by Ted Laurenson
I will start this year's writeup with an acknowledgment of bias. IRAS began for me six years ago, at the 1990 conference on Madness, Nonconformity and Creativity, where my experience centered on Loyal Rue's first official IRAS presentation, a workshop on myth. The interactions inspired by Loyal there criss-crossed from academic discussion of the components and power of myth to a number of thrilling presentations of stories by workshop participants at the end, but they focussed most particularly on the inadequacies of the traditional Christian myth and the possibility of developing a new sense of the sacred centered upon the drama of life on our fragile planet floating in space. That, of course, is the unique image of our age, no less powerful for its ubiquity, inspiring an immediate apprehension of the absolute necessity of its preservation. We have no place else to go; if our home fails us, all of us die; perhaps all life dies. My impulse was then, and continues to be, that as an immediate emotional motivator, the earth image compels fealty beyond the hope of any other candidate. My core response tells me that people will always value life itself, not nothing; not an end to the beauty, the ingenuity, the perversity, the humor, the multitude, the singularity -- and terror -- of our being here. Any child can see that. But can any adult?
So here we were, six years later, exploring the scientific coherence of the story of a universe that with no guiding intelligence creates us, twelve to fifteen billion years after it started, so that we can marvel that we're here at all and talk about whether that's enough to inspire us to continue. What chutzpah! If we don't believe in gods separate from us, how can we even think of nominating ourselves for the god-role of deciding whether this, all we know, is enough to secure our allegiance?
Because we're irresponsible, that's why. Because preserving the planet isn't the natural thing we want to devote our lives to. Because we can't get over the idea that it is our choice to go on, and to live in a particular way, and that maybe something ultimate has to inform that choice. So that's what this fabulous conference, organized by Loyal and outgoing IRAS president Ursula Goodenough, was about, with the twist that it had an acknowledged agenda, even while leaving fully open, as is always the case at IRAS, all possible points of view.
Loyal and Ursula, and I think everyone who attended this conference, take the view that any serious theological or philosophical consideration must incorporate evolution as our best account of how we got here. The buried issue is whether there is any tweak of direction in the process -- Teilhard de Chardin's bias toward complexity, say, or Gordon Kaufman's view, expressed at the conference in a splendid theological musing on "The Epic of Evolution as a Framework for Human Orientation in Life," that it's ultimately subject to (divine?) "serendipitous creativity."
But I also understand it to be Loyal's and Ursula's view that the epic of evolution, properly understood, is itself sufficient -- a view Loyal labeled "religious naturalism." That's the lesson of the last chapter of his second book, By the Grace of Guile, although there he supplements it with the notion of the noble lie, a mental trick we would play on ourselves to induce ourselves to feel that it's all really significant, not just our own self-centered wish for this stuff to matter. The other positions Loyal identified, gainsaid by no one as a framework, were to view the evolutionary epic through "theologies of nature" generated by traditional wisdom, which must account for the epic but look for a source of meaning and ultimacy outside it, and natural theology, which views an understanding of nature's story as leading to an experience and perception of transcendence.
Nothing really new here as a pure philosophical abstraction -- Phil Hefner, in his wonderful theological response ("What Makes a Myth a Good Myth?"), accurately tagged the issue as the same as that of the existentialist's affirmation, returning us to Camus's The Myth of Sysiphus. But the power of this story, what makes it appear, at least at first, to offer a naturalistic ground for self transcendence, is it's pure magnificence, the wonder of our improbability and the embeddedness of that improbability way back at the beginning in the inconceivable instant of the big bang.
Loyal began the presentations with a lecture on the fundamentality of the need for myth, or "stories that underlie" (or, perhaps, form the grid for) a culture, informing, whether or not altogether consciously, its assumptions as to what matters, and informing ritual, intellectual, esthetic, institutional and experiential aspects of human response. Referring to the period sometimes called the axial age (the 400 to 500 years BCE), he suggested that the roughly contemporaneous flowering of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism and new forms of Judaism (not to mention to Socratic tradition) arose out of a similarly fundamental response to the challenges then confronting human civilization, which in turn arose, he suggested, out of the greater societal and political complexities required to deal with the rapid expansion of human population, and a corresponding "crisis" that followed as the eventual result of the impact of intensive agriculture. While this is, of course, a debatable thesis, at least insofar as it finds the primary etiology of such developments in a population crisis (although it received no debate at the conference), it provided an excellent analogical backdrop to our present age, and Loyal's assertion that a similar crisis, also arising from population pressures, confronts us now. To use a formulation by Brian Swimme, Loyal and Ursula's inspired choice as conference chaplain, we possess, both because of our numbers and because of our technological capabilities, macrophase powers over the earth while remaining stuck with microphase (localized) socio/political organizations, consciousness and, in Loyal's view, myths that are inadequate to provide a grid for the global consciousness we need to keep from ultimately destroying our home.
Then the scientists, with passion and engagement, led us through their wondrous accounts. And the core is -- how surprising in the digital age -- it's all information. Unruly information, to be sure. Undetermined, even in principle. Leading to beings -- us -- that really are alive and not dead (Terry Deacon, in his inspiring talk, "Mind is Evolution All the Way Up"). But (in my view) that's because the universe as a whole is always alive with potential.. We don't really know what it's all about, as was best illustrated by the fact that it was the most fundamental of the scientific presentations -- Eric Chaison's on cosmology (two sessions -- "The Arrow of Time" and "Cosmological Complexity on the Grandest Scales") -- that led to the assertions that might be most accurately viewed, by some, as arbitrary.
Eric is wonderfully multifaceted. Asked about alternatives to the Hubble space telescope (is it worth the resources used for it and all that?) in relation to computer controlled systems, noted in the popular scientific press, that would compensate for atmospheric interference and bring massively greater precision to ground-based telescopes by constantly adjusting the optics, he charmingly told us that he couldn't really answer for fear of compromising his national security clearance -- and, I guess, making us all collaborators. He regaled us with Hubble images of ghostly horse-headed gaseous structures, visible but thinner, he said, than the most perfect vacuum on earth, with new stars blazing behind. He assured us that the big bang, or some rapid inflation like it, isn't really just a hypothesis, but the only coherent possibility; estimates of age that appear to suggest that parts of the universe are older than the whole are merely the growing pains of ever more coherent science. And he was appropriately reserved about ultimates, until (in my view) questioned about how "our" universe got its physical laws, in a settling out of quantum indeterminacy at 10^-36 of a second after singularity (or thereabouts), and what that might imply for alternatives, or belief in alternate universes. On that he pronounced thought about other possibilities for our universe, and the alternate universes so beloved of science fiction writers, to be something that he had a problem with, on the grounds that, as far as he is concerned, this universe that we can see and study and have access to simply is the universe, and nothing else is worthy of attention.
But there's a reason why Isaac Newton was driven to mysticism by the mysterious action at a distance whose laws he began to unravel. As Brian, who got his start as a physicist, said, one day as a post-grad he looked at his "laws" and said, "I don't know why that rock drops." And, in my view, no matter how well we come to be able to predict the operation of the "laws" of this universe, we never will know why that rock drops. Just as the brain is evolution all the way up, so is the universe mystery all the way down. As a scientific heuristic device, taking the position that this "observable" universe is all there is, because it's all we know how to study, seems to me unavoidable; but the possibility of other universes and other laws, as is suggested by the big-bang theory itself, cannot be rendered forbidden for speculation.
Once you've got these weird laws, though, the rest of the scientists had it a little easier. Bill Orme-Johnson engagingly led us through the basics of thermodynamics ("Evolution of Chemistry"); Mike Wysession, new to IRAS and a real find, thrilled us with the continued churning of the earth ("Evolution of the Earth"); Ursula, who lectures in a dance, brilliantly guided us through the Cambrian explosion of life forms, elicited by the magic shuffling of sex borne on the rivers of selfish genes that conserve so many similarities between insects, us and unicellular organisms even as we display such differences ("The Evolution of Life, Sex and Death"). Then Terry thrust us to the brink of the social world, and through the last major classic missing evolutionary link, with his fabulous explanation of how the human genome, with no greater information at its disposal than any other mammal, gives rise to the amazing capability of the human brain. Illustrating along the way with stories of medical advances based upon the use of immature pig neurons to provide new connections in the human brain, he explained that all higher animals produce massive numbers of extra neurons that compete with each other to reach sites to which they are beckoned by growth factors. That is, the nerves in our brains don't start growing as a preordained type; they become the "right" kind of connection by reaching their destination; those that don't die off. So a tweak in the growth factors could produce more connections of a particular type, enriching an organism's capabilities by fostering a new brain organization, all without the need for a fundamental biological mechanism different from that organism's predecessor. It then becomes intuitively clear how these tweaks, with effects preserved by greater probability of survival, could lead to the explosive development of symbolic (linguistic) capabilities once the process got started, and how the perception of the world and the processing of data about it isn't something that organisms do; it's the basis of how they're put together and what the are.
So, as Terry and Ursula jointly emphasized, biological evolution is not a clockwork process, but rather a naturally developed system for building adaptive flexibility. Its genius lies in building multiple backups, for that is what provides their edge (to the extent that there is one) against entropy. But the information, the mysterious bases of interaction that inform the quarks and the hadrons as they combine into atoms and stars and galaxies and black holes and planets -- and us -- the information was always there, informing a heavenly body as it follows the shape of the universe in its gravitational path, an atom as it forms a plasma or takes its place in a molecule, a molecule as its shape interacts with a cell membrane's outside receptors and causes a change in the inside that cascades into marvels of adaptive response. It was all there as the physical laws settled into place. Glory be to _____?
Jane Goodale ("Evolution of Culture") brought us fully into the cultural framework with her vivid anthropologist's description of the transmission of cultural traditions, and Robert Wright ("Evolutionary Ethics") completed the connection into our own world with a wonderfully witty and trenchant exploration (to be expected from the author of The Moral Animal) of the manner in which the morality that can be coherently theorized to have derived from our evolutionary heritage as social animals -- including in-group love, compassion, guilt and a sense of justice -- might, through the simultaneously personalizing and generalizing power of myth, symbol and language, serve as a basis for formulating the principles of a good life in harmony with global needs. Separately, on the issue of whether evolution discloses a trend toward complexity, he argued that so long as it confers additional survival abilities (which would at least periodically appear plausible), in the long run complexity could tend to develop (in at least a subset of organisms) through unenhanced, undirected genetic change, with no inherent "tendency" required to explain it.
There were dissenters and cries of distress at the picture that the scientists were presenting. Sharon Stein passionately lamented, in response to what she took to be Ursula's image of callous genes tolerating the bodies that they form like so much baggage (though irritatingly necessary to get them into the next generation), that it is neither attractive nor motivating to view one's self -- and all the beautiful bubbling wondrous profusion around us -- as expendable puppets of the tendency of tiny whorls of nucleic acid to reproduce themselves. Ursula responded that, as a scientist, she is just seeking the most coherent explanation she can give, and, in any event, nobody is suggesting that all that bodily baggage isn't real. Besides, the genes that produce bodies and our brains want to get into the next generation too (or, as Terry put it, evolution is both the designer and the design).
Billy Grassie made a different point in a Star Beacon piece on Thursday, directly relevant to the theological presentations by Gordon Kaufman, Phil Hefner and Mary Ellen Tucker ("Reflections on Responses to the Epic of Evolution Beyond the West") that followed the scientists. Billy suggested that the epic is not by any means self interpreting:
"Quite apart from the descriptive truth claims made by science, this cosmology is also being presented and tested as a prescriptive narrative that could promote the formation of a healthier and safer civilization at the end of the Cenozoic era. Missing, however, in our conference presentations are just such metatheoretical interpretations and moral reflection from the scientists....
"An epic story would require a narrative framework or structure that explains how A relates to B, relates to C, relates to D, and finally to us humans in this present moment of the cosmic drama....
"[But] the theory of Natural Selection or the Second Law of Thermodynamics elevated to the status of a cultural myth becomes dangerous moral disorder, rather than a generative framework for meaning-filled existence....
"[Q]uite apart from the scientist's self-understanding of their activities, people will invest these fragments of a story with metaphoric meaning....
"Consciously and responsibly committing the "Naturalistic Fallacy" is precisely the point. Metaphysics, models, and metaphors are politics by other means."
The theologians' response commonly concentrated on an effective myth's need to provide a sense of meaning and a context for interpretation to inspire identification and to evoke action. Emphasizing what he called the "biohistorical character" of human culture, Gordon praised the epic for providing much of what is needed in this respect, but felt that the difference between a universe governed by chance and one in which serendipitous creativity spontaneously intervenes is a significant one. Phil presented ten criteria for a good myth, finding both the epic and "traditional [Western/Christian] wisdom" inadequate. In his view, "The Epic is most adequate when relating to scientific knowledge and the non-human natural world, but least adequate in grounding personhood, goodness and the worthwhileness of human living, and in responding to questions of evil. The converse is to be said about traditional wisdom." Using the metaphor of weaving and the loom, he proposed that the epic must provide the loomlike fundament for weaving a tapestry of meaning, but that all responses must account for the devotion we must have to work for the preservation of life and our planet. That is, "Love is the only myth that will do" -- whether it results from an existentialist affirmation or contemplation of the image of Mary of Chartres.
Lovely. But I still have my journalist's and lawyer's skepticism. How much ultimacy do we really need? It was said that if the king is not believed to rule by divine right, the laws promulgated under his authority would not command the respect of his subjects, and there would be anarchy. But we know that is not true.
It was said, in the alternative, vox populi, vox dei. But that's equally ridiculous -- the people can be wrong, even if not as often as kings.
And yet those of us with a stake in life generally obey the law. The feelings of the moral animal live in us.
Paul Newman, good method actor, is said to have once asked Alfred Hitchcock, "What's my motivation"; and Hitchcock said, "Your motivation is your paycheck. Now get in there and act". We may well be sickened unto death if we don't feel at home in the world, but our hearts don't need a motivation to beat. The paycheck in many ways is there just because we're alive.
What the heck, after all, is an ultimate? Phil Hefner has his god of love; Plato has his guardians; but as I asked Phil after he delivered his wonderful paper, quisquis custodiet ipsos custodios? (Who will guard the guardians (or the god of love)?) When the bullying voice out of Job's whirlwind says, "Were you there when...?" don't you want to say, "Yeah, big boy, and where were you when the void created you?" If, pace Eric Chaison, we could peek behind the singularity, or across whatever time is into a "contemporaneous" other "universe," it would be fabulously enthralling, but would it be ultimate?
Yes, there is serious disorder in worshiping the laws of thermodynamics or the theory of natural selection. But as Loyal said at the final discussion session on Friday afternoon, it seems to me the real issue is how to foster a sense of gratitude for being here and then to give people a way to express it. When you confront your unexplainable existence, how can you not say, "I'm so grateful to be here; it's such a privilege to be alive, just this one instant." Do we really doubt that everyone wants the planet saved (other than, perhaps, millenialists looking for the rapid destruction of the Earth at the soon-to-come END), that their children have a home, that it not be a bleak and barren place? Isn't the real issue how to convince people that it's true that humanity is threatening the global ecosystem? Is it really clear that there aren't sweet technological solutions to a lot of our problems? Yes, we all are genetically related to every other species, but how good, at base, is the biological argument that the widespread extinctions currently being caused by human activity threaten us all? I believe people will be individually moved to respond, to express their gratitude, to create the political and moral structures that are necessary to do so, if they can be convinced that the lives of their children, and their children's children's children, are genuinely at stake. I believe that the wanton destruction of other forms of life that is now occurring is a travesty and a tragedy. But there are powerful constituencies arguing that the stakes of not following the policy views of most people who attend IRAS conferences are overblown, and many of them are neither stupid nor (at least consciously) evil. There is a great deal of tough work to be done here, but it is more political than theological, based, however, on the necessity of rock-hard science.
As to the greater questions of ultimacy -- what can sustain us through personal depression and disconnection, through physical and mental debilitation? Would any of us be among the vanishing few who can maintain their integrity under torture, their decency in a concentration camp? Not even thinking of soldiers, what motivates a helicopter pilot to fly over the burning Chernobyl reactor to drop a load to bury the atomic fire, knowing he is receiving a lethal dose of radiation and will die from it in a week? -- the epic can't provide a final philosophical or religious basis to deal with them. But can anything else, really? Think of the Vietnamese fighting us to a standstill, under a communist regime that rejected all concepts of a god. Their lives had, to them, a place and a necessity in something larger.
So I will end with Mary Ellen Tucker, who emphasized the less dualistic approach of the Eastern religious traditions, with their foundation in the constant interplay of our "internal" and "external" worlds (an image that fits beautifully with the biologists' and social scientists' accounts of our origins), the continuum of matter and energy, the folly of exclusive claims to the truth and the affirmance of constant change. While she offered no ultimate answers, she finished with an inspiring image. It seems that as the Polynesians guided their long canoes across the Pacific, without compasses or clocks, through apparently trackless thousands of miles, one particularly gifted pilot was asked, how, in the black of a clouded night, he could tell where to go. And he said, I put my ear to the bottom of the boat and let the patterns of the waves speak to me. And so can we.
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I have not even spoken of wrestling and reveling with Whitman's Song of Myself in Bob Schaible's fabulous poetry workshop (yes, I think, it's "adequate" for the epic), or listening to Carl Smith both elicit and embody the flame of artistic creativity. I do not mean to slight. There is almost too much richness at these conferences.