Quackery and Useless Twaddle

Why is so much of the internet “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

OK, so I admit I got out of bed the wrong side this morning. My wife has the intensely irritating habit of leaving her smartphone on all night, with the volume turned up full in case our son or one of her numerous relatives calls in the middle of the night. Sound asleep, I will suddenly be shaken awake at ungodly hours expecting the worst, only to discover that one of her relatives from Australia has sent a picture of intense disinterest to me at 4 o clock in the morning.. And to make matters worse, having got a new phone, a simple “ping” does not suffice. Each message, however inconsequential, is accompanied by a different cacophony of sound.

Having got that off my chest, I am sitting reading news and views from the blogosphere.  I am beset by problems and minor illnesses; grumpiness and angst being among the foremost of my ailments. The world is beset by problems, some more serious than mine.  What I need, what the world needs is solutions to those problems.

My attention was drawn this morning to an interview on a website called Closer to Truth on the subject of “transcendence”.  There are some exceptionally able speakers featured on the website, including some eminent and interesting philosophers specializing in consciousness – perhaps the most important un-solved mystery we have.  But the article I was directed to was inconsequential and vague drivel.

I have no problem with the concept of transcendence. My favorite author Ian Banks called it sublimation.  The escape to another realm from the dull and often dangerous physical reality in which we find ourselves trapped. Like flies in aspic or the Tar Baby of Uncle Remus. But what the world needs is a road-map of how to get there not some half baked diatribe on synchronicity, an insane dialogue with a non -existent deity or vapid, limp New Age bollux.

I am not saying there is no room for imagination, poetic license, and metaphor.  These can and do soothe and pacify.  But such have existed for countless millennia and have never been known to bring world peace, freedom from anxiety or an escape from the dreadful condition we humans find ourselves in.

What we need is hard science. If an alternate reality exists, if we are living on a plane just next door to some forbidden utopia our senses can’t quite grasp, well then lets go find it. Let’s not wallow in useless woo woo and crappy non existent chakras.  I can accept that there is “stuff” out there which our limited senses can not contact. Most frequencies along the light spectrum for instance.

But if there is some “heaven” awaiting us we are not going to discover it by sitting on our collective rear ends talking piously about finding ourselves through faith healing, touch massage, poetry or  religion. We invented the wheel, penicillin, crop rotation and all manner of useful things. We may be on the cusp of trans-humanism – science fiction today, maybe science fact tomorrow.  So it if exists, lets go and find transcendence now so we can all enjoy it!

We want cures and we want them now. If you think magic mushrooms will cure depression well, try it out. Don’t expect some Druid nutcase to wave his wand over you and make it better.  As I have so often repeated our twin saviors will be philosophy and science as they always have been. Philosophers to come up with the ideas, scientists to test them out and put it into practice.  Often they are one and the same person.

There is “stuff” out there which actually works so let us concentrate on finding more of that and ditch the wishful thinking crap so many engage in.