Showing papers in "Zygon in 1985"
TL;DR: In this article, moral systems are described as systems of indirect reci- procity, existing because of histories of conflicts of interest, arising as outcomes of the complexity of social interactions in groups of long-lived individuals with varying conflicts and conflu- ences of interest and indefinitely iterated social interactions.
Abstract: Moral systems are described as systems of indirect reci- procity, existing because of histories of conflicts of interest and arising as outcomes of the complexity of social interactions in groups of long-lived individuals with varying conflicts and conflu- ences of interest and indefinitely iterated social interactions. Al- though morality is commonly defined as involving justice for all people, or consistency in the social treatment of all humans, it may have arisen for immoral reasons, as a force leading to cohesiveness within human groups but specifically excluding and directed against other human groups with different interests.
87 citations
TL;DR: A revised scientific cosmology emerges in which reductive materialist interpretations emphasizing causal control from below upward are replaced by revised concepts that emphasize the reciprocal control exerted by higher emergent forces from above downward as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: . Prospects for uniting religion and science are brightened by recently changed views of consciousness and mind-brain interaction. Mental, vital, and spiritual forces, long excluded and denounced by materialist philosophy, are reinstated in nonmystical form. A revised scientific cosmology emerges in which reductive materialist interpretations emphasizing causal control from below upward are replaced by revised concepts that emphasize the reciprocal control exerted by higher emergent forces from above downward. Scientific views of ourselves and the world and the kinds of values upheld by scientific belief undergo basic transformations, making them more compatible with religious motivation and moral responsibility.
18 citations
TL;DR: A neuroevolutionary model of the development and social effects of ritual behavior is presented, being derived from both ethology and recent neurophysiological studies in humans.
Abstract: . Human ceremonial ritual is considered as an evolved behavior, one of the principal effects of which is the promotion of intragroup cohesion by decreasing or eliminating intragroup aggression. It is seen as a major determinant of what Victor Turner calls communitas in human social groups of varying extension. The frequent paradoxical effect of ritual's promoting extragroup aggression at the same time that it diminishes intragroup aggression is considered. A neuroevolutionary model of the development and social effects of ritual behavior is presented, being derived from both ethology and recent neurophysiological studies in humans.
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an exposition and critique of physicist David Bohm's theory of wholeness and the implicate order in light of the wider emerging postmodern consciousness is presented.
Abstract: . This is an exposition and critique of physicist David Bohm's theory of wholeness and the implicate order in light of the wider emerging postmodern consciousness. Postmodernity is defined primarily as advocacy for wholistic thinking over against the alleged fragmentation characteristic of the modern mind since Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton. When Bohm attempts to unite all things in the explicate order with his implicate “multidimensional ground,” theological questions are raised and, in this article, addressed. The thesis is advanced that there is no whole which presently exists, meaning that the future is presently open, and that the unity of the cosmos awaits the eschatological act of God.
15 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze David Bohm's work in terms of physics, philosophy, and theology, using the methodology of Imre Lakatos to evaluate the scientific status of his research program and explore the philosophical dimensions of Bohm views in which realist and idealist, monist and dualist, contingent and determinist outlooks occur in creative tension.
Abstract: . The purpose of this paper is to analyze David Bohm's work in terms of physics, philosophy, and theology. First, I discuss the development of Bohm's thought since 1951. Then, using the methodology of Imre Lakatos, I evaluate the scientific status of his research program. Next, I explore the philosophical dimensions of Bohm's views in which realist and idealist, monist and dualist, contingent and determinist outlooks occur in creative tension. Finally, I suggest ways in which Bohm's ideas are relevant to theology through concepts of God and cosmos, beauty and purpose, grace and free will, church, self and evil.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is proposed that multiple emission and absorption of soft photons in a discrete quantum world (implicate order) generates the continuous Cartesian-Newtonian-Einsteinian space-time world of localizable objects and conscious observers with measuring rods and clocks (explicate order).
Abstract: . It is proposed that multiple emission and absorption of soft photons in a discrete quantum world (implicate order) generates the continuous Cartesian-Newtonian-Einsteinian space-time world of localizable objects and conscious observers with measuring rods and clocks (explicate order).
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Bohm's developing postmodern thought (combining precision and wholeness) is seen to contain two tendencies: one is a vision of "underlying wholenness", in which all causation is vertical, and the implicate-explicate relation is ubiquitous.
Abstract: . David Bohm's developing postmodern thought (combining precision and wholeness) is seen to contain two tendencies. One is a vision of “underlying wholeness,” in which all causation is vertical, and the implicate-explicate relation is ubiquitous. This provides a possible solution to certain problems, but creates many others involving freedom, causation, and time. Second, many of Bohm's statements suggest that his deepest intuitions could be formulated without those problems in terms of the distinctions developed in Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy of “prehensive wholeness,” in which the ubiquity of creativity would require a more restricted use of the implicate-explicate relation.
11 citations
TL;DR: Recent advances in the art of automated knowledge-extraction from expert-supplied example decisions are reviewed, promising both important parallels to the human capacity for concept formation and also commercial exploitability.
Abstract: . The definition of an expert system as a knowledge-based source of advice and explanation pinpoints the critical problem which confronts the would-be builders of such systems. How is the required body of knowledge to be elicited from its human possessors in a form sufficiently complete for effective organization in computer memory? This article reviews recent advances in the art of automated knowledge-extraction from expert-supplied example decisions. Computer induction, as the new approach is called, promises both important parallels to the human capacity for concept formation and also commercial exploitability.
9 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that it is only as we see the thoughts, actions, and interactions of persons as necessarily involving physical entities in the world whose nature is not completely captured in scientific descriptions that we can understand our existence as mental and spiritual beings.
Abstract: . We view a human being as a mental and spiritual entity and also as having a physical nature. The essence of a person is revealed in our thinking about personal identity, quality of life, and personal responsibility. These conceptions do not fare well in a Cartesian or dualist picture of the person as there are deep problems with the idea that the mind is an inner realm. I argue that it is only as we see the thoughts, actions, and interactions of persons as necessarily involving physical entities in the world whose nature is not completely captured in scientific descriptions that we can understand our existence as mental and spiritual beings.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the problem of evil is brought under the ambit of science by explicating the theological concept "sinful" in thermo-dynamic and phylogenetic terms, and the proposition "Homo sapiens is a sinful species".
Abstract: . The problem of evil is brought under the ambit of science by explicating the theological concept “sinful” in thermo-dynamic and phylogenetic terms, and the proposition “Homo sapiens is a sinful species” is established. By a like explication, the theological concept of the “Fall of man” is shown to be an amalgam of two concepts, Fall I and Fall II, of thermodynamic and anthropogenetic origins, respectively. Fall I affects all life; Fall II (“original sin”) affects Homo sapiens and its immediate forebears alone.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religious experience is in fact the use of inferentially acquired religious beliefs to interpret ordinary nonreligious experiences.
Abstract: . Using as a model contemporary analyses of scientific cognition, Ian Harbour has claimed that religious cognition is neither immediate nor inferential but has the structure of interpreted experience. Although I contend that Barbour has failed to establish his claim, I believe his views about the similarities between scientific and religious cognition are well founded. Thus on that basis I offer an alternative proposal that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religious experience is in fact the use of inferentially acquired religious beliefs to interpret ordinary nonreligious experiences.
TL;DR: The aim of science is to explain how something is possible as discussed by the authors. But only if wonder is limited to the contemplation of magic or mysteries is religion in principle opposed to science, and the desire to understand drives science.
Abstract: . Wonder is a root of the religious experience, and the desire to understand drives science. If wonder and understanding are fundamentally opposed, religion and science will be also. But only if wonder is limited to the contemplation of magic or mysteries is religion in principle opposed to science. The aim of science is to explain how something is possible. Understanding how something is possible need not destroy our wonder at it. Recent scientific theories of the human mind—albeit based in computer technology—increase our wonder at its richness and power.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the suggestion that our conscious experience is embodied in, rather than interactive with, our brain activity, and that the distinctive brain correlate of conscious experience lies at the level of global functional organization.
Abstract: . This paper explores the suggestion that our conscious experience is embodied in, rather than interactive with, our brain activity, and that the distinctive brain correlate of conscious experience lies at the level of global functional organization. To speak of either brains or computers as thinking is categorically inept, but whether stochastic mechanisms using internal experimentation rather than rule-following to determine behavior could embody conscious agency is argued to be an open question, even in light of the Christian doctrine of man. Mechanistic brain science does nothing to discredit Christian experience in dialogue with God or the Christian hope of eternal life.
TL;DR: What the world needs is not only a moral equivalent to war but an ideological equivalent to exogamy to resolve social differences on a much larger scale.
Abstract: . The brain evolved not to think but to act, and ideology is an act of social affiliation which can be compared to kin affiliation, both satisfyingly emotional and expressing a perception about the nature of the real world central to the nature of being human. Males may affiliate to macrosocial ideologies more enthusiastically than females because of their relative lack of certainty of kin relationships. Exogamy was the necessary solution to kin-related strife in prehistory. Perhaps what the world needs is not only a moral equivalent to war but an ideological equivalent to exogamy to resolve social differences on a much larger scale.
TL;DR: A transition is occurring in each of these realms that has great potential for human fulfillment, if the shift can be successfully managed as discussed by the authors, which can be similarly illuminated by this analysis at three points: the global conversation between liberation and establishment theologies, the renewed discussion among Christian theologians regarding other world religions, and the current influence of process theology.
Abstract: . History may be pregnant with a new paradigm centering around the organic features of systems in four areas: the global-ecological, the national-social, the organizational-institutional, and the individual-psychological. Key terms are holistic, synergy, harmony, interdependence, and synthesis. A transition is occurring in each of these realms that has great potential for human fulfillment, if the shift can be successfully managed. Movements in theology can be similarly illuminated by this analysis at three points: the global conversation between liberation and establishment theologies, the renewed discussion among Christian theologians regarding other world religions, and the current influence of process theology.
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation of religion and science is presented in terms of the interrelationship of domains generated within a reflexive real world concept by status assignment, illustrated by examining the concepts of order, disorder, entropy, evil, freedom, creation, and resurrection.
Abstract: . The relation of religion and science is presented in terms of the interrelationship of domains generated within a reflexive real world concept by status assignment. The domain of religion is articulated by the concepts of ultimacy, totality, and eternity, which are boundary conditions on all status assignments. The domain of science is a status assignment, that of determining the facts and constraints of the real world, and is articulated by the concepts of empiricism, objectivity, and order. The interrelationship of domains is illustrated by examining the concepts of order, disorder, entropy, evil, freedom, creation, and resurrection.
TL;DR: The ambiguity of systems thought lies ironically in its ability to embrace both of these images within its conceptual scheme as discussed by the authors, which could be countered by a more open and organic model of human systems.
Abstract: . Progress in general systems theory has been slow. Three recent books in the field reflect both the hopes and continuing frustrations of systems advocates. Frustrations include the widespread perception that systems theory is a kind of gnostic redemption, an abstract program to be administered by an elite cadre of experts for the sake of integrating knowledge and reorganizing society. This mechanistic understanding generates a resistance which could be countered by a more open and organic model of human systems. The ambiguity of systems thought lies ironically in its ability to embrace both of these images within its conceptual scheme.
TL;DR: The work of Michael Polanyi has been explored in that connection and the purpose of the present article is to begin that exploration as discussed by the authors, providing a preliminary sketch of certain key moments in polanyi's thought and then turning attention to the Taoist themes of Tao, wu-wei, and tz'u as these illuminate and are illuminated by the Polanyian post-critical epistemology.
Abstract: . Several contemporary writers have found certain correlations between Taoism and modern philosophy of science to be particularly noteworthy because of their usefulness for interpreting world views, implicit or explicit, in each. However, the recent project in science and epistemology–the work of Michael Polanyi–which is probably most fruitfully resonant with Taoism has not yet been explored in that connection. The purpose of the present article is to begin that exploration. The essay provides a preliminary sketch of certain key moments in Polanyi's thought and then turns attention to the Taoist themes of Tao, wu-wei, and tz'u as these illuminate and are illuminated by the Polanyian post-critical epistemology.
TL;DR: In this paper, intelligence is seen as a natural property of living organisms at their highest levels: a characteristic of living things which is emergent in the same way as, and essentially in parallel with, perception, consciousness, and moral and spiritual sensitivities.
Abstract: . This paper sees intelligence as certainly not a thing which is the sole prerogative of man but rather as a category of skill, natural to all organisms, integral with their capacity for handling their environment, and increasingly well developed in the higher animals. Intelligence is seen as a natural property of living organisms at their highest levels: a characteristic of living things which is emergent in the same way as, and essentially in parallel with, perception, consciousness, and moral and spiritual sensitivities.
TL;DR: In this paper, Jungian John Sanford criticizes Carl Jung for underestimating the importance granted evil by at least some strains of Christianity and suggests that psychology is entitled to criticize Christianity whenever it fails to grant evil its due.
Abstract: . On the one hand Jungian John Sanford criticizes Carl Jung for underestimating the importance granted evil by at least some strains of Christianity. On the other hand Sanford follows Jung in assuming that psychology is entitled to criticize Christianity whenever it fails to grant evil its due. Like Jung, Sanford contends that he is faulting Christianity on only psychological grounds: for failing to cope with evil in man–the shadow archetype. In fact, Sanford, like perhaps Jung as well, is also criticizing Christianity on metaphysical grounds: for failing to acknowledge not just psychological but also ontological evil. Whether Sanford is thereby using psychology to assess Christian metaphysics is the issue.