Of big questions, the now and random rambling of a sceptic’s mind pt.2

It hasn’t been 10 minutes after I had posted the previous post that I have started to write this one. I wondered, if I was too harsh, too fascistic in my views of how animalistic we actually are. I got afraid some people might understand this the wrong way. That I endorse animal behaviour in humans, support the idea of everyone for himself and regret the moment people started meddling with evolutionary principles.  I do not endorse any of it. It seems like I do, but that is solely due to the inability to distinguish the natural order of things from moral order of things. The first is factual, the latter agreed upon.

In the previous post I stated that we, conscious mammal potato bags, have set up rules of engagement. We made up these little conventions of how we should be, even though the basic moral ways of conduct are pretty much humanly inert. Nevertheless, we have decided that we need to write them down, and add some more, just in case one would want to think otherwise. That was possible in the time of ignorance, where gods were responsible for everything we couldn’t explain and everything, even our thoughts, was made solely to serve their will. Times have changed since and yet, somehow, we are still stuck in those views even though they have been disputed and their ignorance explained many times. As if there is no trust in humanity, that after it will drive itself to near extinction, a better world will emerge. (oh, I get it now!). It seems like those “spiritual” men (yes, men are fault for this mess! Go girls!) fear that after society will face the absolute simplicity of existence, they will go mad. They will lose their sense of moral behaviour and kill each other, steal, break, terrorise, manipulate, abuse, rape (wait, where am I going with this again?), treating everything as given, taking no responsibility for their actions, disregarding the future, their personal as well as the one of generations to come.

Wait! Seriously, didn’t I just describe everything we actually do to each other? With more than 80% religious people in the world we seem to pretty much suck at sharing love and peace. And don’t go on saying there are only 1% of believers that are causing all the troubles. No war or terrorist attack has ever been made in the name of science or atheism, although, saying for myself, we are losing our nerve. Dawkins (the man of my dreams) calls it militant atheism.

You might not like it, but this is how universe and nature are. This is how they work. And even if they find something to be true that we now think of as supernatural, there will be an explanation following that will clearly show that the laws and the way nature works cannot be broken. And it won’t be super anymore, simply natural.

But I am off track here. I will surely say something more about this in posts to come; now I am still elaborating on purposefulness. This time, it is time. It is about time, literally.

Have you ever stumbled upon this page? It is not only funny, because it generates random, supposedly wise quotes using words that seem to have a deeper meaning, solely because they are hard to get and syntax prevents you from getting a clear meaning (f*ck that kind of wisdom, remember?) It is funny because when scientist underwent a study, they found out that people actually believe this bullshit. Or is it sad? No, it is funny, because they found a direct correlation with lower intelligence, hence I must be pretty smart. These random quotes that use terms of real science to generate pseudo scientific based nonsense are the first step into admitting new-age hippy dippy era is coming to an end (although lately extreme left started to sound like them too. And do not go all offended and say I am a right wing member; they are lost in their own ”the only right god” delusion. What happened to simple rational thinking? Is not agreeing stating I oppose? Grow up!). Why would something that profits from selling bullshit to people go to the extremes to incorporate as much science as possible into that nonsense, if not for the reason that people are getting smarter and science (still) represents a threat. You can discard science as much as you want, in the moment you are using scientific facts and reasoning to prove your mumbo jumbo, you admit its importance.

Naturalists, of course, separated themselves from religious treatment. They say they are smarter. They use science, and science does not lie. True. But your deductions do.

There are few words that any life wisdom provider uses, when asked about meaning of life, the reason of existence or how we should treat each other. Write them down: ego, now and universe. (Remind me if there are more. These are those I recall from my age of ignorance  - there goes my intelligence!) With “ego” they address cognitive psychology, with “now” physics and with “universe” astronomy and evolution. I like those words and what they represent, which is all that is true about this existence - we are here, now. I will not delve into “ego” – still not ready for that subject - but I will touch “universe” and “now”.

So we replaced God with a safer word that is open to personal interpretation – Universe. We write it with capital U out of fearful respect, that we like to mistake for love and care according to previous beliefs.  We are wired to (or taught to) fear that, which has created us. It is aware of our existence and takes everything personally, even our own bodily fluids. And in this case this actually makes some sense. You know the saying - we are all made of stars? We actually are. Made of them. All the matter in the universe is created in the processes that take place deep inside star’s fusion reactor as they slowly run out of hydrogen.  In that sense universe did create us. Well only in a sense.  A verb “to create” demands a voluntary act and would imply that universe can think. That is simply human ego-tripping again. We were not created. We happened. Through countless series of coincidences that led to this moment, and yes, the matter we consist of is from stars. That is all the magic there is to it.

Carl Sagan said in his famous Cosmos series “we are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff.”  See how he used personification addressing how we are the way for Universe to know itself. This is where mumbo jumbo justification gets it totally wrong. We, as for now the only known form of conscious existence, are by default a part of this universe (as shown above), hence we are the universe. By simply understanding universe and ourselves we can say that universe knows itself. That is all. No separation between it and us. We are incorporated, intertwined into very fabric of cosmos. And to say that universe takes care of us, like Coelho & co. are trying to convince you, would be implying that we take care of each other and everything that goes on in the universe. That is not what we do. So naturally we have to be bad and Universe has to be good and separated from us. If we lose universe as the next intelligence, there is nothing left to believe in that gave reason to our existence anymore.

Universe does not try to tell you anything. I have once tried here to explain destiny and intuition to myself by slicing the time space continuum loaf into slices of separate moments where only single thing changes. I have argued that by considering every momentum of every particle in that moment, one could potentially predict the next step. So future could be predicted and intuition explained as being in tune with the momentum of the universe. I am not saying I am wrong, but I am also not claiming it is possible for our mind to connect to that kind of knowledge. Our brains did not develop that way. They are a consequence of coincidental improvements that proved useful for survival of the brain carrier. They do not see and work in quantum world. Well they do, but they are not aware of it, since the world we live in is of small velocities. If knowing the current position of all particles in this world would prove essential for our survival, and somewhere along the line genetic mutations would enable some brain carrier to develop that kind of perception, we would now be seeing a totally different world. Believe me. F*cking Schroedingers world.

Universe also does not try to help you find your destiny. Quite the opposite is true. Universe tries to kill you on every step of the way. Great Intelligence defenders (should I call them “Star troopers”? You know, since they are shooting fiercely without ever hitting anything. Nerdalert!) see in the fact that whole universe seems to be perfectly made for life the reason there must be great intelligence present or greater purpose to our existence. Like whole universe strived for us to come to be. We call this anthropic principle. It says that universe, as we know it, would not come to be had only one thing been slightly different. Everything seems to be perfectly in tune with everything else. Well of course.  Had it been different, we as we are, would not come to be to ask ourselves the question and wondered at how everything is just perfect. It is the other way around. Again with the separation between it and us. Why are they doing this?

But we do not need to go into this philosophical discussion. Look outside. Water, air, animals, weather, earthquakes, diseases, viruses, bacteria, freezing temperatures, etc. all of it is trying to kill us. We are fragile, we are breakable, perishable and pathetically insignificant to grand scale universe.

You must be really selfish and fearful to see in this a reason for panic. This seemingly nihilistic point of view (which is the convention we decided, just because it pisses on what we think of our role in this universe) is the reason we have to work together, we have to be kind and we have to try to survive and assure others to survive too. For each other’s sake, the universe does not care. We are all there is. This life is all there is (that is a subject for some other time). There is no reward after this. You died? You had your chance; too bad if you wasted your potential on going to war for somebody else’s interests.

What about the people born in parts of the world where they have no choice? Well, there is always a choice, just a hard one to make and seemingly impossible to do. But I do not want to sound without compassion. Surely it is sad that on some parts of the world human life is still treated as a rental service. It should not be like that. Not in this era of this much knowledge and wealth we produce. But at the same time, this is a process. Slowly but surely truth will prevail. Acceptance will overcome the fear from death. Appreciation will take over anticipation. All we can do is try to spread knowledge and show people they have a chance and no given purpose to live. But we cannot ask this to be done in an instant. It takes time. And this is where I turn to now.

Time is a bitch, isn’t it? Suddenly you turn 35 and look back on your life, realising you are probably over the half of yours. Is this why these questions now? Probably. But, you see, time does not exist. Surely I can trace first lines on my face, surely I have accumulated knowledge and definitely I have been to places and gather lifelong experiences. My presence in this world is measurable; we made sure we would never forget how time passes by. We wear watches or check the time on phones. They are so handy, aren’t they? My boyfriend is really smart. He wears a watch that does not work. (so proud of him)

I lied. Time does exist, only not the way we think it does. If you revisit my previous blogs where I explained how time is actually only the next dimension of time space continuum, you will get a clearer picture of what I am about to say. Time is defined by change - any change in positions of particles. As long as there are differences between slices of time space continuum, there is growth in entropy. When everything comes to a halt, when entropy reaches the maximum distribution, there wont be any change, there would not be time anymore. Or so the Heat Death scenario of fate of universe predicts. (Well, there are some more issues I got really paraphrased, but that is the essentially the idea) The time we speak of, the one that connects to the purposeful life is man made. That is the cause of all the psychoses we face.

We feel like we are running out of it. All the time. And that is true, knowing that we can’t go on living forever. We will die, that was sure in the moment we were conceived. In a way, your mother and father sentenced you to death. However, let’s not forget, they gave you a gift of life before the inevitable end. But until then, remember this, we live. And life is precious.

Here comes the mumbo jumbo. Hippy dippy people say you have to be in the now. Present in this very moment. That is actually a good advice. If you focus on what you are doing now, if you are completely aware of what is going on in your surroundings, then you can get the filling of a fulfilment. You always know where you are and what you are doing. Time still passes by at the same amount as it passes for others (yeah yeah, relativity…physically true, but for our reality of slow velocities relativity is unnoticeable. As long as we are not approaching Gargantua from Interstellar, it is safe to say it like that) But you remember living, because change has taken place while you did. Try recalling lazy days activities and details, if you can. And now try remembering a summer where you were active and present. The difference is quite remarkable.

I could go on arguing that our perception of what is “now” is actually what has happened just milliseconds ago. That is also true. We are constantly behind what is going on. It takes time for visual operators to process things. The now is ever-elusive moment that we are trying to catch. Like a dog chasing a bone, that is suspended form a stick tied to his body. He is condemned to forever-hellish existence of always longing, never getting. But that is not important. What we perceive as now is what is the “now” hippy dippy is talking about. Our perception is the way it is, because it proved useful for our survival.

We then go on talking about not worrying about the future. Thinking about future has become like a big no-no in this society. People, who ask, where is this relationship going, will not get an answer. They will probably be discarded as drama queens or put into place with words like: “Lets just enjoy what we are having. Who knows what tomorrow brings (a patronising smile and a tap on the shoulder). Oh the bullshit. This is what “being in now” has been perverted into. Taking no responsibility. (I sure have given that speech, I am sorry)

It is true; we are sliding through the past into the future, passing through immeasurably small moments of existence that we are unable to perceive in time as they happen. Therefore there is no “now” that we could live in as we are aware of it. The only thing we are aware of is the stream of thoughts. This is where “now” gets its value - for the same reason as in previous post. We can always stop what we are thinking, if we are not content with what we are thinking. If we recognise something as counterproductive, negative, pointless, we can stop. Surely then the wisdom of knowing when it is the bravest thing to do to run away could be useful (what a nice reference to my previous entry). That be the case, if we do not want to simply live in denial. But it does not matter. The feeling of contentment will be present, even if all you do in your life is to run away from issues. If that makes you happy, do it. Just do not expect from others to be the same or support you. You’ll get lonely.

There is nothing wrong with thinking about the future. It gets trickier when we live in it (or the past, for that matter). I am not talking physically. We do live in both of them simultaneously (that, too, is a fact). I am talking about expectations and memories - good to imagine and not so good to (re) live.

Yeah, lets just enjoy what we are having. Fun. Simplicity. No responsibility, total tolerance. Hedonism. We do not know, when we will die. Maybe tomorrow bus will hit me. That is a way to react to these facts, too. But you see, there is where you are wrong. If you stay home, do nothing, lay down and stop thinking, life will go on, celestial bodies will keep on rotating, particles will change their positions, molecules will decay and as long as there is some heat in Universe, time will pass. Our actions are not needed for universe to go onwards. Not even for a society to move on. We are replaceable. We are insignificant from Life’s point of view. However the question remains, are you content with being a non-active participant of your life? Are you happy with solely reacting to what is going on in this world? If the answer is yes, than congratulations, you have fulfilled your life to the maximum. Most of people aren’t.

Future will come don’t worry. The question is, would you feel ok with life that was not made by you, but for you? Will you be content? Damn that question.

Maybe the real question is, do I need to feel content and why? Oh the abyss.

Next time. And there’s that.

Of big questions, the now and random rambling of a sceptic’s mind pt.1

What am I doing? This terrifying question has been haunting me for quite some time now. I have never thought about what I am doing or where I am going with my life before. I was simply living, existing with quite arrogant conviction that I am on my way to there. I always saw “there”. However, now that I think of it, the picture was never quite clear. It never depicted anything. Rather it was a smudged image of something. Like when you smart blur a foto in PS almost to 100, or more accurately, add the motion blur filter to it, so it looks like you are running towards it. I do, however, recall one clear thing from previous envisions of “there” – the atmosphere.

In my “there” I was fulfilled. I don’t know what that means. Being fulfilled. It sounds cool and mysterious and somewhat wise. It sounds like the “Sometimes running away is the bravest thing to do” poster that seems pretty damn wise and comforting, but still leaves the “when” open. How do you know, when is the bravest thing to do to run away? It poses more questions than answers, doesn’t it! We are not living a single cause and effect life. We are literally bombarded with little influences all the time and our actions do not have a single outcome. We influence each other much more than we like to think. F*ck that kind of wisdom, right! And f*ck people who post it on Facebook! (I just f*cked myself, didn’t I. Oh well.)

As you might have come to know, I am a sucker for science. I like facts. I was always intrigued by nature and its creations, like humans. I want to understand why things are the way they are, what this tells about our reality, why we do the things we do and why we react the way we do afterward. I am not so much interested in a personal view of a subject as I am interested in the essential. I am looking for the core of how we all are wired - there we are all the same. We are not that special. No matter how much we like to believe our grannies. We are unique, that is true (not so much for the identical twins, but they can still live independent lives) and we are almost a miracle (extremely low chance of occurrence), if we take into consideration the path of coincidences (or was it fate) that led to your conception plus the 280mio of fellow fighters swimming with “you” in the ooze your father blasted up your mum’s pleasure canal. You are lucky to be alive, says Richard Dawkins, you have a privilege to die.  

I should say in advance that I am not trying to justify my couch thinking using scientific facts.  There has been a lot of damage done by quasi gurus in the likes of Deepak (I will delve into that next time). I try to do it the opposite way, not always successful, but hey, I am not important anyways. What I am trying to do, is not spreading lies. So I have decided to elaborate on purposefulness. Lets begin with miracle of existence.

I have recently posted a wiseass status update on my FB page, saying “there is no meaning of life…you make a meaningful life”. Yeah, I know, I have not specified anything about the how. Oh, the irony. However, there is a huge difference between “running away wisdom” and “meaning wisdom”. The latter is based on the facts of science. While there is in fact no meaning of life, running away, from scientific point of view, is always good for your health.

(Oh what a nerve, to say something like that; that there is no meaning of life. How dare I! Boo hoo hoo)

I don’t want to go into the details here (there will be time for that too) but if you know the basic facts about how evolution, genetics and astronomy work and merge their mechanisms together, you can’t but appreciate the miraculous coincidence of this existence and its definite demise into absolute stillness where nothing ever happens, entropy reaches its maximum level and thus erases the meaning of time. But even before that, way earlier in the time space continuum, the Earth will be consumed by the red giant our sun will turn into, when it runs out of fuel in its core. And yet, I am convinced we will not see that day either. We will destroy each other first. What a purposeful existence indeed!

You see, a conscious man has created its purpose, giving himself a reason to exist. It has created an imaginative being out of ignorance. This being is excluded from everything that normally leaves a trace in this measurable universe. And man (or a woman, for all of you feminazis out there) is obeyed to serve this entity in order to get an award after his life (that is only a transition between worlds (oh man! …or woman!)) comes to an end.

Now it is clear that God is not necessary for this Universe to work out the way it does, so some people conveniently renamed it Intelligence. God has suddenly become the author (the primal cause) of some set of rules, beautifully written equations using mathematical tools to explain the physical laws whole universe abides by. These rules were smartly hidden away for us to figure out.  The irony is, by discovering and testing these rules we take away bigger and bigger chunks of the Intelligence. So now these clumsy mammals are saying we are meddling with wrong things and that we lost our way. We should, in order to find our way, put aside thinking and rational thought, because, after all, mind is our enemy. It is polluted and manipulated and deceived. It is too human, too imperfect. Too feely, feely, touchy, touchy!  We need to trust the (positive?) Energy, we are all one with nature, and universe takes care of us. We need to become like cats, like fish … like animals? We need to become organisms that kill and are killed solely for survival, take care of each other as long as it is needed, reproduce, eat and shit? We need to let go of precisely that, which brought us here to this moment and made us able to question ourselves? Wittgenstein much? Or is it dark ages again?

Oh, we are disappointed in ourselves, hippy-dippy say. Oh, we are lost. Oh, we live in a society that is oblivious and apathetic. Oh, we are living in the world of complete control, where our freedom has been taken away from us, where purpose has been diminished to buying stuff. Really?

What was the purpose of a slave in Egypt that was building up a pyramid? (well, Aliens!) Born into slavery, died in slavery. What was the purpose of an African, bought away from his tribe, put on a boat to die on the way to a world that would treat him as an animal? What is the purpose of a Syrian refuge, whose home has been destroyed and taken away by people who believe in same God? (oh did I just go there?) What is a purpose of a kid dying from cancer at the age 14? We do not know, but god has a plan!

We in fact are living in the most free world, with options people 40 years ago never dreamt of having. Surely, we are not there yet (where?) but things are changing for the better. Slowly. Knowledge is certainly the way. And we get that more and more, faster and faster.

Let’s also not ignore the fact that we are mammals - conscious, walking mammals. We just call ourselves humans and call the rest animals. These are man made labels; they have no value in reality. We are just organisms, nothing more. We are perfectly synchronized organs wrapped under porous skin, like a sack of potatoes, that got their nerves wired in such a way so that became aware of them selves - but not of the processes that are running in the background for the body to actually work (the twist!). We are machines that took a billion years to come by. We are not perfect. We are flawed. There are so many things wrong with how our body is built that, if the Grand Designer came to my studio with a proposition of a man like we are now, I would laugh him out of my office. There are clearly two aspects to a man - the body and its consciousness. The body does not need the mind. People survive even in a vegetative state, leading mindless lives - sometimes even consciously. But the mind needs a body. Could it be, because it is a product of it, rather than a reason for it? (oh the twist!)

We – the mammal sacks of conscious potatoes - have built up a society, made up borders, declared something as ours all in the delusion that we are the reason all this was made for. We made our prisons in how we should be when we reach a certain age, what success is, how we should behave according to expectations, how we should have sex, how we should eat. For god’s sake, we even decided on what a kind of delusion is acceptable. Unicorns no! God yes! Leprechauns no! Jahve Yes! No, Alah! No, Vishnu! No, Gaya! No, Anubis! No, Anubis no! That was a delusion from ignorance. What about Zeus and Xibalba? Same! Ignorance.

We decided all of this, just to define differences and importance they have for someone’s personal interests and gain. We divided us in categories, casts, levels, ranges, statuses, ranks, roles - defining a purposeful serving to the Grand plan.

People, there is no right way of how we should be and behave. No one gave us user’s guide at the time of our birth. There were some attempts to write them down, but they turned out to be focused on crowd control, they were culture and time based and they were local, which really does not make them useful. Hitchens said: “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” We can’t possibly know where we are going. But we feel how we can get there. And this includes human interaction. We know, inertly, what we can or cannot do. I call it healthy egocentrism – would I allow people to treat me the way I am treating them? That is all. If an answer to bullying, fighting, hitting, killing, cheating, emotional extortion, deceit, manipulation, fear mongering, excluding, shaming, hating etc. is yes, then there is something inertly wrong with the way you are wired. And that means it is still not your fault. Not at all. If we were animals without conscience and compassion, we would simply eliminate everyone that brings disruption to our existence. Or they would eliminate themselves by not being successful in passing on their genes. (Or not. Evolution does not pick sides.) But we are not animals without compassion and conscience. We are humans that forgive and forget, even though we do so out of fear to put a black smudge on what will come afterwards  (no one wants to go to hell or be reborn as a plant). We should forgive and forget because we would like to be forgiven, and we surely will be forgotten in time, irrevocably.

I am not saying we should go to “there”, but I like the thought of world rid of all delusions that have nothing to do with reality.

I know there is no meaning of my life, personally. No task has been given to me at birth. And no one has planted anything inside my head that I have to figure out. I could just be. Like the guy I met in Pairs, whose full existence was centred on moving from bus station to bus station, not even asking for money, peeing and taking shit in public, so that everyone noticed him, eating and repeating the process. Every day. Human existence in its grandeur, people! Where is your purposeful existence now!?  

Asking yourself, what you are doing, is a futile, stress-causing question that pushes you away from being happy. Oh yes, if there is anything I would connect with purposefulness it is happiness (Or is it being content, happiness is overrated!) So the question I should ask myself is, am I content with where I am and how I got to “here”, and why (not)? The same goes for you! We can be anything we want, when we want, how we want. The question, are we content with “there” and how we got to “there”, still remains as a final judgement. We are the ultimate deciders. That’s a given. Do you think a fish in the moment of its demise thinks where it came to? Do you think other fishes judge it for only producing 1 offspring, like Nemo? It was simply doing, what it was made for. Make sure its genes spred on. What Zen calls a state of wholeness is actually denying what makes us human. We think. We thought our way to where we are now. If we were living solely according to Buddhism we would not come anywhere. We would reject the material world we are bound to by default. If we had trusted in god’s love and care completely, we would have not achieved anything. Ironic “thank god” for doubters and conformists. They were the ones that moved things ahead.

I can easily say, I don’t know where I am going or what I am doing. I am just trying my best not to fall so hard, that I would not be able to lift myself up anymore. I choose what to do, using the information I got from experiences in the past and the feeling of contentment while doing so. It feels as the most logical thing to do in order to maintain that feeling. When I say that I feel fulfilled in my visions, I have no clue of what I am doing “there”. What I am doing now has only a specific influence to where I am going - am I content? I can always stop what I am doing, if I am not content. There are no limitations that prevent me from doing so, only the ones in my head. We set our limitations with morals, duties, responsibilities, honour, love, system, politics, etc. We are not supposed to take care of others, family or anything at all. Physically, if you are not actually nailed to the bed, you can up and leave at any time. We are not even expected to take care of a sick mother. Evolution wise, there is no need for that. Mother has done her job, when she gave birth to you and made you able to spread on your genes. The question is, would you feel content, as a person, if you did so? Would you allow others to treat you like that? (That is how they get us.) And even though I have no clue what I am doing in “there” I am pretty sure I am on my way. I am here now, am I not? Well, this brings me to the next question. Why now? Why do I ask myself what I am doing now? What has changed, besides the fact that I have, for the first time ever, the age I have. Was it fate? And why does it terrify us to amount to nothing, when there is precisely nothing we can amount to.

Next time. And there’s that.