Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

The Evolution
of God
Evolutionary Teleology

Robert Wright

Journalist, Philosopher

“The Story of this Evolution itself points to the existence of something you can meaningfully call divinity”

   Post 108.  March 08, 2020 continued . . .

  The Evolution of God

   Transcendent Moral Order                   

 But, in the next paragraph he avers that it’s “a ‘designing’ process, not a designing god”. Which is also my understanding of the evolutionary process. However, the open question is how did that process get started? So, he admits that “the believer is entitled to ask the same question about evolution : where did the amazing algorithm of natural selection come from?” In nature, Selection is an if-then choice from among options, that eventually arranged matter into living and thinking organisms. In a computer an if-then logic gate7 is purely mechanical with no consciousness of possible outcomes, except for the original intention of the Programmer. Although a final goal is implicit in the construction of a computer program, it is usually assumed to an amoral, purely functional objective. However, Wright again admits that the “believer” could say, that “a physical system exhibiting moral order demands a more exotic explanation”. Since his thesis concludes that evolution is indeed progressing toward higher Moral Order among humans, he must address the next question : “is there a transcendent moral order or is there not?”8.

Again, as an evolutionary scientist, he is evasive about anything that seems to transcend the limits of the space-time universe. Yet he admits that “the source of moral order isn’t necessarily incompatible with a scientific worldview”. So, he focuses on the Natural Laws that all scientists depend-on, but take for granted : “maybe the laws of the universe . . . Are subordinate to the [moral] purpose, because they were designed with the purpose in mind.” But then he pulls back, with a wave of the hand, to avoid directly defining the Purposer. If the designer of the Selection Algorithm is viewed as a Programmer, then to produce a Moral Order outcome, it must be designed as a Moral Algorithm9. Therefore, Wright again comes close to endorsing an ultimate Source that is equivalent to the traditional definition of God. He admits that, “if you buy into this particular theology of the Logos — then feeling the presence of a personal god has a kind of ironic validity”. Then, at the end of the What is God Afterword, he asks, “is god love?” His feeble agnostic answer is “you might say that love and truth are the two primary manifestations of divinity in which we can partake, and that by partaking in them we become truer manifestations of the divine.”

Wright says that his book was written from a materialist perspective10. IMHO, The ancient worldviews of Materialism and Spiritualism approaches are out of date. So, I have submitted the Enformationism approach, with its hypothetical Trans-cendent source of Meaning. No faith required, moral progress will happen if it's necessary to complete the program. The invisible god is also a metaphor. Yet it refers to a transcendent, but necessary, creative force operating in the world. This also seems to be the point of Bernardo Kastrup's More Than Allegory, Thomas Nagel’s Mind & Cosmos, and Howard Bloom’s The Lucifer Principle + The God Problem. All of these secular authors seem to be intuiting some higher purpose in evolution, hence some transcendent purposer. But one who works via Nature instead of SuperNature. Unfortunately, Transcendence means “beyond the reach of Science”, so Intuition may be our only access to Wright’s philosophical Logos. 

                                End of Post 108

The argument from morality :

* Laws imply a lawgiver
* There is an objective    moral order

*Therefore there is a   Moral Law Giver

9. Moral Algorithm :
  A computer algorithm is inherently a directional and progressive operator. But a Moral Algorithm must compute a “non-zero” “win-win” solution for those who are subject to its effects.

10. A Buddhist Perspective
   In his next book, Why Buddhism Is True (2017), Wright clarifies that, “I’m not talking about the ‘super-natural’ or more exotically metaphysical parts of Buddhism — reincarnation, for example — but rather about the naturalistic parts : ideas that fall squarely within modern psychology and philosophy.” The specific “part” he endorses is meditative practice, which is not exclusive to the religion of Buddhism.
   In my own Enformationism thesis, I make the same disclaimer repeatedly. But some people will still mistake it for a religious treatise.

7. If-Then Logic Gate :
   In computer logic the IF function is a conditional query about the presence of a piece of data. When the data is available (the TRUE function) the gate opens, and sends it to the location specified by the THEN function. This works like Natural Selection to allow only information that meets certain criteria to pass-on to the next stage of a computation. In both applications, the selection criteria are pre-set by the Programmer, and are inherent in the operating system.

8. Transcendent Moral Order
   The 19th century philosophy of Transcendentalism taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity.
   Natural Law – “a real, transcendent moral order which flows from God's eternal law.” Reference to the US Constitution.
   I doubt that Wright believes in transcendence.