The ISSN 0014- 1690 Ethical Record

Vol. 96 No. 9 OCTOBER 1991

CONTENTS Page Saint Mugg 3 Relation between Brain vc Consciousness 7 Book Review 12 Letters 14 London Student Skeptics 15 Forthcoming Events 16

Editorial

This issue of The Ethical Record is unusually Perhaps the strongest reason for retaining short due to an absence of suitable material. the present title is that of tradition. But this is Due to the economics and technology of no reason at all. It is simply to say that things printing the journal must be in increments of have always been thus, so they must remain 8 pages. so. Even if it were the case that a particular usage had always been so this would not of Three years ago Nicolas Walter suggested itself be a good enough reason for retaining it. that it was time to consider changing the But such appeals to tradition usually arbitrarily name of the South Place Ethical Society ('A stop in historical reference at the moment Century of the Ethical Movement', ER, when that particular usage itself became September '88). This suggestion seemed to current. This is so in the case of the present elicit little response. I will repeat this proposal name for the Society. It was not always called and invite readers to reply: by its present name and need not continue to The premises of the Society are no longer be so. -at South Place, so 'South Place' is no longer an accurate qualification of 'Ethical Society'. But then again: surely the 'it' itself has changed. It is anyway pointless to specify the anything Of course there has been a continuity and 'Ethical Society' as there are no longer any overlap in members, property, constitution other so-named groups for it to need differen- etc. But is it the case that the present South tiating from. Furthermore, the pointfulness Place Ethical Society is essentially the same of 'Ethical Society' has long evaporated as entity as when it acquired its name? One may there is no longer a need to claim that a perhaps say that though the wheels and humanist society can be as 'ethical' as a brakes and saddle have changed one has had religious one. the same bicycle for twenty years — but if the Dropping the 'Ethical' would have the frame is changed?! advantage of removing the temptation, which we are all prone to, of claiming for the side in To raise this is to raise the question of what the a controversy that one is on that 'afterall, this Society is and of what its name could be is supposed to be an "ethical society" '. The appropriately changed to. Is it what its assumption that if there are antagonistic members say it is, or what is actually done? Is positions then only one can be an ethical this in accord with the statement of aims on position is a peculiarly religious delusion that the back page? Does it help to say that .it is we would all be better to be free of. 'based on humanism' when this category itself — on the evidence of recent discussions — is problematical? continues on page 2 _ -The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WO 4RL SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Humanist Centre, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL. Telephone: 071-831 7723 Hall Lettings: 071-242 8032. Lobby: 071-405 4125

Trustees Louise Booker, John Brown, Anthony Chapman, Peter Heales, Don Liversedge, Ray Lovecy, Ian MocKillop, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe. Appointed Lecturers Harold Blackham, T.F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter. Officers • Honorary Representative: Norman Bacrac. Chair General Committee: Nicolas Walter. Deputy Chair: Louise Booker. Honorary Registrar Anne Wood. Honorary Treasurer: David Williams. Hall Manager Stephen Norley. Honorary Librarian: Edwina Palmer. Editor, The Ethical Record: David Murray. Secretary: Nina Khare. Editorial continued from page I The most obvious candidates for a new name Whatever are the reasons internal to the would contain the word 'humanist'. But then Society for keeping or changing the present there.would be the need to avoid confusion name, there can surely be no question but with the British Humanist Association. that in terms of the external perception of the Nicolas Walter suggested the 'London Society its present name is useless. It is a Humanist Society' or 'British Humanist clumsy mouthful to utter and it evokes no Centre'. recognition or comprehension in most people who hear it. I invite readers' comments.

Membership of the Society includes sub- The Ethical Record Non-members HUMANIST HOLIDAYS scription to may subscribe to the journal for i6/year. Yule 1991 at Contributions should be sent to the Editor, at Tuesday 24th December to Saturday Conway Hall. 28th December Shared room £165 per person, Deadline for contributions for any month's Single £185. issue is the first day of the preceeding month. Booking (before 10th Nov to secure Contributions should conform to one of the- exclusive use of hotel). following standards: Enquiries to: On Disc - Word Star, Word Perfect, MS Gillian Bailey, Word. Include print-out. 18 Priors Road, Cheltenham, Typewritten — A4 paper, double-spaced Gloucestershire, GL52 5AA. with wide margins. Phone 0242-239175. Handwritten — A4 paper, narrow lined with margin. Printed, with clear distinction be- tween capitals and non-capitals.

Appeal for PhOtograPhs As part of the Bicentary celebrations Michael hear from anyone with relevant photographs. Newman (convenor of the Bicentary Sub- Please send them to him at Conway Hall. They committee) will be organising an exhibition on will be speedily returned. Those to be used will the history of the Society. He would like to be copied.

2 Ethical Record, September, 1991 SAINT MUGG

T F EVANS Summary of a lecture, 16 June 1991

Kingsmill: Who would you most like to have been? Muggeridge: Chaucer as poet, Johnson as a human being, Cromwell as a man of action, and Augustine as a saint. K ingsruill: Augustine's not my idea of a saint. Muggeridge: Dont't forget we're discussing who we want to be, not who we ought to be. I hope to become a saint, and Augustine wasn't in any hurry either. Richard Ingrams, God's Apology 1977

....who would not rather be wrong with St Francis of Assissi, St , all the saints and mystics for two thousand years, not to mention Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Pascal, than right with Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, the Huxleys, Bertrand Russell and such like?

Malcolm Muggeridge Conversion 1988

When Malcolm Muggeridge died on 13 November last, gave a surprising amount of space to an obituary notice and an appreciation. This was perhaps understandable to some extent, as he had been an assistant editor of the paper. Nevertheless, it was hard to resist the question how much space would the paper have been able to allow to a deceased person who had done something important or perhaps written something of lasting value. This struck some of Muggeridge's admirers as cruel but it would not have worried him, as one who spent the greater part of his life putting everyone else in the lowly places that, according to him, were well deserved.

Muggeridge was born in 1903 in . He appears, by his own reports, not to have had a particularly distinguished educational career and to have been fortunate to be admitted to Selwyn College, Cambridge after the local grammar school. (We have been asssured, recently, that lack of scholastic ability is no bar to high office). His father was a Fabian Socialist, a prominent local politician and later a Labour member of Parliament. Muggeridge conceived a contempt for his father's political activities although a friend, the historian, A J P Taylor, was to say that the father 'did more good in the world than Malcolm has ever done'. He married Kitty Dobbs a niece of the redoubtable and he developed a contempt for the Webbs and their work. He had a varied career in his early adult life. Teaching in India and was followed by journalism on the then Manchester Guardian and, as a gossip !Hub-, on the Evening Standard He fell out with the Manchester Guardian because he wrote a noVel which was clearly libellous and the paper and its proprietor, C P Scott, threatened to sue Wit was not withdrawn. Muggeridge lost faith in the liberal tradition and, going to Russia as the Manchester Guardian correspondent, he was disillusioned with the Soviet experiment also.

He spent the war and some of the years immediately following in various intelligence or similar posts and then returned to journalism. He became prominent in 1952 when he was invited to become editor of Punch and to revitalise the so-called humorous magazine. He made quite an

Ethical Record, October, 1991 3 impact in Punch and also in witty, very amusing, articles in the New Statesman, showing himself a sharp critic of such great British institutions as the Royal Family and . His friend, the novelist, , has left a vivid snapshot of Muggeridge at Punch:

Muggeridge's anarcho-anti-Left-anti-Churchill-anti-intellectual-nihilistic-sex is fun/sex is sinful-diatribes against everything and everybody, expressed in a copious flow of political paradox, and four-letter-word imagery, naturally caused some astonishment, even dismay at first onset.

Muggeridge soon tired of Punch as, indeed, he always tired of regular employment. His greatest ambition was to be a writer. Before the war he had written one or two books and plays and made a small stir with a biography of . The publisher, Jonathan Cape, who commissioned this was surprised to find that the book, intended as a study of a great scourge of the Victorian age, presented Butler as an arch-Victorian himself and the book was published by another firm. Immediately before the war, Muggeridge wrote The Thirties, a clever satirical study of, to use Auden's words, 'a low dishonest decade'. Muggeridge let fly in a devastating way all round and nobody, in politics, literature and other arts or society generally, was left unscathed. He had thus already shown himself to be a demolition expert of unusual ability.

It is hard to think what might have become of Muggeridge if he had remained a regular journalist and occasional author, relying on the written word for any distinction that he - might achieve and any lasting fame that might be attached to his name. At about the time of the coronation of the new Queen in 1953, another medium of information and entertainment began to make enormous strides in extent and popularity. This was, of course, television. The name of Malcolm Muggeridge became known to thousands, or even millions of viewers. His first appearance on television, and this may seem, in retrospect, both appropriate and ironic, was as an interviewer of the American evangelist, Billy Graham. He began to appear regularly, usually as interviewer or chairman or participant in programmes such as Panorama and Any Questions and documentaries. He has said that after he had been appearing on Panorama for rather than more a year, he first saw himself described as a 'television personality'. People became famous on television not for doing anything but just for appearing. In his own words, 'today one is famous for being famous'. His attitude was always ambivalent. At times, he appeared to despise television, even when he continued to appear on the screen.

Muggeridge cannot be pinned down in politics. Despite his gibes at his father's position, he seems to have started on the vague left. The resentment at the Manchester Guardian and Scott, his wife's and his own distaste for Beatrice Webb and, above all, his disillusion with the Soviet Union, turned him against the left, socialism and liberal views generally, without, however, driving him directly into the conservative ranks. He took up a central, neutral, do-nothing, 'A plague on all your houses' stance and this enabled him to treat all political enthusiasm as ridiculous or, to use his favourite word — absurd. Thus, in an Any Questions programme in 1955, he said: I think that the people who don't vote are the absolute flower of our community —they are the elite. The only candidate I ever wanted to vote for was a man who based his appeal on the fact that, having been confined in a lunatic asylum, he had a certificate of sanity. In The Infernal Grove, the second volume of his autobiography, published in 1973, he said, writing of the 1945 election: I cannot recall a single election in which I have not hoped for the defeat of the incumbent side. This might seem a very negative and irresponsible attitude, and the

4 Ethical Record, October, 1991 only justification I can offer for it is that, since being able to turn a government out is almost the only advantage parliamentary democracy offers, one might as well enjoy it as often as possible. In fact, his political attitude gradually hardened into a firm opposition to anything in the nature of revolution, that is, revolution of the left, and he wrote and spoke at times as if all the evil in the world dated from the French Revolution of 1789. This was a view put forward by his great friend, High Kingsmill in his book, The Poisoned Crown published in 1944. When Muggeridge's thought and writing came to take a more obvious religious tone, he expressed his anti-revolutionary views in a pseudo-theological style: The world is always about to end, but utopias never even begin; and so the Devil, feels most at home in fantasy, and sees more mileage in than in the News of the World, in Eleanor Roosevelt than in Marilyn Monroe, in the World Council of Churches than the Mafia, as being more amenable to his purposes, can work more readily through utopians than through apocalyptists, as the post- Rousseau era has all too clearly shown. (Jesui: the Man who Lives 1975) In a radio discussion in 1956, Muggeridge said that he thought that 'power is an abhorrent thing' and that it was unfortunate that it was necessary to have people who had to exercise power. He went on to say that he was inclined to think that 'what you've got to do is to let those people who want it and want it desperately get it'. Despite his statement that he always felt like opposing the party in power, despite his other contentions that change always made things worse, there can be no doubt from this collection of contradictions that, in the long run, he was on the side of those who were interested in keeping things as they were.

It was when Muggeridge turned to religion in the last quarter of his life that he seemed to find something that gave him stability and almost consistency, when, previously, he was something of a weathercock..At intervals, he was thought to be at least neutral in religion, but was once described as an 'irreverent atheist'. From time to time, he would declare, for example, that he did not believe in the sacred doctrines of the Christian Church, such as the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. He would make vague and deliberately paradoxical declarations to the effect that he could not believe in Christ but did see value in the Church that he founded. He would make an each-way bet as it were, technically not the same as in racing because he was trying to bet on both winning and losing in the same race. Thus, in a way that is difficult for some readers to take seriously, he would say, as he did in his diary in 1957, that he felt a growing desire to escape altogether from senses — not in itself admirable; indeed, possibly the opposite if dictated by will to self-denial; but admirable if governed by awareness of more subtle, spiritual sensibility released by eschewing the grosser, more material form. Also said that my own present trend towards asceticism related to deep conviction I had that troubled times were coming — a sort of training derived from mood very like one I'd experienced in years before 1939. (Very like life that shortly after this seized by happily fugitive, gross, fleshly, desire). Reflected later that concept of dying in order to live in the spirit most profound of all. Ah, how I long and long for this.

The ability to go on longing, and longing for the end of fleshly desires while at the same time enjoying their indulgence is not limited to Muggeridge. Muggeridge frequently said how much he longed for the end of physical life so that he might live in the spirit. Despite this dichotomy within himself, he seemed to reserve his fiercest criticism and most biting satire for such writers and thinkers as Bernard Shaw and the two Huxleys, Julian and Aldous, who, in their own and differing ways tried to reconcile their acceptance of the facts of physical fife, as attested by science, with their stirrings towards something that was not explained by the senses alone.

Ethical Record, October, 1991 5 A reading of Muggeridge's published works, ranging from the diaries and other writing of a more considered autobiographical nature to selected passages from his radio and television utterances to more polemical work of religious apologetics, will show that he always had the religious card up his sleeve, ready to lay it on the table when the game had reached a an appropriate stage.

When he finally came to a religious position, this had been pre-figured at several earlier stages. Thus, when in 1967 he went to Bethlehem in the course of making a film on the life of Christ, he had as he called it, 'the first intimation of conversion'. He identified this as being on the occasion when he saw a real shepherd who, upon catching sight of the television crew, picked up one of his sheep and stood with it in his arms in a suitably Christ-like posture before coming forward 'to haggle over his fee'. A little later he met the celebrated when he interviewed her for the BBC. There is no doubt that she made a great impression upon him and he declared then and frequently afterwards that her way, of ministering to the sick and unfortunate, was the only way for him because that was the way of Christ. His writings then began to have specifially Christian undertones and overtones, if not direct statements. The second volume of his autobiography, published in 1973 ended with a witty evocation of the scene in Westminster Abbey when the remains of the Webbs, the great defenders of the Soviet Union involving atheistic were laid to rest in this Christian shrine. This was on the suggestion of Bernard Shaw who did not, however, turn up at the ceremony. For Muggeridge the story that began on those walks with my father through Park Hill Recreation Ground to East Croydon Station, was now, once and for all, over. Another Way had to be found and explored.

Two years later, he wrote a book called : the Man who lives. In this, he begins with the ringing declaration that 'The coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history' and, while it might be thought difficult to sustain a couple of pages after that, he manages 191, in the course of which, hardly to the surprise of the reader, he accepts Jesus, Virgin Birth, the miracles, Resurrection and everything else without question or difficulty. He wrote elsewhere that 'It was the 's firm stand against contraception and abortion which finally made me decide to become a Catholic'. Then in 1982 came the great day when Muggeridge and his wife Kitty were received into the Roman Catholic Church by the Bishop of Arundel 'a tall and kindly man'. (Some years before, Muggeridge had remarked that 'clergymen, in my experience, tend to get holier and holier-looking as they move farther and farther away from their faith' but that was when he had such divines in his thoughts as the so-called 'Red Dean', Hewlett Johnson, Bishop Barnes of Birmingham and Archbishop William Temple). When Muggeridge finally became a Catholic, some of his friends said that they had seen it coming; others were surprised. His aunt Beatrice Webb, of whom he always spoke with something less than the Christian tolerance and sympathy that he now espoused, thought of him as a future Roman Catholic as long ago as 1933.

Conversion with its sub-title 'A Spiritual Journey' will appeal to those people who like that sort of thing. It is written in a somewhat irritating manner, in the third person. It is short and therefore selective. This has disadvantages but also advantages. Thus, among the various personalities who are considered at different stages on life's way, with chapters on, for example, The Boy, The Teacher, The Journalist and The Soldier, it must be only considerations of space that have prevented a chapter on The Television Personality. The book, a short one, is richly embellished with quotations from, for example, George Herbert, Blake, Newman, St Augustine, Dostoevsky. These tend to support the conversion after it has taken place rather than to have been instrumental in bringing it about.

Conversion was perhaps a good note on which to end, probably better than the book that he

6 Ethical Record, October, 1991 world preceded it. In 1987, twas given My Life in Pictures. With only 140 pages of text, it is very selective but a good deal of the subject's life is covered and there are plenty of pictures of the famous people with whom he came into contact. The book jacket, for which the author must have been responsible to some extent, describes the book as 'succinct, amusing, and self-' deprecatory'. The last word would not come to the mind of every reader. In its engaging and purposeful modesty, the book is more like pages from a woman's magazine than any other type of literature. To say this is not to denigrate woman's magazines but to suggest gently that they are not the place where one seeks illumination on topics of great spiritual significance. However, Muggeridge was a great humorist and many of his friends have paid tribute to his humour and the kindness of his disposition beneath the somewhat acid surface that he usually presented to the world. There is some ground for thinking that he had depths of melancholy in his nature which drove him to scoff at everything and everyone and, indeed, to hate himself for doing so. The nature of religious conversion is a closed book to many people and it can be argued that nobody who does not undergo the process can really say anything of value about it. In his later years, Muggeridge's desires were on a higher plane and it might be kindest to judge him by them — a process which he failed to apply to others. However, contemplating the rake trying to be a saint when his former drunkenness and infidelities had lost their charms has its funny side. Perhaps, even now,.wherever he may be, Muggeridge himself will look down on the man that was and what he became and murmur in his favourite comment on human frailty —'How absurd!'

REMARKS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS Based on a lecture given by Norman Bacrac at SPES, 14 April 1991.

The question of the relation between the brain and consciousness is receiving detailed scrutiny from various disciplines these days. More is being discovered about that most important organ in the universe — the human brain. The empirical evidence that the brain is the physical basis of all thought (materialism) has to be taken into account by anyone attempting to theorise on this subject. The old hypothesis that thought or consciousness is an independent active agent in the world — dualism — is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

The correspondence between a brain event and the necessary conscious experience accompanying it was deemed highly likely by Tyndall in 1868 and since then favorable evidence has been accumulating. Penfield's experiments, electroencephalography and now radioactive tracers (which show what parts of the brain are active during various mental processes), all serve to confirm the hypothesis of psycho-neural correlation: that to every conscious event there corresponds a neural or brain state.

The dependent nature of the conscious processes is shown by their intermittency. Periods of sleep, anaesthesia, blackouts, coma etc. alternate with the waking state. The immediate precondition for a change from any of these states to any other is the change in the brain state. Cessation of consciousness during life tells against the presence in us of any Cartesian conscious substance such as Eccles' psychons (referred to below).

The above comments can be formalised as follows:- the physical world is a closed system operating always in accordance with the laws of physics (whether deterministic or random) conscious events are determined by simultaneous physical events in the brain. (Consciousness includes every kind of sentience and all the qualities of experience — the qualia).

Ethical Record, October, 1991 7 If 'A' represents the state of the brain at a certain instant, then 'a' represents the state of conseiousness at the same instant. a

A

Although 'A' determines 'a', 'a' itselfdoes not cause any subsequent change either in the brain or in consciousness. 'a' is wholly dependent on the contemporary physical state of the brain. Now consider a typical sequence of events,

conscious state

brain state 4A4 B 4C413 and rest of physical world time 0 I 2

The brain interacts with the rest of the physical world. The t arrows indicate the special relation whereby the conscious states a, b, c are determined. The dots ... indicate the flow of the stream of consciousness. Just as a series of television pictures is determined by the electronics of the set, and does not itself react back on the eletronics, the conscious series accompanies brain events without affecting them.

What makes understanding these matters difficult is reconciling our familiar, colloquial way of speaking with more rigorous word usage. Saying "I went to the dentist because I had a toothache" apparently assigns a conscious experience, the ache, as the cause of a physical action, going to the dentist. I'm sure this way of speaking will continue, whatever happens to our theories. It can be justified if one regards the ache as the conscious aspect of the brain events that caused it — as the name of those events. Nevertheless, if by cause one means the actual agent of change, as I think one should if speaking rigorously as here, then the materialist (and especially the epiphenomenalist) would demur and say that the ache is not really the cause of going to the dentist.

To the inventor of TV, the problem was to get the electronics to produce an image on the screen. Having solved that, the content of the picture (even an image of the screen itself) did not raise a further problem for him. Likewise, having swallowed the enormity of matter's ability to produce consciousness of anything at all, one need not strain unduly over its amazing variety, even if it includes 'self' — consciousness.

Now, just as our ability to predict the next image on the TV screen from the current image doesn't imply that one image causes the next, (we know it doesn't!), neither does the awareness that one's arm has been raised one second after the decision to raise it mean that the conscious experience of the decision caused that awareness or subsequent arm movement. To understand this, one has to be prepared to regard one's brain as the real causal agent of one's action. Wanting, desiring and other conscious intentions which appear as the originating causes of behaviour may then be seen as epiphenomena of the brain's continuing activity.

The perennial free-will problem owes its longevity to its being situated squarely in both first person (I) and third person (it) accounts. The former gives us the illusion that we could have acted otherwise; the latter tells us that whether our decision mechanism is deterministic or random, our decision was inevitable or at least uncontrollable. We should perhaps remember this when engaged in putting the world to rights and condemning others —the world is not at present exactly overflowing with understanding and a modicum of

8 Ethical Record, October, 1991 compassion may not be entirely amiss.

Now just as a TV set is not made of small TV sets, consciousness could be a novel property of a suitably complex system. I'm sympathetic with Searle's view that consciousness is not just the automatic effect of a system carrying out certain functions — i.e. producing given outputs from given inputs — the nature of brain stuff may have something to do with it. In other words, if one's neurones were successively replaced by silicon chips, at some point one's consciousness would diminish and then cease, even if each chip carried out the same function as the neurone it replaced.

I should like to look briefly at two theories that assert the agency of consciousness while claiming not to be challenging assumption ( I) above (something that scientists are reluctant to do) — the closed nature of the physical world. I refer to Eccles"psychons' and Sperry's 'downward causation'.

Eccles posits psychons, units of consciousness, presumably situated in the brain, with the ability to move synaptic gates of mass of 109Kgm by a distance sufficient to effect the triggering of the synapse. He believes that physics allows the energy required to do this to be 'borrowed' for a short time according to the quantum rule:- (uncertainty in energy) x (uncertainty in time) = about '10727 (a very small number).

He also needs to postulate that these psychons act in concert to achieve this feat, because t housands of synapses have to be opened virtually simultaneously if a change of behaviour is to result. A 'physicist confronted with a piece of matter, in this case a brain, in which this improbable event occurred whenever conscious actions were initiated would undoubtedly note t his as remarkable and not in accordance with the normal behaviour of matter. Thus it is not possible to adopt the Eccles hypothesis (and this probably goes for any dualist interaction t heory) without being prepared to countenance the breakdown of physical law in brains. I'm not sure Eccles accepts this. Other remarkable properties of psychons are their ability to appear and disappear at appropriate times. When happy, your brain is full of happiness psychons; if you prick your finger they all vanish to be replaced by pain psychons.... (Note: Eccles is still working on his theory.)

Sperry differs from Eccles in claiming to be a monist, but believes that consciousness, having emerged in the course of evolution, is in a position to exert what he calls 'downward causation' on the matter of the brain. I must confess I don't understand how he thinks the emerged consciousness manages to exert its supposed effect on the brain, because as far as I can tell he supports both axioms ( I) and (2) above. I don't see how the basic laws of physics, whatever they are, which Sperry insists always apply, can permit their lawful products instantaneously to interfere with their operation:

Some light is thrown on Sperry's thinking by the examples he gives of alleged downward causation which lie wholly within the domains of physics or physiology. There is the case of the rolling wheel, said to drag its component molecules around with it, overriding their individual random motions. Or the single-celled animal, whose movement drags its component parts along with it. Sperry would say the larger entity, wheel or animal, obeys higher level laws, of compound bodies or of biology. He thinks these higher laws override the lower level laws. Because he views the relationship between laws of different levels in this, to my mind, incorrect way, Sperry finds the downward causation of consciousness on the neurophysiology of the brain to be a natural extension of what he finds to be the case in other branches of science.

However, the higher levels are entirely subject to the lower levels. The laws of chemistry are

Ethical Record, October, 1991 9 entirely consistent with the laws of physics, etc. Molecules obeying the laws of physiology also obey the laws of physics, and these totally determine what happens at the level of physiology. The entities referred to at a given level, say the pressure or temperature of a gas, tend to disappear by reduction as we descend to the lower levels. The higher levels are there simply for our convenience, necessary because of our limited computational powers. They would be scorned as useless by Laplace's super-intelligent calculator — the one that, given the precise position and velocity of every particle in the universe and equipped with a knowledge of the laws of physics could proceed to calculate the future of the universe (unless pure chance exists). Such a calculator would have no truck with concepts like pressure etc. Downward causation is a myth.

The postulation of supernatural entities could in the past have been due to a belief that some human capacities were forever beyond the possibilities of mere matter; the contention was that a more transcendental power was needed. This thesis suffered an early casualty with Pascal's invention of mechanical calculators for arithmetic computation. Today, processes of logical decision-making — `if x >5 then do this, otherwise do that' —are commonplace. Computers programmed with expert systems can in prificiple control a complex chemical works more precisely than a human technician, or achieve more consistently accurate diagnoses than the physicians whose knowledge was uSed to compile the diagnostic program. The distilled wisdom (judgement?) of the many is objectifiable and not dependent on a conscious executant.

It may be conceded that although an unconscious computer can indeed replicate any human activity that can be reduced to the operation of explicit rules, human activities exhibiting creative power, such as musical or artistic creativity, or the leaps of imaginative insight that occur in scientists and mathematicians, cannot be reduced to rule-following. Supporters of 'strong' Artificial Intelligence (AI) deny this, claiming that algorithms could be produced for these activities also. The attempt is certainly being made, e.g. by Margaret Boden. There is also the point that the expression 'leap of the imagination' may indicate that all the creative work is done unconsciously, the final result alone 'leaping' into consciousness!

To the question, what is then the survival value of consciousness to animals, and why did it apparently evolve, the answer is that, strictly speaking, as it makes no difference to behaviour, it has no survival value. That does not necessarily mean its outlook is bleak. Natural selection can tolerate effects so long as they are not positively harmful. Moreover, an animal's Darwinian fitness may be increased if genetic variation results in its having a more complex neural architecture and maybe becoming more competent. If consciousness appears as a by-product of this, it has every prospect of a long future ahead of it — an outcome I take it we should all want.

Herbert Spencer, in his Principles of Psychology and other works argued that nature employed pleasure and pain as correctives to action in both animals and humans. If an action injurious to health was embarked upon, pain would result, causing the animal to desist from the action. If the action was conducive to health, like eating, the resulting pleasure would serve to prolong the activity. In order to account for this rational location of pain and pleasure, Spencer conjectured that had pain and pleasure become, by accident, attached in a given animal to the opposite processes (pleasure to the injurious action, etc.), those animals would be eliminated in the struggle for survival. Spencer is clearly taking it for granted that, however they arose, pain and pleasure are elements in the chain of causation with aversive and appetitive powers respectively. Certain actions result in pain; the pain then initiates the motor action that eliminates it. Alternativly, pleasure can act to prolong the activity that produced it. Thus Spencer believed that consciousness was there because it had survival value.

This is still the ordinary person's view, but an epiphenomenalist cannot take this easy option. Spencer's contemporary, Shadworth Hodgson, noted "Pain does not cause the action that stops

10 Ethical Record, October, 199 I it." I suggest the following strategy for dealing with this problem. First, one may exclude all reflex actions, in which, by the time the pain is experienced, the biologically appropriate reaction has already been started by unconscious nervous impulses. Pain is obviously not causal in these cases, nevertheless natural selection has ensured that the harmful stimulus unleashes a response that can nullify it.

Second, with regard to learnt behaviour, what looks like behaviour to avoid pain is seen in quite lowly life forms. An octopus can learn not to attack an electrified food morsel if the original shock is allowed to implant a memory in its brain. Now if one assumes behaviour that evolved early in nervous systems to have established characteristics which have persisted, later conscious 'deliberation' may be a development of that primitive process. By the time, in evolution, that type of brain process became conscious, the appropriate behavioural pattern (i.e. the avoidance of life-threatening situations) was already in place. The pain was strictly superfluous, contributed nothing, and so can be regarded as epiphenomenal. This allows for the arbitrary nature of the particular quale evoked; it does not of course account for the unpleasant nature of pain.

This brings us to the shrewd argument of William McDougall. In 1905, McDougall wrote "Physiological Psychology". He was a strong believer in the causal properties of consciousness. He reasoned that if epiphenomenalism was provisionally accepted, and thus there was no feedback between the conscious quale and the neural process, the quale could be arbitrarily changed (as a thought experiment) with no material effect on the organism. Thus red and blue could be interchanged. Similarly, other sensory qualities, say sounds, could be imagined to be different, or swapped around. None of this would strike us, (or an observer privy to our consciousness) as a priori odd. But, he argued, this was not the case for pain and pleasure. Here there was a need to account for the singular appropriateness of the painful quality accompanying aversive reactions and the pleasurable quality accompanying appetitive reactions. Pleasure and pain could not reasonably be interchanged, for this would mean that e.g. we would receive a dose of pleasure when stubbing a toe, but still withdraw it rapidly. And we would suffer pain while eagerly consuming a meal. To account for their actual roles he allowed for only two possibilities:

God assigned their roles. McDougall refused to import such an hypothesis into scientific discourse. Pure chance with no explanation. He refused to countenance this, either.

McDougall therefore felt justified in rejecting epiphenomenalism and asserting causal interaction. However, he was unable to say much about how the alleged interaction worked. The abandonment of psycho-neural correlation and the consequent return of substance dualism present even greater problems, to my mind. Incidentally, any theologian who feels inclined to adopt (i) will simply add to the problem of pain he has in any case to deal with. Pain would simply be a devilish gratuity if it was not even biologically necessary.

Tyndall recognised what he called 'the intellectually impassable chasm' which would remain between the physics of the brain and the corresponding facts of consciousness even when all the details about both were known. If we knew, for example, that a right-handed spiral motion of some molecules of the brain was associated with the consciousness of love, and a left- handed spiral motion with hate, the question why? would remain as unanswerable as before.

Perhaps one may venture a remark on this problem. If consciousness is a natural property of complex matter, it's not impossible to imagine that there has to be some reason, inherent in the nature of matter, why a given arrangement should give rise to a specific conscious experience.

Ethical Record, October. 1991 11 Perhaps we need not take such innocuous events as Tyndall's spiral motions to be the causae of love and hate. It may happen that when we do know the physical correlates of pain or pleasure, we shall be able to discern some feature about them that makes the corresponding subjective experience at least plausible, even if not logically necessary. We may then also be in a better position to speculate about the sentience of animals.

In the meantime, aware of the awesome range and infinite possibilities of human awareness, we shall plod on.

(References and bibliography are in a paper "An examination of epiphenomenalism" given at a British Psychological conference, Lincoln, 27 March, 1991.)

BOOK REVIEW

AGAINST 'AGAINST RELIGION' Against Religion, A.N. Wilson, Chatto Counterblast No 19, 1991, £3.95 This book is a fine example of how not to develop a thoroughgoing critique of religion. As such it is an instructive book, for it shows the paucity of a liberal (and humanist?) analysis a religion that fails to reach beyond those very categories that religion itself relies upon. Wilson is very good at pointing out the contradictions inherent in most of the judgements and decisions pronounced by figures who claim to be speaking with (at least some degree) of knowledge of God's will. Wilson points out the contradiction involved when the Pope both calls for toleration of religious beliefs in the Soviet Union but does not tolerate anyone questioning his own beliefs on contraception (p.4). Similarly he makes wiy suggestions that appeal to our sense of naughtincss, such as that always seems to find pornographic scenes in books or films that most of us have never heard of (p.14). But such comments do not constitute a substantive critique; indeed they are comments that any moderately intelligent teenager can make. Wilson does make an attempt at a more substantive critique and it is here that the paucity of his position is shown. Wilson makes the remarkable claim that God, rather than money, is (he hedges his bets by saying 'may be') the root of all evil. He tells us that 'Religion is not kind; it is cruel' (p.2); by this he means that religion has been the cause of wars, tyranny and suppression. This may or may not be true; however, to anyone who delved deeper than the surface appearance of most 'religious' wars and suppressions it would be clear that there are usually a number of other factors concerned. But Wilson does not push this line too far. Instead he relies on an even more dubious argument: religion has certainly never made anyone a morally better person, and it has made most of its adherents worse (p.I8). What precisely does this mean? Wilson must know that to refute this all we need to do is to find a person whom religion has made a morally better person, or at least has not been made morally worse. But there is the rub; how do we know what a morally better or worse person is? Indeed, how do we know what is 'morally better' or 'worse'? Wilson of course has already provided a partial answer to this by stating categorically that religion has never made anyone a morally better person, so if we do find anyone whose moral stature has improved then it can have nothing to do with religion. The example he gives illustrates the weakness of his position. He suggests that the cardinal sins for most 16 to 25 year olds are racism and cruelty to animals. Despite the 'earnestness which this sometim6s produces' this does 'make life pleasanter than the reverse' (p.19). In which case to prove Wilson wrong all we need to do is find a person who is no longer racist or cruel to animals and who believes that to so behave is better because all

12 Ethical Record, October, 1991 creatures are equal in the eyes of God. But Wilson preempts this: 'I do not think these impulses are motivated by religious feelings of any kind'. To which there is not a lot one can say.

Further on however Wilson refutes this argument himself He claims that 'the Jews...have never, so far as I am aware, done any harm to any society in which they have lived their religiously separate lives'. Jews have proved to be good citizens 'in any society where there are significant numbers of Jews, therefore, they do not cause disruption' (p.36-37). Wilson does not attempt to square this claim with his earlier one that religion makes (most) of its adherents morally wome.

He also does not note the contradiction in talking about 'the Jews' as a collective entity causing no harm and his later claim that 'there is no such thing as collective virtue, only individual virtue' (p.45). If this is so then why bother talking about 'the Jews' as a collective entity at all?

Wilson's final problem is that his counterblast is not 'against religion' at all. It is against the organised religions that teach dogmatic doctrines that he speaks. For he himself admits to being of 'a strongly religious temperament'. I can never walk by the sea-shore, nor read Wordsworth, nor listen to Beethoven without feeling that 'there are more things in heaven and earth' than are dreamt of in a purely materialist view of things (p.20).

Apart from the problem of what 'dreamt of things would be doing in a materialist outlook, this shows that Wilson's criticisms of religion rely on a finely drawn distinction between walking by the sea, listening to music and reading poetry, which for Wilson activates his (acceptable) religious temperament, and the (unacceptable) religious doctrines and party rules that can develop from these same feelings. This distinction is so finely drawn that even Wilson himself fails to see the line. As he later points out: the great majority of religious people are...drawn to the organised religions of the world by the same impulses which move all human beings when confronting the mystery of things —in landscape, in music, in the experience of love and loss (p.47). So it is the very 'religious' experiences that he himself feels that can lead to those religious doctrines and party rules that he opposes.

All these faults in Wilson's argument are suggestive of the weakness of his approach. But they are minor in comparison with his greatest fault of all. His fmal claim is that 'we cannot hope for a society in which formal organised religion dies out' (p.48). (Note: formal organised religion). This would make sense, since he has just claimed that these formal organised religions gain support from the type of religious temperament that move people when confronting landscapes etc. And people who have such temperaments join these religions 'because they believe in the ideals, and they believe that all these good things will be lost unless...they hold on to the ugly and evil things in their religion' (p.47). For Wilson then, we are stuck with religion. Working towards, even hoping for, a world where religion has been superceded is pointless.

Wilson has to conclude this because, ultimately, he fails to address the key issue: what is it that religion provides that is not being provided,for in our immediate social relations? Such a question can only be answered With reference to the social conditions in which humanity creates religious beliefs. This in turn requires a thorough understanding of those conditions and the necessity of transcending them. From the outset Wilson concedes that he can offer no such analysis: I would not pretend to know what religion is, or whether it is to be accounted for by purely psychological explanations. But I do know from , the inside as well as from personal observation, that religion appeals to something deep and irrational within us (p.3). Consequently he relies on time-worn and ultimately fruitless categories such as 'morally better' and 'cruelty' without ever explaining what these mean. •

Thus Wilson's attempt to develop a critique of religion relies on categories of liberal thought that are devoid of any real substantive content. As such it reveals the failure of liberal rationalist/humanist thought in the face of what it itself identifies as a key area of concern. Mark Neocleous Ethical Record October, 1991 13 LETTERS gallery The Workshop on Lambs Conduit Street, the paintings of Lindsey Harris and Dorothy Cowen. It was all highly successful J. Addison — London W12 and fully written up in the pages of The Redord in June, July/August and September Regarding the penultimate paragraph of of that year. 'C. G. Jung — Philosopher of Barbarism', ER July/August '91: What real evidence is Clive Challis went on to design the monthly there that in Jan. 1919 swastikas were programme posters of the Society which displayed by the military in Berlin when were then on displaY in London Underground Rosa Luxemburg was executed? I think stations, and Lindsey to make the curtains David Murray was probably referring to that still hang in the Artists Room and the the Kapp Putsch of March 1920 when the cushion covers in the Library. Erhardt Brigade had these symbols on their helmets. The second exhibition, of the paintings of Barbara Britton, opened on the 20th November following, in association with a • concert given in the Library. It was some time after that that Victor Rose, who had Peter Dant — London NW2 recently joined the Society, became a leading prop of our visual arts enterprise. In last month's ER Nicola King makes a very biased criticism of some novelists. Most of the time I do not follow what she is on about. However, I do know that the 'parapsychologist Susan Blakemore' she Martin Green — Liskeard, Cornwall refers to is actually named 'Black more'. To my mind, this invalidates her whole argument. I've just received the first copy of the Ethical Record under your deitorship, and while I'd like to congratulate you on this, I do take exception to your dismissive not about the peace movement. Those 'one hundred thou- Peter Cadogan (General Secretary 1970-81) sand bombing sorties' killed some 150,000 — London, NW6. people and is not something that should be passed over lightly by a humanist. This is just to get the record right. The idea of using the Hall as an 'arts gallery came from Ed's note: Indeed not But why point this out two young members, Clive Challis and when I neither stated nor implied that this Lindsey Harris who sold the idea to me and 'should be passed over' - whether 'lightly' or through me to the General Committee. otherwise?

The first exhibition opened on Tuesday June 15th 1971 and featured a display of signed litho prints from Mel Caiman's then new

Ed's Note: My apologies to Michael Newman for the omission of his name as author of the book review titled 'Biology, History and Humanism' in the previous issue.

14 Ethical Record, October, 1991 LONDON STUDENT SKEPTICS

AUTUMN TERM MEETINGS FOR 1991

All meetings will be held on MONDAYS in room 3C of the ULU building on Malet Street unless otherwise stated. Members and guests should arrive by 7.30 pm for a prompt start at 8.

October 7 Planning meeting open to all members, ideas for the spring term welcome. Then to the bar for some serious discussion.

21 Wine & Cheese evening. Introduction for new and old members with a video, quiz, prizes, possibly a surprise guest and wine and cheese

November 4 Alan Wesencraft, librarian in charge of the Harry Price collection at Senet House will speak on 'Harry Price and his library'.

18 Mike Howgate will give a repeat performance of his talk to the third European Skeptics Conference entitled 'Looking for a witness of the Flood'.

December 2 Brian Austin of the Mustard Seed bookshop in Kentish Town (our local creationist outlet) will give his impressions of common outlet) will give his impressions of a common enemy in his talk 'A Christian Freethinker (??) looks at the New Age'.

16 Video presentation of one of James Randi's programmes from earlier this followed by discussion and our YULETIDE PARTY —more information later in the year.

No field excursions are planned as yet, but if anyone has prior knowledge of New Age events, Creationist meetings, moving statues, etc. they can easily be fitted into the programme.

Contact Mike Howgate 081-882 2606

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Lectures and forums are held in the library and are free (collection). OCTOBER

Sunday, 6th • II am Lecture: Islam, Ethics And The Accounting Profession. TREVOR GAMBLING. Emeritus Professor of Accounting at Birmingham University and joint author of Business and Accounting Ethics in Islam (Mansell, June 1991), criticizes Western-style business and accounting practice and illustraies the Islamic alternative.

3 pm Fortun: The Decriminalisation of Prostitution. LINDE ST. CLAIR, founder of the Corrective Party, "the radical voice of reason, with policies to correct the entire system.... civil liberty, social justice, animal welfare and sexual freedom", discusses some of the more controversial proposals made by this new party.

Ethical Record, October 1991 OCTOBER

Sunday, 13tb 11 pm Lecture: The American Dream - Utopia or Nightmare?STEPHEN COLEMAN, considers the American-proposed New World Order in the Light of "the. poverty, inequality and lack of democracy which is the daily reality for millions of American people."

3 pm Forum: What Is Good Art And Is It Good For Us? ELIZABETH KONDAL. explores aspects of the answers to these questions given by Plato, Aristotle, Tolstoy and Brecht.

Sunday, 20th II am Lecture: Some Remaining Mysteries. JAMES HEMMING, psychologist and humanist, notes that science in this century has solved a remarkable number of profound problems but some equally profound uncertainties still remain. The author of Instead of God looks at a wide sweep of thesc, from the big bang to consciousness.

3 pm Forum: Rationdism BetrayeirTHEO THEOCHARIS robustly maintains that "there is more to rationalism than benevolent humanism and the rejection of religion, but a perennial uncertainty is not it."

Sunday, 27th 11 am Lecture: Problems of the Third World - women and birth control. AMRIT WILSON asks what is the nature of family planning programmes being implemented in third world countries.

3 pm Book Launch: Romer Publications launch Frank Ridley's "Fascism down the Ages, From Caesar to Hitler" and introduces "The Rise and Fall of the English Empire". Frank Ridley's life and works will be celebrated by various speakers.

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At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of cultural activities, including discussions, lectures concerts and socials.

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