So you might wonder about the meaning of the term evolution.

Since the term evolution is abstract, it’s definition will be abstract: a process is evolutionary if and only if it increases complexity. Generally, this means that the complexity of the most complex things is increasing. Less complex things may still exist. This means that evolutionary processes build stratified layers of complexity – they build complexity hierarchies. Of course, the weight is now on the term complexity. And, fortunately, there are explicit ways to cash that out. Different types of evolution will obviously use different complexity metrics (and that, indeed, is exactly what makes them different types of evolution).

Within biological evolution, the arrow of complexity hypothesis states that: “the complex functional organization of the most complex products of open-ended evolutionary systems has a general tendency to increase with time.” (Bedau, 1998: 145) And biological evolution does support various arrows of complexity. You might say this is Kantian purposiveness without purpose. But it would be distracting to get into that. On to the metrics:

Bower says that the complexity of an organism is the number of distinct cell types it contains (1988: 101). He argues that evolution tends to increase the complexity of the most complex (species of) organisms. Adami et al. (2000) equate the complexity of organisms with the complexity of their genomes; they define the complexity of a genome to be the amount of information it encodes about the environment in which it has evolved. Generally speaking, this genomic complexity has always been steadily increasing.

Within chemistry, one might simply define the complexity of an element to be its number of protons. Within molecules, more structural definitions can be used. Over time, ever more complex elements have progressively appeared in our universe. Thus the complexity of the most complex elements has been increasing.

At the most general level, Chaisson says that the complexity of a system is “the rate at which free energy transits a complex system of given mass”; it is “the free energy rate density, alternatively called the specific free energy rate, expressed in units of energy per time per mass” (2001: 134). Chaisson shows – with impressive clarity – how the complexity of the most complex things have been steadily increasing.

Another way to look at physical complexity is to use Dennett’s levels (1991). He distinguishes between the physical, design, and intentional levels. The history of our universe started with just the physical level; design levels emerged (chemical and biological); and then intentional levels emerged (psychological, social). Dennett has also applies his levels to other types of universes like cellular automata. And, close to Dennett’s ideas, I’ll give a shout out to Jaker op Akkerhuis’s operator hierarchy (2008). (Though I admit I find Akkerhuis very hard to understand.)

One very general measure of complexity (and probably the best) is Bennett’s notion that complexity is logical depth (1988). The complexity of a structure is the amount of computational work required to generate the structure. This can be measured formally in terms of the run times of programs that generate the structures. For cosmological evolution, something like logical depth is a good measure. The process atheist says that cosmological evolution is increasing the logical depth of universes.

It’s interesting to note that logical depth maps very closely onto Leibniz’s notion of perfection. (And Leibniz, remarkably, even offered his analysis of perfection in terms of binary strings! I love Leibniz!) Leibniz offers a quantitative analysis of perfection: he says perfection is quantity of essence (1697: 86). Leibniz often says that perfection has two dimensions: it is a product of variety and order (Monadology, sec. 58; Theodicy, sec. 207; Discourse on Metaphysics sec. 6). Order is like algorithmic regularity and variety is like algorithmic randomness. Hence Leibniz’s concept of perfection is like logical depth.

Once we get out into the infinite, more powerful measures are needed. Kyburg (1961: 392-393) says that the complexity of a theory is measured by the number of quantifiers in the shortest version of the theory. Another and probably better approach is to use something like the Kleene-Mostowski hierarchy. Given any axiom system (any theory), expressed in the predicate calculus in prenex normal form, the complexity of the theory is the number of alternating blocks of the same type of quantifier. Thus the complexity of a universe is the complexity of the simplest theory of which the universe is a model. The process atheist says that this (or some similar) metric of complexity is steadily increasing as structures are produced one after another by metaphysical evolution.

Adami, C., Ofria, C. & Collier, T. (2000) Evolution of biological complexity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 (9), 4463 – 4468.

Bedau, M. (1998) Philosophical content and method of artificial life. In T. Bynum & J. Moor (Eds.) (1998) The Digital Phoenix: How Computers are Changing Philosophy. Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell, 135-152.

Bennett, C. (1988) Logical depth and physical complexity. In Herken, R. (1988) The Universal Turing Machine: A Half-Century Survey. New York: Oxford University Press, 227-257.

Bower, J. (1988) The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Chaisson, E. (2001) Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dennett, D. (1991) Real patterns. Journal of Philosophy, 27-51.

Jagers op Akkerhuis, G. (2008) Analysing hierarchy in the organization of biological and physical systems. Biological Reviews 83, 1-12.

Kyburg, H. (1961) A modest proposal concerning simplicity. The Philosophical Review 70 (3), 390-395.

Leibniz, G. W. (1697/1988) On the ultimate origination of the universe. In P. Schrecker & A. Schrecker (1988) Leibniz: Monadology and Other Essays. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 84-94.

Process atheism is a positive and optimistic philosophy. One of the main points of process atheism is that many people would stop being theists if they could believe that atheism had something positive to offer. To many people, atheism just seems nasty and negative. But a process atheism sees value and meaning in evolution. Every type of evolution is an optimization algorithm of some type – it is an algorithm for hill-climbing in some landscape of possibilities.

There are many different types and levels of evolution. And there are all sorts of ways that evolution does a better job of answering questions once answered by God. Here are some informal presentations of a few types of evolution:

1. Biological Evolution – Theists say that God designed life on earth. Process atheists say, instead, that some sort of entirely Godless evolution by natural selection generated all life on earth. Of course, reality is much bigger and deeper than the biology of earth; and evolution by natural selection is not the only type of evolution. There are other types. And it’s worth noting that evolution by natural selection is far from simply being blind and purposeless. It’s climbing all sorts of ladders of value. It’s progressive in many different ways. It has produced all sorts of beautiful structures and systems. People who call themselves religious naturalists say they find deep emotional and aesthetic satisfaction in the evolution of life on earth. They regard it as a religiously meaningful process. And many of them are non-theists. Process atheists can agree with non-theistic religious naturalists.

2. Moral Evolution – Theists often say that morality depends on God. Or at least the objectivity of morality depends on God. Process atheists counter that evolution can explain not just the natural history of morality (e.g. through the evolution of altruism), but also the objectivity of morality. Writers like Cambpell, Collier & Stingl, and Harms have done interesting work on how evolution can make ethics objective.

3. Physical Evolution – Theists often point to God as the source of all the order and complexity within the universe. But process atheists disagree. Older writers like Herbert Spencer in the 19th century already argued that evolution (though not by natural selection) is the source of all order in the universe. More recent writers like Chaisson argue that evolution in a general sense is the source of all order and complexity in the universe. Biological evolution is just one type of this more general evolution. Here on earth, biological evolution is the result of the principles of self-organization in an open system far from thermal equilibrium. For Chaisson, very deep physical features of our universe entail that complexity tends to increase everywhere at all levels, at least for a very long time.

4. Cosmological Evolution – Theists often say that God is needed to explain the deep physical features of our universe. This is the theistic conclusion of the fine-tuning version of the design argument. And even if everything in our universe is evolving, theists say that it evolves because God designed it that way. But process atheists say that the deep features of our universe are themselves the products of evolution. Cosmologists like Smolin have developed various theories of cosmological evolution. Those theories do not involve natural selection. Process atheists can use those theories. And process atheists can find meaning and value in cosmological evolution. Cosmological evolution is sublime, awe-inspiring, and its mathematical depths are formally beautiful. It is progressive in many ways and climbs many ladders of value and significance.

5. Metaphysical Evolution – Theists often say that God is the ultimate explanation for everything. Even if evolution generates all the concrete contingent things, God answers all the ultimate questions. Why is there something rather than nothing? Theists say the answer is found in God. Process atheists reply that evolution provides better answers to ultimate questions. Although Leibniz was (or at least appeared to be) a theist, he sometimes gives surprisingly atheistic answers to ultimate questions. His theory of the striving possibles can be interpreted as an atheistic and purely evolutionary explanation for why there are any concrete contingent things rather than none, and for why the system of concrete universes is the way it is. These ideas are sometimes taken up in the work of axiarchists like John Leslie and Nicholas Rescher. Process atheists can work out evolutionary metaphysics similar to these Leibnizian or axiarchic theories.

At the deepest level, a process atheist might say that the totality of concrete contingent things is generated by evolution by rational selection. Purely logical principles like the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of plenitude drive evolution by rational selection. Process atheists can find the deepest meanings and values in metaphysical evolution. It is ultimate, necessary, eternal, and infinite. It is the ground of all concreteness. It is rational and mathematically beautiful. It may even be possible to use evolution by rational selection to derive a soteriology – even a theory of life after death. If so, then evolution can serve as a better foundation for hope than theism. It can be more emotionally satisfying.

Obviously, I’ve only provided a very superficial outline of process atheism here. Every point I’ve made can be rigorously developed and defended (with as much academic precision as you want). My main point is that process atheism is a positive and optimistic atheistic philosophy.

Campbell, R. (1996) Can biology make ethics objective? Biology and Philosophy 11, 21-31.

Chaisson, E. (2001) Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Collier, J. & Stingl, M. (1993) Evolutionary naturalism and the objectivity of morality. Biology and Philosophy 8, 43-50.

Harms, W. (2000) Adaptation and moral realism. Biology and Philosophy 15, 699-712.

Leibniz, G. W. (1697/1988) On the ultimate origination of the universe. In P. Schrecker & A. Schrecker (1988) Leibniz: Monadology and Other Essays. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 84-94.

Leslie, J. (1970) The theory that the world exists because it should. American Philosophical Quarterly 7 (4), 286-298.

Leslie, J. (1989) Universes. New York: Routledge.

Leslie, J. (2001) Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology. New York: Oxford.

Leslie, J. (2007) Immortality Defended. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Rescher, N. (1984) The Riddle of Existence: An Essay in Idealistic Metaphysics. New York: University Press of America.

Rescher, N. (2000) Optimalism and axiological metaphysics. The Review of Metaphysics 53 (4), 807-835.

Smolin, L. (1992) Did the universe evolve? Classical and Quantum Gravity 9, 173-191.

Smolin, L. (1997) The Life of the Cosmos. New York: Oxford University Press.

Spencer, H. (1862) First Principles. London: Williams & Norgate.

In this post, I am going to explain why I don’t think we should model our primary identification on any positive metaphysical position, but rather should stake our ground on epistemology and methodology instead.

Christians identify themselves based on an allegiance to Jesus Christ. First and foremost they communicate “I am a follower of Jesus Christ”. When pressed for explanation of what this means the traditional response is to identify with the sorts of doctrines one finds in the Apostle’s Creed.

For many devout Christians these beliefs are primary and no other beliefs can be accepted which undermine these ones. And while many Christians will try their best to reconcile apparently contradicting scientific, logical, philosophical, historical and common sense truths with their Creed, there are infamous problems that they have doing so. And this leads to the numerous embarrassments Christianity has suffered from Christians who cannot cope with science or its metaphysical implications.

My concern is that, given the nature of the human mind, putting any particular belief as one’s intellectual bedrock and key identifier of one’s position in the conflict of ideas and practices risks this same problem. If people begin identifying themselves as first and foremost “evolvers” or “evolutionists” (rather than just as skeptics or atheists, etc.), then this positive position becomes paramount to them and an attack on it risks being taken as an attack on their very identity, just the way attacks on many religious people’s belief in God is wrongly taken by them as offenses against them themselves as persons.

This is the danger of tagging yourself with a specific idea—especially in the arena of religion. And when you start saying things like that evolution can do a better job of solving every problem God has previously been thought to solve, then you set up your evolutionary metaphysics as a competitor religion. Already atheism, which is, strictly speaking just the negation of theism, is tagged by many lazy dualistic taxonomers as a religion simply because it addresses the question of gods and the question of gods is treated as primarily a religious (and not a philosophical) question in the public mind.

The crude classifiers think “well everyone must have a religion” or “something fulfills religious functions for everyone” or “everyone has a god, even if it’s only their own reason”, etc. and on such grounds just insist on exposing atheists as having a religion after all no matter what we do or say. Do we have prominent figures in our movement? They must be the atheists’ priests! Do we have any firm epistemological, metaphysical, or moral commitments? Those must be the atheists’ dogmas! This is even the case while atheists are typically a group suspicious of, and hostile to, metaphysics and all broad, speculative claims that do not have scientific backing. Were atheists to call themselves “evolvers” and back a robust speculative metaphysics, there is no doubt in my mind that the lazy would immediately tag this as being just like faith-based reasoning no matter how much we protested to the contrary.

And, worse, if we saw ourselves and defined ourselves by our belief in metaphysical evolution first and foremost, we would be more likely to start to treat it as rigid dogma as the religious tend to do. We would be more likely to have implicit faith, the unwillingness to reconsider and explore new evidence against our current metaphysics.

In a way, this is a potential danger even with atheism itself–that identifying with disbelief in gods could become so important that we become hostile to any legitimate evidence for gods. This is a potential hazard of any believing or disbelieving.

So, given all of this, I think the best ground to stand on is epistemology. When asked “what are you?” our answer should be along the lines of “freethinker”. This has an unfortunately presumptuous sounding connotation of course, in that it can sound self-congratulatory, like you’re saying you are freer thinking than others. You had might as well go the whole arrogant nine yards and call yourself “The Correct Ones”.

But that’s not what “Freethinker” really means. It does not mean the presumption of superiority, but it means the acknowledgment of no arbitrary authorities in thought. Freethinkers, in principle, stand for free thought and against the right of anyone to demand assent to propositions by faith alone. The key contrast with the faith-based is that they acknowledge a legitimacy to surrendering one’s belief to priests, prophets, institutions, dogmas, and holy books even when no appeal to common sense or rigorous philosophy or science is given.

Self-professed “Freethinkers” should not be heard as congratulating themselves on thinking better than anyone else, but rather as those committed to the principle that everyone is entitled to, and responsible to demand, sufficient reasons for believing anything they are asked to assent to.

Allegiance to this principle of free thought is what should mark us as distinct from the faith-based as our key, anti-faith, anti-authoritarian principle. And free thought can stand for thought free of all prejudicial encumberances that stand in the way of true knowledge. It is an embrace of the scientific method, of philosophical rigor, of logical rigor, and of all that we have learned in the past several hundred years about how to identify and overcome bad forms of reasoning and replace them with more truth-conducive ones.

This should be our rallying point because today’s best metaphysics might tomorrow be refuted. Even today’s best science could see an earth shattering paradigm shift. People’s identities should not be bound up with any doctrine since that makes it harder for them to change their minds and abandon it when such a cataclysmic change happens. They should think of themselves first and foremost as those who oppose prejudice and willful belief of what is unsupported or undermined by evidence. The more obedience to this principle is the only thing they anchor themselves by, the more likely they are to be properly flexible when understanding progresses.

Plato and Aristotle were wonderful metaphysicians and the Catholic Church was to be commended for learning a great deal from them. But the Church’s dogmatic elevation of ideas from their metaphysics into non-negotiable absolutes has a once vibrant and progressive intellectual tradition lumbering stagnantly and regressively into the 21st Century.

Eric is right that atheists should give much much more rigorous and open-minded accounts of metaphysics than at present. But we should only believe them with as much conviction as their rational strength warrants. And before we bring up our metaphysics, we should be wary of giving the impression that we are saying, “oh I have heard your faith-based gobbledygook which I’m free to ignore and now here’s my faith-based gobbledygook which you are free to ignore too” (which is what too many people hear when metaphysics, especially related to religion, is raised).

So, instead we should stress our epistemic standards, stress their proven viability in practice, and then, when pushed for how we might answer metaphysical answers say (in so many words), “Well, these are the best alternatives there are and here is why they are better than theistic alternatives, and here is me stressing that I am only going to assent to the best alternative to the extent to which it is likely to be true.”

Finally, this prioritizing of free (and rigorously critical and skeptical) thinking is not another kind of faith as might be ironically charged. Placing skepticism as the priority is not some overestimation of the mind’s ability to refute every false doctrine or to know that every metaphysical doctrine is false, or anything like that. Cautious skepticism and slow willingness to assent to propositions until their evidence has been adequately established is not a statement that everything not assented to is false. Rather it is a recognition of the limits of the human mind to know and a painstaking curb on the temptations of the human mind to presume too much too impetuously and to believe by faith.

Skepticism is the antidote to the poison of faith, not itself another faith.

Lastly, why do I identify primarily as an atheist, despite having made the passionate case for “freethinker”. Well, it is factually true I am an atheist and it is in accepted parlance the scandalous word that signifies rejection of submission to all faith-based authorities more boldly and defiantly than any other and draws the line in the sand against theists in particular, in a way “freethinker” does not quite manage.

And given the current state of things, that confrontational stance is where the action is. It’s where the principled stand I want to make against faith is best understood.

Within many familiar systems, loveliness is very very rare. It’s very rare within the models of simple physical theories and even more rare within the models of complex physical theories (e.g. the solutions to the equations of string theory). This can be illustrated with the cellular automaton known as the game of life. You can read lots about the game of life on the web. I’ll just give a very quick presentation of the relevant points.

The game of life is played on a grid composed of square cells, like a chessboard. A clock is ticking (all cells can hear it). A cell is either ON or OFF (alternatively, LIVE or DEAD, or 1 and 0). Cells blink ON and OFF like lightbulbs, according to a rule each cell computes every time the clock ticks: (1) a cell counts its ON neighbors; (2) if it is ON and has 2 or 3 ON neighbors, then it stays ON, else it turns OFF; if it is OFF and has 3 ON neighbors, then it turns ON, else it stays OFF.

The figure below illustrates how cells change according to the life rule.

The game of life supports regular patterns, such as the glider, which appears to move across the space of the life grid. The glider is shown below.

It’s even possible to construct universal Turing machines and self-reproducing patterns in the game of life. But the game of life is rare within the class of similar cellular automata.

The rule for the game of life can be expressed in a small table. The table is shown in the figure below.

Since there are 16 slots in this table, and each can take the value 0 or 1, there are 2^16 different variants of the game of life. That’s 65536 variants. These are all the possible classes of life-like universes. Some of these variants are shown below.

Out of these, very few support any physical content at all. Perhaps a dozen or so support moving patterns. And only one is known to support patterns that compute and that reproduce (namely, the game of life itself). Within an extremely large number of physical systems, or purely mathematical systems, loveliness is vanishingly rare. Hence, that any actual universe is lovely, when almost all possible universes are not, is extremely surprising.

To say a fact is “surprising’ is far from merely subjective. Surprising facts almost always carry information. That’s because carrying information is itself a lovely feature. And that’s why our brains are highly sensitive to loveliness: when, out of the endless background of noise, you are given a signal carrying information, you’d better pay attention. It’s a good rule to follow in any uncertain environment.

It is widely thought that our universe is highly unusual. It has certain features that make it lovely. Note that the term “lovely” is merely a term of art. It has no connotations beyond designating that our universe has certain features. These include (a) the fact that the universe is lawfully ordered; (b) the fact that the laws of nature have certain mathematical forms; (c) the values of the fundamental physical constants; (d) the fact that the universe starts in a low-entropy state. These lovely features are significant because if they were slightly different, then our universe would not contain any things that have value. The values include complexity, life, intelligence, rationality.

It is also widely thought that these lovely features require some explanation. Finding that you live in a universe with lovely features is far stranger than finding a watch on the heath. These features raise the Leibnizian question: why is the universe the way that it is? It is sometimes said that if our universe weren’t lovely, we wouldn’t be here to wonder about its loveliness. That counterfactual is a verson of the anthropic principle. Obviously, it’s true. And, what should be equally obvious, that truth does not in any way explain the existence or nature of our universe. The anthropic principle is not a hypothesis about the existence or nature of our universe. It is consistent with every hypothesis listed below.

1. The Brute Fact Hypothesis. The universe just exists. Our universe does not require an explanation. The loveliness is neither special nor rare nor significant in any way. There is no reason to provide any explanation for our universe.

Objections to the Brute Fact Hypothesis. We have regularly sought explanations for complex phenomena; and we have regularly found them. The success of the search for explanations both in science and in mathematics provides overwhelming evidence that the Brute Fact Hypothesis is wrong. So it is reasonable to search for an explanation for the existence and nature of our universe. Worse, the Brute Fact Hypothesis is itself not based on any evidence at all. It is an unwarrented hypothesis. It can be given for anything. God exists. It’s just a fact. Don’t ask why. This hypothesis celebrates ignorance.

2. The Necessity Hypothesis. The Necessity Hypothesis says that there is only one way that a universe can be. The lovely features of the universe are like variables in a big equation. There is only one solution to this equation. Since the lovely features are the only possible features, it is not surprising that our universe has them.

Objection to the Necessity Hypothesis: It is not the case that there is only one possible universe (so that if any universe is actualized, it must be that universe). On the contrary, there are many possible universes. And many of them can be actualized. Hence the Necessity Hypothesis is false.

3. The Plenitude Hypothesis. The Plenitude Hypothesis says that all possible universes are actual. This is the hypothesis of David Lewis. The library of possible universe blueprints is complete. For every way a universe can be, there is some blueprint in the library. So there is a blueprint in the library that describes our universe. Every blueprint in the library is actualized. There is no selection. So for every way a universe can be, there is some universe that actually is that way. Since our universe is one of the ways a universe can be, our universe is actual.

Objections to the Plenitude Hypothesis: The Plenitude Hypothesis seems to be unable to account for the regularity of our universe. Our universe exhibits regular patterns up to the present time – it’s like a novel that makes sense up to the current page. But in the library of all possible novels, there are infinitely many other novels that are like our novel up to the present page, but then diverge into random nonsense. So, the Plenitude Hypothesis seems to undermine one of the things it is supposed to explain: the regularity of the universe. All universes may indeed be possible; but there must be a selection of the ones that are actual.

4. The Lottery Hypothesis. The Lottery Hypothesis says that the lovely features of our universe are explained by random selection. There is a super-cosmic bucket filled with blueprints for universes. A lottery was somehow held and the winner was the blueprint for our universe. The winner was actualized.

Objections to the Lottery Hypothesis: There are at least two problems with the Lottery Hypothesis. The first problem is that universes with lovely features are highly rare. It is highly unlikely that the blueprint for our universe would be picked in a lottery. The second and much more damaging problem is that the lottery itself needs an explanation. What is its mechanism? Is it necessary? Was it designed? Did it evolve? The Lottery Hypothesis just pushes the mystery deeper. The Lottery Hypothesis is rejected.

5. The God Hypothesis. The God Hypothesis says that our universe was produced by God. The intelligence of God enables Him to find a lovely universe from among all the possible universes; the benevolence of God makes Him want to actualize a lovely universe; and the power of God enables Him to do it. Therefore, he does it.

Objections to the God Hypothesis: Suppose our universe does have a designer-creator (a DC). There is no reason to believe that the DC is personal or that it satisfies any of the definitions associated with the God of Abraham. The problem of evil makes it hard to say that the DC is maximally perfect. Any features of the DC that enable it to explain our universe are features that demand their own explanation. Since the DC requires its own explanation, it is not an ultimate necessary being. But God is supposed to be an ultimate necessary being. Our universe may indeed have a designer-creator, but it certainly does not match the features of the theistic deity. It is not God.

6. The Fecund Universe Hypothesis. The physicist Lee Smolin developed the idea that universes give birth to baby universes through black holes. When a star collapses to form a black hole in some parent universe, a baby universe pops out in some other dimension. This baby universe can give birth to its own babies. So there is an evolutionary tree of universes. Universes whose features are finely tuned for making black holes have more babies. So, generation after generation, the percentage of universes finely tuned for making black holes increases. But universes that are good at making black holes are also good at making stars, complex elements, planets, and life. So the loveliness of our universe is explained by this cosmic baby-making. The Fecund Universe Hypothesis is an evolutionary explanation for the existence and loveliness of our universe.

Objection to the Fecund Universe Hypothesis. This is a great idea. But it is a highly speculative idea – nobody really knows what goes on in black holes. So the hypothesis may well be false. And even if it is true, it faces problems. The first one is that the so-called “universes” really aren’t maximal physical wholes – they’re just parts of some bigger physical whole. And the bigger physical whole is the universe. And the hypothesis it isn’t ultimate. It depends on deeper laws of universe formation. Why are universes such that they can produce offspring? Why are black holes involved? What is the explanation for the ultimate laws of physics?

7. The Evolutionary Algorithm Hypothesis. This is a generalization of the Fecund Universe Hypothesis (and thus includes that hypothesis as a special case). Our universe is generated by a process of super-cosmic evolution. Super-cosmic evolution starts with some initial universe. This universe exists necessarily and does not depend on anything else for its existence. The initial universe produces some more lovely versions of itself. Once started, this process of universe-evolution is self-sustaining and self-amplifying. Each universe in any generation produces some more lovely successor universes. These successor universes populate the next generation of universes. The result is a series of generations of universes. Here’s the rule: for every universe, for every way to make it more lovely, there exists a successor universe that is more complex and congenial in that way. From generation to generation, the successor relation defines a growing tree of universes. As the tree grows, the universes in the tree become ever more lovely. Eventually, our universe appears.

Objections to the Evolutionary Algorithm Hypothesis. This is a highly speculative idea. As stated, it is also vague. It needs to be refined. And, since it is so abstract, it isn’t really even a hypothesis – it’s a type of hypothesis. More work must be done.

All the hypotheses in this list are speculative. They are all metaphysical, in the sense that none of them can be empirically tested. The hypotheses up to the God Hypothesis all suffer from very strong objections. The God Hypothesis and the Evolutionary Hypotheses (including the Fecund Universe Hypothesis) are based on analogies. This gives them some extra strength – they gain some weak empirical support from processes that we already know can produce things with lovely features (e.g. intelligent human design and biological evolution). However, the God Hypothesis faces inconsistencies. The Evolutionary Hypothesis is thus arguably the strongest hypothesis. Of course, it is really only a type of hypothesis – it needs to be worked out in detail and carefully studied.

One shared concern is that I’m trying to compel people to believe some abstruse doctrine.

I’m not — at least not yet!

All I’ve said so far is that an atheist has no reason to object to evolutionary metaphysics.

If you’re a certain sort of naturalist, materialist, or empiricist, then you might object to evolutionary metaphysics.
(And your objections might be very good indeed.)

But if you’re an atheist, then you’ve got no reason to object to evolutionary metaphysics.

I’m merely illustrating one of my major complaints about atheists: they confuse their atheism with other philosophical positions.

Atheism does not imply naturalism, or materialism, or empiricism.

Now, I did give a little argument for evolutionary metaphysics. But only because I always want to give some reasons for what I say.
Thus, the evolutionary metaphysics surely is not an unmotivated or reasonless story.

Are the reasons good enough for you to believe it?

Of course not: my little argument isn’t sufficient. But other arguments can be advanced in support of my evolutionary metaphysics.

Over the coming days, I’ll hope to present at least an outline of the logic.

Thanks again for your interest!

According to this argument, our universe is generated by a process of super-cosmic evolution. Super-cosmic evolution starts with some initial universe. This universe exists necessarily and does not depend on anything else for its existence. The initial universe produces some more complex and congenial versions of itself. Once started, this process of universe-evolution is self-sustaining and self-amplifying. Each universe in any generation produces some more complex and more congenial successor universes. These successor universes populate the next generation of universes. The result is a series of generations of universes. Here’s the rule: for every universe, for every way to make that universe more complex and congenial, there exists a successor universe that is more complex and congenial in that way. From generation to generation, the successor relation defines a growing tree of universes. As the tree grows, the universes in the tree become more complex and congenial. Eventually, our universe appears.

To avoid misunderstandings, it’s worth pointing out that this evolutionary metaphysics is not Darwinian. Universes are not organisms that make babies either asexually or sexually. There is no struggle for survival, no survival of the fittest. And, given the long pre-Darwinian history of the term “evolution”, it’s fair to use that term.

This evolutionary metaphysics posits lots of universes (lots of “cosmoi”) that come both before and after our universe. So, if this evolutionary story is true, and if the term “Cosmos” refers to our universe, then Sagan’s statement that “The Cosmos is all that is and ever was and ever will be” is false. But that’s not very relevant.

This evolutionary metaphysics is obviously highly speculative. But a Dictionary Atheist shouldn’t have a problem with that. All the Dictionary Atheist cares about is that the story doesn’t involve God. And this evolutionary metaphysics is utterly God-free. You can easily raise lots of objections to this evolutionary metaphysics. But none of those objections will flow from atheism. For atheists who don’t like this evolutionary metaphysics, the challenge is to come up with a better story (which, obviously, must explain the complexity and congeniality of our universe). Go for it.

But believing a position based on a weak argument is not the same thing as believing on faith.  Sometimes people are simply confused.  All false belief may be formally similar to faith beliefs in that, like faith beliefs, they are unsupported and contradicted by evidence.  But the crucial difference between faith beliefs and other false beliefs is that the holder of a false belief need not knowingly be eschewing evidence.  He might just misunderstand the evidence, have incomplete evidence, have misleading evidence, or badly weigh up the relative relevance of different pieces of evidence.

If his sincere, deliberate, and conscientious intentions are to go with the evidence and yet his available information or skills fail him, he does not thereby magically become equivalent to a religious believer who makes believing despite insufficient or contradicting evidence a matter of principle and a virtue.

So even were many atheists to hold flawed versions of naturalism, materialism, and empiricism, that would not be sufficient for them to be people of “faith”.

But let’s say that in addition to weak, wrong, or missing arguments, Eric really meant to charge them popular atheism with a deliberate will to disbelief or non-belief in God.  What he would have to be saying, in order for atheists’ alleged bad arguments to be evidence of faith, is that even though atheists do not explicitly say that they deliberately choose to believe by faith that there is no God or that they think it a virtue to be atheists even if the evidence were to go in favor of God (when in fact, the vast majority of atheists I hear say the opposite—that they would be happy to believe if only there were the evidence), nonetheless atheists implicitly have faith because they do fervently will to not believe and they are prejudicial in favor of any beliefs that conform to their desired atheism and against any counter-evidence.

In short, Eric is implying that atheists do not just have weak, wrong, and unsupported positions but that they have them because they are prejudiced against theism and willfully choose to believe whatever they think conforms with this prejudice and to attack whatever threatens it.  And all the atheists’ claims about being interested in evidence is disingenuous.

I think this is likely false to say about the majority of popular atheist writers and everyday activist atheists I know.  I think the explanations I am about to give are more likely stories about why such atheists hold the versions of naturalism, empiricism, and materialism they do, even if Eric is right that they generally do so with weak, wrong, or missing argumentation.  (And I’m not conceding Eric’s generalizations should be as sweeping as they are.)

1. A sizable number of atheists came from religious backgrounds that involved intense personal commitment and/or strong familial and cultural pressure to believe.  For them their wills and prejudices were usually shaped from early ages to favor theism.  For them becoming an atheist may have meant painful alienation from family and peer groups.  And for them becoming an atheist is not like joining a minority religion, where even though you might lose your biological family you gain a new religious one.  Deconverts usually see becoming atheists not as gaining a new social circle or a new framework of values and meanings, but as entering a frightening void that threatens nihilism.

Of course there are plenty of positives available to atheists, but religions do a good job of keeping their adherents ignorant of them and of making becoming an atheist feel like a terrifying prospect.  I doubt many of these deconverts became atheists, naturalists, materialists, etc. because it was what their will wanted at the time.  It sure was not what I wanted by a long, long stretch when I deconverted (much as I have grown to love it since).

2. We can explain why atheists so typically default to naturalism, materialism, or empiricism more naturally without any positing any volitional hostility to counter-evidence. For one thing, someone even implicitly hostile to evidence would be a strange candidate to praise empiricism in the first place.  But hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance are possible, so let’s look for the most likely account of why they can be trusted to genuinely adopt naturalism, materialism, and empiricism out of embrace of evidence and not out of secret hostility to it.

The simplest explanation of why atheists are naturalists (regardless of whether they can articulate this well or would formulate it as I do) is because the question of naturalism is usually presented as a contrast with supernaturalism.  Atheists typically are making an inference to the best explanation.  The search for verifiable and falsifiable natural regularities has been astoundingly fruitful and vindicated the belief in them.  On the other hand alleged supernatural realities prove in every instance so far adequately examined to be better explained by either known or conceivable natural causes than by any appeal to the supernatural.  Whether or not Eric thinks that this is sufficient grounds for metaphysical naturalism, it makes perfect sense to me that most atheists at least perceive the proven power of natural explanations and the impotence of supernatural explanations to be an evidentiary basis to say that only natural realities exist and that supernatural ones either do not exist or might as well not exist if they do, and that therefore they should not be believed in, given the current state of affairs.

Maybe this inference is weak or incomplete in some way. Maybe it is ignorant of the existence of positive reasons to adopt something other than naturalism. All that matters to me is that implicitly this is the inference atheists are making and they need no volitional prejudice towards naturalism or against supernaturalism to make it.  To use my own case, as a devout believer, I was entirely inclined to believe in supernaturalism until I considered all the evidence of natural regularity against the paucity of evidence of the supernatural.  By my most sincerely believed in evidentiary standards, I came to adopt naturalism and reject supernaturalism specifically as a principled opposition  to believing by faith in what I then preferred to believe but had no evidence for.  I am open to consideration that I may yet have been wrong, but not that my inference was a faith based one when it was wholly a deference to the evidence as I judged it.

While I am not personally a materialist because I think the concept is poorly defined and the standards of evidence for it are too unclear to me, again I think the average atheist means to reject wholly unfounded and scientifically undermined notions of “immaterial souls” when she avows “materialism”.  I hardly think she chooses to be a materialist out of some volitional prejudice (faith) for materialism.  Rather I think it is obvious that she means to articulate an Ockham’s Razor like approach to alleged immaterial entities which are superfluous for explanation given what is known and what can be inferred from physics, biology, and chemistry.

Even if the average atheist’s account of what materialism is is confused and sloppy and even if the atheist can hardly give an adequate justification of the position, I see no reason to infer that prejudice motivates the belief and not a murky but sensible inference which is responsive to scientific evidence and not hostile to it.

The typical atheist’s reflexive empiricism also evidences no special prejudice against God or non-empirical entities.  It stems from a culture impressed with the power of empirical data for creating the most solid, least contested facts we have in our science and our culture.  It stems from the prejudice of common sense experience in which our senses are our most reliable guides to reality.  It stems from the difficulties involved in distinguishing science from non-science precisely.  It stems from a sometimes overactive but generally commendable suspicion of reifying abstract entities beyond necessity.  Over-emphasis on the role of senses in knowledge is often a result of an overly crude but nonetheless understandable way of articulating what makes science different than bullshit.

Yes, the typical atheist desperately needs more metaphysical clarity, but it is no special faith that leads her to think the evidence of experience and of the scientific method’s power point her to materialism, naturalism, and empiricism. She likely suffers no doubt at all in these positions and, so, even feels no need to exercise any willful faith—either implicitly or explicitly.

3. It should also be noted that some positions are based on no argument at all and yet are not “faith positions”.  We believe many things our senses tell us without any argument at all but we are justified in doing so because of their great reliability which would argue in their favor in specific cases if we were ever called upon to give an explicit case for some particular thing they tell us.  Many atheists trust their naturalism and empiricism with the reflexiveness with which they trust their senses.  If they never see any reason not to trust in these things, why would they ever doubt them?  A metaphysician might see need to create doubt in them but if they do not have any doubt, again, they do not need any act of faith.

4. Eric seems to argue that lest we be charged with faith we must all adopt the best supported metaphysical theories even if they are still only highly speculative given the current state of affairs in knowledge and only even known to  be the best metaphysical theories by a small handful of technical philospohers.  On Eric’s reading, a naturalist who infers from no experience of the supernatural to no existence of anything outside the natural is a person of faith but at the same time someone strongly adopts a highly speculative metaphysical belief only 20% likely (but still more likely than all other possibilities) is not having a faith position.  This strikes me as backwards, or at least an overreach on his part.

A skeptical agnostic about metaphysics might say, “I refrain from speculative metaphysical beliefs because even the best supported ones are too insufficiently supported to warrant any strength of belief.  It is inappropriate to believe any more than 20% in a belief which is only 20% likely to be true, even if it is the most likely true belief available.  Especially when nothing of practical importance hinges on the belief in question.  Speculative hypotheses may be adopted provisionally to be tested without being believed. And pragmatically useful, possibly true beliefs may be adopted for their practical value.   But otherwise belief should be strictly proportioned only to evidence.”

I think something like this standard of evidence is persuasive but even if it is not, I am sure that it is at least a respectable, non-faith-based philosophical position.  I would certainly not accuse any one who rejected belief in supernatural entities on these grounds  of being guilty of faith just because they refuse to have highly speculative beliefs and refuse even to attempt to answer even the most intransigent and unclear philosophical questions.  If by default, they say they are “naturalists”, this is nothing remotely worth calling “faith” unless all beliefs whatsoever are faith beliefs (in which case the word loses all its significance).

May any of the atheist inferences above yet be  wrong?  Sure.  But do they betray a mindset of faith in atheists? Hardly.

Your Thoughts?

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For more on faith, read any or all posts in my “Disambiguating Faith” series.  It is unnecessary to read all its posts to understand any given one.

Trustworthiness, Loyalty, And Honesty

Faith As Loyally Trusting Those Insufficiently Proven To Be Trustworthy

Faith As Tradition

Blind Faith: How Faith Traditions Turn Trust Without Warrant Into A Test Of Loyalty

The Threatening Abomination Of The Faithless

Rational Beliefs, Rational Actions, And When It Is Rational To Act On What You Don’t Think Is True

Faith As Guessing

Are True Gut Feelings And Epiphanies Beliefs Justified By Faith?

Faith Is Neither Brainstorming, Hypothesizing, Nor Simply Reasoning Counter-Intuitively

Faith In The Sub-, Pre-, Or Un-conscious

Can Rationality Overcome Faith?

Faith As A Form Of Rationalization Unique To Religion

Faith As Deliberate Commitment To Rationalization

Heart Over Reason

Faith As Corruption Of Children’s Intellectual Judgment

Faith As Subjectivity Which Claims Objectivity

Faith Is Preconditioned By Doubt, But Precludes Serious Doubting

Soul Searching With Clergy Guy

Faith As Admirable Infinite Commitment For Finite Reasons

Maximal Self-Realization In Self-Obliteration: The Existential Paradox of Heroic Self-Sacrifice

How A Lack Of Belief In God May Differ From Various Kinds Of Beliefs That Gods Do Not Exist

Why Faith Is Unethical (Or “In Defense Of The Ethical Obligation To Always Proportion Belief To Evidence”

Not All Beliefs Held Without Certainty Are Faith Beliefs

Defending My Definition Of Faith As “Belief Or Trust Beyond Rational Warrant”

Implicit Faith

Agnostics Or Apistics?

The Evidence-Impervious Agnostic Theists

Faith Which Exploits Infinitesimal Probabilities As Openings For Strong Affirmations

Why You Cannot Prove Inductive Reasoning Is Faith-Based Reasoning But Instead Only Assert That By Faith

How Just Opposing Faith, In Principle, Means You Actually Don’t Have Faith, In Practice

Naturalism, Materialism, Empiricism, And Wrong, Weak, And Unsupported Beliefs Are All Not Necessarily Faith Positions

How Faith Poisons Religion

Sagan’s Grand Slogan isn’t scientific by any standard. His statement about the Cosmos certainly isn’t empirically testable. There is no possible experiment that could either confirm it or disconfirm it. It isn’t even a hypothesis derived from observable evidence. Obviously, nobody went outside of our universe, took a look around, and saw that there isn’t anything else.

The temporality of the Grand Slogan makes it doubly faith-based: How does Sagan know that there was nothing before the Cosmos and that there will be nothing after the Cosmos? Or that time is endless both into the past and the future? He doesn’t know. And there aren’t even any ways to scientifically test those claims about the past or future.

So the Grand Slogan is just a statement of atheistic faith.

And it’s even worse: the Grand Slogan is a statement of faith that is masquerading as science. It’s atheistic pseudo-science just like intelligent design is Christian pseudo-science. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s scientism.

More charitably, the Grand Slogan is a speculative metaphysical thesis. And there are going to be arguments for it and against it. I love metaphysics; I’m happy if scientists and atheists want to do it. I’d love to discuss all the arguments and counter-arguments. But to present metaphysics as if it were science is at best bad reasoning and at worst deceptive. And atheists do it all the time.

Sagan, C. (1980) Cosmos. New York: Random House.

It’s hard for me to understand why that slogan would be a matter of faith. The fact that some thesis is speculative or metaphysical doesn’t entail that it’s a matter of faith. I affirm the existence of the entire iterative hierarchy of pure sets – the entire system of purely abstract Platonic mathematical objects. I believe that system exists because of arguments based on evidence, such as the Indispensability Argument, as well as a variety of other arguments. Those arguments are not without controversy. They may well be wrong. But surely my belief in the system of mathematical objects is not faith.

The best that any of us can do is to go with the stronger arguments. Those arguments are often inductive and thus highly speculative. Science is speculative. It would be hard to find any theories more speculative than our very best current physical theories. Does that mean that physics is based on faith? Surely not. Science goes with the stronger arguments. And it goes with the stronger arguments even when those arguments lead to contradictions – like the contradictions between quantum mechanics and the relativity theories.

An evolutionary metaphysics, justified by arguments grounded in evidence, is not faith. It’s going with the stronger argument. Of course, it isn’t certain, and it may well be wrong. But that hardly makes it a matter of faith. I’ll stand by my claim: every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be answered better by appealing to some form of evolution. And I’ll also stand by the claim that at the present time the very strongest arguments are arguments for evolutionary metaphysics.

To be sure, evolutionary metaphysics need not be Darwinian. It need not be some sort of blind random struggle for survival. Evolutionary metaphysics is not a branch of biology. Darwinian evolution is merely one rather local form of evolution. It’s just plain silly to equate all forms of evolution with Darwinism. There are many varieties of evolution. At the deepest levels, evolution might be entirely purposive and progressive.

And why would an evolutionary metaphysics have any trouble at all with an ultimate original object? One can easily run a modal cosmological argument (that is, the Third Way) to the following conclusion: there necessarily exists an ultimate independent utterly simple object from which all other objects evolved. The only problem with the modal cosmological argument is the conclusion that the ultimate object is God. It isn’t. But what is it? Perhaps it’s the empty universe – the mereological zero.

But perhaps the deeper worry is that, even if evolutionary metaphysics is a matter of rigorous abstruse logic for analytic philosophers like me, it will just look like another dumb-ass religion to the average person. Especially to those Crazy Christian Conservatives. And then we atheists will have lost the epistemic high ground. Alas, it’s hard to take that worry seriously.

Popular atheism in America celebrates versions of naturalism, materialism, empiricism, and so on, that are often based on weak arguments or even on no arguments at all. Popular atheism in America is already faith – and I’m sympathetic to the Christians who refer to it as such. Unfortunately, popular atheism is often just as scientifically illiterate and closed-minded as the worst Christianity. I love it when an atheist tells me that our universe is all that exists. I like to ask: How do you know? What’s your argument? And I have yet to meet a single atheist who can answer those questions.

Culturally, atheism is a way station on the way from one religion to another. Atheism in the West is a sign that Christianity is being replaced by other religions. It isn’t a sign that religion is ending. It’s perfectly fine with me if new religions emerge (or if older Western religions come back to life). Atheism means I don’t believe in the theistic deity, which means that I’m not a Christian theist. It doesn’t mean that I’m not religious or even that I’m not Christian. I often identify as a Christian atheist – that is, as an especially intense type of protest-ant against American Christianity. It is an identity I highly recommend, precisely because its paradoxicality forces people to think.

One of the new religious movements is known as religious naturalism. Perhaps it’s just another earth-centered spirituality. Or, in its more metaphysical forms, it’s a type of religiosity focused on the glory of the cosmos. Most religious naturalists adherents are highly scientific. Many religious naturalists are non-theists. But they are also value the social, emotional, and aesthetic aspects of life. I note that even Dawkins, in the opening chapters of The God Delusion, endorses something like religious naturalism.

Some sort of neo-paganism is probably the religious future of the West. It certainly won’t be Christian, it may not even be theistic. And, someday, the religious belief in personal gods will probably be replaced by other religious beliefs. Maybe the future of American religion is already unfolding at Burning Man. Maybe the future of religion will be centered around playing The Glass Bead Game. Or giving tiny ornate gifts to strangers. Or factoring numbers into their primes. Religious intuitions change. The future of religion is probably as incomprehensible to us as a computer would be to a Medieval peasant. And I’ll be happy if future religion is more ethically and cognitively positive. If it’s indeed true that most people need religion, then I’d prefer that they have some non-theistic religion. I’d prefer that they have a religion in which there is no supreme fascist.

This guy Michael Dowd is an evangelist for evolution. One of the things he does is show kids how to make necklaces with “evolution beads”. If anything surpasses and replaces Christianity, I’ll bet it’ll be something like his evolutionary spirituality. And it’ll probably be non-theistic. Would that be bad? Why? Should atheists oppose it? Why?