pete

Despite the fact that I am an agnostic (or "soft") atheist, I am very interested in how religion functions.***I sometimes I get depressed when I think how quickly my life is passing, and that I'll be dead sooner than I think. I do not fear death, for my death will simply be the end of me***I consider myself a Darwinian Nihilist. Meaning, knowledge, truth--just like everything else--is a thing of this world, and is thus constructed. Because subjects and intersubjectivity characterize the human world, there's no such thing as a "natural" or "obvious" interpretation to anything, whether we're talking about a text or life events or the universe.***I am humbled by my finitude. I am tiny, historical, and a product of my times. And so are you. Even before I write this, my culture, times, and experiences have "written" me in some sense (and you too!). We may be more determined than we think. We are all stuck in a web of certain beliefs, assumptions, and sociopolitcial and linguistic frameworks that restrict as much as they vitalize.***As a behaviorist, I don't consider beliefs as that which practices or actions are based upon. I think all thought is made possible by (and thus also constained by) speech and language. The "mind" as a distinct sphere doesn't work for me. Each "mind"--by which I mean "brain" and not some Ghost in the Machine--is inexorably connected to the total biologico-ecologic "niche" in which an organism exists. To speak of a "mental life" as distinct from something else grossly overlooks this interdependence and arbitrary division of biological anatomy.***I like Skinner's claim that a complete account of behavior involves an understanding of selection history at three levels: biology (the natural selection or phylogeny of the animal); behavior (the reinforcement history or ontogeny of the behavioral repertoire of the animal); and for some species, culture (the cultural practices of the social group to which the animal belongs). This whole organism, with all those histories, then interacts with its environment.***2 quotes from Skinner himself will flesh out some implications:"In the traditional view, a person is free. He is autonomous in the sense that his behavior is uncaused. He can therefore be held responsible for what he does and justly punished if he offends. That view, together with its associated practices, must be re-examined when a scientific analysis reveals unsuspected controlling relations between behavior and environment." Also, "The picture which emerges from a scientific analysis is not of a body with a person inside, but of a body which is a person in the sense that it displays a complex repertoire of behavior. . . . What is being abolished is autonomous man—the inner man, the homunculus, the possessing demon, the man defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity. His abolition has long been overdue. . . . Science does not dehumanize man, it de-homunculizes him."***I look forward to whatever I can experience, good or bad. At least I am alive.***I am more aware of what I do not know than what I do. There's so much that I don't and will never understand.***My opinions are not fixed. They are only provisional, and are constantly open to being reworked, if needed. It usually is needed. Some inevitably see this as "being tossed about to and fro" and thus negatively, and to them a must post a question: Why is it wrong to be open to new ideas, and refuse to accept the fact that I have "arrived" intellectually? Only myopic arrogance, which I believe is at the heart of our world's problems, can uphold such an idea. Thus, Volaire: "We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly." "The fewer dogmas, the fewer disputes; the fewer disputes, the fewer miseries: if this is not true, then I'm wrong." If Voltaire is wrong, then so am I.***I don't believe in essences, objectivity, or "truth" (in the traditional sense)--although I think these can be made in softer versions. I believe in historicity, contingency, the inter-relatedness and linguistic construction and dependence of all things. However, all models of Reality don't work equally well. Reality is too obstinate to allow an endless amount of possible interpretations.***I hope for solidarity. I really want to help people, to better life for all, to eliminate suffering, poverty, etc., but I am constantly frustrated by who I want to be and who I am, and how to make what I love contribute to those ideals.***I am becoming slowly convinced that life is a form of art.***I am a vegetarian. For those who ask why, my reasons boil down to this: I think the lives and unnecessary suffering of animals is more important than the trivial concerns of my tastebuds.***I will be completing my second year of doctoral studies in Religion and Modernity in the Spring. I am exploring how both the Scientific and Darwinian Revolutions and the Linguistic Turn bears upon Science, Religion, and Philosophy. I am at once excited, humbled, and nervous -- overwhelmed in all -- by this awesome opportunity.