Silly Calculations

P Z Myers (or 'Pharyngula') is one of the best science-bloggers around. He's also generally reasonable. When he uses the word 'silly', it's interesting to see what he thinks is silly. In this case, he thinks that it's silly to call something a miracle just because there are low retrospective odds against it. Of course, his argument is right. No single contingent product of the universe's history is more or less miraculous than any other in a statistical sense.

Like Myers, I hate it when people misuse language. (Hey, I hate it when I myself misuse language, and if you point it out to me, I will self-flagellate with the best of them.) So let's define miracle: a true miracle is an event that has NO chance at all — it has no logical antecedents, no explicable cause or chain of causation — and yet it happens. By Myers's lights and my definition, the only miracle should be the hypothetical origin of the universe ab nihilo; I would agree with him about its miraculous status.

The difference between humanity and what humans do, and the rest of the universe, is what humans think is significant. It's purely subjective. Do you think Myers would bother getting off his ass to write this article unless something provoked him sufficiently? And that provocation is of course subjective.

He closes by exhorting humans to "go forth and feel and act like you aren't any more special than anyone else on Earth." Clearly, however, the act of exhortation betrays his subconscious belief that this doesn't include him.

Which of course leads back to the point about atheists. When confronted with meaningless, they put up spirited arguments which must also lack meaning or be the deterministic (or random) fruits of physics. They (and we) shouldn't have free will. They (and we) shouldn't care. And if they (and we) do, that too should pass.

Me, I don't think my physical body is a miracle. What is a miracle is that I should not be redeemed by the body and blood of Christ. I am not redeemable; I cannot have been redeemed. But... it has happened, and I have been. No chance at all, and yet here I stand. This is the miracle.

The Overimportance of Objectivity

Friar Tuck reminded me that we are subject to curious fits of self-doubt, by which I mean that we can always set up thought experiments to doubt that the self exists. But the fact is that while there are many ways to distract you from yourself, there is much more that persuades you that you exist.

No matter what science tells you about the molecular, atomic, or subatomic composition of your too-mortal frame, the fact is that you wake up in the morning, you feel the hangover. You feel the aches and pains, the sensations of being. No matter how unearthly the scientist, how objective his intellectual sensibilities, if he has heartburn or a headache, it is hard to remain purely objective. The disinterested observer of self does not exist.

To me, science and mathematics are games. Neither of them impacts my sense of self. I can intellectually believe that I am soup, or as Asimov (I think) once put it, water with impurities. But no matter how much empathy I muster, how much sensitivity I have that makes me tear up during certain movie moments, I am centred around me. It is my pain that I feel in my aching feet, it is my heartache I feel when I am sad. Even when I am sad for someone else, I am sad in me.

But what then of religion, of faith and my own quirk (at least that's how my non-religious friends see it) of Christianity? Well, since subjectivity is all, I am sure God will forgive me for having the purely subjective belief in Him. Do I care if I am wrong about Christ? No. Does it then devalue Christianity to not care if I am wrong? No. All such reasoning is hypothetical. I believe, I believe 'in my heart', and that's it for me. Not that I can't defend my belief if that's the game to be played, of course.

Objectivity is the Great Lie. There is no such thing. One would have thought that Einstein's ideas on relativity, and Newton's ideas before that, and the entire chain of ideas (for those who claim objective belief or beliefs can exist) would dissuade people from believing in that which they cannot directly engage.

Which brings us to the last frontier. Do we directly engage what we think is the self? I have no idea. All I know is that my feet hurt, I like coffee, I do things that seem to me to be good things, and I enjoy the company of certain people — who appear to have a real existence to me that I cannot penetrate. I have dislikes, I have tastes, I have the desire to use what functions as a language. But it's all me, and no matter how you can discredit solipsism by intellectual reasoning (yes, I know how it's done), that's all a game.

As that famous sage once said, "How are we to know if our reason has anything to do with reality at all?" I don't know, but if the game comes round, I'll play it.