OntoSearch

Now here’s the thing: If it’s the case that – abstractly-speaking – there will be ‘I-standpoints’ after my death (this conception must be abstract in the sense that I cannot ‘own’ it as to do so would render these ‘I-standpoints’ ‘other-standpoints’. ), and I myself will not survive this event as a conscious subjective entity capable of entertaining an ‘I-standpoint’ myself, then a rather startling proposition suggests itself; namely, that when those surviving me (what applies to one applies to all) experience consciousness, it would be ‘as if’ I myself was experiencing consciousness, because to experience consciousness is to have an ‘I-standpoint’, and yet what being me is all about is precisely this: Seeing the world exclusively through my own eyes, and having direct and first hand access to my own thoughts, feelings and volitions – as well as memories and perceptions. In short, having an ‘I-standpoint’. Remember, I am not arguing for substantive re-incarnation. All I am saying is that the experience of anyone (and therefore everyone) of those surviving me cannot be objectified by me after my death (that is to say, presented as an ‘other-standpoint’ to me). Hence, that ‘anyone’ would be positioned on the subject side of the subject/object divide. What would change this would be to have   this ‘anyone’ objectified, or – to put it more plainly – scrutinized by a contemporary; in which case, what has been said of that ‘anyone’ will apply to the contemporary, and so on. Since I myself cannot know the world other than as a subject (even viewing video footage of myself does not amount to presenting myself with an ‘other-standpoint’ as the video footage is a series of images, not a person), my ‘I-standpoint’ must serve as a model for comprehending how it must be for either of the foregoing qua subjects. What is paradoxical in this, of course, is that I am unable to describe this situation without objectifying the subjectivity of those I am currently entitled to designate as ‘others’. The difficulty here is akin to the difficulty with trying to imagine nothingness.  This is an extremely elusive idea, and really needs to be ‘unpacked’ for it to be understood. To this end, I should like to present a ‘thought experiment’ and develop the argument via a series of propositions.                                  

(a) Let me begin by asserting that I, the person writing these words (I shall call myself A) can only ever experience the world from an inside perspective – via an ‘I-standpoint’. But like a dog failing to catch its tail, my ‘subject/faculty I’ will always elude my attempts to objectify it.

(b) A contemporary (Let us call this person C1), like A, will have thoughts, feelings, and volitions, but A can never access these directly: What he perceives is an ‘other-standpoint’ – observable manifestations from which he infers that C1, like him, possesses an ‘I-standpoint’. Just as he can never pin down his own ‘subject/faculty I’, he can never directly access C1’s ‘subject/faculty I’, nor C1’s thoughts, feelings and volitions. To experience another’s ‘I-ness’ from the inside necessarily involves being that person, which is something one is a priori incapable of doing. Imagining how another may experience ‘self-awareness’ is am altogether different kettle of fish.

(c) When A dies, he is no longer able to experience anything; his standpoint simply no longer obtains.

(d) Now imagine, after A’s death, a person B being born, and in the fullness of time acquiring an ‘I-standpoint’.

(e) What B then experiences can only either be directly accessed by him via an ‘I-standpoint’, or inferred by a contemporary of B’s (Let us call this person C2) via an ‘other-standpoint’: External signs suggestive of the thoughts, feelings, and volitions operating inside B.

(f) Let us suppose now that some cataclysmic event befalls the world, and only two people are left alive: B and C2. In this situation, only two ‘I-standpoints’ could exist. Additionally, were B and C2 to communicate with one another, our world would admit of two ‘other-standpoints’. (However, if B became extremely paranoid as a result of this disaster, and chose not to reveal himself to C2, whilst nevertheless keeping C2 under close scrutiny, then one would have to say that only one ‘other-standpoint’ existed. And no ‘other-standpoints’ could exist if B and C2 were unaware of each other’s existence). What is important in considering this hypothetical scenario is that doing so from a God-like perspective with both protagonists in our purview runs counter to the aims, conditions, and assumptions of our thought experiment. No third perspective is permissible. We are compelled to see things, as it were, through the eyes of B or C2 – ‘as if’ we were B or C2. And if undertaken seriously, this would entail taking heed of the dire needs likely to be felt by our two unfortunate souls.

(g) Now let us suppose C2 dies, leaving B entirely on his own; the only sentient being in the world. The only legitimate way in which to take stock of this situation is to imagine ourselves being B because no ‘other-standpoint’ of any description is possible, or indeed, any other ‘I-standpoint, including ours qua sentient beings imagining this scenario.

(h) However, there is a problem with this: In the final analysis, when imagining the scenarios outlined in (f) and (g), and imagining how we ourselves might feel and respond if placed in the hypothetical shoes of B or C2, we unavoidably override the identities of B or C2 and introject our own identities into these scenarios. Whilst this might help to convey the notion of a future being viewed from an ‘I-standpoint’, it also unfortunately simulates what substantive re-incarnation might be like, and this is not what I am seeking to demonstrate.  Thus we need to find a way of minimizing, or even eliminating our empathic, or imaginative, involvement in this exercise. One way in which this might be done is to make the following bald, predictive statement (Its being predictive creates a barrier between us in the present and B in the future. More specifically, it separates A from B, whose lives, in any case, by definition cannot overlap ):

‘At some point in the future, only one person, B, will be left alive –‘B’ being the name/label attached to that person’

This proposition is not wanting in feasibility – after all, there must have been a brief point in time when only a single dodo existed. Mental activity would consist entirely of B viewing a rather bleak, silent world from his own ‘I-standpoint’, and experiencing thoughts, feelings, and volitions fundamentally informed by the world around him. But should I attempt to describe how this might be for B, I realise that once again I risk being drawn into imagining how I might feel and think in B’s situation. So I need to confine myself to merely recognizing that B will have thoughts, feelings, and volitions, and deign to describe what these thoughts, feelings, and volitions might be. However, it may be deduced from the proposition too that no ‘other-standpoint’ could possibly obtain. This being the case, there could be no question of any mental activity being inferred from external signs. It would be directly experienced, as it were, from the inside, just as happens with me (A), in regard to my own mental activity. Because a ‘subject/faculty I’ will be present in this situation, because a sense of ‘I-ness’ will pervade this situation, and because B’s ‘I-standpoint’ will be the only mental standpoint obtaining in this situation, one might say that it would be ‘as if’ I(A) was reincarnated insofar as the ‘I’ in this context amounts to a ‘subject/faculty I’ (The content or substance presented to A and B’s ‘subject/faculty Is’ – including the myriad ‘facts’ collectively and accumulatively contributing towards the sense of identity felt by A and B – would necessarily differ vastly between A and B. Hence my rejection of any substantive reincarnation occurring. I have used the term, ‘quasi-reincarnation’ in relation to the idea I have set out to contrast it with ‘substantive reincarnation’).                                                                                                                                   Were C2 to have survived, rather than B in the scenario described in (g), then intrinsically, all that has been said of B may be said of C, mutatis mutandis. The only problem that crops up here is one that is ‘extrinsic’ in character: C being the name/label I have applied to a conscious, subjective being who is not B, but a contemporary of B for an unspecified period. With B’s demise, this name/label is, strictly-speaking, non-applicable. But as we are concerned with a putative individual, rather than the name/label applied to that individual, this point is of little consequence.

(i) To ratchet up the realism of my argument, I should like now to discard the idea of a world bereft of all but one or two individuals. Let is return to the pre-apocalyptic situation in which B and C2 live along billions of other contemporaries (Cx) in the hurly burly of the near future. The specifics of how this world is ordered at this point in time, and the specific identities of B and C2 (who are merely defined as existing after A’s demise and co-existing with B for an unspecified period respectively) are irrelevant to what can be drawn  from this. And the conclusions to be drawn are those arrived at in (h). Since C2 could be anyone, what applies to C2 applies to Cx, all of B’s contemporaries. 

(j) When I began setting out this ’quasi-reincarnation’ notion, I had in mind those surviving me. However, the implications surely extend to my contemporaries as well; an increasingly greater percentage of whom will in any case survive me the older I get. For in both cases, I am referring to people who are ‘not me’; notwithstanding the fact that in the case of those who remain after I am dead the designation, ‘other’, can no longer apply in the sense that they cannot be other to something non-existent (albeit they can be ‘others’ to themselves). And what are these implications? They are simply that an adequate view of the world should acknowledge the plurality of subjectivities around us, and that, in a broader sense, there is a sort of equivalence between subjectivities, even if I am intrinsically biased against this perception by virtue of being grounded in my own subjectivity.   

In a nutshell, ‘quasi-reincarnation’ amounts to this: Before and after my brief life – the quality of which is largely dependent on the circumstances I find myself in – I am not floating around in the ether taking a detached view of events occurring below, as I do not exist, and am therefore oblivious to the quality of other people’s lives. The living on either side of my brief life span will be or would have been more or less cognizant of the quality of life of their contemporaries, and rather more directly of their own lives. A conscious, subjective entity, characterized in part by not being me (and since this applies to any, it applies to all of this person’s contemporaries), will or would have been a subject vis-à-vis all others; an ‘I’ looking out upon the world, and within upon his/her own thoughts, feelings and volitions; someone immersed in an ‘I-standpoint’  and regarding others as possessors of ‘other-standpoints’. Such a person (once again, meaning anyone existing on either side of my life span) will feel or would have felt an imperative to attain or retain happiness – a goal largely realized by optimizing the circumstances of his or her life. Perhaps my own life could have been more agreeable given more conducive circumstances; the latter being to some extent (though certainly not altogether) forged by those preceding me. In a reciprocal fashion – albeit the case that I can only receive from the past and give to the future – I could strive to improve the lot of those who come after me. Since my death will herald circumstances in which any ‘I-standpoint’ will ipso facto not be mine, it would be ‘as if’ I had been reincarnated. The ‘I’ component of consciousness – the very facility for being conscious, and specifically, self conscious – would now reside elsewhere and the ‘me’ component would correspondingly differ. One might characterise this as a ‘quasi-reincarnation’. Thus it would be as if ‘I’, the ‘I’ bit in ‘I-standpoints’ of individuals not being me continued to experience the need to attain or retain happiness, and alter circumstances in order to achieve this goal. I, the person here in the present, would not be around to objectify the former, to render that ‘I-standpoint’ an ‘other-standpoint’. In fact, no assertion which presented me then as a subject would make metaphysical sense (aside from those alluding to my ‘public identity’). 

In point (f) of the thought experiment, I made mention of the need to take heed of the dire needs felt by B and C2. Here we can see how altruism might link up with the notion of ‘quasi-reincarnation’. Suppose any of us were B or C2 in the situation outlined in (f). We’d be assailed by all manner of needs demanding our attention, would we not? Our own lives are beset with numerous needs too, many of which are shaped by, or relate to, other people and society in general, as I explained earlier. What the thought experiment hopefully demonstrated was how another’s subjectivity might acquire ‘primacy’ in the peculiar circumstances of a ‘uni-subjective world’, where crucially, I (A) did not exist, and was therefore unable to objectify the experience of this solitary soul. Thus, whatever needs there might be in this situation would be directly ‘felt’, rather than inferred, and being felt would need to be addressed with some degree of urgency, depending upon the particular need.                 

The point I guess I’ve implicitly been approaching is that because I (A) would not exist at this point in time, it would be prudent for me to consider in my own lifetime how B’s life (or simply the life of anyone coming after me- since we cannot know how things will pan out in the future) might be improved or enhanced, because when B is left entirely on his own, the only consciousness or subjectivity around is his, and I (the conscious, subjective entity designated A in the thought experiment) could not then experience his predicament from the outside. B’s experiences would constitute the totality of experiences, and there would be nothing beyond his ‘circle of consciousnesses’, if one might construe this situation in topographical terms. At the centre of this circle would be his ‘subject/faculty I’ (an appropriate metaphorical description if ever there was one as a centre, being a point in space, cannot literally be perceived, no matter what microscopic resolution we deploy to this end), which means that the sense of looking out on the world from the inside would characterise the situation, exactly as occurs in my own life. Hence the observation that it would be ‘as if’ I were reincarnated as B. The ‘subject/faculty I’ when B alone exists would no doubt register the fear, loneliness, desperation, and the basic needs impinging upon the situation.                                                   

The thing is, being an ‘I’ involves more than just observing and understanding: Most crucially, it means wanting to be happy. Why should this be so? This isn’t something that is altogether clear. Perhaps the desire for happiness may have arisen phylogenetically as hominids began to develop ‘consciousness’ (along with constituent thoughts, feelings, and volitions). Feelings being motivators (the relationship between feeling and volition being rather incestuous), it may be that the desire for happiness served an evolutionary function. Whatever the case may be, as ‘Is’, everyone’s inner life is consumed with the desire to attain or retain happiness of one sort or another. This will be the case too when I ‘pop my clogs’, and when this happens it will be the happiness of all erstwhile others – and their thoughts, feelings, and volitions in general – that will constitute the entirety of ‘mental acts’ at any given time, if I may tendentiously put it this way in order to make the point. I will have become no more than a memory in the minds of my ‘significant others’ and a wider circle of acquaintances – a memory spluttering flame-like for a generation or two in the minds of others, until fading into obscurity. Some, by dint of exceptional works rather than memory as such, will figure in the minds of their successors for unforeseeable generations – from Socrates and Shakespeare to Genghis Khan and Jack the Ripper. My reference to significant others does, however, raise the notion of a sort of altruism rather different from the universalistic species I have had in mind up till now. I am thinking here of the preoccupation people have with their own blood-line; their own children, grand-children, and so on. Whereas a universalistic altruism is premised on the destruction of one’s own identity and capacity to experience anything, this other – let’s call it ‘hereditary altruism’ – stems from rather different motives and assumptions, Whilst hereditary altruism can involve genuine concern for one’s progeny, I think it often has to do with ‘egotistic’ impulses, such as obtaining vicarious satisfaction from the achievements of one’s children, trying to ensure the stamp of one’s existence is felt by one’s own descendents over time, or wanting to establish some sort of dynasty. In other words, universalistic altruism acknowledges, even embraces, the destruction of one’s ego, whereas hereditary altruism attempts often ineffectually or vaingloriously to preserve or salvage something of oneself. I would not wish to be too judgmental about the latter: Most of us are inclined towards some form of hereditary altruism, and the two species of altruism are not necessarily incompatible. It may be that concern for one’s own offspring extends to worrying about the same broad issues that would preoccupy the altruist of a more universalistic persuasion. Because, ultimately everything is connected, and the wider context within which we live has a bearing upon our individual lives. It’s rather like the recent Bush Administration grudgingly and belatedly coming to acknowledge that climate change – which affects everyone on the planet – merits attention because of its impact upon Americans.                                               

At this point I should like to advance two further arguments in favour of altruism. First of all, let us consider the concept of ‘interest’; of how altruism might benefit people, me included. Once again, I need to stress that I shall do so on the basis that there is no afterlife. Let us return to the ‘dramatis personae’ of our thought experiment: Let us imagine that an entity (A), calling himself ‘I’, dies, and subsequently someone else (B) is born who likewise, and naturally enough, grows up to call himself ‘I’. (A) cannot argue prospectively that after his death he will have no interest in (B)’s welfare on the grounds that (B)’s welfare is irrelevant to him because he is able to differentiate between his directly experiencing his own happiness and his observing signs of happiness in a contemporary (we shall call the latter (C1)). Because it is only while he is alive that he is capable of saying that he has no interest in someone else’s welfare – be that person (C1) or (B). Once dead, (A) is simply non-existent. ‘Having no interest’ qua a subjective entity necessarily entails making the aforementioned distinction. A stone may be said to ‘have no interest’ in someone’s welfare, but on grounds altogether different, namely that the predicate of the proposition, ‘A stone has no interest in someone’s welfare’ is devoid of any meaning other than that a stone is inanimate. It does not mean that this person serves some end for the stone. Because a stone cannot have an end, other than ‘end ‘ proposed for it by some conscious, subjective entity, or agent possessed of a ‘will’, who might decide to pocket it, skim it across a an expanse of water, or push it into a bed of mortar. Post-mortem and having ‘returned to dust’ as the ‘Good Book’ so trenchantly puts it, our existential status is no different from a stone. What survives us – the memories others have of us (our ‘public identity’), our life’s works, and even our physical remains (or perhaps I should say our various organs) – may serve as ends for others. In other words, the proposition, ‘I have no interest in others because their happiness is inaccessible to me’ can only ever be true during the course of the subject’s lifetime. To redraft in the future tense as ‘I will have no interest in the welfare of others when I am dead’ is essentially unintelligible (except in the sense of not possessing an ability to have an interest in anything) – assuming there is no such thing as an afterlife – as the subject of the sentence will no longer qualify as a subject after his or her death.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Secondly, standpoints being the mental take on something or other, it follows that those who have a standpoint are conscious subjective beings. As the only standpoints to endure after my death will be those of others, it is as surely fitting for me to pay heed to these, as it is to give consideration to the standpoint I am likely to entertain in regard to my own welfare in my twilight years, for example. Why should I dismiss the latter because right now I am not drawn to a quiet life, riddled with arthritis, nor preoccupied with my pension or heating allowance? Yet, what my own future standpoint and the standpoint of others have in common is their literal inaccessibility to me now; the personal identity issue doesn’t really alter this fact. Being concerned for my future welfare entails a similar sort of empathic understanding as that which is marshalled when I feel concern for the welfare others. In both instances, there is an element of objectification: I look upon my future self as someone other than me, as, of course, I do with others in the present, and then attempt to mentally colonise this construct – ‘me in the future’ – situating my consciousness within it, and testing how this plays upon my thoughts, feelings, and volitions. Consciousness, being ‘of the moment’, can never truly encompass the future in that direct, instantaneous way it does the present. The corollary to this is that we can never truly objectify the ‘now’; that elusive, interstitial zone between the past and the future. But that, as they say, is another matter.

I have to acknowledge that notwithstanding my intentions, it is quite possible that the altruistic ethic argument flounders here and there on account of that bete-noire of mine: analogical mis-reasoning. In my defence, however, I would say that what I had intended was to present a picture of how things seem (hence my reference to ‘quasi-reincarnation’), rather than uncover some ontological bedrock. Because, ultimately, I have been trying to argue the case for an altruistic approach to life, rather than involve myself in ontology; interesting though it may be. What I’ve attempted to do is present a picture of reality with which nearly all of us could concur when not in ‘philosophical mode’, and then argue that we could alter things to more fully realize the most fundamental goal of our existence: the attainment of happiness. Whilst it doesn’t follow that we therefore should do this – there may some oddballs around who would argue that we should not strive for happiness – I would suggest that if one agreed with the foregoing, then it would be reasonable to adopt an altruistic approach in furtherance of this goal. Whether altruism therefore merits being called an ‘ethic’ or simply a strategy – the proof of which lies in the pudding, as they say – is a moot point. Insofar as I might have a stake in the endeavours of others on account of what I have termed ‘quasi-reincarnation – one might question whether my own motivation to beneficially affect the lives of others merited the epithet ‘ethical’. Because it could be argued that there is a selfish element in all this: Apart from gaining some sort of satisfaction from actually helping others, the notion of having a stake in the quality of succeeding lives by virtue of quasi-reincarnation paradoxically suggests that it is ultimately all about looking after oneself. Life being a lottery, in that we may be born into all manner of circumstances, from the utterly disadvantageous to the blissfully fortunate, one could also argue from a selfish perspective that it would make sense to improve the circumstances of all in case one drew the short straw, as it were. On the other hand, insofar as the injunction to behave altruistically is extended to be universally applicable, as something we should all be doing, perhaps it does deserve this epithet. Essentially, I am proposing an agenda for us as individuals that entails improving the lot of others, and this, it seems to me, entitles it to be called an ethic.                  

So this then is my ‘Organic Model of Human Development’: It proposes that our humanity is contingent upon our physical make-up and that we have no afterlife; that we are fundamentally driven to seek happiness; that the sources of happiness, by and large, are located outside of us, not least in the manner in which we organize society; that a communist society will afford us optimal happiness on this earth because it won’t be fractured by the contradictions that run through present day society and will directly involved in meeting people’s needs rather than facilitating profiteering, and that an altruistic approach towards others makes sense insofar as the notion of a sort of quasi-reincarnation makes sense; this being the idea that, with my death, the world will be viewed from an ‘I-standpoint’, from an inside perspective by someone (in fact, anyone, and therefore, everyone) other than me, and that the sense of self awareness, of ‘I-ness’, informing this perspective means that it would be ‘as if’ I myself was looking out upon the world at this point in time and space.

What the model declares is that we, the living, become a sort of compost enriching the lives of those who follow us. Once we die, all that truly remains of us are memories, memorabilia, and the achievements we have racked up in our lifetimes. It is really only the latter that have any dynamic continuity. The buildings we built, the fields we tilled, the inventions we brought into fruition, the books we wrote, the social institutions promoted: these are the things that will be incorporated into the lives of those that follow us. Whether slight or momentous, it is our achievements, our contributions to the welfare of others, to human progress, that ultimately matters. Because it is our achievements that lay the foundation for the happiness of others. Crucially too, nearly all of us have the capacity at some time in our lives to reproduce, and in bringing fine young sons and daughters into this world with the potential to contribute positively to this foundation as well, we contribute by proxy. But, as ever, there is a catch in all this: Our contribution may not in the end firm up this foundation, but, on the contrary serve to undermine it, whatever our intentions might have been. Sometimes we are barely cognizant of this because it is society itself that subverts our achievements: Just as one may spend a lifetime adorning the palace of a tyrant with sumptuous works of art only to shore up the institution of tyranny, so may our endeavours in life effect – even if intended in good faith to ameliorate the harshness of other’s  lives – a prolonging of  a system such as capitalism which lacks any semblance of moral purpose, and increasingly leads to the misfortune of millions. And, of course, some people weaned on the cynical amorality of capitalism will simply not give a damn about future generations, excepting perhaps their descendents whom they might be more inclined to view in dynastic terms. The altruistic ethic enjoining us to contribute to the happiness of these future generations (albeit predicated upon the somewhat paradoxical notion of a ‘quasi-reincarnation’ – which unintentionally hints at benefits to ourselves) therefore really only becomes meaningful in a society no longer at odds with itself, and no longer disposed to exploiting the generosity, compassion, and helpfulness which most of us have in is (Anyone doubting this might wish to reflect upon the millions of hours of unpaid overtime people work in this country – now more than ever – and not usually for ulterior motives. Moreover, it’s worth noting that millions too also get involved in some form of voluntary work from time to time). Such a society would facilitate the expression of such altruistic behaviour, and reconcile the individual with the collective. But that is in the future. For now, one could argue that simply striving to realise this future in itself constitutes an act of altruism. Because the scale of the transformation effected by humanity collectively opting to embrace a communistic form of society would be something without compare in human history, it is reasonable to describe this decision as the most significant act of altruism there could ever be.

Something else that might be said about this model is that its focus is very much on the world, on what we can see and touch. It eschews ‘pie in the sky’ fantasies about a paradisiacal life in the hereafter, not just on the grounds that that no evidence can be advanced for such a life, but also because an obsession with this detracts from efforts to make this world a better one. Moreover, the peddling of such fantasies often serves the interests of those who benefit most from the current dispensation, and can dissipate the urgency for radical social change. One might say that the model turns Pascal on his head, arguing that it is a far better bet to reject religion and concentrate the mind on bettering circumstances for all, so that no matter where or when we are born, these would be conducive to happiness. There is a sort of comfort to be had from such a belief. No fear need attach to dying. Such fear is something that religion infects us with from an early age with all its misanthropic, and frankly sadistic, talk of sinners being cast into eternal hellfire for failing to pay obeisance or display sufficient devotion towards God (though why a God should demand obeisance and devotion from his sentient ‘handiwork’ is beyond me. There is something almost perversely vain in God stipulating that he should be worshipped). And even if turned out that there was such a thing as a God, surely those who live their lives in accordance with an altruistic ethic are more deserving of approbation than those who don’t, notwithstanding any disinclination to believe in God or an afterlife.

Having said that, the foregoing exposition of the model has not explicitly touched on atheism, although this is something which is probably implied in the first of the propositions I presented, concerning non-survivalism. However, although a number of illustrious atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, have argued the case for atheism forcefully and eloquently, I do feel that simply disbelieving in the existence of a God hardly constitutes an adequate world view (if we take a ‘world view’ to mean a conceptual framework in terms of which a person tries to interpret reality in toto and chart his or her way through life, which incorporates a key proposition or a set of key propositions, and which – ideally – is broad yet not overly complicated, internally consistent, intelligible, does not fly in the face of facts, and which addresses the nature of Man and the world). Per se, atheism does not set out a vision of how we should live, and it puzzles me when some atheists seem more concerned to emphasize their conventionality in order to prove that atheism does not exert a corrupting influence on morality when, really, atheism ought to go hand-in-hand with a fundamentally unconventional view of who we are, what we want from life, and what should be done to realize our dreams. To uncritically accept the mores and orthodoxies of contemporary societies – apart from their religious aspects – seems a rather odd thing for atheist to do, given that these mores and orthodoxies are often underpinned by religion (Refer to my earlier discussion of the role of religion in society). It’s not that I disagree with all of these mores and orthodoxies – who could fault the Christian injunction to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’? But if we accept that there is no God or afterlife, why should we then acquiesce in orthodox worldviews that have not wholly disentangled themselves from their religious origins, and which lend support and give legitimacy to the status quo? Because it is the status quo that denies most of us the ‘Good Life’.  If there is no God or afterlife, then clearly we should not feel bound by these orthodoxies, and promote instead a worldview view that accords with our longing to enjoy this ‘Good Life’. In other words, we (and that has to mean the majority of us – I cannot factor in the whims of every social misfit) need to say, ‘Right, we cannot look to a God to advise us and this is the only life we have, so lets find a way of ordering society so that we can makes for the greatest happiness for the greatest number (with as little distress to the demurring minority as possible)’ In my view, communism/socialism is the only way in which this could be achieved.

Apropos the model, I said at the outset that its components propositions (which more or less amount to what I jokingly called the roots in my intellectual stew at the beginning of this essay) cohere satisfactorily. However, I don’t think that the validity of each is in any way contingent upon the validity of any of the others. Going back to my stew metaphor, the ingredients of the stew do retain their identities: One might choose not to accept the atheist stance, or my critique of analogy, but still find substance in the idea of establishing a communist society. However, I do feel that the stew would be the poorer for that, and might amount to something less than a world view, as I’ve suggested in the preceding paragraph.

There is, of course, one thing that casts doubt on the usefulness of the model altogether: I remember once watching a programme on supervolcanoes; a rare but potentially cataclysmic natural phenomenon that supposedly nearly did for mankind once in our distant past. And this triggered the thought: How are we meant to reconcile ourselves to the very real possibility of our species being wiped out? Recent shifts in the earths crust beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US, for example, could presage just such a catastrophe. So could we learn to live with it?

In the preceding pages, I have suggested that individual lives draw on progeny, memory, words and deeds for meaning and purpose; we have no need for an afterlife. There is comfort or discomfort enough in the probability that other lives will flower (or wither) on our legacy.  And I have tried to explain, having become nothing we could never experience this flowering or withering; such appreciation could only be exercised by the living. Thus a sort of quasi-reincarnation operates; ‘quasi’ because strands of personal identity are not flung out like fishing lines, with the possibility of landing another subjective reality.

Individual lives and the effects of those lives are two very different things; the latter being able to outlast the former by centuries and long after attribution had ceased to be possible. Indeed, it is conceivable that some effects may stretch to infinity, their influence being exerted over successive generations rather in the manner of a homeopathic dilution. Others might even have an accumulative effect, such as that exerted by the proverbial butterfly whose fluttering is felt as a hurricane thousands of miles away. Shakespeare was right to find consolation in the timelessness of his sonnets. But so much else endures of the effects of individual lives, from the banal to the abstruse. Moreover, it is those tangible carriers of our genes, our children, who in acting upon the world around them indirectly leave the imprint of our lives upon this world too by virtue of the influence we have had on them, particularly in their formative years. Hence the importance attached to parenting. But really, we need to look beyond our nuclear families, and see things in global terms: it is what one generation leaves to another that truly matters. As things are, we are bequeathing a world that is becoming increasingly impoverished and degraded because everything is contingent upon the need for a few to realize a profit. My belief is that in a society founded on common interest and common ownership, and informed by an altruistic ethic, the opposite will occur: The world we shall leave to our children will become increasingly conducive to happiness.

With mass extinction, however, any legacy is itself extinguished: the raison dêtre for everything is lost. So how might we come to terms with this very real possibility? This is something I’m afraid I cannot convincingly answer. It may be that one day our species will slip the knot that ties us to Mother Earth and embark on multi-directional migrations out of our solar system, thus hedging our chances of survival. Perhaps too all that has been said may apply mutatis mutandis to other sentient life forms in the cosmos, were they to exist. And who knows, fragments of this world view might still make sense to someone or something if in aeons to come, other universes were to bubble into existence. But that, of course, is arrant speculation: It could be that we lack the most elementary conceptual tools to comprehend how things will unfold in the far future. The very notion of life might then embrace meanings way beyond our current understanding, and even species as genetically linked groupings of individuals might no longer exist; having given way to prolix new forms of life.

However, with regard to the possibility of our own extinction as a species, I do not believe that we have it in us to fatalistically accept the sword of Damocles hanging overhead. We will always strive and contrive to find ways of bettering our lot or our chances in life. We are wilful creatures and therefore always inclined to keep an eye on the main chance. Because in one way or another to will is to search for something perceived as better, ironically,  even if that something is one’s own death.

There is something tautological in this: what is better is preferable, and what is preferred is willed. We cannot will away our will and willing implies wanting to change circumstances, or resisting that which would alter circumstances we do not wish to change. Will is an irreducible given of our existence. We cannot will what we do not will. Even our rashest actions – those that threaten the apocalypse – may be construed as extremely short-sighted, but nevertheless proactive or reactive attempts to further our own perceived interests; in other words, expressions of will. But now more than ever, it is time for humanity to step back and consider the consequences of its actions and decisions. Humanity has now to examine its very modus operandus, and the assumptions that sustain this.

So long as we continue to perceive ourselves as having to lead a gannet-like existence on a barren rock of a planet where we must elbow out our neighbours if we are to gain a relatively secure purchase on some narrow ledge, we will be missing the point. It is our neighbours that are the key to our salvation, as we are to theirs. In short, it is our social nature that provides the basis for our welfare, our advancement, and ultimately, for our happiness. This mutuality, however, will only ever find full expression in a harmonious society, and it is my belief that only a genuinely communistic society, where the fruits of all our labours are freely available to all, will enable us to live happily with each other. Present day society is more inclined to exploit and subvert our interdependence.

It has been pointed out that if earth’s timeline were a day, the existence of humanity would correspond to less than a minute. We could so easily be wiped out, and in a fraction of the time we ourselves have been around, all evidence of our existence would disappear too: From our sturdiest concrete and steel structures to our most hallowed and delicate documents, all would inevitably decay and crumble. Man’s hollow boasts of having dominion over nature seems so pathetic, so inconsequential against the vast canvass of the universe, one can but pity our small, furless bipedal species, possessed of a pedigree truly shamed by that of the ancient and venerable cockroach. However, it is not just nature that could wipe us out: The modern age has presented us with this terrible power as well.  Whether by omission or commission, we could destroy ourselves in all sorts of ways, and may yet succeed in doing so. But the corollary to this is that now more than ever we have the ability to engineer an altogether different and happier outcome – if we so desired. Like the individual strands of a rope, our individual lives could impart strength, continuity, and indeed joy to those around us if society undertook to rid itself of the divisiveness and contradictions fraying its make-up. Such a rope would span eons.

2009