“Don’t replace the unknown with the unknowable.”

Cody and Dusty, via Nano Banana

 
“Don’t replace the unknown with the unknowable.”
Losing p. 90

All through history, humans have faced unknowns. Why do we exist? What causes lightning (earthquakes, etc.)? Where did the universe come from? Why was there more matter than antimatter at the Big Bang?* How did inanimate matter give rise to life? Why do good things happen to bad people?

And nearly everyone has answered these questions with some form of “gods” – an answer that ends any further inquiry or insights. 

(The main exception might be the question, What is life? Then lots of very smart people posited vis vitalis, a ”vital force” outside of materialism. This was true even well into the 20th century.)

I bring this up because a smart, thoughtful person insists to me that since materialism doesn't (currently) explain consciousness, we have to move beyond materialism.

No thanks. 

Could they be right? Sure. But history is not kind to those who claim we have to move beyond materialism because we're currently ignorant about something.

History shows that the correct response to the unknown is always: I don't know.

It may always be mysterious

Specific to consciousness, I have to agree with Sam Harris: I don't even know what form a satisfying explanation of consciousness could possibly take. 

When humans faced the question of ”What is life?” we had specific attributes to explain: reproduction, energy production, (locally) countering the second law of thermodynamics. For the longest time, we didn't know how to explain those, so we posited a vital force. Then scientists figured out DNA, the Krebs cycle, proton pumps, membranes, etc., explaining every single attribute of life within a materialist framework.  

We still don't know for sure exactly how life first arose from inanimate matter, but there is no reason to invoke magic; materialism is entirely adequate.

OTOH, I can't imagine an explanation of consciousness that explains its single attribute: How does it feel like something to be a conscious entity. 

I tend to broadly agree with Antonio Damasio's homeostatic hypothesis of why consciousness came about and what purpose it serves. But maybe Integrated Information Theory is right. Or something else.

But none of those theories explain how anything feels, how matter and energy gives rise to subjective experience.

The Hard Problem might just be The Impossible Problem for our feeble minds.

And that is OK.

The universe as god

When faced with this particular unknown, a surprising number of people go to panpsychism – that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. But again, this doesn't explain how consciousness emerges, why anything feels. Panpsychism simply says, ”That's just how our universe is." 

To me, this is even worse than saying ”God did it.” For one, it has just ridiculous implications, like electrons are conscious (and the ultimate, inescapable EA endpoint for all you expected value junkies). 

But more importantly, all the actual evidence shows that consciousness is an emergent property of certain types of systems. As I write in ”When we believe absurdities, we commit atrocities”:

How do we know the brain leads to consciousness? Because we can manipulate conscious, subjective experience by manipulating the structure and chemistry of the brain [not by changing ”fundamental reality”]. Even with our excruciatingly limited understanding of the brain, we can dim consciousness, deepen it, distort it, dement and derange it, depress it, disengage it, dull it, diminish it, and destroy it with relatively small [material] changes.

Fantasies are harmful; Ignorance is OK  

Again, this doesn't explain why having a (certain kind of) brain involves conscious feeling. (This is separate from the question of what purpose consciousness plays once it does arise. Like most everything, that question can be understood in its evolutionary context; see, for example, Walter Veit.) 

We simply don't know how a certain arrangement of matter and energy gives rise to subjective experience. We might never know.   

And that is OK.

Saying that consciousness comes from ”fundamental reality” or god or spirit or quantum mechanics doesn't do any good. It goes against the evidence and doesn't give us any actually useful information.

Positing a modern vis vitalis might makes us feel [sic] less ignorant, but that doesn't make it correct. 

More importantly, panpsychism etc. distracts us from what we do know – consciousness arises from brains** – and keeps us from acting on what we can (or might) know – what kinds of brains are capable of (different kinds of) subjective experience (see postscript). 

We might never know how our universe came into existence, why there is something rather than nothing. We might never know how that universe gives rise to subjective experience.  

And that is OK.

The only thing we can know is that consciousness exists. Even without knowing how or why, this is enough to lead a meaningful life: 

PS / tl;dr
When I mentioned this to Anne, she said, “Maybe we should stop fretting about what consciousness is and instead help those who are conscious and suffering.”

*OK, the antimatter question isn't something we've wondered about for all of human history.   😉

**This isn't to say that consciousness can only arise from biological brains; there is no evidence that consciousness is substrate-dependent. 

What Is Consciousness? With Many Links (Part 1)

Part 2

A reader* responds to “Science, Suffering, and Shrimp”:

>we may just always disagree on the likelihood of invertebrates feeling morally significant suffering

Au contraire! 

There is nothing about a vertebrate that inherently leads to consciousness, and there is no reason to believe that consciousness is limited to vertebrates. 

The analysis of what we know about shrimp can not be extrapolated to all invertebrates. Indeed, one of the meta studies cited in the shrimp review tends to lean toward lobsters being able to experience pain. 

Indeed, if I had to bet Anne’s life (the highest stakes, as that would also be betting my life), I would say that octopuses can have conscious, subjective experiences. I think it is more likely that octopuses can feel morally significant suffering than vertebrate fish.  

I am not sure about any of this. It seems impossible to be 100% certain when it comes to any question regarding consciousness in another. For example, there seems to be no way to know that I’m not just a simulated mind being fed inputs. (I wouldn’t bet on it, but it isn’t impossible. When was the last time you knew a dream wasn’t “real,” no matter how weird it was?) 

As I quote Sam Harris in Losing: “Whatever the explanation for consciousness is, it might always seem like a miracle. And for what it’s worth, I think it always will seem like a miracle.”

I’ve written a lot about consciousness in this blog and in Losing, but here is a very short bullet list of what I currently think:

• Consciousness is not an inherent property of reality; i.e., panpsychism is wrong and logically silly (p. 93). I’m joking about electrons, a reductio ad absurdum of thinking morality can be expected value (more on this in Part 2).
  
  
• But in fairness to the epiphenomena / zombie crowd, consciousness really isn’t required for much of behavior we see in creatures we assume to be conscious. (e.g., “Robots won’t be conscious”)
  
  
• Speaking of robots, I highly doubt that consciousness is substrate-specific. But I agree with Antonio Damasio that it is not enough to just create a silicon-based neural net. See the well-chosen excerpts here.  
  
  
• Consciousness does not arise from the ability to sense (sunflowers sensing the sun, amoeba sensing a chemical gradient, nematodes sensing a “harmful” stimulus.)  
  
  
• Consciousness is not the same as intelligence.  
  
  
• Consciousness isn’t binary; the simplest conscious creature does not have the same level / intensity of subjective experiences as the most complex conscious creature.
  
  
• Consciousness is an evolutionarily-useful emergent property of a certain level and organization of neural complexity. The amount of neural complexity required for consciousness is costly, so it must serve some purpose to make it worthwhile. (The Ed Yong excerpt from here is reproduced below.) 
  
  
• Consciousness can serve a purpose worth its cost under certain circumstances:
  
  
• A creature is long-lived enough such that learning and adapting is beneficial.
  
  
• A creature’s behavior has enough plasticity that suffering and the pursuit of pleasure can significantly alter the creature’s life to improve their genes’ propagation. E.g., they can make difficult trade offs, like forgoing eating or mating in order to survive longer. (Again, see the Yong excerpt below.) 

[Later edit: a commenter on Substack rightly notes I don't actually define consciousness. They're right! See this.]

So no, I don’t think only vertebrate carbon-based animals can be conscious, and I don’t think all vertebrates have morally-relevant subjective experiences. 

But this doesn’t mean we don’t have a disagreement! That’s Part 2.

I know that, with the links, this is all a lot (consciousness has been my intellectual obsession for well over 40 years now – it is the most miraculous thing, IMO). But just two more links, and then Ed Yong’s excerpt (and then the * footnote):

Consciousness, Fish, and Uncertainty

More on Why Not Fish?

from Ed Yong's wonderful An Immense World:

We rarely distinguish between the raw act of sensing and the subjective experiences that ensue. But that’s not because such distinctions don’t exist.

Think about the evolutionary benefits and costs of pain [subjective suffering]. Evolution has pushed the nervous systems of insects toward minimalism and efficiency, cramming as much processing power as possible into small heads and bodies. Any extra mental ability – say, consciousness – requires more neurons, which would sap their already tight energy budget. They should pay that cost only if they reaped an important benefit. And what would they gain from pain?

The evolutionary benefit of nociception [sensing negative stimuli / bodily damage] is abundantly clear. It’s an alarm system that allows animals to detect things that might harm or kill them, and take steps to protect themselves. But the origin of pain [suffering], on top of that, is less obvious. What is the adaptive value of suffering? Why should nociception suck? Animals can learn to avoid dangers perfectly well without needing subjective experiences. After all, look at what robots can do.

Engineers have designed robots that can behave as if they're in pain, learn from negative experiences, or avoid artificial discomfort. These behaviors, when performed by animals, have been interpreted as indicators of pain. But robots can perform them without subjective experiences.

Insect nervous systems have evolved to pull off complex behaviors in the simplest possible ways, and robots show us how simple it is possible to be. If we can program them to accomplish all the adaptive actions that pain supposedly enables without also programming them with consciousness, then evolution – a far superior innovator that works over a much longer time frame – would surely have pushed minimalist insect brains in the same direction. For that reason, Adamo thinks it's unlikely that insects feel pain. ...

Insects often do alarming things that seem like they should be excruciating. Rather than limping, they'll carry on putting pressure on a crushed limb. Male praying mantises will continue mating with females that are devouring them. Caterpillars will continue munching on a leaf while parasitic wasp larvae eat them from the inside out. Cockroaches will cannibalize their own guts if given a chance.

*Another reader responded to the Shrimp post by berating me for refusing to spend a penny to save hundreds of shrimp from a “torturous” death. So if you're keeping score, one of the loudest shrimp “advocates” actively misrepresents scientific studies, and the other resorts to bullying via absurd hyperbole.

Joe Rogan Is a Bad Human Being (but Science Is Good)

Science saved my life, 2017 version.

Science has made our lives better, cancer edition.

Steven Pinker pointed out a crazy stat: about 100 years ago, being pregnant had about the same mortality rate as a breast cancer diagnosis today.  😮

On the other side, from Losing My Religions:

[W]e all have our psychological quirks and blind spots, even people who make a living railing against unreason. For example, in early 2022, author (The End of Faith) and podcaster Sam Harris took a break from maligning misinformation to defend his friend Joe Rogan.

At first glance, this seems at the very least unnecessary if not absurd. But to me, it makes perfect sense. Even though he is one of the worst sources of misinformation, Joe Rogan is much more famous than Sam Harris, and Rogan has repeatedly been deferential to and promotional of Harris.

Even though Rogan is a significant net negative for the world, our minds are simply not built to do utilitarian calculations when it comes to interpersonal dynamics. The human brain evolved dealing with small groups of people who we see every day. So if someone with more social power praises us, our brains simply can't help but view them as "friend."

For a fuller discussion, this Revisionist History podcast by Malcolm Gladwell goes into detail as to how Rogan uses his platform to spread dangerous, deadly misinformation. Only listen when you can fast forward - the ads are many and obnoxious. 

Bonus repeat: Lincoln and Enlightenment (June 2023: Emptiness and Freedom, part 2 of 3)

Pre-script: Tonight is the 4th anniversary of the worst few seconds to ever happen to my family*. On the bright side, I have not been taken to the emergency room since that night - the longest ER-free stretch since I met Anne.

*I say family because the whole thing was really bad for both Anne and EK. 😢 

And also regarding terrible events: a reminder that I'm ignoring all political news. It remains hard, and I still miss Colbert. TY.

After receiving yesterday's blog, a friend asked, "What do you think it would take for you to have 'malice toward none and charity toward all?'" I half-jokingly sent this link as my flippant reply. But the below, which is part 2 of 3, is my actual answer. I'm working on it.

Part 1  |  Part 3 

In Why Buddhism Is True, Robert Wright quotes a teacher saying that you shouldn’t try to intellectually understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness, because if you make the attempt, your head would explode.

I disagree.

Recognizing Our Simplicity

We humans have proven ourselves capable of incredible illusions. From believing in god speaking to us and transubstantiation to suffering the delusion that we are living in the end times and the Dunning-Kruger effect, our brains do not see the world clearly. We can’t even comprehend how bad it is. (Doubt that?)

Although we can’t be sure we aren’t living in a simulation, all testable evidence indicates that the universe is simply matter and energy following (a certain set of) the laws of physics. (“A certain set of” because there could be other universes where the laws are different.)

We don’t understand how the chemical interactions of our brain’s ~1.4 x 10^26 atoms give rise to conscious, subjective experience. But we do know that we can manipulate consciousness in specific ways by manipulating the brain’s atoms' interactions. This gives every reason to believe that consciousness is an emergent property of specific arrangements of matter and energy, but still subject to the laws of physics (and the emergent rules of chemistry, biology, physiology). 

Everything we think, everything we feel, everything we do – all of it is, at the core, the interactions of atoms. Nothing more.

Recognizing this undermines the illusion of free will. But this insight isn’t (entirely) a loss, just as it isn’t (entirely) a loss to give up religion, or to understand the evolutionary basis of love, sex, and reproduction. Realizing the materialist, reductionist nature of the universe is yet another gain – a clearer understanding of reality. And that better understanding can help us lead a better life.

The First Gain: Freedom (of a sort)

The first insight is into ourselves. Since everything is chemical reactions, we can’t be the driver of our thoughts and feelings. Consciousness is along for the ride. Our bodies feel emotions – hunger, fear, desire – as a way to understand the world and motivate “appropriate” behavior. Many things are going on in our body / brain to keep us alive; consciousness shines the spotlight of attention on one part of our otherwise unconscious thoughts and feelings to allow us to “think” more on that topic. We don’t “choose” what to think about.

This is the great insight from mindfulness meditation – recognizing that our minds don’t actually work the way we assume they do. Thoughts think themselves.

But we don’t have to be the feeling or the thought. Once we realize thoughts think themselves and feelings are messages, we don’t have to identify with them if we don’t want to. That is: these insights and mindfulness can reprogram our brains to recognize thoughts and feelings for what they are. Thoughts and feelings are not who we are.

More concretely: we don’t have to be “angry.” We don’t have to "be" anything.

Anger can arise, we can recognize it, and then “choose” to let it go. "I recognize I am experiencing anger" vs "I am angry."

Conversely, we can recognize good fortune, experience gratitude, and “choose” to embrace the experience of that feeling.

As Sam Harris notes:

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist – in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. … Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can paradoxically allow for greater creative control over one's life. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings.”

The Second Gain: Emptiness toward Enlightenment

The second insight is the first applied to the broader world.

Everything in the universe is simply matter and energy following the laws of physics. There is no “good” or “bad.” Everything is empty of meaning, value, and emotional valence, except what our consciousness assigns to it. 

And with enough understanding, training, and reprogramming, we can “choose” not to assign anything to anything, except what makes our lives better.

It goes without saying: this is difficult. But the reality is that the rude cashier is just a collection of atoms constrained by the laws of physics. Ted Cruz is just following his genetic and societal programming. The chicken farmer, the person picking their toes on the train, the driver revving his unmuffled car – at the core, just collections of atoms, empty of any inherent meaning.

So instead of reacting with disdain, hatred, or mockery, we don’t have to react at all. Or we can “choose” to react with joy that we aren’t that person. Or we can “choose” compassion. Or we can “choose” to try to figure out actions that may help change a situation that is causing suffering in others – and we can make this choice without allowing ourselves to suffer. 

(And of course, when I say “choose,” I mean “use insights from others and our experiences to reprogram our neural net so we react differently in the future.”) 

Simply Another Way of Interacting with the World

We don’t start out knowing how to type, use a cellphone, or speak a language. We don’t simply “decide” to have those and other skills. But if something in our lives leads to the knowledge and training necessary, we can interact with the world in a new way. 

Learning a new language is perhaps the best example. People can speak German to me and I am unable to react in any positive, constructive way (unless they get a laugh from my idiotic grin). But because of an external factor (an excellent teacher in college) Anne “chose” to put in the time to learn and practice German, and now she has a new way of interacting with the world.

If you are reading this, it is likely that you have a similar ability – the ability to gain the knowledge and do the training necessary to achieve something closer to “enlightenment.” Put simply: 

By recognizing the illusion of free will and pursuing the right training / reprogramming, we can develop something much more like free will than we have now. We can take hold of one of the strings that currently makes our life worse than it needs to be. We can stop simply reacting and instead interact, with more control over our feelings.

In short: giving up free will and embracing emptiness can make life much better. 

The Least Self-Aware Guru

Please check out Hannah Ritchie's latest about food production. (Don't read the comments.)

Also, the latest Freakonomics could literally save your life. tl;dr - wrongly thinking you are allergic to penicillin can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering and death. Who knew?

We interrupt my attempts to be more positive for a bit of venting:

Our hero Sam Harris has a new, long Substack post (won't link to) bemoaning that fire hit his very rich neighborhood. He uses his platform to call on billionaires to give away their money to rebuild his wealthy neighborhood. 

Note: This multi-multi-millionaire did not and is not calling on billionaires to give away their money to the poor, nor to the disease-stricken, nor to those who have actually lost everything. No; only after his daughter's school partly burned did Sam call on billionaires to give away their money.

[I also found this commentary on Sam's post to be spot-on:

His claim that "If what someone's done to accumulate wealth isn't illegal we shouldn't be mad about it" is so mind-numbingly stupid that I had to stop and make sure I hadn't misread it. ... "We shouldn't resent the uber wealthy for dodging taxes that pay for things like public infrastructure and disaster relief. However, they should be nice and donate their money for disaster relief and public infrastructure where I live." 

The Sam Harris of 1930: "Sure we know they built their fortunes off of child labor in factories in mines, but that's legal and everything that's legal is okay (and everything that's illegal is bad!) so we can't get mad at them for having money. Don't get mad at rich people, that makes me sad!"]

In Sam's honor, here are some relevant past posts:

From 2018:

In the latest "Ask Me Anything," Sam was asked about the person who wanted to change his age from 69 to 49. In his answer, Sam compared him to the white con-woman who posed as black, and then to trans people. He concluded that we don't allow people to change their age merely because not enough people are "clamoring to do so."

Once again, Sam's lack of empathy and insight is astounding. This person wants to change his age to benefit himself. No one comes out as trans to benefit themselves. 2018 has had the most murders of trans people in the United States ever, and a similar rise in the rate of violence against trans individuals. This is not to mention what many trans people go through with family and in the workplace.

Hey Sam -- how many people are beaten to death for turning a certain age?

That Sam could even consider for a second that there is some equivalence between "feeling younger" and being trans -- let alone go on the record saying so -- is, to my mind, extraordinarily damning of Sam as a "thinker."

...

And again, in the AMA Sam claimed it was important that we see how unfairly celebrities have been treated by #MeToo, because "They are the canary in the coal mine." But what was his example of the great injustice? That people were mean to Matt Damon on Twitter.

It would appear that Sam's algorithm is simple: How will issue X affect well-off straight white men? More and more, it seems to me that is Sam's only concern in the world. He's become a new Jordan Peterson, just telling straight white men what they want to hear. How else can you possibly explain his contention that cross-burning darling of the KKK Charles Murray is "the most unfairly maligned person in my lifetime. That doesn’t really run the risk of being much of an exaggeration there."

PS: Another white guy pines for a time when only white guys had power.

Also from 2018:

Excerpts from Ezra Klein's interview with Sam Harris:

Sam: I’m in the, once again, having the bewildering experience of agreeing with virtually everything you said there, and yet it has basically no relevance to what I view as our underlying disagreement.

Ezra: You have that bewildering experience because you don’t realize when you keep saying that everybody else is thinking tribally, but you’re not, that that is our disagreement.

Sam: Well, no, because I know I’m not thinking tribally ... It’s not tribalism. This is an experience of talking about ideas in public. ... That is not identity politics. That is my experience as a public intellectual trying to talk about ideas.

Ezra: That is what folks from the dominant group get to do. They get to say, my thing isn’t identity politics, only yours is. I will tell you, Sam, when people who do not look like you hear you telling them that this is just identity politics, they don’t think, “God he’s right. That is just identity politics.” They think this is my experience and you don’t understand it. You just said it’s your experience and they don’t understand it.

Shorter Sam Harris: The only people who are being honest are me -- a well-off white guy -- and those who agree with me. Everyone else who doesn't agree is lying about "the data" and just playing politically-correct identity politics.

And what is the tragedy here? What is the worst thing that deserves our attention and must be addressed? Hundreds of years of racial oppression and violence? Unarmed people being shot? Study after study showing continued racial discrimination?

No. It is a very rich, very famous, very influential white cross-burning guy being disliked by some people on the left. Again, Sam Harris:

I hadn’t paid attention to [Charles] Murray. When I did read the book and did some more research on him, I came to think that he was probably the most unfairly maligned person in my lifetime. That doesn’t really run the risk of being much of an exaggeration there.

Wow.

From 2019:

There are some people, like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, who I think very actively cause more suffering in the world (and, sadly, are enabled by lots of "reasonable" people who care more about congeniality than consequences).

However, Sam Harris just makes me sad. I still start [again: 2019] many of his podcasts because he has interesting people (for example Andrew McAfee). But I was dismayed to hear that not only does he add a preface to his interviews, Harris has now added a postscript to make it more about him -- and to attack his guests when they aren't able to reply. This continues to undermine his contention that "conversation" [sic] is the most important tool we have (a belief I don't share).

What is much worse, however, is Harris' incredible close-mindedness. He is utterly convinced that he has all truth. He contends that any other perspective isn't just wrong but also the root of everything bad (i.e., Hillary lost by refusing to condemn Islam as Sam does). His sneering and thoughtless denigrations of "The Left," "identity politics," and anyone who is "woke" are so childish that I am continually amazed that no one Sam respects will point that out to him. But it seems as though there are fewer and fewer people he respects. Anyone who has a different point of view is quickly dismissed out of hand. If you don't have Sam's well-off straight white male perspective, you need to "get over it." ...

I believe that Sam is right about free will -- that is, that everything that happens is just physics (chemistry, biology). I understand that Sam can't do any differently than his clueless arrogance. Worshipful echo chambers are powerful drugs. So I really should just "get over it" and not let it bother me. But at least as of today, it still does.

Unweaving the Rainbow, or Reality Is Better

 

Whatever the explanation for consciousness is, it might always seem like a miracle. And for what it’s worth, I think it always will seem like a miracle. 
-Sam Harris, quoted in "Day 4 Concluded"

 

I want to make one* point about this excellent Sentientism podcast with Opis' Jonathan Leighton:

The host claims if we take a "scientistic" (reductionist / evolutionary biology) view of the world, we "crush the meaning and the fun and the value and the joy" from life (at 11 minutes).

Um ... no.

In short, I am as reductionist a person as you'll meet. All that exists is matter and energy. Everything is just bosons and fermions following the laws of physics (unless I'm a simulation). 

But if you know me or have read TBTSNBN**, you know my life has fun and value and joy. I greatly enjoy food and drink and sunshine and NSFW, even though I know why I crave it. I have less suffering the more I internalize reality. 

In short, we don't need illusions to have joy or value our lives. My experience argues just the opposite.

If interested in this topic, please check out Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder. Existence is truly filled with wonder; the more we understand, the more we (well-off humans reading this) can appreciate and be grateful for our limited time of consciousness. 

*OK, I have many points I want to make, but this is the most relevant one, IMO.

**The Book That Shall Not Be Named

Best Post of 2023 (IMHO) Enlightenment: Emptiness and Freedom (part 2 of 3)

Part 1  |  Part 3 

In Why Buddhism Is True, Robert Wright quotes a teacher saying that you shouldn’t try to intellectually understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness, because if you make the attempt, your head would explode.

I disagree.

Recognizing Our Simplicity

We humans have proven ourselves capable of incredible illusions. From believing in god speaking to us and transubstantiation to suffering the delusion that we are living in the end times and the Dunning-Kruger effect, our brains do not see the world clearly. We can’t even comprehend how bad it is. (Doubt that?)

Although we can’t be sure we aren’t living in a simulation, all testable evidence indicates that the universe is simply matter and energy following (a certain set of) the laws of physics. (“A certain set of” because there could be other universes where the laws are different.)

We don’t understand how the chemical interactions of our brain’s ~1.4 x 10^26 atoms give rise to conscious, subjective experience. But we do know that we can manipulate consciousness in specific ways by manipulating the brain’s atoms' interactions. This gives every reason to believe that consciousness is an emergent property of specific arrangements of matter and energy, but still subject to the laws of physics (and the emergent rules of chemistry, biology, physiology). 

Everything we think, everything we feel, everything we do – all of it is, at the core, the interactions of atoms. Nothing more.

Recognizing this undermines the illusion of free will. But this insight isn’t (entirely) a loss, just as it isn’t (entirely) a loss to give up religion, or to understand the evolutionary basis of love, sex, and reproduction. Realizing the materialist, reductionist nature of the universe is yet another gain – a clearer understanding of reality. And that better understanding can help us lead a better life.

The First Gain: Freedom (of a sort)

The first insight is into ourselves. Since everything is chemical reactions, we can’t be the driver of our thoughts and feelings. Consciousness is along for the ride. Our bodies feel emotions – hunger, fear, desire – as a way to understand the world and motivate “appropriate” behavior. Many things are going on in our body / brain to keep us alive; consciousness shines the spotlight of attention on one part of our otherwise unconscious thoughts and feelings to allow us to “think” more on that topic. We don’t “choose” what to think about.

This is the great insight from mindfulness meditation – recognizing that our minds don’t actually work the way we assume they do. Thoughts think themselves.

But we don’t have to be the feeling or the thought. Once we realize thoughts think themselves and feelings are messages, we don’t have to identify with them if we don’t want to. That is: these insights and mindfulness can reprogram our brains to recognize thoughts and feelings for what they are. Thoughts and feelings are not who we are.

More concretely: we don’t have to be “angry.” We don’t have to "be" anything.

Anger can arise, we can recognize it, and then “choose” to let it go. "I recognize I am experiencing anger" vs "I am angry."

Conversely, we can recognize good fortune, experience gratitude, and “choose” to embrace the experience of that feeling.

As Sam Harris notes:

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist – in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. … Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can paradoxically allow for greater creative control over one's life. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings.”

The Second Gain: Emptiness toward Enlightenment

The second insight is the first applied to the broader world.

Everything in the universe is simply matter and energy following the laws of physics. There is no “good” or “bad.” Everything is empty of meaning, value, and emotional valence, except what our consciousness assigns to it. 

And with enough understanding, training, and reprogramming, we can “choose” not to assign anything to anything, except what makes our lives better.

It goes without saying: this is difficult. But the reality is that the rude cashier is just a collection of atoms constrained by the laws of physics. Ted Cruz is just following his genetic and societal programming. The chicken farmer, the person picking their toes on the train, the driver revving his unmuffled car – at the core, just collections of atoms, empty of any inherent meaning.

So instead of reacting with disdain, hatred, or mockery, we don’t have to react at all. Or we can “choose” to react with joy that we aren’t that person. Or we can “choose” compassion. Or we can “choose” to try to figure out actions that may help change a situation that is causing suffering in others – and we can make this choice without allowing ourselves to suffer. 

(And of course, when I say “choose,” I mean “use insights from others and our experiences to reprogram our neural net so we react differently in the future.”) 

Simply Another Way of Interacting with the World

We don’t start out knowing how to type, use a cellphone, or speak a language. We don’t simply “decide” to have those and other skills. But if something in our lives leads to the knowledge and training necessary, we can interact with the world in a new way. 

Learning a new language is perhaps the best example. People can speak German to me and I am unable to react in any positive, constructive way (unless they get a laugh from my idiotic grin). But because of an external factor (an excellent teacher in college) Anne “chose” to put in the time to learn and practice German, and now she has a new way of interacting with the world.

If you are reading this, it is likely that you have a similar ability – the ability to gain the knowledge and do the training necessary to achieve something closer to “enlightenment.” Put simply: 

By recognizing the illusion of free will and pursuing the right training / reprogramming, we can develop something much more like free will than we have now. We can take hold of one of the strings that currently makes our life worse than it needs to be. We can stop simply reacting and instead interact, with more control over our feelings.

In short: giving up free will and embracing emptiness can make life much better. 

Peter Attia on the Best Way to Improve Your Lifespan and Quality of Life

Look at that explosive leaping ability!
Photo from 1982.

On EconTalk (the straightest, whitest, malest podcast outside of Sam Harris' - maybe even moreso) Dr. Attia talked about the best thing we can do to live well in the future:

Is smoking bad for people? Yes. How can we measure this? Well, when we look at all-cause mortality, if we compare a smoker to a non-smoker at any point in time, the smoker has a 40% increase in all-cause mortality in the coming year relative to the non-smoker. So, [smoking has] a hazard ratio of 1.40. That's a very big hazard ratio. 

If you look at the hazard ratio for high blood pressure, it's about 1.29, 1.3. So, 29 to 30% chance greater death in the following year than the non-smoker.

Now, let's talk about the difference between being very fit and not being very fit. If you take 60-year-old men in the bottom 25% [of VO2 max] and you compare them to 60-year-old men in the top 2.5%, the hazard ratio is five. That's 400% difference. If you just compare the bottom 25% to the second quartile - these people are both still below average - the hazard ratio is 1.5. It's a 50% difference.

I could do the same exercise with muscle mass and strength. The reason for this is that VO2 max strength and muscle mass are amazing integrals of work. You can't just decide tomorrow you want to be strong and have a high VO2 max the way you could fix your vitamin D. 

If we improved your VO2 max by 25%, which we could do in two years, it would have a bigger impact on your lifespan and the quality of your life than any other intervention. But it would require work. So, this is the two-edged sword of exercise, which is it does require the most work by far, but it has the most bang for the buck.

Our Ego Hurts Animals

Green Day (God's Favorite Band) / BJA - Ordinary World (live)

The deadliest food in the world.

Peter Attia, MD, has a new book*, Outlive, that discusses our best understanding of how to have the greatest healthspan - i.e., living as long as possible while healthy.**

A key takeaway is that most of us don't get enough protein, especially those of us who are older.

This inconvenient truth goes against the Vegan Dogma, which insists that people in the developed world get too much protein. Vegans don't say "too much protein" because we have done an honest, rigorous review of the latest research. Rather, we say "too much" because we can't admit that there might be any question about veganism's ease or perfection. This denial is taken to absurd and harmful extremes; e.g., one of the most common cups of Kool-Aid to consume is that even broccoli has enough protein. 

Here's a secret: 

No one has ever stopped eating animals because of that broccoli line. 

But: The vast majority of people who stop eating animals revert back. And today, the average person in the United States (and in the world) has never eaten more factory-farmed animals.

Another tenet of the Vegan Dogma is that everyone else is to blame for veganism's lack of impact. I get it - Vegans*** have their self-worth tied to the perfection of their Veganism. Yes, yes, yes, they are all much smarter and better than the rest of us.

However, those of us who care about helping animals instead of Defending the Faith must answer for our absolute failure to make the world a better place for other animals. That includes me (one of the reasons I wrote Losing****).

In addition to two other factors,***** dishonesty regarding health and nutrition drives the 80+% failure rate of new vegetarians and vegans. We are dishonest with ourselves (We Want to Believe) as well as with others. 

For example - every time I make this broccoli point, a Vegan will angrily comment: "But broccoli does have enough protein!"

<sigh>

I don't expect this column (or anything I write) to have any impact in the broader world. Humans - myself included - are fundamentally insecure and in desperate need of validation. But I would suggest you, my smart and good-looking friend, check out Dr. Attia. Here is a recommended podcast* that covers the book in depth. 

It could help to make you healthier and happier. Personally, I am working to get more protein (without increasing calories) and build up muscle, especially given my history [!] and age.

*Attia's book is wildly overwritten and could really use a Cliff Notes version. Sam Harris published an hour of his interview with Attia (we won't give Harris any of our money, so we're not subscribers and can't say anything about the last two hours). As expected, Harris used the opportunity to take a shot at vegetarians re: protein. 

**Dr. Attia says he used to think that nutrition was the most important factor to healthspan, but now thinks exercise is more important.

***Obviously, most people who don't eat animal products aren't self-centered dogmatists. But you know people who capitalize "Vegan" and can't discuss anything without saying the word "Vegan" over and over. It is why I argue in Losing that those of us who want to reduce suffering should stop using the word "vegan."

****You didn't think I'd go an entire post w/o mentioning my book, did you?

*****The two other main ways we hurt animals: lack of thoughtfulness in our messaging and anger and fanaticism. Shocking, I know.

PS: the daughter of one of the most famous vegan advocates ever is now an ex-vegan, pro-meat social media influencer. You can see her in this interview saying, "The human body can’t be vegan and healthy" and “I’m going to be eating animal protein at every single meal, because I believe that that’s how I can keep my life and my health.” On her website she touts her abandonment of vegan eating and urges meat and seafood consumption to stay well.

PPS: I'm not exempting myself from this post's title, as I hope Losing makes clear.

Enlightenment June 2023: Emptiness and Freedom (part 2 of 3)

Part 1  |  Part 3 

In Why Buddhism Is True, Robert Wright quotes a teacher saying that you shouldn’t try to intellectually understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness, because if you make the attempt, your head would explode.

I disagree.

Recognizing Our Simplicity

We humans have proven ourselves capable of incredible illusions. From believing in god speaking to us and transubstantiation to suffering the delusion that we are living in the end times and the Dunning-Kruger effect, our brains do not see the world clearly. We can’t even comprehend how bad it is. (Doubt that?)

Although we can’t be sure we aren’t living in a simulation, all testable evidence indicates that the universe is simply matter and energy following (a certain set of) the laws of physics. (“A certain set of” because there could be other universes where the laws are different.)

We don’t understand how the chemical interactions of our brain’s ~1.4 x 10^26 atoms give rise to conscious, subjective experience. But we do know that we can manipulate consciousness in specific ways by manipulating the brain’s atoms' interactions. This gives every reason to believe that consciousness is an emergent property of specific arrangements of matter and energy, but still subject to the laws of physics (and the emergent rules of chemistry, biology, physiology). 

Everything we think, everything we feel, everything we do – all of it is, at the core, the interactions of atoms. Nothing more.

Recognizing this undermines the illusion of free will. But this insight isn’t (entirely) a loss, just as it isn’t (entirely) a loss to give up religion, or to understand the evolutionary basis of love, sex, and reproduction. Realizing the materialist, reductionist nature of the universe is yet another gain – a clearer understanding of reality. And that better understanding can help us lead a better life.

The First Gain: Freedom (of a sort)

The first insight is into ourselves. Since everything is chemical reactions, we can’t be the driver of our thoughts and feelings. Consciousness is along for the ride. Our bodies feel emotions – hunger, fear, desire – as a way to understand the world and motivate “appropriate” behavior. Many things are going on in our body / brain to keep us alive; consciousness shines the spotlight of attention on one part of our otherwise unconscious thoughts and feelings to allow us to “think” more on that topic. We don’t “choose” what to think about.

This is the great insight from mindfulness meditation – recognizing that our minds don’t actually work the way we assume they do. Thoughts think themselves.

But we don’t have to be the feeling or the thought. Once we realize thoughts think themselves and feelings are messages, we don’t have to identify with them if we don’t want to. That is: these insights and mindfulness can reprogram our brains to recognize thoughts and feelings for what they are. Thoughts and feelings are not who we are.

More concretely: we don’t have to be “angry.” We don’t have to "be" anything.

Anger can arise, we can recognize it, and then “choose” to let it go. "I recognize I am experiencing anger" vs "I am angry."

Conversely, we can recognize good fortune, experience gratitude, and “choose” to embrace the experience of that feeling.

As Sam Harris notes:

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist – in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. … Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can paradoxically allow for greater creative control over one's life. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings.”

The Second Gain: Emptiness toward Enlightenment

The second insight is the first applied to the broader world.

Everything in the universe is simply matter and energy following the laws of physics. There is no “good” or “bad.” Everything is empty of meaning, value, and emotional valence, except what our consciousness assigns to it. 

And with enough understanding, training, and reprogramming, we can “choose” not to assign anything to anything, except what makes our lives better.

It goes without saying: this is difficult. But the reality is that the rude cashier is just a collection of atoms constrained by the laws of physics. Ted Cruz is just following his genetic and societal programming. The chicken farmer, the person picking their toes on the train, the driver revving his unmuffled car – at the core, just collections of atoms, empty of any inherent meaning.

So instead of reacting with disdain, hatred, or mockery, we don’t have to react at all. Or we can “choose” to react with joy that we aren’t that person. Or we can “choose” compassion. Or we can “choose” to try to figure out actions that may help change a situation that is causing suffering in others – and we can make this choice without allowing ourselves to suffer. 

(And of course, when I say “choose,” I mean “use insights from others and our experiences to reprogram our neural net so we react differently in the future.”) 

Simply Another Way of Interacting with the World

We don’t start out knowing how to type, use a cellphone, or speak a language. We don’t simply “decide” to have those and other skills. But if something in our lives leads to the knowledge and training necessary, we can interact with the world in a new way. 

Learning a new language is perhaps the best example. People can speak German to me and I am unable to react in any positive, constructive way (unless they get a laugh from my idiotic grin). But because of an external factor (an excellent teacher in college) Anne “chose” to put in the time to learn and practice German, and now she has a new way of interacting with the world.

If you are reading this, it is likely that you have a similar ability – the ability to gain the knowledge and do the training necessary to achieve something closer to “enlightenment.” Put simply: 

By recognizing the illusion of free will and pursuing the right training / reprogramming, we can develop something much more like free will than we have now. We can take hold of one of the strings that currently makes our life worse than it needs to be. We can stop simply reacting and instead interact, with more control over our feelings.

In short: giving up free will and embracing emptiness can make life much better. 

Enlightenment June 2023: Preface – Pre-Existing Constraints (part 1 of 3)

This post is a brief overview of some of the ideas in Losing My Religions as a preface to the next two posts.

To have the best life possible, understanding our world and ourselves more honestly is important. (Unless you can really live a lie, which is possible.)  

The Genes that Tie and Bind

We humans are not equipped to see things as they actually are. Our genes have built us to get more copies of themselves (our genes) into the future; these “selfish” genes will program us – their vessel – to do whatever it takes to maximize this outcome. This includes, but is not limited to: 

• The craving for “more” – more calories, more stuff, more money, more status; 
• The drive to have sex, the love of / desire for babies;
• The inability to see the world clearly or understand ourselves. 

(Obviously, we don’t all share exactly the same drives to the exact same extent.) 

I talk about this and the below in Losing My Religions; Robert Wright covers this in more detail in The Moral Animal and Why Buddhism Is True.

Our families have also programmed us. Not to be happy and fulfilled – oh no, no, no – but to do what they want (except in rare exceptions). In short, those genetically related to us are programmed by their genes to want us to propagate the genes we share with them. 

It’s selfish genes all the way down.

Some people have kids to fulfill their drive to procreate, and many (but not all) also want love from their children. (“Some people have kids and want those children to be happy. Others have children and want the kids to make them happy.”)

The above can be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to recognize and, if necessary, overcome. 

Religion – The Great Obfuscator

Then we have society. 

Perhaps the most insidious lie foisted upon us by our society is one our family also programs into us: religion. Our ties to family make it stranglingly difficult to even question the faith in which we are raised, let alone free ourselves and see the universe more clearly. 

Which religion is programmed into our synapses depends on where and when we’re born. Recognizing that particular fact can be helpful in freeing us from the shackles and torture of our parents’ beliefs – there is no reason to think that our mother and/or father just happen to have the right view of god(s) when the vast majority of humans have believed something else.

Once we recognize that our parents don’t have a monopoly on cosmic truth, it is still difficult to clear the stained glass completely. The vast majority of people believe in some form of god(s); making belief without evidence the norm. In addition, we understandably want to feel like the universe is not a “cold, uncaring, and meaningless place,” which is what some people fear would be the case without god(s). 

Additionally, we have the solace faith can provide us in the face of death. 

Despite all this, no actual evidence gives us reason to believe in any “higher power.” True, we don’t currently understand how the Big Bang came about. But if we think everything had to be created, and thus the Big Bang must have been created, then what created the Big Bang’s creator? At least we have evidence of the Big Bang, and it is a falsifiable theory. 

Additionally, think about everything else that was previously unknown and used to justify belief in god(s). Now we understand what the Sun and Earth are and how they came to be, for example, as well as how the diversity of life evolved. 

We haven’t learned these things through faith, of course. Religions have thwarted the advancement of human knowledge. The imprisonment of Galileo for noting that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe is only one example. The general “it’s god’s will” anti-science attitude has caused so much suffering. (Another topic in Losing.)

Although we can’t, of course, prove a negative (“no god(s) exist”) we have no reason to have any affirmative belief, especially not one that affects how we live.

Free Will – The Greatest Illusion

We do, however, have reason to believe we have free will. It totally feels like we are in control, actively controlling our thoughts and driving our actions. Showing that free will is an illusion is beyond the scope of one blog post. Even though I am not down with him on many things (just search this blog for his name), Sam Harris is very good on the topic. Here is a post that introduces his short book on the topic; here is a short video; here is a longer video.

Recognizing that free will is an illusion – a nearly perfect illusion – is astonishingly difficult. Possibly harder than giving up god(s). This isn’t just because we feel like we have free will, but also because many people think they would not be an individual if they weren’t “in control.” 

This can seem scary, but really isn’t. In my experience, giving up the illusion of free will is a necessary but not sufficient insight for enlightenment – the topic of my next (shorter) blog post. Accepting that free will can’t exist is the heavy lift, and is the one topic I think is worth your time to explore, starting with the three previous links: a post that introduces his short book on the topic; a short video; a longer video. 

Not Only White Men (2/2)

A reader notes that I spend an inordinate amount of time going after white men (Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Bryan Caplan*) while specifically noting that they are white men. 

Obviously, not every white man is terrible; some of us are just egomaniacs. And not every terrible person is a white man, e.g., Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, MTG, Boebert, Jill Stein, Amy Coney Handmaid's Tale, etc. etc. 

I don't know if a larger percentage of white men are terrible. Even though it seems like it, that could just be availability bias. But because of the patriarchy and centuries of institutional racism, the people who have a malicious impact on the course of human history are overwhelmingly white men.

Do I think my little rants will have any impact? I doubt it. But I do hope that readers will recognize that there is a large and impactful "white male victimhood" complex that is profitable and also normalizes hate and violence and murder. 

The party of law and order.

* More for Caplan's band of victims, via Tyler Cowen: Women around the world aren’t paid nearly enough

The Hard Problem is just that

José González - You're an Animal

Anil Seth's Being You is a pretty good book. (This TED talk covers much of it; this podcast goes into more, although WTF is up with the visuals? Yeesh.)

Anil does the best takedown of David Chalmer's idiocy, which I rip off in Losing My Religions*. However, he basically dismisses Chalmer's one insight, referred to as "The Hard Problem" - why and how does it feel like anything to be conscious? How is it that we have subjective experience, that we aren't simply robots? 

Instead, Anil decides to look at what he calls "The Real Problem," which is more along the lines of how consciousness works. E.g., from the video: Experience of Color; Predictive Processing; Anesthesia; Semantic Memory.

This is all interesting and cool to explore. But it simply provides no insight into The Hard Problem, which is the key question!

As I quote Sam Harris at the lead to Day 4 Concluded:

Whatever the explanation for consciousness is, it might always seem like a miracle. And for what it’s worth, I think it always will seem like a miracle. 

* Another (possible) unknowable is consciousness – subjective experience. Philosopher (but not logician) David Chalmers calls it the Hard Problem. Chalmers can imagine a world exactly like ours, except no creature has consciousness. Like computers and robots, we animals would still process data and interact with the world and each other. We would react to negative stimuli but without experiencing suffering. We would seek out calorically-dense foods without experiencing the feelings of hunger or the pleasure of feasting on frosting. We would court and mate and raise children without passion or lust or love. There is seemingly no reason we need to have conscious, subjective experience, the “feeling of a feeling,” to use neuroscientist Antonio Damasio’s term.

...

Consciousness is a topic where a lot of wishful thinking gets puffed up with a lot of big words and passed off as “deep thought.”

For example, Chalmers takes his imagined consciousness-less zombie world to claim that consciousness must be an “epiphenomenon.” He then jumps to believing in panpsychism, which claims that consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it, like gravity. (This will come up again in the later Lontermism chapter.)

However, the very first postulate in Chalmers’ argument is clearly wrong. There couldn’t be a zombie world exactly like ours, because zombies wouldn’t write books about zombies while trying to explain consciousness.

Just because Chalmers’ can imagine a consciousness-less zombie world exactly like ours doesn’t make it possible, just like my imagining a 747 flying backwards doesn’t mean the laws of aerodynamics are false.

If you found this useful, please share it. Thanks so much!