Samuel Pepys and the blogosphere

In my way home I 'light and to the Coffee-house, where I heard Lt. Coll. Baron tell very good stories of his travels over the high hills in Asia above the clouds, how clear the heaven is above them, how thicke like a mist the way is through the cloud that wets like a sponge one's clothes, the ground above the clouds all dry and parched, nothing in the world growing, it being only a dry earth, yet not so hot above as below the clouds. The stars at night most delicate bright and a fine clear blue sky, but cannot see the earth at any time through the clouds, but the clouds look like a world below you. Thence home and to supper...

The "coffee-house" nature of the internet, especially the blogosphere, has taken a while to sink in, but the news and discourse offered by these new channels of communication are becoming wondrous in diversity and, most importantly, in depth. I checked randomly as to how Samuel Pepys saw the situation of his day, and the above is part of a long entry for February 1, 1664. As for February 2:

At noon by coach to the 'Change with Mr. Coventry, thence to the Coffee-house with Captain Coeke, who discoursed well of the good effects in some kind of a Dutch warr and conquest (which I did not consider before, but the contrary) that is, that the trade of the world is too little for us two, therefore one must down.

And February 3:

In Covent Garden to-night, going to fetch home my wife, I stopped at the great Coffee-house' there, where I never was before; where Dryden the poet (I knew at Cambridge), and all the wits of the town, and Harris the player, and Mr. Hoole of our College. And had I had time then, or could at ether times, it will be good coming thither, for there, I perceive, is very witty and pleasant discourse.

   Hearty discourse at Will’s Coffee House

  

Though Pepys was a rich and influential man in government and at the court - he humbly thanked God for this - he obviously found much to attract him at the coffee-houses and taverns he visited, giving him access to fresh ideas and news about people and places near and far.

Likewise myself with regards sites like Salon, Slate and Huffington Post and Daily Beast to a certain extent, but pre-eminently Andrew Sullivan's The Dish, which I have subscribed to, marvelling at the quality of the material offered and the low annual fee (US$20). I wish the newspapers would set their subscriptions at a similar level, making it possible for the average Jane or Joe to read what is behind the paywall. 

Using The Dish as an example, the discourse, that is the viewpoints tapped and the range of topics broached, as well as the merry items, is more than worth the money of a subscription. The purview is wider than what the Arts and Letters Daily started offering many years ago, before sinking from sight after being bought from its creator, a countryman of mine, by the owners of the Chronicle of Higher Education. What makes The Dish distinctive is the voice of Sullivan, who uses his background in journalism and controversy to shape a strong perspective, but one that does not seem to want to dominate the discussion, which makes for an invigorating 21st Century coffee-house.

Prayer as answer to ideology

Those convinced about the rightness of their beliefs can fall into the trap of the rigidity of mind that seems to be a characteristic of ideology. Religious believers are also prone to developing an attitude that is "rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness". This is Pope Francis speaking. He points to the solution, a solution conveyed in the painting shown here.

Mother Teresa, by Hyung Koo Kang

He who does not pray is “arrogant, is proud, is sure of himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement.” However, "when a Christian prays ... he speaks with Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness.”

•  Hyung Koo Kang has spent over 20 years painting portraits on huge canvases, over two metres square. His facial portraits do not reveal any type of backdrop or environment, instead they focus on depicting the subjects' faces in great detail. 

Four reasons you shouldn't exist

Some scientists have had the belief that they had been urged to stop their inquiry into the origins of the cosmos. In this post I showed how that was a mistaken view of what were actually statements urging them to not be limited in their fields of scrutiny as they endeavour to understand our place in the universe. They urged greater engagement, not less.

To continue the theme, I wondered in my previous post just below whether, just as physicists sometimes fail to give credit to those who had developed mathematical foundations for the “hidden reality”  of the cosmos so too they sometimes do not give enough weight to the insights many others have with regards the Holy, especially given the widespread experiences of the Thou. That post ended with questions raised by physicists relating to the limits of scientific knowledge as it stands.

Dave Goldberg

Further questions of that kind are posed in this post, which aims to also convey the sense of wonder and fun even of the article Four Reasons You Shouldn’t Exist by Dave Goldberg, a professor of physics at Drexel University, Philadelphia, and author, most recently, of The Universe in the Rearview Mirror: How Hidden Symmetries Shape Reality. His basic point:

        “It would be a mistake to be comforted by the symmetries of the universe. In truth, they are your worst enemies. Everything we know about those rational, predictable arrangements dictates that you shouldn't be here at all. How hostile is the universe to your fundamental existence? Very. Even the simplest assumptions about our place in the universe seem to lead inexorably to devastating results.”

He displays an impressive black humour throughout this article with such statements as:

         “We're lucky life began on Earth at all, of course, and that something as complex as humans evolved. It was improbable that your parents met each other and conceived you at just the right instant, and their parents and their parents and so on back to time immemorial. This is science’s way of reminding you to be grateful for what you have.
        “But even so, I have news for you: It's worse than you think. Much worse.
        “Your existence wasn’t just predicated on amorousness and luck of your ancestors, but on an almost absurdly finely tuned universe. Had the universe opted to turn up the strength of the electromagnetic force by even a small factor, poof! Suddenly stars wouldn’t be able to produce any heavy elements, much less the giant wet rock we’re standing on. Worse, if the universe were only minutely denser than the one we inhabit, it would have collapsed before it began.”

I encourage you to read the full article as it (relatively) simply delves into some of the key matters he and his colleagues around the world are exploring. Further, the piece is another example of how humility remains a central quality of an inquiring mind. It also an example of the basic question that Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard,  posed to conclude my previous post: “Even if we knew the ultimate underlying theory, how are we going to explain the fact that we’re here?”  

The Cosmos and the 'Theory of Everything'

I keep going back to a series of articles New Scientist ran  (March 2, 2013) with the theme “We’ve run out of explanations for the universe: What’s next?” In the lead article, Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, New York, discusses the difficulties scientists have in “revealing the hidden expanses of reality”. The mathematical equations “with which we theorists tinker” are admitted to be far from the real world. Therefore, “In the absence of compelling experimental results, deciding what mathematics should be taken seriously is as much an art as it is science”.

But sometimes mathematics does foreshadow what has been or remains hidden. To take one instance, “The Higgs boson … an elementary particle [was] initially theorised in 1964, and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013” (Wikipedia, August 21, 2013). We are willing to wait for and strive for conclusive evidence.

Another issue in this overview of the philosophy of science, one that Greene dwells on, is that time and again theorists have not taken “seriously enough” the mathematics, the insights into what might be. Any delving into the history of scientific activity will provide a lesson on how unwise it is to scoff at those using speculation or calculation to try to add a new chapter to our understanding of things (or universes) around us.
Unless that elusive certainty can be captured it is better to let the “100 flowers bloom” (in the good sense of that campaign). This is where the “art” of recognising reality is bound to scientific discovery. Also, the cultivating of that art of insight is bound to our understanding of other areas of life. For example, many people seem unwilling to practice the art of observing the traces of the Beautiful, the Good, the True, that are around them.

This does not mean abandoning our rational powers or, with respect, identifying how certain views do not correspond with the evidence at hand. But, to use Brian Greene’s words, “it is only through fearless engagement that we can learn our limits”. Further, “only through rational pursuit of theories, even those that whisk us into strange and unfamiliar domains – by taking the [insights] seriously - do we stand a chance of revealing the hidden expanses of reality”. In fact Greene has a book entitled The Hidden Reality (2011).  Surely, we can agree that it is not just in the field of cosmology that that title rings true.

It’s good to see passion for the truth, but many people show a lack of imagination, a reluctance to open themselves to a love of what is mysterious, namely,  in the context of this post, an essential element in the lives of vast numbers of people – the reality of the Holy and, for many among that number,  a god who,incredibly, can be known and named and  is experienced as welcoming a loving relationship with all people. Therein lies a profound mystery and challenge for the imagination that belittles us if we respond simply with scorn.

Therefore, we need to remain humble about what we know in the face of the often enormous gap between theory and experimental discoveries. The New Scientist articles dismiss the idea that we are close to a theory that explains everything – especially particle physics and cosmology: “One problem is that mathematics provides infinite ways in which numbers and abstract quantities can be processed – but no indication of what exists beyond it.”

The articles also add caution about expectations for the outcome of the scientific effort. Paul Davies of Arizona State University in Tempe reportedly believes that even a “theory of everything”… "wouldn’t help solve problems of the origin of life or the nature of consciousness”.  For Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard, the key issue is this:“Even if we knew the ultimate underlying theory, how are we going to explain the fact that we’re here?”

Christian view of the Big Bang

Professor Stephen Hawking’s faulty recall in 2006 of a statement by Pope John Paul II continues to do the rounds, fuelling what many people think is the Christian view on the study of the universe and its origin.

The Associated Press reported at the time that Hawking had told students in Hong Kong that at a conference at the Vatican at which Hawking had given a paper, the pope had expressed the view that, "It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we [scientists] should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."

Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (1988, p120) offers a similar account of what the pope had told scientists at the conference, which was in 1981. In fact, as well as making the statement that can be read at the link just given, at that Vatican conference the pope said:

Any scientific hypothesis on the origin of the world, such as the hypothesis of a primitive atom from which derived the whole of the physical universe, leaves open the problem concerning the universe’s beginning. Science cannot of itself solve this question: there is needed that human knowledge that rises above physics and astrophysics and which is called metaphysics; there is needed above all the knowledge that comes from God’s revelation.

The pope certainly did not limit scientists in that statement but proposed that they go further in employing their human powers through metaphysical exploration, that is, reasoning about “ultimate reality” beyond the physical, forgoing quick absolutes arising from speculation within a rapidly changing field of study, opening themselves up to a higher-level consideration as to the “Why?” of the cosmos. See further material on this matter here,  here and here. Also see my earlier post, Christian view on evolution.

Christian view on evolution

Mainstream Christians accept evolution as a fact. However, there are limits as to the conclusions that can be drawn from the information provided by scientific endeavour. Some clarity as to what Christians - for the most part - accept as to human being's evolutionary past is found in a critique by the US Catholic Bishops Conference of a book written by Elizabeth A. Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York City. The book, Quest for the Living God, Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, was published in 2007, and the bishops' doctrine committee offered two formal critiques, with its 2011 statement providing the insight into Catholic teaching on evolution that follows.

The bishops state:

Human beings necessarily [are] part of the material universe. Bodily existence is an intrinsic part of human nature. Consequently, scientific investigation has a great deal to teach us about the human person and human society. At the same time, there is something about the human person that transcends material realities and that escapes the grasp of scientific investigation. There must be another, a non-material explanation for the existence of this aspect of the human person. There is a range of philosophical attempts to provide an explanation. The Catholic Church teaches that the human soul is not the result of material forces, such as the bodies of the parents, but is created immediately by God.

The main issue is about "what can be explained in scientific terms and what cannot be explained in scientific terms". The bishops' stance is that "science by its very nature has no other way of looking at the evolution of human beings than as the result of the interplay of material forces" but they say the author goes too far when she asserts that "Matter evolves to life and then to consciousness and then to self-consciousness, and this can be accounted for without positing divine intervention, scientifically speaking" [author's emphasis].

The counter-argument from the bishops is this:

Science could account for life, consciousness, and self-consciousness, however, only if these were wholly the result of the interplay of material forces. While an adherent of a materialist philosophy would readily agree that material factors account for all reality, this accords neither with Catholic teaching, nor with sound philosophical argumentation.

Although a scientific explanation of life in purely material terms already presents considerable difficulties that could be discussed, the crucial issue is that of self-consciousness. Simply put, human self-consciousness cannot be wholly explained as the result of material causes. The multiple neurons of the physical brain cannot account for the unitary self-consciousness of the human person. The functioning of the brain cannot of itself explain human acts of knowing and willing. This has been amply demonstrated by various philosophical arguments. There is, therefore, one stage in evolution that cannot be fully accounted for by scientific explanation, that of the appearance of self-conscious intelligence and free will.

 It is here that metaphysics is again to the fore in exploring the full nature of the human being. Studies of the functioning of the brain are providing information to enable doctors to repair damage or prevent what may handicap a fully capable person, but in an era of incredible computerised robotic functions, there remains the final hurdle of duplicating the human's "self-conscious intelligence and free will". Though some studies have been hyped so as to posit that higher orders of animals approach humans in such attributes, it is clear these distinctive qualities set humans apart from the purely natural world. Therefore, scientific findings need to feed into the metaphysical (philosophical and theological) considerations of the nature of the human person to lay a foundation for recognition of the dignity that each person deserves.

Suicide makes losers of us all

 Legalizing assisted suicide – though often termed assisted dying – is unnecessary and disrespectful. In countries where this has become an issue, the medical staff with palliative care expertise generally do not support such measures. It’s a hot topic in Britain at present, and debate was fuelled by Amour, as it was in 2004 by the sports drama Million Dollar Baby. The French take on the difficulties of old age went beyond the adage, “Old age is not for sissies”, but took us to where the character played by Emmanuelle Riva had reached the point where death was the natural next step for her life. But Jean-Louis Trintignant’s character strangely did not seek medical help to allow his wife to die with respect. That help could have been simply to arrange intravenous nourishment and hydration to allow a peaceful departure from this life in the old woman’s own time. That it was time to stop offering solid food was obvious. Therefore the film had a false climax, one that was unconvincing to anyone who had paid the slightest attention to what medical services now routinely provide those near death whether at home or in a hospice environment.
Amour portrayed a case of what should have been “care of the dying”, not “assisted dying”. The first term upholds the dignity of the person and the rhythm of life – Riva’s old woman wanted death to come; it was time to die. Yes, we (the reasonable ordinary serious-minded person) can see that this is the right decision given the woman’s time of life and health situation. We also know that a person’s life does not have to be extended at all costs or we would not honour those who give their life for a justifiable cause, such as to save another person. However, it is acknowledged that sometimes the care given to the dying does have a double effect of bringing death sooner as a result of trying to remove pain.  This is not splitting hairs; this is recognising the fact that we have in our care a human being and that this person’s dignity must be safeguarded. We must be sensitive to the delicate nature of the precious moments. Such a storyline would have made an enthralling film. 
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby was more convincing because his character knew it was morally wrong to kill Swank’s “Baby”. This “assisted suicide” was an act of murder plain and simple. The loving father character should have been guided more by his moral principles, which he allowed his emotion to override. But this scenario of a young person severely handicapped but nowhere near death, offered another option, one that meant a decision of a more uplifting kind for “Baby”. The decision could have been one that highlights where so much current moral thinking leads – to what is easy, to what avoids inconvenience, to what, in fact, removes the challenge – even adventure – of embarking on a journey that would be painful for sure, but may allow a magnificent outcome, an outcome that would be a personal achievement of calm acceptance, and, not least, and a heightened regard for the welfare of others, because of the one performing at the supreme level that is possible for a human.

Eastwood’s character’s role should likewise have focused on the goals his “baby” could achieve in her life despite the constricting circumstances. A morally sound person would have an understanding of the value of suffering – in the face of those who reject the reality that suffering can be ennobling – from both their own life experience and from the testimony of survivors of instances of hell on earth such as Hitler’s death camps.  He would have given encouragement to a sense of adventure, helping the victim make courage the stairway to a  greatness of spirit and to an integrity higher than most of us can attain, we who are physically whole but as morally weak as a mouse. The companion in this case could share the suffering of the bedridden, but also bring the world to the bedside, the world of much horror and mayhem, as well as of the many who struggle to raise themselves from hopelessness.
Many people do not see how weak and shallow they have decided to be when they decide to kill themselves as they grow old or are overtaken by illness. This is where their upright friends and family need to step in with forceful counsel. The unhappy thing is that those people say something of this kind: “I’ve always been an active person – I simply couldn’t bear being feeble”. Why do they limit themselves in such an extreme way? Where is their sense of adventure? Why don’t they see that the courage they think they have is merely the display of common or garden fear – fear of pain, or fear of the unknown where before they considered themselves in control? Even when dementia, for example, has seemingly stripped the person of dignity, that, too, is part of the journey of that person in life. Also, doctors acknowledge that we must reserve our judgment on when that person has lost all awareness of self, let alone when that person has reached the point of death.    
Therefore, the argument for assisted dying/suicide as we see surrounding much of the legislation in Europe and envisaged for England and Wales, is not an step forward in the development of our awareness of human dignity. Rather it reflects a general decline in moral strength, especially because but it undermines respect for the human person. It also undermines the ability of an aware but ailing person to find support in making the effort to shape their life story in a personal way. The common good would be better served by the firm espousal of hope for one’s life ahead, and trust in the goodness of carers, than by caving in to the dismay of those around them, who (correctly) see inconvenience and financial difficulty for themselves. But that positive view requires the ability to convey a more complex reality than these two films achieved.
[For an insight into the ethical argument advanced here go to this resource]