Book of the Month: Existential Physics

The tagline 'A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions' grabbed my attention and made me buy this book by Sabine Hossenfelder, whose day job is studying quantum gravity at Frankfurt University.

The questions covered in Existential Physics are a mix of hard science (How did the universe begin? Are humans just bags of atoms or something more?) and speculation (Is the universe conscious? Do copies of us exist in a multiverse?) with some extra stuff that is a bit of both - hard speculation, if you will. 

Along the way, there are some very interesting summaries of what we can say for certain, and some ideas that scientists advocate for that are, at best, ascientific, meaning there is just no way, now, to know. 

The chapter on death and dying and how, on a human level, it illustrates entropy provided a me with a new take on the subject. Although there is no evidence for an "afterlife", and no workable scientific theory for one, the impression individuals make on the universe as "information" is never truly lost - unless it ends up in a black hole. Versions of us sort of might continue to exist, which is weirdly comforting.

I got a bit lost in the discussion about free will and determinism, which cropped up in a couple of places. I can accept that our universe is almost entirely predictable, if an observer had access to enough data and in that sense 'free will' as understood by most people doesn't actually exist. It's not a very intuitive way to approach things though - and Sabine acknowledges this and addresses the issue of holding people to account for their actions, whether those actions are pre-determined or not. There are a few similar diversions from physics into ethics throughout the book.

There is a small section of one of the later chapters that is probably the best precis I have ever read about artificial intelligence at this stage in the development of AI (pp207-210). Sabine outlines what is currently known about trying to create thinking machines and presents a convincing case that the first true AIs will be fragile and will struggle to survive.

"...artificial intelligences at first will be few and one of a kind, and that's how it will remain for a long time. It will take large groups of people and many years to build and train artificial general intelligences. Copying them will not be any easier than copying a human brain. They'll be difficult to fix when broken, because, as with the human brain, we won't beable to separate the hardware from the software. The early ones will die quickly for reasons we will not even comprehend."

That actually made me feel sad for the creations we might bring into being. Sabine also points out that these AIs will most likely be owned by people who are already rich and powerful and will reflect the ethics and interests of their masters. It's a very good point that I've not seen mentioned in other discussions of AI.

Another superb section is the interview with Zeeya Merali, which discusses whether it would be possible to bring another universe into existence. It's certainly doable in theory if beyond human current engineering ability in practice. But if a universe was created then it would separate off almost immediately, and develop detached from our universe. It could expand infinitely and sentient beings could evolve there and we would almost certainly never know, unless we discovered a way to observe other universes (which we can't do now, making the concept of a multiverse ascientific even though lots of scientists talk about it as established fact). 

This leads to a discussion of ethics and morality - what responsibility would the creator(s) of that universe have towards any beings that lived in it? That's an ethical conundrum in its own right. It also opens up the possibility that if it's theoretically possible that we could create universes, then this universe may also have been created in a similar fashion. Not that there is any need for a creator based on what we observe about our universe, but a universe created in a lab would probably look the same as ours from inside. 

Consciousness is a topic that crops up throughout the book. Trying to explain why humans have consciousness is really difficult - it's something that seems to be more than the sum of our parts (our constituent atoms) and if I understood what Sabine was saying, the observations of consciousness in complex combinations of atoms isn't something that could be predicted by just looking at those individual atoms. So, something currently unexplainable is going on. 

The final section of the book is about whether there is any purpose to everything. Sabine concludes that the desire to understand the universe is a meaningful purpose in itself, and I found that a satisfying way to end the book. 

I have read several 'popular science' books over the last few years. I found this harder than any I've read previously. The scientific terms come at the reader quickly and there were several occasions when I needed to re-read paragraphs. Some of the early chapters were particularly hardgoing, but I'm glad I powered through - either I got smarter as the book went on (unlikely) or the concepts were less bound up in mathematical theory so were easier to convey in words that a reader like me could grasp. 

As a plus point, though, Sabine includes a 'Brief Answer' at the end of every chapter which summarises all that has been said before into three or four sentences. I found that very helpful clarifying what I had just read. 

The Good Place - ethics and philosophy disguised as a sit-com [SPOILERS]

I discovered The Good Place during its first season, and I have loved it, even while it meandered a bit during it's difficult third season. Now that it has concluded I want to write a bit about it.

But first: SPOILER ALERT

I will be talking about the twists and turns that the series took and so IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT ALL, and you want to watch it, DON'T READ THIS POST.

Seriously, there is a really good twist at the end of season one and I don't want to ruin it for you, but there is also a twist in season 4 that I want to write about here, so if you aren't up to date, come back when you are.

Or prepare to have it spoiled. Your choice.

Still reading? OK. Here we go.

The basic premise of The Good Place is that Eleanor Shelstrop (played by Kristin Bell) wakes up in a waiting room and is welcomed by an avuncular older man, Michael (played by Ted Danson), who reassures her that she is in the Good Place. Yes, she's died, but that's OK. Everything is fine. He proceeds to take her on a tour of her new residential environment, the 'Neighbourhood', which has been designed to cater to all her innermost wishes.

There's a problem, though. Eleanor is a selfish, awful person who shouldn't be in the Good Place. Her very presence causes chaos in the fabric of the post-life community she now inhabits. She confides this to her "soul mate", Chidi, who is an ethics professor and asks him to help her become a good person and worthy of her place in the Good Place.

Chidi agrees to help her and from that point on most episodes unpack a particular ethical or philosophical issue in an intelligent and accessible way. This includes serious discussions about whether "being good" out of fear of punishment, or for a reward, is actually good, or, in fact, selfish. What is true altruism? Is moral behaviour moral if you don't want to do it, but feel forced to act a certain way? Those are massive ethical questions and this is the first time I've seen them actually addressed directly in a sit-com.

(I think those are particularly pertinent questions to adherents of religions that offer the faithful the opportunity to escape hell or gain entry to paradise after death. It's coercive morality that makes people comply with expected patterns of behaviour out of fear of either going to hell or missing out on heaven. When scandals erupt from those authoritarian religions, it shouldn't really be a surprise. People in those religious environments don't consent to a certain moral code; they have it imposed on them and that's why they so often try to get away with breaking the rules that are imposed on them.)

The first series ends on a twist. None of the four main human characters had actually earned a place in the Good Place - which came as a surprise to two of them. In fact, the existential, philosophical torments of trying to help someone fake being good was an elaborate ruse. The Neighbourhood is actually part of the Bad Place, and Michael is a demon who has devised this place as a venue for eternal torture.

Unfortunately for Michael, the fake Good Place, was having a reformatory effect on Eleanor and the other characters, which is how they eventually realise they are in the Bad Place. Eleanor had changed so much she had acted in an unexpected way, admitting she didn't belong there, and causing Michael to frantically improvise. Now revealed as a demon, Michael had to resort to a finger-snapping reset of the entire Neighbourhood to end the series.

The beginning of the second series sees the main characters burn through Neighbourhood after Neighbourhood. Each time they see through the ruse. Each time Eleanor and Chidi fall in love. Each time they somehow end up becoming better people. Michael goes frantic with worry that he is about to be exposed as a fraud to his fellow demons and proposes a truce with the humans. His side of the bargain is to learn about ethics. There's a great episode about the Trolley Problem and choice-making when every option is awful. Then at the end of the series, the humans are returned to earth to see if their lives would turn out differently with different inputs into them.

That poses another interesting moral question. Can we really judge people for their actions if their actions are determined for them by their environment, their upbringing, the beliefs inculcated into them? That's a whole other branch of ethics that doesn't diminish the importance of moral decision-making, but begs the question whether it's even possible.

Into season 3, which took a while to get going. In this season the big reveal was that the entire system was broken and it was impossible for anyone to enter The Good Place because the interconnectedness of human beings meant that everyone was culpable for bad things happening. In a way, this was updated original sin, with sin inevitable because we all benefit in some way from things that disadvantage other people. The karmic mud sticks to us. Again, that was an interesting concept. Not quite as accessible as the earlier stuff, but deep nonetheless.

And so to the final season, which has just finished. In this series, the four pivotal humans are tasked with trying to improve four other people to prove that humans can become better. As a result they build an afterlife system that enable people to grow into mature, moral, responsible humans worthy of living in the Good Place. A kind of purgatory system, if you will. The main characters are transported to the real Good Place, where there is a final twist.

The actual Good Place is an eternal bliss-filled existence where you do whatever makes you happy all the time. Except, in a twist, that sort of existence turns your brain to mush. It's actually horrible and the people who are there have grown to hate it.

Eternity is one of those concepts that sounds good in the pages of a holy book, but when you actually think about it, is awful. Unending existence doing the same thing, or even unending new experiences, is not really comprehensible. It would rob existence of meaning.

The solution in the final episodes of the show are to provide a way out; a final door from the Good Place into nothingness. In a very touching final episode, each of the main characters, even Michael, reaches a point where they are ready to leave the Good Place, and cease to exist. They are reconciled to not existing any more and they are ready to go. When he announces that he has had enough, Chidi cites a Buddhist teaching about a wave crashing on the beach, which really resonated with me.

In Chidi's summary, if we see a wave on the ocean, we can measure its height and the refraction of sunlight from it, and then the wave crashes on the beach, and it ceases to exist. But the water is still there. The wave had gone, but the water has returned to its original form. It's how it was before.

I really like that as a metaphor for death. It reminds of a book I read about the universe's origin in ripples of quantum energy, and if we wanted to get all science-mystical about it, we could talk about those ripples having temporary consciousness before returning to the underlying energy grid of the universe.

The final episode was sad, but not tragic. The goodbyes were sincere not maudlin. And the concepts were as important as ever. There are very few programmes, especially comedies, that treat its audience as smart enough to think about mortality and what it means to be human, and live our lives connected to other humans in such a way that we make the world a better place.

The Good Place was a good show. It made me think a good deal. And that is what I enjoyed about it most.

A review of Godless Morality by Richard Holloway

Over a decade ago I was reviewing books for the trade journal of UK Christian bookshops. I was sent a book by Richard Holloway, who had just left the ordained priesthood in the Anglican Church. He had stepped down from the role of Bishop, which is obviously fairly high up in that denomination, and was now embracing life after theism. The book I was reviewing had a write up of Richard that mentioned he was the author of Godless Morality - a title that intrigued me. So when I found a second hand copy recently I bought it to see what he had to say.

It's a short read and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he wrote. His basic premise is that because theologians and religious leaders can't agree definitively on what constitutes moral or immoral behaviour, this throws the legitimacy of basing morality on religion into question.

He points out that coercing moral behaviour by insisting people behave a certain way is often far less effective than if people consent to certain moral standards. That's a very important point when so many religious people seem to want to make laws for everyone else to follow. You could possibly change the way people behave but you will not make them want to behave that way by forcing them to.

Instead, Richard suggests that authority has to earn respect through the "intrinsic value of what it says", not because it can impose moral parameters on people and make them behave a particular way. The moral philosophy in the book isn't complicated. Richard makes a good case that morality based on preventing harm is pretty much universal and can therefore act as a base for a moral system that does not depend on religious revelations of what is right and wrong.

But harm must be evidenced - and the evidence for harm to the individual and to society is lacking for a number of things that are proscribed by religion. Ultimately, in Richard's view, many religious statements on morality come down to preference because they cannot explain why doing or not doing a particular action will cause harm. He is particularly critical of people ascribing their own preferences to 'God'; with people even sometimes admitting the course of action they claim is divinely mandated, and therefore 'moral', is unfair or defective, and yet because it is labelled as 'God's will' they will not countenance change.

Richard sums this up by saying identifying "transient social attitudes" with 'God's will' has in the past given religions great power, but is now what is frequently rendering religion irrelevant. Enshrining the mores of the past as eternal means that when society changes, religion struggles to keep up. It becomes a living museum of dimly-remembered attitudes that are seen as no longer useable in the world most people navigate daily.

That's all pretty sharp and is still very effective anti-fundamentalist thinking. Unfortunately, in the 17 years since this book was published, there has been a great amount of change in many of the ethical areas Richard looks at in later chapters. The commentary on human fertility has dated badly, while the legislation of gay marriage was not even on the agenda back in 1999 when the book was written.

But over all I felt there were still several important things in the book, particularly that idea of basing morality in a common universal ethic instead of competing truth claims within and between religions, and the idea that moral behaviour people consent to is more binding than behaviour that is coerced.

The book concludes with a 'look ahead' that depicts humanity standing on the cusp of a future that it shapes for itself, through gene technology and other triumphs over the natural barriers that prevent humans from achieving more. It is an interesting vision of the future from a churchman. It isn't the classic eschatalogical hope of Christianity, but it is hope nonetheless. Knowing Richard's trajectory, and how in a few short years he would formally reject the faith he was still ostensibly part of when he wrote Godless Morality makes this final section very interesting. It was also personally quite challenging to find myself agreeing with so much of what he wrote, given the path he was on in his faith.

Ends and means (-philosophy post)

At work today a friend and I were discussing a situation where someone we both knew had been treated quite badly by a religious organisation, which perhaps should have acted better. In fact, if they'd followed their own 'values statement', they wouldn't have done the things they did to end this guy's employment. But then, I always say, if you need to put your values in a statement, then they aren't obvious enough to people in the way you conduct yourself.

Anyway this drifted into a discussion of 'ends and means' and raised the ethical chestnut of 'do the ends ever justify the means?' After the discussion ended I remembered a quote from Michael Foot, onetime leader of the Labour party, on the subject. A couple of google searches later and I found what I was looking for, although Foot was actually quoting a writer called Ignazio Silone. Here's what he (Foot) wrote:

"Every means tends to become an end," Silone had one of his characters write, and the physical and mental torture of both Italian Fascism and Soviet Communism were known to him as he wrote: "To understand the tragedy of human history it is necessary to grasp that fact."

"Machines which ought to be men's instrument, enslave him, the state enslaves society, the bureaucracy enslaves the state, the church enslaves religion, parliament enslaves democracy, institutions enslave justice, academies enslave art, the army enslaves the nation, the party enslaves the cause, the dictatorship of the proletariat enslaves Socialism."

"The choice and the control of the instruments of political action are thus at least as important as the choice of the ends themselves, and as time goes on the instruments must be expected to become an end for those who use them. Hence the saying that the end justifies the means is not only immoral; it is stupid."

"An inhuman means remains inhuman even if it is employed for the purpose of assuring human felicity. A lie is always a lie, murder is always murder. A lie always ends by enslaving those who use it, just as violence always enslaves those who use it as well as their victims."

In some ways, this reminds me of Nigel Wright's description of 'institutional evil' - when the institution which was set up for the benefit of human beings takes control of those human beings. In terms of religion, it's not a long step to get to inquisitions, crusades and jihads, morality police or Pullman's Magisterium when that starts to happen.

Beanless

Went out last night after building furniture and shunting boxes round at Dr Nicholl's behest to Nandos, only to be greeted by a sign that said: 'No bean patties today'. So I had to have a veggieburger instead, which wasn't too bad actually.

Now you might be asking 'Why didn't you just have the piri piri chicken and be done with it?' And I guess that's the thing. Since coming back from the States, I've harboured a secret. I've become a vegetarian.

There were plenty of reasons to do it. The farming industry is notoriously cheap and animals are mistreated badly. And I actually quite like animals. Sheep and cows not so much, but pigs are cute. Maybe I like grunty, snorty creatures who don't care much what anyone thinks because they remind me of me. Is it hypocritical to think pigs are cute and feed them in petting zoos and then chow down on some bacon? And, incidentally, what is the difference between eating pigs and eating dogs? It all seems very arbitrary to me.

So, reason 1: I like animals.
Reason 2: I'm fortunate to live in a society where I have a choice in what I eat, and I believe when you're given a choice it's your moral duty to make an ethical decision. I disapprove of people who prioritise their own tastebuds over the human rights and dignity of tea-pickers (in fact, deliberately choosing not to drink fair trade tea or coffee is a good reason why some people will go to hell). So, if I have the choice, and I should make an ethical choice, surely the ethical choice is to not eat meat, on so many levels.

And then there's the third reason. As I've already said the farming industry is shabby and cheap. We'll feed animals dead animals and then watch people's brains turn to mush. We'll pump our chickens full of oestrogen and wonder why men are growing boobs. I've put on some weight, and my man-tits are getting weighty. But they've shrunk since I stopped eating chicken and turkey.

And finally, in New York we met up with Dan Piraro. He's an artist I respect and he's passionate about animal rights. We chatted a bit around the subject (he's a vegan) and much of what he said made sense, but unlike many vegetarian prosetelysers, he didn't try to put me on a guilt trip, he didn't try and disgust me by telling me jelly babies are made from horses' hooves, or that pork sausages are full of pig eyeballs, and he didn't judge me. And that convinced me you can be a vegetarian and not be a swivel-eyed loon.

Plus you have to look at the ridiculous things people say to justify eating meat:
1) Hitler was a vegetarian. No, he wasn't, unless vegetarians eat Bratwurst. But it is true he was prescribed a vegetarian diet in order to treat his chronic flatulence, presumably because his doctors wanted it to get worse...
2) The Bible says we should eat meat. Really? Who's got the theology degree here?
3) Biologically we're built to eat meat. I'm not a biologist, but I have seen proper carnivores and we don't look much like them. Sorry, at best we're omnivores. Like hedgehogs.
4) Vegetarians are weird. Well, I was weird a long time before I became a vegetarian. If you don't believe me go for a trip through my blog archives.