Dubious Reassurances
Free will, God, entropy, and IQ
- Is life just biology and chemistry, shaped by the blind forces of evolution? Maybe so, but no matter, we humans have free will.
- But isn’t ours a deterministic universe governed by immutable laws of physics that are incompatible with free will? Still no problem, we’ve concocted something called “compatibilism” and kept our free will, thank you very much.
- Do rationality, lack of evidence and science force us to abandon any notion of God or gods? Yes, but no big deal: we can still find spiritual fulfillment in Bach, Michelangelo, and Dostoyevsky. We can still be inspired and awed by the majesty of gothic cathedrals, have cathartic experiences at the top of a mountain, and expand our consciousness and be one with the world through meditation. Nothing is missing without religion.
- Do cosmologists envision various ways in which the universe will end, and give them suitably foreboding names like the Big Freeze, the Big Crunch, the Big Rip, and the Big Slurp? That’s of no concern to us. Just enjoy the ride and make up your own meaning along the way. Besides, the very fact that our lives are finite gives them value and purpose.
- Is the variability we observe in intelligence greatly influenced by genes, so that not everyone can become an astrophysicist? Yes, but that’s not important. Intelligence, however highly causally correlated it may be with achievement and success in life, has absolutely nothing to do with the worth we may ascribe to other people, with the admiration or disdain we may feel for others.
In obviously simplified form, the above are some facts posed as questions, and the responses they often elicit. I consider such responses unconvincing, hence the title.
I could easily expand the list with other equally dubious views that are common among all sorts of people, such as “everything happens for a reason”, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” (often true, often not), or “God works in mysterious ways”, but I’ve decided to focus here on some positions common among prominent intellectuals.
Freedom from the laws of nature — and from logic
In The Agile Gene, science writer Matt Ridley expertly describes how nature and nurture together determine behavior. Yet in the final chapter he tries to convince the reader — to reassure the reader — that “despite nature and despite nurture, freedom of the will is true”. He claims that this is so because “the cause of behavior lies in a circular, not a linear, system”. One is left to wonder what a “circular system” has to do with free will. (In this essay, when I mention free will, I’m referring exclusively to what is also known as contra-causal or libertarian free will.)
Ridley’s must be some sort of compatibilist view of free will. Compatibilism is defined as “the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent”.
This is how philosopher Massimo Pigliucci explains it:
Compatibilism is also a position distinct from hard determinism, the notion that there is no coherent sense in which we have free will because we are like puppets whose strings are moved by the forces of the universe. We are not puppets, because the cosmic web of cause-effect goes straight through us. Things do not just happen to us, we are co-causes of our decisions, because that’s what a human being is: a highly sophisticated decision-making machine, capable of altering its own ability to make decisions by applying reason recursively to its own behavior. In lay terms: we think about stuff, and we learn from our experiences.
After a convoluted and hardly elucidating exposition, he summarizes the idea in simpler terms: “we think and learn”. There is not much more to it, really. Why is a fancy and misleading term such as “compatibilism” needed to capture that simple idea? It’s needed just to obscure that free will is an illusion — a fact that most humans viscerally dislike and thus reject as ridiculous.
The otherworldly
Immortal souls, reincarnation, life after death, karma, cosmic purpose… Supernatural beliefs can be of great comfort, and the idea of a just and loving God can feel incredibly reassuring and be a source of joy. Thus when prominent atheists claim that such beliefs are not at all needed to find meaning and peace in life they’re going a bit too far. They suggest that we can find fulfilling spiritual experiences in the beauty of nature, in sublime music, in love, etc. We certainly can, but none of that quite compares to the deeply satisfying comfort and solace that religion and supernatural beliefs can afford.
To be sure, religious beliefs can also be severely distressing. The notion of a vindictive, vain, capricious, and cruel God can be a source of torment. And if one’s temperament or indoctrination (or attentive reading of holy texts) inclines him or her to believe in such a God, “conversion” to atheism would certainly offer a wonderful respite. Better to be mortal than to risk being tortured in the fires of hell for all eternity. Still, I suppose that the majority of religious people choose to focus on the more benign aspects of their faith and thus find mostly comfort in it.
But the point here is that rejecting religion and supernatural beliefs can leave us with an unpleasant void, and we should be able to acknowledge that.
Evanescence
Physicists and cosmologists dutifully inform us that the Earth and the Sun and the entire universe are doomed. As entropy inexorably increases, the universe is destined for a heat death known as the Big Freeze, where no form of life will be possible. As mentioned above, the Big Freeze is not the only theory about the fate of the universe, but the others are equally fatal to our future prospects.
But then these scientists are apt to cheerfully add that that’s precisely what makes our lives precious. Our ephemeral existence, both as individuals and as a species, will leave no trace, but that gives it even more meaning!
As the title of this article says: “dubious reassurances”.
Variability in IQ scores
In The Bell Curve we read: “This identification of IQ with attractive human qualities in general is unfortunate and wrong.” Further: “…one of the problems of writing about intelligence is how to remind readers often enough how little an IQ score tells about whether the human being next to you is someone whom you will admire or cherish. This thing we know as IQ is important but not a synonym for human excellence.”
Identifying IQ with human qualities we find attractive might be unfortunate and wrong, but that’s how we humans operate, and perhaps we should just accept that it’s a bummer that not everyone has the potential to be a mathematician or an aeronautical engineer.
We’re far better disposed, by the way, to accept as fairly obvious that not everyone has the natural talent and constitution to become a top footballer or basketball player, but for some reason we tend to face a psychological barrier when applying that logic to cognitive potential. Perhaps this is because we recognize the value of intelligence as superior to that of athleticism, and are thus more sensitive to innate differences in the former. After all, an elite basketball player has an advantage in a very narrow domain, but very high intelligence can be far more valuable: it can help us excel in numerous and varied fields: entrepreneurship, academics, business, prestigious professions, etc.
I don’t know whether a more plausible or forceful reassurance could be devised to deal with the unfortunate reality that innate cognitive talent is not evenly distributed. I wish it were the case, for example, that our happiness and well-being were but poorly correlated with our IQ, but it isn’t. At any rate, and to reiterate, I’m afraid that proposing that IQ should be irrelevant in our estimation of others won’t do. It won’t do because whatever our professed views on intelligence, it’s intrinsic to our nature to consider it an attractive quality — and with good reason, I might add. Yes, it has nothing to do with moral worth, it tells us nothing about how good and decent a person may be, but we will still value it (irrespective of how much nature and nurture may each contribute to it).
Tentative conclusions
So what are we to make of all this? Why bother with questionable reassurances in the first place? If certain false or groundless beliefs help us carry on, if they can aid us in living happier and more productive lives, why not leave them alone? One could debate endlessly to what extent, if any, erroneous, unfounded, and superstitious beliefs can be a net positive. Many insist that, on the whole, they’re always detrimental, even if the alternative, that is, naked reality, can prove disconcerting or even distressing. Whatever their merits, once one realizes they’re evidence-free or even plainly absurd, there’s no going back. Even if I decided that it would do me good to believe in a loving God, I’d find it impossible to do so.
While these reassurances I’m calling “dubious” are of a nature entirely different from that of unfounded beliefs, in that they tend to be relatively well-reasoned and intelligible (free will being a notable exception), they remain uncompelling. At least I myself don’t find them persuasive.
I’d rather we were immortal, the universe remained hospitable forever, and we all had the potential to become Einstein or Mozart (I won’t say I’d rather we had free will because, as I see it, free will doesn’t mean anything that makes sense even just in theory).
Nevertheless, I sympathize with the sentiment behind the types of responses I’m criticizing, and fully agree that we should make the best of our circumstances and try to find meaning in our lives, even if there’s none in the cosmic scheme of things. I just object to denying the hard aspects of reality, or pretending that its harshness is actually something to be cherished because it is a blessing in disguise or something.
I suppose we can also just not think about deep and existential questions. In fact, that’s how most of us live, and whether it’s by deliberate choice or not, there’s some wisdom to it. But if we find ourselves unable to ignore or mask these issues, would a sort of Buddhist resignation be the best approach? Maybe. But resignation involves acceptance, and acceptance can be defeatist. Had we decided that disease, say, was part of nature and that as such it was futile to fight it, life would have continued to be full of misery and our life expectancy at birth would have stayed at about 30 years, as opposed to the current world average of about 72.
So perhaps wisdom consists in discerning when acceptance is sensible and when it isn’t.
We can just accept that differences in innate intelligence reflect an unfair, far-from-ideal aspect of biology, rather than pretend that this fact doesn’t much matter. Or we can accept it while still being troubled by it, which might result in a future in which we manage to endow each and everyone who so wishes with genius-like mental powers.
We can accept the inevitability of death, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything to postpone it when possible. There’s nothing we can do about our ultimate mortality, but we don’t have to be elated about our short years. An acceptance that’s only tentative and reluctant may one day result, thanks to medical and technological advances, in much longer and healthier lives. Why not aim for indefinite lifespans and interplanetary life? Maybe one day we’ll even figure out how to stop the Big Crunch, or the Big Freeze, or whatever it is that the universe is planning to do to kill us. Yes, that last thought is a dubious reassurance of my own making — isn’t it encouraging, though?
