Darwin's Dangerous Idea (33 page)

others, think they see a wonderful pattern in the laws of physics; if they or Several versions of this speculation have been seriously considered by anyone else were to make the tactical mistake of asking the rhetorical physicists and cosmologists in recent years. John Archibald Wheeler (1974 ), question "What else but God could
possibly
explain it?" Smolin would have a for instance, has proposed diat the universe oscillates back and forth for nicely deflating reply. (I advise my philosophy students to develop eternity, a Big Bang is followed by expansion, which is followed by con-hypersensitivity for rhetorical questions in philosophy. They paper over traction into a Big Crunch, which is followed by another Big Bang, and so whatever cracks there are in the arguments.)

fordi forever, with random variations in the constants and odier crucial But suppose, for the sake of argument, that Smolin's speculations are all parameters occurring in each oscillation. Each possible setting is tried an flawed; suppose
selection
of universes doesn't work after all. There is a infinity of times, and so every variation on every theme, both those diat weaker, semi-Darwinian speculation that also answers the rhetorical question

"make sense" and those diat are absurd, spins itself out, not once but an handily. Hume toyed with this weaker idea, too, as we already noted, in part infinity of times.

VIII of his
Dialogues-.

It is hard to believe that this idea is empirically testable in any meaningful way, but we should reserve judgment. Variations or elaborations on the Instead of supposing matter infinite, as Epicurus did, let us suppose it finite.

theme just might have implications that could be confirmed or discon-A finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite transpositions: And firmed. In die meantime, it is worth noting diat tiiis family of hypotiieses it must happen, in an eternal duration, that every possible order or position does have the virtue of extending die principles of explanation diat work so must be tried an infinite number of times __

well in testable domains all the way out. Consistency and simplicity are in its Suppose ... that matter were thrown into any position, by a blind, favor. And diat, once again, is certainly enough to blunt die appeal of the unguided force; it is evident that this first position must in all probability traditional alternative.9

be die most confused and most disorderly imaginable, without any resem-Anybody who won a coin-tossing tournament would be tempted to think blance to those works of human contrivance, which, along with a symme-he was blessed widi magical powers, especially if he had no direct knowl-try of parts, discover an adjustment of means to ends and a tendency to edge of die odier players. Suppose you were to create a ten-round coin-self-preservation— Suppose, that the actuating force, whatever it be, still continues in matter— Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a tossing tournament without letting each of the 1,024 "contestants" realize he continued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it was entered in a tournament. You say to each one as you recruit him.-

may settle at last... ? May we not hope for such a position, or rather be

"Congratulations, my friend. I am Mephistopheles, and I am going to bestow assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter, and may not great powers on you. Witii me at your side, you are going to win ten this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in the universe?

This idea exploits no version of selection at all, but simply draws attention 9. For a more detailed analysis of these issues, and a defense of a "neo-PIatonist" middle ground, see J. Leslie 1989. (Like most middle grounds, this is not likely to appeal to either to the fact that we have eternity to play with. There is no five-billion-year the devout or the skeptical, but it is at least an ingenious attempt at a compromise.) Van deadline in this instance, the way there is for the evolution of life on Earth.

Inwagen (199 3a, chh. 7 and 8 ) provides a clear and relentless analysis of the arguments—

As we saw in our consideration of the Libraries of Babel and Mendel, Leslie's, but also the arguments I have presented here—from a position of unusual neutrality. Anyone less than satisfied with my treatment should turn to this source first.

180 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP

Eternal Recurrence—Life Without Foundations?
181

consecutive coin-tosses without a loss!" You then arrange for your dupes to exists" is probably as good an answer as any, but look at its competition: meet, pairwise, until you have a final winner. (You never let the contestants

"Why not?"

discuss your relation to them, and you kiss off the 1,02 3 losers along the way with some
sotto voce
gibe to the effect that they were pretty gullible to believe your claim about being Mephistopheles!) The winner—and there must be one—will certainly have been given evidence of being a Chosen 4. ETERNAL RECURRENCE—LIFE WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS?

One, but if he falls for it, this is simply an illusion of what we might call retrospective myopia. The winner doesn't see that the situation was struc-Science is wonderful at destroying metaphysical answers, but incapable tured so that somebody simply had to be the lucky one—and he just hap-of providing substitute ones. Science takes away foundations without pened to be
it.

providing a replacement. Whether we want to be there or not, science
Now
if
the universe were structured in such a way that an infinity of
has put us in a position of having to live without foundations. It was
different "laws of physics" got tried out in the fullness of time, we would be
shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our
succumbing to the same temptation were we to draw any conclusions about
historical position
—
and no end to it is in sight
—
is that of having to
the laws of nature being prepared especially for us. This is not an argument
philosophize without 'foundations'.

for the conclusion that the universe is, or must be, so structured, but just for

—HIIARY PUTNAM 1987, p. 29

the more modest conclusion that no feature of the observable "laws of nature" could be invulnerable to this alternative, deflationary interpretation.

The sense that the meaning of the universe had evaporated was what
Once these ever more speculative, ever more attenuated Darwinian hy-seemed to escape those who welcomed Darwin as a benefactor of potheses are formulated, they serve—in classic Darwinian fashion—to di-mankind. Nietzsche considered that evolution presented a correct pic-minish by small steps the explanatory task facing us. All that is left over in
ture of the world, but that it was a disastrous picture. His philosophy
need of explanation at this point is a certain perceived elegance or won-was an attempt to produce a new world-picture which took Darwinism derfulness in the observed laws of physics. If you doubt that the hypothesis
into account but was not nullified by it.

of an infinity of variant universes could actually explain this elegance, you

—R. J. HOLLINGDALE 1965, p. 90

should reflect that this has at least as much claim to being a non-question-begging explanation as any traditional alternative; by the time God has been In the wake of Darwin's publication of
Origin of Species,
Friedrich depersonalized to the point of being some abstract and timeless principle of Nietzsche rediscovered what Hume had already toyed with: the idea that an beauty or goodness, it is hard to see how the existence of God could explain eternal recurrence of blind, meaningless variation—chaotic, pointless shuf-anything. What would be asserted by the "explanation" that was not already fling of matter and law—would inevitably spew up worlds whose evolution given in the description of the wonderful phenomenon to be explained?

through time would yield the
apparently
meaningful stories of our lives. This Darwin began his attack on the Cosmic Pyramid in the middle: Give me idea of eternal recurrence became a cornerstone of his nihilism, and thus part Order, and time, and I will explain Design. We have now seen how the of the foundation of what became existentialism.

downward path of universal acid flows: if we give his successors Chaos (in The idea that what is happening now has all happened before must be as the old-fashioned sense of pure meaningless randomness), and eternity, they old as the
dejd-vu
phenomenon that so often inspires superstitious versions of will explain Order—the very Order needed to account for the Design. Does it. Cyclical cosmogonies are not uncommon in the catalogue of human utter Chaos in turn
need
an explanation? What is there left to explain? Some cultures. But when Nietzsche hit upon a version of Hume's—and John people think there is still one leftover "why" question:
Why is there
Archibald Wheeler's—vision, he took it to be much more than an amusing
something rather than nothing?
Opinions differ on whether the question thought experiment or an elaboration of ancient superstitions. He thought—at makes any intelligible demand at all.10 If it does, the answer "Because God least for a while—he had stumbled upon a scientific proof of 10. For an engaging examination of the question, see ch. 2 of Robert Nozick's
Philosoph-approach that stands a chance of yielding an answer will look extremely weird. Someone
ical Explanation.
Nozick offers several different candidate answers, all of them admit-who proposes a non-strange answer shows he didn't understand the question" (Nozick tedly bizarre, but notes, disarmingly. "The question cuts so deep, however, that any 1981, p. 116).

182 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP

Eternal Recurrence
—
Life Without Foundations?
183

the greatest importance.11 I suspect that Nietzsche was encouraged to take What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest the idea more seriously than Hume had done by his dim appreciation of the loneness, and say: "This life which you live and have lived, must be lived tremendous power of Darwinian thinking.

again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new Nietzsche's references to Darwin are almost all hostile, but there are quite in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh—

a few, and that in itself supports Walter Kaufmann's argument (1950, everything unspeakably small and great in your life—must come again to preface) that Nietzsche "was not a Darwinist, but only aroused from his you, and in the same sequence and series __ " Would you not throw your dogmatic slumber by Darwin, much as Kant was a century earlier by Hume."

self down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: Nietzsche's references to Darwin also reveal that his acquaintance with

"Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!"
[The Gay
Darwin's ideas was beset with common misrepresentations and
Science
(1882), p. 341 (passage translated in Danto 1965, p. 210).]

misunderstandings, so perhaps he "knew" Darwin primarily through the enthusiastic appropriations of the many popularizers in Germany, and indeed Is this message liberating, or horrifying? Nietzsche couldn't seem to make throughout Europe. On the few points of specific criticism he ventures, he up his own mind, perhaps because he often chose to clothe the implications gets Darwin utterly wrong, complaining, for instance, that Darwin has of his "most scientific of hypodtheses" in diese rather mystical trappings. We ignored the possibility of "unconscious selection," when that was one of can get a little fresh air into the discussion by considering a delectable Darwin's most important bridging ideas in
Origin.
He refers to the "complete parody version, by die novelist Tom Robbins, in
Even Cowgirls Get the
betise
in the Englishmen, Darwin and Wallace," and complains, "At last,
Blues:

confusion goes so far that one regards Darwinism as philosophy: and now die scholars and scientists dominate" (Nietzsche 1901, p. 422). Others, For Christmas that year, Julian gave Sissy a miniature Tyrolean village. The however, regularly saw
him
as a Darwinian—"Other scholarly oxen have craftsmanship was remarkable.

suspected me of Darwinism on this account" (Nietzsche 1889, III, i)—a label There was a tiny cathedral whose stained-glass windows made fruit salad which he scoffed at, while proceeding to write, in his
Genealogy of Morals
of sunlight. There was a plaza and
ein Biergarten.
The
Biergarten
got quite (1887), one of the first and still subdest of the Darwinian investigations of noisy on Saturday nights. There was a bakery that smelled always of hot the evolution of ethics, a topic to which we will return in chapter 16.

bread and strudel. There was a town hall and a police station, with cutaway Nietzsche viewed his argument for eternal recurrence as a proof of the sections that revealed standard amounts of red tape and corruption. There absurdity or meaninglessness of life, a proof that no meaning was
given
to were little Tyroleans in leather britches, intricately stitched, and, beneath the universe from on high. And this is undoubtedly the root of the fear that the britches, genitalia of equally fine workmanship. There were ski shops many experience when encountering Darwin, so let us examine it in and many other interesting things, including an orphanage. The orphanage Nietzsche's version, as extreme as any we are apt to find. Why, exacdy, was designed to catch fire and burn down every Christmas Eve. Orphans would eternal recurrence make life meaningless? Isn't it obvious?

would dash into the snow with their nightgowns blazing. Terrible. Around the second week of January, a fire inspector would come and poke through die ruins, muttering, "If they had only listened to me, those children would be alive today." [Robbins 1976, pp. 191-92.]

11. For a clear reconstruction of Nietzsche's uncharacteristically careful deduction of what he once described as "the most scientific of hypotheses," see Danto 1965, pp.