Evolution News & Views: What Do New Atheists Actually Believe?.

I can’t believe I’m actually going to respond to a post by the Discovery Institute, but this request seems genuine enough.  Michael Egnor asked a number of questions about what “New Atheists” (sic) actually believe.

For starters, there isn’t some doctrine of atheism.  All atheism means is not believing in gods, deities or divinities.  Period.  So the following is going to be what I happen to believe, know or value about the various subjects.

I’ve never understood what “new atheism” meant.  Is there really a new way to not believe in gods?  I think the term usually refers to people like Hitchens and Dawkins who loudly proclaim their atheism.  Presumably, old atheists sit with their heads bowed at the back of church to not rock the boat or draw attention to themselves.  That aside, here are my answers to the questions.

1) Why is there anything?

Why?

If this is a question about purpose, then there is no cosmic purpose.  The universe is not conspiring for our benefit.   We’re not that special. Why would anyone think there is a cosmic purpose?

If this is a question of mechanics, then I don’t know.  I have some thoughts on the matter.   We may never figure it out but undoubtedly science is the best methodology we have to try.

If this is a metaphysical question, the answer is easy.  There was never a time where there was nothing.  Time requires something.  Of course, if there was nothing, we wouldn’t be around talking about it now would we.

2) What caused the Universe?

Stuff exists.  Given time, things happen to stuff.

Perhaps I should have combined the first two questions.

3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?

Because species whose members suffer from constipation are at a disadvantage over species whose members do not.

No, really.

There are two sides to this question.

What philosophers call regularity is how we describe what we observe when we are trying to make sense of (ie, to order) the natural world.  It is almost as if we’re looking into a crystal ball and looking for just the right angle where we can see something we can interpret as a psychic message.   There’s always magic to be found if you’re looking for magic. This is semantics and a good example of the linguistic trouble with philosophy.  We conceptualize things the way we do because of our cognitive abilities and characteristics.  Different languages on earth provide different ways for us to conceptualize the world (Western vs Eastern philosophy.)  Imagine how different someone from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse would conceptualize the universe.

However, what is perceived as order, is not necessarily so.  Stuff exists.  Given time, things happen to stuff.  The configuration of stuff has varying degrees of stability.  Hydrogen is a relatively stable form for one proton and one electron.  Diamond and graphite are stable forms of carbon and have varying degrees of stability.  Etc, etc.  It’s not that carbon doesn’t exist in any other way — it does, in fullerenes, for example — it’s that these forms are stable and easily formed naturally.  That is not an expression of the order of the system, it is an expression of what works!

Perhaps a good example of what I mean here is organic chemistry.  Is it a law or an expression of order that living things require oxygen?  No and it is actually not true.  It is only true for carbon-based life forms like us and virtually every other species we know of.   Scientists have hypothesized life can exist with a silicon biochemistry for whom oxygen may be poisonous.  Organic chemistry is what it is because it is what works here on earth, not because of some cosmic order.

4) Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?

None of them “are real.”  They are ways of conceptualizing the world and ordering our thoughts about the world.  They exist only in our minds in our emic (subjective) reality.  Some of them, I would say, are more useful than others.

Final causes do not seem to be useful at all.   To think they actually exist seems to be an expression of superdeterminism.  To only consider them as constructs seems to lead to tautology or trite statements.

5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?

Because we’re not omniscient?

The grey matter between my ears provides the hardware for an extremely powerful simulation engine.  My eyes, ears, nose, fingers and tongue all receive stimulus which my mind interprets by building a functional model of these observations in my mind.   My mind can only model what it can perceive or imagine.  I can perceive only what I can see and I can imagine only what I can think.

When we began hunting, those who were able to interpret signs (ie, animal tracks) well were at a big advantage.  The more complete and detailed the narrative, the more successful they were at hunting.  They had no idea, objectively, where the prey was, they had to figure it out subjectively.

The closer our subjective interpretation was to the objective reality, the better off we were.  This is why science is so important.  The scientific method — if properly used — works because it strives for objectivity.  Religion, on the other hand, is entirely subjective.  Many religious adherents even suggest that subjective religious belief, like the age of the earth, should trump objective scientific understanding.   That is one of the failings of religion.

6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?

Not really sure where you’re going with this.  Though this is definitely a conceptualization rather than an observation.  I also doubt it is universal within humanity ( is this true within the Pirahã?), never mind what someone from Betelgeuse might say.

7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)

“Moral Law” does not exist at all.  Mores and taboos and the rest of “morality” are merely clauses in an a  social contract, metaphorically speaking,  not laws.  They are subject to change based on context and situation.  Any expression of a “Moral Law” is an expression of unspoken agreement, not law.

8.) Why is there evil?

There is no such thing as evil.  The question, as stated, is pointless.  A better question would be, “why are we not all always good all the time?“  This question is quite useful.

A population consisting of people who were all always good all the time would not be stable.  All it would take was one person to change the whole dynamic, just a single mutation.  Suppose one person in this population decided they deserved a bigger portion of the shared meal.  This person would be better fed and stronger than his more altruistic competitors.  Whether this particular individual would be better at reproducing is almost besides the point at this stage since clearly his strategy (take more food) will more than likely be reproduced within this population since others can see its benefit.  (See: The Invention of Lying)

This is because being all always good all the time is not an evolutionary stable strategy.   It could never last as the only strategy within a population.

A population being all always bad all the time would be an evolutionary stable strategy.  No alternate strategy could “invade” and provide a better payout for its adherents since an altruist would immediately be taken advantage of.

So why are we not all bad?

Because populations compete with other populations as well.  A population with a more cooperative strategy would likely greatly outproduce a population of crooks.