 |
| Notre Dame-watercolour & acrylic-G. Woolley |
In my other blog "Reading Comprehension" I have been concerned with the teaching of reading comprehension. Many of the ideas presented were associated with research for books that I had written. In contrast, this blog, focuses on a future book that I am in the process of planning and researching. At this point it does not have a name but it will focus on the essence of meaning and how, we as human beings, construct meanings as we interact with other beings and objects in our world. It will be concerned with perception, understanding and ontology.
To understand the meaning making process we need to dig deeply using fundamental religious, philosophical and scientific understandings. After all, comprehension is basically the act of gaining answers to questions that we like to ask ourselves. To ask foundational questions will enable us to begin to understand what is meant by meaning itself and what we mean when we ask what we or others mean. How do we interpret and construct meaning when we perceive something that elicits our attention during a particular instance?
Light bulb memories
The images that were firmly etched into our collective western mind with, for example, the shooting of John F. Kennedy and destruction of the twin towers in New York, could easily be recalled by those that are old enough to have seen the media pictures of the time broadcast around the world. These stark images are often referred to as 'light bulb' memories because they are almost as vivid as when we first saw them. Most people my age share those same images. Likewise, the recent burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral captured the collective attention of millions people, not only in the West but all around the world. I have painted (above) my impression of the destruction of this great icon and I am sure that you will instantly recognise it even though it is just a rough sketch. The burning of Notre Dame, no doubt is one of those light bulb moments that are etched into our collective minds. The vividness of that image in your mind is related to the intensity of the emotional impact of the event and its relationship to your world view.
Cultural understandings
We may all have a slightly different understanding of the significance of the burning of this great building but it has created a great deal of heightened interest and commentary via the news media. Whatever we make of these individual images it will, no doubt, position us all with some point of reference or shared meaning. History also records to some degree a shared understanding for those who have visited the Notre Dame Cathedral or for those that have studied French history, art history, history of Western Religion, or even the history of Western philosophy.
Significance of Notre Dame
The cathedral has an historic, religious, artistic, philosophical and cultural significance that goes far beyond the borders of modern France. It was built in the twelfth century (started in the year 1163) during a time when Christianity had spread throughout Europe and beyond the city dwellers and into rural peasantry. The building represented incredible engineering and scientific achievement. It took over one hundred years for it to be finished with an enormous amount of money, time and dedication. Those who designed, engineered, and started building would never see the results of their efforts in their lifetime. For many the dedication came from the idea that it would be a beacon to show the world the glory of the God of the Bible. At this time virtually the only literate people were the monks (certainly the only ones that could read latin) in the monasteries that proliferated throughout Western Europe. Monasticism during the Dark Ages reflected 'revelation' and 'reason' in partnership. The Monasteries became the storehouse for understanding revelation, exploring known knowledge while applying and modelling democratic social structures. It was the educated class of monks that introduced Western civilisation to Greek scientific learning and encouraged the scientific enquiry of 'God's creation' hence giving birth to modern science and democracy (see previous blog - Inventing the Individual).
The Cathedral, more than any other icon still standing, was the epitome of the combination of revelation (scripture) with reason (Greek thought) (see Ben Shapiros book, 'The Right Side of History' for a broader understanding - future blog). Not only did this building exemplify two great understandings that would eventually become the root of the Enlightenment but it brought the the teachings of the Bible to the common man (mostly illiterate at that time) through the visual stories and images in the stainless glass windows, art works and statues that adorned the building. The building itself was intentionally designed so that when you stand inside (or even outside) your eyes were directed to the ceiling, the spire, and beyond so that it gave the viewer a sense of eternity and transcendence. During this time the medieval church became the centre of learning and established the first universities that would give momentum to revelation and reason. This Gothic building had the power to take us back in time to remind us of the roots of our civilisation and of the great leap forward in human progress.
Humanist Enlightenment
Look to the left beyond the edge of the picture (in real life as if you were standing there) you would see the Eiffel Tower nearby. This more recent structure epitomises the peak of Enlightenment engineering and together with the advent of Darwin's Origin of the Species, exemplified the partial severing of 'revelation' from 'reason'. Together, the Eiffel Tower and Darwin's theory highlighted man's ingenuity and the beginning of a separation from Europe's spiritual foundations. Two world wars and the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people during the last century led to disillusionment with modernism and humanism (I will explore this idea extensively in future book reviews).
Separation and decline
Even though scientific humanism (reason) has been dealt a near fatal blow, much like Christianity (revelation) before it, there have been some attempts to revive this philosophical root. Since the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 the new atheists and the neo-humanists have attempted to regain the initiative by claiming that science contradicts or is in opposition to revelation. However, the majority of Americans, for example, do not believe in evolution: postmodernism has now replaced humanism as the dominant philosophical force. Waning interest in STEM subjects reflects a general lack of interest in Science. Could this be a result of reason being divorced from revelation? Study of the material world without purpose and meaning is sterile.
This has been somewhat of a long introduction to my present book review but it is also a condensation of the previous reflections. This book is the second book that I have recently read written by the neo-Enlightenment thinker, Steven Pinker. In his book Enlightenment Now (see an earlier blog) he endeavours to posit the idea that the Enlightenment was the sole foundation that produced the benefits of modern human progress. After reading extensively, I found this naive and misinformed (for example see Ben Shapiro: YouTube). The book is entitled, 'How the Mind Works'. 'The Times' comment on the cover stated, 'How the mind Works will change the way your mind works'. Well for me, it didn't! It was very unconvincing. Pinker refers to himself as a cognitive scientist (as I do) so I was hoping to gain a better understanding of my own research area. Unfortunately, Pinker's book seemed to be some sort of justification for the Darwinian notion of natural selection. There is no doubt that all creatures are designed with a facility to adapt to their environment otherwise existence on earth would be difficult (obviously some species are not able to adapt sufficiently or quick enough when there are environmental stresses). But to suggest that the human brain and physiology, in all its biochemical and biophysical complexity, is entirely the result of natural selection is a huge leap of faith and is restrictive to further exploration.
Shaky ground
This book is over 600 pages long and when your foundational premise (natural selection) is based on very shaky ground (which I will point out shortly) it is very hard to stay focussed. It was like reading a never ending story. In essence, he relies on Darwin's theory, Sam Harris's neo-Atheism, and Dawkin's flawed thinking. Shapiro (see future post: Right Side of History: Part 1) claims that he uses circular thinking because he assumes that this assumption is correct he bases his subsequent arguments around that premise. An example Page 166) is what follows - "readers young enough to have had sex education or old enough to be reading articles about the prostrate may have noticed that the seminal ducts in men do not lead directly from the testes to the penis but snake up into the body and pass over the ureter before coming back down." Now, wait for it! This is where the Big Crunch comes! Let's continue! " That is because the testes of our reptilian ancestors were inside their bodies. The bodies of mammals are too hot for the production of sperm, so the testes gradually descended into a scrotum."
Natural selection
You might be convinced by this argument, I nearly brushed over it (maybe that is why I put the bush in the picture above) but I had recently had a radical robotic prostatectomy and I know that there are quite a few good reasons why the vas deferens is so long and why it snakes around. He goes on to say, unlike a human engineer, selection is incapable of good design. "Animals are clunking jalopies saddled with ancestral junk and occasionally blunder into barely serviceable solutions." The main idea behind this claim is that natural selection is random and there should be some residual evidence of natural accidents, or changes, such as the one imagined above. The argument is that there should be evidence of successful changes, unsuccessful changes, and changes that are in the process of a long transformation. The tonsils, the tail bone, and the appendix were proposed to evidence this notion until it was found that they actually did have important functions - the search goes on and no residual body elements appear. It should be noted, however, that there is evidence from the genome that we carry faults within the genes structures (see YouTube: interview with Dr John Sanford) but they are redundant and generally do not affect the characteristics of the species (except in the case of some diseases). The length of the vas deferens does not prove natural selection.
Thus Pinker provides a very faulty argument for natural selection, which is the foundation for all that follows in his book. There is a lot of backward reasoning starting with natural selection. It is easy to take something that exists in a particular environment and then do some backward engineering. For example, lets say that humans developed language because our ancestors, who were apes needed ... etc. Without evidence that can be replicated in the laboratory it allows for some interesting stories that sound incredible and often illogical.
Conclusion
Coming back to the Notre Dame Cathedral, what has this got to do with - How the mind works? Since Pinker's book seemed to be more about natural selection and a justification for humanism without faith, the Cathedral tells us a lot. After the French Revolution when the Humanist Enlightenment gained ground on the headless bodies of thousand that had been guillotined they seized many churches and cathedrals including Notre Dame, which they made into the Temple of Reason in which they placed busts of Greek philosophers in place of the crucifix and statues of Mary. However, this only lasted a couple of years until the guillotine caught up with them also, just as the horrific events of the twentieth century caught up with the Enlightenment.
Other links that may be of interest:
Rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral Contradicts Everything Secular Europe Stands For: Rebel Priest
Vas deferens: Refuting 'bad design' arguments: Journal of Creation
No comments:
Post a Comment