After more than six years of chewing on it, I’m looking forward to demoting my “Who Am I?” project to the way back burner and starting in on another one who's time has come.
This Stephen Gould’s Missing Key, morphed into Is Belief In God Rational?, morphed into Who Am I? project was edifying and humbling, and yeah, I’m afraid disappointing. I’m a born and bred child of the intellectual enlightenment, with engaged discussion in my DNA. Seems that I may belong in a different world and time and with goals that make no sense to the current implosion into that MAGA, me, me, me, dog eat dog reality making the rounds.
Thing is, I grew up in a home with table talk, and magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, National Geographic, two encyclopedia sets, the big Webster Dictionary that needed it’s own stand, plus …, all that in a narrow ground level Chicago apartment with eclectic parents who were curious about the world, plus two sisters, an older brother with an engineer’s mind, turned jet engine mechanic and ultimately retiring as 737 pilot. But, I digress.
After my latest frustrating round with the philosophy club, I’m sharing an email I sent to an eminent neuroscientist that I swapped some emails with a couple years back. I’m sharing his response followed by some more explanatory notes.
Dear …
… Your insights … put a factual foundation under my homegrown musing around the question of “Who Am I?” I’m feeling that my personal project, started in the summer of 2018, is reaching a completion point, and I’d like to check in with you.
I don’t claim to see anything “new” - since all I know comes via scientific storytelling, learning from real scientists and serious science journalists, striving to wrap my mind around the pageant, while also learning from my own mistakes.
I have distilled the following into a framing that can best be categorized as an Earth Centrist, bottom-up, evolution appreciating perspective. And I beg for your opinion.
Who Am I?
I am an evolved biological sensing creature, a filament in the pageant of Earth’s evolution.
I am the product of nearly half a billion years of Earth’s uninterrupted generations of research and development and reproduction.
My Body/Brain is the cumulative product of Earth’s evolutionary processes;
My Mind is the cumulative product of my Body/Brain interacting with my world (interior & exterior);
My God(s) along with all of my other thoughts are the product of my Mind.
I appreciate and respect the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide (with its many cascading implications) and believe it’s about the most fundamental observation we can make regarding our human condition and it is worth ruminating on since all else proceeds from there.
I respect and appreciate serious science as our best chance to understand ourselves and the Earth that sustains us. I also believe that the science of our Earth/biology/evolution and deep time offer opportunities for spiritual revelations, challenges and resolutions well beyond what our self-created ego-driven religions can offer. (169wrd)
A couple local college philosophy professors that I tried engaging told me that what I wrote is nothing new; and that in any event what I’ve written is irrelevant; uninteresting; and not worth any discussion.
I can’t buy that, since it grows from digesting scientific understanding, even as it touches on personal spiritual undercurrents. Besides, it seems to me many philosophers are still under religion’s long shadow and have been slow to recognize evolution’s profound relevance in understanding who we are {and why we behave as we do}.
{I believe such an Earth Centrist perspective is worth discussing, not freezing out. Especially the part where we recognize that we ourselves create our own Gods, out of our own needs and ego.}
This framing doesn’t offer any woo, nor super powers, {what it offers is a psychology benchmark and a spiritual grounding of sorts. A keen appreciation for the reality beyond our personal thoughts and desires.} For me it has resolved as a feeling of having arrived, an appreciation that ‘I am a filament in Earth’s evolution’ and that it is good.
I know it’s asking a lot, still I’d be very grateful if you can find a moment for me in your crowded schedule, to share your opinion of this piece of evopoetry. I’m not looking for strokes, I need serious constructive hardball. Thank you.
His response,
"Dear Peter
"Thanks for your email. Although your two academic commentators may be right that the conclusions you reached are not unique,
at least you have reached conclusions!
Most people do not even begin to reflect on such things.
To sift through the morass and find your own truth can be very valuable.
Kind regards, ..."
~~~ I was simply looking for some intelligent dialogue ~~~
What that tells me is that I’m on solid factual and intellectual ground, … That trying to have this discussion isn’t near as off-the-wall as the good philosophers want me to think.
The irony is that one of these philosophers advocates for rejecting religion altogether. I mean, how realistic is that? We can’t wish away humans' spiritual impulses and emotional needs. People require outlets for that. It is why we created our gods to begin with! Then when populations grew and people needed to be governed, we created religion and social stratification and order.
What matters, is for people to come to terms with the fact that, it is we who create our own Gods! Then we can learn to deal with that and arrive at a superior appreciation for our own human condition.
When I was young I remember the big talk was the lament “God is dead.” Liberals and rationalists needed to learn to do without. So if god is dead what is there? Was the question in many minds. Well, it seems to have created an inner void, that philosophers played with, but never seemed able to address, a void that remains in the hearts of too many unfortunates to this day. (And I'm starting to think that's at the root of why so many philosophers hide behind an aura of educated superiority.)
Too many people have lost faith in their own existence and it causes many to lose their footing. Mental health and suicide statistics indicates how bad it is.
Myself, I found that there’s plenty of mystery, wonder, and spiritual footing to be found within a deep sober science-based understanding of this miracle planet Earth’s evolution, and especially how that Pageant of Evolution is reiterated and reflected within my own body.
The story of how my body evolved and got to be the master piece we inhabit is fantastic. Utterly mind blowing and with room for meta-physical overtones which are beautiful, part of the living mystery - but we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously.
I’ve “touched the All” it was sublime, moving, and it subtly changed me, even as I knew it was the product of my own mind interacting with the environment (and others).
So, please don’t tell me God is up there reaching down for a personal relationship with me or you. That conviction isn't about respecting some super natural creator entity, it is nothing less than human Ego gone berserk.
I don’t need it. Because I understand I was created out of this Earth’s processes and I’m surrounded by other Earthlings of every variety, all of whom also have lives and value, and that I owe them some consideration. After all, they are part of my family!
~~~ Variations on the Theme ~~~
It is a wonderful thing to recognize the profound difference between one’s thoughts, that is, one’s mind, one’s sense of self - and this biological body that quite literally creates that sense of self, as it guides us through our lives.
Evolution has always been endlessly fascinating and I’ve spent a life time enthusiastically learning about Earth’s singular pageant of Evolution, as scientists have been developing their understanding.
I’ve learned about it and absorbed how the past nearly half billion years of uninterrupted evolution created the countless folds within folds of harmonic cumulative complexity that came together to make up this body I inherited along with the world around me.
Seek and ye shall find, though it’s not an easy path.
I have learned and developed a solid understanding of who I am, and why I am as I am, and what purpose I have for going on day after day, it is an accomplishment I feel good about and want to share with loved ones and others, if they care to engage with it.
I’m an evolved animal, the most fantastical animal ever, achieving that deep down in my gut awareness impacts my entire outlook. I’m the same person, but I finally understand myself, and the dance, and that feels deep down marvelous, even in the midst of the horror of America’s degradation, and our radically energizing & transitioning global heat and moisture distribution engine with its promised real world horrors. All tragic but true, surviving generations will simply have to deal with it and hope to be at the right spot and in the right moment, with the know-how to make the best of it.
Me, at 69 I have comfort in that I had the best years ever and didn’t waste my time. Nothing like those few decades will ever happen again, where a poor boy could escape and embrace the world as I could in the ‘70s, ‘80s, …
We humans could have stretched out the good times, but we could not get enough people seriously interested in nurturing and partnering with Earth’s many complex systems that create our biosphere and life support systems - to stand up to those masters of the universe, the US Constitution gave we the people the tools like nothing that came before.
Tragic fact is, we collectively failed the US Constitution’s promise, and Earth’s ultimatum and ourselves in the bargain.
It sucks my little ones, you’ll never know what all you’ve lost, or how grievously it pains me to have witnessed the wanton stupidity and gluttony of people this past half century and before, but it is what it is.
In the end what I know is this: we are filaments in the pageant of Earth’s Evolution and it is good!
Today is the best day of the rest of my life, and I’m going to be present for it, and live it, and breath it in, and with every step exhale thanksgiving for the people in my life, and the good fortune I’ve found and the memories I possess.
To be present to one’s living moments, to make each day a prayer of sorts, has been worth the effort for me.
I learned these things and gained internal fortitude thanks to a life time of Earth sciences countless wonderful (evidence based factual) stories, always improving, always doing the best we can with the information at hand, observing and always willing to learn from mistakes, revise and improve as more information comes in.
~~~ Why? ~~~
Because it is the moral to the story of my dance across Earth’s stage.
Now it’s time to start recalling that story. After all, it is my cultural tradition as an old world, old person, kin to the past thousand generations, when Earth was still humanity’s master. Before some became hapless Gods in their own right, and the rest of us started devolving into reflex driver consumer units and automata.
What can I say, I feel honor bound by tradition and desire to tell my story, since it was such a rare wonderful moment in time and space the likes of which will never return thanks our brute human self-absorbed nature and self-serving instincts.
It's my challenge to see how well I can string together the pearls of my memories. Something to leave behind for any of my children, grandchildren, along with any other loved ones, who may be curious about who I was and what it was like before the fall.
But more importantly for me, is the simple act of doing it. Revisiting the seasons of my fascinating eventful life and the parade of wonderful people and experiences I’ve been a part of. To challenge myself with the process of writing it down in a satisfactory manner.
It is the doing that matters, time will take care of the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment