Technology and Ethics
SITARAM
http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan
http://sulekha.com/chpost.asp?forum=philosophy&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.