Is there an arrow of morality?
- There appears to be an arrow of time that arises out of random thermodynamic processes.
- There appears to be an arrow of evolution where the general fitness and complexity of organisms increases as a co-result of the process by which their specific fitness becomes optimized for their local environment.
- There appears to be a similar arrow of cooperation among more advanced organisms, playing non-zero sum games, where altruism (in a meaningful sense) really pays off.
There is a popular conception of evolution "bloody in tooth and claw" that we expect to rise above. This is a good and noble goal within the context that it is intended, but it leads to paradox due to the (misleading) implication that humans are somehow outside of evolution or about to transcend evolution. True, evolution on this planet has arrived at a new phase, where a higher level of organization now allows for more effective progress than ever before, but it's important to see that in the bigger picture this is just another phase in a process of evolution that has been going on for as far back as we can see.
Evolutionary science has identified various modes within the biological model, but I think we're on the verge of understanding that the same underlying principle operates at the pre-biological atomic and molecular levels, and at the post-biological level of human societies, and beyond. This principle seems (to me) to be the same principle underlying the thermodynamic "arrow of time" and the higher level instances of non-zero sum game theory.
I think the idea of an "objective morality" is a misconception. Morality is context-dependent, and the universe will always present us with a new layer of the onion when we're ready to see it. But because morality is context-dependent, a wider context generally means a more consistent, more useful, understanding of what is moral. Only in the ultimate "god's eye" view of a universe beyond space and time would there be an objective morality, but as we humans expand our understanding (our context) and become more godlike in our understanding of the universe it seems clear to me that we become more moral (by any useful definition of the word.)
Evolution is not a random walk, but it is chaotic. I think that with a greater undertanding of non-linear dynamics, we will develop not an "objective morality", but a "science of morality" that will be effectively applied to moral and political issues on a planetary (and eventually wider)scale.
No one has ever believed that the human mind could exhaust all the facts of nature, all the refinements of measuring and analyzing these facts, the inter relationship of objects, and all the possible combinations of ideas....
But because, as the number of facts known increases, man learns to classify them, to reduce them to more general terms; because the instruments and the methods of observation and exact measurement are at the same time reaching a new precision; . . . the truths whose discovery has cost the most effort, which at first could be grasped only by men capable of profound thought, are soon carried further and proved by methods that are no longer beyond the reach of ordinary intelligence. If the methods that lead to new combinations are exhausted, if their application to problems not yet solved requires labors that exceed the time or the capacity of scholars, soon more general methods, simpler means, come to open a new avenue for genius....
. . .
Applying these general reflections to the different sciences, we shall give, for each, examples of their successive improvement that will leave no doubt as to the certainty of the future improvements we can expect. We shall indicate particularly the most likely and most imminent progress in those sciences that are now commonly believed to be almost exhausted. We shall point out how more universal education in each country, by giving more people the elementary knowledge that can inspire them with a taste for more advanced study and give them the capacity for making progress in it, can add to such hopes; how these hopes increase even more, if a more general prosperity permits a greater number of individuals to pursue studies, since at present, in the most enlightened countries, hardly a fiftieth part of those men to whom nature has given talent receive the education necessary to make use of their talents; and that, therefore, the number of men destined to push back the frontiers of the sciences by their discoveries will grow in the same proportion as universal education increases.
We shall show how this equality of education, and the equality that will arise between nations, will speed up the advances of those sciences whose progress depends on observations repeated in greater number over a larger area; all that mineralogy, botany, zoology, meteorology can be expected to gain thereby; and finally what an enormous disproportion exists, in these sciences, between the weakness of the means that nevertheless have led us to so many useful and important truths, and the great scope of the means men will in the future be able to deploy.
Similarity of construction shows 'convergent evolution' applies to behaviour.
The biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously proposed that if we could "rewind the tape" of evolution and play it again, chance would give rise to a world that was completely different from the one we live in now. But the concept that chance reigns supreme may ring less true when it comes to complex behaviours.
A study of the similarities between the webs of different spider species in Hawaii provides fresh evidence that behavioural tendencies can actually evolve rather predictably, even in widely separated places.
Todd Blackledge of the University of California, Riverside, and Rosemary Gillespie, of the University of California, Berkeley, studied species of Tetragnatha spiders on different Hawaiian islands. The spiders' webs vary significantly, with tissue-like 'sheet webs', disorganized cobwebs and spiral-shaped 'orb webs' as three of the most common types.
Each species had its own characteristic type of web. But the scientists found that in several cases, separate species of Tetragnatha spiders on different islands constructed extremely similar orb webs, right down to the number of spokes, and the lengths and densities of the sticky spiral that captures bugs.
Was this an example of similar environments producing the same complex behaviour, or did the spiders with corresponding webs share a common ancestor?
(DANNY HILLIS:) I have always envied Alexander the Great, because he had Aristotle as a personal tutor. In those days, Aristotle knew pretty much everything there was to know. Even better, Aristotle understood the mind of Alexander. He understood which topics interested Alexander, what Alexander knew and did not know, and what kinds of explanations Alexander preferred. Aristotle had been a student of Plato, and he was himself a great teacher. We know from his writings that he was full of examples, explanations, arguments, and stories. Through Aristotle, Alexander had the knowledge of the world at his command.
Of course no one today knows all that is known, in the sense that Aristotle did. Now there is far too much knowledge for that to be possible. The scientific revolution, and the technological revolution that followed it, led to a self-reinforcing explosion of knowledge. The explosion continues. Today not even the most highly trained scientist, the most scholarly historian, or the most competent engineer can hope to have more than a general overview of what is known. Only specialists understand most of the new discoveries in science, and even the specialists have trouble keeping up.
This problem isn't new. In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote an essay for Atlantic Monthly about out the problem of too much knowledge. He wrote,
The law that entropy increases - the Second Law of Thermodynamics - holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the Universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
- Sir Arthur Eddington
What is the purpose of life? Is it just finding food and having sex - survival and reproduction? Maybe not. According to Eric Schneider and James Kay, life is driven by an urge at least as strong as the desire to survive. Life, they say, is a baroque contraption for tearing up energy. It is simply an extreme version of a universal natural tendency to turn concentrated energy into diffuse waste heat.
If Kay and Schneider are right, their idea might explain why ecosystems and organisms are so complex and diverse, and perhaps even why life exists at all. And the two scientists say they now have evidence to back up their claims.
All this follows from one of the most powerful rules in nature, the second law of thermodynamics.
Exerpt:
"It is supposed to be a Golden Age after all, the society mankind will enjoy if ever man becomes sane and mature: no doubt they have laws and institutions similar to ours, which they keep as a last resort, should all else fail, the way a wise man packs a first-aid kit before he goes camping. But our society is like a man who is in constant ill health, constantly in the hospital emergency room. To us, the medicine we need to prevent the body politic from dissolving into anarchy is something we must endure every hour of every day. A healthy society, such as only might exist in a future whose moral standard is higher than our own, such distempers would be rare. Men might be wise enough to be glad to avoid even the appearance of pirating another man's ideas, rather than trying to edge as close to the minimum limit as the law allows. Since they life forever, and will never escape each other's censure, never forget a wrong, it would behoove them to settle all difference privately, and before they become inflamed."
The following is an exchange between John C Wright and Rafal Smigrodzki regarding intellectual property laws in the Golden Oecumene and some comments on future standards of morality:
Neuroscientists have given up looking for the seat of the soul, but they are still seeking what may be special about human brains, what it is that provides the basis for a level of self-awareness and complex emotions unlike those of other animals.
Most recently they have been investigating circuitry rather than specific locations, looking at pathways and connections that are central in creating social emotions, a moral sense, even the feeling of free will.
There are specialized neurons at work, as well — large, cigar-shaped cells called spindle cells.
|
