Listen first, write later

There's a nice profile of Jaron Lanier in the current New Yorker by Jennifer Kahn. It's locked to non-subscribers, but still on the newsstands. In it he's very wise, in the way (as we learned last year in the "Future of Life" course*) of You Are Not a Gadget, on the importance of actually existing and creating as a human being in your own right and not being content merely to reflect passing currents  in the enveloping cyber-sea around you. Re-tweeters, attend:

If you listen first, and write later, then whatever you write will have had time to filter through your brain, and you'll be in what you say. This is what makes you exist. If you are only a reflector of information, are you really there?

(*NOTE TO SELF, on a possible future course. "Philosophy and the Internet: Staying Human in the Information Age")

In the Chronicle of Higher Education awhile back Lanier commented on techno-Utopia and New Atheism, shaking his head at

a new sort of "nerd" religion based around a core belief that a global brain is not only emerging but will replace humanity. It is often claimed, in the vicinity of institutions like Silicon Valley's Singularity University, that the giant global computer will upload the contents of human brains to grant them everlasting life in the computing cloud.

And,

There is right now a lot of talk about whether to believe in God or not, but I suspect that religious arguments are gradually incorporating coded debates about whether to even believe in people anymore.

That's always the most important question. He still believes. Of course he does. Look again at that little girl.

faith, truth, & evidence

Just read a tweet that reminds me how much I enjoyed presenting the "Will to Believe" essay it fell to me (as session chair) to read last Sunday in Chocorua, NH for the "Footsteps" Symposium. Its author Mark Franklin was unable to attend, so I got to collect by proxy the many expressions of admiration directed his way for his excellent work. The spotlight was all his, but I lucked into basking in it. 


The re-tweet from @DJGrothe asserted, in the dogmatic form imposed by 140 characters (if not in fact by a dogmatic frame of mind, on this issue), 

that faith, belief without evidence, is something to be admired is probably the most dangerous idea in the world today.

Mark's paper, to the contrary, pointed out very persuasively that sometimes,

by deciding not to commit ourselves until sufficient evidence arises, we might actually end up working at cross purposes with our own truth-seeking aspirations... 

Waiting for conclusive evidence that you can scale the heights, defeat the enemy, win the Presidency, or meet the deadline (to pick a few random cases) is liable to be self-defeating. Truth isn't out there waiting to be found, it's waiting to be made. Or not. Truth happens. 


Yes, we can. Well, maybe we can. Who knows? -In advance, nobody does. That's why James wrote that

 a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.

It's just not always as simple or black and white as "faith versus evidence." So many of the contentious squabbles surrounding so-called New Atheism  would benefit from a deliberate and reflective reading of "Will to Believe," and an appreciation that many "faith-heads" (Dawkins' term of opprobrium) value truth too.


But few of the more prominent contenders seem to have bothered reading it at all.

Mark's excellent essay, along with audio of the entire Symposium on MP3 CD-ROM (and video of much of it), is available for purchase at www.conferencerecording.com. 


Tell your local librarian.

Godbothering

Ophelia Benson points out that 


Jerry Coyne points out another outbreak of godbothering from Francis Collins - which is all the more inappropriate (the apt word, for a change) now that Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. (The outbreak is inappropriate, not the pointing it out.) The publisher does not omit to get in the obligatory slap at those god damn pesky impertinent inappropriate noisy New Atheists:

“Is there a God?” is the most central and profound question that humans ask. With the New Atheists gaining a loud voice in today’s world, it is time to revisit the long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith.

'Is there a god?' is not the most central and profound question that humans ask; far from it; at this stage of the game it could better be called the most futile time-wasting childish infatuated question that humans ask. The voice the 'New Atheists' have gained, if they have gained one, is really not all that loud compared to the voice the Old Theists have had and continue to have for the last however many thousands of years, so I really don't see why so many people feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit about a few atheists finally plucking up the nerve to say atheist things aloud instead of under their breath in a closet when no one is home. I really don't. I really don't see why so many people are so god damn truculent about having to share a minuscule corner of the discourse with atheists. I don't see why our 'gaining a voice' is treated as some kind of foul presumption...