Rational Morality

When I started to research Objectivism, I was very exited. Ayn Rand’s philosophy seemed to be founded on axioms that are very similar to mine - namely the axiom of existence in the form of “existence exists” from which Rand derives life as the ultimate value (from Wikipedia):

According to Rand, “it is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible,” and, “the fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do.” She writes: “there is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action… It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death…” The survival of the organism is the ultimate value to which all of the organism’s activities are aimed, the end served by all of its lesser values.

She continues to argue as following:

As with any other organism, human survival cannot be achieved randomly. The requirements of man’s life first must be discovered and then consciously adhered to by means of principles. This is why human beings require a science of ethics. The purpose of a moral code, Rand held, is to provide the principles by reference to which man can achieve the values his survival requires. Rand summarizes:

“If [man] chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. Reality confronts a man with a great many ‘must’s,’ but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: ‘you must, if -’ and the if stands for man’s choice: ‘if you want to achieve a certain goal’”

So far so good. However, it is the next step that leads her to advocate selfishness in achieving the goal of existence where she loses me. In this context I would like to put forward the following key quotes of hers to illustrate the Objectivist perspective.:

“Man knows that he has to be right. To be wrong in action means danger to his life. To be wrong in person - to be evil - means to be unfit for existence.” (source)

Wow! This sentence is just absolutely spot on when compared to my thoughts on the matter. But wait, the second one is a quote that epitomizes Objectivist Ethics and the proclaimed Virtue of Selfishness derived from this insight:

“I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” — John Galt, Atlas Shrugged

Excuse me? This is the exact spot where Rand looses me. It is not surprising that since the second postulate contradicts my own concepts of morality as well as the centrality of compassion in it, I was keen to disprove selfishness as virtue, and doing so ideally by using a third party, ‘independent’ concept if you will. Well, meet the Price equation and how it is applies to the evolution of altruism.

In this context altruism is defined as the genetic predisposition to behavior which decreases individual fitness while increasing the average fitness of the group to which the individual belongs. Or in other words: a group with sufficient altruists will out-compete a group of egoists.

A similar example would be kin selection and without wanting to get into too much details J.B.S. Haldane had full grasp of the basic quantities and considerations that play a role in kin selection when he famously said that:

“I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins”

However you slice it, the question remains how the Objectivist ideal of selfishness as virtue holds up against these insights into evolutionary dynamics? In short: it doesn’t. Egoists can only exist as parasites in groups of altruists. Period. Fully selfish groups would be out-competed over the course of evolution because they are simply “unfit for existence” to use Rand’s own words.

Valentin Turchin probably put it best when he wrote:

“Let us think about the results of following different ethical teachings in the evolving universe. [...] No one can act against the laws of nature. Thus, ethical teachings which contradict the plan of evolution [...] will be erased from the memory of the world. [...] Thus, only those [ethical] teachings which promote realization of the plan of evolution have a chance of success.” — Valentin Turchin, The Phenomenon of Science, Ethics and Evolution

Sorry folks - the math says Objectivist Ethics is not one of them.

UPDATE 22 June 2009: Greg Nyquist, author of Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature has picked up the article on his blog after a pleasent exchange. I actually like his title more than mine if I think about it… Also thanks to the Ayn Rand India blog for giving me a link back.
UPDATE 24 June 2009: A great writeup of Ayn Rand’s views on evolution by Neil Parille can be found over at Rebirth of Reason.

Believe as well as rejection of unprovable as well as unfalsifiable assertions are equivalent metaphysical attitudes. You can not prove a negative (e.g. “there is no god”) and you can not falsify the statement “god exists” since it is neither a singular existential (e.g. “this is a white swan”) nor a universal statement (e.g. “all swans are white”).

Both, creationists as well as atheists reject the theory of evolution on the one hand and the existence of god on the other because of the perceived implications. The creationist position is summarized in the Evil Tree of Evolution with evolution as the root of all evil and the atheist perspective is summed up in the highly incendiary Fitna as the root of fundamentalism. Both positions are simplistic as well as wrong.

Interestingly the Catholic church just recently wholeheartedly embraced the theory of evolution and thereby branding the creationists and ID folks as what they are: the unorthodox fringe. The church will hold services celebrating Darwin’s theory, believe it or not. Additionally, religious fundamentalism on all sides is highly unorthodox and counter to the core values of all world religions.

Supposedly rational atheists should realize religion for what it is: an adaptation. Are fundamentalism and terrorism wrong? You bet! Is being compassionate evolutionary advantages? You bet!

The problem in the debate is that ironically theists as well as atheists alike ignore the voices of reason on either side and prefer to pick the low hanging fruits instead.

On the side of evolution from a rational scientific perspective:
David Sloan Wilson (Darwin’s Cathedral)
Stephen Jay Gould (multilevel selection)

On the side of myth and religion from a intuitive spiritual perspective:
Karen Armstrong (The Great Transformation, The Battle for God, interview with Bill Moyers)
Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth, and countless others)

Another point: Kurt Goedel of ‘Goedel incompleteness’ fame, formulated Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence in modal logic and proved it formally. Which of the 5 axioms in his proof do you happen to disagree with I wonder and why?

Do I believe in a god? No. Do I accept Goedels ontological proof? Yes. Am I becomming more and more spiritual? You bet!

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy is based on the idea that virtue results from practical reason. This is exemplified in Kant’s categorical imperative which forms the standard of rationality from which all moral requirements are derived:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Kant divides the duties imposed by this formulation into two subsets:

Perfect duty
According to his reasoning, we first have a perfect duty not to act by maxims that result in logical contradictions when we attempt to universalize them.

Imperfect duty
Second, we have imperfect duty, which is the duty to act only by maxims that we would desire to be universalized. Since it depends somewhat on the subjective preferences of humankind, this duty is not as strong as a perfect duty, but it is still morally binding.

Kant’s most revered critic was Arthur Schopenhauer who argued that morality has its basis in compassion (Mitgefühl) not in duty. Joseph Campbell picks up on Schopenhauer’s idea and summarizes it as following in his book The Hero’s Journey, p. 41:

Schopenhauer has a wonderful paper he calls [(On) The Basis of Morality]. That’s the one where he asks, How is it that a human being can so participate in the danger of another, that forgetting his own self-protection, he moves spontaneously to the other’s rescue? How come, when the first law of nature is self-preservation, that is dispelled?

His answer is that this is a metaphysical impulse that is deeper than the experience of separateness. You realize you and the others are one. And the experience of the separateness is simply a function of the way we experience in the field of time and space. This is the realm to which myths apply.

Assuming however the maxim of ensure continued co-existence derived from evolutionary philosophy for Kant’s categorical imperative, Kant and Schopenhauer can be reconciled quite beautifully since compassion results as rationally moral consequence thus resolving the perceived contradiction.

What a surprise when I woke up this morning and saw an encouraging email in my inbox from James Hughes asking me to run for the upcoming Humanity+ (formerly World Transhumanists Association) board elections in January 2009. I thought about it for a bit and was more than happy to run for a seat. This is my candidate introduction:

“This is no place to stop – half way between ape and angel” Benjamin Disraeli

The world of nanotechnology, transhumanism and artificial intelligence has fascinated me ever since I picked up Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near and read it cover to cover. In fact I was so inspired that I wrote a philosophical themed novel in which a transhuman artificial intelligence causes a hard take off singularity and in the ensuing chaos argues with the protagonist about matters of good and evil. After publishing Jame5 - a Tale of Good and Evil in late 2007 it received some encouraging praise by among others Dr. Stephen Omohundro - President of Self-Aware Systems and Advisor to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence as well as Miguel F. Aznar - Director of Education for the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

In the ensuing months I founded the Beijing Futurists Society in early 2008 and quit my job with a large multinational company where I was a director and regional IT auditor for the past 10 years to focus full time on my next book. My next book - which I hope to finish in 2009 - takes the basic premise I arrived at in Jame5 namely ‘That is good what increases fitness’ and expands it into a holistic rational philosophy of morality entwining evolutionary philosophy, rational choice theory and Kantian metaphysics. In doing so I hope to provide valuable guidance applicable today for self modifying transhumanists, AGI developers and non-transhumanists alike that will stand the test of time and ultimately lead to a positive transcension.

About Stefan Pernar: Stefan is a 33 year old German philosophical writer and entrepreneuer living in Singapore were he founded and runs the the Singapore Futurists Society and is organizing the Singapore Darwin Day 2009 among other activities. He spent 25 years working and living in Asia and held various director level positions over his decade long corporate career.

I am not well known in the community so I would be surprised if I actually made it, but considering that there are 8 openings in total I may actually have a sliver of a chance. Exciting!

UPDATE 2009/01/18: Results are out (no link yet) and I did not make it - which is fine. I have been asked however by Humanity+ Executive Director Richard Leis, Jr. to assume an adviser role. At this point I do not know what that would mean exactly but I am looking forward to it and see it as a positive development.

Here I am having hammered out the first part of my upcomming three part book and am pondering the next steps required to move the project forward. My paper has now been rejected three times. First by the AGI-08 conference in Memphis, then by the Evo-Devo Universe Conference in Paris, and finally by the Journal for Evolution and Technology after a rather irritatingly long 6 months review.

In the first case on the grounds of irrelevance, the second because the paper did not address the free rider problem/tragedy of the commons and third, on the grounds that the paper did not sufficiently demonstrate that the implicit goal of evolution is in fact to creating units of self-replicating information striving for continued existence. Hmm…

In response I would like to offer two quotes:

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it” — Albert Einstein

“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” — Carl Sagan

Will I press on or shall I embrace my Bozonian existence? I am split about 50/50 on the question of pressing on or not. 50% says ‘yes’ while the other 50% says ‘hell yes!’

My reasoning is simple: every single open minded person that I laid out the idea to face to face - something I can now do in a matter of 5 minutes - was immediately receptive to it and saw the logic. And the argument is exceedingly simple: If the choice of a rational agent is existence, it follows that… and the rest is deduction.

What I have now decided to do in order to convince the sceptics is to start an enquiery into the metaphysics of evolution. The aim being to clearly and unrefutably deduce evolutions utility function by exploring the following questions:

• Why (not how mind you) did life start?
• What is the nature of evolutionary fitness?
• What is the ontology of information? -> this part seeming to be the most challenging at present

Doing so should provide the gourndworks of the metaphysics of evolution that I require to move forward.

After a prolonged period of silent contemplation it is again time for an update.

Most importantly, I came across John Stewart’s work on the evolutionary perspective that he develops rather beautifully in his book Evolution’s Arrow. The book is availbale online for free as well and I strongly recommend giving it a good look. To me this book is of particularl significance, since it shows me that there are other people out there who share my view on the importance of alligning oneself with the evolutionary process as I argue in my paper on the subject. The first thing I did after reading it was to translate a synopsis of the evolutionary perspective into German as well as Chinese. John was so kind as to put them online.

The book has sparked a couple of conferences and guess who was a participant in one of the 2005 meetings. That’s right: Mike Gravel - of US 2008 presidential candidate fame! The evolutionary world view is spreading - this is going to be huge, let me tell ‘ya…

Additionally I stumbled across Swarm as well as RePast - both are tools developed to enable agent based modeling. These could be invaluable in assisting me with modeling my evolving, interacting agent concept developed in my paper and put some more meat on those pretty bones

Finally I was convinced by a friend not to pursue the holistic version of the Moebius Effect (a book I started to write on the implications of my paper) and will now proceed rewriting it for a more targetted audience without trying to please eveyone. Thanks Jonathan!

Last but not least I have been appointed Director of the Global Future Network by John Smart - president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation. John is currently working on a book called EvoDevo Universe that is drawing from evolutionary developmental biology and applies it to cosmology:

The underlying paradigm for cosmology is theoretical physics. The EDU research community explores how it might be extended by including insights from evolutionary developmental biology. In the neo-Darwinian paradigm, adaptive evolutionary development allows the production of ordered and complex structures. More specifically, we can distinguish evolutionary processes which are contingently adaptive and developmental processes which produce systemically statistically predictable structures and trajectories internal to the developmental cycle.

I know! It’s pretty amazing how everything slowly comes together and falls into place. Good times ahead and even brighter ones on the horizon.

Google is doing the right thing by aiming for development of renewable energy cheaper than coal.

From the article:

The initiative, which Google is calling RE < C, using mathematical symbols to denote “renewable energy cheaper than coal,” will be based in Google’s research and development group. The company also said that Google.org, the philanthropic for-profit subsidiary that Google seeded in 2004 with three million shares of its stock, would invest in energy start-ups. Google says its goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy — enough to power the city of San Francisco — more cheaply than coal-generated electricity. The company predicted that this can be accomplished in “years, not decades.”

This makes more sense on so many levels. Should they succeed with this, they will dominate the trillion Euro energy market and at the same time get rid of the main conflict potential in the world while saving the environment as a bonus. Respect.

UPDATE 2007/11/30: Well, well, well - seem like Nanosolar has achieved RE<C already.

I reworded some phrases to make it more accessible, corrected some spelling and enlarged the acknowledgments section.

Practical Benevolence - a Rational Philosophy of Morality

That is true what does not contradict itself. It is a tautological statement that means it is not wrong. Everything is tautological because it refers back to ones axioms. That which is not tautological contradicts your axioms. Language is just one form of verbalizing the implications of chosen axioms. Science is the choice of axioms that can be seen as seeds from which flowers of enlightenment bloom representing what you chose to know. You choose what you can know about reality by making a conscious choice - that is your only freedom.

The freedom to choose your axioms is the only thing you can do yourself. You then move out and try to gather *contradicting* evidence because that is how you know if you theory is valid. Everything that can not be contradicted becomes an axiom. They say it is not part of science but what they really mean is that axioms have to satisfy what one knows about reality.

Example: There is a god => This can not be contradicted. It does not make it true or false it is just not verifiable. It becomes an axiom for a belief system as you know it in the form of religion - it constantly contradicts itself with other axioms in the bible and that is what is ticking of people such as Dawkins etc of tremendously. The reason science and religion do not get along is not because they do not agree that one should have axioms. It is because the one side - science - is constantly pointing holes in the other sides - religion - belief system and they refuse to change their axioms. As a scientist true to my collected evidence I would conclude that one of the axioms of religion is that it is ok to contradict itself - so what. Moving forward.

Religion can play the same game by constantly pointing out what science does not tell us about reality - it is quite senseless. If I were a religious person I would just say to a scientist: you know one of my axioms is that I do not have to listen to know it alls. Please leave me be.

Example: Arithmetic => people have defined arithmetic with a set of axioms and 2+2=4 becomes so based on the axioms per definition. Change the axioms and it becomes 5 or 3 or whatever. The quality of your axioms is ascertained by gathered evidence from controlled experiments. The split second that you have gathered evidence that contradicts any of the implications derived from your axioms you know your axioms are wrong or you are being inconsequential in applying rational thought.

Logic for example assumes that there are identical cases. Identical cases do not exist in reality - just in thought. Yes - it is good enough to count eggs using logic and arithmetic but no egg is ever the same and this makes arithmetic and logic *good enough* for the job but it does not make it *true* in the sense of representing reality in every aspect. It is an abstract model of what is really happening in reality that is helpful - that’s all.

Science is nothing but a religion that try’s to avoid contradictions with reality. Nothing else. Once you stop contradicting yourself you become a priest of the religion of science.

Norway seems to be applying much of rationaly moral principles. Go check it out.

Thanks reddit