Did You Know That There is No Up or Down?

It can come as a strange shock to find a map of the world that is printed, as a westerner would put it, “upside down” but the truth of it is that there is no upside or down side to our world. North is associated with the concept of ‘up’ in our culture and South is associated with the concept of ‘down’ but this is a completely artificial relationship. There actually is no ‘up’ or ‘down’ at all. We have our own up and down relative to our position to the surface of the planet but this only functions within our tiny perspective; when you look across a flat plain of Earth you see that the sky appears to be up, the ground down and the distance flat. Then, when we (in the western world) think of North we think instinctively of ‘up’ as in “After I leave New Mexico I will come “UP’ to Oregon.” But this is a false instinct, just as Sun ‘rise’ is false. The Sun does not rise at all, the Earth turns. We say “rise” because of a lack of understanding early in our history that has, for lack of a better term, stuck to us. The same is true of the world and of our perception of it as having a ‘top’ and ‘bottom’; an ‘up’ and a ‘down’. Neither actually exist at all. This error in thinking, a delusion if you will, can and may apply to any aspect or thing that we are simply accustom to thinking as true. Can you think of the world as having not ‘up’ or ‘down’? You can’t can you? Even though the truth of this concept is so easily understood and proven as artificial, this matters not. North is still up and no one can ever show you different; you’re ability to learn otherwise was lost to you years and years ago. Now doesn’t that make you wonder what else you know to be real and true that isn’t at all? If there is no ‘up’ or ‘down’ what else about your world and life is a delusion?

The Colbert “Bump”

I have been a fan of Stephen Colbert since his first Comedy Central show, Exit 57, back in my High School days, but only a fan in the sense that I new of him and liked what I had seen and if I ran into him while channel surfing I would stop and give whatever he was on a shot. I must admit however that until my friend Dave Actually sat me down and made me watch the first 3 episodes of Strangers with Candy, a short lived but cult hit Comedy Central series that mocked the 80’s T.V. After School Special genre, I didn’t know his last name was Colbert. Now I certainly do know and so does the ‘Colbert Nation’ of fans he has acquired since his time as a Daily Show correspondent (which is where his egotistical ultra-neo conservative super-Christian persona was born) and now with his amazingly successful “Colbert Report”, I have become a devout fan of his comedy brilliance. He has turned blazing political and cultural sarcasm into a whole new genre of comedy; he is unendingly dedicated to the character and the intent, asking guests such mockingly extremist right wing questions as: “Why do you hate the troops?” or making statements like: “I can’t believe they’ve called off WW III. We were this close to Jesus coming back!” This non-stop satirical extremism shins the spotlight on how ludicrous politics and the Neo-cons in particular have become. What is even more spectacular in regard to is dedication to the character is the fact that out-of-touch politicians (all of them basically) make gigantic mistakes thinking that he is being serious about anything on his show. Tom Delay actually used a Colbert quote, saying in a press e-mail that “(Greenwald) Crashed and burned under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

But of course the most incredible example of this was his staggering speech at the White House Press Corps Dinner (which he was invited to speak at for some insane reason – see “out-of-touch” above). As he stood two seats from the President of the United States, he brutally roasted (via his conservative extremist persona) Mr. Bush for what seemed like an eternity saying such things as: "I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound—with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.” Let that sink in. He actually said that. Like a jester in the king’s court, the only one who can get away with telling the truth.

In a stroke of bizarre irony, all of the Congressman who appeared on his show in his “Better Know a District” series, no matter what he tricked them into saying (“I enjoy cocaine very much.” – Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)) were elected, even though the media predicted that an appearance on the Colbert Report was a step towards political death (see “out-of-touch” above), and as this media myth circulated Congressman began to turn down his interview requests. Those who turned him down were not elected. As with the Daily Show before it, you will now see a big shift as more and more politicians will now want to appear on his show believing that they too will gain from what is being called the “Colbert Bump.” It is impressive to see his show evolve in this way and a great sign that all is not lost in this country of ours. Men like him can motivate change through comedy and we should all take heed.

But I was motivated to speak on Colbert now in my blog due to what I feel is the pinnacle of his writing talent so far. Last night’s post election episode killed! If you did not see it please try to catch a rerun or download from iTunes (it’s worth owning). Beginning the show in utter denial, talking exclusively about the 2 big stories of the day, that it rained in New York and that Brittney Spears may be getting divorced, he slowly but surely devolved into a state of hopeless rage, declaring “The people have spoken, and apparently they’re tired of freedom. The terrorists have won everybody. Ok terrorists, here’s your cake.” He then produces a huge cake with Osama smiling on the top holding a bomb, takes a bite of it and says, “Tastes like surrender.” This was brilliant and it continued from there to his single greatest rant ever.. “You’re the ones who made this bed. Now you’re going to have to move over so a gay couple can sleep in it. Tomorrow you are going to wake up in a brave new world. A world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors that sterilize their instruments over burning American flags!! Where tax and spend Democrats take all of your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, yeah, and everybody’s HIGH!!!!”

This was the perfect summation of all the extremist paranoia that exists in our country today. While we of his Nation cheered its’ irony, there are those out there (such as Tom Delay) who cheered because they agreed with every word, literally. Stay Strong America.

I would say more but you really must see it for yourself. All hail Colbert!

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

As soon as any one person or group of persons declares that they have answers to questions that are seemingly unanswerable the most obvious conclusion that an intelligent person can make is that this person or persons is lying, diluting themselves and suffering from ego driven delusions combined with denial, like a bad psychological stew, simmering in them as a child in church, and stirred by their parents whom they trust implicitly to tell them the truth. In this way, those whom have faith instilled from youth are a kin to abuse victims. Now you’ll notice that I used the term “seemingly” unanswerable questions; people have, encouraged in their ignorance by lack of education and religious zealotry, grown extremely dependant on the use of logical fallacy in their everyday lives to the point that completely ridiculous concepts seem to make a strange sort of superficial sense when in fact no true sense can be found let alone any true effort of understanding. This leads people to not question the validity of the questions themselves, but rather attempt to re-answer questions so simple to answer they require instinct more then abstract thought. Examples are abundant such as the obvious primary subject of all religions: “What happens after you die?” How many times have you heard that one? This is one of the most asked questions in the history of our species, but think about it.. really think about it. The most common answer from non-devout humans is “I don’t know.” You don’t?!?! Really? I mean, but I know what happens after you die. I know what happens after I die. I know what happened after everyone who has ever lived died and I know what will happen after everyone who will ever live dies. Nothing. Nothing happens at least in terms of your living self, you just die. Now, I can already hear people saying, as it is the patent apologist response to the answer “Nothing”, “How do you know nothing happens? I’m not talking about the physical body. Of course that goes away. I’m talking about the human consciousness. What about the human soul? How do you know it’s not eternal?” Ah, yes. This is often the death nail of the conversation because typically after someone makes this statement they stop listening to you. The “How do you know there isn’t..” response is a common and rather amusing logical fallacy because the person who states it immediately thinks that they have you; that you’ve been intellectually out done and there is nothing further to discuss. So, let’s break this down into parts in order to examine it’s complete lack of validity. First, this is one of the most common logical fallacies and it is called..

Proving Non-Existence: When an arguer cannot provide the evidence for his claims, he may challenge his opponent to prove it doesn't exist (e.g., prove God doesn't exist; prove there is no soul; prove UFO's haven't visited earth, etc.). Although one may prove non-existence in special limitations, such as showing that a box does not contain certain items, one cannot prove universal or absolute non-existence, or non-existence out of ignorance. One cannot prove something that does not exist. The proof of existence must come from those who make the claims.

Of course I can’t prove that there is no soul, I don’t need to. Until you can prove that there is (and absolutely no evidence exists for one), then there is no discussion because there is no soul and no afterlife. Until scientific evidence is produced for these claims they will remain imaginary. If I were to tell someone that I believe that fire-breathing dragons exist, that someone would (unless they were delusional themselves) tell me unequivocally that they do not exist and they would be right. Since dragons seem so ridiculous the response of “How do you know they don’t? You can’t prove they don’t can you? Nar nee nar nar!” becomes laughable but this scenario is no different from that of “God” or “soul” in terms of lack of evidence, and by lack I mean none. In a funny way there is actually statistically a much more reasonable chance that dragons exist then a human soul since dragons are loosely based on biological creatures that we can prove did exist on our planet at one time which means that somewhere else in the galaxy and / or the universe an environment could potentially exist similar to ours that would produce a dragon type creature. Where as the concept of a human soul, afterlife, god, easter bunny etc. remain imaginary as they have always been and so there is no suggestion that not being able to prove they don’t exist should be regarded at all in real intellectual discussion. All anyone who ever uses this device proves is that they have no proof.

This leads into the concept of the human soul and, by extension the myth of eternal return. As we discussed above in brief, no evidence for the human soul exists, so it can be dismissed in kind. As for “eternal”, our understanding of the cosmos and of the natural world we live in so far has suggested quite the opposite. It would seem from the observations and evidence so far gathered by science that nothing, even the universe itself is or appears to be eternal, so why in the hell would our consciousness be? The answer, yet again is so very simple we completely avoid it. We imagine we exist eternally because we can’t imagine not existing. The horror of the void is truly compelling. None has ever put this sobering price on being alive more succinctly then Milan Kundera in his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being,

“..the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful or sublime, its horror, subliminality, and beauty mean nothing.”

In addition, this idea of human consciousness being of such an exceptional nature as to warrant continued existence after physical death is completely baseless and seems most often derived not from our consciousness’ existence being evidently singular and unique in comparison to other life forms on this planet, but rather from a misunderstanding of what the word consciousness means. The first and primary definition of consciousness is:

“The state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.”

None of these features of consciousness are unique to humans. What we have that extends us beyond this definition is arrogance based on the erroneous assumption that we have something that extends us beyond this definition. An argument could of course be made that some other living organisms on this planet are not ‘self-aware’, such as bacteria, viruses, insects, etc. but as the level of organism complexity rises, so does the potential for self-awareness. Chimpanzees, Whales, birds, etc. certainly give us evidence that they posses self awareness but this isn’t even a necessary point to make because even if we ignore this evidence in the animal kingdom of other species being self-aware, and assume that our form of consciousness is truly unique, it evolved from lesser species with less complex forms of consciousness which evolved from species that lack consciousness all together, so you still are missing any kind of evidence that ours is deserving of special treatment by the universe. In many ways our “uniquely” complex self-awareness hinders our species where as Cancer cells, for instance, lack all concern or worry and has, ironically, evolved to the point where it is so perfect an organism that medicine refers to it as the “Immortal Culture” as it does not age or die or become sick. If you’re looking for a living thing on this planet that truly has a shot at approaching some sort of eternity, Cancer is far closer then humanity.

But if you desire to get really technical about what happens to you after you die as far as your remains are concerned, you rot, decompose through various means over time and eventually your atoms will be eaten by the great super-massive singularity at the center of the galaxy that our atoms occupy at that point in our Universe’s future; incidentally, I did not say Milky way because by that time there won’t be a Milky way, it will have collided with Andromeda and several others forming a new super galaxy which we will probably not be around to name. Things like this have always assisted reasonable people in finding perspective on being alive. So much more is going on in our Universe then we will ever ever ever know or understand and to assume in the face of obviousness that after you die, after your life ends you somehow live again forever is the panicle of human arrogance; the crown jewel of human stupidity and capacity for monsterism. The universe is 75 billion light years across, some 15 to 20 billion years old, and people actually think that they merit more significance then what our own biological bodies, planet and even the galaxy itself can provide for us. The truth is we are tormented by our minds because we know of our own mortality and as our understanding grows and ignorance dwindles, so to does our understanding of how truly finite everything, even our soccer ball shaped universe itself, is and so to our ignorance dwindles of how ridiculous a question like “What happens after you die?” is. In truth, quite a lot happens after you die, though none of it has a thing to do with you.