Nova Vane

the Fundamental Question

2006-06-15T09:49:00.000-04:00

The fundamental question is: Can the totality of human action be reduced to self interest? Before we have answered this question, no responsible action is possible.

It has been a strong tendency in the recent history of humanity to attribute every action done by a human being to some form of “self-interest”. The strength of this tendency is in part attributable to Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud, even though it has existed as an idea for millennia, and it has been argued philosophically with some success for just about as long.

Let’s first try to clarify this notion. Let’s say we use “self-interest” as a generic term that would encompass all the ways in which the action that is undertaken finds its source in an egotistical impulse. This impulse does not have to intend a material benefit for the person undertaking the action, but it has to intend some form of satisfaction. Thus, an action can be motivated by an “instinct” a “will to power”, a “drive”, or other such impulses even when the benefit to the one perpetrating the action seems non-existent. To achieve power, to satisfy a drive or to obey an instinct, we often put our life at risk, which does not seem very egotistical at first glance, but that is precisely why those authors are so important: They explain to us why we are still satisfying an egotistical impulse even if in a somewhat contorted way. But is it all there is to human behaviour? If that is the case, and if we judge the morality of human action on intent, then there is no moral difference between mother Theresa and Hitler. Both were ultimately striving to satisfy a drive, a will to power, or an instinct.

It means that nothing is moral or immoral. No good, no bad. No right, no wrong. It also means that I am now justified in having no consideration for others, treating them like objects, and being totally egotistical, since I can claim that everybody is the same, no matter under what guise of apparent goodness.

That is the most important point. That is what allows some of us today to put on an even keel being into humanitarian aid and being into shopping, or into accumulating wealth at all cost. “That is your thing, this is mine”.

Is it all there is? It does seem rather reductive of the miracle that is self-consciousness.

If on the other hand we can attribute to humanity the capacity to act in a truly disinterested way, through empathy for example, then it changes everything. The problem is that if the person committing a “kind” action has a feeling of wellness from it, we immediately assume that this feeling was the source motivation for the action. But there is no reason to reduce an action to its ultimate result. That would be like saying that the reason why the allied forces fought the Second World War was to save the Jews. It certainly was not the case. The result might have been saving a great number of Jews from a horrible fate, but it was not the intention. Thus, the fact that I have a certain satisfaction from an action does not mean that this satisfaction was the motor for the action.

Now this indeed changes everything. It means that there can be an altruistic motive for an action. And it gives us a firm ground to distinguish between a moral action and an immoral one. An action that is derived from altruistic motives, or from empathy, is more moral than an action that is derived from egotistical or self serving purposes.

Parousia

2005-12-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

Parousia in Greek literally means presence. In the Christian tradition, it means Second coming, or the return of Christ, His second presence among us: it is preceded by the Apocalypse, and it signifies the end of the world, the end of the universe, the end of time. The end. Period.

When reflecting upon the differences between what is currently referred to as “mythic thought” and the more familiar “religious thought”, I am often struck by the difficulty in making that difference very clear. Sure, there is the apparently objective fact that religious thought is monotheistic and mythic thought is polytheistic. It would be fine if it was true, but it is far from being that simple. For one, it can be successfully argued that Christianity at least is polytheistic. It has three gods with different “temperaments”. And then there are all the saints of the Catholics. So the Christians failed to maintain true monotheism and should really be considered pagans, particularly the Catholics. The Muslims fared better, going back to the single almighty of the “old testament” and eliminating this whole confusion about the trinity that is mysteriously one at the same time. But then what about all those angels who occasionally appear to men: they have divine powers, they wrestle with men who actually manage victory over them at times, and what not. And then they just disappear. Sounds like gods to me and we’re back to polytheism. As I said, the difference is not clear.

Another difference might be sought in the appearance of the notion of abstraction. The god of the monotheistic religions is an abstraction. It does not appear. In fact, it has never completely appeared. It is not to be represented. If that is the sign of religion versus myth, then both Jews and Muslims would be justified in calling Christianity pagan and themselves (and each other) religion.

Be that as it may, the notion of a distinction between myth and religion invariably places myth as preceding religion and identifying the latter as a progress or an evolution of the embodiment of spirituality. Some would even go so far as identifying a trend from myth to religion to atheism as the proper evolution of the relationship of man to the mysteries of the universe.

One important difference between myth and religion is precisely this: the idea of evolution or progress.

The notion of Parousia is too often ignored as a fundamental principle of the way we look at the society, or the structure of beliefs, that we live in. Examples of this abound and we find its traces from the American fundamentalism of the Bible Belt to Marxism, from Hegel to scientism, from Zionism to Muslim fundamentalism.

We have a strong tendency to consider our actual democracy as the result of a progress of social structures through time. We have arrived at a point beyond which it is difficult to see even the possibility of something else. When discussing social structures or the ideal society in which to live, we have come in modern times to the conclusion that the freedom implicit in the democratic system is an accomplishment, the result of an evolution of society that cannot be improved upon. We have arrived. We are in this aspect very similar in the form of our thoughts to religious thought. We believe in progress and we have somewhat arrived at the end of the line. This means that we know the truth, the “good” way to live together. The problem with knowing the truth in this way, be it religious or political, is the strong tendency to think oneself superior for it, and then to think it our duty to help other people see the light. Even if it means knocking their lights out.

Another aspect of parousia is the notion according to which one has to do something to promote the end or to help along, to get the world ready for the long awaited end of the world. That is also a scary thought because it involves believing that one is justified in doing all sorts of things. When one thinks that it is his or her mission to “save” the world or to contribute to its salvation, there are no limits to what one will do.

Patriotism

2005-09-18T08:47:00.000-04:00

One of the consequences of the global village, if you allow me this worn out expression, is having to come to terms with the notions of Nation and State. The French revolution has often been associated with the birth of the Nation State, allowing for the first time it seems the two notions to get fused, and confused. There are a few definition of the word nation, including one that would be a synonym to State. In my Word program, I find state as the first synonym for nation, but nation is not in the immediate list of synonyms for state; it is of course in the dictionary of synonyms.

But if nation is a synonym of state, the expression Nation State is only redundant and does not have a meaning. We shall therefore assume that the meaning conveyed by the word nation in this instance is the other meaning of the word: A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language . Basically what we often refer to nowadays as an ethnic group.

The Nation State is therefore a country in which there is only one ethnic group. The Nation and the State coincide. This utopia or rather anti-utopia is a very dangerous one. It has of course never existed, but where it is intended, it leads necessarily to different rights within the state for those who are not part of the nation. And where there is a will to create it, it almost invariably leads to war, and it might even lead to genocide. The second half of the XXth century, and the beginning of this one, are strewn with such conflicts. One of the ironies of the XXth century is that the genocide of the Jews, motivated in part by the intention to create a Europe wide Arian Nation State, has justified the creation of a Jewish Nation State.

If we are to take seriously the idea according to which the moral progress of humanity involves a widening of the circle of empathy, then the Nation State is antiquated because it suggests a stronger empathy for the member one’s Nation and a lack of empathy for everybody else. And if we are to take into account reality, according to which, thanks to modern communications, we live in increasingly multiethnic societies, then the Nation State is antiquated because it cannot be realized without going back in time; and indeed, the dream of a Nation State is always based upon a violent nostalgia for a time long past when “this land was our land”. Violence almost always ensues.

Patriotism based on the idea of the Nation State is not a good idea.

But what else can patriotism be based upon? I love my country. Yes, but why? Is it because I like the people of my country? Why not! But then why love them more than other people from other countries? Are they better? Most likely not; we are all part of the same human gang.

Maybe I like the climate or the beauty of my country. That’s fine, and I don’t think people would kill for that one.

Maybe I like the laws of my country. In this case, I might start liking another country better if the laws change or if somewhere else comes up with better ones.

Obviously this does not cover the real issue. Basically we love our country because it is where we grew up, it is where our family is, what we are used to. We love our country like we love the people we grew up with. We love our country like we love the food, the laws even, that we grew up with. But if it goes wrong, if I discover that the law (or food) is bad for me, or bad for other people, I should start preferring other laws (or food), or at least I should try fixing the laws (tofu anyone?).

But patriotism, loving one’s country just because it is my country is a dangerous idea even if it is understandable. There is something extremely disturbing in the rawest form of patriotism: my country right or wrong. It means that you are willing to do wrong things (say… killing people) for wrong reasons (say… more power to your nation?) just because your “country” says so. It has been done many times before(and it is done as we speak), but never as drastically as during the Second World War.

Empathy

2005-08-22T19:55:00.000-04:00

When looking at the history of humanity, one can analyse it in various ways, through a wide variety of glasses so to speak.

The most common way to look at it nowadays is through the lens of scientific or technological progress. We are all familiar with this perspective. From Stone Age to Bronze Age to Iron Age followed or accompanied by various technological advances, the wheel, agriculture, irrigation, roads, planes, trains and automobiles…

Some prefer the religious perspective. From the first burials to animism and polytheism (mythic thought), we move “up”, with the help of philosophy, to religion (mythic thought + reason = monotheism; I never understood that one) and finally atheism in the “real” age of reason (I’m not sure I understand that one either, but this is not my purpose now).

I like to look at human history using as my lens what I call the widening of the circle of empathy.

We can safely assume that in a world when we were not so far removed from the animal kingdom from whence we came, the development of a new faculty would be gradual.

In the old days, as far as we can understand them from what they (or chance) have left us, empathy was felt towards a very limited number of people: one’s family or one’s tribe. We can imagine that in a world where survival was uncertain, the competition for food and safety might not have been too conducive to generosity towards strangers. Already though, a certain form of empathy, non existent in animals, was felt towards one’s close ones, as is demonstrated by the burial sites. The members of the other tribes were enemies that, if caught, could be dealt with in any number of ways including eating their hearts. No empathy there.

The Trojan War show us a people with fierce attachment to their City State (really a wider tribe), but routine murder of babies to prevent revenge, rape as part of the loot, and, of course, slavery show very little empathy for the enemy. They were also a society structured on the aristocratic model, with the large land owners having something close to free disposal of the surrounding peasants. That meant for instance that a peasant unable to repay a debt could see himself taken, along with his family, as slave. Limited empathy there too, to say the least.

The texts that we have from the Ancient Greeks lead us to believe that a certain transformation took place a little later. Socrates for instance, suggests that one could have enemies who are “good” (in the sense of a good person) and friends who are “bad” (in the sense of a bad person) and that justice would demand that a good person be treated well regardless of where they come from, and conversely, that a bad person be treated accordingly.

A few years later, Jesus-Christ comes along with his very famous, some say his most important, teaching: “love thy neighbour as thyself” (there is an earlier version of this in Leviticus) or, perhaps more importantly, “Love your enemies” backed by the parable of the Good Samaritan, or, in the same vein, “don’t do unto others what you don’t want them to do unto you” (apparently Confucius was the first one to write that one). The question then becomes not so much how one should treat the other, but rather “who is this other”?

First there was the class society in which the aristocrat, the merchant, the peasant, and so on, considered the people of one’s own class as the ones that one should “do unto…” People of other classes were to be treated very differently.

Then, with the help of a couple of revolutions, we got rid of the class thing and considered that every “citoyen (citizen)” should be “done unto…” except of course for the ones of differing colours who were not considered to be part of the same level of humanity.

We eventually managed to abolish slavery and to consider all humans as part of humanity. Except of course for women.

But we keep widening the circle of empathy and we now consider everybody of woman born to be included in this “other” whom we should do unto as we would have them do unto us. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is the embodiment of this idea. But one of the most spectacular examples of this is the Geneva Convention (1949) regulating how one should do unto an enemy: humanely. It falls short of Jesus-Christ’s recommendation that we should love them, but it insists that they should not be tortured and be provided with basic care (including health care which means that in some countries the enemy soldier is better treated than the poor, but that is another story).

There is a strong tendency now to include animals, or at least primates, into the mix.

Of course this is not a linear development, there are set backs, there is also the fact that there is a wide gap between what we think we should do and what we actually do. But I think it could be considered a trend, a “progress”!

Moral Progress

2005-08-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

When looking to the history of humanity, there are two examples of change that serve as symbols, as reinforcements of the myth of modern times in opposite ways.

On the one hand, there is the technological change. This technological change serves at the same time as proof and as model for the idea of progress. There is also a strong link in the popular imagination between science and technology (this link would need to be examined at another time). We thus believe, and we have very good reasons to think so, that along with technology, human knowledge increases with time; that is the idea of progress. It is of course very easy to see this technological progress since it is material and can be measured quantitatively. Cars, computers, planes, and various cures for the ills of the living are but a very few examples.

On the other hand, there is change in what we believe to be “good” and what we believe to be “bad”. This type of change is often used as a symbol and as proof that there is no “good” per se, or that the truth about what is “good” is inaccessible to man. The notion of beauty, and its curious modern popular embodiment, fashion, serves as a model for this idea. But we do not have to keep confusing beauty and good. Actually, it would be a lot better if we could keep them very much apart.

We therefore have change in technology which is a “proof” of progress, and change in the idea of good which is a “proof” that there is no moral progress, or worse, that there is no “good”. This unfortunate idea according to which there is no moral progress of humanity serves two opposing views: Religious fundamentalism or literalism, and moral relativism. In the first case, the absence of progress means that what was deemed good 4000 years ago still stands, in the second case this same absence means that anything goes, or, to put it more bluntly, that there is no fundamental difference between Mother Theresa and Hitler. They are both guided by self interest no matter in what guise. This second case is very useful to anybody who cares only for his or her own self interest. Some businessman or businesswomen come to mind, but we are all guilty (“it’s the name of the game”, “if I don’t do it someone else will” “everybody is looking out for number one”, etc.)

I think they are both wrong, and I think that the notion according to which there is no moral progress is wrong.

I think that both the people who act in their own self interest and the people who act to obey an antiquated god are morally wrong. There is moral progress.

We used to have slaves (or be slaves); the elimination of slavery is progress.
We used to consider people of different color as inferior or even barely human; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
We used to consider violence as an acceptable means of resolving a conflict; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
We used to consider women as inferior to men; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
We used to consider physical punishment as a valid way to enforce the law; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
We used to consider that technological superiority was a sign of moral superiority; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
We used to consider that homosexuality was evil; we don’t anymore and that is progress.
Etc.

Note that not everybody applies those rules or considers them a moral advantage, and nobody applies all of them all of the time (that would be a saint I guess). But they become increasingly accepted as how one should behave.

Following this argument, some could be tempted to think that those born in the western world are “morally more advanced” them some born elsewhere. That would be a mistake. They are no more responsible for this moral progress then they are responsible for quantum theory. No Dane will consider himself a better physicist because Niels Bohr was Danish.

Can one stop the march of progress? I guess it is possible to try and one may succeed in slowing it down. But the real question is not to know if we should try to apply those progressive rules; rather it is a question of when it will happen.

There was no fall – but it hurt

2005-07-21T08:38:00.000-04:00

The reason why this rise into consciousness felt (and still feels) so much like a fall is that it hurt (and still does). There is a heavy price to pay for consciousness: knowing that you are going to die. The reason that is given by God in Genesis for kicking Adam and Eve out of the garden is to prevent them from eating from the tree of life. They would then become immortal. Conscious, but without the heavy price tag which would make man one of us (interestingly enough God says “us” (Genesis 3, 22), as if there was more than one god; I guess this monotheistic thing still needed some fine tuning). God will have none of this. Consciousness is a gift because it allows knowledge, but the knowledge comes with the knowledge of our own mortality. That might even be the first conscious knowledge of man, which would explain why it was felt as punishment.

But when hunting, when being very engrossed in something, when having sex, man forgets that he is mortal, he becomes “unconscious”. After the activity is over, this consciousness comes back (is that the little death?). So man tries to get involved into febrile activity to keep forgetting that he exists. We go to the movies, the ones packed with action are particularly effective to make you forget that you are there, we engage in fantasy, we drink ourselves senseless, take drugs, fall in love, whatever. We try to lift ourselves out of ourselves. We try to forget that we are going to die. We invent ways to stay alive through our children or through religion, reincarnation, fame, etc…

It gives an interesting twist to the infamous death wish of Freud. Maybe it is not a death wish but rather a unconsciousness wish. I still want to live, I just don't want to know/think about it.

To a certain degree, the ultimate goal of the Buddhist is the loss of this individual consciousness to merge into the one...

Here is the prayer of man: please God let me forget that I am here

I think we should embrace death as a price to pay for consciousness, but a fair price. I’d rather know that I am alive while knowing that I will die than not knowing that I will die and not know that I am alive.

(I will be away for a couple of weeks; see you then)

There was no fall

2005-07-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

Let’s do the unthinkable and try to put the Bible and Darwin’s theory of evolution together. Or rather, let’s look at genesis, and try to see if it tells a different story now that we are familiar with the theory of evolution.

The first thing that God does is to put order into what was once Chaos. No contest here. He/She separates water from earth, earth from sky, makes a day and a night. Pretty much the way it is described by astrophysicists, minus the invisible hand of God of course (they have another invisible hand called “the laws of nature”). Then God proceeds to create man. There is some debate as to whether He/She created man and woman at the same time in his image, (Genesis, I, 27) or first Adam and then Eve from Adam’s rib as the more famous story goes.

It’s after that that it becomes interesting. Say that man is the result of evolution and that he emerged from the animal kingdom. Before evolving into homo sapiens sapiens, he lives in the garden of Eden, eats whatever is around, goes about naked but does not know it, does not know the difference between good and evil. That sounds very much like an animal to me.

Then Eve, the clever one, eats of the forbidden fruit because she saw that the tree was one “to be desired to make one wise” (italics in my Bible). Adam, as usual, follows because he knows that if you want a relationship to last, you do what the woman says. What happens then? Let’s see:

Genesis, III, 7: “And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”

Self consciousness happens. Man becomes conscious of himself, imagines himself for the first time in the eye of the other. He used to just “be”; now he knows that he is. He becomes human. He makes the first clothes.

God’s first question : III, 11: “Who told thee that thou wast naked?” Good question. Obvious answer: he figured it out once he became first conscious, and then self-conscious.

III, 12: “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” Well, it takes two to tango. You need another human being to become self conscious. You need another to imagine yourself as another would see you. So in that sense, Adam was right. You gave me a companion, so it’s kind of your fault.

III, 16: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” As we know, the great sorrow of bringing forth children is due to the foetus’ extravagant head. Becoming human implied having babies with big heads, and therefore made birth more difficult. Furthermore, animals have mostly a periodical birth cycle; humans can conceive at any time. In God’s curse conception is also multiplied.

III, 18: “thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” Sounds like agriculture to me. A sure sign of humanity and the birth of civilisation.

And finally: III, 19: …till you return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Well, that was always true, but now Man knows it. It is not so much being mortal as knowing that you are mortal that is the punishment. Once again consciousness.

We can therefore assume that Genesis is the story of how man became man from the animal that he was.

Was that a fall? I would argue that it was not. It is true that consciousness makes the possibility of sorrow and unhappiness, but it also makes the possibility of joy and happiness. An animal’s capacity for joy and sorrow, happiness and unhappiness, is equal to its consciousness. Man, in becoming man, leaves the paradise of being unconscious, but gains the possibility of knowledge.

There is a long history of thought and popular belief that ignorance is bliss, that we were happier before the fall, before becoming human (Rousseau, and Genesis, come to mind). I don’t think so. I think that wanting to be ignorant is wanting to be an animal. And then again wanting to be as ignorant as possible, as unconscious as animally possible. Might as well be a worm.

We have to stop this nonsense and start being proud of not being animals. Not by refusing to have sex out of marriage. Ducks do that. Rather, let’s use our brain to increase self-consciousness and knowledge.

There was no fall form Eden, no fall from unconsciousness. There was a rise into consciousness and into humanity.

God and the different worlds

2005-06-22T12:46:00.000-04:00

Let’s pretend that there is a personal God of the type that the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim tradition suggests. He is interested in humans, he created them or helped evolution along. He wants them to believe in him and honour him (gods all seem to have this desire in common). He wants them to be “good” or he expects them to be “good”, and He will reward them if they follow a certain number of rules. These rules, aside from the obvious worshipping parts, typically call for generosity, honesty, humility and so forth. But as far as action is concerned, as far as how one is to behave concretely in this world that was “given to us” by God, what would he say?

I claim that God would change what He expects according to the situation in which man finds himself. We can easily assume that the behaviour of a man in the middle of the jungle or in the middle of, say, New York City, even though the two have often been compared, should be very different. One cannot behave the same way. Even generosity, honesty and humility will find different expressions. How is it possible then to expect that God would want the same behaviour from humans who live in a caravan in twelfth century Saudi Arabia and twenty first century Los Angeles, crossing the desert with Moses and living in nineteenth century Paris or in a little village in sixth century France and in Havana in the nineteen seventies?

It, of course, would not make sense, anymore than it would make sense for one to expect the same behaviour from a teen in 1670 and in 2005. They are both teens, but what is expected from a teen in different cultures vary enormously. A 14 year old getting married or a 12 year old who has to take care of the children will not behave in the same manner as a 13 year old who is expected to perform in high school, even though they are all expected to do their duty. They are all expected to be generous, honest and humble, but it will take very different forms.

For example, when God said go forth and multiply, it may have made sense and even be very important in a world populated by, say, 200,000 people still fighting for survival to a large degree. But in a world populated by 7 billion humans where survival is threatened by the sheer number of us, it may be a very stupid idea. Condoms, in a world where you need people might be a bad idea, but in our world I think it is a good one. Gay sex, when you want babies might be counterproductive, but today, it certainly won’t hurt.

Survival of the possible

2005-06-15T11:53:00.000-04:00

Darwin revisited

It is time to re-examine the theory of evolution.

Darwin was a child of the industrial revolution, and the underlying myth of this sorry era is the myth of efficiency. And it shows in the whole idea of evolution in a very little thing. A little detail that is generally called the survival of the fittest. Now that seems commonsensical enough. Whoever wins the race gets to have his or her genes transmitted to the ulterior generations. The fittest win the race, his genes and her genes go on. So the most efficient at survival, the most streamlined of a species, if I dare say, will survive. But. Look around you. Do you really see the most streamlined, the most efficient? I don’t think so.

Look at those clumsy bugs, look at the antlers of those forest runners, look. Listen to these birds singing their heart out. They are a prey. You’d think they’d shut up.

Look at the convoluted reproduction system of plants, bugs, humans even. A reproduction system that often involves the risk of death, if not certain death.

There is very little in this nature that looks efficient to me. It does not look like godly design either.

Let’s try something else. Let’s try Darwin, but instead of survival of the fittest, let’s try survival of anything that can survive. Not just the fittest, but anything that’s fit enough, even barely so. Let’s imagine a 100 meter dash. Survival of the fittest means that only the winner survives. One out of ten or twenty or one thousand. Not many. He is the fittest. But he is not the only fit one. Survival of anything that can survive means that most of them survive, only maybe the loser, the last of one thousand does not. Or maybe only the ones who do not finish the race don't survive. Maybe. It has the advantage of explaining a lot better the incredible multiplicity of life. And it’s bizarreness. Life wants to live, not just efficient life, any life. Only the clumsiest, only the impossible will not survive.

That makes much more sense.

Not survival of the fittest, survival of the possible!

Let’s face it. If only the fittest survived, there would not be a lot of us.

The meaning of life part IV - What now

2005-06-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

So what do we do now?

I think it was Leibniz who asked: Why is there something instead of nothing? That is of course the fundamental question and precisely the one to which there is no answer. But still, we are here. Since there is a universe, and since in this universe there is life, and since in this life there is a life that is conscious of itself, we can say that we are, very simply, the universe starting to be conscious of itself.

But let’s look at it in a different way. Maybe asking the question is already answering it. Since there is a universe, we could say that the meaning of the universe is itself. The meaning of the universe is the universe. Since there is life, then the meaning of life, of all life, is life. The perpetuation of life. And since there is life conscious of itself, humanity say, then the meaning of conscious life is conscious life. It is not necessary to look for the meaning of life outside of life. Humanity is its own meaning. But then, if we are to take this seriously, humanity will fulfill the meaning of its existence if it perpetuates itself. And the more, the merrier. And the more conscious of itself the better. Following that logic, one should try to promote and perpetuate life conscious of itself, knowledge, art, everything that is the result of this consciousness. In others and in oneself.

I think I can live with that.

The meaning of life part III - One human

2005-06-08T12:00:00.000-04:00

Either you believe that there is a meaning to individual human life or you don’t.

In the mythic perspective, the meaning of human life is predetermined by its role in the scheme of things. Every man has a destiny, and this destiny cannot be changed, not even by the gods. A good example of this is the story of Achilles. He knew that after killing Hector he would die. He knew this to be his destiny. He could refuse to kill Hector in order to live, but if he killed him, nobody, not even the gods, could prevent his early death. His personal role in the scheme of things was pretty much set. He could fulfill his destiny or not, but if he did, nobody could change the order of things. So he killed Hector and he died soon after from an arrow in his heel, his only vulnerable spot.

In the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim perspective, the meaning of one’s life is its end, its direction. One aims towards eternal life and eternal bliss. The meaning of this life on earth is as a test or as a way to earn eternal bliss. It is sort of a circular thing since the meaning of one’s life is an ulterior life. So it’s always about “me” really. We could also say that one is supposed to work towards the establishment of the kingdom of heaven, playing a role in God’s plan. But it is difficult to understand how or why God would need me for anything. But I suppose that one could help along in one’s own little way. One keeps thinking though that the real reason for action is to earn eternal life.

The Buddhist has a way to look at this that is radically different. The purpose of life is to learn to disappear as an individual in order to join something that could be called the soul of the world. The meaning of this life, in its many incarnations, is to learn enough to lose the ego. When one has accomplished this, one does not come back but stays joined with the universe. So there is a circular idea of being born out of the one as a separation, and then having to learn to eliminate this separation to get back into the one.

For the atheist, there is of course no more meaning to individual human life than to the life of a bug, except that you can dedicate yourself to a cause. You yourself give meaning to your own life. That’s what the existentialists call the dignity of man. There is no predetermined meaning but that does not mean that you cannot create meaning for yourself. Of course, it is entirely subjective.

The meaning of life part II - Humanity

2005-06-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

Either you believe that there is a meaning to humanity or you don’t.

Humans appear in the universe at a certain point. It does not matter when. The mythic perspective is that humans appear when they should, play their role, and the universe will go on. Humanity has a meaning, but it is no different from the meaning of any other life of the universe. It is a humble approach even for the gods. So the meaning of humanity is tied to the meaning of the universe.

In the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim perspective, there is a very specific and very important role for humanity to play in the universe. Actually, to be precise, the universe has a role to play in the life of humanity. Humanity is the meaning of the universe. The universe itself was created by God in order to make human life possible. It is therefore important for man to act in the way it is supposed to since it has the responsibility of the king towards it’s kingdom (see Disney’s Lion King). It must bring this kingdom to its fulfillment. Some religious groups consider that it is through them that God’s plan will be accomplished. This is a very dangerous attitude because when you think that the fate of the whole of humanity, of the universe even, is in your hands, there is not much that you will not do. And what if you are wrong?

There are two kinds of atheism in this regard. There are atheists who believe that there is no meaning to humanity. No direction either. There are actually not many of those. Most atheists believe that there is a direction that humanity should take. Mind you, they don’t believe that there is a plan or a specific place for humans in this universe; they just believe that there is a direction that is better for humanity as a whole. Communism is one such form of atheism, but it is far from being the only one. A lot of atheists believe that humanity would be better off if everyone was an atheist. So most atheists are really quite religious in this respect.

The meaning of life part I - the universe

2005-06-08T10:40:00.000-04:00

The central, and possibly the only question that one should ask about religion is the question of sense or meaning. Basically, the meaning of life. We could divide the human attitude towards the universe in this way.

Let’s look at a few possible perspectives.

Either you believe that there is a meaning to this universe, or you don’t.

Generally, religion gives some sort of answer to this question. The so called mythic religions tend to view the universe in a cyclic way. In that case the universe does not have a meaning in the sense that we are generally accustomed to. Maybe it has the simple meaning of a bug’s life. Perpetuation of life. The universe is cyclic and has no other purpose than the perpetuation of itself. The role of man in this context is to avoid disturbing the order of things, this fragile equilibrium, so that this perpetuation can go on. The gods in that context did not create the universe: they organized it and they maintain this order. This is why one talks about the man living in a mythic world view as someone who does not try to change the world, but as someone who tries to maintain it as it is, thus pleasing the gods. This is also why the mythic framework is so appealing to ecological thinking. Given what we are doing to the planet right now, maybe a little less changing and a little more maintaining would be good. Problem is that this view can lead to pretty traditionalistic behaviour, including a strong dislike of any change in the way we do things.

We can take the word “meaning” here to mean also direction. The universe is going somewhere. It has a beginning and an end. The Judaeo-Christian-Muslim perspective has a God who created the world from nothing: literally from nothingness. There is therefore a beginning, and if there is a beginning, there is also an end. The universe is going towards that end. The role of man is therefore to fit into god’s plan for the universe, to help it along in some cases. The notion of progress as opposed to the notion of cycle is involved here. It does change things. Change can be good, but only the change that helps god’s plan. Change that hinders god’s plan is bad. The problem is to know which is which.

Atheism considers that there is neither a direction nor a meaning to the universe. It is just there, and we are in it. There is no particular need to maintain it either, except for our own particular purposes.

Religion and spirituality

2005-04-19T13:12:00.000-04:00

It is generally understood in our contemporary world that spirituality is a personal affair, where religion is a question of society. Let’s start with that.

Spirituality

A number of people have a certain idea that there is more to this universe than meets the eye (the I?). This idea can come from a walk in the forest, from studying modern physics (like string theory), from feeling the sudden pang of love, or, more commonly, from the sense of loss when someone close to us dies. This last occurrence leaves us generally with the feeling that it is impossible for a consciousness (such as our parent’s, children’s loved one’s) to just vanish.

Numerous attempts have been made to explain this phenomenon away, particularly this last instance, with various ideas: fear of death, a desire to climb back into the womb and merge with the universe, or a need to feel that we are not entirely responsible for our actions, or that a better fate awaits us. These explanations are very cute, but they do not explain much. The claim here is that mankind has a very vivid imagination. Good. But then what. Let’s try to look at it from a different perspective. Let’s pretend that if a large number of people perceive something, then maybe there is something there.

You can call it a feeling, an emotion, a sentiment, a perception, a hunch, or whatever. It doesn’t matter.

The main problem with this feeling is that it is very vague, and most honestly defined by its imprecision. “I know there is something more, but I don’t know what it is”. To try to define this with language (and therefore with organized thought) is generally as successful as trying to capture water with bare hands (poetry has a different approach). Say you see a body of water, the ocean for instance, and you try to convince someone who lives some distance away of the existence of saltwater. All you have is your hands. You can get some of that water in your hands, but not much, you can’t carry it very far, and it is very difficult to give it to someone else. In any instance, chances are that you will lose most of it. This feeling that there is more to the universe is like that. You can get some, but not much, you can’t carry it very far, and it is very difficult to give it to someone else. In any instance, chances are that you will lose most of it. But that does not mean that there is no water.

The poet, I think, manages to get his or her hands wet and sprinkle you with it, startling you into thinking that there is more.

A more efficient way to transport the water and to deliver it to someone else is the use of a vessel. That is where religion comes in.

Religion

Religion gives a vocabulary, a system, a container to talk about and display the spiritual feeling that you may or may not have. It is a bowl to contain the water. But it is not the water. It is possible for you to have a strong desire to go to the ocean from looking at this bowl of water. But it is not the water. And it is very possible that looking at this bowl of water will do nothing for you. Or you might think it betrays the ocean.

Religion attempts to convey the ocean in a bowl. That is why it often seems small, and it very often seems to be concerned with the bowl. The bowl becomes the way in which the ocean is presented; it has to be very carefully crafted in order to show of the water what one wants to show. To present the water in a certain light, and so on…

Of course there are different bowls in which you can carry water.

The problem is though, that no bowl can carry the ocean.

Of course, this is a metaphor. It hints at something, but it does not prove anything. Its intention is not to prove, but to enrich thought.

Darwinism, creationism and style

2005-04-10T10:50:00.000-04:00

Most people in the western world (I will except some parts of the U.S. here) look upon the literal interpretation of the bible, particularly regarding Genesis, with contempt. They prefer a more prosaic approach: the theory of evolution. I say prosaic because the theory of evolution is regarded by most people as factual or true. Of course we have no way of knowing this. It certainly is a very efficient theory, it provides a “credible” explanation for a number of “facts”, it has a certain number of successful images that serve as symbols, and, most importantly, it provides a way to oppose something to creationism. Actually it has become a beacon of the “sceptic” groups. The sceptics, as they sometimes call themselves, believe in Darwin. Sometimes, they complain that Darwin is under attack, and they respond to this attack with a similar attack on “creationism”.

One of the reasons for this polar opposition between creationism and Darwinism is the lack of alternative theories. The Darwinian theory of evolution stands alone and basically unchanged for over one hundred and fifty years. It has gaping holes that nobody knows what to do with, but that is not so important. It is also sorely misunderstood, which is a lot more important. I don’t know if it is because old habits die hard or because we need to find a direction to the universe, but interpretations of the organic world, and they are legions (just listen to nature or scientific shows), tend to explain evolution with a teleological vocabulary. “The finch became more so and so in order to get more food”. “Became” and “in order to”, when put together, are very goal oriented, suggesting a will of the finches, an intention in nature. There is no such thing in Darwinian Theory. Darwin’s theory explains everything by chance and by chance alone. That’s why it is so good. There is also a strong bias of economy in these interpretations: more efficient, less energy, etc. Now that might be more in line with Darwin, I don’t know. One thing is certain. As long as you keep this teleological vocabulary, as long as you give an intention to nature, you are just replacing a God with another. I don’t have a problem with that, but I have a problem with claiming that you don’t.

I prefer to acknowledge the idea of god, and then refuse him any part in the nitty-gritty of evolution. Except that is with the notion of exuberance. The universe is exuberant, excessive, extravagant and very wasteful. If something can occur, if something can happen, regardless of its use, practicality or whatever, it appears. The world is the opposite of economical. And anyway if the universe is god, then the universe cannot be economical.

Who wants a god of moderation, counting peonies like pennies, uttering every minute “waste not, want not” or “a peony saved is a peony earned”. Who wants the image of god to be that of a miser! We can have a Darwinian theory but let’s give it some pizzazz, some flair, a certain sense of style!

Unfortunately, we must admit that cretionism does a much better job of that.

Fundamentalist atheism

2005-03-28T14:51:00.000-05:00

The most dangerous form of fundamentalism today is fundamentalist atheism. The reason for this is that in the occidental world, the fundamentalist atheist thinks of himself as intellectually superior to the believer. He thinks of himself as having a clearer view, a better understanding, as “not being fooled” by the promises and hopes of the religious believer. He sees himself as a beacon of light in a dark world. He looks condescendingly at the history of man, seeing it as a long path leading finally to this mature look on the universe.

The atheist sees his creed and his breed as the future of humanity, those through which humanity will be saved from its own feebleness. But let’s not be fooled ourselves. It is a creed. Maybe we are fooled by the fact that the English language does not capitalize the word as it does every other creed. The Buddhist, the Hindu, the Christian, the Anglican, the Taoist, are all corrected and capitalized by my word automatic corrector. Not the atheist. This small “a” gives him the illusion that he is not “like the believers”, that he is of a different, more mature breed.

Most religious persons in today’s world would think that their religion is based on a belief, which leaves some room for doubt, be it only as a possibility. The atheist does not think so. He thinks that there is no need for doubt. He thinks that doubt is a position of weakness, that it leads to belief. It used to be that it was the religious person who thought doubt dangerous. Now most mature religious persons will gladly admit that doubt is unavoidable and healthy. The atheist thinks that doubt should only be for doubting that god exists. Doubt is only beneficial to other people for the atheist because he thinks he knows better. That’s why he is dangerous. Even worse, he does not see himself as a danger but as a form of saviour. Seems to me I have heard that one before.

I prefer a more humble approach.

Hallelujah

2005-03-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

One of the most incredible songs to me, and one that seems to reflect so much what I think is Hallelujah, By Leonard Cohen. So much so that singing along out loud in my car brings me as close to praying as I can get.

Here are the lyrics

Hallelujah

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah

We are not alone

2005-03-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

We are a small, a very small, a very tiny part of a huge universe. Where did we get the idea that we are the only ones or the most important ones?

How has this universe unfolded? Science tells us that it was first a lot of heat, and the constituents of matter (maybe super strings and super surfaces) but not really matter yet. It was too hot for matter. Then it cooled down and eventually became cool enough for matter. Things started happening. Order sort of happened. Matter started ordering itself eventually forming stars and planets and so on. I know this is short but I invite you to inquire. Talk to an astrophysicist or surf the web (here is one but don't take everything for truth This one is PBS so it is pretty dependable but remember there is no truth here). Then there was life and then there was consciousness.

The funny thing about these two “history of the universe” is that they stop being concerned with the universe and start being interested in earth, not to say man, for a while. I have no objection. But if it happened here at that moment, would it not be reasonable to suppose that it happened at approximately the same time elsewhere in the universe? Let us suppose that the universe was at a point in its development where it could support life; we know this because we are here. It was cool enough, matter had managed to get organized enough, and so on. Those conditions were the same at many points in the universe. And if life developed at a certain moment because the universe could support it, could we not say the same about consciousness? That’s what I mean by unfolding. The unfolding of the universe, or of God, involves a complexification of matter, which leads to life and then to consciousness. And it is very likely that this happened at approximately the same time at many points in the universe.

We already know a few instances of this simple idea. Things seem to happen at the same time on earth at different places at the same time: the conditions were there. The most famous example of this, but it is not the only one, is the much documented case of the "discovery" or "invention" of calculus at the same time by Leibniz and Newton. I would assume, and I claim that this is very reasonable, that there is life elsewhere in the universe and furthermore, I would assume that it is at about the same level of development as we are. Forget UFOs. I doubt anybody in the universe is much more advanced than we are. When we are capable of building UFOs, we probably won’t be the only ones…

Our place

2005-03-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

If there is only one God or Energy or Force driving this universe, then there is no way that one person can comprehend or even hear what it encompasses. This simple fact is well illustrated by the many religions that have gods who cannot be seen or heard without causing the death of the beholder: Artemis for the Greeks, Yahweh for the Jews or God for the Christians; I’m sure there are others. The movie Dogma makes a good joke about it: “Humans do not have the psychological or physical capacity to hear the voice of God. We went through five Adams before we figured that one out.” (I quote from memory). So the claim by anybody that they understand what God wants in a practical manner is obviously deluded. Who in the world do you think you are to claim to understand God, know what God wants or likes and who He will punish or reward for our petty little lives.

We are so insignificant that I wouldn’t be sure that God, even if he was a consciousness in the sense we are accustomed to think of (which is doubtful), has noticed that we were there yet. I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry either; one tends to notice the trouble makers first.

What I know and what I don't know

2005-03-18T23:31:00.000-05:00

Some would claim that the beginning of philosophy is a simple sentence by Socrates. Everybody knows it: All I know is that I do not know. That was a good start; unfortunately it was sort of ruined by Plato and almost the whole Christian tradition. By Plato because he used it as a starting point to place truth, beauty and value outside of this world. He took it to mean that this world was no good because it did not contain knowledge. By Christianity because it used it to back its claim that I know nothing and that I can say nothing. It has been used to diminish man, make him incapable of knowing. It has been used to torture poor students for centuries. But there are two parts to this phrase: The first one is I know, and the second is I don’t know. Let’s start with the second part.

What I don’t know:

? The truth
? What was before this universe
? What prompted its outburst
? Why it is there (to take Leibniz’s way to say it: why is there something instead of nothing)
? Are there other universes
? What is consciousness
? Why is there consciousness at all
? And so on…

What I do know

I know that I do not know. What does that mean? It means that there is more to this universe than meets the eye. The mystery cannot ultimately be solved. But I do know this.

Some of us call this mystery God, others call it Allah, Yahweh, others Buddha, Shiva, Tao, whatever, but then they claim to know what the mystery is. Others yet claim that there is no mystery, only unsolved problems. If you ask me, all those people are deluded. The first because they think they know, and the second because they think everything is knowable. Both forgot the meaning of the phrase I only know that I do not know.

But the best part is that both will claim that they are the true inheritors of the Socratic spirit.

Here is what I propose.

We know other things too. The universe has been unfolding. Since the universe is the mystery, and since we generally call the mystery God, I suggest we cut the middle man and call the universe God. So God has been unfolding. We are part of the universe, so we are part of God. We are the way God unfolds itself. But so is the star, the planet the stone, the rabbit, the empire state building and any other human. We don’t need a God that is outside this universe. God is not some immaterial being outside this universe looking in: that does not make much sense to me. He is matter and energy.

This universe is energy

2005-03-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

There is one thing we seem to know: this universe or world or thing we inhabit is full of energy. Actually it is energy. This energy can transform into matter, according to Einstein, following this very simple equation: E=mc2. If we consider that the sun we are going around is one of 10 billions in this galaxy and that there are 10 billion galaxies, that means something like 10 000 000 000 times 10 000 000 000 of suns. The mass of the sun is 200 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg (2x10 to the power of 20). Multiply these three numbers and then multiply your result by the speed of light, 300 000 000 km/s. The result is a fraction of the energy contained in this universe. We haven’t taken into consideration the planets, asteroids, comets, moons and whatever else is out there. That is a lot of energy. But then again, what is energy? It seems to be mostly defined as the capacity to do things.

This driving force has necessarily many manifestations. Those would be as different as a toe from a Picasso, a trinket from a planet, a thrice from a price.

monotheism

2005-03-17T21:34:00.000-05:00

It is the strange fate of monotheism to claim to know the truth. The truth about the meaning of life, the universe, the right way to marry, the right person to marry, how many children one should have, who one should or should not have sex with and when, who should govern a country, and what not. Maybe it also wants to tell me how many cookies I can eat.

Monotheistic religion has this claim because if there is only one God, then there is only one way to do things. Mine. Because on top of claiming that there is only one God, the monotheistic religions also claim that they (the various priests or rabbis or gurus or imams) know exactly what this one God wants. God, you see, has talked to them or their ancestors or some prophet who then proceeded to write down or tell the world what God has told him (or her for we have to remain politically correct even though God rarely involves women in this kind of scheme. If He appears to women to tell them such things, they generally shut up about it which is a much wiser course. Women have traditionally been content with a simple advice on a small issue involving children).

Making nonsense

2005-03-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

The universe is a mystery. It boggles the mind. That’s why I am obsessed with it. Life boggles the mind. Consciousness boggles the consciousness.

The problem with most of the answers that we have been given, be they the answers of religion or the answers of science, is that they either claim to know the truth, which is ludicrous, or that looking for an answer is pointless. Might as well stop being human. Philosophy has stopped trying to answer anything since Nietzsche.

I think that our answers to “the big questions” are lagging far behind the rest of our knowledge.

This blog will be my attempts at grappling with the big questions.