Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: God

  • Dune!

    Dune!

    Another day another messiah. Another day another superhero. Superheroes are a consistent feature of the human imagination, human need, human longing.

    Back in the second century AD the inflated claims of Christianity, as we know it today from the canonical version of the Bible, had not become established.

    Jesus as a superhero was by no means fixed in character or powers in those days.

    In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a child disperses water that Jesus has collected. Jesus kills this child. At age one he curses another boy, which causes the child’s body to wither into a corpse.

    In other “gnostic gospels”, Jesus has somebody else crucified in his stead, impregnates the “virgin” Mary, and sells his own twin into slavery.

    Two thousand years ago, man had not invented science fiction. At that date man thought space was a physical canopy above the earth, and so early Superhero authors had to set their tall stories on the earth, since the earth was all they knew.

    Why do you like Dune, why did Herbert concoct the story, why were the books and films so successful?

    The subconscious is a strange thing – perhaps you too have a desire for “super-heroism” to be true. Even if not, many of us clearly find something about Dune amuses us, attracts us, interests us. 

    And so now to “truth”. Eventually, the early Christian Church bigots kicked out all the inconvenient gospels and said the only true version of their super-hero Jesus “Christ” was contained in what we now call the Bible. In that version JC is a real good guy and certainly did not impregnate his own mother or kill others out of sheer spite or anger.

    Do superheroes “really” exist? The Church believes so. Others may take a more balanced view: no, I do not believe that JC or any other superhero exists or ever has existed.

    But our longing for something beyond the physical world we can prod and measure does have some justification in reality. In the sense I have so often spoken about. That the world is far more mysterious than we pygmies can yet imagine and that while there may be no “god” as such, perhaps we have the power to become “godlike”. There certainly seems to be godlike power out there somewhere. To me at least.

    That has always been my take on the matter.

    And Dune? What is it? On one level it is simply a fun story, an amusement. On another level it takes on a very much more significant shape which can sometimes have very severe consequences. ”Good” ideas, like communism have a plethora of Superheroes but usually have horrendous consequences. The communist Superheroes far outdid the Nazis in terms of mass slaughter. The desire for a Superhero was of course also cruelly exploited by the Nazis who seemed to offer a paradise, a way out for a Germany impoverished by Versailles, Weimar and hyper inflation. Hitler and his cronies were worshipped before it all went disastrously wrong.

    Christians twisted a good folk tale into what has often been an instrument of hideous cruelty and murder, and so have other religions which shall remain nameless. Lest I receive a bomb through my letter box or have my head cut off by an insane extremist. Lest I receive a police visit for hatred or prejudice of some sort or another against what is fast becoming an unassailable orthodoxy.

    So Dune and stories like it point out tantalising images of possible, imaginary utopias. Which we have always sought.

    If I wax lyrical as usual, you will understand that this is a topic of great interest to me. Since I believe the issues go far far wider than one story, one book, one attempt to explain our world and to explore possibly better places or incarnations.

  • Purpose in a Meaningless Universe

    Purpose in a Meaningless Universe

    You are unlikely to find it, unless you provide it yourself.

    In the endless years I have wandered the world’s sacred places, god has always kept himself well hidden.

    It is true that I have spoken to the dead on several occasions. That I have heard voices and music in an ancient and remote former public house in Devon. And that my lifelong habit of sitting quietly in contemplation has often provided a sense of the numinous, a quiet joy.

    I have several times asked entry of the gatekeeper to a hidden kingdom. Sought to cross the boundary between the worldly and the transcendent.

    Once I saw a knight in black armour, standing proud somewhere above exquisite Gothic tracery, white stone framing the deep hues of ancient stained glass. I asked to be let in, I assumed he guarded a sacred portal, entrance to the eternal. Did he answer me? Did he use words or was I just left with a silent impression that the door would not be opened to me. Or perhaps, on the other side, there was not that which I had long sought.

    I remember speaking to some wise men once, in a waking dream, who seemed to have answers. Were they gods, I asked. It appeared not, and I stumbled on.

    The mind is a curious instrument when used properly, capable of conjuring wonders a plenty. Do such visions have their own reality, do such conversations take place anywhere other than in what we call the imagination.

    How can I tell?

    William Blake walked the streets of London talking to angels. Countless mystics, East and West, have met their numen, their desired end point. And found unshakeable certainty.

    But in our post Gallilean era, we demand such standards of proof, we labour under such a heavy evidential burden.

    If I feel anything out there, it is because I want to. I can not say with any certainty that these visions and conversations have any reality, except within the narrow confines of my own mind. Much as I would like to believe they do.

    Meaning is not given to us. We can not open our windows on a fine sunny morning in spring and expect to greet a wizard, a mage with a tall pointed hat and a long staff. Who will make it alright. Who will give us purpose where there is none.

    Gandalf would do me just fine. He is more than halfway there, with his magic, his wisdom. His triumph over the black curse of Saruman and his evil master.

    Even a real elf would be welcome. Or a hobbit come to that. And Reepicheep of course – what would I not give for a conversation with that mighty mouse.

    These days we have serious grey men in white coats who tell us they have seen black holes at the centre of the universe. In the old days we had men in long black clerical garb warning us of Satan and his henchman Beelzebub. But these fictions are mere weaklings when put side by side with monsters light years across, gobbling up all and sundry and never letting it out again. Once upon a time Cerberus guarded the gates of Hades, letting no one out, but these days hell is guarded by an Event Horizon. Just as fierce and, we are told, horribly effective. Quite a lot better than a dog with several heads.

    Today’s guardians of rectitude tell us tales of black energy and dark matter. Which apparently are to be found everywhere but can’t be seen.

    A bit like god then.

    And today’s high priests tell us we do not exist at all. That we are figments of our own non existent imagination with no free will, unable to do or feel anything other than that for which we were programmed at the very dawn of time. No power of governance over our own desires or actions , no thoughts we can call our own.

    Modern man has replaced Satan and his fiery domain by something just as vile.

    At least the old priests had a carrot as well as a stick. If we behaved ourselves we would find our reward in a vividly coloured candy world called the after life. God may make life hell on earth (for reasons only apparent to those deeply familiar with His ways) but if we tell him he’s the tops and ignore all the competition, we will get loads of virgins and lots else later on.

    Today’s Priests of Scientism can only come up with a stick. No carrots at all, let alone heavenly virgins. That’s not a great deal of fun – put up with ethnic cleansers, earthquakes, and Donald Trump and then you die.

    Is it any surprise then that those of a more discerning nature refuse to bow down to any priest, whatever the colour of his robes or the object of his devotion. Neither priest, old or new, seem to have much on offer in the here and now. And as to later, well, a bird in hand as they say is better than one in the bush. And a lot more nourishing.

    So close your ears and your eyes. Shut out the priests, along with social media and the newspaper.

    But what of Gaza, I hear you say. Or the Ukraine. How can we allow such slaughter, how can we ignore it. Well yes, quite. The old school gods delighted in bloodshed and it was all for our own good. The gods of science say none of it means anything anyway and evolution has made all of us savages to ensure our survival.

    Who and what are you to believe. All of it, none of it. Who cares. Had I Gandalf’s magic staff I would wave it and peace and plenty and prosperity would be for ever and ever.

    Sadly, I seem to have misplaced it.

    And so, in a meaningless universe, where must I seek meaning. Where am I most likely to find purpose, peace and content.

    In my own thoughts and my own actions. Within.

    If there is no absolute right and wrong, no good, no bad, then I will make my own.

    A lifetime of wandering thought has taught me that if I want to find peace, I must live peace within and without. Do unto others. I’m really trying these days, although I think I’m very probably the only beneficiary of my efforts. Since I don’t go out much.

    On the rare occasions that I venture out of my front door, I am making a big effort and that certainly makes me feel a whole lot better inside.

    I can not tell you what the universe is made of. Or when or by whom or what.

    I can not tell you whether Yahweh or Vishnu, Mara or Satan are out there somewhere. Or Odin, Zeus or the Jainist Jinas.

    But I can tell you that quiet contemplation makes me realise I do not need to know. That I do not really care that much. That all I need to do to obtain peace is to let go.

    To abandon pretense and vanity, to be decent to others if I can. To remain good tempered, good natured if I can mange it. To cause no harm and to bring joy and comfort where I am able.

    No wonder Buddhism has always attracted me.

  • My kind of God

    My kind of God

    I have been profoundly moved by religion my entire life. I have always believed in the “Good” even though I may not always have done it.

    Sitting in quiet meditation I hear the sound of plainsong whether or not it is there. I long for peace, for a better place and better times. A time and place where there is no want but only happiness. Where there is infinite wisdom and none suffer.

    If that sounds like the heaven of the Christians or the Nirvana of the Buddhists, then that should not seem so surprising. In a hostile universe, how many of us over how many thousands of years must have yearned for such wonders, as war and plague raged around them. As they struggle to force food from the barren earth during the seven years of biblical famine.

    And so we conjure gods to assuage our fears. To send us manna from heaven. To vanquish our foes and knock down the walls of Jericho.

    To give us peace. To put our minds in a place of pure ecstasy where we feel nothing but joy and security, wrapped like a baby curled up in swaddling clothes. Or in the comfort of the womb.

    And such states can sometimes be reached although they are difficult to maintain. How very often have I felt that sense of warm certainty, where my mind and body seem to have ascended to a better plane. Where I appear to have broken through to a deeper realm somewhere outside the physical universe in which I normally dwell.

    That is what I have sought all my life. Ascension, transcendence. Sublimation – a transition from the physical ream to some place of safety and unimaginable beauty.

    I am a seeker and yet I get so often distracted from my path. Only a couple of days ago I bemoaned the parlous state of our world and expressed a wish for post scarcity to cure all our ills. But I veered dangerously into the world of politics and dissension and that is something a seeker must avoid. No good is to be found there, no field of joy.

    As my fried Keith has so often said, humanity is an irrelevance and will pass like so many grains of sand scattered in the wind. We will be unlamented, our passing unnoticed in this reality of infinite space and time and possibility.

    But sentience, mind. There may true reality perhaps be found. Or so I hope. So, in my better moods, I believe.

    Will I sound childish and absurd if I own up to watching Star Trek since childhood? Will I be laughed at when I express a profound joy I experienced when watching this latest generation of bold travelers on Netflix last night? Perhaps, but I care little.

    Sugary as it may be, the series portrays the Good and that is how and where I want to live. A bunch of men and women roam the universe and put it right. Gods by another name, although less powerful by far than the Minds of Ian Bank’s Culture. Let alone his Elders – those who have sublimed to some non physical and better realm.

    How did I feel when I wrote Post Scarcity? Sad, depressed, negative and hopeless. Is peace ever obtained by conventional means? Will I feel more peaceful or make the world a better place by campaigning with the Greens to save the whales? Or by joining Amnesty International to campaign for political prisoners?

    I think not alas.

    To engage in the bitter struggles of the human world serves little purpose.

    Where on this mortal plane should a seeker position himself? Where in this veil of tears should he dwell?

    Within, deep within. Even as I write those words I feel a warmth spreading through my veins. My kind of god – simply the sort of feeling you meet when you go inwards. When you dwell on what is good and refuse to engage with what is bad.

  • Seeking Meaning

    Seeking Meaning

    Deep in meditative trance a voice, my own perhaps, told me that I sought a god and had always done so.

    The surprise was that I was surprised. Perhaps it was a sort of “coming out”. If that voice spoke the truth, and I have little reason to doubt it, then small wonder that a commercial life was an anathema to my soul.

    I sat listening to the rain, pattering somewhere in my consciousness. There was a door or a barrier somewhere. Perhaps I was the wrong side of the tracks. Just the other side lay the infinite.

    Do I anthropomorphize? No but I seek communication, communion if you will. At one stage I was in an empty theater, a Shakespearean image if ever there was one.

    All the world’s a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players;

    Was the god I sought the director of such theater I wondered? I thought perhaps he might be. Was there anyone there in that emptiness? Who had built, designed and ran that theater. The answer was always on the tip of my tongue. Like a half forgotten memory, which needed just a little prodding to be brought back into the camera of my mind.

    Are we a simulation perhaps, are we the men in Plato’s cave. All seemed possible. God was never quite found, or was he?

    “Are we what you are seeking?” I seemed to hear. Yes, you will do I replied. Talk to me, show yourselves.

    Were those voices the Omega Point? I rather fancied they were. You see, a technological god will do me just fine.

    Anything omniscient, wise, beneficent. Omnipotent would be quite handy too. Something vastly bigger that what we normally perceive in our messed up world of concretized struggle.

    Is my god that of Abraham or Mohamed? The question seemed irrelevant. Was I god I wondered, or, more properly put, was I an offshoot of some universal consciousness of which we are all a part.

    The joy of meditation is the freedom from convention and thought. I feel, therefor I am. To misquote Descartes.

    Out of meditation I still listen for those voices. In the wind, in quiet incantations in a temple, in silence and the panoply of a starry night.

    But I am an eclectic sort of fellow and can see beauty everywhere, even in the little maths I am able to grasp. In the wonder of fractals seen in the design of a tree, its roots and leaves. In the bang which we are told kicked us all off and in the whimper they say is our ending.

    Were I young again and could choose a different path, it might have been that of the physicist. There is a stark, ethereal beauty there too, a search for meaning of not such a different order.

    If there is a god, he hides in the cracks, in letters written in lemon juice between the lines on a page. Perhaps the physicist will discover him silently existing at the center of an ultimate singularity, or wrapped in some exotic field of yet unthought of energy. In a dimension we do not yet know of. A life form divorced from what we conceive of as the physical universe.

    Many a physicalist will sneer these days at a such a search. Materialism is the fashion and the universe can only be explained in terms of what it does, not what it means. It was not always thus and there are still physicists who dream with greater ambition, people who are prepared to ask why and not content themselves merely to count and calculate.

    At my age I must remain a mere dreamer; the time for doing seems long gone. But where would we be without such dreams? The world will not be bettered by science alone. No “for profit” titan will create a heaven for all, merely a glory for one.

    There is a place still for the hermit, sitting in silence and listening for quiet voices in the gentle winds. There is purpose in listening, even in a world where all seems driven by material ambition.

    There is meaning to be found by looking with serene detachment and contemplating what is and what might yet be.

  • Creating God

    Creating God

    I do not believe that the concepts of “god” and science are incompatible. Provided we accept that we have created the concept of “god” in the first place and that through science we have the means to become godlike.

    Qualiacomputing is run by people with the impressive aim of discovering what triggers our feelings, our emotions, our “qualia”.   These people believe that qualia have a mathematical, scientific basis and hence can be re-created and manipulated. That qualia represent certain brain states – those of harmony (in the case of pleasant states) and disharmony in states of malaise and pain.

    I follow their website with interest. Like their friend the fascinating philosopher  David Pearce, they wish to save the world through science. To make us happy and good, well and altruistic through altering our genetic make up.

    I responded as follows to a recent post:

    My own worldview seems to accord mostly with your own. Of course I have no scientific basis for my view, merely intuition and disconnected theorizing. Nonetheless for what it is worth my conclusion is that everything we conscious entities feel, suffer or enjoy is, at bottom, a quale. Spirituality is, for example, the quale we “enjoy” when certain external factors put our mind into a certain state.

    By way of example ritual (church music, incense, incantation, intonation of the psalms) can put me into a state where I feel at one with the world and seem to be connected to some sense of the numinous.  And I am an atheist or at best agnostic.

    How does this come about? And does it suggest that there is a deity “out there” or perhaps at least some pantheistic or Jungian uber consciousness?

    My belief is that it comes about through electrical and chemical reactions in my brain which smell, music and rhythm cause. Call this reductionist if you will. Hence I do not believe that a deity is “out there”. Nonetheless like Pascal, I believe we should act as if there was.

    I believe in a sense that we make our own deity and certainly our own meaning. But at heart we do so through the basic laws of physics. To use your own terminology through “harmony”, by creating certain states of rhythm and harmony in our brains which cause us to feel in a certain way. To experience certain qualia.

    And we “should” feel those qualia for the world to evolve in a better and kinder way.  We “need” to feel those qualia. To manufacture, bring about and encourage those qualia. Hence I firmly believe in the sort of project you are aiming at: to alter our qualia for the better, to raise our hedonic set point.

    I believe that to do so makes for a better world. I believe that the application of science through the methods you have suggested (genetic engineering for instance) will enable us to create what the religious has never been able to create – a heaven on earth.

    Is that spirituality? Or is it reductionist and bare, feeling-less science?  I do not believe you should separate the two. If “god is within” as so many of the world’s religions postulate, then surely we should use science to amend and adjust the “within” to achieve the bliss, beauty and love we so sadly lack. We created “god” in our own image. It is we who now have the chance to become godlike – perhaps in the way that Frank Tipler envisaged. Or, in a slightly more traditional and religious way, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

  • If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    I have been following  Qualia Research Institute and Qualia Computing.  My attention was recently caught by an article on  personal identity views.

    I quote from the Abstract:

    Personal identity views (closed, empty, open) serve in philosophy the role that conservation laws play in physics. They recast difficult problems in solvable terms, and by expanding our horizon of understanding, they likewise allow us to conceive of new classes of problems. In this context, we posit that philosophy of personal identity is relevant in the realm of ethics by helping us address age-old questions like whether being born is good or bad. We further explore the intersection between philosophy of personal identity and philosophy of time, and discuss the ethical implications of antinatalism in a tenseless open individualist “block-time” universe.

    I believe that you may well have to have a tendency towards existential anxiety to be interested in such matters. I have that and I am interested. However I am also wary of endless thinking, endless philosophy.

    I have no qualm with “thought experiments” per se ( which have lead to many scientific breakthroughs) but I believe the matters contained in this article are fruitless in terms of speculation unless they can be tested and acted upon.

    I like these guys, I like what they have to say. But I would like to see some action. I would like to see some progress towards the “Abolition of Suffering“.

    I therefore responded as follows on their website:

    While I am interested in your article and indeed in your website as a whole, has the time not come to cease to speculate and to actively progress and investigate how to measure and improve qualia?

    You and I and everyone around us (or most of them) are living as “closed individuals”. I do not believe anyone other than a mystic or tripper has witnessed any other type of existence.

    And once the meditation or psilocybin trip is over, even those individuals return from unified consciousness back to the state of “closed individual”.

    So what needs to be done to eliminate suffering?

    Can the beneficial effects of psilocybin be prolonged indefinitely? Can some other method of increasing our joy and decreasing our pain (permanently) be found?

    I am not sure that any of the theories you describe above represent any law of physics. I am not sure that any such theory gets us any further forward.

    We need to take practical steps and hope that these will confirm or refute such theories.

    I am done with theorizing. I want progress.

    Perhaps I should become a psychonaut.