Present Probabilities
1: BEGINNINGS
More than a few hardened physicists have described themselves as having experienced quite strong religious feelings when they made a discovery about `nature' that seemed absolutely fundamental. But where do such feelings come from? Like the evolution of emotions like Love or Anger, did they evolve to serve some essential need like eating, sleeping, or reproduction? What about the other `software' built into the `Human ROM', like the essence of language, or the map-sense we, along with many animals, use to find our way around? And which in turn may have evolved into an ability to plan, plot a course through a situation that appears to match previously-encountered situations? Perhaps from there, even our precepts of `future’ and `past’?
These and our many others in combination appear to have produced many side effects (`emergent properties’). For instance, we evolved the ability to build `world models' inside our minds that gave us some means of determining how reality works; even some ability to predict future events. Once our cultures evolved to the point where we could share these models with each other via highly developed languages, leading in their turn to mathematics and philosophy, the foundations of science and technology could then be laid.
But those `protoscientific’ foundations were very primitive by current standards, indeed they are what we now call `religion’. Even the earliest primitive cultures had some concept of cause and effect, which led them to wonder about the Prime Cause of all Effects. For them Life and The World came into existence through `gods’ or `spirits’ (whose own creation are often unexplained) behaving in somewhat human ways. This suggests they were created by a very plausible and articulate person whose `personal manner’ was of the kind that encourages respect. And plausibility itself is essentially a version of leadership that derives from the `pack’ mentality of our chimp-like evolutionary ancestors.
Bizarrely, the process actually continues today, with the founding of various cults; some just fanatic variants of conventional religions, others entirely new and often at least as socially troubling.
Yet, oddly enough, vestigial remains of the same process are still with us in the science of today. It too has its `charismatic’ leaders’ who can’t help but influence what areas of research become `fashionable’ within their particular fields. But few of those who follow the process of science doubt that it ultimately unites all those involved: their common pursuit of trying to determine how `reality’ works. And that in turn determines how we currently perceive reality in an ongoing cybernetic feedback loop that looks like it will continue indefinitely.
Unless those folk whose views of reality are still cemented in one or another of the protosciences do succeed in taking over the planet.
Inspiration would then come to us through prayer, not research .
2: MORALITY
It’s not without reason that most if not all religions are fascinated with sex. Latest research strongly suggests that certain narcotics like heroin stimulate the same areas of the brain (the so-called `reward network’) as sex does. Since we are all born with an addiction to sex to one degree or another, we are in effect no different from addicts spending their entire lives looking for a fix.
Yet how do most societies deal with `conventional’ narcotic additions? Mostly, imprisonment.
Most conventional religions in earlier times dealt with sex in similarly nasty ways, from social ostracism to death by stoning, unless one went about it in an `approved’ way. In a word, marriage, a permanent union intended both to provide a life-long `fix’ as well as provide a secure background and upbringing for the products of The Great Sexual Narcotic: kids. It might seem primitive, even brutal to modern sensitivities, but for the vast majority of people it worked perfectly well and does for many today. It also reduced the risks associated with the often severe emotional withdrawal symptoms if one party parted company from the other, often leading to violence and suicide. Not unsimilar to heroin withdrawal.
And how do most modern societies deal with sex today? It’s not only freely available, it is compulsory. `If you’re not getting it, you’re a pervert.’
Just imagine if heroin dealers scored a similar marketing coup.
Is there a better way, one that accommodates `modern sensitivities’ yet achieves the same result? Even after decades of experimenting with all the alternatives one can think of, it would actually seem not. Marriage, or some other form of socially-recognised civil union, really does appear to be all we have, even in this morally relativistic world. Experimenting with sex in effect amounts to experimenting with drugs, and while marriage and family can certainly result in similarly appalling disasters, it is the only way we have so far devised to minimize the risk.
Some of you won't like the idea but, like democracy, the alternatives are worse.
3: COMMUNITY
Provided it does no harm, a behavioral trait that evolves purely by chance and appears to have neither benefit nor penalty to an individual animal may persist in the species it belongs to indefinitely. By the same process of chance however, the trait may then disappear, leaving little if any noticeable trace on its geological record. One or another species of Trilobite may have acquired and lost multicolored fluorescent hues at one brief stage in its evolution, but it’s unlikely we shall ever know.
Occasionally however, a similarly acquired trait may actually do more harm than goodl to an individual animal, but provided this is even slightly outweighed by a benefit to the species it belongs to, it may persist. Such may explain the origin of the behavior of self-sacrifice; the forgoing of an immediate reward by one animal to benefit another. The vast majority of animals that display this trait usually only behave in that fashion to its kin, and only when the sacrifice involves a minor penalty.
Such `self-sacrifice’ traits may then have linked synergistically with other newly-evolved behavioral capabilities. Lions and wolves form co-operative teams to hunt down prey in a manner that involves tactics, which require the suspension of the `kill now’ instinct to have a better chance of partaking in a feast later. Chimpanzees similarly co-operate when hunting monkeys as they occasionally do as a supplement to their regular menu. But their forms of mutual cooperation extend somewhat beyond hunting into complex social interactions that allows them to form communities, recognizable to us as such since they seem to appealingly reflect much of our own possible beginnings.
Yet, in species-evolution terms, are their communities of any more benefit to them than the rather simpler herding behavior prey animals like horse and zebra have evolved as a defense against predators?
How might chimpanzees have evolved if their self-sacrifice ability extended to helping each other build their beds of leaves each night rather than do so individually as currently happens? One possible answer to that is us. The acquisition of that one capability might have been all it took to take us to that next evolutionary step beyond chimpanzees. From then to now. The self-sacrifice `gene’, linked to our capacity for tool construction and use (which chimpanzees and a very few other animals also have in limited form) has given us the world we have today and all the technology we use to survive in it.
But does that make us really any cleverer than ants, or those termites which can build structures relative to their own size the scale of skyscrapers? And fully air-conditioned ones at that?
Yes it does. Their capabilities evolved solely via evolution. Ours began as an evolutionary process that took us beyond the apes in cooperative behavior. But from that point on, especially when our lingual abilities evolved, it became cultural evolution. That is vastly more flexible, and is what will eventually take us to the stars while the termites and their skyscrapers will have to remain behind right here.
While ants, termites and chimps could hardly be described as `meek’, they and their kin really will inherit the Earth.
4: FAITH
Adventurous sharemarket investors know they have a choice. They can invest in low-risk low-return blue chip stocks in companies that have been around for years. Or they can take a punt on higher risk/return shares in recently-floated companies that exist solely to develop some new technological advancement that appears likely to succeed in the marketplace, but which may fail for any number of reasons.
A few adventurous souls similarly devote their lives to some Great Cause which they believe can bring great benefits to mankind. The abolition of slavery and the universal education of children are examples of where such people and their causes have succeeded. Others such as Nazism and Communism are examples of revolutionary ideas that may have looked good on paper, but unfortunately led to disaster.
And most of these folk are, for want of a better word, charismatic. Investment `gurus’ have made huge fortunes through leading many folk towards (usually smaller) fortunes of their own by telling them to do this, this and this. Good Idea gurus have lead their followers to various versions of nirvana, or at least the promise of it if they do that, that and that.
Unfortunately, most gurus of these and other suasions turn out to have feet of clay, often gilded, and quickly fitted with top brand running shoes when they become exposed for finding money and nirvana for themselves at often vast financial and emotional expense for others. And unfortunately the one common factor they all have in their various Plans for Life is the concept of faith, the willing suspension of judgment for the chance of an Immense Return (see Guilt). Investment gurus often say that Regulatory Authorities should be ignored as they are staffed by people who are only jealous of the rich. Good Idea gurus insist that those who laugh at you should be turned into followers so that they, too, can share in the benefits that you and your brothers and sisters in the movement enjoy. `That is Your challenge…’
Most sensible folk prefer to invest their time/money/lives in good solid `brand-name’ activities, employment, personal relationships, goods and services, and occasionally religions. And that's not hard to understand. If you want to have a stable, reasonably happy secure life for yourself and your kids, then that (like marriage) gives you the best chance. And if a sufficiently large majority of people make that choice, they will tend to create a stable, reasonably happy secure community that will allow them to continue to live that way indefinitely.
And revolutionaries, in spite of the claims by some that they are rugged individualists who stand out from the crowd, need that crowd to keep them fed and clothed while they make their money, art, scientific discoveries, or The World a Better Place.
5: GUILT
When we make a decision, we are really only making a best guess on what to do next on the basis of whatever information we have at the time. If it turns out right, we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves `clever’. If we’re lucky, other people who watch us do it agree with us. If on the other hand it all goes pear-shaped, we instantly look at the new information we now have, then agonize about what we should have done. Dumb. If that information had been available at the time, you probably wouldn't have decided the way you did, would you? Meanwhile, those folk watching on from the peanut stalls of life look at you sideways and mutter words like `clown’, `naïve’ or `half-baked’.
The moral here is there is no point in having regrets, let alone feeling guilt. You made the best choice you could under the circumstances. And even if you had decided differently, the consequences might have been even worse.
The problem comes when we find ourselves making decisions we feel strongly impelled to make. Buying that new house/vehicle/jewellery/bottle of booze you can’t really afford. Compulsively drawn to that male/female you see from a distance. Then, when you should chance to meet them… That second, third, fifth, nineteenth drink… You've been clean for months, even years, then that sudden opportunity at a party…
So much for free will. We guess, resist, cave in, pray, assess, regret, elate our way through our lives and there’s not a lot we can do about it.
Unfortunately, we cannot organize a society like that. One of the fundamentals of all morality and whatever laws we live under is that we do have Free Will, that we can choose the `right way’ and that we are responsible for our own actions. The only exceptions are where a person is deemed `mentally or emotionally incapacitated’ and each case involving such people usually requires several decisions (best guesses…) to be made.
One possible alternative to a Responsibility-based society is an Insurance-based one, where each person in effect takes out an insurance policy against all harm. Those people who persistently cause harm (errors in their decision-making processes?) are then defined as `risks’ according to some category scale or other, and are themselves denied insurance cover against their own property, freedom of movement, or their lives. Oddly enough there are signs that the Western World is heading in that direction with various `no fault’ accident insurance schemes. Whether this `pre-decision forgiveness’ becomes a liberation from guilt and regret remains to be seen, but `Forgive Others as you Forgive Yourself, for We Know Not What We Do' doesn't seem a convincing mantra for insurance companies.
6: TRUTH
This very ancient, slippery concept has all but been abandoned by anybody who has to interpret and act on reality such as journalists, lawyers, and even some scientists. Yet it need not be totally without merit. Consider it as an `ideal’ state, like `perfection’. We know perfection cannot be attainable, yet we know that on occasion we encounter situations (or people) that seem to approach it very closely. Occasionally the reverse is true; mostly they seem to string out along a Gaussian Curve. In fact you could assign a 0% – 100% `Perfection Rating’ to any situation where 0% is total pits and 100% sheer nirvana.
We can do exactly the same with `truth’. At the near 100% end of the scale we could put those scientific theories for which there are huge amounts of evidence and which have stood the test of time. Evolution, Relativity, and Quantum Theory are classic examples. At the other end of the scale - the near-zero percent end – are flying saucers, Egyptology, astrology. A bit further up are the major religions; after all God of some sort or another may exist. In the middle one could place the `soft’ sciences like sociology and psychology, both of which have considerable bodies of evidence to support their various often conflicting hypotheses, but not enough to turn any of them into hard theories. Economics is a little higher up since much of it has been tested against objective reality. We all have to consume after all.
What about The Wisdom of The Ancients? The Bible, the Koran? For so many people even in the modern age, they are the Truth. Most of us however are more circumspect. As with so much else that cannot be disproved, we can neither affirm or deny.
7: COMPROMISE
Of course one cannot expect the amazingly high percentage of the world’s population who have religious beliefs to abandon them and embrace the `emotionally empty truths’ of science. One ought not even suggest that they should. After all, most would then simply abandon one religion to in effect embrace another, for that is what science would almost certainly in effect become.
Not that that’s likely. Even the most basic grasp of the fundamentals of science is not widespread even in the developed world. America actually appears quite backward in this respect with recent surveys suggesting more than 50% subscribe to Creationism. And many societies resent the intrusion of that handmaiden of science, technology, into their cultures which are often extensions of their religions. Indeed, their responses can be somewhat violent as recent world events have shown. One might wonder in fact if much of the 21st century will be taken up with one last huge conflict between science and religion.
Science of course cannot promote itself in the way religion can. While it can be made entertaining by specialists in the field at public demonstrations, it cannot actively `promote its cause’ since it's `beliefs' and `truths' are always provisional, unlike religion it has no `certainties' that can be instilled into people's minds. Also, while Science may know a lot about the techniques that religions (and salespeople) use to convert people to their way of thinking, the notion of using such techniques itself would strike most scientists as repulsive in the extreme. Its theories might approach truth, but unlike religious beliefs, can never be asserted to be the truth.
So, how in the event of a planet-wide war between science and religion, could science survive a prolonged onslaught with one hand tied behind its back? Especially when religious opponents are quite happy to use the fruits of science (rocket launchers, grenades, car bombs, sophisticated communications, hijacked airliners, etc) to pursue their cause?
Western populations may know little about science, but they do know that their lives depend on technology, which many even love. Since so many are also Christians, they will fight back with all the know-how at their disposal. The science-religion war will in effect be disguised as a purely religious one. And in the Middle East at least, it has already started.
Eventually one can only hope Darwinism will prevail here too. Religions may eventually die out as succeeding generations learn more about science and come to see religion for what it is, an aid to help us through our civilisational `childhood’ just as the Story of Father Christmas helps children get through their infancy, at least in the Western World. And just as they grow out of that, so eventually will the rest of us.
Holy Wars will come to be seen as unholy ones.
8: FUN
Laughter illustrates wonderfully how feedback loops between the body’s sensors and internal effectors, including glandular secretions, are behind all emotion as suggested in Present. It probably evolved from Play, which in turn evolved as a means of developing hunting and combat skills for the young of predators and defensive strategies for those of prey. As a very basic instinct for us it too has been heavily culturalised; sport and comedy just to name two.
It also serves a most valuable role in preventing people from taking themselves `too seriously’. Religions are notorious as `fun-free zones’, as are some more secular philosophies and ways of life. Developing ethical theories and putting them into practice though some form of moral code can often become a fraught business. Those folk subjected to it can feel the whole `point of living’ is being squeezed out. On the other hand, making some form of fun compulsory can also have a paralyzing effect, as those of us who have had compulsory sport thrust on us in our schooldays can attest. And unfortunately sport itself can become too humorless with people dedicating every waking moment to being competitive, with some even resorting to `performance enhancing’ drugs.
How to get the balance right between the necessity to take something seriously without going `too far’ can only be determined via democratic discussion – which itself cannot be taken too seriously. Like fun and laughter themselves, it really does appear to be a matter of instinct.
9: DISCIPLINE
You do care what other people think of you. It may be fashionable to claim otherwise, but that’s how we’ve been programmed by evolution as a part of our social behavior. Even in situations of total anarchy as has occurred in history from time to time, a new social order quickly emerges. In the past (and as still happens in some regions of the world today), it was crudely hierarchical with a warlord at the top who got there via the usual brutal means. Then you had to be very aware of what people thought of you. In more modern times, beginning with the Magna Carta of 1215, more democratic systems eventually evolved and people felt freer.
Religion also played a role in all of this – and initially at least a beneficial one. It really did help to moderate social conduct via its various moral proscriptions, backing them up with the `sure knowledge’ that the Eye of God was watching our every move. But they began to act as `warlords’ themselves as they acquired too much political power, an observation made by Henry VIII with his question `who really rules England, the King or The Pope?’ The secularization of ethics and morality could not therefore really begin until increasingly widespread technology and improved economic systems lifted entire sectors of western populations out of poverty. Promises of everlasting rewards in an afterlife became less enticing. Universal education did the rest; to more and more people the Eye of God and the concept of Blind Faith began to look more like myth, then fairy tale. Discipline almost became a dirty word, with a few people even claiming it only provided opportunities for sex perverts.
Yet the `social breakdown’ predicted by many experts, not all of them religious, did not happen. Nor did discipline disappear for most people. It was vital for fighting the wars the first half of the 20th century was blighted with, and carried on into much of the second half by sheer habit. The more flexible and adaptive systems of personal conduct we are familiar with today grew from there, and took much time and pain to evolve. In spite of the tumult of media reports suggesting otherwise, the vast majority of people are very polite and civil to each other.
But a certain `spiritual malaise’ even `emptiness’ remains for many people who miss the ready-made world view and moral codes religion provided. And science, being so alienating for them, was unable to help. Miriden of course suggests that that is now possible, but realistically only for those of us with some knowledge or understanding of science. For everybody else, sadly, there are no solutions beyond the standard ones: throwing oneself into `useful social works’, or something else that captures your interest.
10: POVERTY
One can’t help noticing that one quarter of the world’s people are desperately poor, one quarter made up of, by comparison, extremely wealthy people, and the rest somewhere in between. Also, populations within the wealthier democratic countries where there is a mix of capitalist and socialist politics and the people have the greatest freedom, again a quarter are poor, one quarter rich, the rest in between.
Is there some way of raising the poor someway above the poverty-line, or will they indeed `always be with us’?
Economies in most countries are a mass of feedback loops. If the central banking authority alters interest rates for instance, that can have an intricate and sometimes massive flow-on effect to all the sectors of an economy. Even intensive economic modeling to determine just what these might be is little more reliable than predicting the weather. The same three categories remain, although some of the individual people in them move from one to the other.
Unfortunately, as many people attest who have attempted to help the poor in developed countries at least, poverty is not just a lack of money. It is almost as if it is a subculture to which its members are determined to adhere, because their parents did, or they had the misfortune to grow up with children belonging to that `peer group’. It is characterized by a near universal ability to `promise’, quite sincerely, to educate themselves or their children, to keep their homes (usually rented) clean and tidy, not to buy too many `nonessentials’ like cigarettes or alcohol (or drugs). But `things get in their way’; `lack of time’, `friends dropping by’. Then there are `the difficulties in getting children off to school’, `illness in the family’, `landlord continually chasing the rent’. The new pregnancy `just happened unexpectedly’. In short, a continued evasiveness because, while life may be `hard’, it is in fact easier to face it that way. And they do get by; few starve or finish up living on the streets.
There is, quite simply no way of fixing that without interfering in some major way with their `personal freedoms’.
Is there some way of helping each individual occupying the poorest category directly? Or help them find their own way out of the `poverty trap’? Probably not. Their only solution as individuals is to change their old thinking habits for new ones, and they can only do that by educating themselves or attending an educational institution, or becoming immersed in a new hobby which takes them into a whole new set of friends. Indeed, parting company with old friends and, if necessary one’s family, is essential. But of course the poverty subculture is extremely sticky (`when I get myself organized…’), they have as much chance of lifting themselves out of it as lifting themselves out of a vat of treacle.
Conventional religions unfortunately are inclined to give with one hand and take with the other. They can provide `spiritual comfort’, but advise `abstinence’, which the poor will of course sincerely promise to do, but `somehow…’. More than one religion bans birth control, so that `somehow…’ increases family sizes, guaranteed to reinforce poverty. Others forbid any kind of separation of Church from State, but it was that separation more than anything elsethat enabled rich countries to become that way. No society can evolve new behaviors to adapt to changing circumstances if it keeps itself in a straightjacket.
The poor will indeed always be with us. But in Western countries at least, they will always be free to stay that way.
11: UNITED
Not so long ago in social evolutionary terms, the first towns and cities began to turn us `single-celled’ humans into multicellular ones, with rudimentary nervous systems based on the written word. Cities turned into empires, then planet-wide power blocs. Now, incredibly, the internet and other information technologies are turning us all into one vast single-celled organism, a thin organic human film covering most of the surface of the earth. People as individuals are on their way to becoming mere organelles.
And how will this singke vast organism, us, behave if we ever do encounter an alien one from elsewhere in the Universe?
Perhaps the process will begin anew, if we meet more than one, perhaps several. Then thousands, millions…until the end of time, when we all become One in a totally dead and empty universe....
I hope One will have a sense of humor.
12: LIFE
Of course voluntary euthanasia will be abused if it is finally permitted in most democratic societies. Some relatives will hound their elderly rich relatives to an early grave to get their hands on the money. Certain poorer elderly will meet the same fate if their care becomes a burden on their immediate family, especially if he or she is cantankerous and generally demanding and unpleasant. Or just simply too ill. There is also the `thin edge of the wedge’, for instance should we `euthanase’ persistent criminal offenders who just don’t seem to know when to stop? The mentally ill whose conditions are likely to persist for several years, perhaps even a lifetime? What about allowing it for victims of a severe emotional disaster, who have just lost their beloved to another for instance, or as a result of a fatal accident?
Opponents of euthanasia often use such arguments as `the right to life’, which they usually assume is God-given and therefore absolute. Many who are non-religious also share that view, even though that `right’ is can only be assigned by a society via its legal system and cannot therefore be absolute. Others play with words and claim that `euthanasia’ is just a nice middle-class euphemism for `killing’. One might say that Jesus Christ wasn’t crucified, he was killed. Another favorite: `where there’s life there’s hope’. How often does it seem that way to someone dying of cancer, especially if the process is painful enough to be impervious to morphine? Or to someone hopelessly crippled at birth? Or through a car-crash?
Which kind of Mercy is appropriate here? `God’s'? Or that allowed by our science and technology?
13: HONOR
Our ape-like predecessors may have evolved the emotions associated with honor as a part of mutual cooperation for the team-work hunting of prey and ganging-up against predators. For us it quickly acquired a strong cultural component just as our other stronger emotions have; those we think of as `love’ for instance.
Unfortunately such strong emotions can be manipulated by the unscrupulous, including of course the usual suspects like Mussolini, Hitler or Napoleon. Or True Believers; the Christian Crusaders used them unashamedly to gird loins into action against `infidels', especially in their use of the militarized version of honor, valor.
But honor may well be one of the most valuable emotions a civilized society can have. That’s because it underlies that essential Trust implicit in all its transactions, from the teacher who teaches your kids, the institution that looks after your money, the bus driver who takes you to your destination. Breaches of such trust are often dealt with severely. After being in recess for much of the second half of the 20th century, a public sense of `honor’ now appears to be growing, perhaps as rebellion against perceived `moral uncertainties’ and `social relativism’. This could be associated with the return to favor of the generally anti-science fundamentalist religions, with their Father Christmas-like concepts of God.
While Miriden doesn't specifically mention honor or valor, it certainly supports them, though not at the price of those `moral uncertainties’ and `social relativism'. There has to be a balance between them just like that between social ossification and anarchy, or tradition versus progress. In the nature of things, we can't always hope to get it right.
14: PRINCIPLES
Principles taken to extremes can become perversions. The internet is a classic example. It was virtually built by people who were intensely liberal, with sentiments like `information should be set free’. Unfortunately spam, viruses, Trojan horses and other such `malware’ have also been set free, and free of charge. Until it can be (horror of horrors) regulated, its freedom will always be self circumscribing. Suggestions like charging 10c per email would be a partial solution, aswould be its administration by the largest world body, the United Nations, who could then use that 10c per to support its operational expenses. Malware would have to be dealt with via the existing means, though perhaps the UN could be given legal teeth to prosecute its creators and either fine them or sign them up for `community service’ in some more dangerous part of the world.
Godspeed.
15: LOVE
Any suggestion that the ability to love another person is determined by a specialized area of the brain is virtually certain to cause offense. But those folk with a condition known as Asperger’s Syndrome have considerable difficulty in forming close, intimate relationships with anyone. It is essentially a mild form of autism, that crippling condition which renders a person almost totally unable to communicate with anybody at all even at the most basic level. Autism would therefore appear to be some random or genetic failure of brain function, like dyslexia or colorblindness. You can still feel the other more basic `ape-derived’ emotions like sexual infatuation and jealousy, the tragedy is that these can often be confused with culturally-derived notions of `love’.
For the sufferer it can feel like being a cleverly-programmed robot. You go through the motions, but the end result that you see other people achieve, some kind of deep sharing with someone, persistently eludes you. No matter how adventurous a life one leads, it can all too easily seem quite without point. You might as well not bother, except one cannot not bother, since that feels too much like defeat.
In short, it is rather like being a diabetic at the banquet of life.
It need not be without its compensations however. Once you realize what your situation is, you can find other pursuits in life which do somehow engage you. Indeed it is almost a definer of the condition of autism that its sufferers often exhibit a particular talent for one or another form of human endeavor, usually artistic or, rarely, scientific since the latter requires a formal education which even mild autism can effectively preclude the acquisition of.
The people who suffer worst from Asperger’s are those whose condition is not diagnosed, or misdiagnosed as something else like `mild personality disorder’ or even schizophrenia. A lifetime awaits of failed relationships of all kinds, side-lined careers, children whom they cannot relate to, alcoholism or drug addiction. And when they become old, no amount of personal reflection is likely to determine a reason why their lives stumbled from one disaster to another. Some don’t make it that far, either through suicide, autocide, or adopting a frenetic lifestyle for which an early death is likely.
Unfortunately there is as yet no cure. Not even religion, in spite of the intense emotional involvement encouraged by some, especially the various `born again’ versions of Christianity. `The Love of God' becomes just another sad illusion.
16: FINAL
Can a religion be developed based on science? Should one even attempt it? Religions are belief systems, with their `truths' ultimately coming out of thin air. Science is also a belief system, but its `truths', albeit always provisional, derive from observations of reality. The two appear completely irreconcilable, any attempt to unite them apparently forever doomed.
Yet, oddly enough, they do have similarities. Science and technology has been described by many as a `double-edged sword', capable of the most appalling misuse. Nuclear weapons are usually quoted here, a close second would have to be the lack of gun control in America. The gun lobbyists are correct when they claim: `Guns don't kill people. People kill people'. Yet murder via guns is far higher in America than elsewhere in the Western World. That may be because guns are usually more readilly at hand than any other weapon except knives but, unlike them, are easier to use at a distance.
But religion can also be a `double-edged sword' as history has so often demonstrated - sometimes literally. In modern times perhaps the worst are the human `smart-bombs' currently favored by religious extremists. A close second would have to be the infliction by Christians, - again mostly in America - of `creationism'. This so-called `theory' can be summed up in three words: `God Did It'. Yet it is presented as `science' when it is not a part of science at all. And it has been mostly done via the persuasive power of television advertising, which has been so effective over 60% of Americans now believe in it. Lying to the people in this way is surely a perversion of democracy.
Yet both religion and science have roles to play in the modern world. Religion gives much comfort to many people, especially the poor having to scratch a meager living under oppressive governments. Science has of course given us many material benefits, especially in the Western World. One might wonder then just how immense the benefits might be if these two fundamental forces for good could somehow yet be reconciled.
As it happens I recently attempted to do just that through a previous incarnation of Miriden called `TTTM Religion'. It quickly became clear that science could not be reconcilled with any of the `conventional' religions because of their diamettrically opposed approaches to `belief' in the way I have just described. I would have to invent a completely new religion. Because I wished to avoid all the baggage associated with conventional religions, namely, their rituals, special clothes, churches, priesthood and other organisational structures with their potential for corruption, TTTM Religion turned out to be extremely minimal. When I put it on the internet and advertised it via Google I quickly gained a response: a few bouquets for doing something of great interest, but mostly brickbats from religious fanatics. I saw the other side of attempting to combine science and religion - it would also be a powerful combination for evil', for want of a better word. Imagine for instance `nuclear programs' undertaken by countries dominated by extremist religions.
Then I realised that science itself provided everything any `religiously inclined' person might need. One can still wonder at the amazing works of `God' - if one exists - as well as draw from it the moral framework we all need to maximise our freedom without limiting that of others. The immense intellectual power of science need in no way compromise our preferred ways of life. Indeed, it may enhance them.
Hence Miriden.
