At Humanist Haven she discussed tips from science about how to live a better life, specifically in the face of our irrationalities. Her tips included choosing to spend time and money on experiences rather than things, giving experiences to others, and using adjectives to effect your subjective experience.

I sat down with her to discuss what science has to teach humanists.

Wendy Webber: You started your talk at Humanist Haven by stating that the fundamental question of humanism is “Why are humans so special?” Can you explain your understanding of “humanism” and then why this question is fundamental to it?

Laurie Santos: I guess I would say it is a fundamental question rather than thefundamental question. Humans are this weird species, one that thinks about our ownmortality and is meta-aware of our own existence. So while thinking about human uniqueness may not be the fundamental question of humanism, I think it relates to what we are trying to do in humanism a lot of the time, which is trying to figure out our place in the world. How can we answer who we are from a more naturalistic point-of-view? The only reason we are asking these questions is because our species is so weird

WW: What do animals have to teach us about the questions that humanism is asking?

LS: There are a couple things animals can teach us. One is that they can give us insight into what makes us special, what makes us human to ask these humanist questions in a way that no other species does

More practically, I think other species can give us a glimpse into how organisms should behave in the absence of a theistic worldview. There are lots of other species who do compassionate, nice things for one another, who care about one another, who act altruistically towards one another, not because of some belief in a god or an all-powerful being who is watching them. They do it just because they do. Greg Epstein wrote Good Without God and I think some non-human animals provide an existence proof because they probably don’t believe in God and they are nice to each other in lots of different ways.

WW: Your talk at Humanist Haven could have been titled “Scientific Tips for Happiness.” Is that a fair title?

LS: I think the caveat would be that I was giving the free, not-a-lot-of-work, everyone-could-implement-tonight sort of tips for being happier. Cognitive science would have a lot to say about richer, more nuanced things that we need to do be happier— like having fulfillment at work and achieving gratitude and those kinds of things,— but those sorts of interventions require a lot more than simply using some more adjectives.

WW: How important do you think happiness is to the human experience?

LS: I think it’s is super important. But it also depends a lot on how you define happiness. A lot of the content I was talking in my Humanist Haven talk could best be described as improving one’s hedonic happiness as opposed to one’s broader happiness, such as whether or not someone experiences her life as meaningful and fulfilled. The bigger parts of happiness are also very important for living a good life, but I didn’t have time to get into those bigger issues.

WW: At the end of your TED Talk, in which you talk about your research into how capuchin monkeys use money in ways that mirror our own rational and irrational behavior, you talk about how recognizing our limitations is the only way we can overcome them. You say, “that might be the only way that we will really be able to achieve our own human potential and really become the nobel species we hope to all be.”

My question is how do we irrationally act in ways that harm ourselves and others?

LS: There is lots of work nowadays in experimental economics tracking these kinds of situations—public goods games in which people are tempted to cheat even though they would ultimately be better off if they behaved nicely. In these situations, people have the urge to do the selfish thing that hurts everybody. Many researchers have begun studying the heuristics that people use to solve these sorts of public goods problems. The good news is that at least some of this research seems to suggest that people tend towards being nice in these situations—that our very fast or heuristic reactions are  ones that would promote kindness or compassion. David Rand, who is a faculty member here at Yale, has shown in his research that people’s fastest reaction in these games is to cooperate, to be nice to others, and to punish on behalf of others,. Our gut reaction is to do all things that reduce harm to other people. Unfortunately, we tend to switch our strategy to being selfish if given more time to think about the decision, or when we are told to act rationally. Dave’s idea is that—at least in many cultures—people developed fast instincts to do the nice thing, but that these fast instincts can be overridden. So I think the big question for researchers now is: why don’t our heuristics to lead us to behave nicely all the time. But this is a domain in which the irrational, fast thing to do is actually to be nice

There’s also work in cognitive science that people really don’t like taking physical actions that harm others, that this is another domain where our instinct is to be nice. Researchers like Fiery Cushman, who is a faculty member at Harvard, have found that people really don’t like to behave in ways that seem harmful even if rationally they know they are not. Fiery has a cute study where he ask people to smash his leg with a hammer, but he explains to people that he has replaced his real leg with a plastic replica Fiery finds that even though people rationally know that smashing the leg with a hammer will not cause harm, the fact that it seems like it is harmful is too much for people. People still don’t want to perform that action. I think that this is another example where our fast instincts make us acting nicely and stop us from engaging in harmful acts, In many situations, it takes a lot of cognitive work to get people to be jerks.

WW: The mission statement of Applied Sentience is “to find beauty in the world and explore how to live in it.” So, where do you find beauty in the world?

LS: One way I try to do it is to naturally to pay more attention to things, to be more in the moment. For me, being in the moment tends to correlate with experiencing more gratitude and noticing things more.

I personally experience a lot of happiness and get a sense of beauty from being out in nature and being around other people. So part of the way I like to structure my research and my daily life to allow for more of that. That’s were I get my awe from.

That said, I think finding awe is particularly tricky for humanists and nontheists. Folks who participate in religious traditions are part of cultural structures that allow them to experience awe all the time. They often get that sort of stuff for free. Every Sunday they participate in an experience that has been culturally shaped over many, many years to give people awe, to give people a sense of meaning and beauty. And we humanists who lack that and have to do it for ourselves. We don’t have zillions of years of religious tradition built up to help us with that. Nor do we often have that spaces where we can share that beauty with others.

I think that’s the beauty of things like Humanist Haven where people come together to try to achieve those things. Psychologically, we know that shared spaces really help to us achieve shared experiences. I think this is one strength of many religious traditions that humanist communities would be well served to take on.

This was originally posted at Applied Sentience.

The Outdated Question of Our Survival

Well, statistically we are. I’m sure many of you have raised a wagging finger, “But what about the millions of poor–starving and dying of malaria–or the constant wars broadcast 24 hours on cable news?” I’m certainly not ignoring this. I’ve seen starvation with my own eyes in Uganda where a boiled egg was a treat for the students of our school when the school chickens produced enough eggs. I saw it with my own eyes in Guatemala where people dig through the city dump looking for items to recycle and leftovers to eat. I’ve seen it in the US where soup kitchens have lines around the corner.

But there can be no doubt we are making progress on these fronts. Even in the poorest areas of the world, life expectancy has increased dramatically in the last century. Countries with the worst life expectancy now, have higher life expectancy than countries with the highest did decades ago. Since we have solved the problem of producing enough food for everyone, the question we face now is how to distribute that food justly. The fact of the matter is violence has declined. Don’t believe me? Ask Steven Pinker. The situation is improving, but we are, unquestionably, still dealing with violence and hunger and disease.

The problem is that species survival does not require survival of every individual. A certain amount of individual selfishness by the strong regarding resources benefits the species as a whole because it ensures that at least some will survive. This tendency, even if unconscious, makes sense in an age where humanity’s survival was not certain. But we no longer live in that age. Yet we act as if we do. That is why a too many of the resources are being squandered by the powerful, when they could easily be shared.

Species Survival to Individual Happiness

From a species perspective, we’ve come to a point in history when it is no longer necessary to struggle to survive. But at an individual level, so many do struggle. Too many don’t survive.

How do we address this discrepancy? If species survival is no longer our main objective, how do we refocus our survival energy? Shouldn’t that energy now go to the survival and happiness of all members of our species–to addressing systematic violence, hunger, and preventable disease. None of these problems are going to be solved if we remain in individual survival mode. We can and should reorientate ourselves from survival of the species to survival and happiness of the individual.

Human Rights: A Cornerstone of Humanism

This is fundamental to humanism. When people ask me what humanism is, and I get asked a lot, I tell them that fundamentally humanism is about happiness. Humanism tells us that we, every one of us, has the right to be happy and to pursue what makes us happy, assuming of course, that that pursuit does not impede the happiness of others. Beyond our own happiness, it is our responsibility to aid others in pursuing their happiness.

Currently, there is catch. The catch is, it’s hard to pursue happiness when you are too busy pursuing clean water, nutritious food, and adequate shelter. Securing basic survival needs is fundamental to fostering happiness. So our first step as humanists is to secure basic human rights for every member of our species. Then we have the foundation for happiness for every member.

This a call to reorient ourselves–from pursuing survival to pursing happiness, for every single human on this planet. This is by no means a call to requiring people take up the label “humanist”. I am not proselytizing. The idea to reorient to survival of all comes to me from my humanist foundations, but it is not exclusively humanist. Nor should it be. But I do want people to switch off survival of the species mode.

Survival is outdated. We have survived. It is time to thrive.

The more people who reorient to survival of all the easier it will become. The obstacles that hinder global clean water initiatives and systems to get food to the people that need it will become less steep.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not think this is an easy utopia. It will be difficult. It might be impossible. But there no chance unless a few of the brave embrace the switch in the beginning. Then others will not be so afraid in the future.

This piece was originally published with Applied Sentience. You can read it here.

Oddly, science and religion, using their broadest notions, have been pitted against each other in a war over certainty. For many anti-theists, religion dupes the faithful with easy answers to unanswerable questions. In other words, for creating false certainty. By those religious people who see science as an adversary, science is criticized for not having all the answers. In other words, for accepting, even embracing, uncertainty. I am not trying to suggest that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible–that a person cannot be a scientist and a theist. I am merely exploring how the two disciplines deal with certainty and uncertainty.

In the US, we live in a culture where changing one’s mind is unacceptable, even in the face of new evidence or changing circumstances. (Writing for Applied Sentience, Aaron Gertler explores this phenomenon in more depth.) A cursory survey of accusations of politically flip-flopping in election rhetoric proves that point. We live in a world where questioning long held assumptions is met with derision even when the evidence falls against a popular belief. The debates over vaccines and global warming make that point.

Despite science’s foundation of questioning and acceptance of the inevitability of error, for most people, science does come with a sense of certainty. How many times was I told in college by my science major friends that they preferred science to humanities because in science there were right and wrong answers? Yes, college science majors. Maybe that was the case on their exams, but science in no way promises certainty.

Science does promise greater and greater understanding. Science is a path to ever increasing clarity. But it is the nature of that path that attracts the greatest criticism–constant questioning, continuous reassessment, and continual willingness to change. Willingness to admit new theories in the face of greater evidence is science’s greatest characteristic.

Perhaps I am confused by humanity’s hunger for certainty because for me uncertainty is much more comforting. This may be my mother’s fault. As long as I can remember she’s told me, “when you stop learning you die.” What is there to learn if we already know the answers–both to the big questions and the small? Knowing that there are always ideas and phenomena to explore gives life meaning.

The magician Penn Gillette, who makes his living not by not revealing mysteries,said, “One of the most rewarding feelings in life is the ‘aha.’” This is a pleasure uncertainty offers the world. The reward of the “aha” is not the erasure of uncertainty. Though, of course, in any specific case uncertainty has been largely erased, all the other mysteries still exist. The “aha” is so sweet because such hard work was required to create it (most of the time).

But this is not the main comfort uncertainty provides me. Knowing there are things that are unknowable, at least for me, at least in my lifetime, makes me feel like part of something bigger–this complex, infinite universe with new wonders at every turn.

I don’t know the comfort of certainty that some religions provide with supernatural explanations. So it is impossible for me to compare that comfort to mine. But for me, not knowing makes the world a miraculous place. I want to live in a miraculous, awe-inspiring world. But supernatural explanations of miracles do not induce awe. Their certainty does not inspire. The vast array of wonder in this world excites me often because of their mystery. The never-ending search for natural explanations fuel me. My world is full of unexplained miracles. And I like that. It is not the uncertainty that makes them miracles. It is the journey of discovery that makes them miraculous.

This piece was originally published with Applied Sentience. Read the original here.

]]> http://interbelief.com/why-i-love-being-uncertain/feed/ 0 http://interbelief.com/questioning-the-standard-life-cycle-of-an-atheist/ http://interbelief.com/questioning-the-standard-life-cycle-of-an-atheist/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2014 02:53:12 +0000 http://interbelief.com/?p=412 [Read more...]]]> I’ve been an atheist all my life, but I didn’t notice until I was in high school. I didn’t notice because it never felt like a big deal. I didn’t feel discriminated against. I didn’t feel excluded or different. And I didn’t grow up in some bastion of godlessness either. I grew up in southern New Mexico, where Catholicism is the order of the day. I was surprisingly old before I realized Protestantism was the majority in the US, in my US History class when I was a junior in high school. As an adult I realize how lucky I was to grow up in a situation where my beliefs were such a nonissue.

Growing Up

Looking back, there were moments. At Hanukah one year the rabbi’s wife told me I was going to hell when she discovered that I didn’t know how to play dreidel. Before one meal with my stepfamily my stepcousin, who was about eight at the time, chastised me for having my eyes open during grace. I explained to her that the only way she could know that was if her eyes were also open. I was surprised at my cousin’s Bat Mitzvah when all the cousins were asked to come to the front to read a passage. I walked nervously to the front wondering if my family remembered that I had not had a Bat Mitzvah and could not read Hebrew.

San Albino Church Mesilla, a Catholic Church near my hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico

As an adult I have learned that there was strife behind the scenes. My Catholic grandparents were worried about the influence of my Jewish mother and wanted to pay for Catholic boarding school to save my soul. I am probably responsible for shortening my grandmother’s life. When she handed me a rosary at my grandfather’s funeral when I was ten years old I asked what it was.

It is probably clear by now, one side of my family is Jewish and one side is Catholic. On both sides my relatives range from devout to high holiday adherents to atheists. My stepfamily is nondenominationally Christian. My mom would probably call herself culturally Jewish. My dad calls himself a devoutly fallen away Catholic. Religion was a nonissue in my house. God was not discussed, but the subject wasn’t avoided either. It just didn’t come up. Just like in the rest of my life.

A Different Narrative

I’m not just previewing the first chapter of my memoirs. I tell you all this to explain that I am not nor was I ever an angry atheist. I am not a recovering theist. I never had to “come out” to my family. My decision to pursue a Masters in Religion was probably a bigger shock.

Yet I have been reluctant to join the atheist community. I only recently started accepting the atheist label. And I still prefer humanist. My reluctance was not because of the stigma and prejudice, but largely because I don’t like to be defined by a negative, in this case a lack of belief. I prefer to be defined by what I do believe in: the innate equality of all humans and right to have and to pursue happiness.

Now that I have accepted the atheist label, I am still reluctant to participate in the community. Why? Because a large part of the conversation is about why or how to leave religion. I didn’t realize how deep my reluctance was until I was asked to participate in the second annual International Day of Doubt. On June 1st atheists around the world posted on Facebook an invitation to religious people who were doubting their beliefs to message them. It was an opportunity to find a community and talk to people who had gone through a similar struggle. I should explain that I am in no way knocking people and organizations that provide support and guidance for those who have realized their beliefs are different from the religious beliefs of their family, friends, or community. I have infinite sympathy for the difficulty of that situation. But I struggled with the decision to participate in Day of Doubt or not. Ultimately I decided not to. My reasoning, right or wrong, was that since I had never been religious I was not the right person to talk to about the struggle of leaving religion if someone did contact me. I am still not sure I made the right decision.

Building Bridges

I’m not just previewing the first chapter of my memoirs. I tell you all this to explain that I am not nor was I ever an angry atheist. I am not a recovering theist. I never had to “come out” to my family. My decision to pursue a Masters in Religion was probably a bigger shock.

Yet I have been reluctant to join the atheist community. I only recently started accepting the atheist label. And I still prefer humanist. My reluctance was not because of the stigma and prejudice, but largely because I don’t like to be defined by a negative, in this case a lack of belief. I prefer to be defined by what I do believe in: the innate equality of all humans and right to have and to pursue happiness.

Now that I have accepted the atheist label, I am still reluctant to participate in the community. Why? Because a large part of the conversation is about why or how to leave religion. I didn’t realize how deep my reluctance was until I was asked to participate in the second annual International Day of Doubt. On June 1st atheists around the world posted on Facebook an invitation to religious people who were doubting their beliefs to message them. It was an opportunity to find a community and talk to people who had gone through a similar struggle. I should explain that I am in no way knocking people and organizations that provide support and guidance for those who have realized their beliefs are different from the religious beliefs of their family, friends, or community. I have infinite sympathy for the difficulty of that situation. But I struggled with the decision to participate in Day of Doubt or not. Ultimately I decided not to. My reasoning, right or wrong, was that since I had never been religious I was not the right person to talk to about the struggle of leaving religion if someone did contact me. I am still not sure I made the right decision.

For those who have experienced serious problems with their families and loved ones, Recovering from Religion may be able to help.

These phrases coming from the atheist community are not nearly as bad, but they, and similar language and actions, are not helping either. There is no doubt that these kinds of phrases are helpful for those embracing atheistic beliefs, especially if doing so means breaking or straining relations with family and friends. But they also contribute to the prejudiced atmosphere between theists and atheists. They grate against the ears of those who still hold religious beliefs. To them they are attacks.

How is it possible to build a bridge when both sides are attacking each other? It’s not. Attacks on the religious community do not make it easier for atheists to leave them or remain in them but live openly. Attacks affirm some religious people’s prejudice that atheists are not worthwhile people. Theists who refuse to associate with atheists see only the label and not the person. These phrases coming from the atheist side do the same thing. One side must start building the bridge. Hopefully the other side will see construction and will be inspired to start building from their side as well.

It is, of course, unfair to lump all atheists together as attackers. Just as it is unfair to claim that all religious people think atheists are evil. But as long as atheism is strongly associated with anti-theism I will resist association myself. My resistance is not because of the prejudice atheists face from the religious, but because of the intolerance atheists aim at the religious.

This week’s blog is at Applied Sentience. You can read it here.

A Humanist School in a Fundamentalist Country

“Praise Jesus Shop”

Before I relate the position I took, I should explain the nature of the situation in Uganda. I was volunteering with KHPS as part of Pathfinders Project, an international humanist service year. KHPS is a humanist school in a coercively religious nation. On national exams students must answer questions like “Who created you?”. The US Christian right has been instrumental in the passing of the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill. Businesses have names like “God’s Mercy Dairy.” And Joseph Kony’s LRA, of Kony 2012, fame stands for “The Lord’s Resistance Army” which, at least officially, fights to make Uganda a theocracy. In this climate, KHPS must balance teaching humanist ideals which challenge this foundation and not alienating the community that relies on them.

How does humanism manifest at KHPS? For one thing, they hold weekly humanism seminars. I can’t comment on what goes on normally during these seminars, but the Pathfinders lead several while we were there and we had sessions about cooperation, empathy, the platinum rule, critical thinking, and the scientific method. More generally, the school emphasizes science classes. There are signs all over campus with sayings like “educate your children through science for a better future,” “do not believe in superstition”, and “science is the best way to live.” Their motto is “With Science We Can Progress.”

“God Provides Boutique” and “God’s Mercy Dairy”

Many of the students, but certainly not all or even a majority, call themselves humanists. I don’t know what their regular religion classes previously focused on, but while I taught them we emphasized studying comparative religions. The students had never heard of any traditions other than Christianity and Islam. While I made it clear thatthe purpose of studying different religions was to understand and empathize with others, a humanist tenet, the students made comments questioning the scientific validity of polytheism, meditation, or prophecy.

Cultural Perceptions of “Science”

It was clear that humanism, and its associate science, had been presented as an alternative to Christianity and Islam. Which of course it often is, though not necessarily. At another humanist school we volunteered at in Uganda (there are three), the teachers who called themselves humanists also identified as Muslim or Christian. Their humanism was not instead of religion, but in addition to it.

In the KHPS climate,

“With Science Everything is Possible”

I fully expected the identified humanist, and most vocal, teachers to be strong advocates for science in the debate. But before I unveil some of their positions I should mention one other thing. While these were formal debates, the students were not encouraged to argue a side for the sake of argument. Students and teachers alike argued from their conscience only. For my part, I decided to play devil’s advocate and argue for why science and technology has done harm in Uganda. Being the second person to make a case following another Pathfinder, I did not know that I was actually adding to the chorus of agreement with the proposition.

What I had not yet realized was how science was tied to colonialism in the Ugandan’s minds. Science and technology was brought by colonial powers. I need to make clear that I am using the word “science” because they did, but really they were talking more about technology than the scientific method or a particular theory.

“Do Not Believe in Superstition”

And a narrow definition of technology that includes modern machines and western medicine but excludes traditional tools.

The fruits of scientific labor in Uganda largely remain the domain of outsiders. Many of the technologies that have come to Uganda function to better strip the land of its natural resources to be exported to the West. Not only is this striping the land of its beauty, but Ugandans are seeing little profit from it. Can it really be surprising that these so-called advances are viewed unfavorably by the Ugandans?

Humanism and Colonialism

In and of itself, this rejection of modern technology is not surprising, expected even. But coupled with the school’s intensive promotion of science as a tenet of humanism the rejection not only surprised me, it seemed hypocritical. Following the debate I began to think about humanism not just in relation to Christianity and Islam, but in relation to colonial Christianity and Islam. Then it started to make sense.

In my experience encountering humanism, mostly in the US, it is framed as a moral structure for nonbelievers. Good without god.

“Your Brain is Your Blessing”

This is not an automatic dichotomy, but it is often presented as such. When I arrived in Uganda I brought this assumption that humanism would also be set up as opposition to theistic religions. From talking to the teachers at the humanist school my assumptions were confirmed, mostly.

There were a few things that confused me as our time marched forward at KHPS. One of the teachers was evangelically humanist and very vocally anti-religion. Yet at lunch he prayed and told us he was talking to “the one who knows.” He told me a story about the mountain god – the god of his tribe (the word he himself used). When the god was angry his tribe suffered from droughts. When the god was happy it rained. How was this behavior coming from a man who is an avowed humanist scientist? How are these beliefs coming from a man who is constantly asking his students, “Where does God live? Have you ever seen him?”

Following the debate I realized I’d forgotten the colonial history of the area. I cannot be sure how this teacher would describe his beliefs about his tribe’s mountain god, but I don’t think he’d call it religion. Just as he embraces science at the same time that he rejects western medicine (during the debate he explained how western medicine takes your money and only kills you while herbal medicines are natural and work), this teacher also embraces his mountain god at the same time that he rejects religion.

“A Humanist is a Happy Person”

He embraces science when it rejects colonial religion and rejects science when it rejects African independence or indigenous power. It’s not about science at all. Nor about religion. It’s about colonialism and reestablishing autonomy.

For these teachers, science is part of the problem as it continues to perpetuate the legacy of colonialism. But at the same time they are able to embrace science as a way of rejecting colonial-imposed religion.

There is no reason to argue that their rationale for embracing humanism is any less valid than anyone else’s. KHPS very existence is a rebellion against forced religious belonging. They are teaching their students to meet the world with a critical eye. Their humanism might not encompass the same beliefs about science and technology as mine does, but their humanism manifests with the same desire to instill critical thinking and generate justice. I can only hope our influence led them to more emphasize compassion and empathy for others in their humanism studies.

This piece was originally published with Applied Sentience. You can read this week’s post here. Do check it out for more photos.