Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 116 No. 11 £1.50 December 2011 HUMPHREY’S MECHANISM FOR THE EVOLUTION OF MIND Nicholas Humphrey (see his article page 3) believes that over evolutionary time, animals’ brains undergo “a slow but remarkable change…. the whole sensory activity gets ‘privatised’ (see diagrams below): the command signals for sensory responses get short-circuited before they reach the body surface, so that instead of reaching all the way out to the site of stimulation they now reach only to points closer and closer in on the incoming sensory nerve, until eventually the whole process becomes closed off from the outside world in an internal loop within the brain.” [from ‘How to solve the mind-body problem’ (J.Consc. Studies, 7 (4):5-20)]. Ian Buxton, who reviews Humphrey’s book Soul Dust – the magic of consciousness on page 7, conceived a very similar idea independently at about the same time. SOUL DUST: THE MAGIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS Nicholas Humphrey 3 A CRITIQUE OF SOUL DUST Ian Buxton 7 VIEWPOINTS T. Rubens, J. Rayner, D. Rooum, R. Eastburn-Hewitt, A. Adler, B.Smoker 10 HRL ADDITIONS Cathy Broad 13 KIERKEGAARD ON COURAGE – BEFORE AND AFTER GOD Clare Carlisle 14 THE BLACKHAM ARCHIVE Anita Miller 18 GLOBAL CAPITALISM—GOOD OR BAD? Tom Rubens 20 SOCIALISM AND SECULARISM: AN UNEASY COMRADESHIP Terry Liddle 21 AGM MOTIONS AND THEIR RESULTS 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Main phone for all options: 020 7405 1818 Fax (lettings): 020 7061 6746 www.ethicalsoc.org.uk At the General Committee meeting on 7 December 2011, the following Officers were elected: Chairman: Chris Purnell Vice-chairman: Jim Herrick Treasurer: Chris Bratcher Editor: Norman Bacrac Please email texts and viewpoints for the Editor to: [email protected] Staff Chief Executive Officer: Jim Walsh Tel: 020 7061 6745 [email protected] Administrator: Martha Lee Tel: 020 7061 6741 [email protected] Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7061 6740 [email protected] Librarian: Catherine Broad Tel: 020 7061 6747 [email protected] Programme Co-ordinator: Ben Partridge Tel: 020 7061 6744 [email protected] Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7061 6750 [email protected] Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c) Tel: 020 7061 6743 [email protected] together with: Angelo Edrozo, Alfredo Olivo, Rogerio Retuerna, Cagatay Ulker Maintenance: Zia Hameed Tel: 020 7061 6742 [email protected] New Members We welcome to the Society: Ray Cornwell, Westminster, London; Maren Freudenberg, Edgware, London; Margaret Scholey-Hill, Westminster, London; Aditya Verma, Kensington, London. THE AGM OF THE S.P. ETHICAL SOCIETY, 13 NOVEMBER 2011 General Committee. At the AGM of the Society, the following were elected to the GC for three years: Norman Bacrac, Simon Callaghan, Giles Enders, Alys Gwynne-Jones. Existing GC members are: Chris Bratcher, Andrew Copson, John Edwards, Jim Herrick, Marina Ingham, Edmund McArthur, Terry Mullins and Chris Purnell. Holding Trustees. At the AGM, the following new Holding Trustees were elected for nine years: Jay Ginn, Steven Norley, Stuart Ware, Fiona Weir. Terry Mullins was re- elected for a further year (being over 75). Existing Holding Trustees are: Norman Bacrac, Chris Bratcher, Giles Enders, Jim Herrick. AGM Motions: Motions and their results are printed on page 23 of this issue of the Record. Advisory Groups, Sub-Committee and Working Groups The following were elected at the GC meeting on 7 December 2011 for this year: Education and Arts Advisory Group. Andrew Copson (Chair), Norman Bacrac, John Edwards, Jim Herrick, Edmund McArthur, Donald Rooum. Finance and Audit Sub-Committee. Chris Bratcher (Chair), Andrew Copson, John Edwards, Marina Ingham, Terry Mullins. Governance Working Group. Andrew Copson (Chair), Norman Bacrac, John Edwards, Edward McArthur. Library Advisory Group. Jim Walsh (Chair), Norman Bacrac, Andrew Copson, Carl Harrison (Archivist), Jim Herrick. Music Advisory Group. Giles Enders (Chair), Simon Callaghan, Alys Gwynne-Jones, Terry Mullins. Premises Advisory Group. Jim Herrick (Chair), John Edwards, Giles Enders, Donald Langdown, Terry Mullins. Publications Advisory Group. Norman Bacrac (Editor, Chair), Chris Bratcher, Giles Enders, Jim Herrick, Chris Purnell. 2 Ethical Record, December 2011 SOUL DUST: THE MAGIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS Nicholas Humphrey Lecture to the Ethical Society, 9 October 2011 At a conference on science and spirituality in 2009, the philosopher of physics Michel Bitbol opened his lecture as follows: Yesterday evening, I wondered how exactly I would connect our topic of this morning [quantum mechanics and the observer] with the broader issue of spirituality that is at the center of this conference. I am not convinced that one can formulate an exhaustive characterization of spirituality, but let me state at least one important aspect and source of it. This source is the continuous, never completely digested astonishment of being there, being in this unique situation: why do I live now, in this special period of history? Why am I me, born in this family, in this place of the world? I was taught that there were many other possibilities: being any person, at any time, or even just not being at all. And yet here I am, in front of you. Me, not you; here, not there; now, not then. What is the reason, if any, of this inescapable singularity? Does the fact that we all live through this mystery, alleviate it in any way? There is a deep, old, and permanent sense of awe which is associated to such realization of our situation, and I am convinced that this experience is a crucial ground of spirituality as opposed to science. For, how could we take care of the sense of uniqueness and fate that pervades our lives from an undefined moment of our childhood until the unique moment of our own death, if we stick to the methodologically objective discipline of science? Entering the Soul Niche Bitbol does not use the term ‘soul’. But it will not have escaped your notice — and possibly even your censure — that I myself have used the word in my book Soul Dust. Should I really be using it so freely? Doesn’t the word ‘soul’ carry too much baggage? Yes, it does, and I should — I should because it does. At the end of his discussion of ‘mind-stuff’, early in the Principles of Psychology, William James wrote, “Many readers have certainly been saying to themselves for the last few pages: ‘Why on earth doesn’t the poor man say the Soul and have done with it?”’ He noted that there might be methodological problems with going down that road. Nonetheless, said he, “I confess . that to posit a soul influenced in some mysterious way by the brain-states and responding to them by conscious1 affections of its own, seems to me the line of least logical resistance.” And yet, three chapters later, James was having none of it. Admittedly, he wrote, “The theory of the Soul is the theory of popular philosophy.” Admittedly, it would seem to have practical uses — among other things it guarantees the “closed individuality of each personal consciousness” and underpins the idea of Ethical Record, December 2011 3 2 “forensic responsibility before God.” . “The consequences of the simplicity and substantiality of the Soul are its incorruptibility and natural immortality — nothing but God’s direct fiat can annihilate it — and its responsibility at all times for whatever it may have ever done.” But all this, James claimed, is metaphysics, not science. And “as psychologists, we need not be metaphysical at all.” In short, “altogether, the Soul is an outbirth of that sort of philosophizing whose great maxim, according to Dr. Hodgson*, is: ‘Whatever you are totally ignorant of, assert to be the explanation of everything else.” And “My final conclusion, then, about the substantial Soul is that it explains nothing and guarantees nothing. I therefore feel entirely free to discard the word Soul from the rest of this book.” That James had taken 350 pages to get to this point — and had become so tetchy —suggests more than a little internal conflict. You can almost hear a rational soul-denying ego battling it out with an emotional soul-affirming id. The rationalist wins the argument (that is what rationalists always do). But it is remarkable what hard work it seems to have been — how stubbornly something inside him clung to the big idea. James was free to do what he liked. It was his book. But Soul Dust is mine. And I make no apology for not following James’s lead. Even if it is true that as scientific psychologists we need not be metaphysical — no more than a visiting Andromedan need be qua scientist — we need not and should not be blind to the role of metaphysical ideas in boosting the morale of ordinary human beings. As Bitbol said so eloquently, from childhood until the day you die, you find yourself living at the centre of a metaphysical mystery. You cannot but be fascinated by the facts of your own psychical existence. Like it or not, you see yourself, in James’s words, as a “simple spiritual substance in which the various psychic faculties, operations and affections inhere.” If that is not to have a soul, I do not know what is. Keith Ward on the Soul The theologian Keith Ward has written: “The whole point of talking of the soul is to remind ourselves constantly that we transcend all the conditions of our material existence; that we are always more than the sum of our chemicals, our electrons, our social roles or our genes. We transcend them precisely in being indefinable, always more than can be 3seen or described, subjects of experience and action, unique and irreplaceable.” So, here is where I am driving.