LIVING....AND DYING

LIVING....AND DYING

Life is possible only because it is inexorably linked with death. Although we recognised death from a very early stage in our lives, it was something that was there in the background, and we didn’t pay much attention to it and indeed tended to avoid thinking about it as it was not pleasant to be reminded that you and your loved ones are transient. I use the word transient in a relative sense. What is transient is a matter of perception. Your life is transient compared to the life of the Universe! and almost eternal compared to that of a dragonfly.

I am of the opinion that although there are many reasons for the arising of religion, one powerful stimulus was the desire to “extend” your life. Some sort of afterlife is part of all religious beliefs. It provides some comfort and a basis for moral laws. We all like to see “good” being rewarded and “bad” being punished. When examining this, Man inevitably sees something extraordinary beyond his capacity to understand how this operates. He sees a possible mechanism for this to operate through a God or Gods or some “spiritual law”. This causes problems such as why so much hardship and sadness exists in the presence of a God who is apparently either choosy, hasn’t got the power, or is non-existent. Any doubt about the power He is alleged to have is overcome by a belief or faith that, although it appears so, we cannot appreciate the true nature of the grand design. What we see as His failure is in fact our failure.

Man requires some sort of “immediate” reassurance when in difficulty. The Buddhist concept of Nirvana is too distant and is of little help in these situations, hence the intermingling of mainly Hindu concepts, such as worshipping deities and inanimate objects, such as statutes, throughout the cultural history of Buddhism. They can postpone the attainment of Nirvana for a future birth but do enough good now to keep their merit score high enough not to stray from the path.

What am I leading to? Firstly, to accept that death is real and without it, paradoxically, life is not possible. Secondly, we cannot take our material possessions with us at the journey's end. Thirdly, if human beings have the capacity to determine what the absolute “truth” is, they have not yet done so. If they had done so conclusively, there would be only one Religion. I think we must recognise the importance of faith (saddha), reverence and the comfort it provides to many. We can debate and form our conclusions on an intellectual dimension, but this is separate from aspects of human need.

The final question is whether we have the capacity to understand reality by mere intuition or through rational sifting of evidence through learning. The Buddhist philosophy implies that intuition is possible.

This leads me to believe we should be humble, understand the needs of others, be empathetic, be nonjudgmental, and think beyond the material universe. Death reminds us of our common destiny, the need to live in the present, and the need to cultivate our minds more than our physical aspects.

EVOLUTION, MORALITY, NATURAL SELECTION, ADAPTATION, SURVIVAL. SELFISH GENE

EVOLUTION, MORALITY, NATURAL SELECTION, ADAPTATION, SURVIVAL. SELFISH GENE

Mahendra February 10^th , 2024

Welcome to my first post in 2024. 

The Theory of Evolution is now almost universally accepted as a scientific fact. There are aspects within the general theory that are very clear and unambiguous, but some of the terms used above create some ambiguity.

The use of the term “selfish” is unfortunate as it implies “agency”. Only an agent (a sentient being with an image of self) can be selfish. To say that a gene is selfish implies that it has agency. Of course, it may not have been used in a literal sense, but it has caused a lot of damage as it has made evolution appear to promote selfish societies with no moral values.

The ultimate mechanism for spontaneous variation and evolution of change over time is the random mutations that occur in genes. As I understand it, these are entirely random and can manifest physically (? And non-physically) as a whole range of possibilities. These possibilities are also random and not directed in any way. What then happens is purely a result of those that have a better reproductive or survival value being “chosen”, and not by a thing that chooses but by the simple fact of what is best suited to survive. If evolution is driven directly via mutations which are needed, that implies that the environment somehow dictates the mutation process to follow a favourable path. This is not so. A whole random range is produced, and the winner is the one with the best chance to survive, merely through a perfectly natural process, and those produced which are not suitable just do not survive. This explains why evolution has to be thought of in the context of a massive scale of time. If purposeful mutation has occurred, the whole process would be shortened, but… an explanation is then required on how these purposeful mutations occur, and it will be very tempting to postulate a grand designer. 

Survival must be considered in the context of time (age) and species. In the lowest form, physical attributes will play a large part, such as a long neck (giraffe) or number of limbs, flexibility of joints, skin pigmentation, presence of hair etc. But at a higher level, surely behavioural characteristics must come into play. If that is so, it then implies that behavioural characteristics must also be heritable so that the advantage that promoted survival must be transmissible to the next generation, which is key and central to the theory of evolution. 

It is often mistakenly thought (in my view) that favourable behavioural characteristics have an underlying moral principle. This has the danger of making nature “personal” and possibly the design of a higher power. In my view, it is just basic material sense that drives the process. This explains why “bad” things still happen, as, in a purely mechanistic sense, a “bad” thing could be the best solution. But if we think of survival and its importance, then it is clear that as species become more and more complex, attributes such as cooperative behaviour, empathy, loving-kindness, and generosity will enhance the propagation of a species. “Moral” behaviour then becomes sensible behaviour to be automatically encouraged or supported by the process of evolution. This, again, needs a long-term perspective. We must not think that we can change the nature of future species or our own species by short-term measures applicable to the infinitely tiny time we occupy the universe If behavioural changes are heritable, then they will influence future generations and future species in a direction that we consider “moral”, but as it is a process of automatic selection and not driven by a designed perfect mechanism, there will always be heterogeneity in species behaviour as well as in species physical attributes.

We are also not slaves to evolution as a society; we must understand evolution but not treat it as something we cannot influence. We must not fall into the trap of determinism and inevitability. We must also keep reminding ourselves that to think of Evolution, we must think long-term. The whole process is driven by the need for survival, mediated via genes and natural selection. To murder your opponent sometimes may be a good strategy purely in terms of survival, but our intervention with the moral aspects of such a deed will create a better Society and inevitably, if behaviour traits are heritable, create better societies in the future; but it won't happen overnight, not even in a few generations.

We owe a lot to Charles Darwin for his research and intellectual abilities. But we must not forget the contribution of Alfred Russel Wallace, who almost simultaneously had the same thoughts as Darwin. Until the theory of evolution was propounded, it was not easy to debunk the Designer theory favoured by theistic religions. Evolution provides the best explanation for the blindingly vast variety of life and its progression through so many different stages in the space of millions of years. But in my mind, the emergence of a sophisticated animal which Home Sapiens is, and so different in intellectual capacity to any other animal past or present, quite so late in the scale of time living beings have existed, still needs an answer.