The Russell Stannard Questions: Mind Over Matter

There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.

The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.

My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.

Q. The problem of consciousness.

A. How can your basic building blocks that are electrons, neutrons and protons combine to form atoms; atoms that combine to form molecules; molecules that combine to form complex molecules - complex molecules like organic molecules, biochemical molecules and molecules part and parcel of neurochemistry; the ultimate result being that this chain from the simple to the complex crosses a threshold from the inanimate to the animate and from the animate to the animate entity that is self-aware. It is a profound mystery why one has a fairly unique structure comprised of the same fundamental bits and pieces that comprise all other structures but yet one that can contemplate itself. That structure is the brain and the mind that resides within that structure. The brain is the only structure in the cosmos that can examine itself and yet that structure is ultimately comprised of just electrons, neutrons and protons. However, is there really a problem if that structure can ultimate figure out how to create another structure that also has consciousness. In other words, intelligent and conscious biological software can deliberately give rise to an artificial intelligent and conscious string of software and in doing so thus create a Simulated [Virtual Reality] Universe that houses or contains an apparent (but artificially) intelligent and conscious biological entity or entities that wonders whether or not there was an artificially intelligent software program that gave rise to it. That sort of reminds me of the human who dreamed she was a butterfly who dreamed it was a human, or was that the butterfly who dreamed it was a human who dreamed she was a butterfly.

  

Q. The free will/determinism problem.

A. I tend to have a belief in absolute causality, much like both Newton and Einstein who believed in a regular clockwork universe. If X happens, Y follows. All the laws, principles and relationships of the natural universe were forged at the time of the Big Bang event and once that clock was set in motion, all else flowed from those first established laws, principles and relationships. So, in other words, determinism rules, okay? That equally holds true if we’re in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe, regardless if we are, like a character in a video game a ‘puppet-on-a-string’ or the avatar as a stand-in in a simulated world for someone in the really real world, or as the consequence of someone programing a set of laws, principles and relationships then hitting ‘run program’ and standing back to see what eventuates. We’d all like to think we have free will, but if we are programmed to believe that, what harm has been done if you really do believe that what you had for dinner was something you freely did choose to have.

Q. Does complete understanding require more than solely physical explanations?

A. By complete understanding, one has to incorporate those seemingly nebulous things that reside within the mind, things that seem far removed from the physical world of forces and fields and particles and actions and reactions, etc. These so-called nebulous things revolve around consciousness and the subconscious, thinking (that’s clearly a neurochemical process), memory (clearly chemically encoded), creativity, emotions (definitely chemically driven), morals and ethics, right and wrong, a soul, spirituality, free will, etc. However, all these sorts of concepts reside in the brain or in a part of the brain normally identified as the mind. Whether mind-in-the-brain, or just in or a part of the brain, the brain is ultimately composed of fundamental particles that make up atoms that make up molecules that ultimately make up your neurochemistry and thus your brain and structures within. The proof of the pudding that these so-called nebulous concepts reside in the realm of the physical is that these concepts or things can be altered by physical things – physical happenings like injury (you can be knocked unconscious) or lose consciousness in sleep; chemical things like drugs, lack of sleep, the aging process and related can have decided effects on aspects of your personality, etc.; biological happenings like disease also can have profound effects on some of those so-called nebulous things. They can also be altered by your own self, being creative and via thinking deep thoughts which is an electrochemical process (you might think ‘morals be damned, crime does pay’) and of course closely related, the lifelong learning process (as in learning and altering your learning about say morals/ethics; right/wrong) – as you learn, you may find that what you thought was crystal clear, black and white, is really murky and grey. The learning process (formal or otherwise) can have profound effects on your belief systems and worldviews. Learning clearly has foundations in neurochemistry.   



Natural History: Some More Random Rambling

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a further potpourri of thoughts on or about natural history that are too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* There are probably as many different definitions of “what is life?” as there have been and are biologists, life scientists, naturalists and philosophers, etc. Most centre on or around concepts like growth, reproduction, response to stimuli, metabolism, violations of the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), and related similar ilk. None have been entirely satisfactory otherwise we would have THE textbook definition. My take on “what is life?” is somewhat different. Life is some sort of complex organic structure that has a behaviour that is not absolutely predictable via classical (or even quantum) physics. Or, in other words, under the most tightly controlled and uniform set of laboratory conditions, the ‘structure’ will do as it damn well pleases!

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* Speaking of life, there is no such thing as ‘living matter’ vs. ‘dead matter’. All matter is ‘dead matter’ since all matter, from the ground up, is composed of electrons, protons (quarks and gluons), neutrons (more quarks and gluons), photons, neutrinos, etc. Few if any would ague that an electron, proton, neutron, etc. is ‘living matter’. And the atoms, hence molecules, even complex molecules they make up are not alive. No matter is alive or is ‘living matter’. What is ‘alive’ is the organisation, the overall structure of various bits and pieces of matter, in highly specific arrangements, such that – and this is the key point – entropy, at least temporarily, is thwarted. Entropy finally wins when the organisational structure breaks down, that is, life dies.   

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* Does free will require you to have an infinite or unlimited number of choices, or a finite number? If the latter, you’re still confined in a box, just a slightly larger box than if your box confined you to one and only one choice.

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* The ultimate lack of free will associated with you is that you had absolutely no say in being conceived and being popped headlong into this world. You had no choice in your ancestry or in your genetics or your sex or even what historical era you were to make your way in. Now if you have absolutely no free will in these rather important, in fact absolutely fundamental, parts of your life being kick-started, why should you expect any free will from there on in?

Of course in some societies you’d have no choice in schooling or religion or upbringing or even to the person you got hitched to, etc. But all of that really falls under a separate category of sociology and culture and has nothing to do with the metaphysical or usual notion of what it means to have free will.

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* It struck home to me recently how often we shift our worldviews. We have no worldview at birth. Our worldview at five is one that’s full of self, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, imaginary friends, and parties with lots of cakes, cookies, soda pop and presents. All of that certainly changes, and drastically so, when you hit the teens when your worldview shifts to the opposite sex and sex and rebellion against all things adult. Maybe somewhere there’s an easing in period, a first stirrings, where you start to acquire a worldview of a God and heaven and angels and all things bright and beautiful (that’s probably imposed on you by parents and social mores. Then you get trust out (usually by choice) into the adult world that’s full of bills and responsibilities and employment and/or family life raising your own brats. During all of this you probably never really think of the ‘natural’ cosmic context you find yourself in. But that tends to come as you pass the half-way mark and start heading downhill. The Big Questions come more to the fore and you start to adopt a worldview that makes comforting sense away from the normal routine worldview of taxes and nasty bosses and your kids in trouble with the police again. Again, for most, that tends to revolve around God and heaven and angels, etc. But some people start thinking more outside the comforting religious box and more about space and time, and before and after, and finite vs. infinity and what non-religious Big Picture makes the most philosophical and logical common sense. And whatever specific you come up with can also shift as you reflect on your earlier reflections without end as new concepts and connections come into being or focus which you’ve got to ponder and fit into the master worldview jigsaw puzzle you’ve established.

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* Death is not something to be afraid of. You experience dying, but not death since once dead, you have no existence and you need to have an existence, you have to be alive, in order to experience something, anything, even death. So you never experience death, only that up to but not including death.

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* There’s one absolute reason I’m convinced telepathy doesn’t exist. As I go about my daily walkabout routine and associated observations, I’m forever passing out mental thoughts and images of what I think of many of the deadbeat drivers and other lesser forms of humanity I spy with my little eyes. My thoughts tend not to be very complementary to say the least. But since the lowlifes and rift-rafts haven’t ever proceeded to immediately stop their lowlife activities and drop what ever rift-raft things they were up to, to instead change direction towards me and beat me about the heat and body unto a bloody pulp for my unflattering thoughts, I conclude telepathy doesn’t exist. If it did, I doubt I’d be typing these thoughts now.  

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* Humans call them weeds. Mother Nature calls them plants. So-called ‘weeds’ too have their place in the natural scheme of things. Stupid humans!



We’re Still Sheep in Human Clothing – More Baa! Part Two

I said it before, I’ll say it again: nearly all of us conform to the sociological norm and rest comfortably within the cultural box society demands of us, because, ultimately it’s too much effort to really be an outsider, a free thinker and doer due in part to the social consequences of being, well, different. Let’s face reality; most of us are sheep most of the time. Here’s round two of ‘what the flock’ just to further drive home the point.

Most humans end up being garbed in sheep’s clothing most of the time. For some further examples: 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Giving

Some charity comes knocking on your door for a donation. You get an email request from a bona fide organisation you donated to in the past asking for you to volunteer some of your time for another really worthy cause. You get a phone call seeking support for those who are in need, or for medical research, or some other worthwhile cause. Your near neighbour down the street asks you to buy some of his daughter’s Girl Scout cookies. Your office colleague comes around hat in hand for the office sweeps, or asking for a donation for a gift for some worker who you’ve never met who’s about to retire. The collection plate is passed around at your local church service. Someone is always in your face with their grubby little paw sticking out asking for your money, or time, or both. Meekly, because it’s only $5 or just a couple of hours of your time, you cave in – again and again and again. The sheep can be relied on. They’re a soft touch since hardly anyone wants to be seen or known as a cheapskate. Baa!

Hype, Hype and More Hype

Hands up anyone that’s never experienced being on the receiving end of HYPE! No hands? I thought so. We’ve all experienced over-enthusiasm, especially when and where $$$ are concerned. The prime example is the super-ultra over-the-top month-long (plus) from which I cannot escape hype of all things Christmas. I asked a staffer at a local supermarket why we (staff and customers alike) were being saturated with in-store Xmas music. Well the obvious answer was to get those customers in the proper Xmas spirit and mood, which translated, meant customers spending, spending and spending their money in the staffer’s store (helping of course to keep staffers employed).

The British Royals get the Royal Hype by the press. It’s saturation media coverage for any Royal bit of news at all, including obviously any birth, death, marriage, divorce, or scandal, the sexier the better. Why the intense interest in these dysfunctional idiots is beyond me. I’ve never figured it out and I probably never will. 

Sports are another hyped up category, especially the Olympic Games, but all others like the NFL Superbowl, grand finals of any kind, the Red Sox – N.Y. Yankee rivalry, etc. are grist for the hype mill. The more people that tune in, the bigger the target audience for the advertisers.   

Then we have all those over-the-top at what seems like 100 decibel levels TV commercials hyping you to be the first on your block; try this new and improved; with a brand new taste; be the envy of your neighbours; never to be repeated; easy terms; it’s better than ever; it won’t last long; ends soon; act now; limited quantities; don’t miss out; and on and on and on it goes.

Then you get the saturation exposure to the premier of the newest must see ‘blockbuster’ film. What new fashion shows aren’t just pure hype and another form of planned obsolescence.

Why? Without all the manufactured hype, the average person just wouldn’t give nearly as much of a damn. And it works too! Baa!

The End of the World on the 21^st December 2012

Every time some nutcase makes an end-of-the-world prediction, you can bet the family farm that he or she or they will attract a flock of sheep who believe that specific end-of-days prophecy. Often that ends in tragedy as the flock sell their family farm and possessions; leave behind family and friends, only to have to crawl back on hands and knees looking the absolute fool they were. Sometimes it’s more serious than that – mass suicides have taken place by the true believers. The latest in a very, very  long line of case histories has been taken from the Mayan calendar which, much like our going from the 31^st of December to the 1^st of January, clicks over from one cycle to the beginning of a new cycle. Alas, the deluded, and/or those out to make a fast buck, have convinced many a human sheep that the end of the cycle is in literal fact the end of the world. The upshot, a lot of these end of the world soothsayers made a lot of money selling their tall tales to the great unwashed. They were the winners; the sheep, as usual, got fleeced. The world went on its merry way. As is now obvious to even the densest of morons, the world did not end on the 21^st of December 2012, as any sane person tried to tell you before-the-fact. For those who believed regardless, sucker! Baa! 

Anniversaries

There’s something very sheepish about nearly all humans attributing some special significance to the Earth making one complete orbit of the Sun, or in other words, returning to a specific point* one year later – otherwise known as an annual anniversary. Though it’s of no cosmic significance and purely a human invention and observation, god help you if you miss someone’s birthday or forget your wedding anniversary or fail to show proper respect for local, state, regional or national holidays, like the Fourth of July, or ANZAC Day, Washington’s Birthday or the Queen’s Birthday, VE or VJ Day, etc. Why a human invention? When’s the last time you observed your companion animal(s) or any animal in the wild ‘celebrate’ one of their anniversaries? They could care less – no muss and no fuss. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of their book; follow their example. Not even real sheep celebrate anniversaries! Baa!

*That’s actually incorrect since it’s not the Earth orbiting a stationary Sun, rather the Earth orbiting a rapidly moving Sun that’s moving it it’s own orbit around the central core of the Milky Way Galaxy. When the Earth orbits once around the Sun, it does NOT return to the exact same coordinates in space. And just to further complicate things, the Milky Way Galaxy isn’t standing still either, but moving position with respect to other galaxies, or whatever other points of reference you care to name. 

New Year Resolutions

Speaking of cosmically non-significant anniversaries, the annual renewal of the New Year Resolution list comes close to top-of-the-pops. Most people make them; most people break them; year-in-and-year-out. There’s only one New Years resolution anyone need make, and that is to “never make any more New Years Resolutions”. I did that decades ago, and lo and behold, I’ve never broken that commitment. As to the rest of you, Happy New Year (which, truth be known, you’ll probably be wishing good riddance 364 days later). Baa!

Diets

Probably the New Years Resolution that’s top-of-the-pops is to lose weight, as fast and as painlessly as possible. To cater for that segment of the human population, nearly every week some new fad diet is put forward and just as predictable a flock of human sheep gobble it up only to move on to the next newest diet fad and the next when each in turn is found wanting and doesn’t provide the painless quick-fix promised. Baa!

To conclude, there’s just no end to those facets of society and culture that see those humans garb themselves in sheep’s clothing. Baa! Baa! Baa!

We’re Still Sheep in Human Clothing – More Baa! Part One

I said it before, I’ll say it again: nearly all of us conform to the sociological norm and rest comfortably within the cultural box society demands of us, because, ultimately it’s too much effort to really be an outsider, a free thinker and doer due in part to the social consequences of being, well, different. Let’s face reality; most of us are sheep most of the time. Here’s round two of ‘what the flock’ just to further drive home the point.

Most humans end up being garbed in sheep’s clothing most of the time. For some further examples: 

Sales

Black Friday, Cyber-Monday, Boxing Day (post-Xmas) – There are sales and sales days; then there are SALES and SALES DAYS. There’s something extra special about those SALES and SALES DAYS that drives your average mild mannered person-in-the-street into a raging maniac. “All’s fair in love and war” should be updated to “all’s fair in love, war and sales shopping”. Strike first, strike hard and strike often. It is pure road rage only in the department store isles. The name of the game is doing unto others before they do it unto you. Let’s just say when shoppers hit the SALES, the sheep turn into rams on steroids! But a sheep by any other name is still a sheep. Baa!

Women’s Magazines

There are serious newspapers and then there are the tabloids. There are serious magazines, and then there are the magazines for the average great unwashed bored out of her ever-loving mind female, usually just plain Jane housewife whose idea of a good time is playing the pokies and whose IQ is struggling to reach triple figures. Porn sites probably contribute more towards human culture than what passes for titillation for the female masses, where any similarity between fact and the written word is purely a matter of coincidence. Yet these ‘true confessions, celebrity scandals, who’s sleeping with who, how I lost 100 pounds in one week’ magazines sell by the millions each week, every year. Readers, you are being fleeced. Baa!

Celebrities

Just taking one example, and examples could be numbered in the thousands, there’s a certain female celebrity, Kim Kardashian, who seemingly gets more coverage, more press stories, more interest accrues to her than the POTUS. For the life of me I can’t figure out why this person is important and why anyone gives a damn, yet millions do. I’m stumped, other than to conclude the obvious. Only mindless sheep would think this person should rate more than one second worth of their time, if that. Baa!

The Royal 2013 Brat

Within literally 24 hours of the announcement that, what’s her name, the  Topless Royal, oh yes, Kate, was in a family way, not only did the whole Internet light up and explode like some super Fourth of July fireworks display, but the first Royal Baby 2013 Souvenirs were on the retail shelves, ready to be gobbled up for all those Royal Lovers, oops, Lovers of all things Royal to take into their homes, no doubt to gather dust like all other non-eatable Royal kitsch, oops, knickknacks. What does this tell you about the nature of the human species? What does this tell you about the nature of human priorities? Baa!

Clothing Doesn’t Make the Man - The Suit and Tie

There are just certain occupations where certain items of attire are mandatory, usually for safety reasons, like batting helmets for baseball batters and the mask, chest protector, shin-guards, etc. if you’re a baseball catcher. Ditto shoulder pads and helmets in gridiron football. Hardhats are common sense if you’re a miner or construction worker; ditto bright safety vests if you work outdoors, say road construction, and need to be highly visible. Some professions do require uniforms, as in the military. However, many occupations require certain ‘uniforms’ that actually contribute bugger-all to the ability of that person to perform the job in question. I refer in particular to the civilian white-collar worker, who, if male, is just about required to wear a suit and tie, or at least a jacket and tie. Why? The ability to perform the function you are employed to do has nothing to do with what you wear. Your ability comes from whatever mental and physical abilities you have. Okay, you could perform equally well, in theory, in your birthday suit and in a tuxedo. Eliminating those extremes, you do your best work when you are attired in what is most comfortable. I would suggest that a suit and tie is not that attire; a clean open collar shirt and comfortable pants would suit 99.9% of those otherwise required to wear the suit-and-tie ‘uniform’. Given white-collar workers just meekly dress according to what fashion dictates, instead of wearing that conductive to productivity enhancing comfort, well, all sheep wear wool. Baa!

On the Run

What is it about our society that the sheep have to do everything as if the butcher were after them? I mean they eat on the run; they are not content to let the escalator take them up or down, they have to shove past you, gaining maybe five whole seconds – so where’s the fire? They talk on the run on their mobiles, they text on the run, and while they may have the runs, at least they have to stop and smell the roses when going to the loo. And since they are paying attention to anything and everything except the direction they’re headed in, let’s just be thankful they aren’t behind the wheel of a car! Oops, in fact that’s exactly where all too frequently they are. Driving or otherwise, it’s a sin to waste a moment not doing something, and you should probably feel guilty for sleeping! Baa!

Family Ties

The basic philosophy here is that if it was (or is) good enough for Mom and Dad, then it’s good enough for me – they can do my thinking for me. I mean many offspring usually settle themselves, at least initially, relatively close to where they grew up. Offspring often tend to follow in the same employment-related footsteps as their parents; like father – like son. If your parents were of this particular brand of religious faith, odds are that you will be too. If Mom and Dad drove W, used X, smoked Y, drank Z, chances are you too will be a WXYZ person. If your parents had particular interests, say fans of a particular sports team, well it’s likely you will root for that team too. The same applies to their politics; it’s your politics too. If your parents attended a specific type of educational institution, the odds are you will follow suit. All of the above of course isn’t set in concrete, but moe often as not, because of family ties, you’re a sheep. Baa!

To be continued…

We’re Sheep in Human Clothing - Baa! Part Two

We all probably like to pride ourselves for being independent thinkers and doers – thinking and doing outside of the box that society has tried to put us, and confine us, in. Dream on. Nearly all of us conform to the norm and rest comfortably within that box because ultimately it’s too much effort to really be an outsider, a free thinker and doer due in part to the social consequences of being, well, different. Let’s face reality; most of us are sheep most of the time.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Marketing Those Fads & Fashions: Since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, you’ve been exposed to hundreds of thousands of marketing gimmicks* designed to make you think you need something you probably don’t, at a higher price than you should pay, all for the sake of the almighty profit of thousands of for-profit companies. You’re bombarded with ads on the telly, on the radio, in the movie theatre, in the baseball park, on billboards, skywriting, on the sides of buses, on buildings, in magazines and newspapers, on the Internet, email spam, junk mail spam, even the layout of goods in the shops is designed to get you to part with your money. Neon signs flash out their messages of ‘must haves’. You get bombarded constantly with symbols, jingles, too good to be true images, sex appeal that sells, appeals to the good life, promoting being forever young, etc. Hype, hype and more hype is the order of the day. Is there any product in existence that hasn’t been ‘new and improved’ dozens of times over? What does ‘whiter than white’ or ‘fresher than fresh’ or ‘flavour you can see’ really mean? Then there’s ‘certified organic’ food, or ‘real food’ (as if to suggest some foods aren’t real or aren’t organic – maybe they mean those plastic apples and bananas, etc. that decorate some living room bowls). If there were really such a thing as truth in advertising we wouldn’t need any agency dealing with consumer affairs. Where does it all get you? As the song lyrics go, “another day older and deeper in debt”, and a lot unhealthier too since a lot of that marketing goes into foods that contribute more calories than nutrition, alcohol products often abused, tobacco products which help keep the medical profession fully employed and a profitable one. The bottom line is that such gimmicks work; otherwise ads would have proved to be more expensive than the profits they brought in and cut from the company’s bottom line. Actually it doesn’t always have to be a for-profit motive. ‘Join the Navy and see the world’ or ‘vote for me’ are non-profit marketing exercises. Still, Madison Avenue and associated equivalents not only think you’re sheep, they know you are. Baa!

There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute: There’s a sucker born every minute so it doesn’t take all that long therefore to gather together a flock of suckers. For example, why would anyone spend their dollars on bottled water when tap water is nearly free in comparison – unless of course there’s something seriously wrong with the tap water but that’s rare in most advanced countries today. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the tap water where I live. It tastes A-OK and I haven’t gotten ill from using it yet, yet bottled water is a big seller locally. It nearly flies off the supermarket shelves so it’s a flock of suckers buying it. Why? Well, there’s a sucker born every minute, that’s why. Baa!

Walking Billboards: Many of us, probably all of us if truth be known, own items of clothing, usually tee-shirts, which ‘advertises’ or promotes something or other. Perhaps that lettering or image reflects a product like a soft drink, or perhaps a band tour, the name of a company, your alma mater, a favourite sports team, an entertainment figure or image, your holiday destination; the range is just about limitless. No doubt that reflects some personal parts of your, well, personality, something that’s your favourite something. Akin to that, you drive a certain brand of automobile that probably has a nearly irremovable sticker of the automobile dealer you bought the car from. Those items of clothing, that brand of car, that dealer’s sticker, and a lot more besides, are all free advertising donated by you to whatever agency owns that image or brand name. When you buy a home the real estate agency slaps a big “SOLD” sign with their logo in front for all to see. If you have some sort of renovations to the home’s exterior, the company doing the work will place a sign in front letting all who pass by who did that fine bit of reconstruction, It’s pretty hard to avoid advertising someone else’s product or business, but you do it and boy-oh-boy, don’t those outsiders just love you for it since it doesn’t cost them a cent. They are just ROTFLTAO at how they get extra mileage out of you at no additional deficit to their profit margin; in fact you are contributing to additional profits for them without anyone helping out your economic bottom line. Baa!  

Reviews: The point of an independent and neutral ‘Review’ of say restaurants, books, films, CDs, etc. is to inform. Your reaction to such reviews is a go/no-go depending on what the reviewer says. So in fact, the reviewer is leading you around by the nose. Around the water cooler at work, you don’t want to be caught out not having read this week’s ‘must read’ (or vice versa, having read something some ‘expert’ bucketed), or admit not to have dined out at this new five star eatery (or again vice versa if you had and the review suggested that not even a cockroach would be seen dining there). Reviews and reviewers may have their place, but the implication is that you’re a sheep that needs them to do your thinking for you. Baa!

Keeping up with the Jones Family: Who hasn’t heard of that expression? But isn’t it really way more than just an expression? Your fellow co-worker just moves into a new four bedroom home while you are still in a old three bedroom resident. Is this a motivation to move on up in the world? Your neighbour buys a new deluxe 4WD automobile while you still putt-putt-putt around in a Model-T by comparison. Is a trip to the automobile dealer on the agenda next weekend? Your second cousin just upgraded to this new and improved wireless PC while your landline tabletop computer is within months of a hard disk crash it’s that old. 99% of all those around you seem to have this tablet, that smart phone, this iPod, while you are still a relatively technological Neanderthal. But you’ll show them!!! Your wife complains that you earn twice as much as her best friend’s husband, yet his wife dresses twice as well as your wife does. What are you going to do about that? Have you been told today? Consider yourself told and act accordingly. Baa!

Melbourne Cup: Though this is uniquely Australian, I’m sure similar examples can be found around the globe. The Melbourne Cup is just another horse race in a land where horse races are a dime a dozen. However, this particular horse race is touted as the race that stops the nation. It’s run on the first Tuesday in November, which is now a public holiday in the state of Victoria (where Melbourne is located) and there are serious calls to make it a public holiday throughout the entire country – for a horse race mind you! Anyway, holiday or not, for some inexplicable reason, for just this one horse race, the whole nation goes bonkers! For hours before and after the race no work gets done. Transport comes to a standstill during the race itself. People are glued to their TV or radio sets. Women dress up to the nines trying to outdo each other in who can appear in the most ridiculous hat. Everyone and his or her maiden aunt has a flutter (bet) on the outcome, and short of World War Three starting, it will be the lead item on the evening news and in the following morning’s newspaper front page. All for a horse race mind you. Absolute insanity! Baa!

Not an overly pretty or flattering picture, is it?

*I’m surprised some marketing guru hasn’t yet come up with “buy our new and improved Manna Bread, the bread that God Himself endorses, and atheists can enjoy Manna Bread as well”!

We’re Sheep in Human Clothing - Baa! Part One

We all probably like to pride ourselves for being independent thinkers and doers – thinking and doing outside of the box that society has tried to put us, and confine us, in. Dream on. Nearly all of us conform to the norm and rest comfortably within that box because ultimately it’s too much effort to really be an outsider, a free thinker and doer due in part to the social consequences of being, well, different. Let’s face reality; most of us are sheep most of the time.

Sometimes it’s good to be a human sheep, like when you’re driving in traffic or following the tried and true training regime, being part of the work team, obeying lawful orders in the military or from other authority figures vetted for that purpose. You’re expected to be a sheep and follow the rules when participating in sporting events.

On the other hand, at times there’s something to be said for marching to the beat of a different drummer. Alas, what’s drummed into you tends to be something akin to being told to “Jump”, and you meekly reply, “How high?” Baa!

Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of that “How High” reply. For example:

Religion: There’s relatively little that need to be said here. Billions upon billions of people past and present would bet the family farm that a monotheistic deity (Allah, God, Jehovah, the Almighty, etc.) exists despite the fact that there is no evidence that one can see, hear, touch or taste or smell than even remotely hints at such a deity, far less confirms the actual existence. Whether Muslim, Christian, or Jew, there are just certain times of the day, week, month or year when you go to your closet and pull out and don your sheep coverings. It’s all due to the concept being rammed down your throat by authority figures from an early age, because they had that concept rammed down their throat when they were young and impressionable, and so on down the line to thousands of years ago. Would someone born and raised in an environment that had no concept of the supernatural come to believe in a monotheistic deity of their own intellect? - Probably not. Baa!

When in Rome: Unless you’re a hermit, you have to mingle with the great unwashed and it’s not just ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’ but in anytown do as the local anytowners do or you will find yourself in social strife. Many a movie plot revolves around that theme of the alien and the alienated other, a stranger in a strange land; the outcast. Dare to be different but wear iron-plated underwear. It doesn’t take much otherness for anytowners to resort to necktie parties. On a scale of 0 to 10 for human tolerance of the other, well maybe 0.5 is a reasonable score. The other had better conform. Baa!

Christmas: The bills, the cards you send to people you really don’t give a damn about, the bills, the unneeded and unwanted presents you receive, the bills, all those presents you get to give to the great unwashed, the bills, the wrappings, the bills, the Xmas trees, the bills, the baubles, the bills, the Xmas lights, the bills, the decorations, the bills, the family guests you’d rather not have come around, the bills, the extra food (with a usually ever unchanging and boring menu), the bills, the cleanup, the bills, all those lengthy hours spend Xmas shopping for others instead of yourself, and oh, did I mention the bills that come due? Are we having fun yet? Why do people voluntarily subject themselves to total insanity; this annual nightmare, even if you can afford the bills? The only institutions to benefit are the banks who issue the credit cards and the retail sector. Nor can you use the excuse that you’re just part of the masses observing the birthday of Jesus. Nowhere in any religious literature, like the New Testament, will you find the date, even the month or season when the alleged deity Jesus was born. And woe to any authority figure who says there’s no Santa Claus. They will be crucified – reality is damned. Baa!

Birthdays: We nearly all ‘celebrate’ birthdays, our own obviously, and those most near and dear to us: WTF? Why ‘celebrate’ another anniversary of coming ever closer to your final demise, or the demise of those nearest and dearest to you, and why not celebrate, if you must celebrate, a date some nine months earlier at the conception instead of when you or yours were hatched? Many people also ‘celebrate’ the birthday of those already dead, why I’m not sure since they can’t participate in that ‘celebration’. There’s also the idiocy of ‘celebrating’ someone’s birthday on the wrong day, the example that immediately springs to mind is that of the British Queen Liz, at least in Australia. Then there’s the even greater idiocy of ‘celebrating’ the birthday of someone on a date that isn’t known with any remote degree of certainty, and of that same someone whose very existence is open to question – Jesus. Baa!

Peers Rule, OK: People, especially young people want to fit in, be accepted by their equals. In order to do that, they have to be just another face in that crowd of peers, and dress the part. If the ‘uniform’ of the day is wearing backward facing baseball caps, then to fit in you’d better wear your baseball cap on back-to-front. Another common ‘uniform’ accessory is the 600 ml bottle of water or soft drink tucked away in the required backpack, all part of the non-conformist uniform (vis-à-vis your non-peers) you wear to conform (vis-à-vis your peers). Now that bottle has to contain THE brand name. Any old brand just isn’t acceptable. Now marketing gurus, knowing this, rub their greedy little paws together and laugh all the way to the bank. It doesn’t take much to verify that a 600 ml bottle of top brand X will usually cost twice to three times as much as a standard 1.25 or even a 2 litre bottle of the same. THE top brand of course, in any size, will cost way more, two to three times more, than an in-store house generic brand of the same size, even though the difference in taste is usually minimal, if that. But, your peers say that THE brand, in this size, is required to be part of the in-crowd, so THE 600 ml top brand it is. Baa!

The In-Crowd: The in-crowd is not the exact same mob as your peers. The in-crowd is a combo of the ‘right’ place populated with the ‘right’ people. Not just any crowd found in any old place qualifies. Personally I find pandering to the social scene, the society pages, as if this somehow elevates your worthiness Boring (with a capital B). Besides, when all aspire to be one with the social set, the in-crowd elite, you become part of a flock again, even if it’s the upper-crust flock. Baa! 

Fawning Over British Royalty: Why do millions of people fawn over just a couple of handful of peoples who lead the super ultra good life plus; are a drain on the public purse; are a totally dysfunctional family; who never had to earn their position in life, yet who sit on the commoners throne in the same manner as the great unwashed? What’s Queen Liz (for example) done for you lately to earn your bowing and scraping? Baa!

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.: Its obvious physical substances can cause addictions. Apart from tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, legal and illegal, you’re addicted to eating and breathing! You can also become addicted to various chemicals your brain produces when gambling, which is why gambling is addictive to some. But email addiction? Though I know humans are social animals, there’s something totally over-the-top in and use and abuse of social media. When you feel you have to log into these sites dozens, even multi-dozens of times a day, even when sitting on the throne or in a movie theatre or while shopping in the supermarket then you’re an addict, and IMHO in serious need of some therapy. You know, every now and then it’s good to just chill out, unplug the computer, and be your own best friend. Baa!

Mobile Phones: Closely related to the above, it seems that everybody and their great grandmothers have got to have a mobile phone, turned on, right next to their body, 24/7/52, in case someone wants to get in contact, or, shock-horror, failing that, so they can contact someone. This obsession with talking to people virtually non-stop is beyond my comprehension, especially when you overhear the nature of the conversations; say on the bus or in the supermarket or, much to the annoyance of others, in the theatre. It’s usually anything but important. In fact, it’s usually so trivial as to even be below the level of trivia. Whoever invented the mobile phone must be laughing all the way to the bank to deposit their latest billion dollar profit on the royalties, all because they had the insight that people somehow feel they need to bend other people’s ears, and have their ears bent in return, with trivia, trivia and more trivia. It used to be the case that only politicians and real estate agents and used car salesmen spouted off hot air. That’s no longer true. In the here and now, never have so many, said so much, about so little. Baa!

To be continued…

Your Soul, Free Will and Afterlife in Heaven or Hell: Part Two

The soul, free will, and the afterlife consisting of Heaven or Hell are among the central tenets of the Christian religion, and because they are central to the human psyche, fall within the providence of anthropology, hence natural history. All have philosophical baggage attached. In two cases, the soul and the afterlife, that baggage is a rather excessive amount.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Concept of an Afterlife: Heaven, Hell or Other:  It should come as no surprise that we have some sort of internally hard-wired need to believe in an afterlife, especially one which is pleasant (like Heaven - that of course doesn’t make it of necessity a given). The only experience we’ve ever had has been as a living being. Since we haven’t yet experienced death, it’s in the realm of the totally unknown, and unknowable (until we cross that boundary). At best we are nervous about the unknown, even scared, perhaps terrified – even more so when the unknown is also unknowable. No one has yet be proved beyond reasonable doubt to have come back from the grave and tell us about death, which, is the biggest, most important unknowable of the lot. So, it’s no wonder that believing in an afterlife (or Heaven) helps us overcome our unease.  Despite that, we still fight like the dickens to postpone death, no matter how convinced we are that Heaven awaits! Anyway, let’s look at some specific questions that suggest that the concept of Heaven is, as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock would say, ‘Illogical’.

Firstly, I have to assume that Heaven is an actual physical place with a defined location. That is, if it’s to accommodate humans (and animals?), and presumably the humans are physical (in order to see, hear, touch, etc.), then you need a physical location – the exact place and size are immaterial. So, we have a third dimensional Heaven, that experiences the passage of time (not everyone arrives at Heaven’s Gate at the exact same moment), and allows an existence of physical objects that can be touched, seen, heard, tasted and smelled. Translated, Heaven has a physical location within our Universe and has the properties central to mass, energy, space and time. That said, the ultimate fate of Heaven, and therefore ultimately your ultimate fate, rests with whatever the ultimate fate of the Universe will be. Either prospect is bleak. If our Universe, of which Heaven is but one suburb, ceases its expansion and begins to contract, then it ultimately comes together in a Big Crunch, the mother of all Black Holes and presumably goes ‘poof’. On the other hand, if it continues to expand for all eternity, then ultimately the suburb of Heaven will be totally isolated from the rest of the diluted Universe; dark, freezing cold, and absolutely boring! The idea of spending eternity – absolute infinity - in one place, no matter how heavenly, must ultimately prove to be depressing. In fact, such an existence one could argue would be pure Hell! Lastly, there’s this scenario that as space ever expands, more and more ‘dark energy’ is created (because ‘dark energy’ is a property of space itself), and ‘dark energy’ is a repulsing push-apart force. It is postulated that there will be ultimately enough ‘dark energy’ in the Universe to firstly rip apart clusters of galaxies, then individual galaxies, then their stars, right down to the level of molecules and atoms. This Big Rip (obviously) scenario ultimately has the fate of the cosmos having a Universe composed of nothing but the absolute un-rip-able elementary particles. Presumably, Heaven and all it contains will be ripped to shreds as well.

Anyway, before the end of the Universe as we know it, okay, so you arrive in Heaven. What do you do? Apart from the wings and the haloes and harps bit that is, I would assume that Heaven would be a pretty boring with eternity stretching out in front of you. If they don’t have your favourite beer on tap in Heaven, are you really in Paradise? What do you do in that great cosmic eternal waiting (for Armageddon presumably) room after you’ve read all the National Geographic’s or Woman’s Weekly or Reader’s Digests from cover-to-cover for dozens of times? Do you have hobbies in Heaven? Do you have some kind of nine-to-five job? Are there cultural events and libraries and dining out available? Do you form new relationships, or are you stuck with the old ones? What about shopping – supermarkets presumably are necessary to feed a body that still has a physical essence. Presumably you also need water and air. If so, where do they come from?

Let’s start with one obvious question, what do you look like in Heaven? Presumably you must have some sort of appearance so that others can recognize you (I can’t imagine you go around wearing a nametag). Do you look the same as that you that died? That could be tricky if you died all mangled up in a car/plane/train wreck, or had your atoms scattered to the four winds at ground zero at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. What if you died as a six month old foetus? What if you died with some body parts of someone else or had plastic surgery – is your appearance that of before or after? We could assume that everybody in Heaven is given their appearance that reflects what they did, or would have, looked like at age (pick a number, say) 21. But how would Mum recognize her six month old foetus, or a child recognize their father when the child wasn’t born say until daddy was already 55 years old?

Let’s say you died with essential artificial body parts. What’s the status of your health in Heaven? Presumably you are restored to perfect health, so if you have an artificial heart I gather you get your old organic heart back, even if it ‘died’ decades before you and had long since decayed away. If you were mute, or deaf, or blind all your life, can you now speak, hear or see? If you were old and senile, presumably you’ll have your memory fully restored and razor sharp in Heaven.

How do you communicate? Is there one universal language in Heaven which you instantly master the moment you get there, no matter what your previous languages or language skills or in fact if you died before ever learning a language?

How do you get on with people in Heaven who you didn’t get along with when living, like maybe your neighbour, or boss, or ex-spouse, or that bully who pushed you around in school? Is everybody lovey-dovey with everyone else?

Do you have any natural sexual desires in Heaven? What about sex? I take it as given that you’re not allowed to, or can’t, reproduce (despite the edict to ‘be fruitful and multiply’). But is a Heaven without heavenly pleasures really Heaven?

So, a physical Heaven appears to be a somewhat difficult can-of-worms to deal with.

On the other hand, maybe Heaven doesn’t have any actual physical reality (there’s no matter, no energy, no time, and no space) and it just houses nebulous non-physical souls that exist in total isolation. That’s a rather depressing concept.

Either way, Heaven is illogical. Oh, the same sorts of arguments apply equally to Hell.

Forgetting Heaven for a moment, could there be an afterlife but no God? Yes, of course, but (there’s always got to be a ‘but’).  The ‘but’ in this case is that it’s possible, providing that you can provide a natural, as opposed to a supernatural ways and means of transcending life to life-after-death, and that I doubt you can do. Since I reject a supernatural explanation, and since you can’t come up with a plausible natural one, then I conclude that there is as likely as not, no supernatural God (or gods) that can provide this afterlife service. A natural afterlife would be akin to being a citizen of a country that has no government; an afterlife without any infrastructure. But (there’s that ‘but’ again), maybe there is a natural, well naturally artificial anyway, explanation for an afterlife after all.

I refer to the idea noted above that we might exist in a computer software simulated cosmos. If our life is simulated, so too may we, after being deleted from the alive-and-well, full-of-life software, reappear in another software program called Heaven or Hell (or maybe Spirit World). Now I know nearly all of you gentle readers will reject the idea that you are just a simulated being in a computer generated universe. However, I conclude that you take the idea seriously, since it just may well prove to be your one and only ticket to an afterlife!

Your Soul, Free Will and Afterlife in Heaven or Hell: Part One

The soul, free will, and the afterlife consisting of Heaven or Hell are among the central tenets of the Christian religion, and because they are central to the human psyche, fall within the providence of anthropology, hence natural history. All have philosophical baggage attached. In two cases, the soul and the afterlife, that baggage is a rather excessive amount.

The Concept of a Soul: The trouble here is that ‘the soul’ has so many diverse definitions that it can mean just about anything you want it to mean. Probably no two people would describe the concept in the exact same way. However, I think we can agree that an egg cell has no soul – however you define it. A sperm cell has no soul – however you define it. Therefore, at conception, you have no soul. No cell has a soul, therefore no tissue (a group of common cells) has a soul, therefore no body organ has a soul (an organ being composed of various tissues), therefore you, as a collection of various organs and organ systems must have no soul!

So when did you get a soul (assuming there is such a thing and that it has some degree of tangibility)? Did you get your soul at birth? Perhaps it was on your first birthday? Perhaps you received you soul when you became of age, say 21. Perhaps it’s just as likely that you don’t receive a soul at all – there is no such separate and apart physical thing you get from any higher authority. Perhaps your soul just develops or evolves naturally as part and parcel of your growing maturity over the years, in which case it can’t be totally separate and apart from the body. In other words, if you develop a soul akin to your developing a sense of morality or spirituality, then it can not ‘leave’ the body after death. Translated, your soul (however you define it) isn’t your ticket to an afterlife. It resides somewhere in that brain-thingy of yours, locked somewhere within that maze of biochemistry that collectively makes up your grey matter. As an aside, if you were to clone yourself, would your clone have a soul?

The Concept of Free Will:  To start will let’s examine the paradox of free will. Here’s one of many contradictions. You insist that you have free will. Therefore, God has no control over your actions. Therefore, God is not an all-powerful being. A God who isn’t all-powerful isn’t the most perfect being that can be conceived of. God has to be the most perfect being anyone can imagine. Therefore, there is no God. Now if God is all-powerful, even though God has granted you free will, your free will is ultimately an illusion living on somewhat borrowed time in that God can revoke that free will gift at any time He choses and thus have His wicked way with you!

Another take is that if God exists, all His attributes must be compatible. If all God’s attributes are not compatible, God must not exist. For example, God can not have His own personal free will and be all-knowing. If God is all knowing, then God knows in advance what He will and will not do. If God knows in advance that He will not do something, then He has no free will of His own. He has no options available to Him but to not do what He knows he won’t do.

Anyway, God has apparently granted humanity, including you, a concept called ‘free will’. That is, you are free to pick and choose between various alternatives, including making choices or decisions that can be described as good, or as evil; moral or immoral; ethical or otherwise. However, regarding such a free will, I would argue that you can never be 100% sure that any choice or decision that you make wasn’t due to the universal laws, principles and relations part and parcel of physical causality that started operating from Day One (the Big Bang event) and thus forever and ever predetermined. You might be 99.999% sure you have free will, and that it was God given, but I can’t figure out any way you could absolutely prove it to any outsider, or to yourself for that matter if you are honest with yourself..

If you accept free will, then you must of necessity admit that causality does not always operate. Just as you, dear reader might refuse to believe in pre-determinism, I absolutely refuse to abandon 100% causality, an absolute cause-and-affect principle, which then forces me to reject free will, even though I do so reluctantly. It gives me no joy to think that what I’m doing right now is the ultimate outcome of the set of conditions that existed at the time of the Big Bang event and that I therefore have no choice since that’s the nature of a clockwork Universe, but it’s the lesser of two philosophical evils for me!

I assume that anytime you, dear reader, make a voluntary choice, that there must have been some causality chain of cause-and-effect happenings that led to that choice vis-a-vis some other choice. Your decision didn’t happen for lack of any reason at all. Put another way, your choice has a foundation. Now I just extend that foundation, that causality chain, back to the initial set of conditions present at the origin of the Universe in much the same way as you can trace your (extremely improbable) existence via the chain of existences of (extremely improbable) ancestors, going right back through the unbroken chain to the first proto-cell some four billions years ago, (a proto-cell which in turn may have come from the depths of space and has an ancestry (your ancestry) extending back untold billions of years before Planet Earth ever formed).  You certainly can’t deny that ancestral causality chain, so why deny a causality chain that ultimately extends back to the Big Bang event and the pre-determined chain of happenings and which leads you to whatever choices you are currently contemplating?

And so ‘yes’, using that logic, you aren’t responsible for your decisions and resulting actions (though I’ll bet legal eagles everywhere would have something to say about that, for that undercuts our entire legal system). But from the point of view of the Universe, it might ask, ‘so what?’ It matters not at all to the cosmos (and to 99.9999% of all life forms, including humanity – past, present and future) whether you deposit money in a bank, or rob that bank!

Just as we have computer simulations (such as ‘Life’, a computer software package) that allow for no free will, that is, everything is pre-determined given the initial set of programmed conditions, could we in turn be part of a simulated ‘Planet Earth’ computer ‘game’ or simulation of someone (something) somewhere out there? Do the characters in a typical video game have free will, or do they dance to the tune of their programmer and player? Can you, dear reader, prove to me (or anyone) by some chain of logic that you or we are not the product of or existing in a simulated and therefore no free will, computer generated, virtual universe?  If not, then you have to admit, however remote the odds, that that possibility exists.

If the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of reality is correct, free will is an academic or moot point since all choices or decisions are enabled. To explain the ‘many worlds’ concept, it boils down to the interpretation that whenever you (or anything else – animate or inanimate) are forced to choose, to make a decision, all possibilities are entered into. So, you have this free will decision to do X or to do Y or to do Z. You actually end up doing all three, and thus there’s a new universe Y, and a new universe Z, which splits and branches off from universe X because you choose via your free will (or so you think) to choice X. In reality, you also choose Y and Z. Therefore, no free will was ultimately exhibited.

However, if I were a betting man, I’d bet that humanity does have free will, although that in no way actually proves the existence of God. Ultimately however, does it make any real difference whether you, dear reader, have free will, or the illusion of free will, as long as you actually believe you’re your own boss? 

By the way, can you have free will in Heaven? I mean can you, of your own free will, commit a sin in Heaven? If you can, well you shouldn’t be in Heaven at all and God has stuffed up, being all-knowing, in letting you in, in the first place. If you can’t commit a sin in Heaven, then God has revoked your free will!

To be continued…

Universals of the Human Condition 2: Part Two

It’s pretty obvious that all humans share with all other humans various but fundamental universals. We all have a biological mother and father for example. One normally however associates every human being and every human society as unique in terms of their worldview. Yet there remain certain universals (like mom and dad) seemingly shared across the board by the great majority of individuals comprising any and all cultures. Some of these universals were explored in an earlier essay. Now let’s explore several more universals common to the human condition, which are innate to our internal psychology and/or based around external realities. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Social Animal: Hermits are relatively few and far between. We voluntarily associate in large clusters usually like-with-like. That sometimes resulting in ghettos and/or ethnic neighbourhoods (like Chinatowns) which usually wasn’t quite the social issue in ancient history that it has tended to be in the latter three centuries. That the human species are a social animal is nowhere more dramatically brought to the fore than with the modern phenomena, something bordering a on pure obsession, of having to be in contact 24/7/52. People produce seemingly endless streams of emails; love the use of cams; blog the most trivial of trivia’s;  engage in so much text messaging that arthritis rates among the young are bound to skyrocket; engage in near endless mobile phone use; make posting after posting on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter (and similar sites), etc. We throw parties; dine together; attend all manner of functions with our peers, and on and on it goes. Such social activities aren’t confined to any one sex or age group or nationality. 

Sports: Contests, whether as harmless play, as a more formal and structured competition (be it amateur or professional) has been the case in all societies from the year dot through to the present day. The ancient Greeks had their Olympic Games; the Mesoamericans their ball-court contests where you just wouldn’t want to be on the losing side; Americans have their national pastime (baseball); other countries/cultures go fanatically mad over all manner of other sports be it rugby or soccer or ice hockey. One doesn’t even have to be a fan of or participate in team sports. Chess and wrestling just require one opponent; golf and tenpin bowling don’t even require that. Sporting contests have to rate as one of the most universal of human universals ever. 

Superstitions: This hardly requires any lengthy comment. From black cats, to walking under ladders, to Friday the 13^th, to breaking mirrors, avoiding stepping on sidewalk cracks, to Charlie Brown suiting up for his baseball games in a just so manner, etc. Every culture has had (and often still has) endless superstitions and rituals to ward them off, which we might shrug off as harmless nonsense today but which we’re not always taken with a proverbial grain of salt thrown over the shoulder. More than a few felines and women suffered the most horrible of tortures because of superstitions. 

Taboos: Every society everywhere at every time has had some set of taboos – some of which made sense like incest (inbreeding is bad from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective), but many that didn’t. For example, only the ancient Chinese emperor or empress was allowed to have the image of a dragon on their clothing; for everyone else that was taboo under penalty of death. Some foods are forbidden; some only forbidden or allowed on certain days – most illogical, unless for health reasons which usually wasn’t or isn’t the rational. And although all societies have or have had taboos, there’s often little consistency between them, or even within them. Royal families often engaged in incest even while being taboo among the commoners. But some societies allowed, even encouraged polygamy while others tabooed the practice. Go figure!

Territoriality: Animals usually stake out and defend a certain amount of territory, that amount of space required to sustain itself, space enough to find a mate in, sufficient territory to sustain and raise a family in. Animals rarely require more than that. They don’t grab territory just for the sake of grabbing territory and for bragging rights. Too large a space is indefensible anyway. You can only patrol so large a space with the resources at your command. Humans are obviously territorial. We defend our personal space. We’re uncomfortable if someone we don’t know gets within a certain distance of us. A man’s home is his castle, and we don’t care for trespassers. If foreign nations threaten or invade our country, we up the nationalistic fever and do our patriotic duty. And while the number of conflicts and wars have perhaps been given too much prominence in our history texts, it’s fair to say that many a nation has invaded many another nation(s) in order to acquire and expand their own territory. That’s usually for a practical purpose(s) – few go to war just for the hell of it. Often that reason(s) is obtaining required natural resources including human resources (slaves), or eliminating a potential threat before they eliminate you, or to provide more space for your expanding population to expand into. When it comes to expanding your territory, there are some less self-serving practical rationales with emphasis instead on more political, cultural, and/or religious reasons include unification – replacing say paganism with your brand of Christianity; communism vs. democracy.  

Treasure: Quite apart from pirates and buried treasure, bank robbers and stashed loot,  prospectors who keep losing the mother lode, or pharaoh’s grave goods (you can take it with you they thought) all societies have their cultural treasures, often in part composed of precious metals, jewels, pearls, jade, ivory, etc. but not always. Treasure to an entire culture or to an archaeologist does not always mean gold doubloons and X marks the spot! When societies are threatened by outside forces, an all too frequent occurrence in human history, they often hide or move those movable valuables comprising those cultural treasures. In the turmoil that follows, sometimes documentation becomes lost or destroyed, the items, scattered in diverse locations, also become lost as the mists of time thicken – and so you have lost treasure. If cultural treasures are looted by invaders, the fate is often the same – scattered to the four winds – some ending up in private collections; others stored/buried away and ultimately forgotten about. Valued objects are also lost by accident. There a lot of valuable cultural artefacts lost at sea when ships were sunk and there’s roughly three million shipwrecks worldwide; a lot of gold (and similar items) was lost in transport to the Old World from the New World including treasures of all sorts of interest only to archaeologists and historians. Some treasure ships (however you define them) have been uncovered and recorded; much more remains. The upshot is that there is an awful lot of treasure that remains unaccounted for, hidden, buried or just plain lost, and every culture can relate to that. But it’s not just treasure that’s universal in human civilizations. The whole concept of treasure is fascinating, even riveting to us as individuals, whether that treasure is modern or ancient; local or sited halfway around the world. And so it has been and probably forever will be.

Universals of the Human Condition 2: Part One

It’s pretty obvious that all humans share with all other humans various but fundamental universals. We all have a biological mother and father for example. One normally however associates every human being and every human society as unique in terms of their worldview. Yet there remain certain universals (like mom and dad) seemingly shared across the board by the great majority of individuals comprising any and all cultures. Some of these universals were explored in an earlier essay. Now let’s explore several more universals common to the human condition, which are innate to our internal psychology and/or based around external realities. 

Aliens: Humans have probably speculated about alien life ever since they looked up at those points of light in the night sky and wondered “what if”. Universal interest in and speculations about the reality of alien life, especially extraterrestrial intelligences has waxed and waned over several thousands of years. Naturally Christian religions have had to butt in and contribute their two cents worth – nothing positive came of those I can assure you. Religion should really keep its bloody nose out of scientific issues that have no moral or ethical implications. Anyway, though dating back to the ancient Greeks and probably before them, it’s only in the last 500 or so years that’s witnessed an order of magnitude increase in speculative interest about aliens and in the last 100 or so years an order of magnitude increase above that. There’s been a further exponential increase in interest just in the past couple of generations as speculation has turned to experiments such as the Viking space probes to Mars and SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). That, coupled with the appearance of the UFO phenomenon and the rise of interest in possible ‘ancient astronauts’ has up the ante. A whole new science of astrobiology (nee exobiology) has risen within those last two generations and is now a well established discipline. However, as of this writing, we’re no wiser as to alien life than the ancient Greeks were. However, probably before many of you reading these worlds head up to that great radio telescope in the sky, you’ll have an answer – it might only be microbes on Mars, but that’s still an answer.

Creativity: Both humans and some animals can be innovatory creative – necessity being the mother of invention – such as employing tool use to further their odds of survival. The classic example is some animals using twigs to pry out insects from inside trees for their lunch. It’s snack time! Only humans however are artistically creative (with one possible exception – whale songs). We’re all artistically creative even if it’s just planning and cooking meals; deciding on furniture and its arrangement; ditto our wallpaper and/or paint schemes; our choice of carpets or tiles. Even writing a letter or an email is an artistic creation as is choosing ones wardrobe and hairstyle. Amateur photography is an artistic expression of course – an exercise in creativity. Animals do none of these things. And it’s obvious from the archaeological and anthropological record that our ancestors were of the same mind – artistically creative, perhaps designed with a purpose in mind like making pottery to store food in or perhaps creating something for religious purposes. Quite often however an artistic artefact was created just for the hell of it, or because it pleased the person to do so. The Mona Lisa might be considered to be a nice artistic work (though you’d have to pay me to hang it in my home) but it’s useless – just another dust collector. Okay, it might be useful dragging in a few tourist dollars, but 99.999% of all artistic creations just collect dust. Creating something with little hope of recognition is definitely a universal human trait. 

Exploration: Many animals explore, but not for theoretical academic reasons. Their exploration has a practical purpose in mind – a new and better home possibly; a possible food source that lurks inside that unexplored cupboard. Humans explore too, and often equally for practical reasons – finding the Northwest Passage; seeking the exotic spices of the Orient by heading west from Europe but bumping into the Americas instead; looking for new lands to add to your nation’s empire with a bit of personal glory tacked on as well. However, humans also explore just because they are curious and boldly go where no one has gone before just to satisfy that curiosity. Voyages to the Moon are at one extreme of that urge, but on another level, what’s beyond that distant hill? As it was in the past, so it still is. If you move into a new neighbourhood or city what’s just about the first thing you do? Explore and find out what’s what and where’s where. It’s the personal version of bolding going where you haven’t gone before. 

Hybrid Creatures 1: Human-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are loaded with human-animal hybrids. You name the animal and no doubt you’ll find either the body of that animal topped up with a human head & neck (sometimes including torso), or else the human body will be topped off with an animal’s head and neck (sometimes including it’s torso). You don’t have to dig too deeply to find examples: the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Centaur, the Satyr, the Mermaid, the Harpies, and the Sirens are all well known examples.

Hybrid Creatures 2: Animal-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are also loaded with animal-animal hybrids. There are combinations of two different animals; three different animals; sometimes four of more make up a composite hybrid. If you can imagine one; someone has beaten you to it and recorded it in one or more ancient mythology. While there are literally hundreds of examples from around the world, it’s easy to name the commoner ones: the Dragon, the Griffin, even Pegasus the winged horse.

Politicians: Politicians by any other name (royalty, ministers, senators, emperors, congressmen, presidents, pharaohs, etc.) are still politicians, near universally viewed by the ruled as among the lowest of the low, whether elected to rule, rule by divine right, or rule by force. Politicians are probably in that category of you can’t live without them; you can’t live (much as you’d like to anyway) with them. At best we have to conclude that politicians have been, are, and will continue to be a necessary evil from any and all societies that have, are, or will exist.

Recreational Drugs: There’s little doubt that recreational drug use (and probably abuse) dates back multi-thousands of years. The fermenting of gapes for wine and its use goes back at least from 8000 to 6000 BC, and was a very common drink in Ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome; the production and use of beer dates back even further to at least 9500 BC; smoking has been recorded from at least 5000 BC onwards, often as incense and for use in various religious/shamanistic rituals from the Middle East through to Asia and the Americas; and no doubt our ancient ancestors, via trial and error as to what was eatable and what wasn’t tasty, no doubt discovered ‘magic mushrooms’ and other similar natural plant materials that not only provided a few calories but a bit of a buzz too! For example, opium use goes back to roughly 4200 BC. The list could be massively extended but you get the gist. Drug use is one of those human universals – always has been; probably always will be. And while some species of animals can be induced artificially into becoming addicted to say alcohol, a wild animal can not afford to become addicted to any substance in its environment and become disoriented. A mouse nibbling on a magic mushroom is just asking for trouble.

Shape-Shifters and Were-Creatures: Shape-shifters and were-creatures are very popular in sci-fi (“The Thing from another World” or “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country” and horror (those endless variations on the “Wolfman” classic). They are also popular in reality, if mythology be reality. Anytime within the field of mythology one comes across a theme which is universal, that is it cuts across all cultures, geographies, races, etc. then I believe one needs to pay extra heed, as universal themes are more likely to have some basis in reality. One such theme is that of the shape-shifter, including were-creatures. Almost every culture around the world has some type of transformation myth, and almost every commonly found animal (and some not-so-common ones) probably has had a shape-shifting myth attached to them somewhere along the line. With respect to humans, the most obvious explanation is that at some time or other we’d all like to have been an inconspicuous fly-on-the-ceiling observing and listening in to that which was not meant for our eyes and ears. Much as we’d like to at times, we can’t shape-shift into a fly. But that doesn’t really explain why we would attribute that ability to others – it doesn’t do us personally any good, now does it? The popular idea of a shape-shifter is of a human (or humanoid) being who turns into something else, or something else that turns into something human (or humanoid) and common examples include skin-walkers, the werewolf and vampire (though humans have been attributed to transform into just about any mammal or bird you can think of). Other common shape-shifters include fairies, wizards, witches, kelpies, and some, even most of the gods (like Odin, Loki and Zeus). Satan would have to be included too. However, though we can’t shape-shift (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde not withstanding), even though other humans can (or could), that ability has also been attributed to literally hundreds of creatures from time immemorial. There are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves into other animal forms as well as the above mentioned human-animal transformations.

To be continued…