Ignorance: Our God of the Gaps

Neil Tyson in a talk he made at Beyond Belief makes one of the better recent talks about how even very smart people have always made an appeal to the divine to account for the boundary of their understanding. No doubt this arises both out of their not wanting to show ignorance, but also a profound sense of wonder at the deep marvels of reality that stretch our imagination. Dr. Tyson described this as a philosophy of ignorance as opposed science as a philosophy of discovery. He then goes on to set up the big question: why does a significant minority of top scientists still cling to a notion of the divine? This is a good question and one that he admits to being unable to answer. How come? Perhaps he should take a step back and reevaluate his assumptions. He assumes that a God of the Gaps is always a bad thing. But is it? Undoubtedly, such a notion does serve as a warning marker: Beware mortals! Tread not past here! Of course, this kind of warning is just the kind of signal that will draw our best and brightest like those clichéd moths to their proverbial flame.

Is then the marker “God” merely a placeholder serving to demarcate the boundary of our ignorance? I would argue not. I would argue that the term does real work that other terms cannot. It imbues the Unknown with a kind of majesty and respect that is was too often missing in our scientific discourses. Sam Harris, for example, another speaker at the same forum argues that our goals and values may one day hence also become susceptible to the analysis of empiricism. This kind of argument worries me. It conjures up images of A Brave New World. It seems to be an argument that one day Knowledge can become strong enough to make Freedom obsolete and irrelevant, that The Good Life will someday win out against The Game of Life. I read the news and it worries me.

The classical liberals, quite unlike today’s Liberals, raised up Ignorance as something to be feared and respected. It was a force never to be trusted, never to be pinned down as wholly managed. A true mark of the divine, it was ineffable. The economic and political structures they crafted to pull us up out of the Dark Ages were designed entirely under the shadow of Ignorance. They sought certainty above all yet they reigned in their hopes of achieving it. They did not pretend to understand all the mechanisms represented in their traditions; even David Hume went to church. They knew that artificial selection, domestication, led to certain ends. Ends. Only natural selection, wild breeding, liberty in fact could lead to unexpected discoveries and progress.

We should not be afraid to investigate anything, least of all those factors involved in improving our conditions. We should indeed call evil acts by their right name and do our best to give aid to those who wish it. But we should be humble. We must pay heed to Ignorance for He is intolerant of hubris and punishes great pride. When we pretend that we can manage progress, that the future can become planned, that we can become wholly explicable to ourselves, we transgress against Him and commit real sin.

Socialist fish bowls and Libertarian lakes

It occurred to me while watching a recent episode of the Colbert Report that a particularly good argument was made for libertarianism inadvertently when Steve characterized a libertarian guests' views as something like a fish bowl where the owner protects the fish from outsiders but does nothing to keep one fish from eating another. The guest's reply was a fairly lame agreement that clearly didn't win anyone over, but if he'd been on his toes, he might instead have remarked that in relatively tiny environments to which humans are not well adapted, Steven's (real) view of a highly regulated economy might make sense. Most people, however, do not live in such environments, so the analogy was flawed from the get-go.

A better analogy might have been a lake or river with a fully functioning ecosystem. We now know from our disastrous experiences trying to manage parks like Yellowstone that the best thing that can be done in such environments is leave them alone. The smallest intervention, even putting out (natural) wildfires can lead to huge problems in the long run. The fish in a river still need some human intervention, but only in order to protect it from other humans (people who might go fishing with dynamite or introduce foreign species that would throw its ecosystem out of balance). I think this is a good example highlighting the fact that one of the main reasons for governments is actually to protect its people from other governments.

When people do attempt to intervene, it's almost impossible for them to do so in the interest of the system as a whole. They inevitably favor one species or another and almost always favor those species that are perceived as valuable to humans. In terms of government, this is essentially a kind of collusion and historically these kinds of interventions have time and again created the need for new interventions. This is the opposite of the principle of rule of law upon which the American system of government was founded.

Real lakes freeze. Some fish eat one another. Others associate freely for mutual protection. We certainly can put them all in fish bowls and force them to "behave" but where would that get us? I don't necessarily endorse everything that gets talked up by Libertarians, but I do think that their main argument is correct. The point isn't that individualism is good and communal living is bad. It's that no one should be forced into either one.

Hiru-san's Party

It was a fun Chrismas party hosted by Hiru-san. Takoyaki and yakisoba. Met new people and had interesting conversations about philosophy, economics, and baseball.

Testing from Word

I've got some interesting ideas brewing, so I'm testing different ways of doing things. I'm uploading this from Word 2007.

Reader vs. Blogger

In light of the recent development in Reader, I have to start to wonder whether there's really any point left to Blogger for the average individual. Assuming that I'm just sharing some basic content with my friends, do I really need all the flash?

I almost see Blogger & YouTube as the MySpace programs for teenagers and marketers who want to share their ideas with the world and Reader & Video as the Facebook for adults and professionals who'd really prefer not to be bothered by people they don't know. You can search for something in particular on Video and if it becomes one of the top hits everyone will see it, but it lacks the viral qualities and dialog that are such a part of YouTube. I'm not even sure that you can find Reader's public pages unless someone actually sends you the address.

In a way, I'd prefer that Google divested themselves of Blogger and YouTube altogether. "Flash" is not Google's style anyway and it sets them up for the kind of anti-competitive strategies that Microsoft is famous for. So far Google's image has been "clean". I'd rather it stayed that way.

Which brings me back to my original statement. What do I do with this site? It really is faster just to post everything to Reader Notes and share it. I'm not trying to build up a following, and I'm not selling anything. Why bother?

Facebook vs. Blogs

Well, I'm trying to figure out a use for this blog. Right now it's just taking up space. Seems to me that it will just have to wait until I have public things to say. Till then, it seems to make more sense to put stuff on Facebook. I understand that Google is suppose to be doing some interesting things to compete with Facebook, and you may have already noticed that Google Reader gives the ability to add friends and look at what they're reading. It seems a bit faster than writing summaries of what your reading in blog format. Of course, YouTube (also a Google property) has similar features. It'll be interesting to see how this all shapes up.

the last

(Edit) Well, looking back I don't care for the poem that was posted here, so I'm taking it down.