Poor evolution.
Evolution, which is as sound a scientific theory as we have ever had has been in the cross hairs of religion far longer than any of us have been alive.
Politicians court entire voting blocks by proclaiming their doubts about the theory of evolution, and the faithful cheer.
Why?
What is it about evolution so terrifying to so many? Is it because it gives a natural explanation for the appearance of design as Daniel Dennet the author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea says? Why not, that seems like a good explanation to me. Nothing is more fascinating or elegant to me in nature, than living beings, especially us: homo sapien.
The appearance of design in organisms is real. But the mechanism of this design is well understood, that mechanism is natural selection. The elegance of this system yields countless complexity, that whatever reproduces with variation will yield different adaptive complexities over time. Its beautiful, it really is.
According to Dennet evolution as an idea is so “dangerous” because it explains that nature is enough to produce all of the marvelous things we see around us.
I do not disagree with Dennet about evolution offering a marvelous explanation about there not being a need for a designer, but I think Daniel Dennet does not fully understand what is at play in the minds of the believers who are so vitriolic against evolution.
We tend to assume that what is most important to the religious is where we come from, but I will argue that what matters most to the religious is where we are going. Which almost all of them are hoping, banking, and betting on is an eternal life, hopefully in some transcendental paradise.
There is one branch of science which has almost nothing to say about where we come from, but a whole lot to say about where we are going. It is my beloved neuroscience.
In the development of neuroscience we have found increasingly more and more evidence for the very real fact that everything we are is produced, contained, maintained, and experienced by the human brain.
Daniel Dennet once eloquently put it, “Yes there is a soul, and it is made of millions of little robots.”
Those little robots are called neurons, and it is the class of cell which your brain and nervous system are made from.
But being somewhat of a bastard, I find Dennet’s “Yes there is a soul…” comment to be reminiscent of the also famous “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus…” comment.
There is no soul.
That means that there is no afterlife.
When your brain dies, you die, every ability you have to experience life, passion, love, suffering, enjoyment ceases.
That means there are no 72 virgins for the martyrs of Allah, and no eternity of praises in the throne room of the lamb for the martyrs of Jesus.
It is the end of all experience.
What I can’t seem to get around my head is why don’t we have pseudoscience movements trying to teach the old Aristotelean idea that the brain is just a cooling system for the body, and nothing more.
I don’t see why neuroscience is not under perpetual attack by the religious extremists of this world, it deals a blow to the only thing they have to offer their followers: eternal life.
I wish to change this. I want to pick a fight.
Religious people of the world, there is no afterlife, and neuroscience is the reason why!
Perhaps unwisely. I want the religious to know that if neuroscience is right about how memory works, how experience works, how these things tshut off and turned on by the activities of specific chemical processes in specific physiological structures in the nervous system, then that means that their religion is false.
At least its promise of pie in the sky is false.
I want them to know the truth as I have come to understand it, the life you are living now is the only one you’ve got.
I want the Kirk Camerons of the world to demand that their followers refuse all neurology as witchcraft.
I want the Discovery Institute to try to create an “alternative theory” for the source of cognition, trying to come up with imaginative hogwash for the idea that personality, thought, dreams, and passion is happening somewhere independently of the brain.
I mean, really what motivates more people to believe in these ancient religions?
Is it really that they are just dying to have a solid explanation for where the earth and its diverse flora and fauna come from?
Or is it that they are dying to have a reassurance that they aren’t dying?
What Are You Willing to Die For?
Sunday, January 11th, 2009Eternity captured in a fist would render the present into shards. Splinters of time would sliver in accordance with fixed laws and our vision would transcend into a quivering mass of realisation. The instability of time runs against our desire for stability. Our poor minds are too small to encapsulate eternity, however; even 100,000 years is difficult to contemplate. 13.7 billions years? Don’t even try.
So much for the beginning, not even our own individual one! What about the end? And by this I mean our “The End”. Death, the current of thanatos, which resides like the shadow of carrion over our heads.
I consider the two most horrible combinations of aspects one could attribute to a being are:
(1) Consciousness
(2) Mortality
And it is these two with which we are “blessed”. You are aware of yourself and your existence… and you are aware of your oncoming demise. Truly, what a joke life turns out to be. A cruel one, but one we should laugh at. Regardless, one question which arises and of which we must contemplate is voluntary death.
In the sense of giving rise to autoeuthanasia, what is it we are willing to die for? My point here is to raise the contention that the only thing I am willing to die for are my loved ones. There is not a single idea, or belief, or abstract philosophical concept for which I am willing to die or kill. The extenuation and recession of life is only in my fist and aimed toward those I love (whether in defence of their lives, or the replacement of my own).
No idea, I repeat, no idea is worth dying for. I have made the case before that even ideas we greatly respect and admire, from the equality of the sexes, and so on, are not worth dying for. They are not sacred or beyond criticism. Ideas are open to a kind of agora mindset – or the market place of ideas the Greeks so loved.
So, consider the question: What are you willing to die for? It is more important, in my opinion, than redundant and ignoble questions about the existence of gods and so on. I do not think that the question of a god’s existence is important to one’s life. I know many nonbelievers who do. What I think they mean is this: The question of whether to believe the current trend of thought, which many believe, and which many find comforting, is central to one’s life. This says nothing about gods – which I think is a rather silly topic and unimportant.
What matters are those question we can answer: How can I be good? What is “love”? Who should I “love”? How do I help my fellow man? These have answers though not end-answers. That is, the answers are the endeavours to achieve those goals rather than actually achieving them. For example, we can continue to do volunteer work in the liberation of women (which is central to solving poverty), but it doesn’t mean we have any hope of eradicating poverty in our life time. The journey is the destination. Most of our answers will simply be winding paths and not glass palaces, in which we can put our feet up and be content.
Kenneth Minogue described ideals like stars, by which we guide ourselves. We never hope to actually reach the stars, but we certainly use them as guidelines, as reflections on the current path. And ideals and ideas are similarly entwined. None are worth dying for because they are echoes of where our hearts should be: Namely, those we love.
So, I reiterate: What are you willing to die for?
Tags: death, ideas, kenneth minogue, loved ones
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