Tag Archives: science

“As a god self slain on his own strange altar death lies dead”

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As I stood at the Customer Services counter, in the supermarket, the strains of that beautiful hymn, Abide With Me, played by the Salvation Army came wafting through the open door,

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see—

O Thou who changest not, abide with me”.

One does not need to be religious (I am an agnostic) to appreciate the power of this wonderful music. As I listened the fragility of life was brought home to me. How, in the blink of an eye that life which is so precious to most of us can be snuffed out.

The message of Abide With Me is that death is inevitable and that Christians call on God in times of trouble “in life, in death” to abide with them. Yet there has, since the birth of story telling been tales of people wishing to avoid death. In Chaucer’s The Pardoners Tale, for example a group of revellers in Flanders incensed at the death of their friend swear vengeance against death. In their quest to destroy him the drunken revellers come across an old man and question him regarding where death can be found. The elderly man tells the men they will find death under a tree. On reaching the spot they discover a pile of treasure and forget all about death. The youngest of the group goes off to procure wine while his 2 friends remain behind to guard the treasure. While the youngest of the group is absent his friends determine to murder him on his return so as to secure the treasure for themselves. On his return they murder him and fall to drinking the wine he has procured. However their friend, wishing to retain the whole treasure has poisoned the wine and the 2 men die in agony.

In The Pardoners Tale all 3 men find death in the form of treasure which leads to their destruction. The revellers perhaps also meet death personified in the shape of the elderly man who directs them to the treasure. However as the elderly man is, himself seeking death some have argued that he is not, in fact death but simply an elderly man who is (as he himself says) in search of death.

The Pardoners Tale derides the notion that one can escape death. Any attempt to avoid “that fel sergeant death” is futile and may actually hasten his approach.

A school of thought known as Transhumanism has grown up which postulates that all human suffering and even death itself can be vanquished by the onward march of technological progress. If we can slow down and (eventually) switch off the gene which causes ageing it will be possible to extend life indefinitely they argue. Other Transhumanists place their faith in artificial intelligence. At some point in the future they contend it will be possible to download (or upload) one’s consciousness into artificial brains which, in time can be placed into new artificial bodies thereby enabling the individual to live on long after there biological brain has ceased to function. Some Transhumanists, for example the inventor Ray Kurzweil believe that people will be able to choose whether to continue their existence (after uploading) in either the real world or virtual reality (I.E. on the internet). Consequently the future invisioned by Transhumanists is one in which death ceases to exist or becomes an option which may be embraced (optionally) by a few Transhumanists in the new utopia.

Will The Pardoner or the Transhumanists have the last laugh I wonder?

Paradise By Kevin Morris

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Show me paradise where information pumps like an ever flowing river through the brain. Show me Eden where we are always connected, where sad thoughts are drowned out by the chatter of the information superhighway. Show me happiness where chips smaller than a grain of sand control our emotions, where reality and the virtual meet, but to what end? Show me pleasure unbounded, love without strings where virtual partners fulfil our wildest dreams. Show me a world of smiling, happy people where the god of pleasure reigns and I will show you a kind of hell.

Computer Fools Humans Into Believing That It Is One Of Us

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Apologies for the previous post which contained a wholly erroneous link. I am, obviously a human for computers do, as we all know never make mistakes! There follows below the post I meant to publish!

The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing has been passed by a computer at London’s Royal Society. Turing postulated that if a machine could convince at least 30 percent of users communicating with it via text chat that it was human then the test would have been passed. This is a milestone in the field of artificial intelligence and as with all such developments possesses the potential to produce great good and (if misused) significant ill for humanity. For the article please go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10884839/Computer-passes-Turing-Test-for-the-first-time-after-convincing-users-it-is-human.html

Richard Dawkins Believes Fairytales May Be Harmful

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Richard Dawkins is a very clever man but his militant atheism is just as bigoted as the religiosity of fundamentalist believers, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/professor-richard-dawkins-claims-fairy-tales-are-harmful-to-children-9489287.html

How The Blind Dream

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My friend John sent me the following link to an article in National Geographic regarding how the blind dream, http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/26/how-the-blind-dream/. Having lost most of my vision at approximately 18-months-old as a consequence of a blood clot on the brain I was interested to read the results of the research which included both sighted and non-sighted participants.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the study for me was the finding that blind people appear to experience more nightmares than sighted people. Such nightmares included being hit by a car and losing their guide dog which are, as the author of the article states very real threats if you happen to be blind. Next time I meet up with my friends all of whom are sighted I’ll be sure to ask them about their dreams although certain types of dream are, no doubt better glossed over …

Darwin Day Lecture 2014 – How To Make A Human

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On Tuesday evening I received a call from my friend John. It was good news as he had managed to obtain 2 tickets for the Darwin Day Lecture, How To Make A Human which takes place on 12 February 2014, https://humanism.org.uk/civi/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/event/info&page=CiviCRM&id=41&snippet=2. I have some issues with Humanism (the lecture is hosted by The British Humanist Association) but, none the less the event promises to be an interesting one.

As an aside, for anyone who is interested, my issue with Humanism is that many Humanists are, in my experience just as dogmatic in their assertions regarding the non-existence of God as religious people are in their’s that he exists. I am, in contrast an agnostic, one who sits on the fence. The only problem with sitting on the fence is, of course that I risk getting splinters in a rather delicate place!

 

Kevin

Death Watch

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The autumn sun slanted down through the branches of the great oaks which lined the woodland path. It was a wonderful place to run and Tony relished every moment of his runs in Barclays woods. The scents of autumn and the feel of the leaves beneath his pounding feet made it feel good to be alive.

From time to time Tony glanced at his watch. At first glance it was an unremarkable timepiece, a cheap digital watch which you might pick up in any store which stocked watches. On closer examination however it became clear that this was no ordinary timepiece. The date and time features where augmented by a counter which showed the anticipated demise of Tony Parkin. Imperceptibly as the growing of grass the counter moved towards “death day”.

Tony had filled in an online questionnaire regarding his medical history and that of his family. Once completed his age was deducted from the results to predict his “death date”.

Tony felt the sheer joy of being alive coursing through his veins. Neither he or his family had any history of heart disease or any other serious medical condition. While he enjoyed the odd drink, 6-7 pints of mild beer consumed over a week could in no way be viewed as excessive. Tony ate all the right foods and ran every day. There was no reason why a man of 24, in peak condition as he was shouldn’t live well into his 70’s or longer. Indeed the watch predicted that Tony would draw his last breath at the age of 81.

As he ran Tony became aware of a young woman running in the opposite direction. Tony had a girlfriend but this had never prevented him from admiring other women. There was after all no harm in looking. Tony gazed approvingly at the girl’s shapely long legs in her skimpy running shorts. She really was a looker.

He never saw the tree trunk which had fallen across the path. Even had he spotted it the speed at which he was running would, almost certainly not have allowed him sufficient time to avoid the obstacle. He fell head first over the log. There was a crack like a bough breaking.

The girl stirred in horror at the prone man. Even without her training as a nurse the impossible angle at which Tony’s neck was twisted clearly indicated that Tony Parkin was no more.

 

(The above story was prompted by a recent article in The Daily Mail which can be accessed here, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2448539/Tikker-watch-shows-countdown-death.html).

Book Review: Eugenics And Other Evils By G K Chesterton

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I recently read Eugenics And Other Evils by G K Chesterton, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0082XCCNK?ie=UTF8&ref_=oce_digital_UK. Chesterton wrote at a time when eugenics was gaining ground. Politicians ranging from Will Crooks on the left (Crooks was a member of the British Labour Party) and Winston Churchill (at one time a Liberal but later a Conservative) advocated eugenic measures while intellectuals such as the Webbs joined in championing such ideas.

In essence Chesterton argues that old-style capitalists/individualists such as Cobden and Bright had believed that the capitalist system would in time uplift the condition of the poor through increased prosperity. As time went on it became apparent that the condition of the mass of the population was not improving. The wealthy members of society became alarmed by what they saw as the deteriation in the quality of the population and the stubborn problem of pauperism so became receptive to the arguments of the advocates of eugenics. Likewise many on the left embraced eugenic measures out of a belief that social planning of which eugenics should form an integral part could improve the condition of the working classes.

While Chesterton rejected capitalism as it existed at the time of writing he was no fan of socialism either. He saw both systems as seeking to control people. In his view capitalism denyed the poor property by paying them insufficient wages thereby preventing the accumulation of property. Socialism on the other hand saw property as the cause of social evils and actively saught to limit or prevent it’s accumulation. Chesterton advocates a middle course in which property is widely distributed thereby enhancing the independence of the population and uplifting the condition of the poor. Widely distributed property rather than eugenic measures are, in Chesterton’s view the answer to the widespread pauperism which he condemns in Eugenics and other Evils.

So what where the eugenic measures which Chesterton attacks?

In 1912 the British Parliament passed a bill allowing for the separation of “the feeble minded” from the rest of the population. The term feeble minded was not well defined and led to the confinement in institutions of everyone from the genuinely mentally ill to those with minor learning difficulties and unmarried mothers. Pauperism was seen by many eugenicists as a disease the cure for which was to prevent so far as was possible the breeding of those afflicted by it.

In the UK there was no mass sterilisation programme despite it’s advocacy by many eugenicists. However in the United States organisations such as the Eugenics Records Office under the leadership of Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin played a leading role in persuading American states to introduce sterilisation programmes under which those with various forms of disabilities and unmarried mothers (among others) where sterilised. Nazi eugenicists modelled the German eugenics law on the law drawn up by Laughlin although in Germany, unlike America sterilisation lead on to mass killing of disabled people under the Action T4 Programme.

After World War II eugenics fell out of fashion as a consequence of the atrocities committed under the Nazis but also due to advances in science which showed flaws in eugenics (E.G. few now believe that the poor are poor due to genetic defects).

Chesterton wrote Eugenics and other Evils in 1922. Given the abuses committed in the name of eugenics his book was remarkably prescient.

Amnesia – a story by a writer other than me worth checking out

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I came across this story, Amnesia which is rather thought provoking http://markovicharts.com/2013/07/20/amnesia/. There exist philosophers who argue in favour of the procedure outlined in the forgoing fictional account. See, for example the following link to the philosopher David Pearce’s website http://www.hedweb.co.uk/.

The Long Shadow of the Past

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On 16 July I published a story entitled “An Act of Mercy” (http://newauthoronline.com/2013/07/16/an-act-of-mercy/). In “An Act of Mercy” the government has introduced a eugenics programme under which those with mental and physical disabilities are eliminated as in the opinion of the authorities they are unproductive and place an unacceptable burden on society.

The view of disabled people as “useless eaters” and “life unworthy of life” lead to the forced sterilisation and (later) murder of many mentally and physically disabled people under the so-called Action T4 Programme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4), however the atrocities of the Third Reich where forshadowed in other countries long before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In the United Kingdom legislation was introduced in 1912 aimed at segregating the “feeble minded” from other “healthy” members of the community. Feble minded could mean anyone a doctor deemed to fall into that category. Thus unmarried mothers became lumped together with people with mild learning disabilities and where segregated from their fellow citizens.

Support for eugenics was not a matter of party politics. The Webbs (both prominent members of the socialist Fabian Society) where strong supporters as was Winston Churchill (in 1912 a Liberal but later a Conservative politician).

In both the USA and the UK eugenics societies played a leading role in arguing for eugenic measures. In the USA legislation went further than the measures introduced in the UK with many sterilisations of the “unfit” being carried out on individuals against their will. Nazi Germany modelled it’s sterilisation law on US legislation and at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals accused of forceably sterilising the disabled the accused pointed to what had been happening in the USA in their defence.

Some supporters of eugenics where no doubt genuinely horrified at the use to which their theories had been put by Nazi doctors and the term eugenics fell out of favour largely as a consequence of the abuses perpetrated by the Third Reich. However some have argued that proponents of eugenics such as Leonard Darwin (the son of Charles Darwin) helped to create the atmosphere in which atrocities could be commited. The leading American eugenicist Charles Davenport openly expressed his admiration for the German’s eugenics programme (see http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/themes/25.html).

Eugenics is a fascinating subject and I will write more on it in future.