June 26, 2014

Math is not God; It's not even merely a guide

Mathematics is not a moral code.  It’s not a philosophy, religion, creed, or even a self-help guide.  I bring this up because there seem to be a great many people confused on the point.  In many Western societies, there has been a rush to anoint mathematics as the guide for all mankind.  I’ve even heard people say they believe in God “as a kind of mathematical formula”.  But there’s a big problem.  Mathematics doesn’t answer the great question posed to all of mankind from the beginning of recorded history:  Why?

Basically, why should I do action X?  Numbers don't given any answers.  For example, you may hear someone say, "10,000 illegal immigrants are pouring through our borders every month!  We have to do something!"  OK.  Even assuming your numbers are correct, why do we have to do something about it?    I might as well tell you, "11 times 11 yields 121!  We have to do something about it!"

I think most people in these situations are implying some moral value which has nothing to do with the numbers.  They can do this on topics ranging as far and wide as “climate control” to “income redistribution” to “euthanasia”.  They are fooling themselves. They are appealing to numbers to explain their own morality, something for which the numbers are completely ill-equipped.  Many of these topics for which people use numbers to somehow support their arguments have already assumed the moral stance.  Numbers may tell us all kinds of things about the climate, but they don’t tell us whether any particular climate is “ideal”, or if that climate should be ideal for only humans, or if it’s worth putting huge numbers of people through huge types of changes and demands in order to attempt to change the climate.  Numbers may tell us that money is unequally owned, or is concentrated in certain areas, or used for certain things, but numbers cannot tell us whether or not that is a proper state of affairs. Numbers may tell us that adopting euthanasia as a standard medical practice would save some amount of money, or generate certain transfers of property, or relieve some persons of a particular kind of burden, but they cannot tell us whether the money matters, or if particular kinds of burdens should even be relieved.

At the end of it, most people spouting the numbers have already made their own subjective moral determinations.  They may already believe that it is a moral imperative to keep the climate as close as possible to how it was in 1975 (if that's even humanly possible... that we can control the weather).  They may believe that it is a moral imperative that all people have an equal amount of money.  They may believe it to be a moral imperative to save money on health care.  In short, they are trying to “impose their morals” on all of us.  But by what right do they have to do so?  Besides their own minds, to what can they point in order to support their stance?   From where did they get those morals?

All of this is also to point out something for another post, which is this: Why are so many people who are relying on Christian morals to buttress their arguments for certain actions so eager to disparage or eliminate Christianity from public view?