California Expert Software

Introduction
This article will introduce a series centered on recent readings in primatology and ethics. I have a strong "independent" streak. It's involuntary: I just think what I think and cannot escape it. Given how it is for me, I cannot imagine how others suppress their inclinations in the service of their superiors. I just have to philosophize ...

Relativism Rejected

Sometimes it's difficult for me to keep going, as I feel burdened by the weight of rejection and shunning. Having received a bad lab report, I was again thrown into turmoil about my Type II diabetes. On top of that, I feel my efforts as philosopher and author are usually unrewarded. Human societies have never been set up to accommodate dissenters and loners. Aristotle had it right, "Man is a social animal." We all want social support. It's "built-in." All that brought on a depressive mood which makes me sensitive to real or perceived slights.

I was particularly offended by a remark made by Prof. Patricia Churchland (UCSD) in her UCTV lecture on ethics. In the Q&A session, she was asked whether all decisions are caused. After a few moments of hesitation, she replied "yes." She also said that relativists were irrelevant to discussions of ethics and morality, because "anything goes" in relativist morality. It was this last, gratuitous comment that I found repulsive. But, in her defense, it is not the first time I have seen or heard similar dismissals of ethical relativists.

In attributing all decisions to causes, Prof. Churchland places herself with those hard-core materialists who are "determinists," whatever that means. Her rejection of relativism follows from that position, since the determinist notion entails ethical decisions are in some sense absolute. I think her view is an application of the Newtonian Universe to ethics. Were I answering the question about cause, I would have replied "What do you mean by 'cause?'"

Absolutism

The one thing that seems to characterize the public discussion of ethics and morals is the certainty leading advocates ascribe to their positions. They all agree in shoving aside relativists, such as myself. In dismissing relativism, all of those people seem to agree on the absolute nature of morals and, to a lesser degree, on the universality of ethical principles. There are endless varieties of ethical absolutism, depending on your preference of philosopher-king or religion. Most commonly, absolute ethics is expressed as some form of command, whether the Ten Commandments or Kant's Categorical Imperative. It is the command form of ethics which explicates "ought" in words like "duty," as in 'we have a duty to do the right thing.' In the command form of ethics, doing right is supposed to be the same as 'doing good.' The generalizations of 'good' and 'right' are, of course, 'Good' and 'Right,' a tradition started by various Ancient philosophers.

Why would anyone take absolutist positions? While motivation does not establish the truth or falsity of ideas, it does give us some idea of what is involved in their presentation and meaning. In the case of ethical absolutism, the motivation seems to be our social nature. Homo sapiens and its ancestors have been social animals for millions of years. Our bodily chemistry and the nervous connections of our brains want us to huddle together and cling to each other. We feel safe and secure that way. It is to be protected by our parents or, at least, Big Brother. Those proclivities are felt as powerful emotions. War parties have used the threats of being called traitor, shunned or cast out from society since time immemorial. to keep people in line. Socrates took hemlock rather than be exiled forever from Athens. Soldiers fight to the death out of loyalty to their fellow troops. The impetus to conform is so powerful in most people as to be overwhelming. For that reason, social conventions are felt as imperatives which we have a duty to obey.

Turning around our emotions and looking at them in the mirror, it should be obvious that feelings are not proof of moral propositions or actions. They are just feelings, no matter how strong. Therein lies an important distinction which separates ethics from anthropology, psychology, ethology and other behavioral sciences. I have no doubt people are impelled to obey commands, for any number of supposed reasons (which could be excuses, pretexts or justifications). Acting out of obedience and duty is not always the same thing as doing what is right or good. Immanuel Kant, the good philosopher of Konigsberg, may have been unknowingly influenced by his authoritarian Prussian environment. Over a century later, foreign invaders found soldiers ruled by Prussian passions guilty of war crimes, despite their defense of dutifully just following orders. What the Nuremberg trials decided, once and for all, is that obedience and duty are insufficient reasons (in Kant, grounds) for ethical actions. The obedient will be held to account despite their defense, because those claiming status as ethical beings are further required to examine their orders before obeying them.

I think the root of absolutism is the early training all of us receive from our parents. Children are weak and vulnerable for a decade or more. During that time they rely on their parents and community to protect them and provide everything. Also during that time, children become acquainted with everything that makes us human: language, beliefs, habits and rituals - "culture" in short. Our training extends to such matters as what foods we grow, buy or eat, what clothes and decorations we wear, what sounds we hear, how we deal with strangers, and what daily schedule we maintain. The end result of that training is that graduates inducted into adult society are almost indistinguishable from their teachers. Acculturation assures the success of a social model, as can be easily seen in the large number of long lived human societies that have changed little over many centuries. I view acculturation as extremely potent programming from which very few people ever break free. It is this programming which is felt as an imperative, "do this!"

In making this last observation, I hasten to admit that recent History confuses the picture. Beginning in the Twentieth Century, human societies have undergone many changes as a result of new technologies. Many societies have been absorbed into the new paradigm, and many others have been destroyed. Despite the rapid evolution of the First World as an industrial, information society, the majority of human beings are almost unaffected. That fact suggests re-examination of the First World with a view to determining just how much actually changed. While it would seem the modern way of life is a radical change from the old ways, the details of life and life patterns have not changed much for many people. For example, it is a common mid-life experience for people to discover they have "become" their mother or father. While modern society seems different from traditional ones, for most people it differs only by substitution of certain variables; e.g., working in the factory or office instead of plowing the fields, living in a built house instead of a grass shack and interacting with a larger community. But in their private lives, most denizens of the First World do not "live" much differently from their predecessors. It is only a small minority that have actually broken away from traditional lifestyles. In the United States, which is a fairly backward First World countries, I believe only about 10% of the population is liberated. "Advanced" Europeans are probably at most 25% of the population. Asians, especially the Japanese and Chinese, tend to be incredible conformists, which is actually the mainspring of their success. A cool, clinical inspection of modern societies will, I think, reveal less than meets the eye. Most people accept and live their authoritarian cultures.

Cultural Inertia

In passing, I note I believe myself liberated from traditional culture in many ways, but not completely. Freeing myself of traditional restraints and beliefs was very difficult, and is still an ongoing problem. I don't know exactly where the new developments lead. I think cultural change proceeds by trial and error, but will not proceed at all except by constant struggle based on thought. In other words, it is very easy to fall back into the old ways or to get locked into new ways. Either way, choices can be rapidly absorbed into the culture and thereafter appear as imperatives.

In the face of our easy reliance on old ways and their seeming rightness, the fact is that there are many cultures. Just as different religions have different doctrines, different cultures embody different beliefs, habit and rituals. Even a superficial comparison of people's lives in India, Japan and Europe supports that point. Each of these cultures has solved the basic problems of life for very long periods of time. The particulars of these cultures are usually transferable: Japanese methods of production will also work in Europe or the United States. There is no fundamental reason why Americans could not adopt Indian religions, yet otherwise continue as they are. So, we have a second fact about cultures: there are many paths to success. There is nothing in our world that precludes the success of the extant cultures, even though some of them are in "contradiction:" to others.

What does the existence of different, even contradictory, locally successful cultures entail? The analogy to religion illustrates the problem: people believe in thousands of different gods, most of which are said to be superior to all other gods. Something is prohibited in Atlanta, but encouraged in Timbuktu and altogether unknown in the deepest Amazon jungle. On account of those observations, it is impossible to assign any absolute value to the beliefs, habits or rituals - the cultures - involved. They have at most relative value. In adopting this basic idea of cultural relativism, the philosophical basis of absolutism is also weakened or undermined. Just as no one has ever seen Plato's invisible world of Forms, or Heaven or Hell, or any place between, no one has ever reported the essential culture or society. Cultural relativism is founded on actual experience, not dreams, magic or charms.

Now, why would people believe in the absolute truth of their culture (religion or whatever)? Because it gives them the feeling of invincibility. It avoids local strife. It solves problems without the necessity of thought. All that one has to do is obey orders. Most human beings readilly turn themselves into lifelong zombies not only because it is easy to conform, but it feels pleasant to be secure. Not to conform is to lead a life of distrust, turmoil and uncertainty. I can attest from personal experience that is downright difficult and upsetting to stand apart. The difference between conformity and individuality explains why most Americans will not actively oppose a Bandit President. It also explains why bandits get chosen for political offices and corporate management. It explains why local communities resist teaching scientific knowledge in their schools. It explains why societies persist in choices that ultimately doom them.

Mores v Morals

There has been a swelling of interest in morality lately, as evidenced in the tsunami of books now crossing the ocean as logs of felled trees. Those logs will become paper in books during the next 6-12 months. The preponderance of books about morality in press propose to explain it in "naturalistic" terms. That term is a cover for those accepting Darwinian evolution; i.e., the authors believe Homo sapiens is a primate, an ape descended from apes. (I, too, believe that theory.) The "naturalistic" explanation of morality relies heavily on observations of behavior among chimpanzees and bonobos that is similar to human behavior.

The unfortunate tendency of these authors is to slip from "similar" to "the same." In that, I believe they are strongly motivated by the ascendancy of the Religious Right in the United States, and Conservative political action aimed at suppressing the teaching of Evolution. Moreover, Conservatives have instigated many controversies concerning the suppression of intellectual freedom, including scientific freedom. I think the flurry of books is a belated response to the Conservative rule because most of the books are written by those targeted by Conservative policies.

In contrast, I think there is a difference between mores and morals, a difference which starts with the word "ought." Ought entails choice; without choice there can be no ought. "You ought to do X" implies you could do otherwise than X. It really is that simple: the necessary precondition of any ought is voluntary choice. That there are choices is the explication of Hume's dichotomy of "is" and "ought:" ises don't choose.

In the world of is, the primate world before voluntary choice, there may well be highly evolved traits. There is nothing that prohibits the development of intelligence without choice. This assertion should be obvious to anyone who uses computers of recent vintage. Available software is smart in many little ways. It is even smart enough to figure out what I say and turn it into words on paper with (at last!) an acceptable level of error. Even today's simplest word processors, Google search and accounting programs are incredibly sophisticated compared to their predecessors a few years or decades ago. (I can personally attest this, having been involved with computers since 1967.) The unfortunate but most important standard of computer intelligence is the hordes of human workers it has replaced. Computers are everywhere in our lives, doing things that would otherwise require an army of living servants. But, none of that ability - intelligence - has yet identified a computer capable of voluntary choice or consciousness.

There can be no doubt about the scientific evidence: Homo sapiens is descended from precursor primates. People share some 98-99% of their genes with chimpanzees and bonobos. As documented by the primatologists, all the primates have many shared behaviors. The genetic and neural makeup we have in common with other primates certainly explains many of our emotions and impulses. We have in common with other primates elements of culture and something we call "intelligence." Even so, as with computers, none of that rises to the level of ethical creatures. The sine qua non of ethical behavior is voluntary choice, as I have argued elsewhere.

When we study behavior in the absence of choice, we are studying mores, not morals. These two different things are easily confused, because what is observed is behavior. Choice is usually hidden as it happens in the neural cortex. Recent PET studies have exposed the physiological basis of choice by illustrating areas of the brain that "light up" when choices are made. This invaluable studies not only show how a choice "comes to mind," but how it progresses through the brain to decision and action. The material basis of choosing is thus demonstrated. But that is not the same thing as the choice, even if it is the choice operationally defined. What's missing in the observation is the specificity of choice, because the same areas of brain are involved in many different choices.

I owe to A.M. Turing the basis of the key insight regarding this problem: the Turing Machine. Turing proved that his construction could undertake any computable problem. Many problems could always be solved in a finite number of steps. Some computable problems might take a denumerably infinite sequence of steps, but could always yield results within a specified margin of error in a finite number of steps. Then there were other (NP) problems that could not be delimited, and an unknown number that could not be computed at all (Gödel undecidable). Turing's Machine is a universal, powerful tool exemplified in every computer now in use. Yet, the most significant thing about the Turing Machine is the reduction of software to a few simple, "built-in" functions which can be invoked by recorded marks. In other words, there is no physical difference between the program and data content of a computer; software is data. That is also what the PET scans demonstrate in human brains.

Nonetheless, those of us who've dealt with computers as their masters understand software in a completely different light. Programs can be written down and printed out. They can be executed on many different machines. They can be communicated from one machine to another, and one software-literate person to another. In our experience, software has a life of its own independent of any particular machine. As one who does not believe in Platonic Universes, this leads to an apparent conundrum of the disembodied software and the software which only exists in virtue of the hardware which runs it. Further, I believe this riddle is essentially the same as that of consciousness and voluntary choice. In all these cases, what we have before us is PET scans, instructional processes, and apparitions of an active brain; collectively "mind." But Mind does not exist anywhere; it is just another concept.

In going round and round with this problem, we seem to get nowhere. A century ago, there were philosophical and mathematical wars about concepts, which eventually led to the latter-day Humeans, linguists, etc and the arguments about Mind. I don't think traditional methods can untie the Gordian knot. That is why the Turing Test of intelligence and my generalization to ethics, the Moral Turing Test, are needed. They give an operational basis for dealing with concepts and morality. It's simply the proverbial Duck Test: 'if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's a duck (until proved otherwise).' Another way to think about this is to reflect on the millennia spent trying to derive Euclid's parallel postulate from his other premises. As Riemann and others showed, non-Euclidean geometry is possible. Einstein made Riemannian geometry indispensable. The parallel postulate is just that. So, with Turing's Imitation Test and my Self-Declaration.

Studies of primate (including human) behavior are invaluable in informing us about ourselves. How much of what we do is really voluntary, how much not? What are the buttons evil-doers can push, and how can we avoid being puppets of unscrupulous masters? These are important pieces of knowledge and questions very relevant to current affairs in our world. In order to answer those and other questions, we must adopt some principles that we cannot prove. It may be the principles seem likely based on our descent and biological relatedness, but 'likely' is not enough when determining what is 'good;' or 'right.' Moreover, it may well be that the operations of systems engendered by those principles are capable of doing things or drawing conclusions which go beyond "natural capability." That is, consciousness and ethical behavior create their own worlds, in which mere physical existence and mechanistic behavior is not a major factor. Those worlds are absolutist in nature, in so far as their founding principles regulate their content, but relativist as well in so far as they are founded on tentative hypotheses for which no proof can ever be found.

Standing Up

Relativism Rejected

Absolutism

Cultural Inertia

Mores v Morals