Filing Right and Wrong: Fictitious Philosophy presented by a Physics Man (excuse my improvisation, but it cut off the title)

post by jones (apparently whom i needed to send an invitation to post?! forgive me!)

"Although I've taken a 4 year college degree in physics, I don't know if I'd exactly say that my specialty is physics. I know quite a bit, but I also know quite a bit about Ubuntu Linux and a little about frisbee, and climbing, and skiing, and whatever else. My point being, I didn't exactly know how to contribute to this blog, so I'm just going to do it any which way.

And that way is going to be with a little philosophy. Recently I read a book called Shantaram. Beyond the fact that I highly recommend it, there was an interesting section where Khaderbai, a wise old muslim-scholar-mafia-lord1 elaborated an ethical framework, which I think is worth looking at because it attempts to form an moral-ethical basis upon which people of all different religions (or lack of religions) can agree. This is ambitious. It's also very prescient. In this world where evil deeds can be done in the name of beliefs, religious or otherwise, a common system from which everyone could start is more than just desirable, it may be essential. So, let's talk about a moral system of ethics, which can be defined simply as a framework in which you can easily decide what actions are good and which actions are bad2.

Khaderbai begins with the generally accepted, scientific history of the Universe. First, there was a big bang, an infinitely small point "full" of structures below the level of even being particles3 quickly exploded out of oblivion. As this point expanded and cooled, particles were able to form. Then from particles, atoms (mostly just hydrogen and helium). Then from atoms, some basic molecules. As these molecules clumped together they began to form stars which could make new elements in their hot, dense cores. These stars eventually "died" shedding these new elements which were able to form more complex molecules ... eventually to the point of life4 ... and so on. His point in telling this story is that the universe is moving from structures which are simple to those that are more complex.

Here is where he leaves the general science by extending history into the future and saying as the universe gets more and more complex we are moving towards an Ultimate Complexity, which from his Muslim stance he is willing to call "God."5 But as he suggests, let's just leave it at Complexity. Now, moving toward Complexity is construed as a Good thing and moving backwards towards simplicity is Not Good.

So, lastly if we'd like to judge an action we can ask ourselves these two questions:

* What would happen if everyone did this?
* Would that help or hinder the movement toward Complexity?

So, for example, "Is it good or bad to kill?" Our answer becomes, "well, if everyone killed, we'd all be dead and we're pretty complex so that would hinder movement towards complexity, so it is bad to kill."6 Khaderbai then continues on to say that in absolutely all cases it is bad to kill. It can get sticky, however, when one asks, "Is it bad to kill that lunatic who is about to kill everyone else?" Khaderbai would say "Yes, it is wrong. If you were to kill that man you would be doing wrong for the right reasons." (remember now that Khaderbai is a mafia leader and does plenty of "wrong" things by his own definition) If you kill Mr. Lunatic, you do wrong, but you are doing it with the idea of complexity in mind. Many people might then say, "well, I guess it was actually right in the end to kill Mr. Lunatic" but the point here is it is your action that matters and if yours is to hinder movement toward complexity, then it is wrong.

Let me quickly summarize his points:

1. The universe is moving from simple structures to ones with increasing complexity.
2. This movement towards complexity, especially the idea of some future Ultimate Complexity is what we can call "good" (and if we're religious we might say we are moving toward God).
3. To judge the rightness or wrongness of an action we must ask, "If everone did this would it help or hinder the movement toward Complexity?" If the former, it is right; if the latter, it is wrong.

This is a very simple, even elegant system. It could be just as easily accepted by many secular people as by many religious believers. It's quite admirable in that aspect.

Unfortunately, there's a bit of a loophole7. The sticking point I came across was not really in the first two points, but in the two questions we ask to find out if something is wrong or not. Specifically, with the first part, "if everyone did this" and the way that it applies firstly to human social structures.

Take this example of a frisbee team. There's a pickup game of frisbee down at Greenlake. Two teams have formed, Blue and Red. Both teams begin playing, but the Red team is going every which way--directionless. Our moral question is, "Is it right for one team member take over and begin directing the other ones around?" (I know, not exactly a huge moral quandary.) The framework above would yield the answer, "No, it's not right because if everyone tried to direct everyone else, none of them would be paying attention to what they're doing and the team would be worse off than before: a simple yelling match instead of at least individual players running around." But, I think it's easy to see that it is right if one player leads. The team then becomes more complex and can use it's individual players in a coordinated fashion. Extending further, maybe one player might become the "handler" (thrower) and another be designated to chase when the frisbee is hucked into the in-zone. The point is that these specializations shouldn't be classified as wrong, which seems to be the case from the above reasoning. It's not wrong, as long as everyone doesn't do it. In fact, it moves us towards Complexity. Actually, it has been said by many8 that in order for evolution to occur you first need differentiation then reintigration, and unfortunately point 3 of Khaderbai's universal system doesn't allow for differentiation to be right or good. So, that's a bit of a problem.

So, you might ask, "Well, why in the hell did you even write about this moral philosophy from a mafia-lord in a half-fictitious book9 which can't even be right?" Well, because I think it's admirable10 and I think he's definitely on to something with points 1 & 2. Asking the questions, "Is what I'm doing good? Is what I'm doing right?"is essential to a well-lived life (or at least Aristotle thinks so). Being a volunteer in Uganda I ask myself these questions a lot more than I think I would back at home in the US. Maybe what's more interesting is when I know the answer to be "no" and still have trouble changing that which I am doing...

Anyway, enough spinning the philosophical cogs. Thanks for reading my musings.
~JONES
Footnotes

1 - I know this description, although accurate, sounds far-fetched and might immediately turn someone off to his words. Let's just look at the ideas for now.
2 - Or right and wrong. I'm going to use these terms interchangeably so as not to split linguistic hairs.
3 - Particles being things like electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.
4 - Sorry biologists. I know there's a lot of history here too, more in fact, but in the interest of time and not sticking my foot in my mouth, I'll leave that section to you.
5 - His argument makes a lot of sense, although a strict science perspective might raise the disagreement that increasing entropy implies increasing disorder, which is simpler than order. Also, we're going to ignore talk of the Heat Death of the Universe.
6 - I hope everyone agrees that should be the answer. I also encourage you to try out some other moral quandary in the system. I'm going to take a minute to do it now too, "Is it bad to only sit in my house and read all day?"
7 - Mystics might say that as long as we're using words to try to describe reality we can never capture the Truth.
I also wanted to add on the point here that we're talking about human actions, but you could also try to extend this other "acts of nature" and say that a planet-killing asteroid hitting Earth would definitely be "bad." However, similarly to how I will argue in a moment, it doesn't apply well to predators - "if everyone (now including herbivores) decided to exclusively kill other animals to eat that would be hinder movement toward complexity and be bad." But, complex eco-systems of predators, herbivores, scavengers, etc. is fairly clearly closer towards captial-c Complexity.
8 - I'm thinking specifically of Wilber in The Marriage of Sense and Soul and Arthur Koestler in The Sleepwalkers. A quote from the latter:

The process of evolution may be described as differentiation of structure and integration of function. The more differentiated and specialized the parts, the more elaborate coordination is needed to create a well-balanced whole. (527)


9 - Also, I don't know how fictitious this book is. I know it's at least partly, if not mostly true. If someone's bored and wants a research project...
10 - With my interest in secular philosophy, I've been told I really need to read some Bertrand Russel. Can anyone give me some suggestions on where to start (or be so indelibly kind as to send me something by him)?"