Snowflake Spirituality

I was staring out of my window, watching snow flurries and thinking about the essence of being. Philosophies and religions have long grappled with trying to understand and explain the human spirit, the soul, throughout time. I have a distinct and solid understanding, and thought of a useful metaphor for it as I watched the flurries descend. Definitions of "the soul" generally include total individuality and immaterial nature. It is that which makes each of us unique, it manifests as long as we live, growing and changing within us, and then instantly vanishes from view as we die. In most religions, the question then is asked, "Where does it go?" Consider the snowflake. It begins as a small cluster of water molecules up in a cloud at the boundary of vapor and mist. As it hovers in the wind currents, it grows and evolves. The species (chemical formula) determines the basic nature, a flat hexagon. So why is every one different? Because they grow in subtly different mixes of molecules and temperatures. Each becomes an individual. When they grow heavy enough to drop below the cloud line, they are born as falling snowflakes. But they have not finished growing. They continue to sublime and to collect molecules. As with any system, they increase in complexity and purity as they encounter random or systematic changes in environment. Sometimes they merge, often they fracture. Finally they reach the ground. Some settle into clusters, becoming packed into a solid layer, and even all the way to ice. Others hit something warm and melt. In either case, what has become of the individual essence? It's parts get recycled into other forms, compacted or melted, evaporated or metabolized. Eventually, all of the above. But the unique form is gone. Where did the unique shape of this snowflake go? When we die, our spirit, soul, self is gone. It can remain in the memory of others, carried forward by our neighbors or impressions made on the environment. Like a melted snowflake. In what way is the end of snowflake self any different than the end of a human self? Granted, humans are able to ask this question. And human life is naturally rated more highly by humans than the unique individuality of other creatures and things. But besides that?

Continue ReadingSnowflake Spirituality

Human imperfections as proof that we evolved

Rob Dunn of the Smithsonian highlights ten human perfections as evidence that we evolved. "From hiccups to wisdom teeth, the evolution of homo sapiens has left behind some glaring, yet innately human, imperfections." What human features made the list? 1. The fact that mitochondria became the prey for our cells. 2. Hiccups. The original function? Our ancestors who were fish and early amphibians "pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down." 3. Backaches. Learning how to stand up gave us the ability to see farther, and it gave us freedom to make better use of our hands. But the resulting "S" shaped back is not a good design for supporting our considerable weight. 4. Unsupported intestines. Standing up made them hang down "instead of being cradled by our stomach muscles." this often leads to hernias. 5. Choking. In most animals, the esophagus is below the trachea. This allows us to speak, but allow falling food and water "about a 50-50 chance of falling in the wrong tube." 6. We're cold in the winter. We lost our fur, and this proves that evolution is blind as to where we will end up. 7. Goosebumps. They are good for making our fur stand up when we look bigger to scare away a potential predator. But See #6: we lost our fur. 8. Our brains squeeze our teeth. Bigger brains left less room for big jaws. I'm not convinced that the big brain came first, however. I've read accounts that suggest that fire lead to less need for big jaws to chew uncooked food, which lead to more room for the brain. 9. Obesity. Those strong cravings for sugar, salt and fat were great when we lived on the savanna, where these things are scarce. In our current food-rich environment, these ancient cravings are toxic for most of us. 10. Rob Dunn makes this the miscellaneous category. He includes male nipples, blind spots in our eyes, and our coccyx (a bone that used to be our tail).

Continue ReadingHuman imperfections as proof that we evolved

Beauty as a Darwinian concept

Philosopher of Art Dennis Dutton gives a succinct description of art as a Darwinian concept. He begins his well illustrated talk by noting that many disparate things are seen to be "beautiful," most of those cross-culturally. What is it about all beautiful things? For instance, we all prefer landscapes with trees, water, animal and plant life and paths extending into the distance. This preference is universal, and this type of landscape has been termed the "ideal landscape." It also offers protection, water and food. Dutton argues that beauty is an adaptive effect that we extend and intensify in the enjoyment of works of art and entertainment. Natural selection explains many of out attractions and repulsions in art. But Darwin's theory of sexual selection is equally applicable; it functions as fitness signals. This function goes all the way back to pre-lingual hand-axes, many of which have been intricately carved and never used to actually cut anything. They did serve, however, as a display of competence, and that is yet another universal aspect of beauty: Beauty is the appreciation of something well done. Lovers of beauty especially love virtuoso performances.

Continue ReadingBeauty as a Darwinian concept

Religion: It’s almost like being in love

You know how it is when someone is in the first throes of infatuation. We call it "love," but it's very different than the kind of relationship that eventually develops. Or doesn't develop. Think of all of those young couples "in love" who are at each other's throats only a couple years later. While they are in the romantic love stage, they are "caught up in the emotion." Their lover can do no wrong. Their lover is perfect. Their lover has no faults; oh, sure he or she has idiosyncrasies, but nothing that could possibly impede this relationship. At least not until the fairy dust settles and they are able to start seeing each other as flawed human beings, sometimes horribly flawed. Amazing as it seems, strong emotions can cause massive distortions in perceptions. They can make A look like Not-A. Strong emotions can also completely shut down our ability to think self-critically. How is it possible that perceptions and understanding can be massively distorted by emotion? How is it that a violent drunkard kleptomaniac can initially seem like a nice fellow? That's evolution at work. As Robert Wright once wrote in The Moral Animal, emotions are "evolution's executioners." We have deep instincts for falling in love, for losing control, for blinding ourselves to the other's faults so that we will make babies. I should restate this. It's not that evolution is trying to do anything at all. Evolution is not conscious and it has no plan. On the other hand, we are survivors at the top of a long branch of the tree of speciation. You and I and all of our ancestors have survived Nature's amoral pruning, millennium after millennium. We are extremely lucky that we evaded the weeding phase of breed and weed. The unrelenting reproductive urge, the one thing that every one of our ancestors had in spades, has been passed on to us or we wouldn't be here to ponder anything. ALL of our ancestors had it and acted on it: the compulsion to reproduce--the urge to merge. This ancient instinct is ubiquitous, even though, once in a while, a cigar is only a cigar. What is the most efficient way to make animals reproduce? How about this? Blind them to each others' faults and make them horny. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingReligion: It’s almost like being in love

Deeply and ineffably religious, on the couch

One of the biggest mistakes one can make when trying to figure out people, in my opinion, is to assume that conscious thoughts in the form of words do most of the work of cognition. I believe this has it upside down, and that 90% of the engine our cognitive engine is not available to consciousness--it is subconscious and not available for introspection. It is a huge foundational mistake to ignore Freud's recognition that a large and powerful portion of the mind is not conscious. This is an especially important thing to note for those who cling to the notion that they can explain human behavior on the basis that it is generally rational. This mistake is compounded by the fact that humans are exquisitely good at confabulating, both consciously and unconsciously. We drum up ex-temporary reasons for our decisions post facto. We don't really know why we do the things we do but we brashly claim that we do know why we do the things we do.

Continue ReadingDeeply and ineffably religious, on the couch