There is another fatty acid, capric acid, which is just like the other two except that it has yet two more carbon atoms in its main chain. A dog that had never met capric acid would perhaps have no more trouble imagining its smell than we would have trouble imagining a trumpet playing one note higher than we have heard a trumpet play before. It seems to me entirely reasonable to guess that a dog, or a rhinoceros, might treat mixtures of smells as harmonious chords. Perhaps there are discords. Probably not melodies, for melodies are built up of notes that start or stopabruptly with accurate timing, unlike smells. Or perhaps dogs and rhinos smell in colour. The argument would be the same as for the bats.
Once again, the perceptions that we call colours are tools used by our brains to label important distinctions in the outside world. Perceived hues - what philosophers call qualia - have no intrinsic connection with lights of particular wavelengths. They are internal labels that are available to the brain, when it constructs its model of external reality, to make distinctions that are especially salient to the animal concerned. In our case, or that of a bird, that means light of different wavelengths. In a bat's case, I have speculated, it light be surfaces of different echoic properties or textures, perhaps red for shiny, blue for velvety, green for abrasive. And in a dog's or a rhino's case, why should it not be smells? The power to imagine the alien world of a bat or a rhino, a pond skater or a mole, a bacterium or a bark beetle, is one of the privileges science grants us when it tugs at the black cloth of our burka and shows us the wider range of what is out there for our delight.
The metaphor of Middle World - of the intermediate range of phenomena that the narrow slit in our burka permits us to see - applies to yet other scales or 'spectrums'. We can construct a scale of improbabilities, with a similarly narrow window through which our intuition and imagination are capable of going. At one extreme of the spectrum of improbabilities are those would-be events that we call impossible. Miracles are events that are extremely improbable. A statue of a madonna could wave its hand at us. The atoms that make up its crystalline structure are all vibrating back and forth. Because there are so many of them, and because there is no agreed preference in their direction of motion, the hand, as we see it in Middle World, stays rock steady. But the jiggling atoms in the hand could all just happen to move in the same direction at the same time. And again. And again . . . In this case the hand would move, and we'd see it waving at us. It could happen, but the odds against are so great that, if you had set out writing the number at the origin of the universe, you still would not have written enough zeroes to this day. The power to calculate such odds - the power to
quantify the near-impossible rather than just throw up our hands in despair - is another example of the liberating benefactions of science to the human spirit.
Evolution in Middle World has ill equipped us to handle very improbable events. But in the vastness of astronomical space, or geological time, events that seem impossible in Middle World turn out to be inevitable. Science flings open the narrow window through which we are accustomed to viewing the spectrum of possibilities. We are liberated by calculation and reason to visit regions of possibility that had once seemed out of bounds or inhabited by dragons. We have already made use of this widening of the window in Chapter 4, where we considered the improbability of the origin of life and how even a near-impossible chemical event must come to pass given enough planet years to play with; and where we considered the spectrum of possible universes, each with its own set of laws and constants, and the anthropic necessity of finding ourselves in one of the minority of friendly places.
How should we interpret Haldane's 'queerer than we can suppose'? Queerer than can, in principle, be supposed? Or just queerer than we can suppose, given the limitation of our brains' evolutionary apprenticeship in Middle World? Could we, by training and practice, emancipate ourselves from Middle World, tear off our black burka, and achieve some sort of intuitive - as well as just mathematical - understanding of the very small, the very large, and the very fast? I genuinely don't know the answer, but I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may eventually discover that there are no limits.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The Last Two Pages of The God Delusion
The following is the text of the final two pages of The God Delusion. A New York father claims biology classes and this book by Richard Dawkins drove his 22-year-old son, a military veteran, to suicide. A bookmark was found between these pages.
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6 comments:
I was once a Christian. A Catholic. I believed in it, even considered priesthood.
But I read philosophy books and science books, and my religion was obliterated. I was happy about it, because I had always been skeptical. Now I had evidence to back up my skepticism. I am now a happy atheist.
However, I did go through a period of nihilistic thoughts, the kind described in the article. Thoughts like, "nothing matter, what's the point?" Thoughts like these can drive a person into a deep depression, and indeed, I became depressed. But a single thought lifted me out of that pit: so what if everything's pointless, I am going to enjoy life!
Since then I have been as happy as a little girl.
I think the 22-year-old in question committed suicide because he did not know how to handle the stress of having his faith shattered before his eyes. He'd been raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, who taught him that everything in the Bible is 100% true. Finding out that this is bullshit would have had a huge negative effect on his psyche.
On top of that, he was a veteran. Veterans are very prone to suicide thanks to post-traumatic stress disorder.
No one is to blame for his death other than himself. He lacked the ability to overcome the grief of losing his religion.
Blaming his death on atheists, though, only perpetuates the fear and confusion and distrust that engulfs atheism in this country.
Andrew, my story is nearly identical to your own. I was raised in a Catholic family, went to Catholic grammar and high schools, went through all the Catholic sacraments, etc. However, I, too, began having doubts at a very early age. None of it ever made any sense to me, and by the time I got to high school, I starting rebeling against all the indoctrination in earnest.
And, like you, when I was in my later teens and early twenties, I went through a very nihilistic phase where I felt that nothing in life really mattered and, "what's the point?" was sort of like my mantra.
Also, again, like you, I came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is whatever you make it. I began to see that the meaning comes from within you, not from outside of you. Once I was able to accept that, my anger at and depression about the world subsided, and I was finally able to move on.
Now I'm 45 and am completely free of those feelings of guilt and fear that I experienced when I shrugged off my yoke of religion. My family, especially those of my father's generation, think it's "shameful" (in the words of one of my aunts), but to me, the shame is on them for staunchly clinging to a belief system that has no supportive evidence other than a self-authenticating book.
The death of this 22-year-old is sad and unfortunate, and I truly feel bad for his family, especially his father, who seems, from what I've read, to be taking his loss extremely hard (and understandably so). However, I think the boy's family and the social context in which the boy was raised are the more likely culprits. The boy was raised to believe certain outrageous, nonsensical ideas, and he most likely had been sheltered from contradictory ideas to the extent that when he finally came face-to-face with one (and an extremely powerful one presented by an extremely gifted man), he simply wasn't equipped to deal with it, and chose to lay down and die instead.
Overall, this boy's death is very sad, but it clearly cannot be blamed on a book, and the father is going to have to come to terms with that if he wants to move on with his life. If he doesn't, he's basically following his son's action of lying down and dying.
To further what both Tom and Andrew have stated, I'd just like to add one little note.
I'm not sure if either of you grew up in very strictly Christian households, but I suspect not. His depression might have been that much deeper than what you experienced, because not only did he have his own faith shattered, but he had strict parents who he'd have to hide his atheism from. For him, this became more similar to the homosexual who faces disowning if he comes out to his parents. Quite likely, too, a good deal of his friends, and certainly the majority of the people he really cared for, were rather strict Christians, as well. He was facing a world where all of them would look down upon his lack of faith, and possibly even cut him off. I suspect that this, the fear of loosing the people he cares for, is really the culprit. It's quite likely he only needed to be accepted by a sibling or parent, but never tried to get that acceptance or was turned down.
A similar situation happened to one of my dear friends, Eric.
All throughout school, he excelled; top of the class, always on the honor roll, and even won the spelling bee. His father was a book salesman, so there were thousands of books at his disposal, and he took full advantage.
Then, about half-way through high school, Eric became distant and soon revealed he was an atheist. We lived in a rural, Midwestern town of 1,700 people that had 6 churches. One of which, an apostolic church, was enormous. Eric took a lot of shit from students and even faculty members for being a non-believer. He even got into arguments with some of the more overtly religious teachers. I, an agnostic at the time, stayed out of these confrontations for fear of being ostracized as Eric had. He became more and more distant and more and more angry as the months went on.
About a month into senior year, Eric went home and shot himself.
I was chosen to be a pallbearer and talked with his family in depth for the first time. They couldn't believe that he really felt this way. I still don't know how long they knew of his beliefs or how religious they truly were. It was the typical religious funeral (methodist) with prayer, may he rest in heaven, etc. etc. I couldn't help but think the whole time about how infuriated he would have been with all the religious bullshit. How his family contradicted themselves knowing that atheists and suicides don't go to heaven. But, I couldn't say anything to the family of course, they were going through enough.
I think what drove Eric to suicide was loneliness. He was ostracized by his family, teachers, and peers. There was no one like him. He had no one.
I thought a lot about religion after his death. Then I read "god is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens and it thoroughly convinced me to dismiss theism.
Eric was a very smart and courageous kid. I can't help but think that if I had the courage to challenge the system earlier, than maybe he would have had someone to share his ideas with and wouldn't have been so alone. It also makes me think how many kids feel alone with their beliefs, and how many don't speak out for fear of being ostracized.
"I think what drove Eric to suicide was loneliness."
It's such sad irony isn't it? After all, that's exactly why Dawkins wrote this book. He says he wants people to understand that the doubts they have and the contradictions they see are not crazy, they are normal, and there are many people out there like you.
A sad and unfortunate event to be sure. If only this boys' ignorant father would open his eyes.
You can't blame a book.
My deconversion had the opposite effect. As a believer I despaired often that an all powerful God refused to guide me or respond to my prayers in any discernable manner. I had lost my brother to suicide and was told by Catholics that he was in Hell. I was readily prepared to accept this as fact, if it were so. Once I discovered that the center of my life was based solely on myth, and that theology itself is as soft as(as Dawkins puts it) Fairyology, it was like some inner light TURNED ON. I was free. I was free of confusion, and cloudy half-assed methodologies that religion calls "a pursuit of truth."
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