific explanation, but was just made to illustrate the fact that a plausible, ad hoc (not truly scientifc) explanation can be based on science without using any divine notion or term or any blind irrational belief, like a belief in a contradictictory notion of a personal God heeding to such prayers. Many such ad hoc explanations of paranormal phemomena are offered by parapsychologists. Those explanations are not scientifc (falsifibale, testable), but need not be wrong either. With some exceptions (Like Walker, Josephson, Beauregard etc), most parapsychologist do not have sound technical background in Quantum mechanics. And most professionsl Scientists do not have the time and motivation to review the scientific accuracy of such explanations, since parapsychology by definition, does not deal with phenomena that are observables, which is exclusively what science deals with.

A plausible ad hoc explanation not invoking irrational notions is that of mass prayer. Again, no conclusive evidence exist for the effectiveness of mass prayer. Assuming there is any authenticity to it, the alleged result of mass praying may also be a purely natural process (a cause-effect scenario) which itself may have its own effect depending on the various boundary conditions that can accompany an instance of praying (individual, mass etc). A prayer is basically an intense wish/ thought (an intense activity in the brain) and hence a natural process that CAN interfere with the environment (and hence the individual who is praying). Like Physicist philosopher Paul Davies writes in his book "The Cosmic Blue print" even an act of thinking involves the motion of electrons in the neurons of the brain and is bound to affect the rest of the universe. In this view, a mass prayer is more intense and more likely to impact the environment than an individual, if at all there is an effect. By the way prayer here is meant in a generic sense of wishing with intense meditation, not necessarily by reciting verses of Bible or Koran etc. A desire to exert an influence on the laws of nature is meant. It is an intense mental desire to manipulate the natural laws (which do contain quantum uncertainties to allow for multiple potentialities of reality) to yield a reality favourable to the prayers. Some current views of paranormalists even posit that mass praying can have effect on physical world in a similar vein as Quantum non-local effects are manifested in physical act of observations, i.e an unexplained yet purely natural cause/effect or interconnectedness/correlation/synchronicity can in principle exist without any divine connections. Again these are plausibility arguments, not scientific, but neverthless does not invoke any transcedental or divine considerations. My point here is to emphasize that paranormal or miracles, even if they are shown to exist does not force one to resort to a divine explanation, there still can be natural explanations, although not scientific in the strict sense. But the important point to keep in mind is that any such explanations cannot be promoted to a scientific status, or cannot be a basis for claiming the actual existence of Psi phenomena, which are yet not conclusively proven to exist. The only reasonable view would be to not permanently rule out the existence of any paranormal events.

It is also possible that the pattern of correlation that is observed between certain phenomena that is traditionally explained as divine intervention can be just built in nature and part of the subtle interplay of natural laws at work (analogous to Newton's law of action/reaction or the law of conservation of energy etc) and not due to the intentional act of intervention by an entity with consciousness. Sometimes they seem to be random and not follow any persistent pattern. That may be due to the inherent complexity of the natural laws which make it impossible to predict, just as the laws of complexity preclude weather prediction, although the weather still strictly follow the laws of Physics and can be often predicted in a statistical sense.

It is the nature of our world that the path to truth is full of impediments. the major impediments are gullibility/naivette, self complacency and cynicism. Gullibility results from an inability to exercise one's critical faculty and accept blindly other's views as authentic without ever bothering to examine the credentials of those proposing the ideas and views. Cynicism leads to an obsessively negative view of everything and hence failing to recognize/acknowledge even the objective truth. Self complacency is due to a false perception of knowing everything and not realizing the the technical nature of some topics that only can be fully understood, proposed or challenged through appropriate expertise only. Sometimes the overzealous laypeople paraphrase the views of scientists in catchy words and propagate misleading interpretations and thus create a domino effect of public myths. Then the scientific community helplessly takes a back seat and decide to go about their own important business and not even bother to stop the domino effect. The entire myth of Teletransportation, UFO, Philadelphia experiment etc bears testimony to this unfortunate reality. Take another example. When quantum mechanics was formulated by the great physicists in the third and fourth decade of this century, they became aware of some strange and profound aspects of the theory(Like non-locality etc). These Physicists when debating among themselves used to refer to the word "mystical" in expressing the wonder at these profound implications, and the pseudoscientists quickly exploited this word to promote their own alternative theories and cults quoting and paraphrasing these words by physicists without really understanding themselves what those really meant and unconscientously touting their ideas/views to be supported by the Quantum Theory of Physics. Nowadays one can hear New Age mystical Quacks using the "quantum" word to plug their own vague ideas of healing and making millions from gullible public. New Age Mystics, healers etc have unabashedly exploited Quantum theory without understanding it. Check the link http://www.csicop.org/sb/9806/reality-check.html for an example of one such attempt to justify "spiritual healing" through modern physics. The fact is, these esoteric aspects of Quantum Theory/Cosmology is too complex to be taught technically at even the usual graduate level Physics curriculum and is only studied in specialized graduate level courses and by Research Physicists at the post graduate level. Nature's mysteries and secrets are unfortunately hidden in complex symbolic codes (mathematical structures) that can only be understood and decoded by the complex symbology of mathematics, and once they are decoded by Scientists they then phrase them in simpler terms for the rest of us laypeople and that's where lies the potential pitfall of mischaracterization, mispresentation by the pseudoscientific self proclaimed "New Age Gurus" who exploit them.

What is commonly labelled "medical miracle" i.e unexplained healing of a disease that doctors cannot explain is not really a miracle, since no existing laws of EXACT SCIENCE are violated. There is no LAW in medicine, in the sense of Law of Gravitation, that holds unfailingly. Medicine is more or less an empirical science. Even medicine acknowledges the potential of human mind in healing some ailments which otherwise is judged incurable by routine medical methods. That's the very nature of empirical science. But the basis of ALL science is the laws of Physics. Every phenomena is a high level manifestation of Physical Laws working at the lowest level. Since none of the "medical miracles" (Which are the only ones whose existence are attested to by doctors/scientists) which are high level deviations from the norm of empirical science can be reductively traced to a violation of the basic physical laws at the lowest level, they cannot be defined to be true miracles.

The same kind of speculative reasoning can be applied to give a plausibility touch to Jungian phenomenon of "synchronicity". I must emphasize again that the point is to illustrate that miracle like events can possibly happen purely out of a naturalistic cause/effect and not due to a conscious intervention of a divine entity envisaged in traditional religion/metaphysics. It is possible that some alternative spiritual healing might work for someone in a specific instance where traditional medicine failed. This can be due to a stroke of good luck hit upon by the healer by empirical trial and error that might work for certain individual under certain circumstances but which can certainly be not reproducible in a controlled and predictable way. So the healer cannot claim a possession of some supreme spiritual healing power/insight for such isolated instances of success. If the spiritual healing did unfailingly succeed in 100% cases or if they could unfailingly PREDICT the success/failure of their spiritual technique on each subject then that would lend credence worthy of attention and would have become mainstream healing method by now. Most explanations of failures are provided post hoc, i.e after the fact, not predicted in advance. Of course, since there is a certain probability that a certain individual may be the beneficiary of the isolated instances of success of the spiritual trial and error healing method, then he/she can by all means give it a try when all traditional means turned out to be a failure. Medicine, after all is not an exact science with unfailing laws like Physics and can never provide unfailing success in healing on each and every subject in all ailments.

All the hearsay of miracles are personal (individual or group) accounts, anecdotes. They can at best be labelled as "truth" as seen in the eye of the beholder. They have never been demonstrated/repeated or have happened in an open forum or in public or in a controlled environment under careful observations. In this context it may be relevant to mention that the $100,000 award declared by the debunker/magician James Randi or the Rs. 100,000 award declared by B. Premanand, the Founder of Indian CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), or more recently, the Rs 2 million award by Prabir Ghose of Indian Rationalist Association, that if anyone can conclusively demonstrate the existence of a miracle still remain unclaimed. What is inexplicable now, if any such event can truly be verified to exist, can potentially be explainable by discovery (If we are lucky. Discoveries of Scientific laws are Epiphanic, not all potential laws of nature are guaranteed to be discovered) of new or suitable extensions of existing natural laws in future through increased understanding. In fact some positivist philosophers insist that there can never be anything called supernatural in the true sense. Because anything we observe is a phenomenon, i.e observations WITHIN nature. Anything outside nature, in whatever sense it may be, must be beyond observation, so we can have no knmowledge, even speculative, about it, so it is meaningless to even refer to them. The word "Supernatural" only reflects our ignorance of the ultimate explanation of the observed phenomena of nature beyond a certain level. it does not reflect a breach of nature's rule. Whatever happens in nature, regardless of how it appears to us, must be due to nature's laws, almost like a tautological statement. The fact that some magical tricks can baffle even a very well prepared scientist indicates that it is even more likely that humans can be fooled by the mother of all magicians: "Mother Nature". Humanity is making progress in its effort to decipher more and more tricks of this grand magician in an incremental way.

Addendum:

On Astrology:

From Percy Seymour: "The Birth of Christ - Exploding the Myth"

p-148: Gauquelin demonstrated that great militray and political
leaders are statistically likely to be born when Jupiter is in
the ascendant, scientists and physicians under Saturn, and good
sportsmen under mars. He published all these results it in his
book "Cosmic Influences on Human Behaviour". The mars effect
with sportsmen was also borne out by the Belgian Committe para
and the studies of Professor Suitbert Ertel, of Univ. of
Gottinegen as detailed in his book "Tenacious Mars effect" in
1995. His study shows that only the effects of moon, mars,
jupiter and saturn were correlated woith career success, not the
other planets. Later his further studies with other sample of
people showed a correlation of certain planetary position (about
to rise or at the highets point in sky) at the momnet of the
parent's birth to that of their children (Natural birth, not
induced), suggesting that person with a certain type of
inherited characteristics is more liley to be born in response
to particular siignals froma specific planetary configurations.

Seymour traces the correlation to effects of magnetic fields on
the developing human embryo, specially by timing the exact moment
of the birth of the embryo and affecting the neural network of the
embryo's brain (through expression of certain genes) just before
birth. The affecting magnetic field is due to the gravitational
effect of moon and planets in certain positions on the sun's
magnetic field, or on the earth's magnetic field directly.

Seymour quotes from the Book "Magnetic Orientation in Animals" to
assert that it is known tha animals are susceptive to magnetic
fields, conforming an even earlier doscovery by biologist Richard
Balkemore that certain oceanic bacteria in the Northern
hemisphere always seem to swim away from the earth's south
magnetic pole towards north pole. It was due to the north pole
pointing downward and the southpole pointing up on the surface,
where theer is more oxygen. which is hazardous for bacteria. So
the bacteria used magentic cue to stay away from oxygen. These
bactreria were found my Elec. Microscope to contain magnetic
beads inside them. He goes on to quote the works of late
Professor Brown of North Westren Universoty who found that many
animals have their own inyternal magnetic clocks (like the beads
in bacteria) which they use to synchronize with the periodic
effect of the lunar daily magnetic variation on the geomagnetic
field through resonance. Biologist Karl Von Frisch and his
student Martin Lindauer showed that bees also use internal clocks
to find directions by the fluctuations of geomagnetic field
through the solar daily magnetic variation. (p-156-7)

Experiments by biologist Robin Baker of Manchester Universoty,
Dr. Gai Murphy, Dr. Mary Campion of Keel university have shown
that humans also have inbuilt ability to use geomagnetic fields to
find directions. (p-157-8)

Dr. Seymour proposes a Magnetic-todal resonance between the sun,
earth and the planets in the following way:

1. The variation of geomagnetic fields affect organic life on earth
2. geomagnetic fields on earth can be affected by either (a) the
 variation of gravitational pull on the charged particles in the
 Van Allen Radiation belt by the sun and moon or (b) by the sunspot
 activity due to solar wind, which in turn is triggered by the
 gravitational pull of planets at certain alkignments realtive to
 the sun or (c) by the direct magneto-tidal (i.e non-gravitational)
 resonance between certain planets, sun and the geomagnetic field.
 These magneto-tidal resonance causes planetary tidal frequency
 variations to lock in phase with the magnetic foeld of thr sun
 causing increased solar wind activity and thus affecting
 geomagnetic field as well.

3. The fluctuations of the geomagnetic field affects the neural
 netwwork of certain genetic makeup in the foetus shortly before
 birth in a unique way and which in turn affects the dispositions
 of those humans.

4. As mentioned earlier staistical evidence shows that a particular
 planet is likely to be in ther ascendant or at the highest point
 in sky when a certain type of individual is born. This suggests
 that any mechanism, by which a planet might evoke a response in
 a human being would apply to the moment of birth.

5. The incidence of planetary positions at birth being the same in
 parents and child is enhanced on magentically disturbed days.

6. Neural circuits in the foetus' brain respond to certain magnetic
 fluctuations through resonance. Humans have a biological clock
 which schedules the timing of the birth at a moment at which the
 resonance of the planetary fluctuations and the neural circuit.
 (p-178-9)

The second reason many reject nature because that seems to legitimize an uneven playing field and attribute the misery and failure of one segment of society (A) to their own inherent limitations as well as attribute success and happiness of the other segment(B) to their inherent natural advantages. A naturist stand prevents "A" from falsely blaming B for A's misfortune. On the other hand by insisting on nurture it relieves A of accepting any responsibility for their misfortune and makes it easier for them to blame society (B) making them scapegoat for not providing the proper nurturing and causing their misfortune. But this can cut both ways. If a nurturist position is adopted, then in a zero discrimination society, the poor will be blamed for their fate by choosing not to utilize the potential, whereas if innate differences are acknowledged, then in a zero discrimination society, poors cannot be blamed for not utilizing their potential to the full. Of course, nature or nurture, zero discrimintaion society is a must. It is a humanistic imperative that follows from the equality (of rights) of all humans. Whether to enforce an equality of properties and priviledges between humans in an equal rights (zero discrimination) society, where unequal properties and priviledges can arise due to innate differences of human abilities and potentials, is a political and social judgement, it is not mandated or forbidden by scientific evidence.

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF LIFE, DEATH &
IMMORTALITY - Aparthib Zaman

       |----->Laws of Physics
1.   ? ---->|
       |----->Big Bang

  OR,

    ? ----> Laws of Physics ----> Big bang

Let me cite some quotes of various scientists in support of the above scientific insight, as it is not possible for me to list all the scientific facts of each area to justify this view, except to note that most chemistry books devote their first few chapters on the physics of atoms and molecules, and most biology books devote their first few chapters on organic chemisrty. Nobel Laureate Watson of DNA fame said "In the last analysis, there are only atoms. There's just one science, Physics; everything else is social work" in his lecture at the London Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1985. This view is also echoed by Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg. Hawking nicely summarizes this view as: Biology->Chemistry-> Physics, in the book "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind". Steven Weinberg says in his book "Facing Up", p-22-3: "No biologist today will be content with an axiom about biological behaviours that could not be imagined to have a more fundamental level. That more fundamental level would have to be the level of Physics and chemistry, and the contigency that the earth is billions of years old". Biologist Richard Dawkins (in "The Blind Watchmaker") states that Physicists have to come into the scene at the end of the long chain of reasoning to explain evolution of life to complete the last but not the least significant step. Molecular Biologist Frankln Harold says in his wonderful book "The Way of the Cell", p-4: "We have ample reason to believe that every biological phenomena, however complex, is ultimately based on chemical and physical interactions among molecules" and reinforces this in his epilog : "The bedrock premise of this book book is that life is a material phenomenon, grounded in chemistry and physics. Physicist Heinz Pagels wrote in his book "The Dreams of Reason", p-49: "Biological systems are extremely complex Quantum mechanical entities functioning according to well-defined rules". Zoologist and award winning science writer Colin Tudge says (Independent on Sunday, Jan 25, 1998): "There are no biological laws, apart from the underlying laws of physics, and technology might anything that does not break these bedrock laws". In the book "Our Living Multiverse: A Book of Genesis in 0+7 Chapters", alternately titled as "Origins of Our Existence : How Life Emerged in the Universe" author Fred Adams (Univ. of Michigan Physics Professor) writes:

These same laws of physics instigate the development of life, including complex creatures such as humans, at least under favorable circumstances. (p-191)

"We now know that the laws of Physics ultimately determine the behavior of chemical reaction and biological processes." (p-192)

The consummate example of emergent behavior is life itself. In simple reactions, biochemical molecules behave according to known chemical pathways. When these molecular systems become sufficiently complex, they act in novel ways. After this emergent level of complexity reaches a critical threshold, the system becomes alive. But the details of this transition remain shrouded in mystery. In spite of this gaping hole in our understanding, however, biological processes are driven by the same laws of physics that describe stars and planets. The concept of vitalism -- the idea that biological laws are independent of physical laws -- has been safely relegated to the trash heap of outdated ideas. (p-193)

With so much talk about the frontier of biology these days, I welcome the occasional reminder that the laws of physics control the formation and evolution of life. - Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director, Hayden Planetarium

It is important point to note that above is a very high level flow diagram. The details for each arrow are incredibly complex, there are unsolved problems galore, and thats where scientists are working hard on filling out the details, and the complete mechanism of the origin of life is not known yet, but again, that is a scientific problem, not a metaphysical one, and is in principle scientifically solvable, we are getting closer and closer to the solution. In fact the problem of the origin of life is not that there is not any satisfactory theory, but that there are too many possible theories. The laws of Science only impose some constrains on what the theories can be, but it does not uniquely select and decide which theory is the correct, since all these theories are plausible explanations of life. The fact that we do not completely understand life yet does not imply that it is not understandable in physical terms. We don't understand weather too, in spite of all the technical advances. This lack of understanding is rooted in the complexity of both weather and life. The chain of reasoning based on laws of physics that links a simple molecule to a living organism is broken in the middle due to the enormous complexity of cumulative effects of historical contingencies that are acted upon by the laws of complexity, over billions of years of evolution. In weather, it is the enormous number of air molecules that is at the root of complexity preventing an exact understanding. Anything after the "?" (i.e after the Big bang) is within the domain of science (Phenomenal world), and we can only talk about unsolved problems, not mysteries within this domain.

Life is an EMERGENT behaviour of matter. Life is a result of self organization of matter driven by the requirements to maximize entropy by reducing the gradient of temperature difference between sun and earth. Life is not simply an entity created from scratch from conception to birth. Life is an evolving process that has been going on over billions of years in an incremental way. Our body may have been formed in matter of years after conception, but the program (our genome sequence) that builds us (our body+mind) has taken billions of years to perfect. The most insightful discovery by Darwin was that natural selection and mutation can give rise to a complex life form as human through a prolonged and cumulative action of those laws. The complicated body and brain of ours are not just a creation from our birth to date. We have inherited the blueprint of life (the genetic code) that has evolved and perfected through billions of years of evolution. That's why life is so precious. It contains huge information collected over an incredibly long span of time. Our genome sequence will take thousands of pages to write down in paper. Like a complex software that starts with few simple lines but eventually is perfected into a sophisticated program of millions of lines with contributions from many people over a long time, the genetic code of life and the genome took billions of years to be developed and is still evolving. Life will look different and more advanced in another million years. We can never understand life without understanding the history of how life has evolved from the primordial earth with single cells giving way to more and more complex organisms by incremental steps. But the process of this evolution of life from simple to complex is purely natural. Down at the bottom it is nothing but physics. Natural selection and mutation is nothing more than a manifestation of the laws of Physics at work at the most fundamental level of matter. As molecular biologist William Clark says "Natural selection ultimately adheres to the same principles of thermodynamics that govern all other activitiesin the physical universe; evolution is simply an epiphenomenon perceived by humans" (p-43, The Biological Basis of Aging and Death)

One may say that creation of a complex thing must be due to intelligent design, not just blind laws of physics. This is an analogy from life where we see humans (intelligent being) design complex things like watches. But humans employ the same laws of Physics to design complex things. And even laws of Physics without intervention from humans can design beautiful things, like snowflakes, flowers etc. Humans themselves are product of laws of physics, so even human designs are ultimately designs of laws of physics. Only that we don't know the "designer" of the laws of Physics (The ultimate mystery). We don't even know how to meaningfully frame the question at this extreme level.

Now coming to the common question of what is death, and what happens just after death, when nothing seem to be different in the body just before and after, what is "missing" and where did "it" go? The first question is a scientific question, not a metaphysical one. Lets take an analogy. Say you have a music tape. When you play it in a player it plays beautiful music. Now say accidentally someone pushed the record button with no input, so the entire music gets erased. When you play the same tape again, no music will be heard. The tape looks the same. What is missing from the tape, "where" did "it" go? I am sure this doesn't provoke a metaphysical question in one's mind. The case of the death of human, or any animal is not much different. Just as in the erased tape, many individual tiny magnetized particles were oriented in an ordered pattern before the tape was erased, and lost their orientations after, the cells in the human were alive before death, and dead aftre the death of the human. A cell is alive when it carries out metabolism, and dead when it ceases to. The brain cells of dead human all die (loses metabolism) first, then slowly the cells of other organs decay, due to the lack of oxygen. Cells in the organs like eye, body limbs die slowly, so if they are removed promptly before decay starts and preserved, they can be reused by other human, just as the parts of a computer whose CPU is damaged can be reused in another computer. Is there a soul? That is a vague concept, fraught with logical absurdities. All we have is mind/consciousness, which is the emergent effect of the brain cells in live action, much like the music in a tape which is the effect of the complicated magnetic patterns in it being passed through a magnetic head. Stop the tape, and the music stops too. Mind/consciousness is like music playing due to the trillions of cells in human brain running the genetic code tirelessly. Each individual life has not much significance to the universe or to "?". The only significance of each life is in maintining continuity, a link between its predecessor and its successor. The notion of soul is completely created by our desire for immortality. As grim as it may sound, there is not even a logically consistent DEFINITION of soul, let alone its existence, beyond the physical body (specially brain). Is there life after death? Some questions need to be answered first before even trying to answer that. How can one define life AFTER death to begin with? If that new Life after death must require the same material body then what age should that body be? What if someone dies at age 6. Will he/she continue life after death or be resurrected at 6? What if someone dies at 90? Will he/she be resurrected at 90? Will the resurrected body age again? If not then what is the meaning to be alive at 90 forever or at 6? Finally does the life after death need not require a body, if so, what does it mean to be alive without a body? Unless one can answer these questions, the vague concept of Life after death will be a reflection of the refusal to accept death as a permanent destruction of one's body and brain. All scientific and logical reasoning points to an absurdity of resurrection in the way humans wish to look at it.

The only thing that can survive the body is some information (If it is saved), for example if tape is destroyed the same tape can be reconstructed (recorded), if the music itself is saved in say an .mp3 or .wave file. (Which is information). Likewise, for the human, it is the complete genome sequence + the complete neuronal configuration of the brain, taken together (Which is Information) that can survive beyond death, provided they are saved somehow. So If life/soul is DEFINED as it is the complete genome sequence + the complete neuronal configuration of the brain, then yes, souls exists and life can exist after death, just as a software program exists independent of the physical computer and even after the program has stopped running. While preservng the genome (i.e the sequence information) is within current technology, saving the complete neural connections is too formidable and beyond any conceivable biotechnology. But soul defined this way does not go anywhere, does not move, but stays as a potentia in the information space. One can conceive of immortality in this definition, through cloning. But while it may be possible to clone a human being (over and over again), to overcome mortality, since the brain of the cloned human can never be the same as the original human (because neuronal configurations are determined by environemtnal stimulus, besides genetic code, and environment will never be exactly same in each rerun of a genome sequence), true immortality is still not possible in the strict sense.

Some form of simulated resurrection of life (Virtual Immortality) is however, possible to envisage within scientific framework, not in the theological sense. This has been speculated by Physicist Frank Tipler in his book "The Physics of Immortality", based on some plausible assumptions in physics (like the universe has to start decelerating at some point), although latest observations point to an unlikely prospect for its coming true (scientifically), since the universe seems to be accelerating for ever. Tipler's theory (Called Omega Point Theory), has generated a cult of followers among the Transhumanists and Extropians who call themselves Tiplerians. Anyway, as mentioned before, the notion or the wish for Life after death is rooted in the human refusal to accept death as the ultimate termination of their identity. This fear of death and urge for immortality results from Self-Consciousness, a necessary attribute of human consciousness which makes us distinct from other species, who only possess primitive consciousness with only primary instincts of propagation, and avoiding dangers so as to successfully pass their genes to next generation. A "conscious" anxiety due to awareness of death, is a consequence of the growth of the neocortex area in human brain, which is not present in other mammmals. It is this Neocortex that has given rise to the intriguing consistency loop that is a thing of wonder to all scientists and philosophers :

Physical laws -> matter -> Life ->Consciousness -> Physical Laws.

In other words our minds and consciousness have discovered (through scientific methods) the very same physical laws that created it(consciousness) in the first place through creation of matter, life and evolution!

Now some historical perspective on the quest for the answer to the profound questions on life. The complete answer to the questions on life has not and will not be answered in one sweeping breakthrough or by one human in a finite time. The fundamental fact is that the answer lies in an incremental, cumulative approach to THE truth rather than a complete grasp of it. We can get closer and closer to the truth. A lot has been learned already. Very few of us laymen actually are aware of the rapid increase in understanding that has been going on. We only get a jolt when a flash of news are thrown at us, for example, cloning of the sheep Dolly, the completion of the human genome project, genetic engineering to increase longevity by tweaking telomeres in chromosomes, etc. It must be understood that saying that Life is the miraculous work of a Divine creator does not "explain" life, it only puts a closure to the quest for the answer and allows human to go about mundane pursuits so as not to be distressed by the failure to understand it. It is a common human instinct to put a closure to any unresolved questions due to a feelin of uneasiness to living with mysteries and unanswered questions. A scientific inquiry goes against this instinct to jump into a premature closure and strives to go deeper for further insights, incremental advance being the goal, not a closure necessarily. A genuine understanding involves a scientific study spanning across a host of disciplines. Every day a new insight is being added to the knowledge base and getting us incrementally closer to the final understanding. Quantum jumps of insight do occur in history. For example Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Mendel's theory of heredity and the discovery around 1903 that chromososmes in the cell are the containers of the Mendel's genetic unit or "gene", culminating most importantly in the legendary discovery of DNA structure in 1953 and deciphering of the genetic code in 1961. The experiments of Urey and Miller showed how chemical and physical process can create the ingredients of life if not life itself (as yet). These are facts of life that are universal and crosses all religious boundaries, unlike religious "explanations" of life. Although Darwin explained beautifully how life evolved from simple to the complex but only vaguely mentioned about a possible mechanism of the origin of life itself (The primitive pond). The first scientific attempt to understand the origin of Life was by the Russian scientist Oparin in his 1929 classic "The Origin of Life". He extended the Darwinian theory of evolution backward in time to explain how simple organic and inorganic materials might have combined into complex organic compounds and how the latter might have formed the primordial organism. The first attempt to understand life in a more fundamental way was by the nobel laureate physicist none other than the founder of quantum physics Erwin Schroedinger in his epoch making book "What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell With Mind and Matter written more than fifty years ago. He anticipated DNA and genetic code in that book even before its discovery. He called it some kind of aperiodic crystal, carrying hereditary information through some "codescript". Actually Schrodinger's idea itself was based on that of another brilliant Physicist turned biologist Max Delbruck, long before he received the Noble Prize in medicine in 1969. Although now dated, the book was a mark of amazing insight for its time. This book was the inspiration for all later generation biologists and physicists interested in life's mystery, like Watson and Crick who materialized their inspiration into discovering the structire of DNA, Schrodinger's aperiodic crystal, although the fact that DNA carries the genetic information itself was dicovered by Canadian biologist Oswald Avery in 1944. About half a century later another physicist from Princeton, Freeman Dyson improved upon Schrodinger's idea and wrote the book "Origins of Life". His ideas have been based on much more insights gained in Biology and Physics since Schrodinger and others. There has been a continued increase in our understanding of life and its origins by scientists all around the world since the milestone discovery of 1953. The next milestone was the discovery of the genetic code that the DNA of all life forms execute, first cracked by Nirenberg and completed by Har Govind Khorana for which they both received the Nobel Prize in 1968. One of the most creative of the scientists in the quest for the origin of life was the Sri Lankan born American chemist/biologist Ponnamperuma, who was the director of the laboratory of the chemical evolution of life at the University of Maryland until his premature death in 1995, and also the founder of the Third World Foundation, an organization dedicated to the promotion of scientific minds of the third world countries.. He along with Carl Sagan and Ruth Martiner was able to produce ATP, one of the fundamental building block of DNA, and thus of life. His insights into the chemical nature of life's evolution signifies a quantum jump from the days of Schroedinger and Oparin. Ponnamperuma said if God exists then he must be a organic chemist. He called HCN molecule "GOD molecule" because the intriguing way this molecule gives rise to more complex molecules of life. A nice article on the origin of life with some description of Ponnamperuma's work, as well as more discussion on the origin of life can be found at the site: http://www.rit.edu/~flwstv/biology. html. Another pioneer in life research is Nobel Laureate Eigen and chemist Orgel. Eigen was able to induce (chemically) RNA molecules to replicate in the lab. This is very close to producing a virus. Viruses are in between living and non-living. Two more pioneers that should be mentioned are Stuart Kauffman (A Biochemist) and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine (A physical chemist, whose name was mentioned earlier) both of whom have shown how order can spring out of chaos.

A caveat must be issued that it is never implied that Physics is complete and all that can be known is known already. There will certainly be insights gained in Physics and the laws of complexity, in future and current concepts and laws may be revised or subsumed under a more comprehensive scheme of laws (Theory of Everything). But it will not at least invalidate what is certainly known and tested today. Although human may not know the "?", they can still spend their lifetime learning and discovering the natural laws that exist and understand how it (Natural Laws) works and give rise to the marvelous phenomena of evolution, formation of stars, galaxies, snowflakes etc and try to understand life in an incremental way. If there at all one has to find any meaning of this finite life then the best candidate for meaning is the search to find the answers to how life has evolved and will evolve. This is the best use humans can make of their "gift" of consciousness, a gift since it was after all notrequired by evolution for survival, but came as a contingent by product of evolution. If one has to speak of teleology then I think it is best to say we have acquired consciousness so that we can explain how consciousness came about (The self consistency loop). Many top physicists, biologists, chemists (some Nobel laureates) are in the forefront of the research into the origin and evolution of life. Now they are being joined in this search by computer scientists (specially artificial life/intelligence people who view life as a software running on the hardware of human body. Some even believe that one day a fully conscious machine can be built!). We are witnessing an amazing synthesis of human knowledge and insights in the dawn of 21st century. Gone are the days when arm chair philosophers were idly talking about their pet theories of life, consciousness etc. Without the new language of genes, DNAs, entropy, Second Law, autocatalysis, autopoiesis any talk of life would now sound like childish babble, trapped in words going in circles, which can never add any new insight, only categorize already known observations. It would require a super philosopher today (There are a handful, Paul Davies, Daniel Dennett to name a couple) well versed in all these disciplines to pool together all these separate insights into a coherent story of life. Each insight or a specialist in that insight is but a link in a long chain. Individually they may not capture the whole truth, but half truths, but the links of half truths joined together may add up to the whole truth, or at least the best approximation to it. This is a sort of emergent law of truths. Individual pieces of truth all combining to yield a profound truth that is not visisble in any of those individual half truths.

Thousands of pages of results of scientific research into consciousness, mind, life are being published monthly in journals of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, biomathematics, biophysics, molecular genetics, artificial intelligence, quantum consciousness etc. The best approximations to date of the truth of life are distributed among these separate database of knowledge that is continuously expanding. As so aptly expressed by Biologist Frank Harold in "The Way of the cell" :

"What science knows of the nature of life, it owes to the labors of countless specialists---physicists and chemists, mthematicians and geologists, geneticists and biochemists and physiologists, biologists evolutionary and biologists molecular. The fruits of our labors are first inscribed in shelf upon shelf of professional journals, and subsequently reincarnated in textbooks that have grown too heavy to carry, let alone be read" (From preface p-x)

For us, not actively engaged in this quest, the only way to learn about the insights that have been achieved in the search for the answer to the question of life is through reading the tales told by scientists themselves or retold by philosophers of science. Evolution has been called the greatest story ever told. It may be frustrating to realize that despite reading enough in one's life time, one can still only hope to get a glimpse, a fraction of the whole truth. But learning about the truth is a journey, and its the journey, not the destination that should give meaning to our finite life.

1. Newsweek May 7, 2001 (God and the Brain)
2. Looking for the neurological roots of the religious experience By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post 7/1/01
3. New Scientist magazine, 21 April 2000: "In search of God" by Bob Holmes
4. Readers Digest March 2002 (Newberg : God is hardwired in brain)
5. Why God Won't Go Away by Andrew Newberg, Eugene d''Aquili and Vince Rause (Ballantine Books, 2001)
6. "The neural substrates of religious experience" by Jeffrey Saver and John Rabin, The Journal of Neuropsychiatry, vol-9,p 498(1997)
7. Biological roots of religious belief
8. http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
9. Raj Persaud, God's in your cranial lobes - Financial Times, May 8/9/1999
10. Lee Hotz - Seeking the biological basis of Spirituality, L.A Times, Apr 25, 1998

The Evolutionary Origin of Moral Instincts

"There is a popular fallacy that a further source of values for humans is an emergent property of culture. (Do not be deceived by the word "emergent": it just means things are complex and no one knows what is going on.) These values are supposed to act over and above the values derived from our genetic evolution, largely replacing them. This idea cannot be justified. It may be regarded as one more example of our vanity, in trying to believe that we are different from the beasts in kind, not only in degree. We can understand how value information could be programmed into our brains by natural selection, but how could further values be invented by information which we pass from one brain to another? Of course we culturally transmit our values to each other, but these values originate in the brains, not in the transmission process."

"Suppose that human propensities to cooperate or defect are heritable: some people are innately more cooperative, others less so. In this respect moral aptitude would simply be like almost all other mental traits studied to date. Among traits with documented heritability, those closest to moral aptitude are empathy with the distress of others and certain processes of attachment between infants and their caregivers. To the hereditability of moral aptitude add the abundant evidence of history that cooperative individuals generally survive longer and leave more offspring. Following that reasoning, in the course of evolutionary history genes predisposing people toward cooperative behavior would have come to predominate in the human population as a whole.

Such a process repeated through thousands of generations inevitably gave rise to moral sentiments. With the exception of psychopaths (if any truly exist), every person vividly experiences these instincts variously as conscience, self- respect, remorse, empathy, shame, humility, and moral outrage. They bias cultural evolution toward the conventions that express the universal moral codes of honor, patriotism, altruism, justice, compassion, mercy, and redemption."

Two prisoners, A and B, are being held in separate cells with no means of communication. The prosecutor offers each of them a deal. He also disclosed to each that the deal was also made to the other. The deal he offered is this:

a) If one guy confesses that both of them committed the crime and the other guy denies it, then he will go free and the other guy will be sentenced to 5 years.

b) If you both deny the crime, then both will be sentenced to 2 years.

c) If both confess to the crime, then both will be sentenced to 4 years.

If someone confesses then he either goes free (0 years) or gets 4 years. If he doesn't confess then he gets either 2 years (if both denies) or 5 years (If the other guy confesses) . So from each one's individual perspective the payoff is better if he confesses rather than denies (0 or 4 years is better than 2 or 5 years). So if both are logical and selfish they both should confess. The result is that both will fare worse than if they had BOTH denied, contradicting their individual logic! So if such prisoner's dilemma is repeated many times and if the two prisoners can communicate then even though they may initially both confess, by trial and error they will learn to cooperate instinctively and will evolve an ethical code "thou shalt not confess". Thats why criminal gang members do not tell on each other, Evolution works that way. Over millions of years, evolution has instilled an ethical sense starting from the tribal group of early people to the modern people. The sense of morality is not implanted in human mind from some transcendental realm, it is a hardwired instinct. Our "feeling" of conscience is an emergent property of the brain reflecting that hardwired instinct. And ethics is not a unique trait of human species. A primitive form of code of ethics is seen among wolf pack as well, where pecking order, punishment and rewards are observed. Of course, human brain having possesed the emergent property of self-consciousness has the most advanced and complex form of code of ethics.

Evolutionary biologists use the term adaptive for those instincts that favor the survival and propgation of genes, and those that hinder anti-adaptive. Moral instincts are the adaptive traits of evolution and are favoured overwhelmingly over anti-adaptive traits. Evolutionary psychology not only explains the origin of moral instincts but also the origin of the "immoral" (can be neutral or anti-adaptive in the evolutionary sense) instincts as well. In Bible we see Jobs imploring God to explain why he is subject to so much evil and injustice? God did not provide any satisfactory answer. But now Evolutionary biology is offering a plausible explanation. In fact so much of evidence and insight has been gained in recent' times that a plethora of scholarly scientific books and articles have been written on the evolutionary origin of vice and virtue, on evolutionary ethics. So why do we have evil? If morality is selected by natural selection then why do humans have immoral instincts as well? It is best understood by analogy. One cardinal point is that evolutionary force, like humans are lazy, they try to achieve its goal (survival, propagation of genes) by the easiest/ simplest possible way. Let us take an analogy. Let us say the US militray wants to kill the insurgents in an area. To kill only the insurgents it requires a lot of work to gather the information about the location and also a lot of planning and discipline to selectively target the bombing. It is much easier to bomb an extended area killing the maximum number of civilians, that is guaranteed to kill the intended insurgents but at the price of killing a large number of innocent civilians, as an overkill/collateral damage. Another nice analogy is provided by Gould and Lewtonin by the spandrel in arches. A spandrel is the roughly triangular region on either side of the top of an arch, a necessary but unintended byproduct of architectural design. An arch cannot be built without the spandrel. Immorality is the collateral damage of evolutionary strategies, so to speak. Evil is a necessary but unintended consequence of evolution.

1. Believe in false
2. Disbelieve the truth
3. Believe in the truth
4. Disbelieve the false

Among the collateral damage an important unintended instinct is rape. The reason the practice of rape still survives is that it is not anti-adaptive. The forces of evolution does not have a moral sense like we do. It does anything to help maximize gene propagation. And rape does not disfavour that. Not only that it may have served as one means of propgation in past. That is the theme of the book "The Natural History of Rape" by evolutionary biologist Thornbull and anthropologist Palmer. Their central argument is that "rape is a genetically developed strategy sustained over generations of human life because it is a kind of sexual selection--a successful reproductive strategy"

Thornbull and Palmer has been predictably misunderstood as condoning rape. They are not. It would be a naturalistic fallacy to promote a "IS" into an "OUGHT". They were simply explaining the evolutionary origin of rape. But they were not justifying or condoning it. Description is not prescription. Explanation is not exculpation. Matt Ridley, another biologist also says "Rape was evolutionarily adaptive" in his book "The Origins of Virtue." as quoted in p-45 of "Sexing the Brain" by neuropsychologist Lesley Rogers.

The presence of evil is an inevitable result of the physical laws acting to sustain equilibrium or stability and thus avoid extinction of a species. As I mentioned earlier evil is a necessary unintended byproduct of evolution. Lying can be seen to be another such necessary but unintended trait. As physicist Heinz Pagels nicely illustrates in his book "The Dreams of Reason", page 330:

"The new sciences of complexity and the perspectives on the world offered by computer modelling may teach us things that we did not realize about the values we hold. Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts. Take for example, the act of lying. We hold the telling of truths as a value; we are not supposed to lie. Yet if everyone told the truth all the time so that one could have complete trust in what one is told, then the advantage that would accrue to a single liar in society would be immense. This is not a stable social situation. On the other hand, in a society of individuals in which everyone lied all the time, society would be unworkable. The equlibrium state seems to be the one in which people tell the truth most of the time but occasionally lie, which is how the world really seems to be. In a sense, then, it is the liars among (and within) us that keep us both honest and on our guard. This kind of scientific analysis of lying can help us understand why we do it."

This crypto-vitalism/dualism also explains why so many who otherwise claim to be freethinking liberal atheists are uneasy accepting the cold fact that life is a result of the natural laws of physics at work. Accepting that goes against their grain and their subsconscious assumption or hope of a divine/sublime entity beyond the material substrate of the human body. The same explains why many of them also feel uneasy accepting the idea that Biology is causally linked to Physics. A belief that biology is not linked to physics provides a subconscious hope that there may be some divine/non-material force or entity guiding the laws of biology, because Physics being a science of matter and energy, seems to lacks such divine, living driving force. There is no other reason for insisting on the lack of a causal link between Physics and biology, when it is self- evident to all leading scientists and to science literates that there is such a hierarchical link. These crypto-vitalists miss one obvious point, the point that there is no fundamental difference between living and non-living matter, the difference is due to the complexity and emergent effects. Non-living matter (including a corpse) are in thermodynamic equlibrium, living matters are in highly non- equlibrium thermodynamic state. Laws of Physics do control the behaviour of all matter, living, or non-living. All the vital prcesses of a living organism, viz. metabolism, reproduction etc, involve any mechanism that violates or does not follow any known laws of Physics, like the law of conservation of energy, law of entropy etc. The cryptovitalists need not delink biology from physics for a hope of a spiritual driver for biology. The driver of Physics itself being unknown (The ultimate "?" which I mentioned in my earlier posts), they might as well pin their hope on a spiritual driver for the laws of physics. To me, it seems more sensible to seek spirituality in Physics. Here I am using spirituality to denote the possibility of an higher inteliigent transendent reality manifesting itself through the intermediary of the creative works of the laws of Physics in action. If the laws of Physics and the emergent laws of complexity can conspire through evolution to craft the most complex and amazing object in the universe called the human brain, which can conceive of and seek spirituality, moraluty and all that we consider divine, then the laws of Physics may very well contain the seed of spirituality and morality. If brain is a creation of the laws of Physics, and if the created(human brain) can discover its creator (Laws of Physics) in an intriguing concsiousness loop, as physicist Paul Davies points out (The Mind of God), then may be someday, the brain will also discover the reason why, not just how, the Laws of Physics created the brain with all its beautiful, reation of arts, morality and spritiuality. And then we humans can feel a sense of purpose and a reason to find meaning and permanence of life. Humans may then even integrate morality with the laws of nature(Physics), fulfilling the ultimate dream of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology and tyhe positivist philosopher who envisaged a a social science based on natural science, a dream re- expressed in what evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson calls "consilience", the grand synthesis of the social and the natural sciences. Maybe someday, when the holy grail of Physics (Theory of Everything, the final Superstring Theory, ..) is found, the reason for our existence may also be found embedded in that final theory. Then we will not suffer from the "grand illusion". Of course the ultimate mystery of existence, i.e why the universe at large exists, or why the laws of Physics exist at all, will always remain a mystery, providing a permanent source of pabulum for the pref-frontal cortex. So that ultimate "?" will always provide a room and excuse for being spiritually hungry (we all are to varying extent) for a POSSIBLE higher reality. We will never be able to logically refute a creationist who may believe that its not life that is created by God, but the laws of Physics is, and that evolution (biology) is a consequence of the laws of Physics created by God, leading to the creation of life(biogenesis).

Science and Aesthetics

G.N. Watson, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the early twentieth century said that some of Ramanujan's mathematical formulas gave him the same thrill as Michelangelo's "Day," "Night," "Evening" and "Dawn" in the Medici chapel in the San Lorenzo in Florence. (From p-545 of Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics, Oxford UP, 1989)

Quantum physicist and philosopher David Bohm (Who recently passed away) in his paper "On the Relationships of Science and Art" in the book "Data: Directions in Art, Theory and Aesthetics", Anthony Hill (ed..1968, London), also emphasizes the unity of art and science by tracing the parallelism between the artistic evolution beginning with Monet and Cézanne and going on to the Cubists and to Mondrian and the development away from representation and symbolism and toward what may be called 'pure structure' that took place in mathematics and in science.

As I mentioned earlier art cannot be defined in a simple word. The existence of art is agreed to by its effect on human mind. If art is identified by the joy and pleasure that it creates in the mind and the creativity that goes into its creation, then quite easily science is an art form and scientists the artists of this art form. Just as music, painting, poetry are distinct art form, so is science. It is as baselss to say that science(or scientists) cannot appreciate arts as it is to say a musician canot appreciate poetry. A superstring theorist engages in the string research with an immense sense of appreiation and sensitivity for beauty. String theory is as elegant if not more as any sophisticated work of art. The fact of artistic element in scientific truth is also true for any fundamental science including molecular biology. It is no wonder that Molecular Biology professor Bonnie Bassler says in the 17 July 2003, issue of Nature magazine in response to the question "What' s the one thing about science that you wish the public understood better?" :

"That we are not nerds, but artists. That what we do and what we are is exciting, creative and fun."

Alert readers should realize that all such theories of aesthetics are attempts to correlate or map subjective beauty with some objective measures. They do not explain why beauty is perceived/ felt in human minds in those objects of beauty possesing those objective characteristics,i.e the normative aspect of art appreciation, the "hedonic tone", as Evolutionary Psychologist Victor Johnston calls it. For that we have to turn to evolutionary psychology.

Now Unless one believes in soul (despite there being no clear objective definition or evidence for it's existence), one cannot avoid confronting the indisputable fact that humans (which include their brains) are the products of evolution. Evolution, itself being an emergent effect of the underlying fundmanetal laws of nature (Physics to be precise), all human traits and pursuits like art and music and human affinity for them are ultimately traceable to the laws of physics itself. But we don't need (nor is it practicable) to go to the deep level of physics for understanding every human trait. The language of evolutionary science suffices for such an understanding. Just as we can understand what a piece of software does simply by examining its high level code (visual basic, C etc), without having to analyze its underlying assmebly or machine code), similarly we can understand human traits in the language of the laws of evolution (natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, adaptation, exaptation etc).

The new science of evolutionary psychology has already made great strides in understanding a broad range of human emotions and traits (morality, sexuality..). Since beauty, arts, morality and virtually all human traits and pursuits are created "in" human mind(brain), so if humans (i.e all the organs) are the products of evolution, so are these traits. They cannot be supernaturally implanted in human mind from some transcendental world (As a proponent of divine origin of human existence would suggest). We can call "love", "beauty of a flower, child, a woman.." all as divine, sublime, ethereal, but these are mere words to express human emotional affinity for arts. At the bottom lurks the stark truth that nothing is too divine or sublime to transcend the laws of physics. There is no evidence for such transcendence. There is ample evidence to offer a plausible explanation of the emergence of not just life but also the emergence of consciousness and human traits and emotions. Of course the laws of physics can be viewed (As Einstein did) as divine (After all, the laws of physics are not created by human,its the other way around),if one has to invoke divinity at all, as an ornament of expression.

One particular aspect of human emotion is the urge to appreciate and attribute beauty to objects (material and non-material) Beauty is perceived in real objects like flower, gems, or in non- material objects like poetry, songs. But whatever the object of the appreciation of beauty, the common aspect of those objects are they all carry certain information,patterns or arrangement that convey meanings to human mind, the end result being that they arouse the pleasure centers of human brain. So the deeper question is why or how did this mapping (or cause-effect relationship) between certain information or pattern and the pleasure center of the brain arise in humans. As I argued earlier it must be rooted in the evolutionary mechanism. All human traits are either direct adaptation to the evolutionary selection pressure, or are the byproducts or side-effects of such adaptive strategies for survival, the so called spandrel effect. Spandrel is the term used for the spaces between the pillars of an arch that is not an intended part of the arch design but is nevertheless an unavoidable consequence of the arch design. Spandrel is a special case of exaptation, where a feature originally selected was reselected to adapt to a differenet selection pressure. Spandrels are adaptations with no real survival values. Artistic sense is viewed by most evolutionary psychologists as spandrels of evolution.

Incidentally I must remind the readers that survival in evolutionary terms means propagating the genetic code to offsrpings, it does not refer to the physical survival of a human (If a human dies after propagating his/her gene, then evolutionarily that person has survived). A human body is a temporary repository to store the genetic code which has been propagating generations after generations over millenia.

That aesthetics has biological root was suggested quite sometime ago by even a non-scientfic literary Frederick Turner in his book "Natural Classicism", where he expressed his view of aesthetics as expressions of primordial biological preferences. But the decisive book based on hard science of evolution that inspired many evolutionary psychologists was the 1992 book : "The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture" a collection of essays by many researchers, edited by evolutionary psychlogists Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby. Several books and articles have appeared since then further giving a firm foundation to this new paradigm of the origin of art. A widely acclaimed book is Nancy Eiken's "An Evolutionary Perspective on the Nature of Art" which is inspired by an earlier book by E. Dissanayake, "Homo aestheticus: Where art comes from and why". Readers can rad this book online at:

In the book Biopoetics: Evolutionary Explorations in the Arts, (1999), edited by Brett Cooke and Frederick Turner the editor remarked that “The evidence is steadily mounting,” and further remarked in the their introduction, “that if we wish to understand our profound and long-standing impulse to create and enjoy art we are well advised to attend to our evolutionary heritage. . . . Even if art is for art’s sake, it follows that we seriously consider what that purpose means in Darwinian terms.

A very well-written scholarly article on the evolutionary adaptive origin of art is: "Is Art an Adaptation? Prospects for an Evolutionary Perspective on Beauty" by Univ. of Torornto Philospher Ronald de Sousa published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 62 Issue 2 Page 109 - June 2004. Readers can read the article on line at Sousa's site at:

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/%7Esousa/artfunction/art.htm

In his book "Evolution and Literary Theory", author Joseph Carrol not only argues for a Darwinian explanation of art(Literature in partiular), but also debunks the poststructuralist (Postmodernist) dogma of textualism of leading exponents, Derrida, Foucault and their many disciples who claim that the pursuit of objective insight into anything is an impossible endevour. Interested readers can check Carroll's website at:

http://www.umsl.edu/~engjcarr

British astronomer and prolific author John Barrow also has discussed the evolutionary origins of aesthetic sense in chapters 23 and 24 (Aptly titled "Aesthetics") of his book: "Between Inner Space and Outer Space". The primitive sense of beauty among our early hominid ancestors emerged due to its adaptive value. In a hostile terrain, constantly exposed to predatory threats, the adaptive trait was to appreciate terrains and land shapes that favoured survival. That may explain whay landscape art became particularly attractive to humans. Also plain landscape was favourable to survival, as it was easier to spot predators. So liking a plain landscape would be evolutionarily more adaptive.

In other words there is a utilitarian basis (evolutionarily speaking) for artistic likings. That is artistic likings are created innhuman minds by natural factors. Not every individual human being may be consciously aware of this fact of nature in everyday life. There is no reason to be. Humans are ultimately programmed machines, with a remarkable property that *some* (due to spandrel effect) humans are consciously aware of the fact that they are programmed machines, most are either unaware of this or refuse to accept it as fact. Over time that utilitarian basis of artistic sense may have ceased to exist but the evolutionary instincts of attraction for art and beauty lingered on like a vestigial organ and took on its own indepenededt existence as more sophisticated art appreciation. Also it must be emphasized that we cannot trace every shade or nuance of art (e.g surrealism) directly to specific evolutionary adaptation. As the analogy of spandrel illustrates there can very well be unintended (but inevitable) byproducts of evolutionary strategies due to its very trial and error nature. Artistic sense as a general instinct is what evolution prescribes in humans. By products of that general prescription through individual variations (due to mutation or non-deterministic environmental effect) may arise which may not be directly adaptive in evolutionary terms and which may be quite sophisticated. All these show how simple sense of beauty might have evolved. But we know the complex are built from the simple by repetition. Barrow also discusses how affinity for certain shapes and colors could have been evolutionarily more adaptive to our primitive ancestors leading to the appreciation for flowers, paintings and other shapes,colors patterns etc. He also mentions an indirect evidence that musical sense also is rooted in evolution by citing the the 1975 discovery of two physicists, Richard Voss and John Clarke, at the University of California, Berkeley that many classical and modern musical compositions which are liked by most are closely approximated by what they call 1/f type spectral noise over a very wide range of frequencies. It is the universality of such characteristics in the music of all cultures that point to the common evolutionary basis of such liking in our evolutionary past. It would be highly coincidental that all cultures developed a similar musical sense if it was not due to evolution. Also the fact that human brain is attuned to certain musical sounds, as modern neurological studies of the interaction between brain and music has revealed (See the November '04 issue of scientific American for a recent article on Music and the Brain by Norman Weinberger), strongly suggests an evolutionary root of musical sense, since brain, like any other organ is also a product of evolution. The fact that even fetuses within the womb respond to music discriminatively (as cited in the SciAm article refered to earlier as well as on p-37 of the book "The Science of Music" by Robin Maconie (1997) lends additional evidence favouring the genetic (thus evolutionary) basis of musical sense.

Another research into the connection between brain and arts that should be mentioned is that by neuroscientist Ramachandran (Author of the best seller "Phantoms in the Brain") of the Center For Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego. In the paper titled "The science of art" in the Journal of consciousness Studies, 6/7, 15-41, Ramachandran & Hirstein detail their views based on neurological research on various aspects of art perception viz,(a) The logic of art: whether there are universal rules or principles; (b) The evolutionary rationale: why did these rules evolve and why do they have the form that they do; (c) What is the brain circuitry involved? They arrive at what they call "Eight laws of aesthetic experience" analogous to the Buddha’s eightfold path to wisdom.

An important sense of beauty among humans is the appreciation for beauty of the opposite sex. This is very well understood in evolutionary terms and extensive literature exists reflecting the findings and views of many evolutionary psychologists on the insight into the evolutionary basis of sense of beauty of other humans (of opposite sex), which we will refer to as sexual beauty.

To put it in one line, the findings of Evol. Psychology is that sexual beauty is an indicator of good health and genetic fitness, which is what evolution cares all about. The traits that men consider beatiful in women are those that indicate female genetic fitness (like fertility). A leading pioneer is Devendra Singh of Univ. of Texas at Austin. He has identified waist to hip ratio of women as one such fitness indicator. When a male identifies a woman as pretty he may not be consciously aware of the waist to hip ratio, it is just instinctively wired by evolution. Evolutionary biologists like David Buss, Desmond Morris, Robin Baker and many others have identified many such markers of beauty. Among males one such fitnes marker is facial symmetry which women instinctively perceive as male beauty. Those who have seen the documentaries on sex on discovery/TLC (Like the multipart series of the Huamn sexes, the Science of Sex, The Sex Files etc) and some other TV channels must be familiar with some more of these aesthetic fitness markers.

The fact that artistic sense or aesthetic sense is rooted in sexual selection of the brain has been the recurring theme of English biologist and science writer Matt Ridley, in his verbose book "The Red Queen".

More recently in the paper titled "Aesthetic fitness: How sexual selection shaped artistic virtuosity as a fitness indicator and aesthetic preferences as mate choice criteria" by psychologist Geoffrey Miller in the Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts 2(1), 20-25 (Special issue on Evolution, creativity, and aesthetics) reiterate the biological basis of aesthetics and the sexual selection factor in particular. Readers can check the following URL for an online version of the article:

http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/aesthetic_fitness.htm

Let me conclude this overview by listng some more relevant books on this specific topic:

1. The Artistic Animal: an Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art by Alexander Alland Jr., Anchor Books, 1977
2. Evolutionary Aesthetics, edited by Eckart Voland and Karl Grammer Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2003.
3. The Bard on the Brain: Understanding the Mind through the Art of Shakespeare and the Science of Brain Imaging by Paul Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain, Univ. Chicago Press, 2003
4. The Biological Foundations of Music edited by Robert Zatorre and Isabelle Peretz, New York Academy of Sciences, 2001
5. Cross-Pollinations: the Marriage of Science and Poetry by Gary Paul Nabhan, Milkweed Press, 2004
6. Evolution and Literature - D.A Evans, South Dakota Review.
7. Connections: the Geometric Bridge between Art and Science by Jay Kappraff, McGraw Hill, 1991
8. Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty that Causes Havoc by Arthur I. Miller, Basic Books, 2001
9. Where mathematics comes from; How the embodied mind brings mathematics into being - Lakoff & Nunez (2000)
10. Physics and Music: the Science of Musical Sound by Harvey White and Donald White, Holt Rinehart Winston, 1980
11. Physics and Psychophysics of Music by Juan Roederer, Springer Verlag, 1995
12. Physics of Musical Instruments by Norman Fletcher and Thomas Rossing, Springer Verlag, 1998

      ON FREE WILL VS. DETERMINISM/PREDESTINATION

Are human actions result of conscious decisions based on free will
or due to a deterministic result of natural causes? This is an age
old question that has been debated for centuries by philosophers and
thinkers. Not surprisingly classical philosophers could never agree
on the answer to this question, just as they could not agree on the
nature vs. nurture question, due to their lack of knowledge about
modern scientific insights on neurology, quantum theory and
the science of complexity. Just as modern science has pretty
much settled the nature vs. nurture debate (Of course that required
a rephrasing of the question to make it scientifically meaningful),
modern science also has settled the dispute about freewill vs.
destiny. The verdict of science and scientists is that there is
no true freewill. Free will is an illusion!. I will try to elaborate
more on this. But the verdict of scientists does not seem to
trickle down to the popular level, majority of whom still believe
that we humans have free will, "we" are in charge of "our" actions,
echoing the view of the religious apologists, who insist that God
has given us free will, so we are accountable to God for what we
do, good or bad, etc. The libertarians also take this lofty view
of humans, crediting humans of an ability of freedom to choose
and act freely. So what is free will? The popular notion of free
will is that it means that that humans have an ability/attribute
external to the physical body of humans, which can control the
action of the human (via the brain) and choose between alternatives.
The ultimate implication is that free will is due to an agent uncaused
by natural laws, i.e not subject to the natural laws. Astute readers
will not miss the implication of this that this is nothing but the
old ghost in the machine idea, the idea of a "soul" directing
the body and action of a human from outside the body. So the
free will is ultimately attributed to the soul, which humans
refer to as "we", "me", etc. This illusion results from the
first person perspective. When a third person perspective is
taken of humans then it is the causal link between natural laws
(Acting on the billions of neurons) and human actions that is
seen and observed as obvious, and the illusion goes away. In the
free will view, human soul/self is viewed as an autonomous
entity, not caused by any natural laws, so it is endowed with
the ability to do anything not determined by natural laws. But
in the modern neuroscientific paradigm, where human actions are
seen as the sole result of natural laws acting on the human
brain, there is be no free will, there is no soul either, the
supposed provenance of free will. Modern neuroscience has driven
this long held human perception and belief to extinction. Just
as Nietsze declared centuries ago that God is dead, Tom Wolfe,
the author of the bestselling fiction "Bonfire of the Vanities"
declares in his essay "Sorry your Soul just died" :
(http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articlesprint/WolfeSoulDiedP.htm)


  "Eventually, as brain imaging is refined, the picture may
  become as clear and complete as those see-through exhibitions,
  at auto shows, of the inner workings of the internal
  combustion engine. At that point it may become obvious to
  everyone that all we are looking at is a piece of machinery,
  an analog chemical computer, that processes information from
  the environment. "All," since you can look and look and you
  will not find any ghostly self inside, or any mind, or any
  soul."

The Time magazine, in its annual special feature on Mind and
Body on January 20, 2003 issue begins with this: "Mind and body,
psychologists and neurologists now agree, aren't that different .
. .. The thoughts and emotions that seem to color our reality
are the result of complex electrochemical interactions within
and between nerve cells....The mind is like the rest of the
body...."

Neuroscience also reveals that the self, which defines who we
are, lies in the synaptic connections (neural pathways) of the
neurons of the brain. Each individual brain has its own
distinctive synaptic connections (which is also ever evolving),
which imparts the distinctive self and the awareness of the self
that all humans possess. This is the basis of the book by
renowned neurologist Joseph Ledoux titled "The Synaptic Self:
How our brains become who we are".

Neuroscientist Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee in their book
"Phantoms of the Brain, page-256 writes: "our sense of having a
private, non-material soul ‘watching the world’ is really an
illusion".

A similar view is expressed by Harvard psychologist Dr. Daniel
M. Wegner. He suggests that modern neuroscience reveals a
commonsense physicalism that the brain conducts business on its
own. It doesn’t need a further, non-physical agent to
orchestrate the immensely complex operations that constitute
awareness, cognition, and control of behavior. In his book,
"The Illusion of Conscious Will," he says that free will is a
feeling — merely a feeling of control over our actions. When we
think, that we are going to get up now," and when we do it a
moment later, we credit that feeling with having been the
instigating cause. But as is well known, correlation does not
equal causation."

Dr. Wegner debunks the free will myth using the example of
hypnosis, ouija board, dowsing etc. If truly there was free will
agent ouside the brain conrolling it, such examples of losing
conscious control of one's will would not make sense. He also
cites Psychologist Benjamin Libet's classic discovery thet our
conscious awarness of a willed act actually is preceded by the
act itself!

Human body or brain, are the products of natural laws (via the
process of evolution, dictated by the laws of Physics ultimately).
So a belief in freewill inevitably reduces to a belief in soul,
which is external to the natural laws and not bound by it. Many
secular humanists, who may brag about their rational mind
dismissing the idea of God and Soul, unwittingly betray their
belief in soul when they insist on the existence of a true human
free will. Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy, psychology,
and brain sciences at Duke University in his book, "The Problem
of the Soul: Two Visions of the Mind and How to Reconcile Them"
makes a strong and uncompromising criticism of both secular and
religious beliefs supporting their underlying notion of soul.
Flanagan blames this widespread erroneous belief on Descartes
He argues that the brain and its supporting nervous system seem
quite capable of doing all that the soul traditionally is credited
with.

So is there no free will at all?, one may ask in desperation.
Well, it is more a semantic question. As I mentioned earlier, in
the first person perspective, all humans are aware of a "feeling"
of being in control, of their brain, of their body, and thus of
any actions that results therefrom. So if free will is defined
as that feeling of being in control, then it trivially exists. I
must also add that this "feeling" itself is hardwired in humans
through evolution, i.e is also naturally caused. But free will
truly does not exist in the sense of any force or power
independent of the causal laws of nature. So why is it that the
verdict from science about the absence of true free will does
not seem to percolate to the ordinary mass? I can think of two
reasons. First of all only those scientific truths seem to catch
on that either have utilitarian values, like Superconductivity,
photoelctric effect, or are appealing to the human imaginations,
like the ideas of Quatntum uncertainty, relativity (both of
these also have utilitarian implications asw ell), black holes,
time warp etc. Any truth which is unapealing, or even seems to
be dangerous, would not only be not publicized enough by
scientists, but would also not be heeded to by the non-
scientific community. The non-existence of free will falls into
this latter category, just as the truth that human behavior is
largely genetically determined, and only partly environmentally
determined (even the environmental component is ultimately
genetically determined, since environment itself is created by
the propensities in human mind/brain, which is genetically
determined). If humans believed that they don't have freewill,
that they are robots then a chaos would result, the entire
fabric of morality in society would fall apart etc. Just as
evolution doesn't favour that all humans tell the truth, or that
all of them lie, it may very well be that evolution doesn't
favour that all humans realize and find out the unpleasant
truths. So it will not be surprising that many humans will
continue to believe in free will despite overwhelming evidence
to the contrary from science.

As philosopher Saul Smilansky argues in his chapter on "Free
Will, Fundamental Dualism, and the Centrality of Illusion" in
Robert Kane’s The Oxford Handbook on Free Will, that "although
we don’t have free will in the traditional libertarian, contra-
causal sense, a widespread appreciation of this truth would
constitute a dire threat to our moral commitments and practices.
Disbelief in such free will is a literally dangerous idea of the
second category. In order to protect our moral virtues, it's
better to have the false belief that we have free will."

As I argued above, belief in free will that is external to
the human brain is equivalent to belief in soul. Now it is
also the case that proponents of free will use the existence of
free will to justify accountability and personal responsibilty.
There is a fallacy in this view. The very insistence on the
existence of free will posits that the "self" controls the body
and brain, not the other way around, i.e the "self/soul"
is responsible for the free will. But invariably the consequence
of one's conduct is an effect on the body or brain(mind) of the
person (penalty in the form of fine, imprisonment, rebuke etc).
Now the "soul/self" is claimed to be beyond the human body and
brain, external to it, and is the ultimate agent for the action
of the human body and brain. The immediate consequence of this
view is that soul/self is not affected by any effects on the
body or brain. Then the question is how does this punitive
action on the body/brain can be meaningfully justified as
being a deterrentagainst an act supposedly the self/soul is
responsible for? If the punitive acts affects only the body and
brain, then the notion of self/soul is redundant as the raison
de etre for moral responsibility and accounatbility. Therein
lies the paradox of free will vs. moral responsibility.

So far I have been referring to the notion of free will in the
sense that human acts and decisions are not controlled by the
brain due to the causal laws of nature, but by an external
self/soul. In the scientific view, free will is defined as
an act that is not deterministically predicatble from natural
laws. In this sense the decay of a radioactive nuclues is an
act of free will by the nucleus. The ultimate example of free
will is the creation of the entire universe by a random vacuum
fluctuation.

It is known that at the Quantum level (microscopic world)
exact outcome of microscopic events are unpredictable.
That fact has prompted some to argue that since human brain
is ultimately composed of microscopic particles, hence human
brains also act non-deterministically like quantum events.
But the claim that human brain (Which is macroscopic) simply
amplifies the randomness at the microscopic level is debatable.
First of all, Quantum Mechanics itself is not a completely
non-deterministic law. That would imply a total lawless world.
Rather Quantum mechanics is a deterministic law that assigns
*precise* probabilities to quantum events at the microscopic
level. Let me digress a bit and clarify a common misperception
about Qunatum Mechanics. The perception is that Quantum
Mechanics implies that events at Quantum level are random,
unpredictable. But that is not what Quantum mechanics says,
rather Quantum mechanics acknowledges the unpredictability at
the Quantum level as a given fact of nature (i.e an axiom),
and assigns precise probabilitites to specific quantum events.
It is the assignment of these probabilities that is success
of Quantum Mechanics. Heisenberg's undertainty principle
only refers to the relative uncertainty between conjugate
varibales in a precise quantitative way. But Quantum Mechanics
does not itself from its own principle derive the fact that
individual microscopic events are random and unpredicatble. This
is a fact that we have to accept as given in nature and is borne
out by observations. Anyway getting back to the main point,
at the macroscopic level, when the number of particles
are large, the average behaviour of the aggregate, which we
observe, is actually a deterministic event, even though the
individual behaviour of particles in the aggregate are non-
determinsitic. Hence the brain, which is composed of billions
of neurons, where each neuron itself is a composite structure
may not be quite random in its action. The microtubules in
the neuron are claimed to be the quantum components of the
neuron. But that is not a settled fact yet. But one must be
reminded that even if brain turns out to be a quantum system
(thus random), in the absence of a soul, it still cannot
justify moral responsibilty of individuals, because in that
case a human (body or brain) still has no control of the
action of their brain either, since that is purely a matter
of random act due to quantum uncertainty.

Although the claim that brain is a Quantum system is debatable,
one thing that is not so debatable is that the brain is a
chaotic system, because it is a thermodynamic system in far from
equilibrium, and is composed of large number of particles. Such
systems always show inherent chaotic behaviour and thus
unpredictability. Even indivodual neurons are themselves complex
enough to be chaotic. In their book "Are we hardiwred?", authors
Clark and Grunstein says a single neuron may receive information
from a thousand or more other neurons, each of which was itself
impacted by a hundred or a thousand inputs in a feedback loop.
This massive complexity of the brain’s systems can produce
alterations whose impact on behavior would be as unpredictable
as the pathway of the hypothetical boulder down a mountainside.
But I still have to remind ourselevs that chaotic unpredictability
does not imply a true indeterminism, because chaotic systems still
obey the deterministic laws. It is the impossibility to enumerate
the almost infinite set of variables that makes the behaviour
of chaotic systems unpredictable, thereby making them practically
indistinguishable from truly non-deterministic systems.

Now let me go on to some simple nuts and bolts example to illustrate
the illusion of free will.

For example we hear often people saying that if you follow steps
1 through n, an intended result can be achieved. (Example studying
hard will yield good grades in an exam etc). There is no debate
on that. So why don't all achieve their desired objective even
though they all know the steps needed for this? Some decide to
follow the steps with firm resolve and achieve it, where others
are not as resolute and choose not to follow them with tenacity.
This temperamental difference between these two kinds of people
are inherently due to the difference in their genetic makeup,
causing one group to succeed and the others not to. In other
words it is a matter of destiny that some people are the way
they are. The brain of a human cannot alter its genetic makeup
or its environment, both of which determine it's behaviour. Lets
say you come to a point in life where you have to make a choice
of either 'A' or 'B', and your life can potentially take a
completely different turn depending on which choice you make.
You consider all the other factors available to you, along with
the long term memory in the brain as input data and make the
best choice for you. Here you made the choice with your "free
will power" and thus shaped your future life but the input data
on which you based your choice may not be all under "your"
control (i.e your brain). Even leaving aside the input data, the
choice made could be solely due to your genetic propensity,
which is hardwired. Let us imagine a scenario where you advised "
A" to make a certain momentous choice that you are quite sure is
the right one through some objective assessment. But A, even
though convinced by the objectivity of your assessment, picks
another option, not because he/she assessed your advice
carefully and concluded that you were wrong, but because of
certain instinctive impulse he/she feels inside which impels him/
her to take a different route. At the end it turned out that he/
she was wrong and regretted not having followed your advice.
This is a case where the "choice" was definitely made by A, the
choice being not to follow your advice but go with his gut
instinct. But A didn't chose to be a person of the type to be
driven by instinct and not by objective consideration, That
trait is inherent in his/her, leading to a certain destiny. In
other words the choice of taking a certain route is in turn
dictated by certain attribute which is not a choice by conscious
control. So no choice is ultimately self-caused.

Another example is that we all know if a blood pressure patient
eats salt, or a diabetic patient eats sugar etc then that will
speed up their death. Even knowing this, some defy these rules
and invite early death, whereas others are very particular in
following proper rules and thus live a longer life. These two
sets of people have very different mind/personality which is
inherited by birth (genetic code) and which causes them to act
or make choices in a certain way that affects their life and
future accordingly. So, ultimately the the decision one takes,
being controlled by the chaotic brain with a host of
environmental factors together with the historic contingencies
which are imprinted in the long term memory of the brain,
there is no basis of any human to act in a way that is not
caused inevitably by the natural laws acting on the brain itself.
So true free will does not exist. As mentioned earlier, believing
in Free will is a subjective perception or feeling for those who
believe in it. This feeling or perception remains until an action
is chosen and performed. Once the act is chosen and committed,
and if the act yields a significant positive or negative result,
the same act committed may seem to them as the inevitable result
of destiny in retrospect, i.e an act of free will in past may
appear to be a result of fate in retrospect, of course in these
cases the fate would also appear to be determined by some cosmic
force!, not by natural(material) causes.

While in the context of fate or destiny it may be wort
mentioning a popular but fallacious view about causality. Quite
often people who may or may not believe in predestination make
the statement "Thanks God you were/I was not in the flight"
after hearing the news of a plane crash in which he/she or
someone they know were supposed to be on, but cancelled for
some reason. By this they are implying that IF they were on
that flight, the plane would have still crashed. A close
examination of this would reveal an inconsistency of thoughts
or logic. Lets say the person in question is "A" and the flight
is called "X". there are four possible events:

 1. A was in flight X and X crashed
 2. A was not in flight X and X crashed
 3. A was in flight X and X didn't crash
 4. A was not in flight X and X didn't crash

Now in the above example case "2" happened and the opinion by A
or his/her friends was that if "2" didn't happen then only "1"
can happen and not "3" Now there is no logical reason to think
that way. The world just happened to end up in 2 because of the
infinite sequence of cause and effect at play. A different
sequence of infinite cause and effect relationship may have led
to any other events, like event 3. Event "2"'s not happenning
does not imply that only event "1" can happen. We have no basis
of making predictions about event 1, on the basis of event 2's
happenning. These two events can be linked only if everything in
the world is identical except A being or not being in a flight.
But once A is in the flight then that implies a different world
with its different cause and effect factor (an example would be
the total number of passenger, weight or load distribution on
the plane is differnt now, not to mention a host of differrnt
factors that led to A's being in X in the first place) than the
world where A was not in flight X. So we cannot make any
conclusion about the world with A in flight "X" based on the
knowledge about the world in which A was not in "X". That would
in effect be a case of predicting future, fortune telling. This
kind of statement like "IF "A" had been in flight "X", THEN A
would have been killed in the crash of flight "X", is called a
counter-factual statement in logic and is a meaningless one from
a rational standpoint, because it assumes a condition which can
never be tested, since we cannot go back in past and change a
past event to test the validity of the conclusion regarding a
future event. So such counterfactuals reflect a poor sense of
the both logic and reality.


7=========

SUBJECTIVITY IN ARTS

Artistic appreciation for many seem to be a result of extrinsic
factors, like influence of popularity, constant exposure to a widely
availabile and plugged art form, an urge to go with the going fad
or style, culturally inherited bias among many others. For few is it
due to a genuine desire to discover and appreciate the intrinsic
quality of the art, e.g by listening or reading all genre of music or
literature and selecting favourites discriminately as the ones that
appeal to their unique subjective criteria. Some do have a strong
individual sense of like and dislike which they use as a guide in
selecting art of their choice for their own pleasure irrespective
of how it is perceived by the vast majority. For most others this
intrinsic individual sense of like or dislike is absent or is so
weak that it is often succumbs to extrinsic factors mentioned above
and is primarily deteremined by them. This is what is known as
the "meme" factor, originally introduced by Sociobiologist Dawkins
(Elaborately discussed in Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine").
This meme effect can get so powerful that one loses the
discriminating ability of a true art connoisseur and blindly loves
ANY work of an artist and cannot discriminate between individual
pieces of work of that artist according to any subjective criteria,
nor do they care to. The artist to such a fan becomes a cult, a fad,
fashion, a symbol of prestige. And for them the liking for arts seem
to develop by broad categories like Classical, Jazz, Rock, Tagore
Songs for music. Or Science Fiction, Adventure, Romance etc for
literature, and they would like anything under those broad
categories with no exception. Although there may be variation
of intensity in the liking within a category but it would still
be a like, not a dislike. We can call art fans of these types
type "A" fans (fans subject to the meme effect). For a few
discriminating art connoisseurs this likes or dislikes may not
be defined by these broad categories but by certain individual
subjective criteria specific to each person. For them it is
possible that they may like some elements of art within a given
category but may find no appeal in some other elements inside
the same broad category, i.e their perception of nuances within
a category causes their interest in it to range from like to
dislike. We can call these minority art fans (not subject to meme
effect) as type "B" fans. It is observed quite
often that when someone,say "X", states his or her interest in
some art form of a certain category, others invariably assume
them as being a type-A art entusiast. The possibility of him/her
being a type "B" art enthusiast usually does not occur to them.
This is evident from their gifts to X of books, tapes, invitations
to concerts or recitals etc by ANY artists in that category, not
considering the possibility that X may be a type-B fan and may not
like that particular book, CD or artist in that category. This is
not to belittle or question the good intent behind suh gifts and
invitations, but to caution against any disappointment in finding
that "X" does not have any interest in the gift or in the invitation.
A further narrowing down of "X"'s interest by asking could have could
have averted this disappointment. But it will be wrong to conclude
from this lack of interest in a specific book, song, or concert under
that category, that X does not have any interest in that category at
all, since a type-B art enthusiast, interest and tastes are based not
just on broad category, but subkective criteria, and it is quite
possible X may be ver interested in another artwork in that category

The question of greatness and liking in art is purely a
subjective one. It is hard to come up with a universally
acceptable objective criteria to judge artistic greatness. Volume,
popularity (public raving), consensus of the critics are usually
the common criteria. The market usually decides what is great(est).
Public tastes are moldable by various extrinsic factor. But the
criteria for an individual's liking or disliking of an art(ist) is
purely subjective, unique to that individual for a type-B art
afficionado. But whatever that unique subjective criteria is, it
is certain that not ALL work of a given
artist or genre will be equally appealing to anyone, certainly
not to a type B fan. The fact is that famous musicians, poets,
novelists etc who have created volumes of artwork are bound
to create quite a few which are inferior in quality under any
subjective criteria. Not all their works can be equally evocative
to a discerning taste. Discrimination and selectivity is an
essential mark of type-B connoisseurs. Under some subjective criteria,
it is quite possible, that a specific artist or a piece of work by
specific artist "X" can appeal more than another artist, a specific piece
of work by another artist "Y". Although by the criteria of volume,
public raving or concensus of critics, "Y" may be much greater than "X"
(or their specific works), for example to a typeA art enthusiast.
Of course using some objective criteria, like volumes printed, number
of copies sold, critics' verdict, etc one can decide the greatest,
but such criteria cannot have any meaning to a type-B fan. To him/her
liking or dislike is internal, intrinsic, not influenced by polls,
numbers and statistics or any other extrinsic factors, objective they
may be.

Now coming back to the issue of greatness in art. How is it decided,
in case of an individual artist? If greatness of an artist is assesed
retroactively by the award of say Nobel prize, sure he is great by such
defintion. If assesed by the number of works, then also he/she may be
But all these are post hoc criteria, volume and popularity resulted
from the perceptuion of greatness. That leaves the question begging as
to what is greatness ? We have a circularity here. Greatness is defined
as that which leads to volume and popularity, whereas popularity and
volume itself results from greatness. There has to be some APRIORI
intrinsic criteria of greatness to break this circularity. There
ISN'T ANY! Art is inherently intuitive, subjective. Of course to an
individual, although the appeal is subjective, there can be deeper
objective factors deciding his/her tastes, like certain distinctive
imageries and metaphors to describe nature, human emotions, certain
choice of expressions, certain notes or chords or riffs (in songs),
etc (in other words, artistic styles). But these are not possible to
quantify and written down as criteria of greatness for ALL to agree
on. Such subjective criteria is appropriate for deciding greatness
at an individual level to a type-B fans. Even though there may be
many type-A art fans agreeing on the greatness of an artist, but that
agreement is a result of meme (i.e extrinsic influences), thay cannot
still write down subjective crirteria for each of them and prove that
all their criteria agree with one other.

Now good and bad in arts being subjective, use of such label is
improper and meaningless. Despite that people are seen to rave
about authors, stories, movies, music etc saying they are "great"
"outstanding" etc (Without qualifying it by "TO ME"). As indicated,
If these attributes of "great", "outstanding" etc are defined by the
"volume" and publicity of these works then it IS OBJECTIVE. If it is
due to their "quality" then it IS a SUBJECTIVE judgement and hence
requires an implicit "TO ME". Even in the case where "greatness' etc is
decided by fame and publicity one has to look carefully into how
this fame or publicity came about. If it came about by independent
AND simultaneous reading and judgement of their work by large number
of people then there will be some authenticity to it. But in many cases
it happens by an iterative reinforcement or snowball effect
whereby more and more people hear or read ABOUT the "fabulous" work of
an artist and are purely led to believe in the greatness of an artwork
or artists by this sheer publicity rather than by judging by
themselves it's intrinsic appeal (TO THEM) and they themselves then
act as a further propagator of this fame and adds to this publicity
by reinforcing it further (The ubiquitous meme effect). That is not
to say that the artists would not have appealed to them had they
not heard about its "greatness". But it is also possible the work
of someone not so famous may have appealed equally or more in the
absence of the meme effect which acts as an extrinsic agent of
influence and either completely forfeits or significantly impair one's
intrinsic faculty of judging likes and dislikes. If "X" mentions
to "Y" a line of a poem, a quote or precept, of a "famous" person
but claiming to be his/her own and if "Y" is not familiar with that
line or quote, then there is a good chance "Y" may not quite be
impressed by it, whereas if "X" had quoted it as being of a famous
person, then "Y" would immediately show an appreciative nod of
approval, an amen! The same is true about motivational speakers,
celebrities. When they address an admiring audience, all agog in
in hearing the speaker. The most trivially true statements seem to
create much more sense of awe on the audience than it would have
been, if told by some one ordinary without mentioning that they
were quoting those celebrities.

Interestingly, if someone KNOWS a certain symphony or classical
musical piece to be famous and "deep", he/she may listen to it
and rave about it while nodding head in awe, but if the same
music is played regularly as a background music for say a TV show
and didn't know or realize it to be a famous musical piece, he/she
may only identify the music with just the show and not feel any
interest in listening to the music itself but only will try to
reminisce about the show that it conjures up!

Tied in with the above discussion is the fact that artistic and
aesthetic sense or perceptivity is an intrinsic quality or
attribute of a person which is not created or increased by mere
READING or exposure to an art work. A person may be endowed with
this inherent ability to appreciate art and a sense of aesthetics
yet have not read a lot of artistic work by others but would
nevertheless be able to appreciate it more when they read it than
who has read a lot and can talk about them in a descriptive manner
yet doesn't have the same deep artistic appreciation or sensitivity
of it as the former. An art school education does not increase the
inherent artistic sense of a person but only helps to bring out
whatever is inside to its max. A given engineer or scientist or
whatever does not necessarily posses less inherent artistic sense
than a given artist, its just that the former has it latent,
undeveloped, while the latter has developed it into its max. It
is true that those who have "higher" intrinsic artistic sense
tend also to chose to become professional artist and develop
it but there are significant exceptions to that rule, as practical
constraints prevent one from pursuing that natural course.

Let me summarize the meme effects responsible for the fame of an
artist can be due to certain combination of factors, as follows:
(In the following "outstanding" and "mediocre" are judged mainly by
critics and to some extent by popularity, as reflected in media and
sales etc which may or may not be in sync with the critics always).

1. Some extraordinary work and a large volume of mediocre work
  and the snowball effect of publicity, plug, hype generated by the
  extraordinary ones. Then naive minds may "like" even just the
  mediocre ones while never having read the extra-ordinary ones,
  being controlled by the meme effects of the publicity/hype.

2. Large volume of work, none of extraordinary level, but due to
  sheer large volume and a fortuitous condition of being at the right
  place at the right time, gained publicity and fed into the hyp to
  create an aura of fame around his/her name.

It is possible that some not so famous artists may have created
a similar number of extra-ordinary work as a famous one but not
having created large volume of average work didn't get the
benefit of snowball effect of mass or media hyp.

Now some thoughts on the connection of arts to real life. Here it
is observed that movies, novels which contain in its 3 hours/300
pages or so some cameos of deep philosophical, psychological
realizations of life, human emotions etc (expressible in few words
or sentences), attract rave reviews from viewers, readers for those
contents whereas the same people would dismiss reading or hearing
the same profound truths, realizations as boring and academic when
heard or read as isolated statements from an individual or in a
non-fiction book.

Just as kids only like to learn math if it is taught through fun
and entertainment some grown ups too retain this vestiges of
childish propensity and can only accept insights and truths if
adorned with extra layers of humour or romance, fiction and
verbiage etc. In most cases a much raved poem, song, story or movie
when stripped off its garnishings boils down to a trivial statement
of a fact of life that one may already know. So when touting such
poems, songs, stories or movies as a must read, must hear to others
one has to be clear about the message and the mode of the message
in them and draw a distinction. They have to be aware that the mode
part is subjective and may not appeal to someone else who may still
know or appreciate the message already, and thus not jump to the
conclusion that he/she doesn't have the "depth" to understand the
inherent message just because he/she didn't appreciate the mode of
the message. Often by making mode quite appealing some naive minds
can be made to elevate a trivial precept or paradigm to a sublime
level. On the other hand an enlightened but not so naive mind can
be moved by the sheer beauty or artistry of the mode of the message
and yet realize the trivial nature of the message (if any, an art
need not have a message always). One has to separate out philosophy,
psychology etc aspect from the entertainment aspect in an art and
if one is interested in the former then instead of wasting time one
can directly read core works on philosophy, psychology and if
interested in entertainment, then of course performing arts is the
appropriate avenue. In a combination, one must realize the
secondary aspect of the philosophy part in any art form. Certainly
one feels entertained to see certain human emotions and aspirations
powefully illustrated by some actors and performers through the
skills of writers and directors and of course their own artistic
skill. But whatever philosophical, social or psychological insights
or messages there are in a movie,poem, story etc, as I said, can be
reduced to few lines or minutes. And there is nothing in them that
has not been discussed, expressed or analyzed by Philosophers,
Psychologists etc over the centuries and even now in public and in
academia. One only has to take note of the fact that there exists :

1. An encyclopdia of aesthetics in 4 volumes each of 500 pages

2. An encyclopedia of Human Emotions in 2 volumes of 750 pages
  total (McMillan'99)

3. An encyclopedia of Human Behaviour in 4 volumes each of about
  700 pages. (Academic Press'94)

4. An encyclopedia of Ethics in 2 volumes of 1400 pages total
  (Garland Publishers'92)

5. An encyclopedia of Applied Ethics in 4 volumes of 3000 pages
  total (Academic Press'98)

6. An encyclopedia of Bioethics in 4 volumes of 2840 pages total
  (Mcmillan'95).

And to think that all of the above are torn of any extra layers of
fictional or entertainment materials. One can imagine what their
size would have been if extra layers of fiction, entertainment were
added to the facts contained therein! Besides those, there are
innumerable scholarly books and journals on all aspects of life.
Some people mention certain poems, songs, fictions etc as having
influenced or changed their lives or seek inspiration to drive their
life from them. Poems, songs, movies etc are poor sources to seek
for inspiring truths and insights about life. Real life and nature,
when observed and studied with a reflective and analytical mind
is a much more reliable source or guide to truth. Reading works
on philosophy, psychology, biology, logic, ethics etc are better and
more cost-effective means and sources of learning about insights
of life than fictional works. Fictional works are more suited to
entertainment aspect of life, which is needed for a relief from daily
stress of life. We all yearn for words,rhythms, riffs, expressions,
music, pictures etc that evoke our very individual inner artistic
sensitivity and appeals to our mind. It helps to uplift our spirit
when we do come across a piece of artwork in which we see reflections
of those very emotions and feelings of our inner self. But we should
get beyond that when it comes to real life which should be guided
by real life factors and considerations and notdictated ed by
dreams, fantasies, poems, fictions. Depending on a movie or poem to
to seek inspiration from may be ok, but to understand facts and
truths of life, it is a unworthwhile avenue, and a mark of naivette.
Our external life has to be guided by reality independent of art.
One should not depend on a poem to decide their course of
action but should be guided by his/her own head (using knowledge
and experience) and instinct. Such dependency leads to self deceit.
Art is mainly to cater to our subjectuve need of our inner life, to
find an expression and reflection of our inner soul, to be inspired.


8=====
               Objectivity in Morality

  Moral subjectivism, alternately moral relativism is quite popular
  with postmodernist thinking as well with sticklers of political
  correctness. It was also advocated by early sophists, of course
  with an agenda of their own, not that they actually believed
  sincerely in the correctness of their position. Moral objectivism
  or absolutism is touted by theologians, as well as by rationalist
  philosophers from totally opposite viewpoints, the former from a
  divine perspective, the latter from logic and basic human instinct.
  Whether the theologian's view of divine source of moral
  absolutism is justified is addressed in my article
  Does Religion Define Morality?
  The rationalists also recognize the fact that although absolute
  right and wrongs do exist, SOME notions of right and wrong are
  necessarily relative, not absolute. Postmodernists insist on total
  relativism, whereas theologians insist on total absolutism. I
  will try to discuss my own views on the subjectivity vs. objectivity
  in moral perception from a rationalist perspective. Since
  rationalist view acknowledges the existence of absolute wrong and
  right, let me define what constitutes absolute right and wrong. I
  will provide definitions of three wrongs that qualify as absolute. It
  is possible that more absolute wrongs may be defined. But one
  exception being enough to break a rule (The "rule" in this case
  being the view that no definition of absolute wrong is possible), I
  will stay content with three. In fact it will become evident that
  many other acts can be judged to be absolute wrongs since those
  acts can be shown to be ultimately derivable from or reducible to
  these three basic abosolute acts of wrong. I must also mention
  that regardless of how absolute wrong is defined, the fact
  remains that absolute wrongs do exist as borne out by the very
  fact that a instinctive conscience of right and wrong exists in
  all humans across culture, religion and race, even before the
  advent of religion of divine revelations. Modern sociobiological
  insights also corroborate this fact by revealing that the
  instincts of morality are hard- wired in human brain, through
  evolution, originally as a strategy for survival, later
  reinforced through the brain's (cerebral cortex to be precise)
  ever increasing complexity through what is called gene-culture
  coevolution. The fact that certain acts are characterized as
  wrong (like self-evident truths) universally across cultures and
  religions, provide a common sense proof of this fact.

 The three morally wrong acts are described below in 1, 2 and 3 :

 1.  A COERCIVE perpetration of direct, intentional injury
     to someone's body (either by inflicting wounds, pains, or
     applying force on him/her body), WHEN the perpetrator
     was not subjected to such act by the victim in past.

 2.  A COERCIVE or DECEITFUL perpetration of a direct, intentional
    loss, deprivation or damage to someone's assets and possessions,
    WHEN the perpetrator was not subjected to such act by the victim
    in past.

 3. Lying ABOUT someone, WHEN the perpetrator was not subjected to
    such act by the victim in past.

 NOTES :
  The reason for including the WHEN clause is that doing so avoids
  the possibility of a circular reasoning where one can justify a
  wrong by saying that a wrong was done in response to another
  wrong, which in turn was in response to a previous wrong...and
  so on. Regressing backwards one will arrive at a point where a
  wrong was first committed by one that cannot be unambiguously
  tracked as a retaliation for any act against the perpetrator.
  That's where the absoluteness of the wrong applies
  unambiguously. So it follows that an act is not an absolute
  wrong if it is an act of fair retaliation, i.e 1 for 1, 2 for 2 or
  3 for 3 and only directed against the perpetrator, not anyone else.

  The COERCIVE clause rules out the defense that the victim did
  not resist such acts, so was willingly allowing such acts to be
  committed on him/her. Because resistance is not possible when
  coercion is enforced through superiority of might, and such
  wrongs then become an accepted part of a tradition.

  The lying referred to in 3 above means making a false objective
  propositional statement (O.P.S.), not a false subjective
  propositional statement (S.P.S). A propositional statement is
  one which carries a true/false or yes/no implication. An
  O.P.S is by definition a propositional statement to which an
  absolute true/false attribute can be assigned, whereas S.P.S.
  is one where no absolute true/false can be applied to it.
  The difference between the two is explained through
  examples of each below:

  O.P.S. :
    1. "A" is a male
    2. "A" is a college drop out

  S.P.S. :
    1. A is stupid
    2. A is dishonest

  A false O.P.S. is necessarily a deliberate falsehood or at least
  shows lack of integrity for not verifying its authenticity
  (Objective statements can be verified).

  DISCUSSIONS WITH EXAMPLES:
  A subjective wrong (i.e an act which is not absolute moral
  wrong as defined in 1, 2 and 3 above) may or may not be
  legally permissible. On the other hand an absolute moral wrong
  is invariably legally prohibited universally. For example
  blasphemy is legally allowed in most societies, prohibited in
  certain societies. Rape is universally prohibited by law.
  Physically assaulting or robbing someone solely due to their
  color, faith, etc are absolute wrongs. Killing of unarmed
  civilians by suicide bombers is absolute wrong (Direct and
  Intentional, and not a retaliation against the perpetrator).
  Death of civilians in and around a military target in a bombing
  raid is not an absolute wrong (Not intentionally directed).
  The killing of civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was absolute
  wrong. Note that just because an act is not wrong in an
  absolute sense doesn't mean it is automatically right. Being
  subjective(relative) it can still be wrong in a certain legal
  social context, but not another.

  As mentioned earlier many absolute wrong acts can eventually
  be reduced to or derived from the primitive wrongs defined above
  by series of inferences. For example marrying off one's daughter
  to a man of the parent's choice against her wish in a certain
  culture is wrong since ultimately physical coercion will be
  required to force her to comply if she persists in refusing to
  do so. Another example is the act of suicide bombers killing
  innocent noncombatant civilians.

  The injury or loss being referred to in acts 1 & 2 is of "Doing TO
  someone" type, not "Not doing FOR someone" type (i.e Intended
  and direct, not unintended and indirect injury resulting from the
  act). For example "A may refuse to do "B" a "favour" as a result of
  which B may suffer some loss. B cannot accuse A of wrongdoing
  since B was expecting a favour from A and A simply refused to
  comply, but not necessarily intended any injury to B. Receiving
  favours is a privilege, not a right. One should not lead their
  life based on getting favours from others and should not stake
  their life and property on the assumption of receiving a favour.
  Also any damage to body or property has to be a direct and
  intended result of a tangible action, not an indirect result of
  one's thinking in a certain way due to one's belief,faith,
  expectation etc. For example if "A" makes a critical remark about
  "X" where X=faith/religion/race etc, and members of "X" feel
  outraged and claim it has hurt them mentally enough to cause
  physical and material loss, that would not make "A"'s critical
  remark an absolute wrong. Because any damage to any member of
  "X" is solely due to his/her conscious "thinking" and any sense of
  outrage is of their own making in their mind, not intended by A.
  In other words an act cannot be judged absolutely wrong simply
  because someone believes it to be wrong. A wrongness of an act
  should not be based on people's view or belief about the act.
  Moreover, the criteria for the wrongness has to be objective and
  A PRIORI , not an A POSTERIORI criteria, like the adverse
  consequences of one's view or belief about the act and reacting
  to it accordingly. Since the belief or views of any member of "X"
  is not imposed by "A", so any damaging consequence of that
  belief or view about the act of A has to be the responsibility
  of the members of "X" not of A. This follows from the "direct"
  clause in the definition of wrong-1. As a simple example, if
  someone stronger than me overpowers me and stabs me with a
  knife and I start bleeding, I cannot stop the bleeding by any free
  will. But if someone made a critical remark about me, I have the
  free will of not to loose control and engage in a destructive act
  against him or anyone else or property. With an even stronger
  free will I can choose not to be even bothered by such criticism
  at all.

  Another example is when "A" is rejected in love by "B" and the
  resulting emotional distress leads to his/her physical or
  financial damage (In extreme case may be a suicide). This also
  will not qualify as absolute wrong by "B" since this damage is due
  to "A"'s "expectation" being not fulfilled and "A"' and "B" did
  not intend any damage to be done on "A". Any self-damaging act
  like suicide by "A" is due to A's free will.

  The definitions of absolute wrongs stated above emphasize the
  fact that contrary to what many insist that no absolute right or
  wrongs exist and that all wrong and right are inherently relative.
  But as I argued above there are indeed some absolute wrongs
  as stated above. Absolute, since anyone irrespective of
  background without exception will feel hurt or offended if the
  above is perpetrated on them (Certainly will not wish to be a
  willing victim of such acts, hence "wrong").

  A strongly held popular view is that rights and wrongs (more so
  for wrongs) are cultural (cultural relativism). What is wrong in
  one culture need not be wrong for the other, so one should not
  declare anything in another's culture wrong by their standard.
  There is a serious flaw in this view. First we can label a
  culture (say A) as a group of "n" people sharing a common value
  or trait. (to keep it general I use A and 'n'). Then by that very
  same logic a culture cannot or should not call anything wrong
  that apply to a specific subculture B of "m" people contained
  within culture A (of course "m" is less than "n"). Continuing
  this process a subculture B cannot label anything wrong about few
  group of individuals comprising a sub-subculture "C" of "B", and
  so on. Ultimately nobody as an individual can be wrong at all if
  we can never judge the wrongness of a group as a whole. So
  cultural relativism breaks apart by an reductio ad absurdum
  fallacy.

  Another popular view is to dismiss all wrongs as being equal.
  There is a reason for the popularity of this view. Going into
  the the finer details of the difference between wrongs require
  some mental work. Lumping all as equal saves one from having to
  take the effort to do that work. Human tendency (from inherent
  laziness) is to minimize effort as much as one can with impunity.
  Trying to portray the view that all wrongs are equal as a
  politically correct or ethical one is nothing but an attempt to
  hide the unfairness of that view and project it as a virtue. By
  logic and fairness, if we equate a more serious offense with a
  less serious one, that rather dilutes the culpability of the
  more serious one, and it is a bit insensitive toward the less
  serious offender to be treated equally with the more serious one.
  One must recognize shades. It is a fair practice. Just as two
  wrongs don't make a right, equating two unequal wrongs don't
  make a right either.


13====

Often a judgement of unequal capability or skill between culture or
races is labelled as racism, discrimination, intolerance etc. But
It is the DENIAL of of equal rights or opportunities which should be
labelled as racism, discrimination etc,. Whereas an apriori judgement
not based on any objective criteria certainly is "prejudice" , but an
assertion of an inevitable fact of life that all are not or cannot be
equal, regardless of the criteria used is not racism, discrimination
or prejudice. Of course for a specific comparative judgement one must
use some objective criteria. We use such objective criteria to judge
individuals, thats why there are tests in life to choose the best and
to grade people , on the basis of their abilty, skill, talent etc by
some criteria. Note that a single person cannot excel others in every
category of skill, capabilty or talent. The same remarks can be made
about races or nations. One race/nation may be superior to another
(In an average sense) in certain category of traits by any objective
criteria. Such unequalness is inevitable. But to go a step further
and say that ANY person from race 'A' is superior to ANY person from
race 'B' is a racially prejudiced statement. Also care should be
taken in differentiating "rights" and "priviledges". Discrimination
applies to rights, not priviledges. There can be subjective criterion
in deciding when one bestows a priviledge to another. That cannot be
categorized as discrimination. But objective criteria must be used in
deciding rights. Often the results of a test/contest or judgement
about individual or groups are alleged to be influenced by bias of
the person or group evaluating the result even if the evaluation
method is demonstrably objective and fair. It is rooted in the
ingrained biased belief that no one can ever be truly unbiased. If a
group of people of different affiliation (race/ color/belief/gender
etc) are all subjected to a computerized test to assess their skill
or capability by some criteria (Which are race/color/belief/gender
neutral) then the outcome of the result will be very unlikely
labelled biased . But once humans are substituted for the computers
it is assumed that the cannot be objective at all. It is true many
people may not be objective but that does not mean it is automatic
that all judgements by human have to be biased. After all the it is
human who programs the objective criteria into the computer.

The fact of unequalness can be illustrated by a simple example. Let us
take two groups of people "A" and "B". Gropu A consist of five people
with grades 10,8,8,6,5 (The grade indicates some generic trait/
attribute left as a for discussion purpose) and Group B consists of
five people with grades 10,9,7,5,5. The average for group A is (10+8+
8+6+5)/5 = 7.4 and that of B is (10+9+7+5+5)/5 = 7.2. So group A has
a higher average grade than B. But both have a member with the
highest grade 10. Group B has a member with grade 9 which group A
doesn't. For two races it is highly unlikely that the average bewteen
them will be exactly same. So to say both race or nation are exactly
equal is a politically correct but logically absurd statement. It is
equally acceptable to ASSUME an unequal average one way or the other
in absence of any objective data. But again a race or nation being
better than another on the average doesn't mean that every member is
superior over every member of the other as is clear from the above
simple example. It is a well established scientific fact that many of
the human traits are biological variables which follow the bell-
shaped curve. So there will be a variability within any group, no
matter how the group is formed. Intra group variability is much
larger than intergroup variability. But certainly the mean or median
of one group will very unlikely be identical to another. One will
bound to have alarger mean or median than the other. The important
point that must be realized is that any comparative opinion or
judgement about cultures, races must not be apriori based on
perception. It has to be based on an objective scientific crietria or
a posteriori from evidence and/or observations. Also such judgement
has to be tentative and open to revision if evidence so suggests
later. Most importantly such judgement should only be limited to
theory or opinion, and should not be used officially as criteria in
real life to grant priviledges or to deny rights to individuals,
because as I mentioned earlier, avergae score of group of cannot be
an indicator of individual score . For such individual cases, only
objective criteria which does not take into account any comparative
judgement of the group (even when that judgement itself may be
supported by objective criteria) must be used, which is what for
example Equal Opportunity Employment symbnolizes in US where the
academia may have comparative theories about races, societies. And
thats what tolerance implies. Tolernace should not pre-suppose an
apriori equality between different cultures, or cultural relativism;
to assume beforehand equality, or unequalness one way or the other;
that is against scientific or rational thinking, Again to repeat,
any post hoc judgement of superiority or inferiority should NOT be
used to justify denying equal rights.


9=========

               What is Rationalism?

Rationalism is defined as using logic and evidence as the reliable
basis for testing any claims of truth, seeking objective knowledge
and forming conclusions about reality, independent of (but not
necessarily excluding it) sense perceptions. Free thinking, which is
intimately related to rationalism, is defined as the forming of views
about reality independent of authority or dogma, be it from a divine
or human source. If we stick to the strict definitions, then
freethinking is not synonimous with rationalism. One need not be
strictly rational to be a freethinker. A freethinker according to
this definition is allowed the leeway to believe or form any opinion,
not necessarily logical, as long as it is not influenced by any
existing religious, cultural or traditional dogma or authority. A
postmodernist (Read intellectual anarchist) may claim to be a
freethinker according to this non-restictive definition. But
rationalism is much more restrictive. It enforces logic and reason
as the guiding principle in thinking and forming opinions. So although
rationalism invariably leads to freethinking, the reverse is not
necessarily true. Nevertheless I will adopt a loose broader meaning
of freethinking to be synonimous with rationalism and use them
interchangeably. I have attempted to provide my own definitions in
a precise way in the article
Faith, Philosophy and Dogma to help set the criteria for
freethinkers/freethinking.

Rationalism as a philosophy demands some strict mental discipline
that many find hard to implement in their thoughts and actions. Many
may not even be aware that they are not being strictly rational. The
reason for this is that some mistakenly associate rationalism with
certain ideals and outlook that do not necessarily follow from
rationalism. Rationalism as a philosophy inevitably leads to
scientific method through logic and critical thinking. Therefore a
rationalist cannot subscribe a priori to any ideology, political or
ideological, nor can a rationalist make statement of truth that is
not a strict proposition. So for example, a rationalist cannot claim
to be a strict atheist, i.e cannot assert that "God does not exist",
since God is not a logically well-defined and meaningful concept,
all defintions of God in any religious context runs into
contradictions and logical inconsistency. So the existence or
non-existence of God are both logically meaningless to a rationalist.
A rationalist can only take a NONCOGNITIVIST position in the God
context. For more details on this issue please carefully review
the following two articles at :
1. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/definition.html
and
2. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/incompatible.html

I have also discussed the problems of defining God in the article:
God,Atheism & Secular Humanism

Does it mean a rationalist cannot have any opinion at all about
anything? Of course not. If an opinion does not contradict logic,
evidence or observation, ratilonalism does not prevent one from
forming a tentative opinion. For example it is not against
rationalism to hypothesize about all the POSSIBLE causes of a crime,
when definite evidence is missing to point to the actual cause. Same
can be said about theories to explain certain facts of reality. Thats
what science is about. Scientific speculation is just that. Theories
are just possible explanation about facts and observations. Before
theories can become laws they are just scientific opinions. But the
important point to realize is that rational opinions, although not
yet proven, are nevertheless consistent with logic or observations (i.
e does not contradict logic or observations) and should not use ill-
defined terms. Rationalism also cannot subscribe to a political party
based on any dogma, since dogma is not based on logic, evidence or
objectivity. Nor can rationalism require an a priori affiliation or
support for a non-dogma based poltical party. From a rational view,
support for a political party should be based on policies,
performance, efficiencies and other objective criterion, thus need
not be a static one, but changeable based on an ongoing assessment of
the fulfilment of those criteria. There is no such concept as party
loyalty in a rationalist vocabulary. Some intellectuals believe that
certain political stand in an ideological, social or political
controversy is required by rationalism, e.g leftist ideology, pro-
choice stand in abortion, nurturist stand in nature-nurture debate,
etc to name a few. But such a priori biased stand is not consistent
with rationalism either. Rationalists should be prepared to accept
any viewpoint led to by scientific and logical reasoning, even if
that goes against the popular trend of thinking. Rationalism is
ruthless, it does not pamper to one's emotional needs or wishes, or
care about political correctness. In personal life, that means one
has to subject even one's near and dear ones to ruthless scrutiny of
rationalism and be prepared to acknowledge, and be critical of any
negative aspects of one's near and dear ones and close friends, if
evidence so suggests, even though one may wish they were not true. A
rationalist may therefore not always be a popular figure with his/
her close friends and immediate relatives and may be misunderstood.
A truly rational man is a lonely man! By the same token, a
rationalist has to acknowledge, and criticize the shortcomings of the
race, religion he/ she belongs to, in a detached way totally free
from bias, as well as acknowledge the superior qualities of another
race, religion in a certain aspect, if evidence so suggests.
Rationalism cannot make an a priori assumption that all bad or wrongs
are equal, just because political correctness says so. Rationalism
demands doing the required homework to quantify and recognize shades
in right and wrong in morality and shades of good and bad in
attributes by some objective criteria when applicable. This requires
intellectual courage as it can potentially incur one the wrath of the
majority, for whom the priority is loyalty, pride, nationalism,
patriotism etc. But rationalism does not recognize such mental
constructs, or sets such priority. It only cares for logic and
evidence. Rationalism does not allow taking a stand just because it
is politically correct or popular. But that does not mean that
rationalism cannot lead to a stand that coincides with patriotic or
nationlsitic stand. They may coincide. But sometimes it may not. A
German rationalist in the 30's would not be led to Hitler's
brand of nationalism for example. Many intellectuals associate the
terms liberal, progressive etc with freethinking. But for them,
liberal, progressive etc are usually understood and judged by the
stand one takes, viz, pro-choice, left ideology, nurturist stand, a
puritanic belief that all are equally bad or equally good etc (i.e
cultural and moral relativism). But rationalism does not require one
to adopt such positions, and in fact in some cases may lead to the
opposite stand by scientific evidence and logic. I will not dwell on
the specifics of those scientific evidences as it is a topic on its
own and I am only interested on the general aspects of rationalism in
this essay. Even humanism, is not strictly derived from rationalism.
Humanism follows from rationalism if the postulate: "we should put
priority on the welfare of maximum number of humans irrespective of
race, color, creed, ethnicity etc." is added to rationalism. It must
be noted that all religions and dogmas claim human welfare as their
goal as well. But what differentiates their view of humanism from
rational humanism is that for them, that goal is claimed to be
achievable only through the implementation of their dogma. So dogma
comes first for them. Not only that, the priority for welfare in most
religions and dogmas is reserved for their followers. Some apologists
of theocracy claim that their religion is fair to all and treat all
equally. But even in their interpretation, the equality is still a
secondary one, whose criteria is decided by them once the rule of
their religious dogma is implemented, since other faith and religion
members by not being a member of the ruling religion can never be
equal to members of the ruling religion, by the simple fact of
asymmetry that one religion has control of state affair, the other
does not. A strict equality would require a secular rule, which a
religious apologist opposes in principle. But rational humanism does
not make that distinction or discrimnation, since rationalism implies
secular rule. Once humanism is arrived through rationalism, the
notions of democracy and secularism follows as corollary.

Symbolically:
Rationalism+Human good-->Humanism-->Democracy-->Secularism

Another point that many may have already wondered is that how can we
decide who is rationalist or not? After all, doesn't every one (
religion, dogma etc) claim they believe in logic and reason? Doesn't
every individual and every religion have their own logic? So how can
one not be rational? This is a tricky question that can lead to a
slippery slope if not examined carefully. Cultural and moral
relativists, postmodernists exploit such slippery slope to argue that
all are equal, nothing is more valid than another etc. But the logic
and evidence referred to in rationalism, is shared by humanity with
an overwhelming consensus crossing race, religion and affiliation etc.
In other words they are universal. Modern logic finds much in common
with the logic of early Greek, Hindu and Buddhist philsophers, as
well as the early Muslim rationalists during the time of the House of
Wisdom in Bagdad. This logic has been perfected and improved by later
philosophers, like Hume, Kant and many Mathematicians and logicians
of the twentieth century. This is the logic that is taught with tax
payer's funding in public schools in most nations of the world as
well as secular private schools. It is also the logic most humans
from all background agree to intuitively. This is also the logic
that has WORKED. It has led to the scientific method that has changed
the world, made predictions about nature that was tested and verified
to be true. It is also leading humanity towards continued advancement.
It is no surpirse that this is the logic that people have staked
their money in teaching and learning. There are a set of unambiguous
rules for valid logical reasoning, both informal and formal taught
in elementary logic class that can act as guide to resolve dilemmas,
ambiguities, paradox. contradictions, disputes etc. Contrast that
with the "logic" that person "A" uses to rationalize his own belief,
or the "logic" of religion"X" to rationalize that religion. Such "
logic" is not shared universally, nor has it demonstrated its utility
by coming up with any predictions, inventions or innovations, nor to
the discovery of any fundamental truth about nature or reality. A "
logic" that has been invented as a dedicated ploy to justify one
dogma or belief over others, is no logic at all. Besides such logic
does not have universal appeal. And logic must be accompanied by
evidence and objectivity that also is lacking religious claim of
rationalism.

Rationalism also implies skepticism. Skepticism requires one to doubt
any claim to truth, unless proven by evidence and logic, and to suspend
belief or judgement in absence thereof, which clearly follows from
rationalism. In personal life, such skepticism forces one to refrain
from forming judgement or drawing hasty conclusions about a person,
or opinion. In the absence of any evidence or logic a skeptic should
stay in a "do nothing" i.e neutral mode. This "do nothing" neutral
mode is a level most minds cannot recognize and needs some effort
to become at ease with it. Most feel tempted to form an opinion one
way or the other, even in the absence of any supporting data. If
and when the evidence or logic is available only then a skeptic can
form an opinion, that is dictated by the evidence and logic, not by
their wishful desires or biases. A rationalist has to have the
intellectual courage to acknowledge unpleasant truths. A rationalist
never gained/gains materially or otherwise by being rational. It is
just a philosophy that they find intuitively appealing to their
conscience.

Let me now turn to some mistaken notions about rationalism that is
quite common among many. Many think that rationalism means an
arrogant claim to infallibility, that rationalism never admits of
ever being wrong, that it denies the posibility that logic itself
may be wrong! All these are due to a lack of careful reflection.
First,  that one could be wrong is a trivial, self-evident
fact that is implicit. It is as self-evident like saying that
one cannot be sure that he or she will make it to the
destination as the flight may crash. Verbalizing that truism
about the limits and uncertainties in one' s knowledge is
a matter of humility. Humility is a personal trait.
Rationalism is a philosophy, not a trait. Rationalism does not
prevent one, nor does it mandate one to possess certain
personality trait. Secondly, to say that "logic" itself may be
wrong is to commit a fallacy. Because to judge something as  "
wrong" needs a logic of its own. One cannot use logic to judge
the same logic as wrong! We have assumed that there exists
only one system of logic that works best. Until we find a
better system of logic, it is a fallacy to judge that logic as
wrong. But saying that the "logic" is not wrong does not
mean saying that one cannot make mistakes. Mistakes are due to
an individual's limit or flaw in applying logic, not due to
logic itself. That is not to say that logic does not have its
limit either. The limit of logic reflects limit of humans.

 But there is no better way to overcome that limit than logic
itself. Anyway, that humility of the self-evident fact of
fallibility is built into the scientific method. Scientific
method, which is derived from rationalism is based on the
premise that there is no absolute or final truth, and that
any conclusion about reality is always tentative, subject
to continual revision in light of further evidence. But one
must not conclude that just because in certain instance one
could predict the truth correctly by non-rational (intuition
,guess) means that means intuition is superior to rationalism
as a means for seeeking truth. For example if a coin is
tossed, an intuitionist may intutively guess that the coin
will come heads up. A rationalist cannot predict the outcome
on the basis of logic and science (It is incredibly complex
calculation) If the coin does fall heads up, does it prove
that intuition is superior to rationalism? Of course not.

It is also mistaken to believe that rationalism can solve
all problems in life, or prevent them. It cannot. The
fact it cannot is because the truth in many situation in life
is not always known in advance for one to make the right
decision. Rationalism is limited by the knowledge or truth
that is needed in making an informed decision to solve or
prevent a problem. In an indeterminstic situation intuitive
guesses and judgement is inevitable. And the intuition
of rational person is not guaranteed to be right. So in those
situations in life where there are unknowns and uncertainties,
intuitive guesswork cannot be avoided. Rationalism is of no
help. For example, rationalism cannot guarantee one will
make the right choice in marriage or relationship. Rationalism
cannot prevent one from making mistakes in life. Gamble in
life cannot be totally averted through rationalism. Risk
cannot be either. More generally speaking, from an utilitarian
point of view, rationalism is no guarantee to material success
in life. Rationalism is a principle based on logic and evidence.
In an imperfect world, that is not always the sure route to
material success. Just like honesty is not.

Next, to many, rationalism means robbing one of the sense of
beauty, romanticism, love, compassion , i.e leaves one heartless
and devoid of emotions. This is a big myth. Rationalism stresses
separating the head from the heart, not REPLACING heart with head.
Certain things are intrinsically rooted in instinct, and thus
beyond rationalism. Love, fear, altruism, conscience (sense of
right and wrong), these are biologically rooted instincts.
Instincts are not controllable or influenced by rationalism.
Instincts are more or less rooted in our genes and manifested
through the workings of the limbic system of our brain. Whereas
rationalism results from the thought process determined by the
cerebral cortex. So a rational person can feel an instinctive fear
in certain environment, or can feel passionate love for certain
person. What differentiates a rational person from a less or non
rational person is the synaptic connectivities in their cerebral
cortex, not in their limbic system. So when it comes to primal
instincts controlled by limbic systems, for example self-
preservation, the difference disappears. In a life threatening
situation, like fight or flight situation, control is automaticaly
taken over by the limbic system from the cerebral cortex,
biological instinct of aggression may kick in, and at that point
whatever one does may not not dictated by rationalism anymore.
Taste is also instinctive. Rationalism has nothing to do with it.
Although rationalism does not decide or control our tastes and
emotions, it can however EXPLAIN (or at least try to through
scientific method) the basis of such emotions and likes or
dislikes. Rationalism cannot affect or control love. But
rationalism can ceratinly help explain the biological (in both
evolutionary and biochemical terms) origin of love, morality and
other human values and attributes. The same can be said about all
other instincts and emotions. So being rational does not by any
means deprive of those instincts, tastes and emotions and values,
because they are an integral part of being human, rational or not.
A neurologist does not lose his brain in trying to understand the
workings of the brain, nor does an evolutionary biologist ceases
to be a loving mate or parent in trying to explain and understand
the biological roots of love. Simply because we have no control on
our biological instincts, whether we are rational or not.

Another "reason" for viewing rationalism with cynical eyes by many is
because it is believed by them that humanitarian acts should come
from an emotional impulse, not from a rationalization process, which
does not take the compassion factor in the decision of such acts. On
first look, it may look like a noble view, putting heart before head.
But as I pointed out, compassion, humanitarian acts all are derived
from altruism, a biologically rooted instinct, so rationalism cannot
affect it. Although rationalism can certainly manage altruism in a
way that ensures optimum utilization of it. Impulsive altruistic acts
do not always lead to the best results. Rationalism can help to
channelize our altruistic instincts in the most optimal manner. At a
very personal level, of course even a rationalist can (and often does)
act out of an impulse in a humantarian act, since doing so is not
contradicted by logic. Rationalism is truly applicable in forming
opinions, judgements, learning the truth and solving problems, not
to instincts, or impulses that are non-judgemental or non-intrusive.

Lastly I will be remiss if I do not point out the challenge that
rationalism is facing from the postmodernist thinking that seems to be
gaining ground in recent years. Postmodernists are challenging that
very golden product of rationalism, namely scientific method by
insisting that scientific methoid is just one among many EQUALLY valid
route to truth and deserves no special priviledged status. This is
nothing but intellectual anarchism. Postmodernists are nothing but
armchair social scientists that have fallen much behind modern
scientific paradigms and are threatened by the scientific approach that
social science is adopting (rather being forced to adopt). They are
seeing with horror one after another social discipline is giving ground
to the exact sciences. Not being able to face upto the challenege of
the sciences some of them have chosenout of intellectual laziness,
the treacherous art of deconstruction and misapplying it to scientific
method. So rationalism now faces challenges from two fronts, religious
dogma (which medieval Europe successfully met during the
rennaissance), and postmodernism, which is a new challenge that
needs to be met. So the need to emphasize rationalism is more
now than ever.

9b===



 Reflections on Rationalism - II

In my earlier essay [Rationalism - It's Meaning and Implications]
on the occasion of last year's rationalist day I attempted a
definition and explanation of rationalism. I wish to continue on
further elaboration and clarification of rationalism, particularly
the relationship of rationalism with idealism and personal faith.
As I mentioned earlier that rationalism as a philosophy inevitably
leads to scientific method, because scientific method is based on
logic and evidence, two necessary element of rationalism.
Scientific method (Or simply Science) is nothing but applied
rationalism. Consequently any idea or view that contradicts science
or logic cannot be consistent with rationalism. Having said that I
must emphasize that any personal faith or ideology which is not
supported by logic and evidence but which nevertheless does not
necessarily contradict logic or evidence cannot be considered
inconsistent with rationalism. It is important to understand fully
the implications of the previous statement. Rationalism does not
disallow personal beliefs and ideologies that are not supported by
logic or evidence. Its just that those beliefs and ideologies
cannot be considered to be necessary elements of rationalism. For
example belief in the existence of alien life is neither supported
by logic nor evidence but does not contradict logic or evidence
either. Thus scientists can be divided in two camps on the belief
in alien life with neither camp violating rationalism. It is not
against rationalism to hold a personal belief unsupported by logic
or evidence (but not contradicting it). What is against rationalism
is to assert such belief as a true statement (proposition in the
jargon of logic). In other words a rationalist can hold a personal
belief but allowing for the possibility of his/her being wrong,
thus refraining from asserting the belief as a proposition (Again
to it must be reemphasized that a rationalist belief should not
contradict logic or evidence). That is what distinguishes a
rationalists' belief from that of a dogmatist. A dogmatist asserts
his/her belief as absolute truth. As a trivial example, one can be
rationalist and for some reason believe that he/she will die at age
82. But as a rationalist he will be well aware of the fact that his
belief can be wrong and that there is no logic or evidence behind
such a belief. Usually the reason for beliefs unsupported by logic
and evidence is gut instinct, intuitions etc, something that all
humans (rationalist or not) are subject to, due to biological
evolution. For example a person may instinctively feel scared by
the presence of some people in certain neighbourhood (The fear
translates into a belief that those people will harm him). A woman
may feel threatened by some man, in both cases there being no
conclusive evidence or logic to justify that fear. Someone might
feel scared walking in a graveyard alone at night. But all such
fear will still not be inconsistent with rationalism as fear is an
instinct, instincts are biologically hardwired in the primitive
part of the brain, not generated by the thinking part of the brain (
cortex). Rationalism is a result of brain's cognitive process,
although whether a person's brain will generate rational thinking
or not may in part be genetically hardwired.

What characterizes a rationalist is that he/she can reflect on him/
herself from a third person perspective and recognize his/ her
belief as not being a truth statement (proposition), but only a
belief due to personal reasons and consciously aware of the
possibility of his beliefs being wrong. The same is true in forming
judgmental opinions of others. If any such judgment is not
conclusively supported by sound logic (people often justify their
opinion of others based with logic that contains fallacies in it)
then a rationalist will only take a tentative opinion of others, if
at all he/she has to. This may sound obvious but it is surprising
to see how many people forming opinions not based on sound logic
about others with smug conviction about their being right about it.
Even some "freethinkers" have been seen to jump to a conclusion
about someone using flawed logic. For example when a person A says "
B says that X is true", it will be a fallacy for C to conclude that
A is implying that X is true. It only means that A is saying that B
is implying that X is true. It also does not mean that A is
implying that X is true in order to offer it as evidence that Y is
true. Such fallacious opinions are not uncommon among freethinkers
as well. As I mentioned it

What about a belief in God and soul? The statement "One will die at
82" is a proposition, a statement that is unambiguously true or
false. There is nothing undefined or ill-defined in that belief. In
the case of a belief in God or Soul it is a bit more tricky. The
question is whether belief in God or Soul contradicts logic or
evidence. It depends on how one defines God or Soul. These words
have defied a unanimous, logical, objective definitions. Many
definitions end up in self-contradictions. In some definitions such
a belief does contradict logic and/or evidence (as in most
religions), in others they don't (Almost invariably in these cases
the definitions reduce to labeling some existing set of notions, no
new objective reality is discovered). One can define God in an
abstract sense as the first cause of the laws of physics and then
hold the belief that such a first cause exists, or one can hold a
belief that there is no first cause of the laws of physics, the
laws of physics are the very cause of everything (universe). Both
view would be consistent with rationalism.

How about belief in paranormal, UFOs, apparitions etc? Again it is
not against rationalism to admit the possibility that these
phenomena might be real, that these are not mere illusions of the
mind, but are unexplainable events. It is also not against
rationalism to believe that these are illusions of the mind or are
just hoaxes. But to assert one view or the other as absolute truth
or fact, and that personal testimonies provide an evidence for
asserting them as truth or fact is contrary to rationalism. As an
example I wish to refer to a debate in Mukto-Mona forum on
paranormal phenomena where Ali Sina suggested his personal
testimony as evidence for the existence of paranormal [Check Debate
on Rationalism in MM] . While it is perfectly consistent with
rationalism to hold personal belief in the existence of paranormal
due to personal testimony, it is certainly against rational
thinking to out the personal testimony as an evidence for the
existence of paranormal phenomena. On the other extreme it is also
against rationalism to assert as truth that these personal
testimonies are hoaxes, fraud or illusions. Another example is UFO.
Ufologists cite the sheer volume of personal testimonies (many of
which are from credible people) as conclusive evidence of
visitation of aliens. Whereas Physicist Michio Kaku only admits the
possibility that UFO sightings CAN POSSIBLY be due to aliens. There
is a clear difference.

Now let me focus on ideology and morality vs. rationalism. It
should be clear that science and rationalism does not have any
inherent value judgment in them. There is no normative element in
rationalism. Ideological beliefs are by nature value laden. Certain
ideological social views are not objective statement of facts, so
are not dictated by rationalism. Examples of such ideologies are
views on homosexual issues (like gay marriage), abortion rights,
communism versus capitalism (in the sense of economic systems) etc.
On many issues on morality and ethics, one cannot take a rational
stand without the help of some additional moral axioms. In logic
one draws a conclusion using valid rules of inferences starting
from one or more premises( axioms). So to form a rational
conclusion on an issue of morality one has to rely on some axiom or
premise. An example of a premise may be to adopt "it is immoral to
kill an innocent life" as a moral axiom. Is the conclusion "
abortion is immoral" then rational? If life is understood as
defined in biology then it certainly is. If life is redefined as a
human being after birth then it is not a rational conclusion. So
the problem reduces to unambiguously defining "Life" in the axiom "
it is immoral to kill an innocent life", to decide if the
conclusion is valid or not. Although science defines life
unambiguously, that definition will not be acceptable to those who
have adopted an a priori stand that abortion is not immoral, as
that definition will contradict their ideological stand. At least
we can see that taking either position on abortion is consistent
with rationalism. But it will be inconsistent with rationalism to
adopt one definition of life in one context and another definition
in another context. That will be a fallacy of equivocation, nd
rationalism is inconsistent with logical fallacies. In the case of
abortion we saw that because of the ambiguity of the word "Life",
it is not possible to assign a rational status on a stand on
abortion. But in cases where a moral axiom is expressed in
unambiguous terms and is universally accepted as an axiom, then it
is possible to decisively judge if a conclusion based on the axiom
is rational or not.


10=======


    The Abortion Controversy - A Rational Approach

(Published in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/36867
 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uttorshuri/message/597)

PRELUDE: This is an attempt to debate rationally what is really
an issue that generates strong emotion, which makes it difficult
if not impossible to turn it into a purely rational debate.
Nevertheless I will attempt to engage in a logical approach to the
abortion issue. I must issue a caveat for those who have taken a
strong position one way or the other and will only repeat their own
lines no matter what point or counterpoint is offered, they may
very well skip this thread, because at the end of the day they will
find that they have wasted their time, becaue arguments based on
emotion do not count in logic. If my discussion appears to be tilting
towards one side more, that has to be viewed as a consequence of
the logic itself, since rationalism doesn't guarantee that both
sides of the argument will be equally valid. Logical reasoning should
not be value laden. Axioms of logic can reflect certain value
judgement, but by definition axioms are such that they are accepted
as true by majority consensus. Ethical debate on an issue can be
rationalized based on ethical/moral axioms. Once moral axioms are
adopted then any moral judgement can be analyzed in terms of those
moral axioms to decide if it is valid(i.e consistent with the axioms)
or not. In my discussion I will not try to take any absolute
position based on any religious or sheer personal belief. My
approach will be more like arguing that since we (i.e society)
accept moral axiom "A", then argument "B" is invalid, since it
is inconsistent with axiom "A", or that if we accept ethical axiom
"A" then argument "C" is valid, etc. Any value judgment apparent
in my discussions also should be seen as reflecting the widely
accepted moral axioms. My analysis will primarily be focussed on
pointing out the flaws (as judged in terms of the widely accepted
ethical axioms) in the argument commonly offered in abortion debate
axioms.

The abortion issue has two unrelated aspects that are subject to
debate and often get mixed up. One is the bioethical question as to
whether the ACT of abortion should be considered unethical and the
other is the political question of whether the right to decide the
life and death of the fetus completely belongs to the mother, i.e
the father cannot have any say on that.

These two questions are unrelated and it is logically possible to
take any combination of stands on these two questions. I will
follow the widely circulated terminology and refer to those who are
morally opposed to the act of abortion as pro-life and those who
are not as pro-choice. In the context of the second aspect (right
of abortion decision), I will refer to those who argue that it is
the mother's sole right to decide abortion as pro-mother, and those
who believe it should be a joint rights of the father and mother as
pro-parent, although these are not offcially used terminologies, I
willuse them just as shorthands to dintinguish the two positions.
Here "father" and "mother" are used in the biological sense, they
need not be legally wedded to each other.

The first issue is gender neutral and is a question whose answer is
bedevilled by the problem of differing views of what life is and
differing views on the ethicality of ending life. The first problem
can be resolved objectively with a knowledge of biology, specially
molecular genetics, neuroscience and embryology. But even such
objective resolution may not be acceptable to those whom it will
not favour in such an emotionally polarized issue as abortion. The
second problem of the ethicality of ending life is harder to
resolve but even here in principle an objective answer is possible
by evolutionary biology by judging the best odds for the survival
of species and gene propagation in such a choice. After all ethics
and morality are products of evolution. But again such resolution
will not be acceptable to the mother for sure who has decided to
undergo abortion, due to the inherent biological instinct of self-
preservation(The selfish gene paradigm). In deciding on an abortion,
the mother is putting more value on her own life than that of
the embryo.

The second aspect of the abortion issue, being an adversarial one
between genders, any logical resolution of the question may not be
equally acceptable to both genders. Only if rationality is placed
above emotion and gender interest, can the solution, if any, be
agreed upon in principle (But may not be agreeable though) by both.
I will try to address both the aspects rationally. In my discussion
of the first aspect, I may seem to be defending a pro-life stand,
but in fact my arguments do not reflect an apriori stand, but only
serve to emphasize that to be consistent with reason and with the
values and principles that are widely accepted, the common pro-choice
arguments provided in defense of abortion can be responded with
more defensible counter arguments. In my discussion on the second
aspect regarding the right to decide abortion, I want to issue a
the clarification: IT WILL BE ASSUMED THAT THE PREGNANCY DID NOT
RESULT FROM RAPE, BUT FROM A CONSENTUAL ACT OF LOVE.

I must point out that arguments do not have gender. They should be
judged on their own merit, not by the gender of arguer. I also
should point out that any pro-life position (by men or women) does
not necessarily mean anti-woman or lack of sensitivity toward woman,
or mean a lack of understanding about the woman's feelings, as is
often alleged in the abortion debate. It is this very spin on other'
s views that complicate abortion debates with extra baggage to
handle. Also it would be wrong (And sexist too) to dismiss a pro-
life view of a male as anti-women but not the pro-life view of a
woman. "Arguments have no gender" is a figurative way of saying
that the gender of those making an argument has no relevance. The
arguments against abortion by pro-life women are no different from
those of pro-life men, just as it is in case of pro-choice men and
women. Arguments are right or wrong due to their own merit, not due
to the gender of the arguer. But gender has nothing to do in
abortion debate. Often It is forced to be about gender just to
deflect the logic. If it was about gender then men and women would
have been divided on the abortion issue. But they are not. The
ethics of killing fetus has nothing to do with gender. The fetus
can be a male or female, an abortion decision can be made by the
woman, or forced on her by a man. A pro-life view should not be
dismissed as anti-woman. No one is opposed to abortion just because
it is the woman who aborts. A pro-life view comes from a principled
opposition to taking away the life of a fetus(male or female). If
men could conceive, a pro-life advocate would still be opposed to
men aborting the fetus. The ethical question or the arguments do
not depend on the genders involved in all these possible situations.
Mother Terresa was against abortion, and quite a vocal opponent too.
But none characterized her as lacking feelings and sensitivity?
Many pro-life men are vocal advocates of equal rights for gender
and against gender discrimination. Many feminists women are also
pro-life. So there cannot be any room for stereotyping based on the
views expressed in abortion debate.

To reinforce this clarification, let me present some quotes.

As Jane Abraham, President of Susan B Anthony List says:

"Poll after poll shows women are more pro-life than pro-abortion."

Here's some more :

1. There is an organization called "feminists" for life founded
  in 1972. Look at their site at:

http://www.feminsistforlife.org

their mission statement is at :
http://www.feministsforlife.org/who/index.htm

also read the article by Serrin Foster, President of Feminists for
Life at: http://www.feministsforlife.org/hot_topics/commonw.htm

2. There is an organization called "National Women's Coalition
  for Life". It is 1.5 million member organization, representing
  diverse cross section of women. Togther they carry with the
  knowledge, experience of all the problems that are mentioned
  in abortion debate. Their mision statement can be seen at:

  http://www.sandwich.net/sehlat/lifelink/ffl/plgroups.html

4. Pro-life Emmy Winning Actress Patricia Heaton, honorory chair of
  FFL says that "Abortion is a reflection that society has failed
  women."

5. Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) of the famous "Roe vs. Wade" ruling that
  legalized abortion in US turned pro-life. In fact she had filed a
  motion in federal court to overturn the 1973 decision.

6. Susan B Anthony the early feminist pioneer called abortion child
  murder. She further said:

  "Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire
  to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully
  guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in
  life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is
  he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the
  crime!"

7. "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
  - Alice Paul, feminist, author of the Equal Rights Amendment

8. "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is
  degrading to women that we should treat our children as property
  to dispose of as we see fit." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, feminist, 1873

I quoted all these not to defend pro-life stand, as I am committed
on a rational stand, but to reinforce the fact that pro-life stand
is not divided on gender lines. And that it will clearly be a
sexist view to imply that only pro-life men are insensitive toward
pregnant women's problem, not the pro-life women.

Also pro-life/choice stand is not divided on political/religious line
either, democrats are also pro-life(http://www.democratsforlife.org/),
not just the replublicans. So it would be unfair to dismiss any
pro-life stand as rightwing/bigotted. An atheist can be pro-choice
too as the sense of morality is primarily dictated by biological
instincts, not by belief in God necessarily, belief in God itself
being rooted in biological instinct.

With that prelude, let me now move on to the core of the abortion
debate.

In dealing with the first aspect of the abortion debate we must
first resolve two questions, because teh answers to these two
questions lie at the heart of the abortion debate. The two
questions are:

 (1) Can the embryo/fetus be considered as life?
 (2) Is destroying life unethical?

All the knowledge from biology, genetics and embryology in
particular lead us to answer in the affirmative for (1). To a
biologist or those familiar with the facts of biology such question
as to where/when life starts is not an issue. The formation of life
starts at conception, the moment sperm and ovum combine to form a
zygote. A zygote is the earliest stage of any human life. It has
all the basic criteria of a living being. All the criteria of life
(specially genetic code, ability to self-replicate, metabolism etc)
are present in the zygote. We all were zygote at one time. But even
if all humans were zygotes at one time, not all zygotes end up as
humans. Zygotes evolve into blastocysts through cell division. The
blastocyst then journeys down the Fallopian Tube and into the
Uterus and successfully attaches(implants) itself on the uteral
wall through the placenta. But this process of implantation is a
hit or miss thing. Sometimes it fails to implant itself and is
flushed out of the uterus and no human is ever formed. But once it
succeeds in implanting itself the blastocyst developes very rapidly
into a human being, who can live to be ninety years old. So it is
accurate to say that a human life really starts as an embryo (
implanted blastocyst). In fact since 1965, the American College of
Obstetrics and Gynecology has held that "Conception is the
implantation of the fertilized ovum. I will be freely using the
terms embryo and fetus in the discusions not drawing the technical
difference between them (embryo<8 weeks, fetus>8 weeks) as that
does not really matter in the argument of the discussions.

A common criticism is that if zygote or embryo is considered life
then why not human cell culture, sperm or egg? Why doesn't anyone
consider it killing a life when a sperm or egg is destroyed? Well,
a cell does not become human naturally. Neither does a sperm or egg.
Only a zygote (or more precisely an implanted blastocyst or embryo),
which is a product of the cooperative action of a man and a woman,
naturally evolves into a human. An zygote does not require any
further action for it to become human.

There is no disagreement in biology on the fact that a fetus meets
all the criteria of life. It is not a matter of opinion or taste,
but scientific fact. In fact French geneticist Jermoe L. LeJeune,
testified before a Senate Subcommittee, saying this:

 "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken
 place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter
 of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being
 from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention,
 it is plain experimental evidence."

It is not without a good reason that billions of Chinese count the
age of a human from the time of conception, not from birth.

Humanity also overwhelmingly agrees to an affirmative answer to (2),
with some exceptions. This agreement is also a biologically rooted
one, as destryoing life is anti-evolutionary. The exceptions where
destroying a life is acceptable is when it is determined that the
particular life in question itself is harmful for society/humanity.
Let me digress a bit on the value of life. The religious right has
hijacked the issue on pure religious grounds. But there is nothing
religious (or exclusively religious) about the value of life. It is
a biological fact that fetus has life, and a scientific fact that
life symbolizes the greatest depth of information. It is a fact
that evolution has programmed human mind to value life because life
has the highest information content. Information is the most
precious commodity for humans. A human genome has the information
that reflects 3 billion years of accumulated history of success in
surviving through trial and error. It takes the equivalent of 30
volumes of Encylopedia Brittania to write out the entire human
genome sequence in paper. The genome of a fetus contains millions
of years of evolutionary track record of successful mutation and
natural selection of both of its parents which it will have
eventually passed on to its offspring, preserving the track record
of human evolution. It is the fact of Molecular Biology, not the
irrational notions of God, soul etc which should really make one
pause and reflect on the value of life.

So if we accept yes as the answer to both the two questions above
then the abortion debate boils down to settling whether an act of
abortion satisfies the criteria of exception. Some accept yes to
(1) but not to (2) by trying to distinguish between "Life" and a
"person". They are morally opposed to killing a person, but not
life, if the form of life is not a person. This is a semantic
jugglery to defend their apriori stand on abortion in a post hoc
fashion. Saying that a person is worth preserving but not the
embryo is like saying that a plant is valuable but not the seed
(Which produces the plant), so one can destroy seeds at will. It
seems logically strange to value an object, but not the source of
that object, without which the object would not have come about
in the first place. Moreover there is a continuity from embryo to
person. There is as much continuity from an embryo to a neonate
as there is from a neonate to a ninety year old human. So this
arbitrary drawing of distinction between an embryo and a person
in deciding the ethicality of abortion is a convenient personal
expedient to justify post hoc one's personal apriori stand on
abortion. Certainly biology, which ultimately arbitrates morality,
does not not distinguish between an embryo and a post-partum human.
It is interesting to note that to one who decides to abort, an
embryo is not life, but to one who wants the child, embryo is
very much a life. But an embryo IS life, regardless of whether
it is aborted or nurtured to parturition.

Besides it is highly debatable and is not subject to scientific
criteria when to assign "personhood" to life. Personhood is a
matter of perception and definition, and thus cannot be used to
determine the ethicality of abortion, which carries with it the
important implication of ending a potential future life. Just like
people cannot use their own definition of personhood to justify
killing a autistic child, patient of severe alzheimer disease etc.
Using one's biased definition as a post hoc justification for
abortion or simliar act that affects other's lives is nothing but
moral relativism misapplied. But more importantly, "when" life
starts or when personhood can be assigned to life is irrelevant in
determining the morality of an issue. Morality should depend on
facts themselves, not on definition or perception of words.
Definitions cannot determine morality, only factual consequences
can. Definitions can change, facts/factual consequences cannot.
So morality should be tied to facts and consequences, not to
definitions of words. So even if people can differ as to when life
starts, no one can disgree on the facts that (1) a fetus has all
the vital signs of life, (2) that it will eventually develop into a
full human, and (3) that aborting a fetus has the factual
consequence of ending the potential future of the human that the
fetus would have grown into. It will be a trusim to say that if the
fetus of the reader of this post was destroyed, then reader would
not be reading this post. Like it is said: "It's easy to be pro-
choice when you're not the one being killed." This may sound like a
emotional soundbite, but it does capture the importance of valuing
the life of a fetus. We often thank our lucky stars for being saved
from inevitable death by some life saving act of intervention by
someone (for example being saved from drowning, resuscitation etc).
Now why should we not feel thankful if we found out that we were
spared from am impending act of abortion by some intervention? Just
because we could not actually consciously experience the act of
intervention of in this case, we should not feel lucky and thankful?
By what logic? In fact killing a fetus by someone else is deemed as
murder by the pregnant mother if she desires the child. Killing
fetus by another is also a legally punishable as murder as the case
of Scott Peterson being convicted for killing the fetus of his wife.
It is also pertinent to state that that (female)feticide is banned
in India. Sometimes pro-choice advocates contend that a fetus
cannot have right to life like a person because a fetus does not
have the ability to exercize right, a fetus has no free will. Again,
the point is that a if right can only apply when a right can be
exercized then an infant also has no right and thus cannot have
right to live by this logic. But that is never accepted. The same
can be said about an unconscious person, or even a sleeping person.
On the surface that may seem like a farfetched analogy but it is
not. A sleeping person will regain his/ her ability of exercize
rights in matter of hours whereas a fetus will attain it in matter
of years. There is no apriori objectivity in saying that ending the
life when the abilty to exercize right is years away is ethical but
is not if it is hours away. That will be a totally arbitrary and
expedient criterion. In abortion context the "right" of the fetus
is irrelevant, the relevant question is that of the value of the
life of the fetus. Some pro-choicer argue that the "interests" of
a potential human being should never outweigh those of an actual
thinking, feeling person. But that is really twisting the issue.
The issue is not a symmetrical one of the conflict of INTEREST of
the fetus with the INTEREST of the mother, but the assymmetrical
one of the conflict of LIFE of the potential human (fetus) with
the POTENTIAL HEALTH RISK/INCONVENIENCE of the mother. The view
that the life of the fetus is not worth the risk/inconvenience of
the mother is that of those pro-choicers, not of the majority of
humanity.

Some argue that abortion should be ethical up to the 15th week of
pregnancy, because that is when the spinal cord and brain become
fully active in the fetus and so only after that can it become the
right to child's life issue. There is an ethical and logical
dilemma in this position. Setting the criterion to draw the line of
ethicality in killing a fetus to be a fully formed spinal cord/
brain as the is a flawed one. Aside from the fact that there is no
magic threshold for the nervous system from 14th to 15th week, it
is still a continuous transition, but first of all, the neurons,
the main player of the brain form and multiply continuously
througout the gestation. Secondly if one sets the criterai of
ethicality of killing based on the ability to feel the pain of
killing (via the nervous system) then for consistency by that
criteria it would be ethical to kill a person by painlessly
overdosing them with anasthetic (Or any other means of euthanasia).
So the 15 week threshold is only a convenient one for someone to
plan an abortion ahead and justify it by doing it before the 15th
week. It is not a meaningful ethical rationalization at all. If it
is 100% unethical to abort on the 16th week, it cannot be 0%
unethical on the 14th week, because there is a gradual evolution
(ontogeny) of the embryo. An ethical decision should be less
conditional.

A utilitarian pro-choice argument that is often offered is that the
fetus is that a fetus is not a functioning member of society and
actively contributing to it like a fully grown human is. That is
also not a convincing one. A healthy infant also hardly contributes
actively to society and the world. By that the same logic of
utilitarianism, an old and sick person does not contribute to the
society and may even become a serious liability for his or her
spouse or son or daughter. But humanity does not view killing such
persons as being ethically acceptable, although killing such
persons are not anti-evolutionary either. Also the analogy of
sleeping person may be invoked here too. A fetus will contribute to
society in matter of years vs. hours for a sleeping person, an
arbitrary distinction.

Another pro-abortion argument is often made by citing women's
financial hardship. We are excluding the case of rape here, only
focussing on pregnancy due to consentual act of love. If we agree
that abortion is taking away a life, then financial hardship cannot
morally exculpate one from the act of ending a life. If women
cannot avail of contraception resources, that is no excuse, she can
ask the man to take male contraceptive measures, which are cheap
and easily available. She can refuse to have any intimate
relationship if the man refuses to use them. Another common
argument of pro-choice advocates is that the woman has to go
through complications and travails of pregnancy, sometimes risking
her life, so she has the right to choose what she thinks is best
for her. Again, assuming the premise that ending life is considered
ethically unacceptable, this misery clause does not justify making
an exception in this case, particularly in the case of unintended
pregnancy, because such pregnancy could have been avoided by taking
appropriate birth control measures. Engaging in act of love out of
impulse without taking the necessary precaution and then killing
the fetus after pregnancy just to relieve oneself of all the pains
and tribulations of pregnancy or due to the anticipated hardship of
taking care of the child is an easy but irresponsible way of
solving one's personal problem. This can be no more justified than
the killing by drowning of two babies by their mother Susan Smith,
as the children appeared to be liabilities and getting in the way
of her relationship with her boyfriend. She chose an easy way out
of her problems by killing her babies instead of acting responsibly.
The responsible way to solve is by taking the steps to prevent
conception,or to undertake the responsibilty of rearing the child
by making whatever sacrifice necessary. Moreover if abortion can be
justified by citing such hardship clauses, then that can also be
applied to the case of spouse/son/ daughter of a seriously ill
person who may argue that he/she is suffering immensely in taking
care of the ill soul and hence has the moral right to take the old
sick person's life to bring an end to his or her own suffering,and
that no one should have any moral say on his or her decision. So
the case of justifying abortion with the utilitarian/hardship
argument is no more convincing for taking life in all these other
cases, if we value life using such an utilitarian point of view.
There is essentially no difference. But the latter is ethically
unacceptable by widely accepted values and principles. So for
consistency ethicality cannot be decided by a utilitarian argument
in abortion case only. That would be a personal expediency to
justify an end.

Another common argument to justify legalizing abortion is that
otherwise women will resort to unsafe abortion methods, citing
statistics. Once again if we agree that abortion IS taking away of
a (human) life, then the ethicality of remains the lingering issue.
It amounts to saying that abortion should be made legal because
then the life of a fetus can be taken away without any risk to the
mother. In other words the life of the fetus is not considered
worth the risk that a mother may face during childbirth. Apart from
that there is a problem in citing statistical reference for making
an ethical judgment. A statistical data is irrelevant in an ethical
question like ending a life. Second, the statistics itself is
subject to controversy. The claim that there were many abortion
related deaths prior to 1973 than after has been challenged.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson who was one of the original leaders of the
American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L.
(National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become
pro-life admitted that he and other abortion rights activists
intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as
a result of illegal abortions. Yes, Dr. Nathanson was a liar,
as he himslef admitted, but I am not using his lies to make any
point here, but pointing out his confession of having lied about
the numbers of deaths due to illegal abortions. This is borne out
by the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics,according to which there
were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the
year before abortion was legalized, not thousands as the abortion
right activists had claimed.

Another point is made that what is true in one society/culture may
not be true in another, due to the social reality being different
in the two societies (for example US vs. India). Such pro-choice
advocates label a pro-life stand as being insensitive to the needs
and plight of the pregnant women unique to some societies. This is
an example of cultural relativism. But the ethicality of ending
life cannot be culturally relative. Cultural/moral relativism can
only make sense for non- universal (i.e relative) issues, where the
subjectivity of the moral value does not lead to adverse factual
consequences. A good example is the issue of whether informing the
sex of a fetus to the parent is ethical or not, as is sometimes
raised. That is truly a relative moral issue. Because knowledge of
the sex of a fetus in itself is never unethical in a absolute sense,
like ending a life is, becauuse a knowledge is never anti-
evolutionary, like ending a life is. So one is free to think if
such knowledge should be immoral (illegal to be precise) in one
context and moral (legal) in another. Because such definitions do
not legitimize an act that is unethical in a self-evident and
universal sense (like taking away a life). Anyway the important
point is that in unplanned pregnancy resulting from consentual act
of love, be it in or out of wedlock, pregnancy could have been
prevented by taking necessary measures. It is not proper to make a
post hoc rationalization of such an important ethical decision as
ending the life of a fetus. Point can be made that acting
preemptively is the moral imperative here. A defensive argument for
abortion citing the problems of social attitude toward childbirth
from unwanted pregnancy(social stigma, job discrimination etc),
amounts to adopting a defeatist attitude towards such evil social
attitudes and customs and resigning to it, where in fact it should
be questioning and challenging them, to stand up to them. Aborting
a fetus to avoid social disgrace amounts to condoning and
perpetuating those very social evils that the abortion is trying to
avert. Its like instead of condemning rape or rapist, one starts
advocating the right of parents to force their daughters to wear
veils (as would be the case in Muslim societies) to avoid getting
raped, which amounts to putting the burden on the victim to avoid
rape, not on the perpetrator. Rather the moral imperative should be
to strive against such social discrimination, create awareness about
the wrongness of such attitude, and to create awareness that single
parenthood is not wrong, create lobbies and organizations to
provide legal protection to victims of such discrimination, rather
than just advocate the right to abort a fetus, effectively putting
the burden of averting the consequences such social evils on the
fetus by killing it. Moreover, to justify abortion in this context
implies that the potential life of the fetus is dispensable enough
to end it in order to just prevent social disgrace of the mother,
or to prevent the mother from not getting a job etc. Abortion in
this context thus really amounts to committing an ethically
questionable act of ending of a life to AVERT, NOT SOLVE those
social evils. The issue of the ethicality of ending a future life
or abortion right cannot be contingent on the presence of social
evils. As an example, we do not focus on the right of poor parents
to rob or steal or justify it so they can pay the dowry for their
daughters' marriage to prevent their daugher from being tortured by
her in laws (and husband) for dowry, which is a realistic scenario
in India and Bangladesh for example. Many women face beating by
husbands for not persuading her parents to pay up dowry. Some
clever parent may start a "right to steal/rob" movement citing the
plight of daughters under pressure from in laws and husbands for
dowry. One can then retort to an opponent of such rights by the
same argument we are seeing here, you are being insensitive to the
daughter's plights, feelings etc. But this is not the case in
reality nor is that socially accepted. So by the same token, it
does not make sense to make abortion a women rights issue just for
solving anticipated social problems of pregnant women. It basically
boils down to the question, does the end justify any means? The
means here meaning ending a future life in the making, and the end
being to avoid a possible hardship. If ending the life of a fetus
was not ethically questionable we would not be debating.The
ethicality of ending a life is not contingent on the presence or
absence of other social evils. We cannot do much to reddress many
social evils. We cannot do much to end poverty. But that does not
mean we should not be morally against theft or defend theft as a
means of avoiding financial hardship. We cannot do much to end the
problems of pregnant women in India fpr example. But that does not
mean we cannot question the ethics of killing a future life,
specially when we do know that conception in many cases is possible
to prevent, and abortion in those cases is unjustified and
tantamount to trivializing fetal life. At least there needs to be
an acknowledgement by all that there is an ethical dilemma in
abortion, it will be disingenuous to pretent there is no ethical
dilemma in abortion. Another point that can be made is that there
are alternatives to abortion to solve these problems of unwanted
pregnancies measures like orphanage or adoption. The demand for the
number of adoptions globally is probably not less than the number
of abortions. And it should not matter that the parents seeking
adoption are from a different country or culture. For a pregnant
mother who does not desire to have her child it should hardly
matter who adopt their child. It should not matter to the fetus
either. Ask any grown up adopted child, would they rather been
aborted by their mother than adopted by a foreign couple? There
are many cases of an adopted child, who was a potential target of
abortion, growing up to be a fruiful member of society. We preach
the golden rule of giving the benefit of the doubt. If there is the
slighetst doubt that whether an unwanted fetus will grow up to be a
fruitful member of the society then the benefit of the doubt means
giving the fetus a chance to live. Adoption is a wordlwide demand.
In this age when the world is a village it should be no problem to
arrange adoption on a global cross cultural, cross national basis.
In fact there is so much demand for adoption that it has even been
suggested that it is lucrative area for private enterprise, just
like mail order bride has become. And certainly a better population
control strategies should be adopted as has been suggested.

The only situation that deserves special consideration is the rare
case of tubal or ectopic pregnancy, where the life of both mother
and fetus are at risk and abortion can help to save the life of one
(the mother in this case). Self preservation is the abiding
principle of biology, so at least the mother's wish to abort to
save herself in such cases is consistent with biological imperative
So there is less or no ethical dilemma in such cases.

Now let me address the second aspect of abortion relating to who
has the fetal right and thus the right to make the abortion
decision. I am assuming this to mean the right of the mother vs.
the father of the fetus. My points do not apply when it is meant as
right of the mother vs. the state or the society. It is not fair to
say without qualification that abortion is ONLY a woman's right to
choose. This also lumps the case of a rape by a stranger on the
same footing with consentual act of love between two lovers having
mutual feeling. Pregnancy can occur in both cases, but obviously
the situation that led to it are very different. Its only fair in
case of rape. A woman cannot conceive without a man and in a
pregnancy not resulting from rape they both have equal
responsibilty. Again as a reminder, all the discussion that follows
it will be assumed that the pregnancy occured due to a consentual
act of love. The common ground for advocating abortion as women's
right issue is that it is the woman who has to go through the
complication and travails of pregnancy. The travails of a pregnancy
is built in nature and its not a pain that one is voluntarily
taking over from another. A natural event cannot entitle one to a
greater right just by that fact alone. This becomes a human rights
issue (or an equal/ proportional rights issue). One entity's (
gender,race etc) right cannot be at the cost of another's. If
hypothetically lets say that conception could occur in both female
and male and could be chosen by some means and then if a woman
graciously agreed to volunteer to do it then she would have by that
very act deserved a higher rights over man or conversely the man
would be deemed to have relinquished his share of rights by not
volunteering.Granted, the woman goes though the travails during
pregnancy. But a woman's travail's should not disqualify a man' s
right. A person can be disqualified from rights only by his/her own
wrongful act or conduct. "A" cannot lose his/ her rights due to "B"'
s hardship. "A" can lose "A"'s rights due to "A"s own
irresponsibility or misconduct. Also person "A"'s right cannot be
curtailed or denied because nature happens to endow "B" with
certain biological characteristics. B's right cannot be at the
expense of that of A. In the present context, denying a man's share
of ownership of the fetus because nature happens to place the fetus
in the women's womb is nothing but gender discrimination(reverse)
in disguise.

It is also contended often by pro-choice advocates that a fetus is
part of a woman's body, and hence she should have rights on the
fetus to decide what she can do with it as her body part, no one
else should have any say as to what she can do with her body. The
counterpoint to this is:

A fetus is certainly not an organ or body part of the woman. Of
course no one can have right over anther's body. But an embryo is
not part of her body like her other organs are. A fetus is rather
UNLIKE all other body parts of the mother. The only fact that we
know for certain and is relevant here is that unlike all the other
body parts, the fetus contains genes (in the chromosomes) from both
the father and mother. Unlike all the other body parts, the fetus
requires the joint participation of both the mother and father for
its creation(birth). A fetus is not a body part but a sovereign
body of another human in the making. Unlike all the body parts,
which are permanent part of her body, the fetus will leave the
mother's body to become a separate human, carrying the genes of
both the parents. The reasoning that the woman should be the sole
owner of the fetus becasue it resides in her body is a post hoc
(after the fact) reasoning. Ownership has to be an apriori
principled decision, not based on a post hoc observation. Doesn't
the mother (and the father) agree(take for granted rather) that a
child AFTER birth belongs to both parents?. That is certainly not
because of the factual observation that the child is no longer
inside her body, rather because of a principled understanding of
the fact that the child is the fruit of a joint effort by both the
parents. That principled agreement should hold regardless of
whether the child is inside or outside the body of the mother.
Saying that a fetus belongs to mother only would be exploiting a
biological advantage of the woman, not a principled statement.

In determininig whose sole right it should be to take a decision of
such magnitude as to end or save the life of the fetus, one should
ask what is more relevant, the subjective definition of fetus as a
body part of the women, or the objective fact that the fetus is
made from the most vital ingredient of life, the gene from both
parents etc? The most basic urge of all life forms is preserving
and propagating the gene. It is a biological imperative. So it is
biologically fair to factor in the the sentiment of the father also,
whose gene the fetus is carrying as well.

We can cite another example to illustrate the problem of the
reasoning that the woman should be the sole owner of the fetus
because it resides in her body. Can a surrogate mother bearing the
fetus of a test tube baby on behalf of a couple suddenly claim
ownership of the fetus and decide to abort it, saying it is part
of her body, not the couple's? What logic will be invoked then? So
beyond that convenient definition the fact that should not be
missed is that a fetus is also the offspring or the sexual product
of the man and the woman temporarily attached to the womb of a
woman, during the first nine months of its life. A fetus is not
something that a woman acquires from birth but is an entity that
was created by a joint collaboration, so to speak between a male
and a female and hence it cannot be the sole property of one or the
other. Any common sense law says that anyone who is involved (In
whatever way, directly or indirectly) in an activity/project,
acquires rights on it proportional to his/her contribution to such
an activity/ project. Just because the embryo physically resides in
the mother's body cannot entitle her to a full ownership. Take an
analogy. If "A" and "B" jointly bought an article for use by both,
then even if the article (TV. etc anything) stays in "A"'s room,
it still is a joint property and "A" cannot lay full claim on it.
Only a property that anyone aquires solely on their own gets full
ownership. One may argue that if the TV becomes a hazard for A,
then A has the right to dispose of the TV. But if the hazards are
well known in advance, the agreement to keep the TV in A's room
should have already factored in the hazards. So it still does not
entitle A to a unilateral action. Only when a woman chooses to
become pregnant by insemination through sperms purchased or donated
through a sperm bank, then she has total ownership of the embryo.
And she can do whatever she chooses to with it. The sperm donors
effectively relinquished their rights on their sperm by donating/
selling it to the sperm bank. One can still call a fetus a body
part of the women if they insist as long as the definition is not
used to make an ethical decision on the fate of the fetus or
establising a sole right on the fetus.

Often pro-choice advocates argue that it is the mother who
sacrifices and nourishes the fetus, so a man cannot have any say on
abortion of the fetus. If pro-choice advocates argue that the fetus
is the sole ownership of the mother and not the father, then that
argument can be turned around and one can ask, will the pro-choice
accept that in case the mother does not choose to abort, should it
also be her sole responsibility to look after the fetus, that men
should have no responsibility (Like contributing to the maternity
care that the expecting mother needs), as he has zero ownership of
the fetus? The argument cuts bothways. But even the argument that
it is the mother alone who is nourishing and sacrificing to bear
the fetus is flawed. The mother is no doubt provides nutrition to
the fetus. But she only acts as the conduit. The food and care that
a pregnant mother herself needs is not necessarily self-provided.
The father contributes significantly. (Again we are excluding the
case of deadbeat father where the mother is forced to handle
everthing one her own, in which case he forfeits his rights on the
fetus). So the argument that it is the mother who is solely bearing
the burden of bringing up the fetus is not a convincing one.

The moot point is that a pregnancy is a joint rights and
responsibilities issue, not of one or the either exclusively.
Responsiblities and rights go hand in hand. Irresponsiblities
always forfeit a right. A criminal is forced to stay in a jail
forfeiting his/her rights to a free movement although he/she was
entitled to the right to move about freely like the rest, but the
criminal act forfeited it. If a man doesn't stand by the pregnant
woman and walks away from her after pregnancy then that would
amount to an irresponsible act and he effectively has relinquished
his right. So in this case all the right of abortion goes to the
woman naturally. But in all other cases its a shared right and the
decision of abortion has to be made jointly on a consensus basis.
So to say without qualification that a man has 0% right on abortion
decision period is grossly unfair and would be clearly equivalent
to saying that a man has 0% right and woman has 100% just because
of their genders and would thus be a highly sexist statement
(against men) in the same manner that so many sexist statements
are made (against women). Two wrongs don't make a right.

In conclusion the crux of the debate is the distinction that
pro-choicers draw between embryo/fetus and person. They agree
that both have life but since embryo is not actually a person,
and does not have a mind to feel or to exercize free will so
an embryo/fetus cannot have right to life like a person has or
that the value of the life of a fetus cannot outweigh the
problems of a person (the pregnant mother in this case) and
hence it justified to end of the life of the fetus if necessary
to solve the problems of the mother. My argument in this essay
has been to refute this argument by pointing out the inconsistency
of this view with the usual ethical values that we all adopt.
The only way such view can be self-consistent is if one abandons
any ethical position on the value of life and only adopts a
completely utilitarian position on life when ending or preserving
life valuing life is a matter of practical expediency, not ethics.

At the end, like all moral judgments in society the legality
of abortion would be decided by the democratic process in a
society, or determined by some mechanism representative of that
society, as dictated by evolutionary pressure, which is also
changeable. Individual opinions can vary over a wide spectrum,
My discussion was to dwell on the rationality of the arguments
presented in typical abortion debate. I do anticipate critical
responses from members. To save time for myself and the readers
I will not respond to any criticism/question that could be
answered/refuted from what is already contained in my essay.
Only if a criticism/question require points not covered in my
essay will be addressed.


 
12======

            FAITH, PHILOSOPHY & DOGMA

Let me start with a definition of each of the terms and follow up
with detailed discussions of each.

1. FAITH: A PERSONAL belief of any kind that is not verified and
  supported by logic and evidence. Some personal beliefs MAY
  contradict the strict rules of logic (The classic example of an
  omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of the universe).
  An important attribute of faith is that it has no implied
  compulsion in it. It is not derived from some divine or human
  authority demanding the belief. It is upto an individual to
  believe or not. The belief is also held to be an absolute truth,
  and no possibility of its being false is allowed. Faith, by its
  definition, is non-intrusive. A faith of "A" does not force any
  act or thought on "B". So it follows from the preceding attribute
  that faith is harmless, since a faith by "A" does not in any way
  affect "B".

 Examples of Faith:
  Faith in Pegasus, Santa Claus, round square, reincarnation,
  An omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent GOD etc.

2. PHILOSOPHY: A PERSONAL view or belief about reality which
  may or may not be supported by logic or evidence, But unlike
  faith, NEVER contradicts logic or observation, nor does it
  insist on its being true in an absolute way.

  Example:
   Spinozza's nature God, Pantheism, Omega Point Theory,
   Process theology, Socinism, platonism, humanism, atheism(Only
   in the sense of not subscribing to theism), agnosticism
   (defined anyway), humanism, secularism, rationalism, skepticism..

  Note: Philosophy shares the attribute of non-intrusiveness (does
  not affect or require participation of others ) and
  harmlessness of faith as well.

3. DOGMA: A dogma is a belief or a system of beliefs, not based
  on logic or evidence, but claimed as absolute and final, not
  to be questioned or subject to any revision or affected by
  any observation or facts of reality. A dogma is believed to
  be directives from a divine or human authority and contains
  imperatives of the type "SHOULD(NOT)", "MUST(NOT)", "HAS TO/
  CANNOT" for all to obey, and not to be questioned. So a dogma
  has a political aspect in it by its implied imposition of its
  beliefs and directives on ALL, through threat and coercion. A
  dogma thus necessarily interferes in the private life and is
  intrusive in nature.

   A dogma always invariably prescribes a set of rules and
  conducts for its believers (often discriminating between
  genders) as well as for the non-believers. Thus a dogma has
  the potential to be harmful IF it is implemented puritanically
  with zeal and vigour. Examples are the dogmatic part of
  (i.e the political part) of Judaism, Islam, Chrsitianity,
  Communism, various cults .


DISCUSSION:
Faith and Philosophy can sometimes be combined, e.g Buddhism,
Hinduism. Some organized religion can contain elements of all
three, like the three Abrahamic religions. A system of belief
based on dogma is not necessarily harmless, despite the presence
of the faith and philosophy part in it. It may or may not be
dangerous depending on how puritanically the dogma part is
enforced or implemented. A system of belief that does not
contain dogma is not dangerous per se. A follower or a group
of followers may subscribe to both a dogma "A" and a philosophy
"B", for example, A=communism, B=athesim. The classic fallacy
among many, as the quote below from an article demonstrates,
is to characterize the acts of extremism of such a person
committed in the name of "A" , as being due to "B":

   "genocides have occurred for causes rooted in religion
   as well as in other philosophies, including atheism"

This fallacy is often due a deliberate attempt to discredit
atheists, in defense of the theists. And the defense of the
theists, as I can understand from the article is due to an "
empathy" for the theists, as they are viewed as the victims, whom
the tyrant atheists are supposedly attempting to rob of their
only pain management tool (Read "belief in God") by trying to
debunk the notion of God!. And the atheists hardly deserve any
empathy in the face of the harshest personal attack (being
declared Immoral, inhuman etc), and intimidations by the theists.
I can't see how an atheist can ever hurt a theist by trying to
logically refute theism. Since theism requires a faith, how can
logic affect faith? So this empathy to me is misdirected. Whether
or not atheism is a less logical tenable notion than agnosticism
is an altogether different philosophical question, which has been

addressed in my article GOD,ATHEISM & SECULAR HUMANISM.
But I see no reason to imagine a paranoid state of theists caused
by atheists and to feel empathy out of that imagined paranoia.

The example of Stalin is a popular one touted by critcis of
atheism or secualrism to prove that atheism leads to atrocities.
But Stalin did not commit atrocities in the name of "atheism",
but in the name of communist dogma (Or his version of it : "
Stalinism"). One can never commit atrocities in the name of
atheism. Betrand Russell was an avowed atheist. He could not
have any committed any atrocities, no matter how hard he tried,
in the name of atheism, SINCE HE DID NOT BELIEVE IN ANY DOGMA.
No one can come up with any example of anyone committing
atrocities solely because of atheism. All attrocities are
committed by theocratic or communist regimes , to enforce their
dogma by coercion, or by an oligarchy (military or otherwise)
to crush any opposition to its rule.


             REFERENCES & BOOK REVIEWS

SECTION-A. FIVE OUTSTANDING BOOKS:

Authors:

Paul Davies:

1. GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS

Here Paul Davies tries to answer or at least set the right tarck
of answering the ultimate questions about reality and existence,
using the findings and language of the new science of the 20th
century. He takes a scientific look at the questions previously
considered to be the domain of religion and traditional
metaphysics, like creation of universe and its fate, soul, free
will, consciousness, etc.

A listing of the contents will throw a glimpse of whats in store:

CONTENTS:
Science and religion in a changing world; genesis; did God create
the universe?; what is life? - Holism vs reductionism; mind and
soul; the self; the quantum factor; time; free will and
determinism; the fundamental structure of matter; accident or
design?; black holes and cosmic chaos; miracles; the end of the
universe; is the universe a " free lunch"?; the physicist's
conception of nature.

2. THE MIND OF GOD

Here Davies discusses the role of mathematics in understanding
nature's workings. Specifically the mystery about why mathematics
works so well in explaining nature. He also discusses and
speculates on the question if if life and intelligence are
inevitable result of the laws of nature at work, in other words
is it contingency or necessity etc. Here is the complete listing
of contents:

CONTENTS:
Part 1 Reason and belief: the scientific miracle; human reason
and common sense; thoughts about thought; a rational world;
metaphysics - who needs it?; time and eternity - the fundamental
paradox of existence. Part 2 Can the universe create itself?: was
there a creation event?; creation from nothing; the beginning of
time; cyclic world revisited; continuous creation; did God cause
the Big Bang?; creation without creation; mother and child
universes. Part 3 What are the laws of nature?: the origin of law;
the cosmic code; the status of the laws today; what does it mean
for something to "exist"?; in the beginning. Part 4 Mathematics
and reality: magic numbers; mechanizing mathematics; the
uncomputable; why does arithmetic work?; Russian dolls and
artificial life. Part 5 Real worlds and virtual worlds:
simulating reality; is the universe a computer?; the unattainable;
the unknowable; the cosmic programme. Part 6 The mathematical
secret: is mathematics already "out there"?; the cosmic computer;
why us?; why are the laws of nature mathematical?; how can we
know something without knowing everything?. Part 7 Why is the
world the way it is?: an intelligible universe; a unique theory
of everything?; contingent order; the best of all possible
worlds? beauty as a guide to truth; is God necessary?; a dipolar
God and wheeler's cloud; does God have to exist?; the options; a
God who plays dice. Part 8 Designer universe: the unity of the
Universe; life is so difficult; has the universe been designed by
an intelligent creator?; the ingenuity of nature; a place for
everything and everything in its place; is there need for a
designer?; multiple realities; cosmological Darwinism. Part 9 The
mystery at the end of the universe: turtle power; mystical
knowledge; the infinite; what is man?. An interesting quote from
part 7 (Under "a unique theory of everything?" ): "Even the
process of thinking involves the disturbance of Electrons in our
brains. These disturbances, though minute, nevertheless affect
the fate of other electrons and atoms in the universe."

3. THE COSMIC BLUEPRINT

Here Davies discusses the role of complexity and self organization
in complex sytems like life, weather, evolution, consciousness etc.
Explains how order arise out chaos. Discusses the question of whether
universe is designed by some kind of "comsic blueprint" or a result
of some random accidental process? Emphasizes holistic aspects of
emergent phenomena and the limitations of reductionist approach in
understanding complex systems.


4. THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY: -- Frank Tipler

Here "God" has been discovered through laws of pure physics by
one no- nonsense Physicist of repute in the rank of Stephen
Hawking, Roger Penrose etc. A Caveat: The God in Tipler's Book is
very different from the Personal God of most revealed religions.
It is defined as the convergent point (Omega Point) of all the
possible quantum cosmological histories of SpaceTime (i.e
universe) into the c-boundary, where knowledge/information
assumes infinite extent and thereby becomes an omnipotent/
omniscient entity capable of resurrecting all finite past beings
by a simulation process from its stored history. The term
resurrection has to be understood in this very different sense
from the naive one. It is a Physicist's "God" and "Resurrection"
so to speak. I think Tipler has done his homework and paid all
the dues (It takes formidable cerebration to master the fields of
Global General Relativity, Quantum Cosmology, Particle Physics
etc.) before coming with such a dramatic original approach to
eschatology. He displays an awesome depth of diverse fields (Each
page of this 500 page book quotes/ cross references works of
scholarly nature on Philosophy, Theosophy, Logic etc) and builds
upon established scientific principles in an authoritative way
unlike those advanced by pseudoscientists who have a smattering
of scientific principles and take cues from Scientists'
quotations (without really understanding in depth Quantum
Mechanics, Cosmology etc) and adding it in a catchy way to their
ideas to propound their theories of "quatum healing", body and
mind etc. To fully understand Tipler's derivation of "God" one
has to master the most advanced concepts of Global General
Relativity, Cosmology, Particle Physics, Computer Science,
Evolutionary Biology etc. Otherwise just have to take his word
for it and be content with it. But at least accepting his theory
on faith is much preferable over accepting as faith preachings
made in a matter of fact way with no attempt to base them on
sound logic/knowledge by people with much less knowledge in
ancient past (all the reasons for existence of God was statements
like " How can there be mountains, sky full of stars, the miracle
of life, cows giving us milk etc without GOD? A simplistic
observation which any ordinary individual can make. no need of
any spiritual leader to point that out). In simple terms it is
human (or its descendents in whatever form or shape it assumes)
who will create GOD through the pooling of the immense cumulative
information database to be aquired over the lives of all humans
who have lived and will have lived over the next billions of
years until the end of the universe, and not the other way around
as in traditional religion where GOD creates all human.
Figuratively one can visualize this by a simple fact. A few human
with finite strength and brain can build very powerful nuclear
bombs that can destroy the earth by utilizing the combining the
knowledge gained by varoius scientists and engineers. So it is
not hard to extrapolate the power human as a species can achieve
after billions of years of cumulative knowledge and combining it
to build something very powerful and creative (in a posotive
sense) that can perform what a traditional GOD is capable of. The
Omega Point concept of GOD does provide an explanation, in my
view, of the mystery of behind the urge to procreate of all
species. First to create GOD human has to continue to exist, so
procreation is a necessary prequsite. For human to continue, all
other species need to continue as all of them are interdependent.
So procreation is the the necessary biological imperative for
Omega Point to be created. Tipler takes a global view of things
and doesn't really try to focus on or advance any given religion
and its eschatology (He makes it clear he doesn't subscribe to
any revealed religion and makes a critical study of all religions,
though he does point out purely incidental similarities between
his eschatology and those of the other major religions/
philosophies). After all his theory is purely a physics theory
and cannot be a respecter of any specific religion/culture/etc.
All speculations Tipler makes follow naturally from the most
advanced concepts of Physics, Evolution, Epistemology and Turing
Principle. But his eschatology can provide little help to diehard
religious fanatics who are dogmatic about their perception of
their own religion being only right with all its blind
revelations. Tipler also formally declares Theology (Justifiably
in my view) as a branch of Physics/ Cosmology (Specifically the
eschatological aspect of Theology. I can foresee "Quantum
Eschatology" or "Physical Eschatology" being added to Graduate
level course listings in Physics at many universities in the
early 21st century) with the writing of this book. Even if one
finds it hard to understand or does not find some pages in the
beginning to be interesting I strongly urge one to read on as it
gets very interesting in later chapters with cameos of
occassional humours, not to mention the inexhaustible references
to facts, insights and principles on all diverse fields as
researched by scholars. Lastly it must be mentioned that Tipler's
theory is a plausible and testable Theory. It is not an absolute
prediction. There are many sensible assumptions made (All physics
laws assume logical assumptions and when tests verifies the
theory the assumptions are vindicated. So Tipler's theory can
only become a law if and when its six predictions are tested to
be true. But physicists concede that Tipler's Theory/predictions
are possible/ consistent with Physics but just because it is
possible doesn't guarantee it WILL happen. Read the following
reviews (selected from amongst many) by others to get a broader
perspective.

- Review by Danny Rich 2. Review by Dr.Sarfaraz Niazi and
- Review by Christopher Hunt which is quite interesting.


5. SHADOWS OF THE MIND: -- Roger Penrose

Wow! This is an incredibly profound book about a cerebral giant's
ambitious endevour to understand/unravel the mysteries of mind
and consciousness and its inevitable link to quantum physics and
information theory via the brain (ala cytoskeleton/microtubule).
This book will put a clincher on the assertion that the true
understanding of this topic can only be achieved, if ever through
a proper understanding/extension/application of the fundamental
principles of Physics of the very small and very large (Quantum
theory and Graviatation) and not through vague and ill defined
discipline of mysticism. For reviews of this masterly work by
scholars in diverse but relevant disciplines see the

link above under the title. (Check this link
also for a very nice review)

  SECTION B. INTERESTING ARTICLES, LECTURES, AND MORE BOOK REVIEWS

Physics and The Mind of God : Paul Davies

Paul Davies has a balanced view of Holistic and Reductionistic
belief. Although thoroughly versed in reductionist principles he
believes the whole is more than just the sum of the parts.
Although he still is a skeptic but keeps an open mind to the
possibilty of something beyond the bounds of science and
objectivity. Unfortunately laypeople/pseudoscientists misconstrue
this holistic leanings of genuine Scientists/Physicists like Paul
Davies and try to use it to back up their own belief in
pseudoscientific/cult/mystic ideas and views without having a
clue what these scientists really mean by their holistic
utterances. Thus we need ruthless reductionist scientists like
Victor Stenger to debunk them and put them on right track

Has Science Found God?: Victor Stenger
Mystical Physics: Has Science Found the Path to the Ultimate?
                      - Victor Stenger
A Physicist's view of Religion, God etc : Victor Stenger
Can God Be Found in Physics?: A Philosopher's view - Michael Dickson
UNIVERSE,LIFE,CONSCIOUSNESS - Andrei Linde
Articles on Mind-Matter Unification : Brian Josephson(Nobel Laureate)
Matter,Mind and God : Jack Sarfatti
Physics and Consciousnes: Links
The ultimate Link on Life,Universe..
(On the Meaning of Existence the author of above seems to echo my feelings)
Mind,Matter & Quantum: Links
Physics of Consciousness: Lecture By Stapp
Quantum Consciousness
The Fifth Miracle : Paul Davies
Mind,Matter, and Quantum Mechanics : Henry Stapp

In this well written book, holistic ideas are advanced (with
moral authority) by a leading Quantum Physicist from Berkeley.
The basis of this holism is of course is the 20th century physics
of Quantum Theory. Some quotes: 1. "The successor to Classical
mechanics, quantum mechanics, allows each man's consciousness to
be understood as an integral part of the world described in the
mathematical language of physics" (p-199). 2. "Quantum Theory
leads naturally to a rationally coherent conception of the whole
of man in nature. It is profoundly different from the sundered
mechanical picture offered by classical physics. Like any really
new idea this quantum conception of man has many roots. It
involves deep questions : What is consciousness? What is choice?
What is chance? What can scince tell us about the role of these
things in nature?" (p-210). 3. "If the world indeed operates in
the way suggested by Heisenberg's ontology then we are all
integrally connected into some not-yet- fully-understood global
process that is actively creating the form of the universe" (p-
214). Stapp discusses the role of Quantum process in brain and
its plausible link to consciousness and goes on to discuss the
profound implications/connections of quantum theory to issues of
values, morality etc. He builds up his ideas on those of the
nineteenth century Psychologist/ philosopher William James and
the 20th century ideas of Heisenberg Ontology to offer his post
modernist form of Cartesian Dualism armed with all the modern
ideas of Quantum Theory & Neuroscience to offer a better attempt
to explain mind and consciousness than so far attempted.

Origins:Cosmos, Earth and Mankind: Hubert Reeves
Our Cosmic Origins: Armand Delsemme
 (Click here to read the Epilog of the book)
Doubt and Certainty : Rothman and Sudarshan

The subtitle certainly conveys the text's gist, but readers may
be interested to know that these witty authors are serious
physicists. Their Western and Eastern philosophies flavor these
dialogues concerning issues in modern physics and the clashing or
meshing of New Age ideals. In what they describe as a cross
between Plato's Republic and the 1001 Nights, Rothman and
Sudarshan reinvent Plato's academy, melding their thoughts with
those of their ancestors and contemporaries. Each section is
prefaced by background on its subject and is concluded with a
puzzle or exercise.

Paradigms Lost: John L. Casti

This is a very well kept secret and a gem of a book, published
in 1989. Its a unique yet extremely well written book by a PhD
Mathematician attempting to answer six most profound questions of
modern science and philosophy and providing an answer in the form
of a claim by the prosecutor and after jury deliberations
(Objective evidences from the work of reputed scientists and
philosophers) the verdict is issued as to whether the claims are
correct. In his sequel to this book published in 2000, called "
Paradigms Regained" some of the older verdicts were revised in
light of the further research work by scientists since 1989. The
final results after revision, the claims can be stated correctly
as: (1) Life Arose out of a natural Physical process here on
Earth, (2) Human behaviours are pimarily dicated by genes, (3)
Human language stems from a unique innate property of the brain,
(4) Computers can in principle literally think, (5) No evidence
of Extraterrestrial Intelligence exists in our galaxy with whom we
can establish contact and (6) There exists an objective reality
independent of the observer. I will let the reviews of 5
customers in Amazon tell the rest.

The Fabric Of Reality: David Deutsch
The Meaning of it All : Richard Feynman
Before the Beginning : Sir Martin Rees
The Self-Aware Universe : Amit Goswami
The Spritual Universe : Fred Alan Wolf
Elemental Mind : Nick Herbert
The Selfish Gene : Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden : Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker : Richard Dawkins
Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative - Christian De Duve
                      (Nobel Laureate)
The Animal Within Us: Jay D. Glass

This is a well written concise book. Although the topic is old
but it takes on a refreshing look in the authoritative writing of
a PhD in neurobiology who has also been in the real world dealing
with humans and thus equipped with the knowledge of Neurobiology
and years of accumulated biological and social insights. There
are plenty of surprising insights to be gleaned from this concise
yet informative (Avoiding the usual verbiage of other authors and
articulating his thoughts/insights succintly) book. After reading
this book many other books on philosophy, sociology seem
redundant and playing with words and expressions. This book makes
one face the truth that so many of us are afraid to face. Most
cherish the thought that human's treasured traits like love,
feelings and emotions have divine or sublime (i.e non- biogical)
origin. The thought that they may be of (neuro)biological origin
is a terrifying prospect to may. But then truth is beauty.

The Astonishing Hypothesis : The Scientific Search for the Soul
           - Francis Crick (Nobel Laureate)
The Physics of Consciousness: Quantum Minds and the Meaning of Life
                 - Evan Harris Walker
The End Of Certainty : Ilya Prigogine(nobel Laureate)
The Hour of Our Delight : Hubert Reeves
ZEN AND THE BRAIN: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness
             - James H. Austin
Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience - Eugene D'Aquili

SECTION C. SOME BOOKS IN MY "TO BE READ" LIST:

Stairway to the Mind : Alwyn Scott
Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics :
 Jean-Pierre Changeux, Alain Connes
THE "GOD" PART OF THE BRAIN : Matthew Alper
The Mystery of Consciousness : John Searle
How the Mind Works : Steven Pinker
Evolving the Mind: on the nature of matter and the origin of consciousness
      - A.G. Cairns-Smith
Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World - Ian Stewart
Summary of a talk by Ian Stewart with the same title (On 4/23/98 at the
Univ. of Minnesota):

What is life? Why is the world of living creatures so different
from the inorganic world? The discovery of the first secret of
life, the molecular structure of DNA, in the middle of this
century, showed that Life is a form of chemistry - but chemistry
unlike any that ever graced a test tube. Some secrets, however,
lie deeper that the genetic code. It is the mathematical law of
physics and chemistry that control the growing organism's
response to its genetic instructions. That is Life's OTHER Secret.
Its full understanding will come only when we combine the
mathematical and physical sciences with biochemistry, genetics,
and developmental biology. One of the most exciting growth areas
of twenty-first century science will be biomathematics. The next
century will withness an explosion of new mathematical concepts,
of new kinds of mathematics, brought into being by the need to
understand the patterns of the living world.

Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature,Origin and
        Fabrication of Life: - Robert Rosen
Steps Towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution -Manfred Eigen
                        (Nobel Laureate)
Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind:
               - Gerald Edelman(Nobel Laureate)
Seven Clues to the Origin of Life : A Scientific Detective Story
                       - A. G.Cairns-Smith
The Mind's I: Douglas Hofstadter
Godel,Escher, Bach: Douglas Hofstadter
This has become a virtual epic of the 20th century. Some have
likened it to a scripture. Martin Gardner has never expressed
such an awe in praising a book. I am yet to read this book, as I
would like to leave the best for the last. One only needs to
browse through the 119 reviews of this book in Amazon to
appreciate the the sense of awe and wonder that it has generated.

The Life of the Cosmos: Lee Smolin
Between Inner Space & Outer Space : John Barrow
The Artful Universe : John Barrow
At Home in the Universe : Stuart A. Kauffman
Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists
             - Ken Wilber
Brings together for the first time the mystical writings of the
world's great physicists - all of whom express a deep belief that
physics and mysticism are somehow fraternal twins. Written in non-
technical language. Wilber selects telling comments, in their own
words, from some of the key big names of modern physics. Well
edited and insightfully commented, Wilber presents a strong case
that these physicists were indeed not philosophical materialists,
and some were outright mystical.

Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness: An Introduction
         - Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue



Other:

1. What is Life? - Lyn Margulis and Dorion Sagan [A book of
incredible insight in to life. A very appropriate title]

2. What is Sex? - Lyn Margulis and Dorion Sagan [This is not a
book on ordinary sex as most understand it. But an evolutionary
explanation of how sexual reproduction evolved from bacteria to
higher organisms over billions of years and how genders became
separated over time. Lyn Margulis is a distinguished scientist
with hundreds of publication and is affiliated with many Nasa
projects in exobiology. She has original ideas in biology and is
also in touch with Dyson and other physicists about the latest
research in life and evolution. By the way she was married to
Late Carl Sagan. Dorion Sagan is her son]

3. The Selfish gene - Dawkins. (An eye opener, take a gene's eye
  view of life)

4. The Blind Watchmaker - Dawkins (Clearly shows how complex life
  can evolve from simple through small natural steps)

5. Climbing Mount Improbable - Dawkins (up todate and more convincing
  than above)

6. Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative - Christian De Duve(Nobe
  laureate) . Written both in a scientific and philosophical way

7. Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World
  - Ian Stewart. Below is a summary of a talk by Ian Stewart with
  the same title as the book (On 4/23/98 at the Univ. of Minnesota):

What is life? Why is the world of living creatures so different
from the inorganic world? The discovery of the first secret of
life, the molecular structure of DNA, in the middle of this
century, showed that Life is a form of chemistry - but chemistry
unlike any that ever graced a test tube. Some secrets, however,
lie deeper that the genetic code. It is the mathematical law of
physics and chemistry that control the growing organism's
response to its genetic instructions. That is Life's OTHER Secret.
Its full understanding will come only when we combine the
mathematical and physical sciences with biochemistry, genetics,
and developmental biology. One of the most exciting growth areas
of twenty-first century science will be biomathematics. The next
century will witness an explosion of new mathematical concepts,
of new kinds of mathematics, brought into being by the need to
understand the patterns of the living world.

8. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life : A Scientific Detective
Story - A. G. Cairns-Smith [A pioneer in life's origin.
Originator of the clay theory of Life]

9. At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-
organization and Complexity - Stuart Kauffman

10. The Fifth Miracle - Paul Davies (Speculates on life's
possible extraterrestrial origin)

11. Life Itself - Francis Crick(Nobel Laureate)

12. Steps Towards Life : A Perspective on Evolution - Manfred Eigen
(Nobel Laureate)

13. Physics of Immortality - Frank Tipler [An intriguing book that
postulates on the possibility of immortality based on pure physics].
For a review click on: http://niazi.com/resurrec.htm
or http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html

14. Web Link: http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/origlife.html

Addenda:

A similar analogy of software running on a hardware is a nuclear
bomb. The spectacular mushroom cloud, the blast, the destruction
is just nothing but a materialization of an information or code
(The laws of nuclear physics and relativity) with some hardware
ingredients (uranium etc). Behind any natural or artificial
wonders are nothing but some code (ultimately reducible to the
laws of Physics) at work. Some programs need human intervention
to run (Like nuclear bomb), others (like life, snowflakes, stars
etc) are initiated by nature itself through chaotic effects. But
it is only a matter of perspective. If we take the big picture of
humans as being part of nature obeying laws of physics then every
materialization of code in nature is spontaneous, and human
intervention is also a result of natural laws at work. The
ultimate example of materialization of physical laws is the Big
Bang which created the entire universe together with all its life
forms and other structures. The Big Bang was the materialization
of the Physical laws (Software) using the hardware of tiny
quantum bubble created through fluctuations of quantum vacuum.
Thus a tiny Quantum Bubble ended up as the observable universe we
wonder at today, thanks to the laws of Physics. Big Bang is
certainly a speculation, albeit a scientific one. It is predicted
by the same principles of Physics that predicted nuclear bomb
which was also successfully tested(Any doubter?). Do we dare
question the reality of nuclear bomb? We cannot question the
validity of the laws of Physics while placing complete
unquestioning confidence in the reality of a nuclear bomb
whenever one is built, since the latter is nothing but a
materialization of the former. So Big Bang, or some possible
variation thereof in future (As dictated by Physics), which is
predicted by the same laws of Physics that gave rise to nuclear
bomb cannot be dismissed using non-scientific reasoning.