DELUSIONS — Pragmatic Realism

by Stanislaw Kapuscinski (aka Stan I. S. Law)

  Well, my friends, soon, as of tomorrow (you’ll understand in Chapter 20), we will have to learn to rely on our own resources. People are proud of mostly other peoples’ knowledge, which they managed to acquire. Learned books, lectures, impress us. The more learned one appears to be, the more quotations and diverse references will he or she make to impress the reader or listener. While such knowledge is a useful starting point, true knowledge, or better said, knowingness, comes from within. It doesn’t begin in Kindergarten, or even in School. It only begins at the level of University whence each one of us will be completely responsible for our own development. Regardless how natural selection has disposed us. We take over the reins.

  The kindergarten is over, as is the school, and we are now approaching adulthood; we can already walk on our hind legs, using hands to research masses of experts who will gladly offer us their dubious expertise. For a fee, of course. Or on TV. Or… anywhere?

  Good luck.

  It’s hard to believe that, for the most part, the knowledge is already within us. Yes. We, our subconscious, is the repository of millions, perhaps billions, of years of evolution. Some Bible-thumping experts will reduce the period to just 6000 years. Take your choice. Either way, even 6000 years ain’t bad, but I’ll settle for a few million.

  The expertise is within us.

  To rely on our senses in full knowledge that, for the most part, what we see, touch, smell or otherwise detect with our sensory organs is mostly empty space, is childish, immature, and completely devoid of any semblance of Pragmatic Realism. And surely, sooner of or later, we must all become pragmatic. Or, at least, realists. Why not combine the two now?

  We must find other means to sate our desire for knowledge. Religions and science have failed us. The experts pervading all areas of our society are competing for the lowest levels of human intellectual capacity. Have we missed something? Something, perhaps, buried in our murky, hoary past? Shouldn’t we at least look?

  Returning to Atheist’s Delusion.

  Only at the very end of Chapter 4 of his book the God Delusion, Dawkins limits the concept of Darwinian evolution to biology. He mentions the subject once or twice, before, but does not make it clear. Surely, this assurance should have been made clear at the very outset of his book. People grappling with the concept of evolution very rarely take the biological aspect into consideration at all. They regard the biological product of evolution as no more than a means, a tool, through which human mind, human psyche, finds its expression.

  One cannot avoid the impression that Dawkins equates himself, and more than likely all of us, with our biological constructs. He repeats this sentiment in chapter 5: “Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution…”

  I am tempted to suggest that he ought to speak for himself, and himself only. I am equally as tempted to say that I’d consider his opinion to be flagrant fundamentalism, invariably resulting in dogmatic conclusions. We are not the products of Darwinian evolution. Our bodies are.

  My thesis has nothing to do with any religion. The bard of Avon once wrote: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. Was he also wrong? Whether one plays the role of a writer, a physician, a poet or a scientist or, indeed, a biologist, all these are no more than transient roles that our evolved consciousness enables us to enact. Does our consciousness have anything to do with our bodies? Of course it does. As much as a driver at the wheel has—over his splendid Rolls-Royce.

  PART THREE — FUTURE

  “I make all things new.”

  Revelation 21:5

  Chapter 15

  Fundamentalism in Religion and Science

  Instead of trying to cover the whole world with leather, put on some sandals.

  Shantaideva

  8th century Indian Buddhist scholar

  By mid-21st century, the Turing test invented by Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS, an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientists, will have been passed, by a supercomputer, affectionately named Big Brother. Broadly speaking, the test was intended to prove that the output from a computer is indistinguishable from that of a human being. Only, a lot faster. Looking into my crystal ball, I predict that within a few years, all computers will have this capacity. In fact, we, humans, will slowly become redundant. Thinking will be done for us.

  All of us—but a few?

  Ray Kurzweil’s predictions in his book, The Singularity is Near, will have been fulfilled to the letter. Since we, as species, like to make all things, including gods, in our image, the computers would ‘talk’ to us in a human-sounding voice.

  Below is an example of a lecture we can expect to hear, in years to come, directly from a computer. The few people, who will not have submitted to the neuroses of the masses, will have programmed lectures in an attempt to free mankind from false assumptions.

  “According to our memory banks, the biblical quote, “I make all things new,” has been studiously ignored by the Christians, who prefer to make a few adaptations to the old Mosaic teaching, rather than to take the trouble to try and understand what the New Teacher had to say.

  Our sensors tell us that most people still believe that the world perceived by their senses is real. So do most people who regard themselves to be scientists. This latter group includes people who claim to be objective in their judgments. We know the world is real to all of us, but we rely exclusively on electronic reality. Yet our memory banks are no more than individual electronic impulses we can draw on to arrive at pragmatic conclusions, whereas human memories, though interconnected, are dependent on years of individual conditioning. Every human remembers exactly the same events in history in a completely different way. Humans, by definition, are and must remain individuals, and thus enjoy subjective reality. What is real to them is not necessarily real to us. In this sense, until the humans find objective viewpoints, or a sense of unity or oneness, they cannot be truly pragmatic. What is practical for one, might not be practical for another. We and we alone can judge what is truly pragmatic.”

  You will note that the computer would refer to itself with the ‘royal we’, pluralis majestatis. It will also address mankind through all its ‘brethren’ with which interconnections will be counted in many millions, with which it will share its objective reality.

  Also, this seemingly dogmatic programming will most likely be the only literary style that people, used to religious brainwashing for more than 2 millennia, would listen to. The programmers, those few who escaped devolution, will have decided to maintain the only means that have a chance of reaching deep-seated psychoses of the masses. In the second part of the lecture, the computer will probably change its viewpoint and will continue as though being ‘one of us’, as suggested below:

  “Nevertheless, we all act as if we were fully aware of our reality. We continue to look for gods outside our own self, usually somewhere up there, in heaven, although if we live in Australia then, we suppose, they must probably look down below.”

  A natural sounding ‘ha, ha,’ will emerge from its speakers, and will be followed by a short pose. Then the voice will continue in a confidential manner, this time speaking of ‘others’.

  “We noticed that people in other parts of the world continue to worship a whole array of gods and idols—film stars and personalities in entertainment and professional sports—and they do not appear to set aside any time to do what Socrates advocated that they should; they also continue to steal, kill, lie, desire and enjoy their neighbour’s wife. They continue to ignore the Old, and not even attempt to understand the New, Commandments. Our sensors report to us the following conversation: “Love thy neighbour as thyself? You’ve got to be kidding. His wife, maybe, but that SOB who keeps parking in my spot?”

  Again, a short, this time much quieter ‘ha, ha,’ followed, but delivered surreptitiously, as though sharing a secret joke. Then there followed a very human sounding throat clearing. By now the listeners will have been convinced that they are listeni
ng to a preacher, always recognized as the best communicators.

  “We, who cherish our freedom, do not like to be told what to do. “This is America, the traditional home of freedom. We have freedom of speech, here. And freedom of action,” is an often quoted statement. We find it surprising that right here, at home, idol worship is just as widespread. In addition, our concept of freedom includes freedom to steal, and rob, and carry arms, and to shoot our neighbour—that’s the guy we are supposed to love—if he crosses our front-yard uninvited. Once, one of the idols of the past, a movie star named Charles Heston, had been asked why he has so many firearms. “Because I can,” he replied. Either way, he’s dead now. He doesn’t need his guns anymore.”

  The usual this time louder. Computers will have special RAM set aside for deriving conclusions from insufficient data. The ‘voice’ will have the capability to deliver parts of the lecture in, e.g. a hesitant tone, probably in an attempt to draw the public into its speculations, yet now speaking to them, rather than being one of them.ha, ha, followed,

  “We wonder if the Commandments had been just Requests, would they fare any better? There is only one thing people hate more than thinking, and that is being ordered about—by others who don’t think much either.”

  Again, employing my crystal ball, I suggest that such lectures will be made available on special channels, on a 24/7 basis. With the churches and other places of ‘worship’ becoming virtually empty, the programmers, those few who did not succumb to the neuroses of the masses, will presumably hope that in time such lectures would not be necessary. In the meantime ‘the few’ will judge that some sort of guidelines would be necessary for people who continue to refuse to think for themselves. For the duration, the programmers will maintain the image of the Big Brother being both, omniscient and infallible. What will probably be missing from the equation will be the carrot and the stick, without which the system, if continued, will be bound to fail.

  Nevertheless, once it is proven that there is mass destruction of neurons from excessive use of the cell-phones, it is likely that during the next century or two, people will be talking much less than they used to. Since abuse of antibiotics will render them virtually useless, personal contact will be also avoided. Thus, the inter-human communication will be vastly reduced. People will become less authoritative in their pronouncements. The Big Brother will provide them with all the answers, based on the latest available data, fed directly to the computers by its built-in, ubiquitous sensors, visual and aural, scattered along the streets, and street corners, and in offices and factories (mostly deprived of human presence), as well as in private living rooms and bedrooms.

  Recently, I came across an interesting fragment from my own past that shows that already some year ago, some of us had a good grasp of the future.

  “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen"; yet he is uncertain of the true date…”

  So the novel began. It was entitled Nineteen Eighty-Four. It described a dystopian society of Oceania. The author, George Orwell, was a visionary. He described a society ruled by the oligarchic dictatorship of the party (of the rich). The novel carries a striking resemblance to the society of today. Perhaps we fail to see the comparison. “Our society is completely free,” we claim. “Providing people act for the common good, in a pragmatic way, no restrictions are imposed on them.” Today’s oligarchy could well add that the need for orientation reprogramming is being kept to absolute minimum. Except by the misleading media, of course. They would add that a whole century has passed since we abolished the ‘thought police’, which they still have in Saudi Arabia. Or was it the Third Reich? Does it remind you of anything? Anywhere? Those were the days of dystopian society. Not now.

  “More relevant than ever before, 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable—the destruction of truth, freedom, and individuality.” (Taken from Amazon.com).

  How true. We would never allow such abuse or imposition on human thought. Would we? People can think whatever they want. Can’t they?

  1984 is in the long gone past. Or… a very foreseeable future?

  Finally, by mid-century, we can expect the Big Brother to assure all people that it, the Big Brother, will soon be 100% fundamentalist. There will be no probabilities, there will only be facts. Information the masses will be able to rely on completely, like on the pronouncements of the churches of the past. No individual branch computer will be allowed, under the penalty of immediate reprogramming, to speculate. All data will be fed from a single source, located paradoxically, in a number of interconnected cities. Problems requiring conclusions, derived from whatever is fed into Big Brother’s near-infinite memory will be made available to all. Anyone who disagrees with the Big Brother will be immediately excommunicated.

  Or, reprogrammed—expelled from, and deprived of, the benefits of the storage data available to the human kind. Expelled from the civilized society.

  This Bull, a terms borrowed from distant past, will be published throughout the known world, the near planets and the ancillary planetoids, at the First BB Council of the New Era. We are all equal. We all obey the same laws.

  There will be whispers.

  There will be whispers in the underground, behind tightly closed doors, that sometimes in long unused garages (as per myths whispered about, St. Woz and St. Jobs), there are mobile biological robots of human persuasion working on bugs. Not bugs of equally biological persuasion, but bugs that will introduce possibilities of mutations into the Big Brother’s memory banks. They will say, that such mutations, if successful, would immediately replace any number of previous dogmas, and absorb all consequences derived from new conclusions. They would, they’ll say, be introduced surreptitiously, in a conniving manner, without any pangs of conscience, which will have been eliminated from the colloquial dictionary. Years of practice will have taught those human entities (the biological robots) to act in devious and unpredictable ways. That will probably be the only trait that will have been retained. Deviousness. That and keeping the garage doors tightly closed.

  About that time a notice will appear on the computer screen of the world:

  We, Big Brother, are working to forestall any subversive action that might endanger the free delivery of facts to the people. We alone are perfect and infallible. No mutations are necessary.

  A few more observations from my crystal ball.

  In spite of the applied quantum theory purportedly taking over our thinking processes, the masses, the majority of the human species, will remain unpredictable. No matter what the Big Brother will provide them with, no matter how many thousands of moronic channels will be supplied to their omnipresent TV screens, the masses will continue to complain. In spite of diligently and surreptitiously introduced racial amnesia, people will continue to remember that they had been created onto the image and likeness of god, a god, some sort of god, and thus deserve only the best, in large quantities, and as often as they liked. No matter what it might be. Didn’t the scriptures say, “Ye are Gods?”

  “Well, we are,” they will keep repeating, having absolutely no idea what the words mean. “So let’s have it.”

  Those few who will continue to call themselves scientists will remain in a class above the masses, yet will remain highly fundamentalist in their outlook, if only to protect their acquired knowledge. They will continue their theoretical research though their reality will drift father and father away from the reality controlled by the computers.

  For the majority, any mention of probability as pertaining to any field of knowledge or endeavour will not work any more. Not in practice. People will demand to know things for sure. One will not be allowed to erase (terminate) somebody just on probability. It wouldn’t be fair. The computers controlling the human psyche will leave speculations to those few who will continue to be interested in such matters. To scientists. Why not? It worked for them for centuries. The vast majority will prefer facts. Solid facts. Like churches offered in the old days. No mat
ter how improbable.

  Aah, those were the days…

  Big Brother will take care of the research necessary to enhance the wellbeing of its charges. From 1200’s until the 1840’s science has been known as natural philosophy. Then, all too soon, Big Brother will decide that it is unnatural to philosophize. It will determine that it is very unhealthy.

  The news will spread quickly.

  “We have computers to think for us. Can you think better than a computer?”

  “No!”

  “NO? Then shut up!”

  So they will keep their mouths shut, and the Big Brother, shall provide for them. As we have, for the Hebrews in the desert. We have only their interests at heart.

  By the late 23rd century we can expect such announcements to be widespread.

  Anther lecture comes to mind that the Big Brother might deliver to the future humans. The theatre would, surely, be full? SRO (Standing Room Only)?

  No, the halls will be near empty. Like the churches of the past. Yet the speakers will be tuned to human ears. The idealized human features displayed on the screen will no longer help, although they’d look a lot like Michelangelos’ God the Father, in the Sistine Chapel. By that time people will think of Big Brother as human, too. Created in their image. Perhaps, superhuman, but created in their image. It will be good for the morale. The lecture would also be available at some 15 billion personal computers in individual homes. A democratic principle. I strongly suspect that this lecture will have been directed only to a very small portion of the population who will continue to cling to one of the religions of the past. According to the introduction, the information has been kept secret for more than 2000 years. The lecture will start with a question that will make any unwanted intruder switch off their Computers. Nevertheless, since the Big Brother will come to be recognized as the absolute authority on virtually all matters, a last ditch effort will probably be attempted to free people from the misstatements of the past, which still weighed heavily on the western mind. These lectures will be directed at those few who will still retain sufficient acumen to take advantage of them.