Pi Mirror: September 2020

27 September 2020

Hell: A Thought Experiment

by Thomas Scarborough

Going Down with the Cash by Peter Gourfain 1998

Various religions have concepts of hell. However, nowhere is the doctrine clung to so tightly or debated so vigorously as in the Christian faith.

Yet it is, too, a philosophical subject, which has been treated philosophically in recent years by the universities of Oxford, Stanford, Alaska, and Tennessee—among various others. With this in mind, this short post presents a thought experiment—and a fundamentally philosophical one at that.

While the Christian faith rests on revelation, and its central teachings are known through revelation, there are various interpretations of revelation. In the case of hell, a good many. The most basic variations concerning hell—if they are not major views, then notable ones—are these:

• The literal or orthodox view, that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment
• The metaphorical view, that hell's torments are symbolic, yet real in some way
• The ‘circles of hell’: the view that there are degrees of eternal torment, suited to the crimes
• A ‘temporary torment’: the view that hell is not eternal, but finite in time
• Annihiliationism and conditionalism, which hold that the wicked—or unbelieving—do not live after death
• The universalist view, which holds that there is no hell, but all are saved

In reality, these views have many subtleties—even many designations—and it needs to be borne in mind that this brief survey is far too simple. Yet it gives an idea.

With regard to the more literal views on hell, the most basic problem from a human point of view—apart from the question of the existence of hell itself—is that we find it difficult to imagine eternal torment. We revolt against the idea. Also, we find it difficult to reconcile it with a loving God—in spite of Scripture's copious emphasis on the dangers of hell.

On the other hand, many feel it would be a travesty of justice not to have a hell. Many, too, have felt the fear of hell—call it a supernatural fear. This has been particularly prominent at times of spiritual revival.

The theological response to people’s qualms, most generally, is that we do not need to understand hell, or the God who prepared it for some. Ultimately it is about the sovereignty of God, and the revelation of Scripture. Yet have we fully explored the concepts, or driven deep enough with alternatives? A thought experiment may make this clear.

What is hell? Apart from representing some form of torment, there are at least two features which are central to the literal view: it is said to separate people from God, and it offers no hope. There is no exit. Those who are consigned to hell cannot view from afar the perfect person and purpose of God, and perhaps thereby have some small comfort. Nor can they strengthen themselves with the thought that this, too, shall pass.

With this rudimentary overview, then, our thought experiment is this:

If I should find myself in hell—whether I had thought I knew anything about it in my lifetime or not—would anything in my experience of hell contradict its eternity? Even if, that is, hell were not eternal?

Perhaps we may call this a phenomenalist view of hell. Those condemned to hell would experience it is an eternal torment—a place without God, and without hope—which, after all, is by very definition what hell is, at least to those of a more literal persuasion.

On the surface of it, this might promise to solve some critical theological and philosophical problems. One could reconcile the literal view with various other views, because eternity is something which is experienced. There need not be, then, metaphysical truths at stake. One could see complete justice done, while both believing and not believing, as it were, that hell is eternal. And one could ultimately reconcile the unmitigated torments of hell with God’s love.

However, before we congratulate ourselves on having solved the mysteries of hell, there are some further things we need, philosophically, to consider:

• Would this not give us the deus deceptor of Descartes—a God who deceives us into believing that the torments of hell are eternal?
• How should we distinguish the experience of hell and hell itself, and consider that the one is better than the other? What can be worse than eternal torment?
• Would our thought experiment not open the possibility that heaven is not eternal, in the objective sense?

Further, this would surely reflect on views other than a literal one. If the essence of hell lies in the experience of it, then even if we should allow a ‘temporary torment’—namely, the belief that hell is not eternal but finite in time—would we not through this introduce hope to hell? Surely any torment can be borne bravely where there is hope—not to speak of the hope of Paradise! Yet if the ‘circles of hell’ is correct—namely, that there are degrees of torment, but no hope of an exit—is there any judgement without hope which can be a bearable one?

What then might our thought experiment teach us?

It separates objective and subjective views of eternity—which may not have been done before. Yet this seems to offer us little to ameliorate the sufferings of hell. Further, a phenomenalist view of hell might worsen the terrors of the age-old view of the ‘circles of hell’, and—too much, it might be said—improve the situation of those in a ‘temporary torment’.

All in all, there is perhaps little to suggest that one may reduce the concept of hell, no matter which view of hell we espouse—given, that is, that we admit its existence at all. Happily, for those who believe, there would seem to be little to suggest that one may reduce the concept of heaven either.

Hell: A Thought Experiment

by Thomas Scarborough

Going Down with the Cash by Peter Gourfain 1998

Various religions have concepts of hell. However, nowhere is the doctrine clung to so tightly or debated so vigorously as in the Christian faith.

• The literal or orthodox view, that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment
• The metaphorical view, that hell's torments are symbolic, yet real in some way
• The ‘circles of hell’: the view that there are degrees of eternal torment, suited to the crimes
• A ‘temporary torment’: the view that hell is not eternal, but finite in time
• Annihiliationism and conditionalism, which hold that the wicked—or unbelieving—do not live after death
• The universalist view, which holds that there is no hell, but all are saved

In reality, these views have many subtleties—even many different designations—and it needs to be borne in mind that this brief survey is far too simple. Yet it gives an idea.

With regard to the more literal views on hell, the most basic problem from a human point of view is that we find it difficult to imagine eternal torment. We revolt against the idea. Also, we find it difficult to reconcile it with a loving God—in spite of Scripture's copious emphasis on the dangers of hell.

What is hell? Apart from representing some form of torment, there are at least two features which are central to the literal view: it is said to separate people from God, and it offers no hope. There is no exit. Those who are consigned to hell cannot even see the perfect person and purpose of God, and perhaps thereby have some small comfort. Nor can they strengthen themselves with the thought that this, too, shall pass.

With this rudimentary overview, then, our thought experiment is this:

If I should find myself in hell—whether I had known anything about it in my lifetime or not—would anything in my experience of hell contradict its eternity? Even if, that is, hell were not eternal?

In short, would the sense-experience of those in hell be in any way distinguishable from a literal view of hell? Similarly, could Scriptural descriptions of hell as eternal—with banishment from God's presence, and the absence of hope—reveal to us whether it truly is eternal, and without exit? On the surface of it, no.

However, before we congratulate ourselves on having solved the mysteries of hell, there are some further things we need, philosophically, to consider:

• Would this not give us the deus deceptor of Descartes—a God who deceives us into believing that the torments of hell are eternal?
• How should we distinguish the experience of hell from hell itself, and consider that the one is better than the other? What can be worse than eternal torment?
• Would our thought experiment not open the possibility that heaven is not eternal, in the objective sense?

What then might our thought experiment teach us?

Hell: A Thought Experiment

by Thomas Scarborough

Going Down with the Cash by Peter Gourfain 1998

Various religions have concepts of hell. However, nowhere is the doctrine clung to so tightly or debated so vigorously as in the Christian faith.

• The literal or orthodox view, that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment
• The metaphorical view, that hell's torments are symbolic, yet real in some way
• The ‘circles of hell’: the view that there are degrees of eternal torment, suited to the crimes
• A ‘temporary torment’: the view that hell is not eternal, but finite in time
• Annihiliationism and conditionalism, which hold that the wicked—or unbelieving—do not live after death
• The universalist view, which holds that there is no hell, but all are saved

In reality, these views have many subtleties—even many different designations—and it needs to be borne in mind that this brief survey is far too simple. Yet it gives an idea.

What is hell? Apart from representing some form of torment, there are at least two features which are central to the literal view: it is said to separate people from God, and it offers no hope. There is no exit. Those who are consigned to hell cannot even see the perfect person and purpose of God, and perhaps thereby have some small comfort. Nor can they strengthen themselves with the thought that this, too, shall pass.

With this rudimentary overview, then, our thought experiment is this:

If I should find myself in hell—whether I had known anything about it in my lifetime or not—would anything in my experience of hell contradict its eternity? Even if, that is, hell were not eternal?

However, before we congratulate ourselves on having solved the mysteries of hell, there are some further things we need, philosophically, to consider:

• Would this not give us the deus deceptor of Descartes—a God who deceives us into believing that the torments of hell are eternal?
• How should we distinguish the experience of hell from hell itself, and consider that the one is better than the other? What can be worse than eternal torment?
• Would our thought experiment not open the possibility that heaven is not eternal, in the objective sense?

What then might our thought experiment teach us?

20 September 2020

‘What Are We?’ “Self-reflective Consciousness, Cooperation, and the Agents of Our Future Evolution”

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas

Posted by John Hands

‘What are we?’ This is arguably the fundamental philosophical question. Indeed, ‘What are we?’ along with ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘Why do we exist?’ are questions that humans have been asking for at least 25,000 years. During all of this time we have sought answers from the supernatural. About 3,000 years ago, however, we began to seek answers through philosophical reasoning and insight. Then, around 150 years ago, we began to seek answers through science: through systematic, preferably measurable, observation or experiment.

As a science graduate and former tutor in physics for Britain's ‘Open University*’, I wanted to find out what answers science currently gives. But I couldn’t find any book that did so. There are two reasons for this.

First, the exponential increase in empirical data generated by rapid developments in technology had resulted in the branching of science into increasingly narrow, specialized fields. I wanted to step back from the focus of one leaf on one branch and see what the whole evolutionary tree shows us.
Second, most science books advocate a particular theory, and often present it as fact. But scientific explanations change as new data is obtained and new thinking develops.

And so I decided to write ‘the book that hadn’t been written’: an impartial evaluation of the current theories that explain how we evolved, not just from the first life on Earth, but where that came from, right back to the primordial matter and energy at the beginning of the universe of which we ultimately consist. I called it COSMOSAPIENS Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe* and in the event it took more than 10 years to research and write. What’s more, the conclusions I reached surprised me. I had assumed that the Big Bang was well-established science. But the more I investigated the more I discovered that the Big Bang Theory had been contradicted by observational evidence stretching back 60 years. Cosmologists had continually changed this theory as more sophisticated observations and experiments produced ever more contradictions with the theory.

The latest theory is called the Concordance Model. It might more accurately be described as ‘The Inflationary-before-or-after-the-Hot Big Bang-unknown-27% Dark Matter-unknown-68% Dark Energy model’. Its central axiom, that the universe inflated at a trillion trillion trillion times the speed of light in a trillion trillion trillionth of a second is untestable. Hence it is not scientific.

The problem arises because these cosmological theories are mathematical models. They are simplified solutions of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity applied to the universe. They are based on assumptions that the latest observations show to be invalid. That’s one surprising conclusion I found.

Another surprise came when I examined the orthodox theory for the last 65 years in the UK and the USA of how and why life on Earth evolved into so many different species. It is known as NeoDarwinism, and was popularised by Richard Dawkins in his bestselling book, The Selfish Gene, where it says that biological evolution is caused by genes selfishly competing with each other to survive and replicate.

NeoDarwinism is based on the fallacy of ascribing intention to an acid, deoxyribonucleic acid, of which genes are composed. Dawkins admits that this language is sloppy and says he could express it in scientific terms. But I’ve read the book twice and he never does manage to do this. Moreover, the theory is contradicted by substantial behavioural, genetic, and genomic evidence. When confronted by such, instead of modifying the theory to take account of the evidence, as a scientist should do, Dawkins lamely says “genes must have misfired”.

The fact is, he couldn’t modify the theory because the evidence shows that Darwinian competition causes not the evolution of species but the destruction of species. It is cooperation, not competition, that has caused the evolution of successively more complex species.

Today, most biologists assert that we differ only in degree from other animals. I think that this too is wrong. What marked our emergence as a distinct species some 25,000 years ago wasn’t the size or shape of our skulls, or that we walked upright, or that we lacked bodily hair, or the genes we possess. These are differences in degree from other animals. What made us unique was reflective consciousness.

Consciousness is a characteristic of a living thing as distinct from an inanimate thing like a rock. It is possessed in rudimentary form by the simplest species like bacteria. In the evolutionary lineage leading to humans, consciousness increased with increasing neural complexity and centration in the brain until, with humans, it became conscious of itself. We are the only species that not only knows but also knows that it knows. We reflect on ourselves and our place in the cosmos. We ask questions like: What are we? Where did we come from? Why do we exist?

This self-reflective consciousness has transformed existing abilities and generated new ones. It has transformed comprehension, learning, invention, and communication, which all other animals have in varying degrees. It has generated new abilities, like imagination, insight, abstraction, written language, belief, and morality that no other animal has. Its possession marks a difference in kind, not merely degree, from other animals, just as there is a difference in kind between inanimate matter, like a rock, and living things, like bacteria and animals.

Moreover, Homo sapiens is the only known species that is still evolving. Our evolution is not morphological—physical characteristics—or genetic, but noetic, meaning ‘relating to mental activity’. It is an evolution of the mind, and has been occurring in three overlapping phases: primeval, philosophical, and scientific.

Primeval thinking was dominated by the foreknowledge of death and the need to survive. Accordingly, imagination gave rise to superstition, which is a belief that usually arises from a lack of understanding of natural phenomena or fear of the unknown.

It is evidenced by legends and myths, the beliefs in animism, totemism, and ancestor worship of hunter-gatherers, to polytheism in city-states in which the pantheon of gods reflected the social hierarchy of their societies, and finally to a monotheism in which other gods were demoted to angels or subsumed into one God, reflecting the absolute power of king or emperor.

The instinct for competition and aggression, which had been ingrained over millions of years of prehuman ancestry, remained a powerful characteristic of humans, interacting with, and dominating, reflective consciousness.

The second phase of reflective consciousness, philosophical thinking, emerged roughly 1500 to 500 BCE. It was characterised by humans going beyond superstition to use reasoning and insight, often after disciplined meditation, to answer questions. In all cultures it produced the ethical view that we should treat all others, including our enemies, as ourselves. This ran counter to the predominant instinct of aggression and competition.

The third phase, scientific thinking, gradually emerged from natural philosophy around 1600 CE. It branched into the physical sciences, the life sciences, and medical sciences.

Physics, the fundamental science, then started to converge, rapidly so over the last 65 years, towards a single theory that describes all the interactions between all forms of matter. According to this view, all physical phenomena are lower energy manifestations of a single energy at the beginning of the universe. This is similar in very many respects to the insight of philosophers of all cultures that there is an underlying energy in the cosmos that gives rise to all matter and energy.

During this period, reflective consciousness has produced an increasing convergence of humankind. The development of technology has led to globalisation, both physically and electronically, in trade, science, education, politics (United Nations), and altruistic activities such as UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières. It has also produced a ‘complexification’ of human societies, a reduction in aggression, an increase in cooperation, and the ability to determine humankind’s future.

This whole process of human evolution has been accelerating. Primeval thinking emerges roughly 25,000 years ago, philosophical thinking emerges about 3,000 years ago, scientific thinking emerges some 400 years ago, while convergent thinking begins barely 65 years ago.

I think that when we examine the evidence of our evolution from primordial matter and energy at the beginning of the universe, we see a consistent pattern. This shows that we humans are the unfinished product of an accelerating cosmic evolutionary process characterised by cooperation, increasing complexity and convergence, and that – uniquely as far we know – we are the self-reflective agents of our future evolution.

*For further details and reviews of John’s new book, see https://johnhands.com

Editor's note. The UK’s ‘Open University’ differs from other universities through its the policy of open admissions and its emphasis on distance and online learning programs.

13 September 2020

Poetry: The Non-linear Mathematics of History

Posted by Chengde Chen *

Things are so obvious, why can’t we see them?
We are still obsessed with developing technology
as if we wished to hasten our extinction
This is because history is deceptive
We have no understanding of the mathematics of history
hence are immersed in a linear perception of ‘progress’:
history has proved that man controls technology
so technology must do more good than harm
This has been our experience of thousands of years
thus our unshakable faith and confidence

We, of course, need to rely on history
which seems to be the only thing we have
Yet, history is not a piece of repeatable music
but more of non-linear mathematics
Some histories may be mirrors of futures
while some futures have no reflection of history at all
It is hard to establish such a non-linear understanding
as it’s so different from our intuition
Thanks to the difficulty, as a famous tale relates
Dahir, an Indian wise-man of 3000 years ago
almost made the King bankrupt his Kingdom!

One day, the chess-loving King challenged Dahir
by asking him to play the final phase of a losing battle
As it seemed impossible for anyone to turn the table
the King promised Dahir smugly:
‘If you can win, I’ll meet you a request of any kind!’
Dahir, with his superior intelligence, did win
but he only made a very small request:
‘I would like to have some grain
placed on the chessboard in the following way:
one for the first square
two for the second square
four for the third square
and so on and so forth
so that each square is twice that of the previous one
until all sixty four squares of the chessboard are placed’

What an insignificant request, the King thought
and approved it immediately
He ordered his soldiers to bring in a sack of grain
and to place them in the way requested
When one sack was finished, another was served
Then another, and another…
until they exhausted all the grain in the Kingdom
it was still far from completing the 64 squares
The grains required are such astronomical quantity that
even the amount of grain in today’s world
does not come near it (over 1000 billion tonnes)!
It was the modest figures of the early counting
as well as the linear intuition about ‘history’
that made the King miscalculate the matter completely
He is still in debt to Dahir to this day!

Technological progress is the kind of exponential curve
but it is even more deceptive
It had crawled very slowly for very long in ancient times
but rose quicker and quicker in recent centuries
People, however, have considered the change linearly
assuming the rate of growth the same as the past
Hence a common-sense conviction:
we have always progressed through technology
so through it we can always progress into the future
technology has always become more and more advanced
so with it we can always be more and more powerful

Oh, the linear thinking of progress!
History is not optics
nor is the future a mirror image of the past
In the past man was a small member of the club of nature
while today, we have changed the weather, raised oceans
and created new species, as well as new forms of energy
If we cannot see such a world of difference
we are as miscalculating as the old King was!

We cannot, however, afford to miscalculate
as we would have no time even to be surprised
The surface value of history is its usefulness
The deeper value of history is to prove itself useless
The history in which we controlled technology
was only history, no matter how brilliant it was
The future may mean a ruthless breaking away from it!

Editor's note. The amount required is 2 raised to the power of 64 minus one. Wikipedia offers that the total number of grains is eighteen quintillion, four hundred and forty-six quadrillion seven hundred and forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred and nine million five hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and fifteen (18,446,744,073,709,551,615) and that this is “about 2,000 times annual world production”.

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. He can be contacted on chengde.chen@hotmail.com

07 September 2020

‘Mary’s Room’: A Thought Experiment

Posted by Keith Tidman

Can we fully understand the world through thought and language—or do we only really understand it through experience? And if only through experience, can we truly communicate with one another on every level? These were some of the questions which lay behind a famous thought experiment of 1982:

A brilliant neurophysiologist, Mary, knows all there is to know about her academic specialty, the science of vision: the physics, biology, chemistry, physiology, and neuroscience. Also how we see colour.

There’s a catch, however: Mary has lived her entire life in a totally black-and-white room, watching a black-and-white screen, and reading black-and-white books. An entirely monochromatic existence. Then, unexpectedly, her screen reveals a bright-red tomato.

What was it like for Mary to experience colour for the first time? Or as the Australian philosopher Frank Jackson asked, who originated this thought experiment, ‘Will [Mary] learn anything or not?’ *

Jackson’s original takeaway from his scenario was that Mary’s first-time experience of red amounted to new knowledge—despite her comprehensive scientific knowledge in the field of colour vision. Jackson believed at the time that colour perception cannot entirely be understood without a person visually experiencing colour.

However, not everyone agreed. Some proposed that Mary’s knowledge, in the absence of first-hand experience, was at best only ever going to be partial, never complete. Indeed, renowned philosopher Thomas Nagel, of ‘what is it like to be a bat’ fame, was in the camp of those who argue that some information can only be understood subjectively.

Yet, Mary's complete acquaintance with the science of vision might well be all there is to understanding the formation of knowledge about colour perception. Philosopher and neurobiologist Owen Flanagan was on-board, concluding that seeing red is a physical occurrence. As he put it, 'Mary knows everything about colour vision that can be expressed in the vocabularies of a complete physics, chemistry, and neuroscience.

Mary would not have learned anything new, then, when the bright-red tomato popped up on her screen. Through the completeness of her knowledge of the science of colour vision, she already fully knew what her exposure to the red tomato would entail by way of sensations. No qualities of the experience were unknowable. The key is in how the brain gives rise to subjective knowledge and experience.

The matter boils down to whether there are nonphysical, qualitative sensations—like colour, taste, smell, feeling, and emotion—that require experience in order for us to become fully familiar with them. Are there limits to our comprehension of something we don’t actually experience? If so, Mary did learn something new by seeing red for the first time.

A few years after Frank Jackson first presented the ‘Mary’s room’ thought experiment, he changed his mind. After considering opposing viewpoints, he came to believe that there was nothing apart from redness’s physical description, of which Mary was fully aware. This time, he concluded that first-hand experiences, too, are scientifically objective, fully measurable events in the brain and thus knowable by someone with Mary’s comprehension and expertise.

This switching of his original position was prompted, in part, by American philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. Dennett asserted that if Mary indeed knew ‘absolutely everything about colour’, as Jackson’s thought experiment presumes, by definition her all-encompassing knowledge would include the science behind people’s ability to comprehend the actual sensation of colour.

To these points, Mary’s factual expertise in the science of colour experience—and the experience’s equivalence and measurability in the brain—appears sufficient to conclude she already knew what red would look like. The experience of red was part of her comprehension of human cognitive functions. Not just with regard to colour, but also to the full array of human mental states: for instance, pain, sweetness, coldness, exhilaration, tedium—ad infinitum.

As Jackson ultimately concluded, the gist is that, given the special particulars of the thought experiment—Mary acquired ‘all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like red and blue’—Mary did not acquire new information upon first seeing the red tomato. She didn’t learn anything. Her awareness of redness was already complete.

* Frank Jackson, 'Epiphenomenal Qualia', Philosophical Quarterly, 32, April 1982.