No Darwinists around Dinner Tables

I think what gives the appearance that you’re attacking strawmen is the lack of a useful definition of “Darwinist.” Does it apply to anyone who does believe in evolution, but not in either deity or pneuma? If so, then the accusation has some basis. If, on the other hand, you’re only referring to those who believe that methodological naturalism is the only correct or useful way of observing, and that philosophical naturalism is the only rationally defensible position, then I would agree with you . . . but then, you’d only be talking about a very narrow (if vocal) portion of those individuals who believe, generally, in evolution.

This notion of performative contradiction actually illustrates the limitation of Western thinking in general, on both the atheistic and theistic (or fellow traveling) side. To Buddhists and Taoists, free will is real to precisely the same degree as the self (and, by extension, the world in which it lives) is real, which is not very far in reality, but infinitely in terms of function. In scientific terms (for science is nothing but a naturalistic method for observing natural phenomena), one could say that I’m part of a chain of physical and chemical processes that lead me to behave in a certain fashion; in poetic terms (for poetry is nothing but the subjective, linguistic method for describing phenomena in non-naturalistic terms), one could call this destiny. But if we extrapolate further along poetic lines, we could suggest that even destiny relies on my choices. If my choices are pre-determined, part of that pre-determination is that I make them, to the best of my ability and with all information and tools at my disposal. That is, if all is cause & effect (and to the Nichiren Buddhist, it is), then I can attempt, at all times, to make the causes that lead to the desired effects (and not just for me as an individual organism, since that is ephemeral and illusory, but for the whole, since it is into that whole that I will be absorbed upon extinction). Now, I’d say that I don’t have much choice as to what effects I see as desirable; we can’t decide what we want or believe so much as we can decide whether or not we will pursue what we want, and how (or if) we will live our lives according to belief.

In that sense, I look at my wife’s generosity and empathy, and see that it is a function of her choices. Even if she was physically and chemically driven to make those choices (and I cannot claim to know one way or another), and I was physically and chemically driven to find those choices appealing–indeed, even if what we do in light of these predisposition has been foreordained, or simply could not happen another way–the superficial appearance of will and individuation has functional use; it drives me toward good cause. It has managed to make me a better husband, a better son, a better artist, a better teacher, a better philanthropist, and so on. It lead me to Buddhism, through which I have done greater works than I ever managed as a Catholic (to say nothing of my years of questioning after coming to question my faith in [G/g]od[s] and exploring other metaphysical principles, including “none”).

I don’t think that “good” and “beauty” exist in nature; nature provides only quantities, on which we project value according to preferences (some individual, most arising out of, if not consensus, at least mutual agreement of some sort with other organisms who share enough with us–language certainly among the attributes–to engage in contracts). But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think they serve a natural function, or that their poetic function isn’t equally worthy. I am, after all, not a scientist; I am, indeed, an artist–an abstractionist by trade and inclination. If I thought that poetry and meditation and theater and music and philosophy were somehow inferior to mechanistic analysis and methodological naturalism, I probably picked the wrong field.

Almost no evolutionary theorists agree entirely with Darwin (who was, by all accounts, not even an atheist, and therefore not likely to have been the reductionist you seem anxiously certain that he was), yet nearly all are called “Darwinists” when the time comes to speak derisively of them. Whether or not some theory or other of evolution arose prior to Darwin, the notion of natural selection can be traced to him, and if one believes that natural selection is responsible, in general (not necessarily in totality), for the features of organisms . . . well, now it just feels like we’re dancing around the dictionary (and not even a legitimate one, but rather, the divisive wordplay of highly partisan and malleably socio-cultural semantic chicanery).

Your definition of free will is pretty much what I’m supposing, so I repeat: We have the appearance of free will. That appearance may or may not be deceptive. I have free will in that I act for reasons; the deception may lie in the very real possibility that my “reasons” are nothing more than part of a chain of physical causes. This is not strictly a reductionist or even atheistic view; it’s fully consistent with pantheism, panpsychism, or even panentheism of Eastern and Western varieties.

I’m not sure I DO agree that I exist in nature; the “I” is certainly ephemeral, and possibly illusory. Even granting, arguendo, that the individual self is a natural occurrence, I would say less that “good” and “beauty” exist in me than that the capacity to prefer any qualitatively, morally, or aesthetically neutral quantity in nature over another, and to label that preference by referring to that quantity as “good” or “beautiful” to distinguish it from others that I do not see in such a way, appears to be a part of my natural function.

If we want to foist more semantic chicanery upon such, we can suggest that this means, yes, that “good” and “beauty” exist in nature because a natural organism can find natural phenomena “good” and “beautiful.” What I’m getting at, though, is that they don’t exist in any objective state–that what is good and beautiful for me might well not be good or beautiful for you, though I would imagine that we would find some common ground due to cultural parameters.

What I mean is less that “I” exist outside of nature than that “I” might well not exist at all; that is, there is a gathering of properties and components that are reflective of the whole, but my very assignation of a person, an individual self, to that confluence is, itself, just another property. I am a microcosm of the universe; then again, so is an amoeba or a rock . . . and indeed, the notion that I am separate from–let alone “superior” to–the amoeba or the rock amounts to a presupposition, and not, in my view, a particularly well-justified one. There are “reasons” why I function according to classification–human, individual, male, Buddhist, American, Celt, actor, husband–but those reasons probably amount to causes, at least in the sense that, in the end, that part of me which possesses will and self-awareness is more likely than not to be extinguished (hopefully in a good number of years, but potentially at any time).

I would say that “sweet means eat” and “bitter means spit out” IS reliant on convention, or, more accurately, on circumstance; after all, kale, one of the healthiest foods in nature, is fairly bitter. On the other hand, yes, the human palate will tend to avoid bile. That’s still conditional, though–not on culture, but on species. I can all but guarantee there’s something out there that eats bile. So this preference is a function of evolution, of adaptation to a certain way of being.

On the other hand (not sure how many hands that even makes), I think we might be back to a semantic disagreement. “Your facial symmetry stimulates my oxytocin, and your grasp of language and social nuance indicates strong proclivity for the maintenance of social status” and “You’re gorgeous and charming, and it would please me to no end to spend time in your company” are not different statements; one who believes that attraction and beauty are most objectively described in the former terms is not engaged in a “performative contradiction”; he is expressing the same observation in terms that either better describe his subjective state (which is as experientially valid as the objective one) or better please the listener (which is likelier to further his goals)–more than likely both.

Again, it seems like we’re chasing another false binary, making a “but” where a more enlightened mind would perceive an “and”.