και συ, τεκνον; Аргументьі и Фактьі.
"But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand."
—Isaiah 32:8

Monday, May 09, 2005

What the bullshit?

Well, I just saw What the Bleep Do We Know?, which of course, by existing, creates its own paradox. It is the whole, "Well, let me tell you the answers, because we don't really understand anything" paradox. Actually, some of the things in the movie were quite well put, and when the movie talked about real science, it had something vaguely interesting to say. However, as a philosophy, it is full of horseshit. The problem with making the statement--there is no such thing as good or bad, so you shouldn't worry about it--is its own inherent contradiction. As soon as you say should, or any one of a number of words, you imply morality. Or even the affirmation of truth over ignorance is a moral statement.
Human beings may exist as biochemical beings, but we are also by the virtue of our existence moral beings. The very act of existing as opposed to not existing is a moral statement. Just by not taking my own life I am implying that somethingness is better than nothingness. Therefore, existence itself is a moral situation.
If, as the movie suggests, I should take time to create my day, how am I to create it? Is what I want the definition of the good? What if what I want is physically harmful? If I am merely to choose between malign or benign desires, than who makes that distinction? How do I know that my judgement is always right? If that is true, than does that make everyone who disagrees with me as right as I am? What if I think it is bad to commit genocide, but everyone else I know decides that genocide is the right decision for them? What if I decide that I have a human right to have sex, and that, if the only way I can satisfy that desire is by rape, I ought to be able to rape people?
Why would one want to transcend the good and bad? Is transcendence preferrable to non-transcendence? Does preferance define truth? Is truth an ultimate goal? Why should I choose truth over ignorance? What makes one philosophy superior to another? How do I know something is more or less true? Why should I believe I create my own reality when other people in that reality don't believe that?
The point is, when the rubber hits the road, you can't do away with morality. If morality is just something I feel, than what if someone feels good about something I feel bad about? When we live in community, I can guarantee that there will be disagreements about good or bad. Solving those disagreements without appealing to some sort of group morality is impossible. I would dare anyone to try.
I would suggest that Descartes' proof of his own existence--cogito ergo sum--proves one other thing, that values are necessary to existence, because existence itself is a value.
Anyways, the moral philosophy of the movie is bullshit, because the movie pretends not to have a moral philosophy. Why follow someone's teachings if out of one side of their mouth they tell you what to do, and out of the other side they tell you there is no morality. Anyways, anything in that movie that wasn't referring specifically to scientific information was making a distinctly moral argument. Therefore, I feel that it is disingenuous for them to tell us that good and bad are categories beyond our ken. If good and bad truly are beyond our human understanding, why do they keep bringing them up?
Anyways, here is the fundamental philosophical problem of our age--people throw morality in the trash as being "old-fashioned" and then create their own morality which they claim to be transcendent. All the while the most self-deceiving among us (including yours truly) convince ourselves that we have somehow moved past morality.

4 helpful remarks:

Anonymous Anonymous shared...

You sound like Chesterton as he "backed his way into Orthodoxy."

7:21 AM

 
Blogger Andrew shared...

I always find questions along the lines of, "Well, what if I think it's good to commit genocide?" to be somewhat disingenuous because I don't think any healthy person would think that. But that, of course, implies both the existence of objective standards and a hierarchy in which to order them (i.e., both health and non-health exist, and the former is preferable to the latter). The kind of narcissism that refuses to acknowledge that sort of thing is the fatal weakness to the movie's philosophy, I think.

That said, though, I think the quantum physics stuff is absolutely fascinating and does quite effectively demonstrate the hubris inherent in our thinking we really understand the way the world works. That's what makes the film worthwhile viewing for me.

1:34 PM

 
Blogger lucretius shared...

I love the word disingenuous, because it's the perfect word to use to call my little lambs on their deceptive, but not out-and-out mendacious behavior.
I wonder how I would have reacted if I were a Hutu in Rwanda in 1994. Or what if I were Karol Wojtyla in 1940's Poland, when all my soccer buddies were disappearing? Even better, what if I were an idealistic, patriotic young Turk or German officer during the First or Second World Wars respectively?
My buddy Ken, who has an actual Ph.d in Physics (unlike the guy with a Masters Degree from Columbia) said that a lot of their interpretations of the physics were bullshit. Also, string theory is revolutionizing the way theoretical physicists conceptualize quantum mechanics.

4:46 PM

 
Blogger Andrew shared...

The "guy from Columbia" actually went on record immediately after the film was released saying that the filmmakers completely distorted his point of view through very selective editing and that he in fact endorses little or nothing of what WtB has to say about science.

8:04 AM

 

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