To EyesWideOpen

This is a response to a comment by EyesWideOpen on the video Lucifer’s Question. His comment is long, so I will break it into parts and respond to each part.

He began by quoting something I said:

“Even if you fling yourself into the Abyss, so that you may reign in hell, you’re still serving in heaven.”

Then he said:

Do you really think that John Milton was an advocate of anything closely approximating the autocatalytic cells view of existence where ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ can both be reduced down simply to causality in a 100% materialistic universe? I believe Milton’s many metaphors should be viewed in context — Milton’s belief system was Christian. Although he was anti-organization when it came to Church governance, his ideas on existence and purpose were always structured within a framework built upon the Word of God as a divine revelation of higher truth (metaphysical).

The video wasn’t about Paradise Lost or Milton’s worldview. I used the character of Lucifer and his predicament as a metaphor to talk about certain ideas within my own worldview. The video was about the question of what to do with life. It was also about the limit of our subjective freedom: that we are free to question and even reject nature, but we cannot escape from it.

In my metaphor, Lucifer represents humanity, and his predicament represents the human condition of being free to make choices, and thus having the ultimate responsibility for those choices. In Paradise Lost, God is the all-powerful creator, but Lucifer is still free to accept or reject God’s authority, and thus Lucifer is the ultimate authority over himself. That represents an important aspect of the human condition: our subjective freedom.

Being the ultimate authority over our beliefs and choices means that we are free, in a sense. We are subjectively free. And yet we also have natures, and our choices arise out of our natures. We are subjectively free and objectively determined. Lucifer is in a similar predicament. He can reject God’s rule, but he cannot escape from God’s game. He is trapped in the universe created by God, his nature was ultimately determined by God, and even if he rebels against God, he is still playing a role in God’s game.

The video came from a script that I wrote years ago, when I was debating “Men Going Their Own Way”, aka “MGTOW”. MGTOW reject natural sex roles, viewing them as unfair. Many of them reject the natural purpose of life, which is reproduction. Some want to transcend their sexual desires, viewing those desires as a form of deception or coercion. They say things like “I refuse to be a puppet of my DNA”. They want to liberate themselves from certain aspects of human nature. Many see their own natures, and nature itself, as an antagonist. Their attitude toward nature reminded me of Lucifer’s attitude toward God.

That’s where the idea of Lucifer’s Question came from. I wrote a script for a video, but I was never satisfied with it, so it sat in my “to do” folder for years. Then one night, when I was out walking under the stars, I recorded my unscripted thoughts about it.

In my metaphor, God represents nature. Accepting God means accepting your place within nature and the cosmos, and accepting your natural purpose of reproduction. We do not have to accept nature. We are free to question and reject it. However, you will still be part of nature if you reject it. If you reject your natural purpose of reproduction, you will still be a reproducing machine. You will just be a defective one. You can reject nature, but you cannot escape from it. You can reject your desires, but you will still be driven by them. You can reject the purpose of reproduction, but you will still be a reproducing machine. Nature will not give you another purpose.

That was the point of the metaphor, and the point of the statement you quoted.

I believe your concluding statement here — which I have quoted above — is only relevant for a modern nihilist who views the human animal and our special environment as completely accidental, thus without any possible meaning.

What do you mean by “nihilist”? The term is often used in a derogatory way to dismiss anyone who doesn’t share your core assumptions. You seem to be using it to dismiss rather than describe.

Am I a nihilist? Yes, in a way. I have stared into the abyss. I don’t believe that God or anything else gives me an objective foundation for belief and action. If you want to call that “nihilism”, then I am a nihilist.

Nihilism does not eliminate truth, value and action. I have beliefs about the world. I have desires. I make choices based on those beliefs and desires. I act in the world. Nihilism is just the recognition that those beliefs, desires and choices have no objective foundation or justification.

I have a purpose, but I don’t believe that God gave it to me or imposed it on me. I chose my natural purpose of reproduction to be my subjective purpose. It is my purpose, not God’s purpose for me.

What do you mean by “accidental”? You seem to believe that if something is not designed, it is entirely random. Evolution is partly random, because it depends on variation, but it also depends on selection, which is deterministic. The order that we see in the natural world, and in ourselves, is neither designed nor an accident.

You seem to believe that your life would have meaning and purpose if you were designed by God, but not otherwise. However, I don’t see how a designer could give your life meaning and purpose.

Suppose that you are a cog in God’s machine. God created you to serve some purpose within his grand design. In that case, the purpose is his, not yours. You are not forced to accept it as your own. Like Lucifer, you are free to reject God and his design.

As a subject, you make value judgments and choices from your perspective, not from God’s perspective. Even if you were created by God, you would still face the abyss of nihilism. Your ability to reject God means that you are the ultimate authority, and so you have to define your own meaning and purpose.

Also, God could not have a purpose for you, because God could never have a purpose. An infinite, transcendent being has no needs. He doesn’t need a roof over his head, or a fire to keep him warm, or your little mind to keep him company. God could never have any purpose for you, because there is nothing that you could possibly do for an omnipotent being.

The concept of purpose only makes sense when applied to limited beings such as ourselves, beings that struggle against adversity in a vast and mysterious universe. We have purposes because we evolved to reproduce, and because life is a struggle. Our limited nature creates a meaningful distinction between what we want and what we have. There would be no such distinction for God. God could never have a need, want or purpose.

You see a beautiful miraculous building, highly complex with the ability to support sentient beings, but you don’t see an Architect.

I do not see a beautiful, miraculous building. Nature is beautiful, but it isn’t miraculous and it isn’t a building. If nature were a building, then we wouldn’t need buildings to protect ourselves from nature. We fit into nature because we evolved to fit into it, not because it was designed for us. Even so, nature is a harsh environment in which we must struggle to survive.

It is not miraculous that we view the universe from a planet that can support human existence. It is inevitable, by the anthropic principle. An intelligent being will necessarily view the universe from a place that can support intelligent life.

The complexity of life is not explained by the existence of a designer. This planet has 350,000 species of beetles and 12,000 species of ants. Why would God create all that complexity? What is it for? The complexity of life is explained by the theory of evolution. Ecosystems contain many niches, and life forms evolve to fill those niches. As new life forms evolve, they create new niches, which are then filled by new life forms, and so on. The complexity of life emerges over time by evolution.

It is absurd to think of God as an architect. A real architect is highly constrained by the laws of physics and the desires of man. He has to design a building that will not collapse, that will serve human needs, that will be attractive, that will be affordable, and so on. That’s real intelligent design: solving a highly constrained problem. The laws of physics and the desires of man are prior constraints on architecture. The architect has to work within those constraints. God would have no constraints, so it makes no sense to call God “an architect”.

Likewise, even if God existed, it would be absurd to call God’s creation “a design”. A design is a solution to a problem. God would have no problems to solve. The universe would just be an inexplicable manifestation of God. We might see order in it, but that order could not be interpreted as a design, because it would have no purpose from God’s perspective.

Also, God could not be intelligent. Intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge from experience and use that knowledge to solve problems. An omniscient being has no need to acquire knowledge. An omnipotent being has no problems to solve. Thus, it makes no sense to call God “intelligent”. Intelligence can only exist for a being with limited knowledge and agency.

Big questions are:

1) Can there be any meaning — as we understand the terminology — without an anthropomorphized Architect?

An anthropomorphic architect wouldn’t give us meaning, even if we knew that he existed. Meaning has to come from you.

2) What if the string of ‘accidents’ we identify as having appeared from the laws of physics, towards biology, are simply just the equivalent of liquid filling a container — a design?

It isn’t a string of accidents, and the notion of accidents resulting from laws doesn’t make sense. Physics and biology are ordered but not designed. There is no grand design evident in the cosmos, and the idea of a cosmic designer is conceptually incoherent.

3) What if Quantum Darwinism is a thing and this string of accidents may literally be recast as destiny, and this destiny is moving towards higher purpose by design?

For the sake of argument, suppose that quantum Darwinism is a thing. How would that give you purpose or destiny? If biological evolution does not satisfy your requirements for a raison d’etre, how would quantum evolution satisfy them?

4) What if the easiest answer is simply that an Architect exists and that only those creations which embrace this fact will be able to escape the abyss of pathological nihilism, which itself might just be simply another obstacle of natural selection?

God would not eliminate the existential predicament of being a subject with ultimate authority over one’s own judgments and choices. What you call “nihilism” is just the awareness of that predicament. Is nihilism an obstacle to reproduction? It could be, but belief in God isn’t “the easiest answer”. It doesn’t answer anything.

5) What if natural selection transcends the physical world and is a process which also occurs — especially for humans — in the realm of ideas, desires, and yes, also Faith?

Natural selection does apply to culture. That’s what we call “memetics”. Culture evolves in much the same way that biology evolves. So yes, religions have evolved culturally to propagate themselves. Those that succeed become more popular. Those that fail go extinct. That doesn’t imply that religious beliefs are true, nor does it imply that they are necessary for us to deal with existence. It certainly isn’t an argument for religious belief.

6) What if the last great obstacle of natural selection is actually Faith?

…on this last point, the birthrate of the religious, which is the engine of natural selection, is at least a good starting point. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but sometimes…

Natural selection isn’t an obstacle course with a finish line. Evolution is an ongoing process that has no ultimate end and no telos (although it creates beings with individual teloi).

How does faith in God help you to reproduce? You need a girl to do that, not God.

Some religions have a positive effect on fertility, but those religions involve more than just belief in God. They promote a way of life that protects their members from the fertility-lowering effects of modernity. The Amish and Orthodox Jews are examples. By itself, belief in God doesn’t make people reproduce. The most Christian countries in Europe, Portugal and Poland, have extremely low fertility.

But that’s beside the point, because it makes no sense to justify religion by its effect on reproduction. That is an implicitly atheistic justification of religion, and one that assumes reproduction as a higher value. To justify religion as a means to reproduction, you must value reproduction. And if you value reproduction, then you don’t need religion to trick you into reproducing.

Reproduction is your natural purpose, but you are not forced to accept it. You are free to accept it or reject it. God can’t make that choice for you. Neither can I.

If you choose reproduction as your purpose, then you will be a reproducing machine struggling to reproduce. You will have a purpose, but that purpose will not be transcendent and cosmic. It will be biological and personal.

If you reject your natural purpose, then you will still be a reproducing machine. Your nature will not change. You will still go through the motions of a reproducing machine: eating, sleeping, avoiding danger, pursuing love and sex, etc. But you will not reproduce.

The choice is yours.