| Transcript
from Thursday, February 12, 2004 9:00-10:00 PM Eastern
Copyright
© by International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
2004.
ISCID
Moderator
Our guest speaker today is Robert Wright. Wright, a visiting scholar
at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of _Nonzero: The
Logic of Human Destiny_ and _The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology
and Everyday Life_, both published by Vintage Books. _The Moral Animal_
was named by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 12 best
books of 1994 and has been published in 12 languages. _Nonzero_ was
named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book for 2000 and has
been published in nine languages. Wright's first book, _Three Scientists
and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information_, was
published in 1988 and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle
Award. Wright is a contributing editor at The New Republic, Time
magazine, and Slate. He has also written for the Atlantic Monthly,
the New Yorker, and the New York Times Magazine. He previously worked
at The Sciences magazine, where his column "The Information
Age" won the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism.
ISCID
Moderator
I'm now going to turn the chat over to Robert Wright, and you can begin
sending in questions.
Robert Wright
Thanks. I don't know how many of you had a chance to look at my webiste,
www.nonzero.org, or read Bill
Dembski's review of my book in First
Things.
Robert
Wright
Bill nicely summarizes the book's aim when he says I argue for a "fully
naturalized teleology."
Robert
Wright
That is: (1) I think the history of life on this planet exhibits a
directionality that has the hallmarks of purpose, of teleology; life
seems to be moving toward something not just in the sense that river
moves toward an ocean, but in the sense that an egg moves toward
a mature organism.
Robert
Wright
But (2) this teleological scenario is "fully naturalized" in
that I think the dynamics driving this directional movement--driving
both biological and cultural evolution--can be described in entirely
materialist terms.
Robert
Wright
No spirit, no "vital force" need be invoked to explain why
life has moved toward greater complexity and intelligence, and to higher
and higher levels of organization.
Robert
Wright
Still, this materialist account has antagonized some materialists because
it suggests that maybe the evolutionary system is in *some* sense
a product of design.
Robert
Wright
Of course, the designer--whether an intelligent being or a process,
like natural selection--could itself be explained in entirely materialist
terms, but a lot of materialists still wouldn't like this idea, because
anything that sounds religious or in any way transcendent bothers
them. Maybe at this point I should stop for questions.
Jef
I would like to know Mr. Wright's thoughts on whether a practical ethics
or meta-ethics could be derived from this thinking and applied to
goals and decision-making in human relations and politics.
Robert
Wright
Hmmm. Well, according to the famous (among philosophers) "naturalistic
fallacy," it's a logical error to infer values from the workings
of nature.
Robert
Wright
That is, to infer "ought" from "is". And I guess
I'd be committing that fallacy if I said that my description/analysis
of nature's workings can tell us what values we should live by.
Robert
Wright
My own ethical system begins with the assertion that human happiness/well
being is an absolute good, and I'm basically a utilitarian.
Robert
Wright
However, my evolutionary world view does intersect with discussions
of ethics and values in various ways.
Robert
Wright
For one thing, I think the evolutionary system tends to increase "non-zero-sumness"--that
is, the opportunity for beings (humans in particular) to increase their
well being through synergistic interaction with other beings.
Robert
Wright
I guess I'll leave it at that for now, on that particular topic, though
I'm happy to elaborate if people want me to.... END.
staticX
Mr. Wright, two questions. First, would you agree with Bill Dembski's
notion that "intelligence" might have heuristic value for
our theories (as a theoretical principle) even if it is not necessarily
an actual personal intelligence. Second, what do you think the single
strongest evidence is for your theory?
Robert
Wright
Let me take the second question first.
Robert
Wright
If by "my theory" you mean the assertion of a directionality
suggesting purpose, here are some relevant facts:
Robert
Wright
Life has pretty relentlessly climbed the scale of complexity and ascended
to higher and higher levels of organization--molecule, cell, organism,
society, etc., until now our species seems to be carrying organization
to the global level, constituting a kind of global brain.
Robert
Wright
During this process, sentience--subjective awareness, including emotion
and reflection and so on--has grown in complexity, subtlety, richness.
Robert
Wright
The existence of sentience is, to me, the source of meaning on earth.
That is, if we were all just robots, and behaved exactly as we behave,
but had no sentience, then life would be pretty meaningless. And
there would be no basis for moral evaluation--i.e., for saying it's
wrong to kill or damage one of these robots (since the robot wouldn't
feel pain anyway).
Robert
Wright
In other words, if you step back and view the entire history of life
and earth, it seems to me that it resembles a machine for making
meaning--more and more, richer and richer meaning....END
denyse
Can you explain what you mean by synergistic interaction? What issynergistic
and what is not? Some social Darwinists have claimed that war benefits
the species. Do you agree?
Robert
Wright
Oops. I meant "life *on* earth" in that last transmission,
not "life and earth." OK, now on to the question about synergy
and war...
Robert
Wright
Well, a lot of people--not just social Darwinists--have observed that
war has led societies to greater heights of cooperation and innovation.
Robert
Wright
And I would not only affirm that, but suggest that it's part of a larger
pattern: Competition among entities (animals in the case of biological
evolution, human societies in the case of cultural evolution) can
push the entities toward greater complexity, integration, intelligence,
etc.
Robert
Wright
Of course, that's not to say that war is good or brutal competition
is good.
Robert
Wright
Indeed, the seemingly integral role of suffering in organic creativity
only underscores the problem of evil--i.e. makes you wonder how any
designer of this whole system could have been both completely good
(in our sense of that word) and omnipotent.
Robert
Wright
This kind of brings us back to the first question, about extracting
morals from my world view: You can't infer values from the workings
of nature unless you're confident that nature's designer was both
good and omnipotent, and an inspection of nature's workings seems
to dilute any such confidence...
Algorithm
You mentioned a relentless increase in biological complexity. How should
we define “complexity.” Lots of things are complex, but
have no instructive or organizing potential. Life is algorithmically
instructed rather than just complex. How did nature write initial
prescriptive programs (the first genes)?
Robert
Wright
Oh, gosh. The questions don't seem to be getting easier...
Robert
Wright
Measuring complexity is so, well, complex an issue that I wrote a whole
appendix on the subject in my book.
Robert
Wright
Excerpts of the appendix (appendix 2) are at www.nonzeor.org. I'll
leave it at that for now. END.
Robert
Wright
oops i mean www.nonzero.org
StevenWA
as we move toward the distant future will there be a time when 'organized
religion' as such will be replaced by a 'one fit philosophy" that
all will share that in itself will provide for a much more peaceful
way of life than we have now with all these religions that exists
competing politically and socially?
Robert
Wright
Well, I think if the planet is going to survive in very robust form,
there will have to be at least *one* common denominator of the world's
different belief systems: tolerance of alternative belief systems.
Robert
Wright
In addition, I'd guess that there will be *some* convergence--especially
among well educated people in various cultures--toward beliefs that
are compatible with modern science.
Robert
Wright
I think you seem some evidence of progress on both fronts, but I think
we won't have a happy ending until we get all the world's nations
integrated into the global political/economic system on terms that
they find acceptable.
Robert
Wright
I think economic and political interdependence among nations can be
a driving force behind moral/spiritual progress. That may be a little
cryptic, but I think I'll leave it there unless pressed for elaboration....
cinclus
What experiments or observations can you suggest that would allow us
to test your hypothesis?
Robert
Wright
Well, my argument is in many ways an historical argument, so its "predictions" aren't "predictions" in
the sense of experiments you can set up in a lab.
Robert
Wright
But here are some things that would work against my theory if true:
If various key innovations and thresholds in biological and cultural
evolution *hadn't* been reached independently, numerous times.
Robert
Wright
For example, if farming and writing *hadn't* been invented independently
on numerous occasions, then things would look worse for my claim
that technological progress, culminating (so far) in globalization
was a very likely outcome of cultural evolution.
Robert
Wright
Or if multicellular life hadn't evolved independently numerous times,
then things would look worse for my claim that the evolution of multicellular
life (a pre-requisite for the evolution of great intelligence, and
hence cultural evolution).
Robert
Wright
Maybe some day our computer modelling of evolution(s) will be so good
that you can test the theory in other ways. But for now the nature
of my theory dictates that its testable "predictions" aren't
literally predictions. But that's true of other historical sciences,
too, including evolutionary biology...
Devin Harris
In distinguishing sentience from the robot you
seem to be separating
the evolution of life from the evolution of being or physical reality.
What of the universe as a whole? As we flow with time into the future,
at each event we continually face probabilities of what might occur
at every possible branch in every new moment. Somehow, the universe
that is produced from all these decisions is not chaotic. What do
you think constitutes a distinction between life and the universe
itself. Otherwise, the evolution of life and cosmology must be treated
equally. What I am getting at, is that the meaning of life would
seem to be a temporary state, eroded by the sands of time, that is,
if we don't recognize any purpose to cosmological evolution. Do you
consider there to be any ultimate meaning to cosmological evolution
in general.
Robert
Wright
That's a lot of
question! I'm afraid I'm going to have to just pick
out one part of it to address.
Robert
Wright
Let me just say that drawing a clear analytical distinction between
non-life and life doesn't seem to me quite as easy as it once did.
Robert
Wright
I don't mean I have any trouble pointing to the things we consider
living as opposed to things we don't consider living. I just mean
that articulating the distinction in the abstract is not a trivially
easy problem. And maybe I'd better leave it at that--which, I realize,
doesn't come close to addressing the ultimate point of your question.
Sorry...
staticX
Mr. Wright, how would you characterize your metaphysical view of the
natural world (e.g. mechanistic?)
Robert
Wright
It's mechanistic in the sense that I think all of observed reality
can be explained in materialist, mechanistic terms. However [pause
to let the drama build]...
Robert
Wright
I do think that some aspects of reality pose a challenge to the materialist
view of the world. One big challenge is consciousness, by which I
mean sentience, subjective experience.
Robert
Wright
I spend a few pages on this in Nonzero. For now I'll just say that
none of the main views on consciousness seem to me completely satisfactory
for the strict materialist. For example [more drama building]...
Robert
Wright
If consciousness is an "epiphenonenon"--i.e., if it is generated
by the physical world but doesn't in turn influence the physical world--then
it is functionally redundant, which raises the question of why it was
created in the first place. (A religious answer: It was thrown in by
some sort of divinity to give meaning to life.)...
beelzebub
if humans turn out not fit to survive the next few million years is
the design still in place regardless? will we be replaced by another
species, or perhaps joined by another or several other species or
is it up to us and our decendants?
Robert
Wright
If our species were wiped out, biological evolution would probably,
given enough time create another intelligent species.
Robert
Wright
However, I'd just as soon not conduct that experiment, and in Nonzero
I discuss some of the changes in governance, ethics, etc., that might
help avert that fate...
Bruker
If indeed moral values cannot be extracted from nature, does not natural
value inhere in the genome? Do we not strive preserve biodiversity
to preserve endangered species? Would it not also be plausible to
protect the human genome from genetic engineering or biotechnology?
Cloning technologies, for example, would use the human genome as
a source for other valuable uses without considering the intrinsic
value of the human genome, including its mutations.
Robert
Wright
Well, I guess in my view moral value inheres in the genome because
the genome is what gives rise to sentience, hence to the capacity
for happiness, sadness, love, etc.--i.e., to meaning.
Robert
Wright
So I guess on the question of what sorts of manipulations/protections
of the genome are desirable, I would ultimately get back to the practical
consequences of such manipulation/protection.
Robert
Wright
But that's just another way of saying I'm basically a utilitarian.
And that's how we started off this chat, so maybe that's a good way
to end it. I'm sorry I didn't have time to give longer/better answers
to these very good questions. Thanks for tuning in....END
ISCID
Moderator
ISCID would like to thank Robert Wright for his insightful and quite
provoking discussion.
Robert
Wright
Again, thank *you*.
Devin Harris
Thanks Robert
Copyright
© by International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
2004.
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