Deepak on The God Delusion - Part Deux

In part one, I showed that Deepak Chopra does not understand the difference between Science declaring something extremely unlikely via Ockham's Razor, where anything unnecessary to an explanation of observations is discarded. Rather, he sees Science as saying that anything that doesn't have a naturalistic explanation is non-existent. This is a ridiculous viewpoint, not the least in so far as it is false. Chopra is simply a sub-par thinker. Let's look at what he believes is Richard Dawkins second point against God:

God is unnecessary. Science can explain nature without any help from supernatural forces like God. There is no need for a Creator.

Deepak tries to hide by declaring that God is not a person:

"This assumption is false on several grounds. The most basic one is that God isn't a person. In a certain strain of fundamentalist Christianity God looks and acts human, and creating the world in six days is taken literally (Dawkins refers to such believers as "clowns," worthy of nothing but ridicule). But God isn't a person in any strain of Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, the branch of Hinduism known as Vedanta, and many denominations of Christianity--he's not a person in the Gospel of John in the New Testament."

Deepak I think missed the whole point of The God Delusion. Like Sam Harris' Letter To A Christian Nation and The End of Faith, The God Delusion was written to address the clear and present danger of fundamentalism in the Abrahamic religions. These religions do indeed view God as a person. According to the Bible, we were created in His image. Such a god can not exist. Refuting Deepak's version of spirituality would require a whole new book.

Well, we've seen how Chopra defines God as not being, but what is God to him? "God, if he exists, is universal, existing at all times and places, pervading creation both inside the envelope of space-time and outside it. To use a word like "He" has no validity, in fact; we are forced into it by how language works. A better term would be "The All," which in Sanskrit is Brahman and Allah in Islam. Not every language is stuck with "He" or "She."" This sounds rather pantheist to me, until he posits that "The All" demonstrates intelligence. That's where I draw the line between something I can respect and something I deride.

To Chopra, it all comes down to a choice. "The real debate is between two world views:
1. The universe is random. It operates entirely through physical laws. There is no evidence of innate intelligence.
2. The universe contains design. Physical laws generate new forms that display intention. Intelligence is all-pervasive." Deepak seems to think that these two points of view can be united. Unfortunately, as Dawkins pointed out clearly in his book, these people are being intellectually dishonest. For a scientist to believe the second position, evidence for design and intent must be present. It is irrational to believe in something without at least some empirical evidence. The 'inner knowledge' thing just doesn't fly, since these are baseless perceptions masqueraded as undeniable evidence. This is simply a sham, a delusion in the truest sense. I direct anyone that thinks differently to read David Hume's work Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

"There is room for a new paradigm that preserves all the achievements of science--as upheld by the first worldview--while giving the universe meaning and significance." This is ludicrous anthropomorphizing. As humans, it is part of our behavior to see patterns, even when there are none. Our intellect has trouble believing that there is no meaning, no destiny for our species. As Vic Stenger points out in God: The Failed Hypothesis, the universe has a lot of waste if it has some kind of meaning that includes us. Our species has been around only a tiny fraction of the history of the universe; our species will likely never get beyond a few light years in exploring it, whereas it is billions of light years in size. Giving the universe meaning and significance where it has none is simply an Argument from Personal Incredulity. Not accepting that there is no purpose, no reason for existence is Deepak's failing, not the universe's. Instead he plays the fool and arbitrarily posits such meaning without evidence.

In part III of this series, Chopra makes an attempt to create a bridge between these two positions. You of course know that I already think this is impossible, since the second point above is false, merest illusion…..

Deepak, Deepak, Deepak..... *sigh*

More Chopra voodoo....
Category: Religion and Philosophy

I'll admit it. I have absolutely no patience for any spiritual (in PZ's vernacular, 'woo-woo') crap. This incluces (maybe especially) the junk that Deepak Chopra spouts. This is a six part response to Deepak Chopra's 'debunking' of the Richard Dawkins' God Delusion. Chopra goes through each of what he feels are the main points (some of which he gets totally wrong) and attempts to refute each, sometimes seemingly without any logic at all. The first:

Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries. Those that it can't explain don't exist.

Chopra believes that non-empirical data is as valuable as empirical data and that Science is not the only path to Truth. He gives examples of non-empirical knowledge, such as "I know that my mother loved me all her life, as I love my own children. I feel genius in great works of art. I have seen medical cures that science can't explain, some seemingly triggered by faith." The last one I call bullshit on. Faith healing has been debunked so many times that any belief in its efficacy is simple lunacy. But let's look at the first one. (I'll take his word that his mother loved him.) Is this some kind of inner knowledge inaccessible by any logical means? No. He has simply never asked the right question: How do I know? If Deepak's mother acts in a caring manner towards him then such actions are evidence that his mother loves him. He may not have thought about it consciously, but somewhere in the background he made the connection. Certainly, this is not some 'inner knowledge'. There are many examples of such unconscious calculations, like morality and ethics described so well in Marc Hauser's "Moral Minds".

But remember, feelings evolved. They are a means for enhancing our social behavior, which in turn enhanced our survival as a species. They are constructs of Evolution, not undeniable truths. We feel what we call fear so that we may deal with danger, we feel lust so that we may pass on our genes, we feel what we call love so that we can rear a child to adulthood and so continue to pass on genetic material to the next generation. These facts do not in any way take from the experience of each. But feelings can never replace logic, reasoning and solid empirical evidence in explaining Nature. To use yesterday's David Hume quote, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." Amen.

"For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. God stands for the perfection of both, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are fantasies makes no sense." The universe does not care about beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. The universe just is. While these things are not delusions, they are all human constructs. They are byproducts of our higher brain functions. That they are not purposeful constructs is irrelevant. Deepak seems to think they are inherent properties of the universe. Bullocks.

"Science knows about objective reality, the mask of matter that our five senses detects. But the mind goes beyond the five senses, and it does Dawkins no good to lump the two worlds of inner and outer together. In fact, insofar as brain research can locate centers of activity that light up whenever a person feels love or pleasure or sexual arousal, these subjective states leave objective traces behind. That makes them more real, not less. In the same way, the brain lights up when a person feels inspired or close to God; therefore, we may be getting closer to the connection between inner and outer states, not further away." Inner and outer states? What the hell? The mind does NOT go beyond the five senses. There is no evidence that there is any other input than taste, smell, touch, sight and hearing. If a schizophrenic 'hears' voices, that is the schizophrenic's reality. Are these voices real? This is one of the reasons that so-called 'inner knowing' is meaningless without independent corroboration.

Deepak seems to think that materialists such as Dawkins try to break everything down to its smallest components; that if you can know where every atom is you know everything about a system. Such reductionism is silly and Richard Dawkins proposes no such thing. Consciousness is a prime example. We do not fully understand it yet, but we are beginning to build simple models of consciousness that have nothing to do with knowing where every molecule is situated.

Chopra looks, but does not see. How does Chopra explain changes in personality that result from brain injury? Instead, consciousness is some mystical entity. But this seems to be another form of the false dichotomy. Science hasn't explained consciousness fully therefore it must be something metaphysical. Not much of an argument. Without empirical evidence I will never be convinced, or even interested, in his position.

"A materialist could conceivably analyze the brain functions of a Mozart or Beethoven down to the last synaptic firing, but that would tell us nothing about why music exists, why it is beautiful, where great symphonies come from, why inspiration uplifts the listener, or in fact any relevant thing about the meaning of music." He's right. But again Chopra makes the mistake of thinking Science as totally reductionist. To paraphrase the old saying, if you want to study forest ecology you don't look just at the individual trees. I think that his myopic view of materialism stems from this misconception that by dissecting Nature Science removes the inherent beauty of it. Poppycock! Without Science how would any of us ever know the beauty of celestial objects that the Hubble Telescope brings us, the symmetry of the mathematics that rules the mechanics of the universe, or the amazing natural history of our planet? Scientists are not robots.

The last point that he makes, that if Science can't explain it then it doesn't exist, is a strawman. Materialism says no such thing. When we scientists can't explain something, we tell the truth: we don't know. There's no shame in that. The shame comes (or should) when we say something idiotic like "We don't know, therefore it must be magic." What Science does say is anything (like god) not required to explain a set of observations should be removed from our hypotheses. Otherwise its inclusion is arbitrary and superfluous. This is Ockham's Razor.

Chopra's position is a dangerous one. His mystical baloney relies heavily on Science never being able to explain fully the areas in which he makes his attacks. In this he posits nothing more than the God of the Gaps. What a rube.

Part II tomorrow....

Soul Cravings

I have just finished listening to the webcast on The Things That Matter Most (hosted by Rick Davis and Leal Arrington) with guest Erwin McManus. His new book, Soul Cravings, is discussed:

We can spend our whole lives trying to satisfy the one insatiable part of our being, our soul craving. Our capacity for spiritual experience both proves our need for something greater than ourselves and leaves us wanting when we fill it with anything but God.

Soul Cravings is a powerful, down-to-earth exposition that interprets our need for community, meaning, and destiny as common sense apologetics pointing to the existence of and our need for God. The book will deeply stir the reader to consider and chase after the spiritual implications of their soul's deepest longings.

The show summary was as follows:

Erwin McManus makes the case that we can find evidence for God and eternity within our own souls and persistent desires for love, destiny and meaning. And this evidence is even more compelling than the empirical evidence from textual criticism, archaeology, fulfilled prophecy and the hard sciences.

Well, what I expected was the usual gloss-over on exactly just what a soul is and just when was it that the existence of said soul was established. I said in an earlier blog that the this sort of gnostic evidence is tacit to an admission that empirical evidence, where it does not totally refute theistic positions, is nonexistent so we have to fill the void with emotional arguments.

Only one person has ever been needed to destroy such nonsense: David Hume. As Hume said, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." Couldn't have said it better myself. How does one 'know' that they have a soul? You may feel that you have one, but could this not be an illusion? You bet. Humans evolved to see patterns, even where there aren't any. So-called inner knowledge is so subject to bias and interpretation that it is completely useless.

Can Evolution explain Love? The hosts and their guests seem to think that propagation of genes involves only sex. In some animals this is true, but not for mammals. Our young are born at a stage of development where they are still completely helpless and need rearing to survive. In fact, how can rearing be explained without the existence of something like Love? It can't, of course. So what did their guest prove? Nothing. These people need to read a book on Evolution NOT approved by the Discovery Institute. Obviously, they have never heard of Hamilton's Rule.

But my favorite part was an attempt to counter an argument made by Brian Sapient, founder of the Blasphemy Challenge, based on the Argument from Evil: the existence of hell shows that God is not a god of love and therefore the Christian god does not exist. What McManus says is that because Sapient does not believe in hell, his argument is disingenuous. "One minute you say that you don't believe in God because of hell, then say that you don't really believe in hell. So you can't use hell as an argument if you don't believe in hell. Let's say that there's no hell. Now prove to me there is no God." How many things are wrong with this? What Brian Sapient is doing is pointing out the inconsistencies in the framework that McManus et al are proponents of. Sapient's belief in hell is irrelevant. If there is no hell, then the Christian position falls apart since it depends largely on the existence of hell. This is just stupidity.

I gave this a fair listen to, as I promised. I did have some presuppositions, but the hosts and their guest could have dispelled these had they so chose. For instance,

• A clear definition of the soul was not presented;
• Evidence for the existence of a soul was not only lacking, but its existence was assumed and that everyone would be happy with that;
• Love, a sense of community, meaning were presented as if they lead to the existence of God, yet totally ignoring other perfectly satisfactory naturalistic explanations. Leal erroneously suggested that Evolution can in fact not explain these things;
• Non-emprical 'intrinsic' evidence is posited to have as much value as empirical evidence, to which David and I say 'Hogwash!'. Theist apologists such as McManus or Plantinga need this to be seen as the case, otherwise their arguments are completely unsupported by any evidence at all.

The only thing I agreed with that was said in the whole show was that our lives need to have meaning. But I've done fabulously without any need for a deity. I offer myself as a living refutation of this book. As for buying it, I'll pass.

This came as something of a surprise to me...

..>..>..>..>..>..>

You'll die in a Bar Fight.

You are the angry type when drunk, and you can't help but be violent towards perfect strangers. Unfortunatly for you one of those strangers is a kung fu master.

..>..> ..>..>..>..>..>..>

'How will you die?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Bar fight? Up until the recent bylaw in Calgary banning smoking in bars I rarely went to them. Even now I don't go much, and when I do I don't drink all that much anyway. Too bad for kung fu boy that not only do I fence epee, I hold a shodan in Shotokan karate....

Fun with MRI - View 2 of our mystery object....

Here is the same bit of produce imaged using another orientation:

Fun with MRI - guess the sample

I had someone take some images on a system we installed about a year ago in Edmonton at the Cross Cancer Institute. This image set was taken on a 9.4 Tesla magnet with our MR console (and my pulse sequence software, pat on back). Thanks to Matt for doing this for me.



The field-of-view was 35 mm square, which will give you an idea of the size of the object. This looks like a T2-weighted sequence, but I'm not sure. I'll post the answer in a few days...

PZ Meyers is AWESOME!

There. A shameless plug for a like-minded fellow scientist. Pharyngula is a daily read for me, and thanks to PZ for including me on his blogroll. Maybe such unabashed praise will keep me on said blogroll for a while...? Only time will tell.

I am definitely looking forward to tearing down the next webcast at The Things That Matter Most. Here is the abstract:

Guest: Ewrin R. McManus
Erwin McManus makes the case that we can find evidence for God and eternity within our own souls and persistent desires for love, destiny and meaning. And this evidence is even more compelling than the empirical evidence from textual criticism, archaeology, fulfilled prophecy and the hard sciences.

It should be an easy tear-down. Not that I just like tearing down weak arguments (I do), but.... Well, no buts. The religious speak of souls as if they are self-evidently true. The existence of the soul is an illusion, without any evidence. How can non-empirical evidence (as if there is such a thing) be more compelling? I thought gnosticism was heretical. If the existence of the soul is unproven, or even supported by any evidence whatsoever, the whole house of cards comes down. Fruit of the poison tree, to quote Law & Order.

The null hypothesis is that there is no soul. For me to even agree that there is even a chance that something exists there must be some evidence pointing to existence. Otherwise, you are left with Bertrand Russell's tea pot.

To suggest that non-empirical evidence has any value (human perceptions are utterly fallible) smacks of surrender to the obvious that there is no empirical evidence to support theistic positions.

Evolution provides a perfectly good explanation for love and all other emotions for that matter. Destiny and meaning, in the absence of a soul or gods, comes from within. I happen to think that it is absolutely wonderful that we as humans are the only animal with the power to shape our own lives. Why can't the religious see that a god that has given us a purpose is demeaning?

I do intend on giving the webcast a fair hearing, despite what I've written. The above rant is more about the abstract. If compelling evidence for the existence of the soul can be given I would change my position in a heart beat, but 2000 years of trying has failed, and I greatly doubt that Sunday's show will add anything.