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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

http://sulekha.com/chpost.asp?for...ilosophy&show=0&cid=81380

Sitaram writes:

I had an incredible insight today into something which I feel has
philosophical importance, involving an intimate connection between
highly advanced technological progress ethics/morality/politics

I have been thinking for a long time about what humanity might do
technologically, to preserve culture/learning against the inevitable
day when our sun supernova's and our solarsystem disappears, or
against the day when some other cataclysmic event such as an
asteroid, destroys life on earth and I realized that even thought it
might be theoretically possible to accomplish many things, humanity
would never be united enough, but would continue with wars and short
term selfish goals which are harmful to many in the long run

Suddenly, I thought about the many science fiction/fantasy stories of
some highly advanced being discovering the earth, but some malevolent
evil being bent on slavery, destruction.... and I realized why that
would be unlikely, if not impossible

You see, the same human shortcomings which prevent mankind from
uniting for long range goals (say a 300 year project), would also
plague any intelligent race of beings, and prevent them from
technological advancement beyond a certain point, unless they could
re-invent themselves, and overcome such flaws

So, my insight today, in a nutshell, is that any alien species with
super advanced technology of interstellar travel, genetic
engineering, (in short creation and destruction potential on a scale
to dwarf human technology) , such a species MUST of necessity be
benovelent and bening and well-meaning, or such power would have
destroyed them long before they could advance so far

To DEMONSTRATE the truth, one would have to encounter a super
advanced technological being which IS malevolent... , i would imagine

For me, the hypothesis of the connection between super ethics and
super technology is a possible bridge of Hume's gap though a most
unexpected means

For me, the bridge between the gap between "is" and "ought" appears
only when the stakes become sufficiently high, (e.g. the creation or
destruction of a world)

Hume's Gap: One cannot find an "IS" which ineluctibly implies
an "OUGHT". Were we to acquire sufficient and reliable knowledge
about the nature of man and the universe, might we then proceed to
formulate ethical norms, substantiating them by the rational grounds
of empirical evidences? Would we then be able to say : "Be moral
BECAUSE the facts are such and such?"
http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v04n1p17.htm

Hume wrote:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have
always remark'd, that the author . . . makes observations concerning
human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead
of the usual copulations of propositions is and is not, I meet with
no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not
This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last
consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new
relation or affirmation, `tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd
and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given . .
how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are
entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this
precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am
persuaded, that this small attention wou'd subvert all the vulgar
systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and
virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is
perceiv'd by reason.

John Stuart Mill's definition of "happiness" and "desirable" is
faulty: certain kinds of "happiness" may be "desired," yet
not "desirable," and vice versa.

Here is a good url I just found, based on the "carl sagan" hint...
which discusses highly advanced technology and ethics...

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/extrasolar-03t4.html

Intelligent species will only survive over cosmologically significant
timescales if guided by a fusion of science and religion. Both
scientific and spiritual progress are needed to survive natural
disasters and avoid self-inflicted ones

What is the role of life and consciousness in the universe? Is that a
scientific, philosophical, or spiritual question?

Stop and think, if we really discovered the "theory of everything",
then in some sense of the word, we would be omniscient, and if we
totally understood genetic engineering, and the phenomenon of life,
and the cure of all disease... why then, in a sense we would be
immortal.... so all that is left is omnipresence (and perhaps the
summum/supremum bonum)... and man has become god

There is something spooky about the way mathematical relationships
are so enmeshed with the physical nature of our universe

You might enjoy the biography of the mathematician Erdoes.

I was reading some things on quantum which mentioned that kant has
been proven incorrect regarding time and space, but I could not
reproduce the arguments here from memory

http://www.cabot-biz.com/photonics/howcome.htm

http://www.crank.net/quantum.html

The eclipse of causality in 20th Century thought is one of the
leading characteristics of this Dim Age.

A revolt against causality began with influential 18th Century
philosophers, notably Hume and Kant. The revolt grew throughout the
19th Century and, in the late 19th and early 20th Century it reached
physics, where it gave rise to the two central theories of 20th
Century physics: relativity and quantum mechanics. This may raise
some hackles; for while quantum mechanics' disdain for causality is
not the least controversial, relativity is usually regarded as a
causal theory, a haven of sanity compared to quantum mechanics.
Unlike quantum mechanickers, relativists don't crusade against
causality; indeed, they occasionally appeal to it. Relativity's sins
against causality are more subtle, but no less devastating."

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/HEISENBERG/Chapter1.html

Heisenberg wrote: "The mathematical image of the system ensures that
contradictions cannot occur in the system."

The history of realism did not begin only with Bohr around 1920.

Realism was clearly understood about twenty-four centuries ago. The
most striking example of realism and causality is a masterpiece
written by Plato.

It is the Allegory of the Cave conceived by Socrates and written by
his famous pupil.

It is quite extraordinary how Socrates can teach an important lesson
of realism to many modern scientists. It is certainly worth reading
how Socrates was able to distinguish shadows from realities while
modern physicists, using the Copenhagen interpretation show that they
cannot make the same distinction.

There is a clear analogy between the ghost like shadows of puppets
described by the dwellers of the den related by Plato, and the ghost
like matter coming into existence through the collapse of a wave
function, as described by the Copenhagen interpretation.

I think Parmenides is credited as the first to coin the
word "philosophy", yet surely there was philosophy before "philosophy"

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/heisenb5
.htm

A combination of those two lines of thought that started from
Descartes, on the one side, and from Locke and Berkeley. on the
other, was attempted in the philosophy of Kant, who was the founder
of German idealism.

That part of his work which is important in comparison with the
results of modern physics is contained in The Critique of Pure
Reason.

He takes up the question whether knowledge is only founded in
experience or can come from other sources, and he arrives at the
conclusion that our knowledge is in part 'a priori' and not inferred
inductively from experience.

Therefore, he distinguishes between 'empirical' knowledge and
knowledge that is 'a priori'. At the same time he distinguishes
between 'analytic' and 'synthetic' propositions. Analytic
propositions follow simply from logic, and their denial would lead to
self-contradiction.

Propositions that are not 'analytic' are called 'synthetic'.

With regard to physics Kant took as a priori, besides space and time,
the law of causality and the concept of substance

Comparing Kant's doctrines with modern physics, it looks in the first
moment as though his central concept of the 'synthetic judgments a
priori' had been completely annihilated by the discoveries of our
century.

The theory of relativity has changed our views on space and time, it
has in fact revealed entirely new features of space and time, of
which nothing is seen in Kant's a priori forms of pure intuition.

The law of causality is no longer applied in quantum theory and the
law of conservation of matter is no longer true for the elementary
particles.

Obviously Kant could not have foreseen the new discoveries, but since
he was convinced that his concepts would be 'the basis of any future
metaphysics that can be called science' it is interesting to see
where his arguments have been wrong.

Let us consider a radium atom, which can emit an a-particle. The time
for the emission of the a-particle cannot be predicted. We can only
say that in the average the emission will take place in about two-
thousand years. Therefore, when we observe the emission we do not
actually look for a foregoing event from which the emission must
according to a rule follow. Logically it would be quite possible to
look for such a foregoing event, and we need not be discouraged by
the fact that hitherto none has been found. But why has the
scientific method actually changed in this very fundamental question
since Kant?

http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/srp/arts/KETP.htm

There are absolute things in the world but you must look deeply for
them.—Sir Arthur Eddington

The correspondence between Kant's thing in itself and his own
intuitive experience of the `secret' of the universe must have surely
come to Einstein's attention when he first read the Critique of Pure
Reason. This momentous event occurred at a surprisingly early stage
of Einstein's intellectual development.
Max Talmey, a medical student who used to visit Einstein's parents'
home regularly over a period of about five years, recalls that `I
recommended to [young Albert] the reading of Kant. At that time he
was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant's works,
incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed clear to him.'[12]
Talmey claims `Kant became Albert's favorite philosopher after he had
read through his Critique of Pure Reason'—indeed, `the 16-year-old
youth intoxicated himself with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.'[13

If I pursue a beam of light with velocity c ..., I should [according
to Newtonian physics] observe such a beam of light as a spatially
oscillatory electromagnetic field at rest. However, there seems to be
no such thing, whether on the basis of experience or according to
Maxwell's equations.

From the very beginning [i.e., at age 16, c.1895] it appeared to me
intuitively clear that, judged from the standpoint of such an
observer, everything would have to happen according to the same laws
as for an observer who, relative to the earth, was at rest. For how,
otherwise, should the first observer know, i.e., be able to
determine, that he is in a state of fast uniform motion?

Einstein did applaud Kant for realizing the profound importance of
the mysterious yet necessary comprehensibility of the world.[22] This
relates to Kant's doctrine of `the affinity of the manifold',[23]
which is beyond the scope of our present concerns. Nevertheless, it
is worth mentioning, because it illustrates yet again how both Kant
and Einstein based their entire approach to understanding science on
a two-sided mystery: the mysterious incomprehensible of the Tao in
its most fundamental, nameless state; and the mysterious
comprehensibility of the world we construct out of the network of
names we use to circumnavigate our way through this world.
One further example should suffice to establish the depth of
influence Kant had on Einstein's thinking. In his `Reply to
Criticisms', appearing at the end of his festschrift, Einstein makes
a statement that is intended to distance him from any particular
philosophical position, but in fact, its effect (for anyone familiar
with Kant's own application of the `Critical' method) is to intensify
the impression that Einstein is, in fact, applying Kant's philosophy
to the realm of science. Einstein says:
Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—
primitive and muddled.... The scientist ... must appear to the
systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he
appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world
independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he
looks upon the concepts and theories as the free inventions of the
human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically
given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and
theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical
representation of relations among sensory experiences."

One of Einstein's most frequently quoted claims is that `Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

'[26] Though it seems likely that Einstein may have forgotten its
true origin in his childhood reading,

This quote is an obvious paraphrase of Kant's famous
statement: `Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without
concepts are blind. This parallelism is especially evident once we
recognize the extent to which Einstein regarded science as a
primarily conceptual discipline, and religion—his refined, quasi-
mystical form of religion—as intuitive. Merely replacing
Einstein's `science' with `Thoughts' or `concepts' and his `religion'
with `content' or `intuitions' renders his statement identical to
Kant's, except for the use of `lame' in place of `empty'—a difference
that could well be regarded as an intentional, though loose, attempt
to translate Kant's German. As is, indeed, well known, `Einstein
himself was, of course, a deeply religious man.' What is less well
known is the extent to which his view of religion and its relation to
science corresponds to (and therefore was in all likelihood shaped
by) that of Kant's.

Jammer quotes a personal conversation in which Einstein said `Try and
penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will
find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains
something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this
force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that
extent I am, in point of fact, religious.' This is also an essential
feature of Kant's Critical mysticism, as I have argued at length in
Part Four of Kant's Critical Religion (see note 3, above). Einstein
himself described his theory of relativity not so much as a
radical `revolution', but more as a natural `evolution' from a
selection of foregoing theorists, beginning with Newton and passing
through Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, etc.

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