Witches just love to toss “eye of newt” into their bubbling cauldrons, but the docile critters did nothing do deserve such a sinister association. For me, newts have opened a window of appreciation into the broader community of life.
I find solace in asking a newt what it thinks of our politics, our technology, our schemes. The act of asking such questions out loud in the presence of a newt is as silly as it sounds, but only because the subject matter is silly. Conversing with a newt is just basic politeness. The newt is a genius in that it doesn’t waste a single moment caught up in such trivialities. The newt is fully engaged in Life, which is incomprehensibly more amazing, rich, complex, and bad-ass than anything humans have ever—or could ever—create.
In this post, I will explore what a newt’s-eye view can tell us about ourselves and our obsessions.
Politics
Last week’s post was on the familiar left–right political spectrum, and how I find myself so far outside of this spectrum that left-wing and right-wing politics become almost indistinguishable to me. Both are so far in the wrong where it really counts.
In this sense, I have already shared something close to a newt’s-eye view. The newt can’t tell Karl Marx from Ayn Rand. Or is it Ayn Marx and Karl Rand? Both are primarily concerned with how best to organize production and exploitation of “resources” for some twisted goal of transforming the world away from its ecological happy place. Neither used their most passionate voices for the Love of Life, or to question our place in ecological terms. Both were focused on human concerns, human relations, human organization—in service of atrocity. It’s the Human Reich.
For contrast, consider the models of human organization practiced by hunter-gatherers. Small tribes work together as a type of collective organism, intimately connected to the landscape and careful not to inflict permanent damage on their source of life. Their cultural norms do not sanction irreversible devastation: the practices in which they engage are time-tested to preserve essential features of their community of life for the long haul. Newts can easily tell the difference: wetlands “forever” vs. drained, filled, then covered by parking lots and shopping malls.
Cars
Consider high-end cars from makers like Maserati, McLaren, or Ferrari (disclosure: I don’t know a thing about high-end cars, except an impression from Silicon Valley that the way the doors swing is vitally important). Now compare to a beat-up and rusting 1966 Chevrolet pickup truck with enough miles to have taken it to the moon and an unpleasant odor that never went away after smashing a skunk. Market value indicates a world of difference between these classes of vehicles: essentially zero resale value for the truck.
What does the newt see? Literally, a newt sees for both cases a black treaded tire heading for it and then no more. If luckier than that, the newt sees a frightening hunk of metal barreling down the road guided by a human driver. The newt sees and experiences this alien strip of asphalt that exudes unpleasant oils and chemicals, is laced with ecologically harmful molecules from tire wear, gets hotter than Hades in the sun, and creates habitat barriers. And the newt is not wrong.
Now compare this mode of transportation to walking (e.g., along a forest path). How does the newt consider such a behavior? Well, it’s marginally dangerous to be a tiny critter who might get stepped on. But humans tend to watch their footfalls in ways that they surely don’t for tires. If nothing else, the speed makes a tremendous difference. Newts evolved with larger creatures walking around, and would not still be here if this hazard were too much to bear. They definitely did not evolve with fast metal boxes careening down the highway. Most roadkill victims would fare remarkably better in walking encounters!
Religion
Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist, the major religions of the world are built on the notion of personal salvation. All are “new” to the world, emerging in reaction to the suffering that followed the inevitable ills of totalitarian agriculture. All are anthropocentric, some explicitly promoting human dominion over all life on Earth.
The newt compares these religions to animism, which is the opposite of anthropocentric: situating humans deep within a mysterious web of life, animated by relationships we may only barely apprehend. The ethos is one of humility in relation to any form of life. All know how to do things that we can’t come close to achieving ourselves. All are kin. All can be teachers if we know how to listen. All know how to live on this planet. It is a spirit of awe, of belonging, of gratitude.
Next to animism, which explicitly welcomes, reveres, and includes the newt, the others look all the same—despite our cultural tendency to amplify their differences.
Energy
Modernity’s energy menu is large and ever-growing: hydroelectricity, coal, petroleum, gas, nuclear fission, wind, geothermal, solar, tidal, ocean currents, waves, and we could go on. Which does the newt see as best? None of the above. They are all essentially the same—because more important to the newt than the form of energy is what we do with it.
We use energy to clear forests, mine materials, manufacture a bunch of junk, pump out pollutants, dispose of “obsolete” junk, fragment habitat, grow monocrops, make fertilizer, produce oceanic dead zones, dam rivers, drain wetlands, build concrete jungles, pave road after road after road, zoom along those roads in the aforementioned metal boxes also made via this energy, and again we could go on. What good does the newt see coming out of any source of modernity-powering energy?
The newt, of course, is not alone. Millions of species are in decline: struggling to just hang on in this world-turned-upside-down. Population decline is a somber march toward extinction, and the animals must know it shouldn’t be this hard. Something is definitely not right.
As an alternative, consider muscle. The newt understands this. It’s how everything gets done. Humans have muscles, too, and for a few million years this was a primary energy resource deriving from food in an ecologically vetted way. It’s how all animals lived. It is true that humans supplemented with fire for much of our time on Earth. The newt isn’t sure what to make of that: not a fan. But fire is not unknown to the planet. Fires existed everywhere on Earth before humans arrived, and many plants are specifically adapted to rely on its occasional appearance—plants that are much older than humans. Still, the newt has reason to be circumspect on this issue, even while knowing for sure that the list in the first paragraph of this section is no good: not of this (ecological) world.
Paper or Plastic?
This question may come up less frequently in stores than it did a few years back. Far more important than the bag material is what the hell you’re putting into a bag in the first place. But the paper/plastic question might stand in for a lot of choices we make as consumers. Which detergent is better? Which television? Which phone? Which house?
The newt can’t identify with any of these choices, nor can any other animal on the planet. Most in our culture interpret this difference as proof of our greatness, but step outside the anthropocentric zone for a moment and ask if the community of life is of the same opinion. Does the more-than-human world benefit in any way from our choices, or is it a loss no matter which way? Which species would vote for our choices? When the vote is 10 million to 1, consider the unpopular notion that maybe our culture is doing something wrong, and thus not “great” in a positive way.
Such material choices might be fine in the absence of context, which is where colossal ignorance allows us to pretend we live. If humans were not of this planet, separately created, given the planet to treat as we wish, not dependent on ecological health or biodiversity, masters of all, and could engineer every need without any connection to the living world, then perhaps our behaviors might be at least logical if not still dastardly. Of course, the context isn’t gone just because we’re largely oblivious to it.
The newt would suggest “neither” as the best answer to most of the choices we weigh, because usually both are unambiguously part of the predicament. If a newt can do without them, what makes us such utter wimps that we need any of those things?
Lots More
I suspect I don’t need to go on. The pattern is clear. Pick almost any element of modernity, and the spectrum of choices we consider along each (where to live and in what sort of house/dwelling; what career; what major in college; which diet) may seem diverse to us, and do carry discernible differences. But to a newt (deer; tortoise; chickadee; butterfly) they all look pretty much the same. Embedded in modernity, all engage in planetary destruction the likes of which few species ever have or ever could endure. All have alternatives so far off the limited modernity spectrum that we don’t even consider them. The lifestyle resulting from exercising these much different choices would be utterly different, but that’s the point, right?
This all reminds me of the way Dennis Meadows framed an analogy. If a man is rushing at you with a hammer, intent to do you harm, the particular weapon wielded is of secondary concern to you. It could be a knife, club, gun, rock, or wine bottle. The real problem of primary concern is his intent to do you harm. The intent behind all these “choices” within the modernity tent are like supporting tent poles af anthropocentrism, human-supremacism, ecological ignorance, non-reciprocity, entitlement, and abuse. All add up to an unsustainable lifestyle that will collapse one way or another.
In the meantime, please ask yourself when making choices what your favorite wild animal would make of your selection, and if your considered spectrum is broad enough to include a more acceptable option. I’m not saying you can wave a wand, click your heels three times, wink and nod, or any such quick remedy to pop yourself out of modernity. It may take generations, and I’m plenty guilty myself. But it’s time to start considering other ways of being—through the eyes of a newt.
Views: 1712
Brilliant Tom.
Trying to think about what choices your favourite animal would want us to make is a nice way the start handing the reigns back to the World.
Gosh, I couldn't help but nod along with all of this.
However, over the last few years, I've tried to think objectively (though usually failed) so that, in response to opinion pieces like this, I start to wonder if any of it make objective sense.
There is no objective "good," so, when we think of something as good (or when we think of some other species thinking of something as good), that is highly subjective and usually aligned with our emotional preferences. Your invention of what this or that species might think about some human activity is surely a projection of your own preferences, a kind of anthropomorphism?
Even the notion of hunter-gatherer societies being caring for their environment doesn't seem to totally line up with what we know about hunter-gatherers driving 46 species of mega-fauna to extinction, or how they perturbed climax ecosystems when they slowly moved into them.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-prisms-extinction/article/latequaternary-megafauna-extinctions-patterns-causes-ecological-consequences-and-implications-for-ecosystem-management-in-the-anthropocene/E885D8C5C90424254C1C75A61DE9D087
All humans were hunter gatherers at some point in the past. Now almost all are not.
There are no rules of how to live on this planet. Everything follows the laws of physics, which can't be broken, so everything is as it should be, however much you or I would want it differently. I hate what my species is doing but it will continue at it until it can't. Modernity is unsustainable but almost none of us could live without it. Which is likely what will happen.
I get what you're saying, and can't fault the logic. This is, in fact, where logic ends and values begin. Total nuclear annihilation might well turn out to be the natural way of things—what had to happen. That doesn't mean we have to like it. It also means that if we see an opportunity to prevent its happening, we will (in which case *that* is what was meant to be).
The projection is fair, but the attempt is to have it go opposite the usual direction. I am *attempting* (imperfectly of course) to capture what the community of life would prefer and project that onto my own feelings. Lots of "bad" outcomes can be easily identified from another species point of view, mostly identified by extinction, population decline, removal of habitat, denied access to food. It's not quite the same as "I like to look at the stars and ponder the meaning of things, so I'll project that onto raccoons as well."
While this instance of the use of "anthropomorphism" didn't carry a strong sense of human supremacy, I'll note that often that is the case—as in: "Humans are so extraordinary that it is ridiculous to imagine an animal experiencing anything remotely similar in terms of emotions, etc." I really dislike that flavor of admonishment when associating ourselves with kindred beings. For many, I think anthropomorphism is a "sin" because: how dare we compare (or project) human greatness onto slime. Again, this isn't the tone of what you were doing, but this was a decent place to make the point.
What's the big deal with extinction?🤷
It's been happening for a very long time and is all part of life on earth.
(I'm doubt any other creatures are worrying about it too much🤔? Human worries about extinction are probably more about our own (inevitable) demise rather than any concerns for the rest of creation)
Evolve into something else or become extinct have always been the only two options on offer.
No creature can choose to evolve into something else. Remember that all species evolved from the same organism. It's not always one or the other.
The big thing about extinction is that, probably all, ecosystems have been perturbed and are far from their climax state, so will undergo continuing massive change for some time. The mass extinctions that humans are causing is also affecting the ecosystems that they live in now, and will have to live in once modernity ends. Whilst it's likely true that biodiversity will boom again at some time in the future, it's doubtful that that future will include humans. Which is OK for the rest of nature but not so good for our descendents.
@Mike Robert’s
But Mike, there is no subjectivity in the universe if it is all just particles interacting according to the laws of physics, no?
@mike Roberts
Yes, I appreciate that no organism is "choosing" to evolve. That there is any choice being made here.
After all, there is no such thing as "free will" or "agency"😉
But so what to extinction 🤷? It happens. Has always happened? Will probably always happened?
Just because we are the cause of the next mass extinction?🤷 So what?
It's not like we are in control of our actions anyway.
We are just a bunch of atoms acting through the "laws of physics". We aren't in control.
We can't predict the future, but the future has already been decided. Events aren't random. It's just that the interconnections are so vast and complex, that we can't see the pattern.
Giving extinction/evolution a "value system" is just a human construct.
There is no clear deliniage between creatures. At what point did we stop being Homo erectus and started being hono sapiens?🤷
Whether or not a deliberate caricature, this captures pretty well the nihilistic fallacy of those unable to situate determinism and lack of free will alongside perceived experience of being in control and making choices, as well as the origin of values.
Situations like this conjure for me the example of a fox in a den getting a whiff of smoke. Not only does the fox flee, but alerts others. One can connect this to survival of the species, honed by feedback in an evolutionary context. Foxes who do not proactively respond to perceived threats (and save more than themselves) may not have what it takes to continue living on Earth. They, too, have a values system (not unique to humans by any stretch)—also programmed by evolution. They don't allow philosophical rejection of the fundamentals paralyze them, either, musing that nothing matters and it's all just a giant crank.
The "decided" issue is, I would say, overstated. The universe knows nothing of the future. The only way to realize the future is by taking it one attosecond at a time, following the rules. The future is written real-time by every particle reacting to its environment and the near-infinite set of relationships tugging on each one. Life has developed structures to react in ways that feed back on the results, and thus becomes tuned to make proactive, interesting decisions that indeed SHAPE what comes next. In other words, we are not passive participants but integrated influencers.
That's what this moment is all about for me. I have smelled the smoke; which kicks in a program to take action, alert others, and try to influence conditions in accord with values instilled in my evolved structure for survival of not just me, not just humans, but the web we depend on so critically. Life values the continuation of Life, as must be true. We don't know what happens next, but could be more certain of failure if we don't react to the stimuli (due to some philosophical bug that defeats eons of evolutionary instinct: and THAT probably would be unique to (some) humans).
Of course, nothing matters, in an objective sense. To the observer, to those experiencing events, some things matter. Values are a concept specific to the creature holding those values but they may mean nothing to another creature (even of the same species).
We have no "control" over our own decisions or our own values, yet we still make decisions and still have values. The neural arrangements in our brains may alter slightly based on events and information, causing different decisions to be made than might have been made before those events and before that information found they way to our brains.
So, if extinctions don't phase you now, they may phase you in the future, if you read stuff like Tom's posts. Or they may not.
It's impossible to give a rational argument for why anything should matter, except in the context of a specific goal (e.g. that your descendants live in a rich bioshpere with minimal toxins).
As for when homo sapiens began, there is no clear cut time. The species mix you see around you now is what happens to exist at the time you look, and what definition you use for a species. I'm reminded of the image Richard Dawkins described about a girl holding her mother's hand, who held her mothers hand, who held her mothers hand, on back to the first reproducing single cellular life. It would be impossible to see where the species change happened but there would be a clear change when comparing those from several tens of thousand generations apart.
Surely absolutely everything matters in an objective sense, if absolutely everything is just matter obeying physical laws?
Also: everything is connected, so every single aspect of every single thing in the universe is of consequence (matters) to every other thing in the universe. Every thought/feeling/belief/value (which are fundamentally just collections of interacting atoms) will therefore matter/be of consequence to everything in the universe.
Lastly, there are no observers that aren’t part of the universe (at least I don’t think there are!), so if something matters or means something to an observer, it will matter or mean something to everything else in the universe, whether these things are conscious of the fact or not.
A particular thing may/will mean different things to different things of course!
@Bim,
You seem to be using two different meanings of the word "matter" and saying "everything is important (matters) because everything is physical (matter interactions)."
But whether something is important is subjective. Whether something affects something else is objective and, yes, in some way, everything in the universe affects everything else in the universe (though, with a universe which is 93 billion light years across, those affects are mainly exceedingly indirect and immeasurable). However, the importance of that effect depends on how the thing being affected feels about it.
Of course, there is no choice involved with these vast webs of effect between parts of the universe. They just happen. So the universe doesn't attach importance to them (this is more important that that), only the thing (or organism) being affected decides on the relative importance to them.
@Mike Roberts
Your argument is that thoughts/consciousness are all ultimately just due to interacting particles obeying the laws of physics, correct? If this is the case, no thought can be had that is not connected to all the other particles in the universe in some way (no matter how tenuously). No thought can be had outside and independent from the rest of the universe. So if something matters in a “subjective” sense, it actually matters in a thoroughly objective sense.
Bim,
"if something matters in a “subjective” sense, it actually matters in a thoroughly objective sense"
I don't think so. In an objective sense, everything just is. All constituents of the universe are simply there. Interesting accumulations of the stuff of the universe, e.g. us, can ponder these things and, subjectively, decide whether we consider them important, or not; whether they matter.
If particle A interacts with particle B, it matters/is important in terms of determining what both particles will do next. There is nothing subjective about that. And if absolutely everything is just particles and their interactions, then everything matters/is important in regards to what actually happens in the universe, i.e., what “just is”.
“[We] can ponder these things and, subjectively, decide whether we consider them important, or not; whether they matter [to us]”.
It’s the universe deciding whether these things matter because it’s the interacting atoms of the universe “subjectively deciding” whether something is important. To say otherwise is to think that we are separate from the rest of the universe I would have thought (dualism?).
“Our” thoughts guide how we behave in the world, which contributes to what actually happens in the universe. They are therefore important/matter.
Bim,
"If particle A interacts with particle B, it matters/is important in terms of determining what both particles will do next."
But you are the arbiter of why that's important. The Universe doesn't care what either particle does.
I'm into insects. Silverfish (zygentoma) are a favourite of mine. They have survived four mass extinctions. I think one of their secrets is their ability to eat basic stuff, like wood and paper.
Whenever I meet a silverfish it can't get away from me fast enough. I always bring with me a lot of light and it can't stand that; it has to get away from it, and me, as fast as silverfishly possible. Very wise. It would dry out if it loitered, get eaten by a bird or be 'nuked' with spray by my mother!
It's going to survive number five and I'm not! Help me, silverfish. Tell me your secret. Keep it simple? Okay, I'll try and do that. Anything else ..? and it's gone. Thank you, silverfish, for that brief encounter.
Four mass extinctions. What does it think of me/us causing a fifth? Not a lot. It's got what it takes and we … haven't???
Awesome!
In response to @tmurphy
2025-05-22 at 09.01
Enjoying the debate 👍.
Am I being nihilistic?🤷 Or is that just another of your "value judgements"?🤣
I think what we are discussing comes down to a question of "Fate". A concept that we humans have been grappling with for a very long time.
If everything is governed by the "laws of physics" then are outcomes hardwired in?
Things play out as they were always going to.
The fox runs away because it always was going to. The fox that doesn't run away was always going to not run away. The behaviours are governed by the laws of physics. No "choice" on the part of the fox.
The meteorite that wipe out the dinosaur, was always going to hit earth when it did. It was just The laws of physics playing out, not some random event.
If we extrapolate on that, then you were always going to write this article and I was always going to respond.
Neither of us have free will or agency. We are "acting" due to the laws of physics and a set of interactions and relationships, cause and effect going back to the beginning of time (if time had a beginning?)
Ever since the "big bang" (or whatever) set the wheels in motion, there could only be one set of outcomes.
Cause and effect between atoms playing out in unimaginable complexity. 🤯
I'm trying hard not to use the word "predictably". The interactions between atoms are so vast that it is impossible to predict most of what will happen. (Well…some people claim they can if you cross their palms with silver 🤣)
But we humans have glimpsed a fraction of the "laws" and can predict some things.
We see some patterns.
(we humans, love a pattern!)
The movement of the planets for example.
Or is Fate not a thing?
(Without sounding too morbid) Is the time and place of my death already "decided"?
Reminds me of the dialogue in No Country For Old Men, between Anton Chicur, the petrol pump attendant and the dime at the petrol station.
Maybe we've got evolution all wrong. It's not a load of random events playing out between organisms, but a script with only one set of endless outcomes.
The dinosaurs were always going to become extinct because the meteorite was always going to hit.
In discussing Fate, am I being nihilistic? 🤷
I don't know if *you* were being nihilistic, but the words you used had that familiar ring: a sort of resignation—no point in trying.
The universe is still full of randomness in at least two ways. First, quantum probabilities select randomly from a menu (with known chances for each branch). Complexity and computational limitations aside, there is not just ONE way the universe can go, but gazillions—based on countless random realizations of probability distributions. Second, precise-enough knowledge isn't available (even in theory) to project forward. For instance, a particle's position and momentum cannot be both known to arbitrary precision simultaneously, so that its future path is necessarily uncertain to a degree. Pile on a few interactions with other uncertain particles and the situation is hopeless.
So, rather than working the problem backwards from the future and saying there's only one way the future can turn out (no evidence for that, and rather the opposite), we could say that the universe as it is now is the ONE way it DID transpire, obeying physics at every turn. Physics does not constrain a single outcome, but every outcome is constrained to have obeyed physics, as far as evidence suggests.
In this light, a number of statements/questions in your framing require modification (not a matter of random vs. physics: physics incorporates randomness). The result is unpredictable, but consistent with physics. Foxes can indeed either run or not, according to how their brain (wired by evolution, not "them") processes the situation at hand. Foxes are only foxes based on their pattern of reactions in the past lineage, all the way to microbes. Poor decisions are punished, on average, and thus less likely to manifest.
Tom, I'm not sure your characterization of Buddhism is correct. If any of the systems you mention is potentially similar to your question about what a newt would think, Buddhism has the best chance. Part of the goal of Buddhism is to cause people to stop thinking like a human, and to start merely watching ones own brain be the brain of an animal.
Anyway I recommend spending a little time with Buddhism. I think you'd find it worthwhile. I myself should probably go back to studying it. Been on a detour through grad school and raising two teenagers and surviving a pandemic and stuff.
> Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hundu, or Buddhist, the major religions of the world are built on the notion of personal salvation. All are “new” to the world, emerging in reaction to the suffering that followed the inevitable ills of totalitarian agriculture. All are anthropocentric, some explicitly promoting human dominion over all life on Earth.
Typo at Hundu. Some errors here-
– The claim that all these are "new" to the world is incorrect. C, M and B have particular founders, and can be said to be "new". Similarly, the Mosaic distinction in Judaism (which distinguishes true and false religions, true and false Gods etc..) is "new". These are counter-religions. Not so with natural religions like Hinduism, Shintoism, animism, shamanism and so on.
– While a major part of Hinduism does focus on personal salvation (so called mokSha-goal), human fancies ("kAma"-goal) and prosperity ("artha"-goal), it does address overall wellbeing of other beings and the environment. Humans are not categorical different from other beings – one can incarnate as another; animals are known to be able to "curse" humans, some animals & trees are divine and inviolable etc.. So, at a theoretical level, it is not as anthropocentric as the Abrahamic religions.
– At a practical level, classical H ritual requires a huge variety of natural material (wood from particular trees, porcupine quills, skins from particular species, avoidance of modern metals and materials and so on); which then leads to concerns about their preservation. Sacred groves (kaavu in S India) are mandated, similar to sacred groves of shintoism. Humans deviate from these ideals despite their religion, not because of it. Major monks are vocally luddite.
– The anthropocentrism is an almost inevitable consequence of being anthropogenic; and is exacerbated by voluminosity. If you observe hunter gatherers talking, it's mostly about themselves and things which concern their well-being. So, that's a bad metric.
"the nihilistic fallacy of those unable to situate determinism and lack of free will alongside perceived experience [of] making choices"
So "Poor decisions are punished" without their having even being made, but merely "perceived" to have been made (by a collection of atoms that are able to perceive, somehow). Such sophistry lets humans off the hook for the ongoing disaster being meted out to the more-than-human world.
We're just cells… proteins… molecules… atoms… nucleons… muons… quarks… Keep going and eventually one always reaches *unknown*, where the reductionist explanation says: nothing. (If we only had a bigger particle accelerator…)
That the reductionist explanation isn't 'end-to-end' doesn't mean it's not misguided. Prior to it becoming the default, natural events were ascribed to the gods, sprites, demons, curses etc etc. None of those 'explanations' fit into any brain either.
Life comprises atoms etc, which may behave mostly deterministically, yet complexity endows it with the ablility to choose (i.e, to behave non-deterministically). But no – because, ironically, *you* require even a purely material basis for consciousness (or 'choice') to fit in your brain.
Why can't life be made of atoms etc *and* exercise choice? Just because it's too hard to fathom?
No one here is saying "it can't possibly be material in origin". Of course it can. It's just that reductionists insist that that negates free will. (And don't say "free of what?". 'Free' here just means 'unconstrained'. I.e. *all other things being equal*, the agent is free to decide what to do. A prisoner in jail is not free to decide to go to the cinema, but he is free to decide to stand on his head etc.)
The Standard Model (like all abstract models) reflects a desire for categorization and certainty – a very left-brain trait, typical of so many scientists and other well-educated professionals. Consciousness is an 'illusion' because it can't be explained by the model. I bet if one were to ask 'primitive' people or modern indigenous people if they had consciousness and could choose, they would say it was obvious – 'yes, we do'.
Maybe, past a certain point, scientific enquiry itself became another foolish, human-supremacist quest… It's only succeeded in producing machines, toxic chemicals, pollution etc, all of which are destroying the world that life depends on ('sawing off the branch').
The nihilistic fallacy belongs not to those who refute denial of free will, but to the reductionists and their left-brain models of reality. (Why does reality even need to be 'modelled'? So 'we' can manipulate matter/exercise control over Nature? That hasn't worked out too well, has it?)
The nihilism, I perceive, comes from those asking "then what's the point if there's no free will?" It's not that they themselves are nihilistic, but imagine that a materialist view must be so (without having truly occupied that space). My own reaction to materialism is: Wow! Brain-exploding! Wondrous!
I agree that mysteries will always remain in any pursuit (like physics and the Standard Model). I can ask all kinds of questions about the SM that have no answer, and many that almost certainly never will. That does not in any way negate that we observe these things called electrons that behave in this and that way. Whether they are vibrating strings or whatever does not mean we can dismiss them because mysteries remain.
As for fitting in brains, it sure seems to me that most "explanations" are tailored to do exactly that (God, souls, spirits, consciousness, etc.): fit in brains—skip over intractable complexity. Note that my stance is that we're actually incapable of a satisfying explanation (those in the list above tend to be "satisfying" to their holders—thus the preference). Expansionist may be a better term than reductionist, in this sense: rather than have a pat answer, I have to throw up my hands and say I have no clue how it all fits together. Yet, it would seem silly to assume it's incapable—so why make up new stuff? Clearly, material is a huge part of the story or we would not have brains whose size, structure, and complexity map to our abilities and experiences. Very simple/forgivable not to demand any more than that.
I agree that besides serving a human-supremacist regime, science has been a heavily left-brain enterprise—critically guided of course by countless right-brain insights. Not everything that the left brain does is wrong: it just often fails to incorporate a complex and varied context. But a hydrogen atom in a vacuum has an electron interacting with a proton and almost nothing else matters, so the context *is* stripped away and the left brain is justified in going to town analyzing that fundamental interaction. Even then, it's surprisingly messy, but worked out.
I also agree that science has been a net negative. Again, it does not mean that the findings are wrong, just dangerous (indeed, the findings are dangerous only to the extent that they are *right* and have predictive/explanatory capability that's on target).
Finally, I agree that it is "obvious" to any human that we have consciousness and free will, but that does not mean our perceptions are immune to generated sensations. Our brains are wired to experience a sense of awareness and metaphysical control, and the illusion is almost impossible to shake. But, you admit: of course it can all be material and an illusion—so again we're largely in agreement. You're not saying a materialist stance is demonstrably wrong, just (judging by the totality of reactions) that it's profoundly distasteful to you—and that's fair.
Thanks for that thoughtful answer.
"it would seem silly to assume [materialism is] incapable—so why make up new stuff?"
No need for any new stuff, I agree, but you're implying that materialism is *in principle* capable of saying "how it all fits together" (there's no reason (is there?) to believe that).
"Our brains are wired to experience a sense of awareness [and] the illusion is almost impossible to shake"
How do you know it's an illusion? How *can* you know?
If you do truly know, then you've demonstrated the existence of the thing you deny: consciousness, aka (!) free will.
If an organism is aware, then it is just that. 'Illusion' is an unnecessary add-on.
A materialist stance is not demonstrably wrong. Where we diverge slightly is on the subject of the behaviour of agents/lifeforms. Most materialists deny that lifeforms can direct their own actions in a way that is not mechanistic (machine-like). I say yes, we're material, but clearly we *do* make decisions/have thoughts that are not (and *don't have to be*) explainable by mechanisms ('we' here meaning all life, including humans).
It's not a matter of taste but of *knowing*, of a need for certainty. Proponents of any particular model/theory/religion purport to *know*.
Which is why I say "I don't know" – it's more modest, as well as more honest.
Obviously, I can't *really* know that materialism is sufficient, nor can anyone know. We're all technically agnostic, but perhaps most hold strong preferences and allergies. I gravitate toward external vs. internal evidence: what we observe the universe to do vs. how we think it might work in satisfying mental models. If the physics we observe is capable of complex arrangements, then that's good enough, even if I can't pin it all down and walk away "satisfied." I guess: no compelling reason NOT to believe material is capable of all we witness, and lots of evidence at every turn that every experience relies on material interaction. I prefer not to embellish with new elements—especially when those set us apart from the rest of creation, dangerously.
I continue to be confused by mixed messages from you: materialism is not demonstrably wrong but in the same paragraph we clearly do things that are not explainable by mechanisms (demonstrably?). Go back to the seed or spore, forms of Life executing crucial decisions about when to spring into action—without metabolic activity. Seems more likely to me a mechanism reacting to particular molecules than a soul (non-mechanistic influence). Crucially, failing to make those decisions well results in extinction. Similar with microbes following food gradients, but already too complex to pin it all down. In principle, though, the decision to follow a food gradient can certainly be based on mechanisms (my students often made machines to "sniff out" some signal and go toward it). Now fold in the requirement that not doing so results in termination of that line of Life, and well, we find that microbes exhibit decision-making on how to find food. It's magnificent, but not clearly other than mechanistic. And so it goes up the chain of complexity. It truly is not clear that mechanisms cannot be behind even complex decisions, even if it's hard to grasp how. Certainly we must say that complex decisions *require* material interactions, otherwise why bother with meat-brains at all?
Why not let complex material interactions be "all" there is to it, and marvel at the result and our connectedneess to *everything* in the universe? Seems pretty great to me.
Not everything is explainable by mechanisms. Truth arrived at by intuition might not be easily explainable. For (a quite poor) example, you might sit under a tree and think "I am happy" – but while that may be true, there is no way to 'prove' it.
Demands for proof (and penchants for mechanisms, tools, categories, rules etc) are distinctly left brain characteristics, but direct perception of the real world is done by the right hemisphere.
If one were strike one of your students' machines with a hammer sufficiently hard, it might break and stop moving. However, you would not feel as though you had killed it (except in the colloquial sense). Perhaps, with a soldering iron and a screwdriver, it – the mechanism – could be made to function again. Contrast this with life – a dead organism cannot be made to live again even in theory.
On external vs. internal evidence – without the 'internal' there is no observing or knowing of the external to be done. If the 'internal' evidence is accrued by the right hemisphere (i.e. if the external world is perceived by it) then it is usually accurate (much more so than the overconfident left, which favours its re-presentation of reality over the right hemisphere's direct experience of it).
Decisions do indeed require the meat-brain (or other living substrate) and the material interactions that occur within.
So "Why not let complex material interactions be "all" there is to it…?"
Because, by themselves, they fail to account for perception, let alone comprehension. How do you arrive at truth? Firstly, by your perception of the world (only later is this immediate perception abstracted into facts/models etc).
Yes, we are but atoms etc. As Schrödinger said:
"It is the same elements that go to compose my mind and the world… The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist."
Any argument (in words, especially) will lean heavily on left-brain services, your own included, so maybe lay off that particular recurrent distraction. For instance, "Not everything is explainable by mechanisms" sure seems like a categorical and certain—yet unjustified—statement. Every argument also utilizes the right hemisphere. But of course, they are not constrained to contribute in equal measure.
I know you loathe comparison of humans (or any life) to machines, and that's understandable given the enormous, vast, unimaginable, expansive, brain-busting gulf in complexity. Our artificial non-living machines are indeed pathetic by comparison, even if not ontologically distinct. Human "machines" can sometimes also be revived after death if not too damaged, although our skill is understandably minimal against such staggering complexity, when compared to repairing our stupid toys.
I would also rephrase: "by themselves, they fail to account for perception" into *you* (and I, and everyone; our brains) fail to account for perception. This is what I keep coming back to. So what if we're incapable of connecting all the dots? Why would we expect/demand to have that super-human capacity? Failure to add up by neural firings is not sufficient justification to proclaim its non-existence.
The same argument can be made for an infinite number of propositions for how everything comes about (invisible pink elephants only scratching the surface), but my whole point is: why trust anything concocted in a brain? Why not let the observable, repeatable interactions in the universe account for all of it, as we can't credibly say otherwise? Who are we to do so? If we don't know, let's not posit stuff beyond our pay grade, especially if "elevating" ourselves to non-material status. What's the humblest position? Is comparison to a machine too much humility to stomach?
Meanwhile it's very clear we are made of atoms in complex arrangements, and every time we look, we find that those arrangements account for some relevant function (or can't figure it out, more often), without defying vanilla physics. My position is: rather than holding out until all the connections are made, accept that the million steps assembled thus far (out of a gazillion?) indicate without exception that material interactions underpin everything we witness. Not a single piece of evidence demonstrably demands otherwise, so why should this arrangement of atoms presume to do so?
Of course arguments in words lean on left-brain services, but reality (as far as we *can* know it) is immediately seen by the right brain. The left brain interpolates and articulates the true(er) picture gathered by the RB. The left is necessary, or it wouldn't be there (or rather, the specialization of the hemispheres would not have evolved), but its strength is definitely not in recognizing truth or reality.
The more one discovers about it, the more one sees just how much its relatively recent dominance has influenced all aspects of modernity (including (and maybe especially) science). Truly, I am shocked by what I read about the differences between the two hemispheres' hold (or lack of hold, in the case of the LB) on reality. To highlight that difference in *perception of what actually is* is not, therefore, beside the point.
On resuscitating human "machines", there is a very small window of time in which that can be attempted. Compare that with an *actual* broken machine – it could sit on a workshop shelf for decades and still be repairable. The difference (I'm sure you'll disagree) is not just one of complexity. On/off is not the same as alive/dead.
Part of the problem seems to be that (mainly since the 'Enlightenment') a certain unjustified belief has captured every aspect of science, academia and society in general – namely, that everything can be explained in terms of mechanisms.
There is no getting away from the fact that that's a very left-brain perception (actually a mis-perception) of reality.
"our brains… fail to account for perception" And yet… we perceive. No super-human capacity needs to be invoked. All other lifeforms also perceive, as perception is required for us all to navigate physical reality.
"Is comparison to a machine too much humility to stomach?"
It's a category error. There is no way an inanimate thing can feel/perceive/understand. That's like saying a computer or a pocket calculator can understand.
Yes, material interactions are real and we witness them. That does not mean sentience can be explained by them. As you yourself have said, why is a complete explanation of everything necessary?
Hans Jonas – "the scientist does take man to be determined by causal laws – but not himself while he assumes and exercises his freedom of enquiry and his openness to reason, evidence and truth. His own working assumptions involve free will, deliberation, and evaluation as aspects of himself, but those qualities and capacities are stripped away from and denied to the human object or thing that he is inspecting…"
You mistook me. What is super-human is not the experience of perception, which all life (and even a photodiode, or an electron in the crudest sense) shares. I'm saying that being able to connect all the dots in a complete materialist explanation would be super-human, but not therefore by definition untrue (otherwise aggrandizing ourselves as the arbiters of reality). Yes, an amoeba couldn't get as far as we do in puzzling out such things, but that neither means the amoeba does not perceive nor that we possess what it takes to "solve" it. There's a vast gray area and we're somewhere within the spectrum: not at one ultimate extreme.
What you say about hemispheres is consistent with my understanding, although I would not say that makes products of the right brain any less a representation, just one in different (more immediate) form. It's still a reconstructed model based on imperfect inputs and brain structure. Perceptions are not reality, but our best, flawed models thereof—in either hemisphere.
"It's a category error": What I don't see is the need to define categories just because of a brain-busting gulf—by fiat or as a matter of taste. Maybe the truth is that every species, or even every particle, is is own category, but that seems completely unnecessary. Sure, no one can insist that any brain idea (like infinite categories) is *wrong* no matter how silly or counter to experience, but that's essentially the basis of my preference to rely as little as possible on brain constructs (categories) and take material interactions as a unifying basis for everything: not obviously wrong. Boltzmann brains and grand deceivers brushed aside, I'm satisfied with "atoms are real and we're made of them."
As I've said, not every task the left hemisphere touches is therefore garbage. The right brain is always free to reject, but I would not advocate denying atoms or their interactions just because the left brain has performed substantial work on those subjects. Meanwhile, positing categories and being certain is something you're doing here (out of which hemisphere?).
The claim of categorical differences between living beings and inanimate objects (calculators), can be recast as: *stupendously* different levels of complexity—which is surely undeniable: that a calculator using crude three-contact digital transistors in a planar arrangement with very limited "bus" connections and then employing replicated rigid patterns over and over can't possibly hold a candle to billions of analog neurons each with a thousand (or so) dendritic connections, loads of amplifying and inhibiting influences, plastic configuration, etc. For that matter, a microbe's DNA is far more intricate/complex than a calculator. Of course one can perform tasks the other has no hope in hell of accomplishing. You declare that the difference "is not just one of complexity" without a hint of formerly-avowed agnosticism. Which am I to go by: the conviction or the lack thereof?
Yes, the differences between calculators and living beings are immense. In fact, about the only way they are similar in my view is that they are all made of atoms and do not (demonstrably or necessarily) disobey physics: we have no convincing reason to believe so. I agree that there's "no way" a calculator can feel anything like emotions, but that traces to the fact that there's no way the complexity of a calculator's atomic arrangements are anywhere close those of a vole. Yet, even electrons "feel" forces and perceive other charges and understand which way to move in response (care to revise "no way an inanimate thing can feel/perceive/understand"—because it seems like there is A way/sense in which they do exactly this, just not remotely as complex as OUR way). It seems hubristic to proclaim that there's no way sufficiently-sophisticated arrangements can have sufficiently-sophisticated responses to sufficiently-multi-faceted stimuli.
I feel ashamed at how many words have gone into my replies (whole posts' worth), when it really all comes down to whether we live in a continuum of matter and complexity or an abrupt categorical disconnect. Given that the latter notion comes out of brains that are incapable of fully tracking the former, together with the humility-requiring view that we're all connected at the most fundamental level, and the simpler (non-dualist) foundation leads to a strong preference on my part for a materialist stance—which of course neither I nor anyone can insist is ultimate truth: just good enough for the likes of me. It feels more amazing, unfathomable, and true-to-form for the universe than the brain-relieving and special-promoting short-cut of saying it can't be material complexity and must involve something new and transcendent.
I'm not advocating dualism. All we can know about is our bodily existence here, on the physical plane.
Let me put it like this: the left brain [LB] can't accept ambiguity or uncertainty. It's unable to hold two apparently contradictory positions simultaneously, something the RB does all the time.
E.g. light is wave *and* particle. A duckbilled platypus lays eggs *and* it's a mammal. I am made of atoms *and* I am conscious.
I say that, although made of atoms we are not mechanisms, yes – because my perception is that I am conscious, and my knowledge of atoms tells me I am made of them. It's not a case of either/or. One does not, as the reductionist would have it, preclude the other.
You claim to accept the differences between the hemispheres but then say that doesn't make products of the right brain any less a representation. But they are less of a representation (and less of a product), being in 'the present' and 'real' in a way that LB 'recordings' are not. And the RB is *not* always free to reject what its former emissary has decided. In modernity, the LB has become Master, destroying the world by dint of its narrow, grasping, tool-making, thing-obssessing, bureaucratic nature.
Saying you prefer not to rely on "brain constructs", avoids the fact that your *mind* is the way you perceive and comprehend the reality of the physical world. It's the *only* way, yet you cling to the idea of the dispassionate, objective observer – who does not exist. Like Schrödinger said, there is no barrier between subject and object. It's a fake distinction, beloved of 'objective' scientists/rule makers etc.
When life is thought of as a mechanism (LB-style), then intuitive understanding (RB-style) is lost.
So what if it is all complexity? That would just mean that complexity has given rise to life and consciousness – phenomena that the materialist holds, against what his direct experience tells him, are mechanism and illusion, respectively.
To the materialist, nothing exists apart from what he can conceive of in his mind (sounds like certainty to me). The Earth was 'certainly' flat, until it wasn't. I'm saying things exist that we cannot conceive of. Evolution gave us the ability to react and adapt to novel situations. That flexibility requires an open (RB) mind.
Round and round we go, each apparently incapable of understanding the other. Your representations of my stance continue to miss the mark by wide margins, which gives the exercise a bit of a futile flavor, and I lament my compulsion to respond and subject the few remaining readers to a protracted stalemate. I'll end after this.
Physicists call it wave-particle duality. AND implies both: dual. Body AND soul: dualism, like it ot not. The shoe fits.
I recommend stepping off the RB throne. I've pointed out loads of examples where your statements perfectly exemplify LB characteristics, and meanwhile my *main* position is that we have to NOT give in to LB certainty, throw up our hands in expecting to trace how it all fits together, and embrace the ambiguity of not knowing how. I would suggest it's my RB saying "it sure feels like; my intuition strongly says that; it takes a huge leap of faith to believe that…" …despite literal appearances we may actually be governed by one set of rules even though my LB recoils at not spelling it out. The LB has to cede.
Preferring a monist materialist stance originates from the same top-level as preferring a dualist material plus consciousness stance. Either could be painted as a certain LB mental model, or either could be said to originate fromt the intuition of the RB. It's pointless to claim/declare that one is LB and the other is RB. Neither are able to spell things out explicitly; both are a hunch.
I also keep saying that we need to realize that our brains simply are not up to the task (of connecting all the dots to satisfy our itch to *know* (LB) how it all works). Yes, my brain is involved in coming to this conclusion, but it's basically to say: distrust the representation: distrust yourself. This powerful, almost undeniable illusion of consciousness *could* be exactly that, if we're open to the possibility. Believe me, it really, really, really feels like I possess consciousness in the way that you or most would describe it (or as the RB represents it). I'm trying to bust out of BOTH hemispheres to say we can't take what ANY of our wiring tells us as literal truth: it may be frustrating, irritating, demeaning, demoralizing, and require more humility than we are capable of holding. It's a stretch, I know (personally).
Again missing the mark, this in no way attempts to set me apart as an objective, outside observer. It's so completely the opposite! I mean, that's precisely what a consciousness (apart from emergent complexity within materialism) does: separates "us" artificially, in our "minds." What I am advocating is a deep re-integration into *everything*: only atoms, only interactions, just like a rock in that sense. It seems so obvious to me: one with the universe vs. dualistically separate and not mechanistic like the entirety. Which involves an outside observer? Another uncrossable bridge.
In the penultimate paragraph: exactly how I would put it: complexity has given rise to Life and the experience we call consciousness. That's it! Mechanisms undergird life (every time and place we look), and our sensory awareness plus interconnected brain give us a sense of awareness, which produces an illusion of duality, when underneath it's one glorious foundation.
The last paragraph is the final misfire: "nothing exists apart from what he can conceive of in his mind." The giant leap required for my stance (a leap few are able to stomach) is precisely that it WON'T fit in our heads. We won't be able to tie it up in a bow. To me, the dualist resort to non-material consciousness is the more comfortable, fit-in-brain, settle-it-and-walk-away-happy approach. I, on the other hand, am left with a yawning chasm of inexplicability. The LB is told to lump it. Truly, an uncountable number of unknown phenomena contribute, and that's precisely what requires an open mind: open to the idea that despite our neurally-represented perceptions of reality, we may all be the same thing. Few are open to that distasteful notion, preferring the more "obvious" and satisfying dualist explanation to the notion that we are as dirt.
We've said our pieces, and said them, and said them. I'll call it a day.
Isn't this a bit like "turtles all the way down?" There will always be aspects or the universe that we don't know, can't know, can't grasp. In the past (and even now) some people invent entities acting in another sphere to explain stuff which defies explanation, leaving those invented entities unexplained.
So, there could be some force or process which can produce decisions which aren't simply the end result of how the neurons in our brain fire. A mechanism operating in tandem with, but influencing, those neurons. A mechanism that we haven't figured out yet. A mechanism that is the essential us. A mechanism that can exert its will on the neurons. But then the question is, as Sapolsky said, where did that intent come from? Given the different decisions that different people make with the same information, there must be something influencing the essential "us" to make that decision.
The way our neurons are wired are influenced by everything that went before, including genes, environment, culture and upbringing. That seems to provide the answers to why the essential "us" makes the decisions it does. Could there be more? Yes, but we don't seem to need more to explain our decisions.
Speaking of how humans interact with animals, I think this piece is very interesting and pertinent:
“Anchoring the Ought in the Is”
https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/solidarity-animals-mathews
A few days late to the blog, and replies, but I followed your link last night and read the essay. Thanks for posting it, it's a gem. I even bought the author's book after reading! Great find.
Most if not all of our political debates are basically fighting over the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. No politician would dare say "Civilization/Modernity is inherently unsustainable and we need to figure out how to wind it down gracefully".
It seems clear to me, from the interactions in the comments section, that it is incredibly difficult to accept that we are just atoms. This is despite all of the physical evidence. Even the feeling, of wanting there to be more to life, is just physical interactions of atoms. The notion that a rock can't "understand" seems wrong, when our "understanding" is just an interaction of atoms.
I doubt anyone, deep down, (and that includes myself) would accept that atoms is all there is, even though there is not one shred of physical evidence that there is anything else. Only non-physical evidence is relied on for an acceptance of non-physical reality, and there is an infinite amount of non-physical evidence, so I tend to think that it's impossible to convert people into acceptance of materialism.
It's a tough pull, to be sure—and maybe essentially impossible as you suggest. My impression is that very few people are willing to accept a "fully" materialist foundation lacking free will, calling consciousness an illusion, based on the playing-out of physics alone. It may seem that modernity is based on mechanistic notions, but deep down, that's not where most people are, in my experience (and via studies/surveys). To me, that becomes part of the problem: elevation "beyond" real matter, which then is graded into levels of superiority along the imaginary axis—with humans at the top, of course.