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Graham Hancock and Michael Shermer Contemplate Morality, Government, and Natural Rights

4/14/2015

30 Comments

 
Graham Hancock has a new book, an edited volume called The Divine Spark (Disinfo, 2015), in which he collects essays advocating the use of hallucinogenic drugs in order to discover true nature of reality. The essays come from some of the usual suspects from both the fringe world and the realm of psychedelics: Robert Schoch, Luis Eduardo Luna, and even English comedian Russell Brand. If the last-mentioned name seems odd, don’t fear: Brand didn’t write a piece for Graham Hancock. Hancock reprints an essay Brand wrote for the New Statesman back in 2011 attacking Richard Dawkins. Anyway, Hancock has posted the introduction to his book in which he muses on the spiritual dimension of reality, which has been the major focus of his “research” into ancient history since he stopped smoking marijuana and took up ayahuasca as his preferred mind-altering substance.
Hancock begins by announcing that he believes in the theory of evolution, but he also believes that “consciousness” has an independent will and is a spiritual force that uses evolution to “manifest” itself in the physical realm. For Hancock, “consciousness” is essentially a sort of incorporeal power that generates physical reality, more or less like the way the Gnostics see the physical world as the imprisoning cloak of matter draped over the glory of incorporeal spirit, animated by wisdom. It seems that Hancock’s “consciousness” is Gnosticism dressed in the clothes of science, much the way his “lost civilization” was Atlantis dressed up as archaeology.

Hancock goes on to write about his sense that the cosmos has a moral and spiritual dimension:
Four billion years of evolution on earth have led us to a point where we can make very fine distinctions between good and evil, darkness and light, love and fear - where we can make conscious choices that will impact us and others in profound ways.
This is one of those places where I get uncomfortable because people on both the fringe side and the skeptical side make arguments that there is somehow a moral imperative inherent in the cosmos. Last week in the eSkeptic Michael Shermer debated Marc Hauser over Shermer’s new book, The Moral Arc, and tried (and to my mind failed) to make the case that science and reason create inevitable moral truths, for example, that “democracies are better than autocracies [and] market economies are superior to command economies.” In his debate, Shermer isn’t very big on defining the concept of “better” except in terms of capital, material goods, and access to healthcare. (He is more specific yet still reductive to the lower end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: “adequate sustenance, safety, shelter, bonding, and social relations for physical and mental health.”) But anyway, Shermer describes his reasoning thusly:
My view is that ever since the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment the idea that individual sentient beings have natural rights has outcompeted other ideas that place the group, tribe, nation, race, gender, or religion above the rights of the individual. These rights have expanded around the globe because individual sentient beings want them, and they want them because it is part of their nature to want them—it is instinctive—and a proper scientific understanding of human nature has revealed this fact. Knowing that, we then have a moral obligation to expand those rights where we can, and to help people whose rights are being violated.
I think the key word in Shermer’s argument is “proper.” Only by interpreting science through the lens of preconceived ethnocentric ideas does it in turn support the idea that the universe gives a rat’s ass whether you live or die, or privileges sentience over any other form of life. As J. B. S. Haldane once quipped, “If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.” What both have in common is that neither is possessed of moral virtue. Similarly, even if all the humans on earth agreed on a program of values and moral obligations, these would still fail to be inherent in the fabric of the universe; they are a cultural product born of particular preferences.

Both Shermer and Hancock, for different reasons, see the florescence of conscious beings as the moral imperative of humanity and the sine qua non of existence. For Shermer, natural rights evolved from our primate ancestors and therefore we are obliged to honor them as advantageous adaptations that have taken on the immutable force of scientific law; for Hancock, they are a gift from a quasi-unknowable spirit force that guides the same evolutionary process to the same conclusion. In other words, both men agree on the origins of natural rights and moral obligations but disagree only on whether to replace the Judeo-Christian God with a disembodied force in the form of evolution or generic spirit.

It’s also interesting to see that both men then apply their quasi-mystical view of human nature to the problem of Western civilization. Both Hancock and Shermer agree that the primary moral good and the one most closely associated with the West is individual freedom, and both define freedom in terms of what the government will or will not punish a person for doing, as opposed to what a government is able to punish a person for doing. For Shermer, anything that increases freedom is presumptively moral, while for Hancock freedom is the “greatest” achievement of the West, despite this freedom being of extremely recent vintage. He is concerned, though, that this freedom is incomplete and involves government intrusion into individual’s “freedom on consciousness”—i.e., drug use.

It seems odd to attribute to grand universal law a relative blip in human history, particularly since, in one sense, “rights” are written into law precisely because governments have the unprecedented ability today to limit freedom. For example, drug laws are only a few decades old, impossible to impose before then. A medieval king might have decreed all manner of repressive laws, but he could not enforce them at the ends of the earth where his writ might have been little more than a fig leaf; today government can monitor nearly everyone everywhere and yet we argue that this is freedom. We need to first define our terms and what “freedom” is supposed to mean—Is it the absence of official restriction, or is it the actual practice of one’s own will regardless of the law? It seems to me that our freedom as such is due less to a grant from the government than from the collapse of social institutions that once informally regulated and controlled individuals’ lives through access to resources and to community.

Hancock’s view is more limited in that he sees government as an imposition on natural rights, whereas Shermer has the distinctly American view that government is an expression of natural rights. In America “rights” are enshrined by law and exist under the seal and sanction of government; hence the fight to enshrine so many in law. Perhaps it is a difference born of history. America is a young country, and one where government, society, community, and moral expression are bound together. Europe, on the other hand, is very old, and governments change rapidly and frequently and are often at odds with communities that existed before their coming and will exist after they have gone, where rights are vested in community and social groups rather than the relationship of the individual to the law.

What is interesting, though, is that Shermer’s moral reasoning and Hancock’s psychedelic communion with the gods both are about more than they claim, for beneath the surface both men are attempting to use their philosophies to rationalize political views related to the relationship between the individual and the state. I have a feeling that neither evolution nor consciousness cares at all; the next time an asteroid destroys civilization and selection pressure changes the species, it will all be different anyway.

30 Comments
Hypatia
4/14/2015 08:43:03 am

Gulp. I thought some of that tax money I'm paying today would go at least to figure out a way to deflect that asteroid or great comet, without asking for help uselessly from Ancient Aliens or from the gnostic 'force' of the Universe, and without waiting for a scientific proof of the right for all individuals and species to survive on our little planet earth.

"GNOSTICS,n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers." (Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.)... until Carl Jung, peyote and Star Wars showed up.
It looks like Shermer like many others is trying philosophically to squirm out of social darwinism. What ever happened to studies of maternal instinct and individual empathy in social animals? Must women do everything?

Reply
Elmo Blatch
4/14/2015 09:49:53 am

Gnosticism (Knowledge) and Pistis (Faith) are fused together in the works of Paul. Gnosticism is not as distinct as the mainstream scholars pretend.

Reply
EP
4/15/2015 06:46:37 am

Sounds like you don't really know what the "mainstream scholars" think about the relationship between Gnosticism and early Christianity.

It is the "alternative" (though not always quite "fringe") scholars who tend to identify Gnosticism as a separate (usually "ancient" or even "perennial") tradition. "Mainstream" scholars are aware that the very label of Gnosticism is of quite recent coinage and stems from distinctions made during disputes among different groups of early Christians. Moreover, quite a few contemporary scholars think that the entire category is either a misnomer or highly misleading.

Elmo Blatch
4/14/2015 09:45:53 am

It's all superfluous. There was a time when this planet didn't exist and there will be a time when it will no longer exist.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
4/14/2015 11:05:59 am

"Similarly, even if all the humans on earth agreed on a program of values and moral obligations, these would still fail to be inherent in the fabric of the universe; they are a cultural product born of particular preferences."

Furthermore, they wouldn't be inherent in the fabric of the universe even if they were hard-wired into our DNA. It would just be inherent in our species.

This will be especially apparent when we make first contact with aliens and find that--surprise--they aren't Humanists! =P

Reply
Hypatia
4/14/2015 12:02:12 pm

They would have to be Alienists at least, in order to survive. Unless 'it' is an eternal blob which devours things, evolves but does not reproduce.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
4/15/2015 07:45:12 am

"Unless 'it' is an eternal blob which devours things, evolves but does not reproduce."

Excuse me, but I have a name! =P

Hypatia
4/15/2015 10:20:18 am

LOL!

EP
4/15/2015 12:19:54 pm

"My vagina has a first name..." :P

Uncle Ron
4/14/2015 05:25:16 pm

“Hancock begins by announcing that he believes in the theory of evolution, but he also believes that ‘consciousness’ has an independent will and is a spiritual force that uses evolution to ‘manifest’ itself in the physical realm.”
Hancock obviously doesn’t understand the theory of evolution. Evolution can only be seen in hindsight. Changes (physical or philosophical) which do not confer a survival advantage (physical or societal) occur all the time but have no long-term effect. Only AFTER a change confers a survival advantage AND is passed on by genes or memes is an organism or society said to have “evolved” from its former state.
(The scientific terminology is misleading: organisms are said to adapt to changes in their environment but they don’t do it consciously. They may accidentally change and as a result survive in their changed form, or not. When they do survive scientists say they have “adapted” but that’s just biologist’s jargon. The change was not deliberate.)

“For Hancock, ‘consciousness’ is essentially a sort of incorporeal power that generates physical reality … . ”
There is actually a basis for this idea in quantum mechanics.

“For Shermer, natural rights evolved from our primate ancestors and therefore we are obliged to honor them as advantageous adaptations that have taken on the immutable force of scientific law; for Hancock, they are a gift from a quasi-unknowable spirit force that guides the same evolutionary process to the same conclusion.”
All wrong. “Rights”, natural or otherwise, don’t exist. For example I can grant another the PRIVLEDGES of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” by agreeing not to try to take them away from that other in exchange for that other agreeing not to try to take them away from me. This is mutually advantageous, but it is a conscious decision; and I can change my mind and his rights go out the window (as do mine) and we’re back to who has the biggest club. And again: evolution is not guided or a process (in the sense of being planned or directed); it is simply a result.

Reply
David Bradbury
4/15/2015 01:51:24 am

I agree with most of Uncle Ron's comments, but I feel that the statements "organisms are said to adapt to changes in their environment but they don’t do it consciously. They may accidentally change and as a result survive in their changed form, or not" are misleading. "Consciously" and "accidentally" are not antonyms, and as it happens, neither really describes the situation. Evolution works partly by building into organisms the capacity for change- if I go on a walking tour, my leg muscles will, provided I am able to get suitable nourishment, become more powerful and efficient; if destination of the tour happens to be Machu Picchu, my lungs will also become more efficient to cope with the reduced air pressure. The famous "placebo effect" is probably an extension of the same principle, raising the possibility that there is some element of will in such changes.

One of the big debates at the moment is the extent to which such adaptive changes can be inherited; lots of twin studies ahead, I suspect.

Reply
Uncle Ron
4/15/2015 03:09:27 am

Building up one's leg muscles through exercise is not an evolutionary change whether those muscles deliberately change through a planned exercise program or just change because you enjoy walking a lot. Evolutionary change does not happen within an existing individual; it happens when an individual reproduces and his offspring are "accidentally" different.

Let's say some random DNA mutation (accident) has caused the muscles in your legs to be attached to the bones at slightly different spots than on a "standard" human's legs and the change makes you a more efficient runner. This may be considered a birth defect and 99.999% of the time it makes no difference anyway. However, if running after food is important to your survival you will be better able to find nourishment, will be healthier, and at the end of the day you MAY get a reproductive advantage, i.e.. the women in your group will see THEIR advantage in hanging around you (more food) and also might mate with you rather than with the normal guys. Over time you will produce more offspring than other males and the entire species will have evolved to have the different muscle attachments. The "will have evolved" perspective is critical in understanding what evolution is; it's only seen in hind-sight.

This is highly simplified and there are many other ramifications, e.g. you may not depend on running, your different musculature will confer no real advantage, and the change will not spread. Worse the change may be (most often is) neutral or even a DIS-advantage and you will not reproduce at all. This is a constant, ongoing process, albeit slow and halting and is totally accidental; it can't be planned or anticipated.

Reply
Uncle Ron
4/15/2015 03:38:21 am

I should add that no matter how much you exercise the changes to YOUR muscles will not be passed on to your offspring. You may gain a survival advantage by being fit, and may reproduce more often as a result, but your DNA blueprint on which they are built (combined with your mate's) remains the same.

Reply
David Bradbury
4/15/2015 06:09:46 am

The point of my last sentence was that Uncle Ron's last sentence may not be entirely true:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/07/epigenetics-heredity-diabetes-obesity-increased-cancer-risk
If epigenetics is a real phenomenon, then it is an evolutionary mechanism.

And I'd still argue that even without epigenetics, "accidentally" is not the right word, except perhaps for very primitive life-forms. Natural selection is the default, and in particular, organisms which reproduce sexually have inter-generational change built-in.

V
4/15/2015 07:14:09 am

David Bradbury, you seem to be confusing "acclimatization" with "adaptation." When you go on a walking tour and your muscles beef up, that's not adaptation, that's acclimatization. That's your own body responding to a set of stimuli. Adaptation is more what Uncle Ron said--where you being born with a more efficient running ability leads to a genetically lineal advantage for your offspring in a specific environment. The difference is that ALL human beings are capable of beefing up their leg muscles in response to stimuli, so you don't really have a genetic advantage, you're just using your body in ways that are a bit different than some others are. Maybe your big buff leg muscles will net you some procreation, but genetically speaking, you're not really giving your offspring anything that the mailman who never walks anywhere couldn't.

I do believe that the concept of epigenetics is sound, but I don't believe that it plays quite the role that your article indicates that it does. The article doesn't explain, for instance, how the experiments controlled for learned behavior--all mammals begin learning behavior from the instant of birth, no matter how mature they're born. The shuddering at a particular scent, for instance, could easily have come from observational learning--all those boy mice over there shudder at that scent, so it must be something bad, and I will shudder, too, even though I don't know why! And that starts VERY, VERY young. And the first experiment mentioned--the underweight births--could still be due to chemical differences in the womb, rather than epigenetics; the first-gen offspring were clearly stated as being metabolically different (diabetic), so variations that are not "problems" would almost certainly exist in the hormonal systems, as well.

The article, btw, is poorly written and terribly alarmist; parents have more to worry about with passing on poor lifestyles from example than they do from genetics, for instance, and there's no reason why Darwin would "need to be rewritten," given that 1. he didn't even account for DNA in the first place (That would be Mendel) and 2. there's nothing in epigenetic hypotheses that goes contrary to the theory of evolution.

David Bradbury
4/15/2015 08:49:23 am

Of course, I may be confusing "organism" with something like "species".

Reply
Uncle Ron
4/15/2015 10:59:29 am

David
re. my remark "organisms are said to adapt to changes in their environment but they don’t do it consciously."

Admittedly unclear (it was 12:30 AM). I didn't mean that an existing organism can't consciously adapt to its environment; humans do it all the time. I was referring to biologist's use of the term "adapt" to refer to the end-product of the process of natural selection, which may preserve in future generations some accidental physical change to a particular individual. The species is said to have adapted - but that is not the common understanding of the word "adapt".

Thorwald C. Franke link
4/15/2015 06:18:50 am

I find this comment difficult. This is a very relativistic approach to human rights. It is fully legitimate to think of morals evolving from the nature of things. This does not necessarily mean that the things are constructed by a supreme being, it's only that reality is as it is, and that certain values and structures support our well-being better than others. And this is not only about culture and ethnocentricity. There are certain aspects of human life common to all human beings which makes one culture or cultural aspect better than the other.

Beware, not to fall into the trap of cultural relativists who say that it's ok if your neighbour is beating and humilating his wife because it's his culture. It is culture, but bad culture, and humanism (ah, humanism!) calls us all to end such atrocities, if necessary even against the will of the wrong-doers.

Last but not least it is fully legitimate to think of sense in the universe. This is not fringe science, it is the philosophy of all ages.

Reply
V
4/15/2015 07:28:32 am

1. Morality may evolve from the "nature of things," but that doesn't mean that morality is universal. That would be part of why moral codes around the globe are in fact not just subtly but at times WILDLY different.
2. There are no aspects that make one culture "better" than another. There are plenty of aspects that make them DIFFERENT, and that's all. "Better" and "worse" are inherently relative and thus inherently individualistic. Anyone who is judging "better" and "worse" is bringing their own bias to the table, unavoidably.
3. Do not fall into the trap of judging cultures by one person's actions or one aspect of that culture. His culture is not "bad" because he's beating his wife. We don't need to eliminate his CULTURE. We just need to eliminate the unacceptable behaviors of beating and humiliating his wife REGARDLESS of his culture. Culture informs human decisions, it doesn't make them for us.
4. Philosophy is not science, nor does "sense" require some overriding moral imperative. There is "sense" because there are rules--otherwise known as the natural laws. Physics doesn't require a creator, and it has no morality. It simply has consequences--predictable consequences, consequences that include no judgments, consequences that are neither good nor evil, but simply inevitable.

Reply
Thorwald C. Franke link
4/16/2015 06:36:04 am

@V:

Citation: "We just need to eliminate the unacceptable behaviors of beating and humiliating his wife REGARDLESS of his culture."

Can you imagine that unacceptable behaviour is rooted in culture? Or can't you?

I agree that we do not have to eliminate whole cultures only because an aspect of this culture is bad -- anyway: it is an aspect of this culture, and there is no reason not to voice this fact.

Thank you that you agree that we have to fight everything which is an obstacle against spreading humanism all over the world.

EP
4/15/2015 06:28:57 am

If there is one thing I hate more than the incompetent pop philosophizing of the New-Agey fringe, it is the incompetent pop philosophizing of the self-declared partisans of Science and Reason.

Reply
V
4/15/2015 07:43:59 am

This whole concept of some "universal moral code" is completely ignorant of psychology, I must say. Psychology has pretty conclusively nailed down that morals and morality are learned, not instinctual, and that furthermore there are distinct stages. And with 4 out of 6 stages being dependent on authority and social pressure, that pretty much kills any idea of the universality of morals.

Besides, my opinion is that morality is a function of the way the brain classifies stimuli. Specifically, I think it's one way of classifying the actions of self and others in respect to interpersonal relationships and the herd/pack/crowd/society.

Reply
Uncle Ron
4/15/2015 11:16:09 am

The one "universal moral code" is I must survive and spread my DNA (reproduce) at all costs. Even seemingly altruistic behavior is in the service of this idea. All else is convenience.

"I won't hit you over the head and take your stuff if you don't hit me over the head and take my stuff" is a convenience which allows ME to devote more time to reproduction. Civilization is the thinnest veneer over the core animal, as can be seen every day on the news where people are constantly hitting other people over the head and taking their stuff.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
4/15/2015 11:20:55 am

I always knew monks and nuns were just playing hard to get. They're secretly in it for the strange! =P

EP
4/15/2015 12:26:54 pm

V & Uncle Ron, you guys need to look up "Appeal to Nature". You're both sounding silly itt.

Reply
David Bradbury
4/16/2015 01:41:10 am

How do the arguments of either V or Uncle Ron relate to the concept of "Appeal to Nature"?

Reply
All Seeing Eye
4/19/2015 04:23:38 am

Michael Shermer is a front man for the CIA. His credibility on a 1 to 10 scale is a 2 at best. He is without exception an apologist for government lies and cover ups. He rejects False Flag Operations as conspiracy nonsense when there is ample proof there have been many False Flag operations. Don't trust him when it comes to government cover-ups and lies.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/04/false-flags-2.html?utm_source=Liberty_Headlines&AID=7236

I have challenged him to a debate on these 50 documented False Flag operations, but he refuses to do so.

Reply
terry the censor
4/20/2015 04:10:57 pm

@Mr. or Ms. Eye

Shermer is simply an egomaniac who needs to explain everything but lacks a deep knowledge of the subjects he writes about. He's a harmless do-gooder. I do not trust him to get his facts straight about UFOs.

For some reason, your link won't load, so I couldn't tell if it was the usual brain-dead hateful paranoid terror-porn I've fact-checked numerous times before, OR if it was a thoughtful and rigorous documentation of crimes that lead inexorably to the incarceration of once-powerful miscreants who no longer threaten our civil society.

Oh, I wish I knew which of the two it was! The suspense is unbearable!

Reply
All Seeing Eye
4/20/2015 11:09:40 pm

Terry The Censor,

Do a copy and paste into Google. All links work. If they do not work, something is wrong with your internet browser.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/04/false-flags-2.html?utm_source=Liberty_Headlines&AID=7236

http://www.wanttoknow.info/falseflag

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/41-admitted-false-flag-attacks.html

Some things Shermer does I do like. Like exposing the fraud of the so called clairvoyant people who charge money to gullible people who want to talk to dead people who have crossed over. That's good work exposing them! Harry Houdini exposed those people as frauds 100 years ago and the Seance people had him murder for doing so. Unfortunately, they are still in business.

http://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2012/01/this-is-j-gordon-whitehead.html

But when it comes to government lies, cover-ups, false flag operations, etc. Shermer always sides with the government position and attacks critics of the government reports. I have talked to many people, who believe as I do, that he is working for one of the intelligence agencies, most likely CIA.


terry the censor
4/21/2015 06:43:49 am

@All Seeing

Thanks for teaching me how to use a browser. (It must be so handy to be all-seeing!)

The problem with your false flag list is that they are well-known examples of government subterfuge done in wartime, or they are small potato PR actions that failed to achieve their objective, or are proposals that were never approved. That is not news to most people (although, years ago, I had to explain Iran-Contra and the Bay of Tonkin to some American kids who thought only foreigh governments did bad things). Why would you need to debate Shermer about these examples? He would likely agree with you that these things happened and could happen in the future.

This is my problem: nothing on that list supports the daily screams of "false flag" from nutbars on radio and the internet who think every event in America is a false flag, or who constantly stoke terror in people by predicting outlandish "false flags" acts that don't happen. If you believe conspiracy mongers, every shooting in America is a false flag staged to facilitate gun confiscation or martial law or the persecution of conservatives and Christians.

Those false flag allegations are also not worth debating. They're total bullshit.

(By the way, the list of false flags has a fake Hitler quote -- never a good sign.)

Harry Houdini was murdered and Shermer is CIA?

That's why people won't debate you. Your all-seeing-ness causes you to see things that are not true.


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