|
Chapter 20 Proof and Speculation | ||
|
This chapter is a speculative postscript, set apart from the rest
of the essay. I have not advertised this one chapter to internet search engines, and I have not linked this chapter into essay site navigation; except once, at the very end of Chapter 19. Also please note that I've published this chapter only after expiration of a self-imposed embargo. I release it now (2009), a decade after publication of the other essay chapters.
Previous chapters comprised an argument: a course of reasoning that aims to demonstrate or convince. Argument is not speculation, which is reasoning that lacks grounding in fact. Speculation neither demonstrates nor convinces. An argument may sometimes carry an aura of speculation about it, but the speculation is distinct, and sometimes distinctly unhelpful — most especially when the argument attempts to ground a subject as famously ethereal as "metaphysics."
I embargoed this chapter to ensure that readers would not suffer speculative vapors needlessly. I wanted readers to ground themselves in a substantial argument first. Later, when my argument was familiar to many, readers could entertain some speculations on the philosophy; speculations which readers would always distinguish from the argument proper. I decided early on that I would not publish a speculative chapter until many readers were at ease with this distinction.
Anyway, I published the essay; correspondents discussed it;
a decade went by. And then, over the past few months, correspondents began
asking questions they hadn't asked before. My correspondents were now looking
past the known matters; peering instead into unknown matters. That is to say,
into speculation. As I read their letters I was seeing speculations very like the material I'd shelved for a later day.
Now that correspondents have prompted me I can no longer justify my previous dissemblance on speculative matters. I should respect my correspondents and engage their thoughts. And so this chapter presents some speculative notes. I hope and ask that readers labor always to distinguish these speculations from the metaphysical argument itself. That labor is a vital mental discipline.
So hold fast, and distinguish.
That much I intended to prove by example. If my readers find upon completing the essay that they can think about the essay's natural science and metaphysics, peacefully and with all meaningful associations intact, then I've proved the proposition well enough. This is not to say that the essay's tentative metaphysical inferences are themselves so proved. The five stepping stones cannot be established beyond doubt: I've raised some doubts in the essay myself. Like Prospero's enchanted sailors, we do all still taste some subtleties of the isle, that will not let us believe things certain. But here we are, and despite our uncertainties we can and should evaluate our metaphysical position. So how do things stand with the essay at present?
I can say with candor that the reasoning has withstood criticism — in private correspondence, in conference, in forum. None of the reasoning has shown itself to be logically inconsistent, and none of the metaphysical inferences have devolved into meaninglessness. This is something to note, as many readers may still be under Wittgenstein's influence, and imagine all metaphysical terms meaningless by definition. We've now seen by example that this need not always be the case.
We've seen also that one needn't cherry-pick evidence when arguing for a metaphysics. Follow nature where it leads — let nature direct the metaphysical inferences — and we can leverage the full corpus of natural science literature in support of Metaphysics by Default. For every contemporary citation in the essay's
Works Cited list, we could add a dozen more. The advancement of knowledge is truly a wind to the back of the essay argument. The reader who takes time to familiarize himself with each relevant field of knowledge will I think find reason to believe this so.
This much I say with confidence, concerning the
metaphysics' qualitative properties. The metaphysics' quantitative properties
are harder to know with certainty. I have at least shown that the probabilities
of each passage type can be calculated through three independent techniques. The
three techniques establish a flexible mathematical framework for cross-checking the dynamics implicit in the essay's formulation, or any alternate formulation, of existential passage.
Also we've seen that this metaphysical philosophy satisfies some mythic requirements, in that it works in context of Athena mythos. Actually I'd like to say more about that, because I feel the mythic element speaks to our sense of justice, which is important.
|
||
|
||
|
Figure 20.1 illustrates the ascendance of the Olympians over Gaia. The Tholos Rotunda at Delphi is a temple of Athena, one which the Greeks built atop a more ancient temple of Gaia. Not near it; not adjoining it; but right on top of it. This was intentional. The religious architecture asserts Olympian dominance over Gaia and the Titans. The rotunda marble is an overt reification of the Greek usurpation of nature. That usurpation was a historic achievement in the rise of civilization, but the most unnatural elements of the usurpation could not last. Repressed nature does reassert its authority, eventually. Whether by peaceful means or violent, eternal nature was sure to impress itself again upon the minds of philosophical men. This essay has presented one such reassertion, accomplished fortunately by peaceful means. In the essay dedication of
Chapter 19 Gaia reclaims Athena, jumping the social fictions of the intervening Olympian generations by right of Her great-grandmotherly relation to Athena. The uncreated Gaia reasserts ancestral rights over created Athena. The essay's novel imagery of an
Athena Gegenetes — Athena, Earth-born — Mind at peace with Nature — comes across I hope as representing a "peaceful transition of power." Nature has reasserted authority in our metaphysical thoughts, but in the transition to this new regime we retain all the technical and civilizing advancements of our Athenian heritage. The transition robs us of nothing. Gaia's reclamation of Athena is therefore
just — in a spirit of justice that the ancient Greeks would associate unhesitatingly with Athena Herself.
If readers see this maneuver as a healthy
and necessary application of mythic psychology, I'll be glad for it.
It's not all we might want, but it's something we haven't had before.
Well, at minimum we can attend to advances in the relevant scientific, clinical and philosophical literature, and explore those advances which speak directly to the metaphysics. Formal academic discussion can help us get best value from these efforts. I do hope that cross-disciplinary analysis of the metaphysics will become commonplace, and permanent. No one particular discipline owns this philosophy. At each level of understanding the relevant discipline should have its say.
We can also improve upon this philosophy by extending the discussion outside its present geographic borders. Today discussions arise sporadically among American, European and Australian correspondents. This was to be expected, as I wrote in English using the philosophical vocabulary of western academia. English-speaking westerners would naturally be first to take up the discussion. In future other traditions can and hopefully will participate in a broader discussion. As I mentioned in
Chapter 10, the Druze tradition continues today among descendants of the early Druze. Contemporary Druze still respect the Hellenistic spirit of their literal and philosophical forefathers. Their Arabic philosophical vocabulary continues to grow, as they continue to engage the western academic world.
The Druze came close to the idea of existential passage, as with Abdul Ghaffar's
16th-century formulation. The Druze might attempt something similar again, but this time it would be with vocabulary and knowledge more capable. A second attempt is entirely possible: the Druze have what they need.
And not only the Druze: there is another tradition with clear potential.
Hindu tradition holds the potential for an independent derivation of existential passage. As I see it, that potential emerges from the interplay of several aspects of Hinduism, which I'd like to elaborate.
The first aspect to note is the great historical scope of Hindu transmigration thought. Hinduism codifies a wealth of transmigration reasoning, dating back some 4,000 years. That literature does not, to my knowledge, contain reasoning for anything like existential passage — though of course I would have overlooked such reasoning in books not yet translated. What Hindu literature clearly does contain is a rich philosophical vocabulary suitable to existential passage. Consider Sankhya Hinduism, for example. Sankhya literature develops some relevant psychological concepts, such as the concept of
ahamkara: roughly, ego-sense, individuality, or selfhood. In Hinduism
ahamkara is seen to construct self-centered illusions, and it is therefore a limitation to overcome.
Also note that many of our Hindu contemporaries are, like their Druze counterparts, fully conversant in western academics. Hindus are well represented in leadership positions throughout academia today.[3] One can reasonably imagine that a Hindu psychologist or neuroscientist might someday apply clinical knowledge to the
ahamkara concept. Clinical, functional analysis of self-models could decompose
ahamkara in the best terms, exposing its limits in detail. This sort of analysis could help the Hindu overcome
ahamkara more easily. It would also open Hindu tradition to the physicalist view of subjectivity and self. The clinical analysis of
ahamkara and its limits could readily parallel this essay's analysis of personal identity limits — an analysis which led of course to the inference of existential passage.
Such speculation aside, a versatile philosophical vocabulary and all academic resources are available to Hindus, to aid them should they wish someday to approach existential passage by the light of Hindu tradition.
Also there is a mythic Hindu inspiration I'd like to note. Many Hindus reverence a goddess little known in the west:
Saraswati.
|
||
|
||
|
This Hindu goddess reifies music, the arts and knowledge (both secular and divine knowledge). Her shrines are common on Indian university campuses. The Sanskrit word sara means "essence" and swa means "self." And so "Saraswati" means "the essence of the self": Saraswati calls the Hindu to the pursuit of self-knowledge. That call shares kinship with al-Akhram's probing question from Chapter 2: "What is the conscious self?" I'd say it shares kinship also with the Hellenic imperative, "Know thyself."
A prayer to Saraswati concludes with a humble request:
It's a request that would be familiar to the Greeks. Proclus made similar request of Athena: Saraswati's mythic parallels with Athena abound. Saraswati is in fact known sometimes as "the Hindu Athena." Just as Athena backstops the drive to existential passage, so too might Saraswati.
These then are the aspects of Hinduism I find most congruent with the concept of existential passage: Saraswati mythology, leadership in academia,
ahamkara doctrine, and the tradition's great depth of transmigration philosophy. Like westerners and like the Druze, Hindus too have what they need.
Buddhism also presents congruent aspects, though not to the degree I see in Hinduism. Saraswati and
ahamkara reappear, adapted to Buddhism's own rich and sometimes suggestive vocabulary. Some Buddhist terms:
Buddhist thought emphasizes the impermanence (anicca) of all things, including the self. Universal impermanence leads the Buddhist to a formal negation of self (anatta): expressed also as non-ego, egolessness, or impersonality. That impersonal consciousness which does persist across lives is denoted in Buddhism as
vinnana-sota: a "stream of consciousness." We've seen that phrase
before: I quoted William James' coinage in
Chapter 9. The translation of vinnana-sota is natural and meaningful: Buddhist stream-imagery maps quite accurately onto William James' own stream-imagery, which served me well in the argument for existential passage.
Anicca, anatta and vinnana-sota are not far from western concepts presaging existential passage. An eventual convergence with some Buddhist ideas is therefore not out of the question.
Each tradition can engage the discussion with its own philosophical vocabulary. Over time such discussion can only produce a stronger, truer metaphysical philosophy. That improvement is a speculative possibility which I think we should all hope to see realized.
The Magisterium does not encourage transmigration
philosophies. There is in fact a longstanding anathema. Surprisingly, Metaphysics by Default
bypasses that anathema. It accomplishes the bypass by arguing for
transmigration while arguing also against pre-existence, which is the very nub of the anathema.
What's more, Metaphysics by Default meets the three essential requirements of Catholic philosophy, as specified in the authoritative papal encyclical,
Fides et Ratio (sections 81-83). Those three requirements may seem irreconcilable, but Metaphysics by Default does reconcile them well enough; as I've demonstrated
in conference in Rome. The philosophy is therefore consonant, officially and as far as I know, with the Catholic word of God.
Catholic readers, please take note.
Existential passage is an inferred subjective event: a natural relocation of the awareness of existence. No material transfers through the passage. The passage just is not a causal material action. For this reason
distance is not a limiting factor on existential passage. The irrelevance of distance was implicit in the passage types of
Chapter 11. In that chapter the houses of Nicos and Magnus were located on opposite sides of a meadow. We inferred existential passage between the two houses, without regard for the meadowed space between. That distance was not relevant to existential passage, per the conditions and assumptions I'd written into the several idylls.
Existential passage is therefore understood as operating over arbitrary distance. Incidentally, this is much as Abdul Ghaffar asserted long ago:
Distances just don't matter to existential passage.
Hold that thought.
As we saw in Chapter 17, existential passage would seem to apply very broadly; not to man alone, but to all central nervous system (CNS) species. The criterial requirements of personal identity are so base, so common, that we have no strong reason to exclude even the lowest of CNS species from the web of existential passages described by Metaphysics by Default. CNS vertebrates, and even a few CNS invertebrates, appear to meet the minimum requirements of personal identity and existential passage.
The inclusion of invertebrates in existential passage is plausible, but I cannot deny that this inclusion suggests some strange destinations. Invertebrates do not bear the forms or habits that make vertebrates more familiar to us. They can seem very strange in comparison. Their strangeness is not merely superficial: invertebrate neuroanatomy is strange too. Consider for example the neuroanatomy of the essay's lowest candidate for existential passage, an invertebrate — the common octopus,
Octopus vulgaris:
|
||
|
||
|
This brain is truly strange. The octopus' vertical lobe has no evolutionary relation to the vertebrate hippocampus, yet it does perform the same essential function. It does fashion episodic memories. The octopus' optic lobes have no counterpart in vertebrates, but somehow they do integrate the octopus' higher brain functions; functions including, apparently, subjectivity. |
||
|
||
|
Little if anything in the octopus' neuroanatomy resembles the human, or even the vertebrate. The octopus' brain is so unlike man's that an inexperienced anatomist would be hard pressed to judge whether it be of Earthly origin. Yet we have reason to believe that existential passage can apply to the octopus, despite its strange neuroarchitecture.
Hold that thought too.
|
||
|
||
|
Raphael captures Plato and Aristotle beautifully, posing them in strength as they debate the soul's heavenly origin and/or its life in this world below. Raphael's painting invites us to join the debate and continue the philosophical exploration where we can. Whereas before I've joined only where I felt confident of my inferences, now I'll try a little harder and offer a speculation well outside the security of confidence.
Yes, Metaphysics by Default can, in theory, extend existential passage to other worlds; provided that those worlds harbor life possessing the CNS attributes we associate with personal identity.
Yes.
Perhaps the best we can do is to form an equation that frames the probability of alien passage. I'll try for that much.
I think it parsimonious to model this equation along the lines of the famous Drake Equation,[12] as it will use many of the same terms. Here is the original Drake Equation. It defines general terms for calculating Nc — the number of civilizations in our galaxy with whom we might communicate at any given time:
The equation appropriate to Metaphysics by Default is not the Drake Equation per se. The Drake Equation contains factors inappropriate to existential passage. The final three factors (fi , fc , L) are inappropriate, as they are concerned with intelligence and communication. The calculation we need is not that for Nc , but for Ncns — the number of CNS worlds in our galaxy with whom existential passage would be possible at any given time. Modifying the Drake Equation to this purpose, we can swap terms to get an equation for Ncns : The first four terms of this equation I've copied from the Drake Equation. The final two terms (fcns and Lcns) are new.
To calculate a range for Ncns we multiply high and low estimates (or guesses) of all the terms' values. Guesses render all results speculative, but speculative calculation shows us the sort of knowledge that will be required if Ncns is ever to settle toward fact.
Bruce Jakosky[13] gives some estimated ranges for each Drake term reused in the Ncns equation, including a guess at the wholly unknown fl .
Now we need to examine the two new terms which pertain to CNS life: fcns and Lcns .
The first of these unknown terms is fcns , the fraction of living planets on which CNS life arises. Existential passage could reach a world only after the emergence of CNS life on that world.
On Earth CNS life emerged with the armored fish,[14] who first populated the oceans about 3.4 billion years after the genesis of single-celled life. 3.4 billion years is a vast stretch of time — perhaps even a
dangerously vast stretch of time. Had those early fish required, say, an additional two billion years to get started, CNS life might not have emerged at all. The sun's flux increases over
geologic time, slowly raising Earth's surface temperature. In another one or two billion years the increasing flux will heat Earth's surface to the point at which liquid water will become unstable.[15] At that time Earth will be hard-pressed to sustain CNS life. The window of opportunity for CNS emergence will then close. Clearly then, CNS emergence on Earth was no sure thing. Generalizing from Earth's example we can guess that CNS life is rare in comparison with the simpler forms of life. Tossing a sizeable pinch of salt, we might speculate that fcns , the fraction of living planets on which CNS life arises, lies somewhere between one and fifty percent:
The other new and unknown term in the equation is Lcns , the average lifetime of a CNS phylum. Existential passage could reach a world only during its CNS phylum-specific lifetime.
As with fcns , we have only one example from which to extrapolate a guess. On Earth CNS life emerged about 400 million years ago. Earth may remain habitable for another one or two billion years. Making a rough estimate of one and a half billion years of future habitability, and adding it to the previous 400 million years of CNS life, we get Earth's total Lcns in the ballpark of 2 billion years.
To get an optimistic limit for Lcns we might imagine CNS life having had an earlier start:
perhaps 1.5 billion years ago. Life on Earth did not keep to such an aggressive timetable, but it's possible as an early limit. Add to that quick start a late finish: some extra 2.5 billion years of habitability from today. Summed, they make for an optimistic Lcns of 4 billion years.
To get a pessimistic limit for Lcns we can imagine CNS life having had a later start: say, 200 million years ago. Imagine also a quick finish: 800 million years of habitability from today. Summed, they make for a pessimistic Lcns of 1 billion years.
Tossing another large pinch of salt:
Taking optimistic values: Taking pessimistic values: This gives us a speculative range: The optimistic speculation (Ncns = 18 billion) would make existential passage to other worlds a near certainty. But 18 billion seems an implausible number: 18 billion CNS worlds would permeate a galaxy with a great deal of electromagnetic chatter, if a sizeable fraction of the worlds were home to communicative intelligence. Radio telescopes such as those of the Allen Telescope Array (and even home satellite dishes) would have detected the chatter by now. On the other hand, if CNS life only rarely engendered communicative intelligence, an abundance of CNS life could still be "quiet," and consistent with the galactic radio silence observed to date.
The pessimistic speculation (Ncns = 1) would make our world the only home to CNS life in our entire galaxy. (Of course this could also account for the galactic radio silence. The silence just doesn't tell us much.)
At first glance the pessimistic speculation would seem to maroon our existential passages on the rock of Earth, binding us indefinitely to the local ecological concerns of
Chapter 18. This thought holds only until we recall that there are some hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Take that fact into consideration, and we see that even were Earth to stand as the Milky Way's only home to CNS life, our existential passages would still be far more likely to move away from Earth, than back to it: by a ratio of a hundred billion to 1. Said another way: a pessimistic value of Ncns = 1 would make each galaxy an equally likely destination for existential passage.
This celestial aspect is, I emphasize again, only a speculation; since the values of the final three terms of the Ncns equation are quite unknown. Nonetheless our own existence proves that Ncns is certainly no less than 1 here in the Milky Way. That much is not speculation, but fact. The speculation has us look farther out, to ask whether Ncns is greater than 1 in our galaxy, and greater than zero beyond our galaxy.
|
||
|
||
|
Each passage type is illustrated in the grammar, once, with a minimum number of participants. As I noted in Chapter 12, this symbol is unambiguous. If we exercise imagination and try to find alternate meanings for the symbol, no alternate interpretation suggests itself. The lines sketch no other figure or equation. They abstract no physical or social process. They are as meaningless as any random set of lines can be. The symbol's only meaning is that granted to it by Metaphysics by Default.
For this reason it conveys the fundamental event types of the metaphysics unambiguously, potentially even to persons who speak languages and live in cultures unlike our own. The grammar's meaning may be lost in translation, of course. There is no guarantee that its meaning will come across without fail, even among like-minded neighbors. Its meaning
cannot, however, be misunderstood.
Now suppose, hypothetically, that alien radio chatter should one day wash across our world: a clear signal, emanating from some distinct and distant point in space. After some reflection men might choose to announce Earth's presence to the alien broadcasters. They might broadcast back to the aliens some encyclopedic information about Earth, structured so as to be as understandable — as unambiguous — as possible. This broadcast could include within the body of structured information the philosophy's metaphysical grammar. Just the symbol, by itself. The symbol contains sufficient unambiguous information to express the concept of existential passage to alien audience. If that audience possessed natural sciences and philosophical reasoning at least as robust as our own, they'd be in position to puzzle out the symbol's unique meaning.
That's the challenge of outbound broadcast. Now if, conversely, the alien broadcasters had developed some conception of existential passage already, they could transmit their own version of the symbol to us instead; down inside some encyclopedia of their own. Our task would then be to transcribe the inbound alien imagery faithfully, and to keep an eye out for a recognizable isomorphism of the symbol.
Comprehension of the symbol would be all-or-nothing, on either side.
|
||
|
||
|
More recently (1999) astronomers have sent a more informative image toward nearby stars, including in this broadcast a structured tutorial on numbers, geometry, atoms, chemistry and planets.[17] |
||
|
||
|
Radio telescopes can transmit images across astronomic distance. The metaphysical grammar is a symbol that conveys meaning across astronomic distance. It abstracts a metaphysical relation that can apply across astronomic distance. Medium, message and metaphysical relation are all effectively universal.
Like the other novel properties of Metaphysics by Default, this universality is something we haven't had before.
An incorporeal Universal Soul never rises above the level of poetry. How it could in any meaningful sense cause, or guide, or participate in transmigration — here below or up above — no Neoplatonist could ever say. It remains a confused concept.
But think again of subjective awareness as a universal quality of CNS life, and as a universal terminus of unfelt time-gaps. It's not hard to conceive it that way: subjectivity shows a universal character readily through its invariant properties. This is as it should be: if something exhibits the very same properties wherever and whenever it's found, it is unavoidably universal. And this seems to be just the case with subjectivity. Its corporeal universality makes existential passage plausible: here on Earth, and — now it can be said — elsewhere in our universe. If we re-define Universal Soul in these terms, the old confused concept acquires a new and clear meaning; a meaning entirely concordant with mankind's present knowledge of the cosmos. Universal Soul can map to the actual universe — to all CNS worlds concurrently — if re-defined in these terms.
I hope this re-definition will not offend Neoplatonic purists. I offer it to make amends for my previous uncharitable treatment of honorable philosophers who knew Universal Soul in their own way.
If aliens knew the symbol, but knew it to be
incorrect,
they could structure a corrective tutorial around the symbol. It would be a
tutorial designed to point us toward truer, more current metaphysical ideas.
The tutorial could communicate these ideas as modifications to the symbol,
arranging the modifications in some historical or conceptual order. Starting
with that symbol, the authors could make illustrative changes, progressing step-wise through intermediate stages, up to the truest metaphysical ideas known to them. If, for example, they should happen to believe personal identity to be not "metaphysically hermetic," as in this essay, but somehow "permeable," they could modify the symbol to illustrate permeability's effect.
Endnote 7 of Chapter 11 illustrates with one such (purely hypothetical) modification to the symbol.
Authoritative modifications would lead us along al-Farabi's path of philosophical correction and encouragement: a path now extended to the stars.
How far a tutorial could really progress without benefit of a shared language, I do not know. I do know that the metaphysical grammar marks an unambiguous, universal starting point on al-Farabi's stellar path.
End of essay postscript. see also Appendices see also Works Cited see also Forum (new) see also Lectures E-mail the author. | ||
|
Chapter 20 Endnotes |
||
|
[7] My thanks to A. Arifin for
suggesting a second look at Buddhism's congruent aspects. I'm grateful to A. Arifin and T.C. for their many helpful comments on the chapter draft.
[8] Ghaffar, Al-Nuqat wal-Dawayer (Points and Circles) 117-20. Translated to English in Al-Najjar 106-07.
[9] Hanlon and Messenger 28. See also William M. Saidel,
Connections of the octopus optic lobe: An HRP study,
The Journal of Comparative Neurology 206: 4 (2004): 346-58.
[10] Roddy Williamson and Abdesslam Chrachri,
Cephalopod Neural Networks,
Neurosignals 13 (2004): 87-98.
[12] The Search for Life on Other Planets, Bruce M. Jakosky (Cambridge University Press, 1998) 282-85. Other formulations of the equation multiply different factors, as alternate "break points" on the path to intelligence. See for example
Astrobiology — A Multidisciplinary Approach, Johathan I. Lunine (Addison Wesley, 2005) 567-72. For
additional formulations and results from ongoing refinements of quantitative estimates, see this
Wikipedia article.
[13] Jakosky 283-84. See also note 12, above, for alternate formulations and estimates.
[14] See especially Harry J. Jerison,
Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence (Academic Press, 1973) 83-85, on the emergence of the first vertebrates, the armored fish of the early Devonian.
[15] Jakosky 260-75.
[16] Raw image of the
Arecibo message. See also a complete explanation of each message component in this
Wikipedia article.
[17] This image contains two typographical errors. They
came to the attention of the authors right before the scheduled interstellar
transmission. The alert came too late, and the typos were broadcast
inadvertently to the stars. I'd like to think that this incident teaches
us to be more forgiving of publication errors.
[18] Image reproduced from
page 17 of the Encounter 2001 message. See also the
press release and a related
BBC story.
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=link}
Copyright © 1999
Wayne Stewart
Last update 4/19/11