Knots Of Time

 A Snippit About that Meme 

It was one of the  oddest cases that Dr. Philbine had ever encountered.

The patient was hysterically excited and displayed a deeply passionate conviction that the world owed him a debt of gratitude that should be boundless and immeasurable.

According to him, he had become the savior of the world by employing  a device that permitted him to travel back in time. In and itself, he was not even terribly proud of this remarkable accomplishment, which he at least, was convinced was true. 

No, he was instead obsessed with his glorious success in that he had gone back to Vienna in 1909 and there murdered a teenaged artist named Adolf Hitler.

When asked why this should be considered to be a positive accomplishment, he began to thrash about and scream, "Hitler! Hitler! Don't you understand, you  moronic jackasses!" And much more of the same.

When the staff continued to refuse to praise him for this bizarre "achievement" the patient withdrew into himself and became largely silent, only muttering  incoherently to himself from time to time.

The case took a very peculiar turn when agents of the FBI turned up and insisted upon interviewing the man.

Dr. Philbine declared that this was not possible due to the severe responses his patient had to being agitated with any reference to this mysterious artist. He demanded to know exactly why the FBI could possibly be interested in this case.

The agents indicated to him that there was in fact a device which, when activated, had returned an individual to 1909. This lead to inquiries to the Vienna police, who discovered that there had indeed been an obscure young artist named Adolf Hitler who was found shot to death in 1909.

The case had never been solved.

Sadly, subsequent attempts to determine why the patient had committed this bizarre act only served to drive him deeper into his delusional internal world. He was never charged with murder because of the unavoidable conundrum of can you charge someone with murder if the victim was murdered over a century before the killer was even born? This was a legal issue which neither the judicial system of the United States nor that of Vienna were prepared to undertake.

Pound Sand Or Breathe Sand?

 https://www.livescience.com/space/extraterrestrial-life/alien-life-may-evolve-from-radically-different-elements-than-human-life-did

While the article is thought-provoking and might be useful to a science-fiction author, it's pretty thin on facts and very thick on speculation.

For example,  it's true that it is often pointed out that because it also allows for four covalent bonds, silicon might be an alternative to carbon based life.  However, the fact that silicon is extremely common here on earth and yet somehow we are carbon based, suggests it simply is not suitable.

Why not? First of all if you use oxidation in order to provide energy to your living organism, oxidized carbon yields carbon dioxide. A gas. Easy to respirate.

If you oxidize silicon, you get silicon dioxide. Sand. It's a little hard imagine a living being which will  breathe oxygen in and breathe out sand. 

(Yes, there were anoxic lifeforms before we evolved to depend on oxygen, but oxygen provides a highly efficient and effective basis for a metabolic system.)

Furthermore, the covalent bonds formed by silicon are more fragile than those of carbon. That is enough in itself to make life based upon silicon difficult to maintain, but it also means that lengthier and more complex molecules are formed with carbon which could not be formed ot maintained by the substitution of silicon. 

As for the other autocatalytic chemical systems that were studied, that's way beyond my level of knowledge, but I have some hesitations there too.

If life is so incredibly common in the universe, why is it that of the three planets which are terrestrial in nature and found in our solar system's Goldilocks zone, only earth is clearly teaming with life? One out of three makes it sound like life is actually rather rare and unlikely. 

Still, it does make for fun speculation. Hal Clement was noted for his interesting alien life forms in his science fiction novels. I think I need to go back and reread some of those; it's been a few decades.

Uber Unter?

 

https://apple.news/AAkvWOSwAQhK81rgSKdOqdg

This article makes the point that I've been trying to make for quite a while. Neanderthals and humans are both very skilled and competent  species, but they are far from identical. The difficulty is due to the teeter totter problem. Neanderthals were originally regarded as genuinely subhuman and then, when we finally realized that this belief was unfair and  inaccurate, we tried to balance that error by piling assertions on the other side that are equally baseless; insisting Neanderthals were just like us.

All this does is result in huge piles of errors on both sides of the teeter totter. 

This Neanderthal expert raises some interesting points that I have not previously known. 

>“Look carefully at Neanderthal tools and weapons. They’re all unique. Study thousands and you’ll find each is completely different. My colleagues never realised that. But when I did, I saw there was a deep divergence in the way Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals each understand the world. 

...Of course, compared to a gorilla we have more creativity and skills. It gives us a certain image of ourselves– one of superiority. But what happens if we compare ourselves to something far closer – something far more like humanity, although different, that only disappeared 40,000 years ago?” Imagine, he suggests, how differently we’d see ourselves if confronted by hyper-intelligent aliens.

... “Their tools and weapons are more unique than ours. As creatures, they were far more creative than us. Sapiens are efficient. Collective. We think the same, and don’t like divergence. 

...“Neanderthals vanished, I think, because of high human efficiency. And this efficiency now threatens to destroy us, too. That’s what’s killing the planet’s biodiversity.”

...Over millennia, humankind has also developed an advanced, impressive technology and culture, of a type Neanderthals could never have imagined. “So while there is something dangerous in our nature, as a collective we can control and reshape it. Understanding this is the key to humanity’s future. Because if we don’t think carefully, next time it won’t be Neanderthals that our efficiency destroys, it’ll be humankind itself that’s the victim.”<

 I do disagree with the conclusion he made that suggests we might have been inferior to Neanderthals in creativity. We were superior to Neanderthals in networking and in working as a cohesive group.

For example, Neanderthals lived in small groups, did not have trade routes, and the small groups in which they lived were frequently heavily  inbred.  You could say that we were simply better at networking while they were better at surviving in individualistic small groups.

As far as creativity goes, compare what passes as  Neanderthal art with human art. One may or may not be art at all.  It is very hard to tell. The other clearly speaks for itself.

Neither species can really be considered as superior to the other in general, but only in certain particulars. We were better at adapting as we were generalists. The history of extinction shows that the more highly adapted and specialized a species becomes, the more successful it will be in that specific set of circumstances for which it has adapted. But it is equally true that the more adapted it is to a specific set of circumstances, the less it is likely to be able to survive change. Generalists adapt and survive. Specialists die out in the face of change.

Unfortunately, I must agree with him that our efficiency and  capacity to network and control our environment, forcing it to adapt to us rather than the other way around, has caused us endless grief and may yet cause us to inflict even greater harm upon ourselves. 

Physics, Solipsism, And Me

 https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2023/07/quantum-mechanics-is-nonlocal-but-what.html?m=1

As always Hossenfelder makes an interesting presentation.  As sometimes occurs,  I  disagree with her this time. I'm not going to go into the length and depth of spooky action at a distance in quantum entanglement (which may explain our entire universe including the space-time continuum itself), suffice to say that quantum physics has rather conclusively proven that if you have two entangled particles and both are in a state of superposition, no matter the distance between them, measuring one will instantaneously cause the other one to collapse into the correlating condition. I suggest you click the link if you're interested. She explains it quite well.

My point of disagreement with her is the statement universally accepted  by physicists, and denied by me, that this is not a method of communication. I  disagree for two reasons.

First:   Although it is not intelligent communication, one can argue that there is a passing of information in the form of one datum between the two particles.  And that is my position.

Second:   While it is true that you can have no control over the random process of how each particle will respond to decoherence, you can send a simple message using simply one pair of particles.  The message is, "If I measure my particle, causing your particle to decohere, it means that I have proven that Karl Marx and Groucho Marx are twin brothers." If I don't measure my particle within a certain span of time, it means that the two are not related; or at least that I could not prove it so. The mere fact that  your particle is no longer in a state of superposition gives you information which travelled faster than the speed of light.

Now send billions of particles in an array where are you know which particle comes first, which comes second, etc. (No we can't do this now, but I don't see why a future civilization couldn't --which would make a great element in a science fiction story).  If a particle collapses, you count it as a one. If a particle doesn't collapse, you count this as a zero. You now have a binary code, which is the same code running computers. That's a lot of data traveling faster than light.

No, I'm not presenting this as a statement of reality because my knowledge of physics is virtually nonexistent and you all know how I feel about math and how math feels about me .  However, until a physicist explains to me why I am wrong, this is what I accept as my version of reality.

Final note: I actually know what the physicists will say about why this wouldn't work. It's because the person at either end doesn't know if their particle has already collapsed until they measure it and since they don't know who is collapsing the particle, the only way information is sent is in the first proposal. Nevertheless, I suspect there may be a way to make this work. Certainly as a science-fiction story it allows the potential for faster than light data transmission.

Where is the physicist when you need one?

Why Fight?

A relative posted that she was thankful to her non-Christian friends and family who are not judging her for having become an active Christian. Unfortunately, some have judged her negatively for this change in her life.

Hey kid. Couldn’t stop thinking about your post so I decided to respond to it in more detail.  You know me well enough to know I believe in a great deal of tolerance. Agree or disagree, we all should respect each other‘s opinions and beliefs by not forcing them on each other.
What too many people don’t seem to be willing to understand today is that there are different ways of deciding what is true, how we can know what is true, and even what we can know is true. In philosophy this is called your epistemology.
Generally speaking, in ancient Greece there were considered to be two different epistemologies. Two different ways of knowing truth.  Certainly there were some Greeks who preferred one over the other, but as a general rule, both were considered respectable and mutually interacting, even mutually supportive ways of determining reality. One was logos which means ‘the word’.  It is the basis for logic and empirical science as we know it today. The other was mythos which meant ‘story’.
Evenly highly regarded biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to what he called two magisteria. That is, two different ways of determining truth. Being a scientist, one of course was logos which is what we use is the basis for logic and science today. But the other one, which he equally respected, was mythos. He said each have their own areas where they should be considered to be superior and they should not be seen in conflict.
Mythos may sound  automatically false to us today but to the Greeks it simply meant another way of knowing. Not the logical way but the spiritual emotional way.
Unfortunately, in American society today there are extremists on both sides who want to turn this into some kind of football game or maybe even a war. One side must win and the other side must lose.
To me this makes no sense. The world is a very big place. If someone says I’m going to move and the person to being spoken to asks to the North Pole or the South Pole? You know there’s something wrong with the person who can’t realize there’s an entire planet in between the North and South Poles.
One of my most favorite quotes ever is about people trying to comprehend and make sense of God.
“A dog might as well contemplate the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.“ The very tolerant and thoroughly scientific Charles Darwin said that. It’s a good rule for life in general. God is beyond our comprehension so let us all hope and believe what we can. Also, let’s not fight about it.  ☺️

https://users.manchester.edu/FacStaff/SSNaragon/Kant/LP/Readings/Armstrong,%20Mythos-Logos.html
> In most premodern cultures, there were two recognized ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring knowledge.  The Greeks called them mythos and logos.  Both were essential and neither was considered superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary.  Each had its own sphere of competence, and it was considered unwise to mix the two.  Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world.  It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality.  People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition.  Logos was forward-looking, continually on the lookoout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh.  Logos was essential to the survival of our species.  But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles.  For that people turned to mythos or “myth.”
Today we live in a society of scientific logos, and myth has fallen into disrepute.
In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true.  But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way.  Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos.<

Wood Or Marble?

 

A Facebook post on the Guardian article is copied here. I have added additional thoughts which I felt needed to be shared. To be honest, I don’t suppose they really needed to be shared, I just wanted to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/05/the-big-idea-why-relationships-are-the-key-to-existence

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847863/holographic-principle-universe-theory-physics

 >So quantum physics may just be the realisation [sic] that this ubiquitous relational structure of reality continues all the way down to the elementary physical level. Reality is not a collection of things, it’s a network of processes.<

Which sounds an awful lot like the weak holographic principle. This concept declares that the entire universe is not real in and of itself, but only real in so far as it is an exchange of information or data points. Nothing is real except the information and how it interacts with the other information about it.

This has been expanded from its original concept into a very complex and interesting theory of quantum entaglement on a two dimensional surface causing  a projection of all that we consider to be real, including ourselves.

Lots to talk about here such as Berkinstein’s Bound, der ding an sich, etc.  Just the sort of stuff I love to talk about at great length with friends, pizza, and beer.

I can’t help but add a couple more thoughts because this is one of my favorite topics of discussion. Philosophy is a very broad subject area encompassing theology, metaphysics, science, government and just about everything else you can imagine.  Today many scientists express a great contempt for philosophy which is bizarre considering that science is and always has been a branch of philosophy. It’s rather like a scientist declaring, “I really hate automobiles.  They are stupid and a waste of time, unlike my Chevy Malibu which is so much better than a car.”

You could argue that the scientists are simply doing a poor job defining the term “philosophy”, but scientists should not do a poor job of defining their terms.  This is inherent in the very nature of what we regard as scientific.

Still, they have a certain point. If they were to argue that their particular branch of science is rigorous, logical, and meets other strict requirements for accuracy whereas other branches of philosophy can be quite vague, they would have a possibly valid point.

What I wish to share with you as my thoughts is that while this particular branch of philosophy, originally called natural philosophy, has isolated itself from the other branches and can make a case for considering itself superior in that it requires empirical evidence which is continuously tested and which requires a level of confirmation not applicable to other branches of philosophy; I think it is possible that the schism may be slowly healing.

As quantum physics advances and continuously undermines the rigidity of the old physics which insists the universe is utterly, totally and completely deterministic, thus abolishing the concept of free will and probability, the absolute certainty of the old physics crumbles. And absent that absolutism, science itself begins to look at least a bit more like the other branches of philosophy.

Einstein, and no doubt other scientists like him, abhorred the uncertainty of quantum physics. This is why Einstein spent (many would say wasted) the last 30 years of his life trying to disprove quantum physics and failing miserably. He would say that he preferred a world of marble, not one of wood.  By this he meant a world like that of Greek or Roman architecture. A world of mathematics. A world of certainty. A world of predictable engineering and meticulous design. What he disliked was the randomness of a forest.

This is not to say he didn’t enjoy a walk in the forest or wished to spend his life sitting in a Greek temple. He was speaking metaphorically of how he wished the universe to be designed.

But today, with matters such as the holographic principle, we see science becoming potentially more and more like the living forest and less and less like the engineered Greek temple.

Personally, I much prefer this more open ended universe. I would say the opposite of what Einstein said, and, in fairness, it is because of personal preferences rather than objective reality that I have this inclination – – as, no doubt, with Einstein.

So much more to say, but there are other things I must do today and I doubt many have had the patience to read this far, so at this point I will  tuck this away for future discussions with those who do enjoy them.

Stoners Rule

 https://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/05/terence-mckennas-stoned-ape-theory.html

OK,so what to say about this? First, silly fantasies with zero evidence are not theories. They are silly fantasies.

Second, let’s imagine it happening.

Grunke: Hey, man. You know what, man?

Irk:  No. Like what?

Grunke:  Like, like you know we’re wasting our time man.  Like we could be like really super cool, you know.

Irk:  Oh wow, man! That would be like, great, man.

Grunke: All we got to do is like… You know, make stuff. 

Irk: Oh yeah. We could do that.  Like we got these hands. I mean look at these fingers!  They’re really weird and wild!  Bet we could do amazing stuff with them, specially with these thumbs.

Grunke:  That’s right you got it. Like we could make, you know, like art and...and...and sports and like, media and stuff.

Work:  Yeah, yeah let’s do that.  We can do that. But know what?Let’s, let’s go do some hunting and gathering first, cause, I got, like, you know, the munchies.

Thus civilization was born.

In summation, let me note if that I class this “theory” in the same category as the aquatic ape, ancient aliens, or Atlanteans gifting us civilization.  I wonder if the “theorist” was stoned when he came up with this idea.

Through A Mirror Darkly

 Bobby has been sending me some interesting links to philosophers/scientists making very interesting points. This is my response to one of those links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWo7-azGHic

Kaufman was very interesting; a bit dense and rushed, but interesting. While I was listening to him I experienced one of those gestalt breakthroughs. As you know, I’ve been puzzling for years and asking, why is it that, in the absence of clear and compelling evidence, highly intelligent individuals insist that they have no free will but they are merely robots composed of biochemical/biomechanical phenomena which were 100% predictable to be exactly what they are today and what they will be forever (or at least as long as the universe exists) at the moment of the big bang?

Since the evidence is unclear at this point (although they keep insisting the evidence absolutely proves that point, said evidence is woefully inadequate to draw a final conclusion) what would compel an otherwise intelligent, even powerful, human being to decide that he has no free will, has no choice, and is not only a machine but a totally unintelligent machine which only manages to delude itself into its belief system, that is, the concept that there is an individual standing there thinking and saying these things.

This is understandable position for a dangerous individual who is causing great harm to society. He could argue it’s not my fault. I can’t help myself. I have no ability to control anything. I don’t even really exist.*  Again, however, this seems a very strange position for a highly respected and influential  member of society to take.  This is all the more true when you look at the passion with which they defend this position. It is not, in their minds, sufficient to believe it themselves or even to share this belief with those who agree. No! They must evangelize. They must spread the good word that none of us actually exist, that we are not real,  that we have no free will and are completely subject to the unfeeling will of reductionist mathematical physics.

As I listened to this presentation, I was suddenly struck by that what should have been obvious from the very first time I asked myself the question. They are true believers. Evidence is not valued by them because evidence threatens the possibility that their true belief just might possibly not be correct.  This is not to say that that belief is necessarily wrong, although, obviously, I think it is.  Instead,  it explains why they are so determined to degrade their own status so as to present themselves as no more conscious or capable of free will than a rock rolling in a stream or a maple seed fluttering in the breeze.

You might ask, why then would intelligent people who are so capable of an unusually large measure of control in their lives be so determined to deny that they have any? What, exactly, is that explanation?  I believe, and this is the greatest insight that occurred to me while listening to this presentation, that this is because they are in fact identical down at the most basic emotional level with the creationists and science deniers.

They do not deny science, to be sure. Yet,  although they are excellent scientists, when it comes to this philosophic issue, they transform into true believers for whom evidence, science, and logic are mere enemies of their deep rooted faith.   Remember that young earth creationists also insist that science is on their side. If you simply Google young earth creationism you will quickly find a large number of articles and YouTube presentations declaring that coal seams prove Noah’s flood or that fossils and even science in general proves Noah’s flood.   It is absurd nonsense, but it is affirmed with the same passion with which of these highly skilled and normally very logical scientists who usually develop conclusions based firmly on the data now devote themselves to contorting the data to fit their preconception.  Again, exactly the way creations do.

The greatest insight which dawned on me today was that the reason for doing this is exactly the same as that of any true believer, including the creationists. It is the need for certainty. We live in a very uncertain, chaotic world. Even that which should be predictable if you know everything is subject to chaos theory wherein even the tiniest variation will make a radical change in the ultimate outcome.  Just as so many people turn to conspiracy theories and blind religious faith in order to gain some sense of sanity and order in our so disordered and unpredictable universe, these scientists are turning to reductionist particle physics in order to create a structure for our universe which, if not desirable, is at least predictable.  As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.

Better an unpleasant certainty than the fear of the bleak, dark, and unknown forest, or, as we have all heard so many times, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

This has been an issue which has puzzled me so greatly and so deeply for so very long. Why did I suddenly realize it in the middle of Kaufman's talk? I don’t know. I don’t even remember exactly what he was saying at the moment I realized it. Of course, his talk was declaring that there are things greater than mere mathematical reductionism and utterly predictable classical physics, I was thinking about the topic thanks to his insights, but at what exact point I suddenly realized this, I cannot say. Now that I have realized it,  it seems so blatantly obvious I wonder how I could have  been so dimwitted as to not see it from the very beginning. I can only turn as a defense to the brilliant Thomas Huxley who, upon reading Darwin’s theory of natural selection, is purported to have declared “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sometimes the most insightful and, in the case of Darwin, brilliant insights are blatantly obvious…after someone finally realizes them.

*This also fits with the opening of Sapolsky’s first lecture (which I also enjoyed very much.  I intend to watch the rest of his course).   As he spoke I was struck by the memory of an interesting article I read some years back.  One of the terrifying events of the past, now unfortunately all too common, was when a sniper took over a tower at, I believe, the University of Texas, and began randomly shooting people. As I recall, he was the individual that was the subject of this later article. The point is that an individual, whoever he was, was changing from a highly respected and healthy member of society into something very strange. He eventually did commit murders and I’m fairly certain he was the sniper. After his death it was discovered that he had written a request for an autopsy after his demise. He felt something was wrong with his brain. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the autopsy revealed a large tumor which was interfering with his higher brain functions.

He knew that something was wrong with him. He didn’t know the cause but he could feel his sense of self fading away. He could feel the sense of free will fading away.  As you know, my own belief is that we do have free will but it is very much constrained by our biology and the uncaring laws of reductionist mathematical physics. That is bleak. That is indeed a dark and terrifying forest. However,  there is a light within that forest, and the light is our sense of self, our sense of free will, at our struggle to maintain those against the forces of a universe that doesn’t care about us in any way, manner, or form.

Explosion? What Explosion?

 An idle thought on Father’s Day.

The Cambrian Explosion that actually wasn’t.

To this day Christian extremists describe the Cambrian Explosion as the sudden appearance of advanced animal life on the planet which can only be explained by God creating it.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, many paleontologists are declining to call the event the Cambrian Explosion any longer. This is because it is clearly not an explosion. It was a diversification, a radiation of already existing life.  This is exactly the sort of thing that has happened time and time again throughout evolutionary history.

Scientists are merely human, so, for about a century, they refused to recognize any fossils from the preceding Ediacaran era.  After all, they said, we know there aren’t any. So first of all, we won’t look. Second, if somebody claims he found some, we will just ignore him (or her).

Now that we finally recognize their existence and have found fossil beds containing them, we know that there was even a bilaterian before the Cambrian.  (That’s an advanced form of life, including you and me, that wasn’t supposed to exist prior to the “explosion”.)

Even Darwin recognized the problem of advanced bilaterian and complex animal life suddenly popping into existence. Because he was an honest man and a really competent scientist, part of his revolutionary work included the careful and detailed listing of all the possible objections to his theory of natural selection. The most telling, he acknowledged, was the absence of fossils prior to the Cambrian. Fossils which we have now found.

The Christian extremists refer to this as “Darwins doubt”. This is nonsense. Darwin did not doubt his theory. He just recognized that this was a valid objection to his conclusions. It is sad that he did not live to know all that has been found since his time which confirms, again and again and again, that he was correct.

From the net:

> Roger Mason (born 4 May 1941) is an English geologist. He is known as the discoverer of Ediacaran fossils, although it was later found that a then 15-year-old schoolgirl named Tina Negus had discovered the first Charnia fossil a year before he did.<

Notice that in this rare case, Tina Negas actually gets sort of a secondary, footnote kind of recognition for her discovery. In most cases, she isn’t even mentioned.  Wonder why? The school boy who found it a year after she did is honored. She’s almost entirely forgotten, even though she discovered it a year earlier, in the same forest where he discovered it. Makes me wonder if it was exactly the same fossil!  Hmmmm…

An add-on from two days later:

To make it clear that Darwin had no “doubts” let us quote him. “Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited,… the world swarmed with living creatures.”  – Darwin, 1859.

A prediction which now has been proven to be completely true.

Article Of Faith

 

https://apple.news/AN7nlmhN5Rku8XphHr10nEw

Very interesting article which I might have ignored had it not been in Scientific American.  It does make some excellent points. I remember reading an article in the LA Times perhaps 30 years ago which pointed out that while Europe was very secular and non-religious, that was in terms of organized religion. Most Europeans were, in fact, quite spiritual. They believed in something, whether it was an amorphous spirit of humanity or the Gaia hypothesis.

I used to complain (when the Next Generation was still an ongoing series), that, while every starship had a counselor, it seemed wrong that there weren’t any chaplains.  Chaplains are an essential component of military service and I couldn’t see the “non-military” but somehow incredibly militaristic Starfleet not having a chaplain’s corps.

I expected America to follow Europe’s lead and then, eventually, the rest of the world to get there too. However, organized religion in Europe has not ceased to exist, so I expected it would still remain an important, if minority, part of human existence.

In the decades since, the decline in organized religion in America has been following the European model. (Europe starting it all back in the days of the French revolution and we just taking own sweet time to get around to it.)

 Furthermore, the decline in organized religion in Europe has also increased (with the exception of new immigrants, especially Muslims).

In other words, it more and more looks as if Star Trek had it right and I had it wrong. Organized religion may in fact continue to fade away in the world as it has in Europe, while a generalized, individualized spirituality will likely remain.

Which means I’m also in agreement with this article. Counselors (along with their psychiatrist/psychologist colleagues) should be aware of spirituality, if not religion. It can be a very useful tool in treating emotional disorders.

>The study also revealed key opportunities in patient care, particularly for younger and seemingly secular patients. Psychiatric folklore has long suggested that psychotic, manic and obsessive patients gravitate more toward spirituality, as do older adults. Our findings, however, suggest that patients benefited from SPIRIT irrespective of their diagnosis or age. Apparently, depressed millennials are just as likely to want and benefit from spiritual psychotherapy as geriatric patients.

Our results also suggest that spiritual care is not only for religious individuals. The largest group of patients to voluntarily attend SPIRIT (39 percent of our sample) were individuals with no religious affiliation at all. Apparently many nonreligious people still seek spirituality, especially in times of distress. In fact, such individuals may be most likely to attend spiritual psychotherapy because their spiritual needs are otherwise ignored.<

Utilitarianism In Utopia

 Bobby, I was thinking about your friend who’s into utilitarianism. Somehow, I forgot about that when I was making my response to Prospera, but I shouldn’t have, because all utopias end up based on utilitarianism. Sooner or later, usually a lot sooner, the architects of the perfect utopia realize that not everyone is prepared to agree with them and some force is going to be necessary. This means suffering. How can utopia be based on suffering? The answer, of course, is utilitarianism. Yes, many must to suffer right now, right here, but then nobody ever suffers again.

This, of course, was the argument used by every brutal dictator in history. Let’s just look at recent history.

All those millions of people had to die for Hitler to purify the race and to conquer Russia, but then think of all the thousand years of perfect happiness that would follow for everyone who wasn’t killed and all their descendants. Utilitarianism says Hitler was onto something, Or at least he had some justification for his actions, very real, quantifiable justification

Marx? Lenin?  Pol Pot? Trump?

A relatively small number (sometimes even millions) had to suffer and die so as to guarantee the ultimate victory of the Utopia and thus the eternal happiness of mankind. At least for the next thousand years or so.

I think the biggest problem is people persist in trying to find the magic formula that gives you the right answer in every single moral situation. The difficulty is, as always, anything involving human beings isn’t simple math. Remember the quants on Wall Street?  You’re familiar with all the economists who just knew that everybody always did whatever was in their best financial interest. This is why the social sciences will never actually be sciences. They cannot be because every one of them involves emotion. They involve the  irrationality of our species. It can’t be quantified and calculated in an exact manner. At most you can make it somewhat statistical.

I spent decades trying to find something the equivalent of utilitarianism, but actually effective. That is, a true moral code, a reliable guideline that could be applied in any situation. I wasted those years. Although, maybe not.   At  least I learned a few things in the process. The main thing I learned was what I said above; there is no simple universal answer that can encompass the full scope of humanity.  Ultimately we are emotional, not rational. You must look at every individual situation. The best you can come up with some general guidelines which may or may not be applicable in any given specific case.

And even then you get problems. Was Bomber Harris a hero, or was he a monster? The Brits put up a statue to him (I think about 20 years ago) because they think he’s a hero. The rest of Europe was horrified and disgusted, because as far as they’re concerned, he should’ve been hanged at Nuremberg along with the other war criminals. I bet you can guess which group I agree with. If you don’t know about Bomber Harris we’ll talk about it next time we are together.

(And I’m not even beginning to think about the whole issue in Japan, where the war is still officially taught in Japanese schools as Japan being forced into the war by bully America and Class One war criminals are honored as heroes.)

Post script:  I really hate this dictation system because it’s so bad. I use it because it is still better than typing but it requires so much proofreading! For example even when I referred to Marks, Lennon and communism… You see what spelling it gave me.

Bomber Harris was just as bad. I don’t know of anyone named Bommer. Maybe that some famous person or maybe not, I wouldn’t know, but Bomber Harris was named after the strategic bombing airplanes he commanded not after some person named Bommer.

I won’t even repeat what it did to Paul pot. Well, there it is anyway.

I give up.  I’m gonna post this on my blog.  And, yes, I did say I am going to. But it never writes going to. No matter how slowly and carefully I pronounce it, it always types Ghana.

Enough! Enough!