Sunday 22 April 2018

It's all so bizarre

How did we get here? From living 100,000 years ago in small isolated groups living in caves, to communicating with people across the globe on these devices?

To employ an analogy. We've learnt to play the computer game very efficiently indeed. We can predict very accurately what'll happen when our character performs certain actions. But we have absolutely no idea how the game is possible -- the underlying machinery that makes it all work. Or why it exists in the first place (despite what scientists would have you believe). 

And most importantly of all, why the bloody hell are we here? What or who put us here in this crazy mysterious world? For what purpose, if any?

Our lives are crazy and bizarre.  Yet most people are not aware of this, they do not know how bizarre our situation is, how bizarre our lives and the Universe are.  They sleepwalk through life thinking the purpose is to impress others, to make money, to get married, and then to die. 

And then what happens when we die?  Eternal oblivion?  Some mysterious new reality?  I don't know. 

Monday 2 April 2018

Existential Dread

We're all just putting on a front, pretending all is well, losing ourselves in the daily activities of existence, pretending things are important. Lest existential dread consumes our souls.

We need to open our hearts and minds to realities beyond our ken. Know that all things will come right at the end. That all things ultimately matter. It is an inner light that shines . .if only we open our eyes to see it.

Preposterous Beliefs

Just read the following article:

Atheists who bring logic to the Easter story are missing the point



The author, Julian Baggini, is conflating one's degree of education with intelligence. The belief in the resurrection might indeed be preposterous, but so are many things that highly educated people believe e.g. colours, sounds and smells don't actually exist out there in the world, they are pure creations of the mind. Or Parallel Universes exist where everything I could do is played out slightly differently in another Universe, hence there are a squintillion differing versions of me! Or animals are not actually conscious (since they lack language).

Sunday 1 April 2018

At last I understand...

I think on reflection I have got everything wrong about there being an afterlife. We desperately want an afterlife, but we have to face facts. Just consider the radical personality changes that may be brought about by injury to the brain. Phineas Gage, to take the most famous example. If his new obnoxious personality was caused by his damaged brain, it would be silly to deny that his normal personality wasn’t caused by his pre-damaged brain!

And what is this thing, this “supernatural soul”, which is supposed to survive anyway? It’s invisible, has no mass or indeed any other physical properties. In fact it cannot be detected by any means whatsoever. What is left by saying it exists??

Since the birth of modern science in the 17th Century, science has been stunningly successful in furnishing us in with knowledge about the world, and has been an extraordinarily fruitful one in terms of the subsequent prediction and manipulation of our environment and in the creation of our technology. This strongly suggests that modern science pretty much accurately describes reality. OK, we have yet to fully explain consciousness. But the brain is the most complex object in the Universe. Give science a chance! Eventually we should be able to understand how the brain produces consciousness. There is no need to invoke a magical soul.

Are we really to suppose there might be supernatural and spooky entities and influences -- such as souls, magic, spirits, demons and what have you-- which somehow escapes the steely gaze of science, and to achieve this by having such supernatural entities exert no measurable influence on reality whatsoever! Why should we believe in the existence of the non-physical, which, by definition, our measuring instruments cannot detect?

People need to get real!

I have got real . .at last, finally I have got real. I now fully admit to my previous error in thinking there is an afterlife. Or sky daddies, or anything else magical. Let us henceforth trust what SCIENCE is telling us about the world.


HA HA!!!....No, not really ...APRIL FOOLS!!! 

It is very unsatisfactory

Just thinking. In 2 billion years time, the Earth will be completely devoid of all life. A hot, barren husk. All signs that human beings eve...