The Edge Foundation
was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world.
The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.
The Edge poses an annual questions and invites various people to reply. The 2005 questions was What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?
The 2006 question is What is your dangerous idea? What is meant is an idea that is not dangerous because it is wrong but dangerous in that it actually may be true. There are 119 contributors so I won’t go through them all. I’ll select a few of the provocative ones (not that I necessarily agree) and reveal my dangerous idea.
First off, David Bodanis puts forward one of the more provocative ideas. That is the hyper-Islamicist critique of the West as a decadent force that is already on a downhill course might be true. Simon Baron Cohen’s idea is altogether different and is a political system based on empathy. Karl Sabbach questions whether the human brain and its products are incapable of understanding the truths about the universe. And Alison Gopnik thinks that it may not be good to encourage scientists to articulate dangerous ideas.
I’m not going to argue with or against the examples. That is what comments are for. They are intended to give a picture of the breadth of ideas discussed. It is all quite fascinating for thinkers all across the philosophical, scientific and political spectrum.
My dangerous idea is not original. Indeed a few people chose it for the Edge collection. The idea is that we are utterly alone in the universe both physically and spiritually. By physically I mean that there is no other sentient life in the universe. I don’t want this to be so but at the moment, UFO nuts aside, it seems this way. I would venture to say that there some sort of life elsewhere but it is neither intelligent nor sentient. The simplest answer to the Fermi Paradox may be the correct one.
Spiritually I mean the idea that there no supreme being exists watching over us. We are not the children of a benevolent god but just one manifestation of the process of evolution. Some would say that this idea, if widely held, would lead to nihilism ruling the roost. Maybe Leo Strauss was correct in thinking that the masses need religion to be kept in check. The other possibility is that without religion people will turn to cults of personality and political ideals held with the same fervour.
Myself, and quite a few other infidels, do not view this idea as being nihilistic. Far from it. It is liberating. Not in a “woo hoo, I am free to do anything” but in regards to how to deal with the here and now. And while utopian fantasies are usually dashed on the rocks of reality, a view that we are all alone should be a call for humanity to band together. That we are responsible for our problems and that there is no supernatural parent who will reward or condemn us when we die. Our ultimate saviour is the better part of our nature (and nurture).
But that is my idea. In the spirit of Edge foundation, what is your dangerous idea and what are the possible implications it may have for politics, religion, society etc.
I believe but cannot prove that economics is a totally ethically insufficient base on which to build a theory of politics. The ‘Rule of Law’ so loved by neoliberals is quite a different thing to justice.
Good one Liam. I was thinking of an idea in relation to economics but didn’t have the time to do the research needed.
Alcoholism and problem drinking doesn’t reside primarily in the individual drinker but in the society that allows binges, encourages dependency, and creates cultural events and situations for them to happen.
As evidence, the drink-sodden tourism of the British middle classes, the aggressive beer-monsterism of Australian male rites-of-passage, or the lonely liquid companionship women find for themselves.
Addiction is a social, not individual curse.
“Not in a “woo hoo, I am free to do anything” but in regards to how to deal with the here and now. And while utopian fantasies are usually dashed on the rocks of reality, a view that we are all alone should be a call for humanity to band together. That we are responsible for our problems and that there is no supernatural parent who will reward or condemn us when we die. Our ultimate saviour is the better part of our nature (and nurture).”
That we are responsible for our problems is a dangerous idea? I thought that was a simple fact of life.
Try again:
That we can’t save ourselves. A few thousand years of human endeavour in that regard seems to be evidence of that fact.
Or:
Institutionalised atheism gave us Stalin and Pol Pot. Man made religion gave us Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. Oh and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Atheism is detrimental to the human race.
Or:
Shaun Cronin does not live by the materialistic, mechanistic and atheistic worldview he espouses and I thank God for that. I am glad he still appreciates truth, beauty, goodness, love…maybe even Bob Dylan…and that he is more than just a collection of genes.
Or:
If Shaun and his dog fell into a lake and began to drown, I would try to save him and save him first, no apologies. The whale is not my brother. The dog can wait. Funny how everyone posting on this blog would do the same. Dangerous? Or design?
Or:
That people might better inform themselves about (true and false) religions before equating them with concepts like Utopia or notions that God has his feet up, waiting until such time as we get fried by a bolt of lightning before hurling us onto some set of cosmic scales.
Which leads me to the really dangerous idea:
Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead and is the world’s Lord and Israel’s Messiah. He is present and active in the every day course of human affairs, advancing his rule by his own modus operandi. The future has already broken into the present. Here. Now. That’s the most dangerous and liberating and unstoppable idea of all: the Kingdom of God. Invitation open to all. Acceptance optional. Just don’t go crying if you chose to decline, OK?
“If Shaun and his dog fell into a lake and began to drown, I would try to save him and save him first, no apologies. The whale is not my brother. The dog can wait. Funny how everyone posting on this blog would do the same.”
Are you sure? I’m not. (Shaun will understand that this isn’t personal, especially if he does in fact have a dog.) Just as a sidebar, the whale and the dog can both swim, whereas Shaun may not be able to. This in itself is a point to ponder.
When I first read this thread I decided to keep mine to myself, but Saint’s post seems like fate.
So I believe, but cannot prove, that the extreme anthropocentrism of western belief traditions and the assumptions to which it gives rise have led to some fundamental errors in animal research, that there is no clear line saying ‘humans first and the rest nowhere’ in spite of our opposable thumbs, and that future generations (if there are any) will come to regard our attitude to animals with as much abhorrence as we — well, some of us — now look at the history of racism and slavery.
Miss Pavlov, agreeing with you is a strange feeling. But you’re right, no one should try speaking for everyone.
And especially not for Christ. Or God. Or anyone at all.
Heartily endorse Pavlov’s Cat’s Dangerous Idea.
Thought that Liam’s idea was a commonplace - but if it really is regarded as a Dangerous Idea then propose it’s immediate elevation to Perceived & Received Wisdom status.
Why thank you, RH and wbb. It was intended as a Thing I Believe But Cannot Prove rather than as a Dangerous Idea, but I suppose it is probably both.
I’ll start with a simple, non-teleological reduction of evolutionary theory:
Species are the way they are because they get away with it. When they stop getting away with it they become extinct.
As an example, I’ll cite that news report I saw on the harlequin frog which is being wiped out by global warming. The reason? The species lives in the high andes and global warming has increased the incidence of cloud cover and less UV radiation gets through to control the parasitic skin fungus which is currently devastating the frog population. The harlequin frog can no longer get away with having a crap immune system
So, marvellous as it is that we’re intelligent and can do this culture stuff, maybe it’s time we woke up to the possibility that it’s not a selective advantage, merely something we get away with thanks to some other trait we have which is a “selective advantage” - such as a body odour that’s really offensive to most potential predators. And that we can’t expect to get away with it forever.
Interesting discussion!
I may have missed the point here, but my Dangerous Idea is more a lurking suspicion that spending your whole life on the dole will ultimately be more satisfying that retiring at 65 after a life of work.
Many of my friends are well into their late 20’s and are either permanent dole moles, or spending a bloody long time getting their BA (’perpetual education’, you might say). Either way, whilst I have always felt good about ‘contributing’ and turning up to work each day, their quality of life far exceeds mine. I really hope that on my death bed I don’t look back and decided that I could have done without the extra couple of hundred bucks a week!
Gummo,
Your prognostications on the harlequin frog is jumping to conclusions!
No prognostications Homer - to be precise there are several species of harlequin frog, so they’re actually a genus. If I remember correctly at least one species has completely hopped the twig.
to be a genus it needs to have an IQ of over 140!
That home ownership is neither a financially sensible or socially just system of securing the human right to shelter.
In fact home ownership gives us John Howard.
Well, my dangerous idea is a twist on Adam’s. Frankly - Im not even sure about the extra coupla hundred bucks a week.
Does paid work have far more limited economic value than we suspect? Clearly, the stress of full time work only leads to expensive compensatory behaviours - eating out, drinking better stuff, wanton stress-relief purchases. In the end, what true value is derived from our increased income, that couldnt be bettered by a slower, cheaper version on time-rich routine? It seems to me most purchases are an attemot to quicken a poor imitation of relaxation, in most unhealthy ways, to make the most of limited time.
Even the car - only need it to get to work, and then drive to holidays cos we havent time to get a bus or train. Its all one big con. Even the house - pay it off just in time die and give it away to offspring.
Wow, that is an impressive list of thinkers and an impressive list of ideas.
Gummo and Bring back EP, I don’t know about the harlequin frog but the golden toad (Bufo periglenes) was last seen en masse on Monteverde peak in Costa Rica in April 1987. The following year a single male appeared and never again. (They lived underground most of the year but came out briefly in April-May to mate.) They reckon that as the climate warmed the mists rose up the mountain until the number of mistless days passed a critical point. (This according to Tim Flannery.)
There’s no reason why our fate will not be similar some day.
Saint, because things would go better if God exists it doesn’t mean that God exists, IMHO. When I was a young bloke and had newly lost my faith I was told that if only I could make a ‘leap of faith’ then the existence of God would be proven in my lifeworld and all would be well. I could see no way that I could authentically oblige, especially since all the time He had been in my life He had caused me nothing but grief and pain. God certainly didn’t come to me or lay out a nice welcome mat.
So I didn’t choose not to believe, I was condemned to be free. My dangerous idea is that we seek pleasure and company but we also need loneliness and pain. And that life has no particular meaning and purpose beyond what we (individually and collectively) make of it for the short time we’re here.
Supermarkets are bollocks.
Brian,
My hope is that we might wake up to ourselves and start looking for ways we can put that grim day, when we follow the golden toad into oblivion, off for as long as possible. Because I think the universe would be a much poorer place without the one species we know of that is capable of trying to understand the whole schemozzle and give it some meaning.
Yes,Gummo, absolutely. And I think that the notion that God is in heaven and all will be wll below can lead us into complacency.
Aspirational Australia’s love affair with the credit card–particularly for the purpose of accumulating such essential goods as plasma TVs and home theatre systems–will (it is to be fervently hoped) bite it in the arse eventually.
My dangerous idea: God Botherers, like Saint above, are horrified by the thought that God may not exist. The fact that Western Society (other than America) has experienced a surge of atheism without any resultant calamnity undermines their faith. This is why they feel a desperate need to “cure” us atheists.
Its all about “them”, not “us”.
Absolutely. Moreover, your very existence as an atheist is a personal affront to them: when you announce to the G-Bs “I am an atheist,” the message they hear–far more emphatically than if you had simply professed affiliation with a different religion (e.g. Islam, Judaism)–is “I think your most deeply-held beliefs about life, the universe and everything are wrong.”
Well pardon this being said but if someone tells me they’re an atheist I couldn’t care a damn. Why would I? Find some better way of getting attention. Because I’ve never read a bible and don’t go to church and don’t give a shit what you do. I don’t care if you put a ring through your nose or get a cute little tattoo or whatever else you do to get noticed. Fashion makes a noise and the biggest noise about religion right now comes from bandwagon jumping cliche ridden parrots keeping up with the latest by declaring themselves atheists. What a joke. So what would I care? Be what you like. I’ll do the same. Just don’t insist so much. If you hunt around you’ll always find some religious nut to get all hysterical over and you’d be disappointed if you couldn’t. Atheism’s nothing to me. I’m not interested one way or another. Be what you like, but quit squawking. And don’t ever call me a God botherer or any other dirty piss weak cliche or you might get the trouble you’re looking for.
Our observations were directed towards God-botherers, R.H. Since you claim not to be one, they don’t apply to you. So all your laughable squawking and chest-beating was hardly necessary, was it?
liam on 16 January 2006 at 7:42 am
Ethics is the theory of how individuals may achieve good ends by right institutional means. The good is that which progresses the well-being of individual. The right is simply the proper process due to each and every individual.
Economics is the theory of goods transaction and wealth accumulation. Trade helps other people. And wealth is good for all people.
So we must have economic knowledge to promote the wealth of nations. That is why Adam Smith, who was primarily a moral philosopher, wrote his main treatise on economics.
A good economy is good in itself. Some form of wealth is an essential condition for moral decency. An utterly impoverished person will tend to behave “like an animal” or savage, ie life is nasty, brutish and short and definitely not nice.
But economic well being - industrial productivity - must also work in conjunction with decent moral and intellectual values to produce an all round Good Society. The Nazis and Communists attained a fair standard of industrial productivity, at least for what they considered as proper citizens.But they used that economic power deform minds and destroy souls.
Good economics is therefore a necessary, but not sufficent, basis for organising the day to day business of a Good Society.
By contrast, ethnic philosophies are neither necessary nor sufficient for the creation of a Good Society. There may be Asimovian robots, unfallen angels or good natured aliens “out there” who bear no trace of their ethnic origins and yet still behave with perfect decency. Ethnicity is simply a contingent fact of evolutionary history and is neither here nor there, ethically speaking.
Hey, you don’t like religion, good for you. But why get so excited about it? Why label people? God botherers covers anyone who prays. But how is that any of your bloody business? Find another hobby. Or get a useful job. Categorising people is a good bludge. Social workers do it all the time.
R.H. says: “Hey, you don’t like religion, good for you. But why get so excited about it? Why label people? God botherers covers anyone who prays. But how is that any of your bloody business? Find another hobby. Or get a useful job. Categorising people is a good bludge. Social workers do it all the time.”
It sounds like R.H is going through a rough patch with his social worker. Keep your chin up champ, I’ll sure you’ll work through your issues.
I like seeing my comments repeated. I read them again. No amount of times is too many.
My social worker was enormously good looking. I worked through my issues, and through her underwear. That’s demographics.
There are Jesus Christs in mental hospitals. And lots of Trotskys on the internet. But the Trotskys aren’t mad, they’re just looking for a root.
Good luck with it bud.
Well - to push the ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you - a little further to the left - “what is done to others in your name, will be done to you”. Pretty much sums up the last 3000 years of governance in all its glorious forms. Could be why the murder of 363 refugees on SIEVX remains so buried beneath the veneer of participation and the people’s mandate.
Who played the ‘Summon Jack Strocchi’ card in this thread. Come on, fess up.
Apologies to saint as I am in Brisvegas in a business trip and haven’t had time to really respond. And as I’ve been a guest at the Gabba all day today I’m a bit past responding now.
But the comments are interesting so I hope discussion is still going when I get back to Sydney.
Where did I say that I don’t like religion?
You’re the one who informs me that “I might get the trouble I’m looking for” if I label you a God-botherer. Which one of us is the excited one here?
(Besides–out of curiousity–what kind of (ahem) “trouble” am I looking for, precisely?)
. . . closely followed by . . .
Why not follow your own advice?
In your book, maybe. In mine it means “fundamentalist.”
Sorry, you’re not paid up.
Visit paypal, just around the corner.
A fiver will set you right.
R.H.
Just a little question. An afterthought.
Do you consider Islamic Fundamentalists God Botherers? And would you tell them that?
Yes?
No?
Yes.
Happy?
My word.
And laughing too.
Obviously Islamic Fundamentalists are God-Botherers.
What a silly question.
My dangerous idea is a solipsistic one — That I’m really the only person that “exists,” and that everyone and everything else is a figment of my imagination –
Un-natural selection will become the primary cause of extinction for most species, this will remain the case until the extinction of Homo Sapiens (caused largely through his distruction of the natural environment). Only then will natural selection re-assert itself as the primary cause of extinction.
It’s only a silly question if the answer is obvious. And it wasn’t. Because I’ve never seen Islamic Fundamentalists called God botherers. And if I did I’d complain about that too.
Slogans are dangerous. Especially for people already prejudiced, and for others who can’t think. Maybe you should do some reading about Goebbels. And about the advertising industry too. See what makes it tick. And what makes you tick as well.
If you support refugees and I call you a refugee botherer you might resent it. Or if you support gays and I deride you as a gay botherer you might resent that too. And so would your fellow supporters, whether you’re nutty or not.
A V. I’m not looking for happiness at your expense. I’m looking for compromise, that’s all. I follow Christ. But you don’t have to, and we can still be pals.
I would resent it because it would be a misnomer. One can support refugees or gays (or Christians, or Muslims) on perfectly rational grounds, without being a “refugee-botherer” or a “gay-botherer.”
But if you’d like me to stop using the term “God-botherer”–I will.
Fine: that’s all we atheists are asking for (insofar as I can speak for other atheists in the thread). And as far as I can tell, that is also the import of Steve Munn’s initial post: atheism, not Christianity, is the “dangerous idea.”
Christianity is becoming the Dangerous idea. The way things are going they’ll be fed to lions again. That’ll put them back in fashion. Meanwhile I’m delighted to hear you don’t mind getting insulted - so long as it ain’t a misnomer. That’s nice.
But listen, I’ve no time for anymore of this. There’s too much of it, it’s all over the internet and it just goes on forever. I’ve lots else to do. Okay?
Thanks for the repeat.
AV. Just one more thing, and it’s important. Thanks for what you said about not using ‘God botherer’. And for having the heart to say it.
Be an atheist, if that’s your conscience; nothing in Heaven would blame you for it.
Bob.
I just want to go back to the beginning.
The Devil Drink’s idea is interesting however I do think that there is a genetic predilection for addiction. That does not make DD’s idea incorrect.
Saint, I was warning against Utopian ideals. As I pointed out, without religion are people doomed to latch onto any belief? The of horrors of Stalin and Pol Pot I see not as a result of institutionalised atheism but nationalism and cults of personality gone wrong. And to me all religion is man-made. How does one go about informing oneself about true and false religions? What are the characteristics of a true religion versus a false religion?
For an infinitesimal moment of time, we are lucky enough to be able to explore and ponder what it is all about. It is not the destination that matters, it is the journey. The idea that atheism leads to some form reductionism is absurd. It is not a logical progression of denying that a supreme being exists. In fact the spiritual atheist is not an oxymoron. Still the meaning of life (to echo Brian) is what we make of our time.
As Delenn said “We are Star stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out.”
Of course I do not condone that religion or no religion should be something that is mandated by an external authority. Religious belief (or lack thereof) is a personal matter. I do not doubt for one minute that I’ll convince someone to suddenly give up their deity of choice. I’m just trying to explain my position a little better.
“What is your dangerous idea?”
Teaching cats to drive.
Elective democracy needs to reined back. The gaming of elections and the party system has become a massive breeding ground for far too much partisan and factional feuding, short term thinking to win votes and boost polls and downright corruption, across the whole bloody political spectrum. It needs to be wound back and seriously complemented by something like demarchy or sortition.
Oh yes, and bring back the death penalty for spammers. Mind you, you’d probably still get emails flogging videos of their own executions.
R.H. wrote:
I seriously doubt (especially given the direction that political winds have been moving in the US–and perhaps even in Australia–of late) that you have anything of the kind to fear.
In any case, the people who threw Christians to the lions in the days of yore were by no means lefty, progressive, democratic, liberal, even atheist (at least, not by today’s standards).
Shaun wrote:
Amen.
“Christianity is becoming the Dangerous idea. The way things are going they’ll be fed to lions again.”
And the folks who did that went on to spawn the first Christian Empire.
Chill dude.
what is your idea about islam?
My dangerous idea is that humans whether collectively or individually always takes the path of least resistance no matter what the issue(s). Thus people usually make the bad choice or worst choice or select the worst or one of the worst outcomes.