Quo modo Deus exstat?

Michelangelo -The Creation  of Adam (Wikipedia)

Major is the family dog, recently taken to sheep-worrying/killing. The father will have to put it down. Owen, the godless younger brother, petitions his religious-curious older sister.

“'If you prayed for Major not to get shot would he not get shot?' said Owen in a demanding voice.

The thought of praying had never crossed my mind.

'You prayed you wouldn't have to thread the sewing machine any more and you didn't.'

I saw with dismay the unavoidable collision coming, of religion and life.

He got up and stood in front of me and said tensely, 'Pray. How do you do it? Start now!'

'You can't pray,' I said, 'about a thing like that.'

'Why not?'

Why not? Because, I could have said to him, we do not pray for things to happen or not happen, but for the strength and grace to bear what does. A fine way out, that smells abominably of defeat. But I did not think of it. I simply thought, and knew, that praying was not going to stop my father going out and getting his gun and calling, 'Major! Here, Major -' Praying would not alter that.”

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‘Age of Faith’, in ‘Lives of Girls and Women’, Alice Munro (p. 145).

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Aged ten, I ask my father if he believes in God. “No I don't,” he says, “There is no way heaven could be big enough for all the people it would need to contain.”

A parish meeting in Andover, a Q&A. Hesitantly, a parishioner asks the priest, “Father, where is heaven?” The priest, equally hesitant, talks about quantum theory and the strange spaces within the atom. I cringe with embarrassment.

Rod Liddle writes in his Sunday Times column about asking a CofE bishop whether he believes in God. “Blessed if I know, Rod,” comes the reply, confirming Liddle’s sardonic take on England's institutional religion.

A liberal states their deepest attachment and loyalty: to democracy and the rule of law. But in what sense do those things actually exist? I ask. They don't understand the question.

Buddhists believe that the self is an illusion.

Freighted, that term ‘illusion’.

It appears that Buddhists believe the self is a process, an epiphenomenon of more basic physical and mental state transitions. Is that what ‘illusion' means?

It's natural to think naively that existence is a simple, obvious notion. Stones exist, your body exists. If something exists, you can poke or paint it. But most ‘things’ we deal with in life are not like this: contracts, democracy, numbers, freedom, oppression, patriotism, any -ism. Welcome to the social construction of reality and the ubiquity of reification.

Catholicism is more a framework than a set of definite precepts. It's not reducible to biblical literalism. Orthodoxy will tell you that the true nature of God is mysterious. Most Catholics opt for some manner of ontological realism but I'm more deontological…

Syrinx learns a lesson

Amazon link

From the Night's Dawn Wikipedia entry:

"Syrinx, a young Edenist, is next introduced, leading life from a young age telepathically attached to a bitek starship called Oenone. As she grows she learns more about the world with her sentient starship, becoming best friends (as is the normal bond between bitek starship and captain). ...

Syrinx travels to the world of Atlantis, a world covered by water, inhabited by floating "islands" which themselves are sentient. But she discovers that the possession has also begun there. In the process she is captured and tortured badly, and suffers a psychotic breakdown. ...

Syrinx is psychologically reconstructed with the help of the founder of the Edenist culture."

In the Edenist habitat, Syrinx is placed into a simulation to undergo psychiatric rehabilitation. This includes therapy with Wing-Tsit Chong's stored persona (Chong was the inventor of affinity and founder of Edenism). He speaks thus (Chapter 11):

"At last, we achieve progress. Where is the only place your personal past can take form?"

"In my mind?"

"Good. And what is the purpose of life?"

"To experience."

"This is so, though from a personal view I would add that life should also be a progression towards truth and purity. But then I remain an intransigent old Buddhist at heart, even after so long. This is why I could not refuse the request from your therapists to talk to you. Apparently I am an icon you respect."

At this point, Wing-Tsit Chong embarks upon a discursion into Buddhism, but this is what I wish he had said.

"Every experience you have, Syrinx, the neural network in your brain encodes by rewiring itself. If we could watch your connectome, it would get a little more uniquely tangled than someone who had not shared that experience."

She shakes her head. This is a commonplace observation. She's not getting it.

"So consider this, Syrinx. You seriously think the purpose of life is some local brain rewiring in your own skull?"

"What else could it be?"

"Existence is arguably better than non-existence. You are here, Syrinx, because your parents created you. If they had not done so, you wouldn't be virtually stood before a simulated elder in a wheelchair expounding superficialities about the meaning of life .."

"That is the standard Darwinian argument, sir. That the purpose of all living things is to survive and reproduce. Yet if the results are merely more mobile neural nets, all accumulating experiences - rinse and repeat - how does this get us any further?"

"My child, I could say that's physics for you but I am a Buddhist. Surely we of all people can unask the question, prizing Nothingness over Being as we do."

Affiliating to your favoured mode of production

Me, driving along:

"Isn't it interesting. There are three modes of production - the slavery of antiquity, feudalism and bureaucratic socialism - all of which showed extreme stagnation in the development of their productive forces. Productivity stayed low and technological creativity was minimal. Only capitalism has been able to sustain technological progress."

Clare: "I thought you were a Marxist."

"I am."

"But you're just saying the capitalism is better than all the others."

"It is. I'm a Marxist because I think Marx's method is right. He's the only one who really understood how capitalism (and the other modes of production) really worked. It's his utopianism I have a problem with, his starry-eyed view of an entirely socially-determined human nature."

"You can't be a Marxist, not with all those conditions. You don't understand about labels. You're either a Marxist or you're not. You're not. No-one would understand you."

(A pause before I continue).

"I'm still thinking about some kind of token to show that I adhere to a higher ideal, that I'm self-disciplined and ethical. That's what a uniform buys you, or a religious badge showing you're a good Catholic."

"Your hair's short enough. Why don't you get some saffron robes. That would convince people."

"I'm not a Buddhist. I would sign up to philosophical Taoism, but would a Yin-Yang tattoo convince anyone .. wouldn't you just be self-labelling as new-age and flaky?

(I muse).

"I guess I could have a hammer and sickle tattoo, but who these days associates that with iron discipline and a higher morality? Most likely they'd think I was some kind of hipster who ran a microbrewery."

---

What I was really interested in was just why capitalism is such a growth machine, despite human nature's natural inclination to find a quiet rut and enjoy it - certainly not to over-exert oneself for some abstract 'higher common good'.

I know the answer: it's fear. The unique insight of Marx was that a capitalist who doesn't ruthlessly innovate will be outcompeted - and ruined - by their competitors. Without fear, without skin in the game - no progress.

But there's no virtue-advertising insignia which celebrates that insight.

Refuge of the Roads

I am utterly entranced by Hejira. It's Joni at her most contrary - always ready to bite the hand that feeds her.

It's 1976 and Joni's in her early thirties, no longer so young, head messed up with cocaine and her love-life its usual chaotic mess. In desperation she consults a charismatic Buddhist reprobate, Chögyam Trungpa .. who astonishingly does her a power of good.

So she sorts her life out?

Of course not. She runs away - back to that itinerant touring life on the road.

And she writes it all down in a wonderful song (check out Jaco Pastorius superlative on bass).

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Lyrics

I met a friend of spirit
He drank and womanized
And I sat before his sanity
I was holding back from crying
He saw my complications
And he mirrored me back simplified
And we laughed how our perfection
Would always be denied
"Heart and humor and humility"
He said "Will lighten up your heavy load"
I left him for the refuge of the roads

This is the first verse, follow the link for the rest.

I wrote some more about Hejira (and the title track in particular) here.

Revolutionary Christmas Cards

From The Radical Tea Towel Company

Last year I amazed and delighted sundry relatives with revolutionary Christmas cards - but they were so hard to find. And this year I see that Radical Tea Towel are selling .. just the same cards as last year .. .

So disappointing.

I contemplated switching theme - could this be the Taoist Christmas, themed by Lao-Tzu and the Tao Te Ching? But it seems that Taoists .. don't really get the concept of 'Christmas'.

So disappointing.

Amazon link

In any event, my searches tend to throw up Buddhist cards - which then turn out not to be available.

I'm almost reduced to making my own .. .

A Terraforming Exam Question

Ready for the next stage of terraforming

The script below was obtained through the most extraordinary circumstances, purporting to be an examiner's guide to an exam set in 2265 AD. The test appears to be aimed at sixteen year olds.

"Q1.  Terraforming Options

For the purposes of this question the planet to be terraformed orbits a sun-like star (such as Tau Ceti) within 50 light years of the Earth. The planet is Earth-like, with rocky continents and large oceans, but when discovered was completely devoid of life.

You may assume that the relevant global mapping and resource surveys have been carried out and that initial seeding of the planet's landmass and oceans has been accomplished. As a result, the conversion from carbon-dioxide to oxygen is well under way as the atmospheric composition approaches that of Earth.

At this point in the terraforming process, two possible ways forward present themselves - scenarios A and B. You should discuss the pros and cons of each of the two methods as precursors to human colonization.

Scenario A: the 'Protestant' strategy.

Sometimes called the 'high-technology approach', this scenario calls for large-scale autonomous robot deployment on the planet to undertake mining, infrastructure-creation, manufacturing, farming and city-construction work. The intention is to create a post-industrial rural/urban environment into which humans can be inserted with an extremely high standard of living from day one.

1a. Why is this called the 'Protestant' strategy?

1b. What are the main advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

Scenario B: The 'Buddhist' strategy.

Sometimes called the 'ecological' or 'genetic-engineering' approach, this scenario creates an ecology of plants and animals which have been genetically engineered to be tame and to implement a number of important functions and services. For example, most multicellular creatures possess a  'packet-radio transceiver' organ, which allows them to operate as both edge-devices and routers in a 'biological internet' (sometimes known as the 'Internet of creatures'). Humans are also genetically upgraded to participate in this global network.

Dwellings, transportation and the hundreds of other services used in an advanced society are mainly or exclusively provided by gene-tailored organisms.

1c. Why is this called the 'Buddhist' strategy?

1d. What are the main advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

As you will be aware, both approaches have been used with more or less success.

1e. In less than 250 words, compare and contrast the two strategies and indicate whether one is clearly superior to the other, and why.

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Examiner Notes

(a) For full marks, the student should note that the 'Protestant' strategy refers back to the early twentieth century thinker Max Weber's views of the Rise of Capitalism, while the 'Buddhist' strategy particularly relates to the views of the unity of nature in that religion, linked to ideas of reincarnation.

(b) The student should expand on the idea that the main advantages of the 'Protestant' strategy are that devices (such as high-powered radio transmitters, aircraft & spacecraft, high-density power-generators) can be quickly implemented in the most convenient materials and that the design process is extremely flexible.

The main disadvantage is the brittleness of the resulting civilisation: any systemic social catastrophe leads to the end of hyper-specialisation and a collapse back to hunter-gathering.

(c) The student should have noted that the 'Buddhist' strategy is in some ways complementary to the 'Protestant' strategy. Since functions are implemented in the biosphere, an ecology which is distributed, self-maintaining and self-reproducing, the basics of civilization are extraordinarily stable and resilient in the short to medium term.

There are, however, three main disadvantages:

As the optimised ecology needs negligible input from the majority of people on the planet, there may well be a psychological loss of purpose, a kind of 'ennui in the Garden of Eden'.

Secondly, it may require considerable ingenuity to implement a novel function or service within the constraints of biology. Credit will be given to answers which make reference to the difficulties already encountered in genetically-engineering routing and wifi across diverse biosystems.

Thirdly, the student should draw attention to the fact that the genomes of virtually all the organisms in the ecology have been purposefully set up not to benefit the fitness of the creature itself, but to be useful to humans. It follows that mutation and natural selection will tend to subvert the status quo and cause reversion to a feral ecology; without the closest monitoring and ruthless culling the Buddhist utopia will eventually collapse.

(d) In the final part of the question, full marks will be obtained by answers which appreciate that neither pure strategy is optimal under all conditions. In practice the question is where to draw the balance point in a mixed approach. In conditions of social stability with backup, the 'Protestant' strategy can be given enhanced weighting; in opposite circumstances the more resilient 'Buddhist' approach is recommended."

The manuscript ends here.

Non habemus papam

Dare I find parallels between the current situation Pope-wise and the final two volumes of Dan Simmons' Hyperion series?

The bureaucracy of the Pax endlessly recycles its malleable machine-politician pope, Lenar Hoyt; this last pope has been a similar, voluntary prisoner of the Vatican bureaucracy. Anyway, enough of that.

In his lead character Aenea's teaching, Simmons points out that the Buddha never taught the reincarnation of the self or soul. Googling (Buddha teachings on reincarnation) confirms this. The Buddha appeared to believe that consciousness, the self, is recreated moment-by-moment as a kind of dynamic standing-wave. An analogy would be a flame.

On death, an enlightened pattern dissipates; one which has not renounced the passions can persist and in some mysterious way inform the life of a subsequent creature .. reincarnation of a kind.

I think this makes more sense if we  consider that the meaning of our lives, for good or ill, is the effect they have on our families and communities.

A productive life will help progress our ongoing civilisation; an unproductive life will subtract from it.

This is, of course, so not a new thought - cf. "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity" - Tolstoy. Recognising our human co-dependence, an evolutionary biologist would agree.

(Everything true about human life is grounded in sociobiology *smile*).