Skip to main content
Log in

Survival, freedom, urge and the absolute: on an antinomy in the subject

  • Article
  • Published:
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

There is no God in Heaven, and there is no Hell below;

So says the Great Professor, of all there is to know.

- Leonard Cohen, “Almost like the Blues”

Abstract

This article argues against scientistic arguments of the redundancy of religious belief structures due to the explicability of the physical world, as exemplified here by a discussion of the “popular science” of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. It is claimed that the root of belief in “sense” is in animation, rather than in cosmological creation myths. The paper displays that the ideal of the absolute is linguistically signified by the termini “survival” and “freedom” in human understanding. However, it does not appear through human understanding as an illusion stemming from the illegitimate inference of a pantheistic spirit or prime mover. Instead, human reason builds an analytical understanding upon a fundamental instinct, which long predates human-level consciousness. Approaching the subject’s role in the physical world, the article displays that animation itself, as the primal form of awareness and agency, is the urge to overcome an inherent antagonism in the structure of being. It is argued that the cosmological argument is mirrored by an argument that has no strict theoretical cogency, but is likewise irreducible and irrefutable by science. Science investigates the object empirically but has limited explanatory capabilities when it comes to subjective being.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Availability of data and materials

n/a.

Code availability

n/a.

Notes

  1. As Krauss writes elsewhere: “Quantum mechanics blurs the distinction between something and nothing” (Krauss, 2017, 214).

  2. In a way, it is the same argument that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman put forward in their 1990 novel Good Omens when they argued that nothing can last forever, not even nothingness, and therefore there is something. Gaiman and Pratchett were possibly less serious about their argument than Krauss.

  3. One should not overstate the importance of memes in Dawkins’ scheme. Being cultural products, they seem to be somewhat suspect to Dawkins. He wrote in the notes to the 20th anniversary edition of the book: “The first ten chapters of The Selfish Gene had concentrated exclusively on one kind of replicator, the gene. In discussing memes in the final chapter, I was making a point for replicators in general, and to show that genes were not the only members of that important class. Whether the milieu of human culture really does have what it takes to get some form of Darwinism going, I am not sure. But in any case that question is subsidiary to my concern” (Dawkins, 2016, 424).

  4. The point here is that all real objects are unique and thus different from (or more than) the abstracta that the observer takes them to be. Heidegger, of course, is a difficult author. I personally found Shaviro’s chapter on Heidegger helpful. See Shaviro (2014).

  5. Information and its connection to entropy is another highly controversial topic. However, two approaches that highlight the functional and thus subjective character of information can be found in Sharov (2010) and Cannizzaro (2013).

References

  • Albeverio, S., & Blanchard, P. (Eds.). (2013). Direction of time. Springer Science & Business Media.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boltzmann, L. (1898). Lectures on gas theory (translated from German). Dover Publications Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler, P. J. (1989). Evolution: The history of an idea (Rev). University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannizzaro, S. (2013). Where did information go? Reflections on the logical status of information in a cybernetic and semiotic perspective. Biosemiotics, 6(1), 105–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, J. (2016). Quantum of solitude. New Scientist, 231(3082), 30–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, I. A. (2006). The emergence of cells during the origin of life. Science, 314(5805), 1558–1559.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daniel, C., & Mason, O. J. (2015). Predicting psychotic-like experiences during sensory deprivation. BioMed Research International, 2015(1), 439379.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, P. C. W. (2013). Directionality principles from cancer to cosmology. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 19–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R. (2015). The blind watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. W. W. Norton and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R. (2016). The selfish gene: 40th anniversary edition (Oxford Landmark Science). Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R., & Krebs, J. R. (1979). Arms races between and within species. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series b: Biological Sciences, 205(1161), 489–511.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deamer, D., Dworkin, J. P., Sandford, S. A., Bernstein, M. P., & Allamandola, L. J. (2002). The first cell membranes. Astrobiology, 2(4), 371–381.

    Google Scholar 

  • Errington, J. (2013). L-form bacteria, cell walls and the origins of life. Open Biology, 3(1), 120–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fichte, J. G., & Breazeale, D. (1992). Foundations of transcendental philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo (1796/99). Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartle, J. B. (2019). The impact of cosmology on quantum mechanics. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.03933.

  • Heidegger, M. (1995). Being and time. 1. engl. ed., repr. Blackwell.

  • Hoffmeyer, J. (1996). Signs of meaning in the universe. Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmeyer, J. (2008). The semiotic body. Biosemiotics, 1(1), 169–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, S. P. (2014). Object perception. In O. Braddick (Ed.), Psychology, Oxford research encyclopedias. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (1956) Critique of practical reason. Translated, with an Introd. By Lewis White Beck. Bobbs-Merrill.

  • Kant, I. (1998). Kritik der reinen vernunft. Edited by Georg Mohr. Akad.-Verlag.

  • Kauffman, S. (2013). Evolution beyond newton, darwin and entailing law. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 162–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krakauer, D. (2013). The inferential evolution of biological complexity: Forgetting nature by learning nurture. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 224–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krauss, L. M. (2012). A universe from nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing. Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krauss, L. M. (2017). The greatest story ever told … thus far: Why are we here? Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambert, F. L. (1999). Shuffled cards, messy desks, and disorderly dorm rooms-examples of entropy increase? Nonsense! Journal of Chemical Education, 76(10), 1385.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambert, F. L. (2006). A modern view of entropy. Chemistry, 15(1), 13–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, N., & Martin, W. F. (2012). The origin of membrane bioenergetics. Cell, 151(7), 1406–1416.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson, E. J. (2006). Evolution: The remarkable history of a scientific theory. Modern Library paperback ed. A Modern Library chronicles book 17. Modern Library.

  • Lineweaver, C. H. (2013). A simple treatment of complexity: Cosmological entropic boundary conditions on increasing complexity. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 42–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lineweaver, C. H., Davies, P. C. W., & Ruse, M. (Eds.). (2013). Complexity and the arrow of time. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, S. (2013). On the spontaneous generation of complexity in the universe. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 80–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahler, M. S., & Mcdevitti, J. (1982). Thoughts on the emergence of the sense of self, with particular emphasis on the body self. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 30(4), 827–848.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKenna, M., & Coates, D. J. (2004). Compatibilism. Retrieved December 09, 2020 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/.

  • Morin, A. (2006). Levels of consciousness and self-awareness: A comparison and integration of various neurocognitive views. Consciousness and Cognition, 15(2), 358–371.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morsella, E., & Poehlman, T. A. (2013). The inevitable contrast: Conscious vs. unconscious processes in action control. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00590

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, T. (1980). What is it like to be a bat. Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, 1(435), 159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piaget, J., & Cook, M. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children 5. International Universities Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rochat, P., & Hespos, S. J. (1997). Differential rooting response by neonates: Evidence for an early sense of self. Infant and Child Development, 6(3–4), 105–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruse, M. (2009). Monad to man: The concept of progress in evolutionary biology. Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruse, M. (2013). Wrestling with biological complexity: From darwin to dawkins. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 279–308.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, M. J., Nitschke, W., & Branscomb, E. (2013). The inevitable journey to being. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 368(1622), 20120254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharov, A. A. (2010). Functional information: Towards synthesis of biosemiotics and cybernetics. Entropy, 12(1), 1050–1070.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaviro, S. (2014). The universe of things: On speculative realism. Uiversity of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skrbina, D. (2017). Panpsychism in the west. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, S. (2020). An Introduction to Panspiritism: An Alternative to Materialism and Panpsychism. Zygon®, 55(4), 898–923.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vernon, J., Marton, T., & Peterson, E. (1961). Sensory deprivation and hallucinations. Science, 133(3467), 1808–1812.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolpert, D. H. (2013). Information width: A way for the second law to increase complexity. Lineweaver, Davies, and Ruse, 2013, 246–277.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoshida, N. (2009). Structure formation in the early universe. https://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.4372.

Download references

Funding

n/a.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan-Boje Frauen.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

None.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Frauen, JB. Survival, freedom, urge and the absolute: on an antinomy in the subject. Int J Philos Relig 91, 63–85 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-021-09812-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-021-09812-z

Keywords

Navigation