[extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God

[john-c-wright at sff.net]

 My fellow not-quite-yet-transhumans,  

 Forgive my lack of Net etiquette if I bring up a topic discussed in October,
but  the topic is one of particular interest to me, and, in all humility, I
think I  am in a position to have inside knowledge about it. Please forgive as
well the  length of this note, but I wanted to share my musings on several
comments in the  thread.  

 Before I continue, I must express that I am honored my books came to your 
attention, therefore all my comments below are spoken by one who, hat in hand,
speaks in a tone of respect. Certainly the ultimate destiny of mankind, even
whether our posterity  shall remain human or not, is a fascinating one. My
attempt in THE GOLDEN AGE  was to present an imaginary future where all
boundaries to human inventiveness  had fallen, in order to see what boundaries
could not fall (such as limitations  on the speed of light, economic scarcity,
the ultimate victory of entropy, and  so on) that I might speculate on the human
reaction to these limits, both of  those who bowed to the inevitable, and those
who did not.  This has no bearing  on my comments below, save that I wanted to
reassure all and sundry to take my  words in the kindest possible way. I am
surprised and secretly pleased to find  anyone discussing my words or my works
at all.   

 I should say at the outset that the subject line of this thread wants accuracy.
 I did not, strictly speaking, "find" God. It might be more accurate to say He 
found me, or, if I may be permitted a drollery on so profound a topic, He 
pounced on me. I was the patient, not the agent.  

 In my interview with Greg West, I said I was introverted, bookish, rude, 
irreligious, un-athletic, smart and smart-mouthed: a typical product of popular
 culture in America. 

 Trend Ologist wrote: 
> Bookish? the 'typical product of our culture' leans more towards local yokel 
..they can read sports statistics, romance novels, etc. ... 

 I confess my comment could have been more clearly worded: I did not mean to 
imply that rude and bookish introverts were the only typical products of 
American popular culture, merely that boys of that "type" were "typical." One
can speak of a “typical” sunny spring day without meaning to imply that all days
of all seasons are sunny. There is many a man (myself included) that falls into
the stereotype described. Of my friends and peers in my generation, no one
respected authority or honored tradition. We were all avowed nonconformists,
uniformly and in lockstep.  

 Brett Paatsch wrote:  
> Phenomena such as belief in the supernatural (heaven, reincarnation, happy 
hunting ground, nirvana) must itself have a basis in something. 

 It may be that belief in the supernatural has its  basis in experiences of the
supernatural, which are common to all races and ages  of man. This explanation
at least has the merit of being straightforward. 
 
 If we restrict ourselves to natural explanations for  supernatural longings, I
suppose nothing is more natural that human beings would  desire life, justice,
love from a world ruled by Mother Nature, a lady who is  notoriously deadly,
cruel and indifferent.  

 In the naturalistic philosophy, these desires for life, justice and meaning
must be merely the by-products of a sloppy evolution, which instilled these
desires in  us for the sake of their utility: but evolution is too blind a tool
to shape our  desires exactly to the contours of reality, and so there is always
an awkward  overlap, such as the desire of a man better off dead to live.
Perhaps a more  careful or kindly evolution would have tailored our desires to
fit reality, so  that men would crave death without fear once they were useless
to their  posterity; or with perfect indifference cease to love their parents,
mates and  offspring the moment they were useless. Unfortunately, evolution
rewards  reproductive success, not emotional serenity. 
 
 But if we seek a supernatural explanation for supernatural longings, then, of 
course, nothing is more natural than that we exiles from a better world would 
retain a dim longing for it, or that the fingerprints of the potter who made us
 would still be found, to our surprise, in our souls.  

>I can't see I have a lot of necessarily persuasive evidence for this view (it 
doesn't seen falsifiable) but I still think its true. 

 My dear sir, you ask too much of yourself in this case. The criterion that a
view be  “falsifiable” applies only to empirical propositions, not to
metaphysical ones.  Metaphysical conclusions are proven or disproven by reason,
not by observation. 

 In this case, the axioms chosen at the outset determine the outcome. If you
seek  only a natural explanation for that homesickness for heaven only believers
know,  a supernatural explanation is outside the scope of your examination.  

 Jeff Albright writes: 
> An overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning can tip one over the edge.  

 Nothing in Greg West's interview with me presents evidence that I was possessed
 with an "overwhelming desire to find ultimate meaning" at the time of my 
conversion. Just between you and me, I was perfectly content with my status as a
 "bright", i.e. a hard-core rationalist atheist. 
 
 We must assume here that Mr. Albright is speaking in general terms about 
religions conversions, not of me in particular.  

> Once tipped, they will appear as rational as before, except for a tendency 
toward selective observation of information which confirms the new belief set. 

 Please forgive me, but this sentence contains a whiff of paranoia about it: why
say the converted “appear” rational rather than “are” rational? 

 I am not sure if Mr. Albright is speaking of a selection bias, or if he is
merely noting that people are interest in what interests them. When I was an
Objectivist, I read Ayn Ran; as a Stoic, I read Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius;
when I was an atheist, I read Ingersoll; when I became a Christian, I read the
Gospel. This does not imply an absence of objectivity, merely a presence of more
interest in some topics than others. 

 In any case, selection bias is only pertinent to cases whose outcome depend on
a number of observations conforming to a given set, that is, to people who chose
what to believe based on statistics, anecdotes, or examples. 

 Nicholas Anthony MacDonald says, in reply to Mr. Albright: 
> Except Robert Wright's search for "ultimate meaning" is of a very different 
character than John Wright.  Robert Wright is engaged in a philosophical 
"search", while John just happened to have a near death experience and decide 
that Jesus was to blame.

 Well, this sentiment is accurate (my conversion was not the product of 
philosophical rumination) but the characterization is slightly inaccurate. Mr. 
McDonald is not to blame for assuming I had a near death experience and 
"decided Jesus was to blame", since my description to Greg West about the event
 was rather coy.

 I did not “decide” anything. My reaction to a blinding  revelation was
something more spontaneous than rationally choosing which  falsifiable theory
best fit the observed and empirical facts. It was more like  falling in love.
  
 You must forgive me for being close-mouthed about the details when speaking to
 strangers. It is my own inadequacy that stills my pen. An event beyond human 
understanding cannot be described in human words to those who have no referent 
experiences, no frame, in which to understand it. If you wonder how I, as a 
human, could have witnessed an event beyond human understanding, I can only hint
 that we humans are not what we think we are. The truth of the matter is far
more  glorious than we suspect.  

 My question to my respected fellow atheists (if I may so call you, for I have 
only departed your company recently) is this: what does an honest and rational 
man do when he has a supernatural experience? 
 
 Does he, like Scrooge, claim Marlowe's ghost is a bit of beef, a product of bad
 digestion? Does he accuse himself of hallucination rather than entertain the 
opinion that his axioms might be mistaken? Occam's razor, plus a modicum of 
intellectual integrity, would seem to militate against this assumption. 
  
 I ask this in all seriousness. What does one do when overwhelming evidence
suddenly breaks in on you that your entire system of the world, so carefully 
constructed by materialist rational philosophy over many years of painstaking 
thought, is utterly wrong and discredited? Pretend it did not happen?  

 Once upon a time, I saw the Goodyear blimp hanging over the town where I went
to  college. Back on campus, I told some friends of mine of the sighting. All of
 them knew of my sobriety and honesty, and yet not one of them believed me. Not
 one. Even though I am an avowed skeptic of long practice and impeccable
credentials, I was at a loss to explain their skepticism. 

 But, gosh, am I glad I did not see a flying saucer.  

 Yours truly, John C. Wright