Mindandbelief.Com

By Eugene G. Breen

The human mind is the pinnacle of creation. It is spiritual and emanates from the human brain, initially at any rate! It is sociable and abstract and has an enormous coefficient of expansion. It can love. It can think. It can believe. It is the faculty that sets us apart from all other levels of being on the planet. It inhabits a dying world which has flickers of life like fireworks which sooner or later disappear like Chinese lanterns in the sky. We disappear too but our minds live on, hankering to be reunited with our old flames our bodies. Then the orchestra rises in crescendo as our minds and bodies reunite for better or for worse, and ride into the sunset. Great stuff! Read all about it. The mind and body inseparable in life, and separated at death, reappear in This is Your Life - Last Epic Episode. What will it be? A comedy, a tragedy or a thriller? It is all up to free will and belief. The believing mind is all powerful, provided it engages rationality honestly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496995742

Eugene G. Breen

Eugene G. Breen works as a psychiatrist in an inner city practice. He has penned two previous books in this series: The Human Mind and Belief – Opening Shots and The Human Mind and Belief 11 – Unplugged. The basic idea is that the human mind is the best hint there is to direct our understanding of what life and death are about and of what it means to be human. The philosophical underpinning is metaphysics and the psychology is optimistic realism. He writes in a conversational style and speaks to the lay person as well as the specialist. Humour and a light touch make challenging realities more palatable. The gaping hole that purely human thinking exposes about the origin and cause of the universe and man is gazed at, and believe it or not, instead of an infinite abyss, an enormous reality is discovered. The interface between philosophy and psychology and religion and science is explored and the reader is left to research the issues further.

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© 2014 Eugene G. Breen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/03/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9577-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9574-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION TO PART 1

CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 2 WHAT? HOW? WHY?

CHAPTER 3 TOO MUCH SCIENCE - BROADEN THE FOCUS

CHAPTER 4 IF YOU THINK HORSE YOU WILL GET HORSE

CHAPTER 5 FEATURES OF BEING ALIVE AND WHEN LIFE BEGINS

CHAPTER 6 THE BASIS OF KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 7 DENUEMENT AND NEW ERA

CHAPTER 8 MAN AND DELUSIONS

CHAPTER 9 THE HUMAN MIND AND THE POSSIBILITY OF BELIEF

CHAPTER 10 ENDS - SO WHAT?

INTRODUCTION PART II

CHAPTER 11 BALL PARK VIEW

CHAPTER 12 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

CHAPTER 13 KEY IDEAS

CHAPTER 14 SUFFERING

CHAPTER 15 NOTES

CHAPTER 16 CONTEMPLATION

CHAPTER 17 WHEN YOU ARE DEAD YOU ARE DEAD

CHAPTER 18 THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHTS

CHAPTER 19 DREAMS

CHAPTER 20 FREEDOM

CHAPTER 21 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

INTRODUCTION PART III

CHAPTER 22 ADDICTION

CHAPTER 23 THE DEAD

CHAPTER 24 THE LIVING

CHAPTER 25

PERSONALITY AND THE PERSON

CHAPTER 26 WHAT IS THE ESSSENCE OF MAN OR WOMAN?

CHAPTER 27 THE CONVEYOR BELT

CHAPTER 28 LOVE

CHAPTER 29 WORK

CHAPTER 30 SURVIVAL

CHAPTER 31 LET’S TALK ABOUT GOD

CHAPTER 32 MORALITY

CHAPTER 33 ADAM AND EVE AND OPRAH

CHAPTER 34 BACK TO THE HUMAN MIND

CHAPTER 35 WHO’S TERMS AND WHO’S GROUND RULES?

CHAPTER 36 TRUTH

CHAPTER 37 THE ALCHEMIST

CHAPTER 38 IS IT IN MY HEAD OR YOUR HEAD….. OR WHOS’ HEAD?

CHAPTER 39 HAVE WE ANY HOPE AT ALL?

PARTING WORD

For all those who suffer with mental illness

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

To begin to begin to engage with the human mind and belief, you need a good shot of reality. You begin with your own mind and belief and life, and the history of man. The picture painted by man down the centuries is always the same with different hues and surroundings, because man is always the same. The human mind consists of what is outside of it and what goes on within. What is outside – the universe, other people, the history of man, and everything we take in through our senses and intellect, is usually definite concrete and objective. What is inside the mind is a world of thoughts and emotions and drives and passions that may or may not be based in reality. It often needs outside objective proof to confirm that it is real, and not a delusion or a subjective imaginary world.

The mind functions the same way in everyone from the point of view of process. Reason or rationality is the basic language. This underpins most of what we think and deduce and understand. There are other faculties, like love and inspiration and fear, like pain and suffering and hope, and these are also built on rationality but supersede or surpass basic reason. Belief is a key feature of human minds, and it has both human (you trust someone or thing) and superhuman functions. The superhuman belief is no longer a human capacity as such, but depends on and is founded on a supernatural power. This is the realm of belief in God and religion. It is absolutely reasonable and logical to believe in God, and people with strong faith don’t need to look any farther for an explanation for life.

The broad brush strokes of life include the following:

The shortness and fragility of life; you can die at any moment.

The finality of death; there is no coming back.

The universal suffering of man, and his constant struggle with the difficulties of life.

The ever present joy in many, despite the hardships of life.

The universal and perennial belief in God of whatever form this takes.

The presence of change in everything that exists.

The omnipresence of time, and its measure of the inexorable decay and aging of everything, including the universe.

The powerful hope of man throughout the centuries for a better tomorrow, and justice and joy in the next life and even forever.

The following pages describe these realities in varying tones and forms. There are some ideas that are repeated, and this is because they are important and fundamental, and seeing them from different views can better clarify them. The language is at times humorous and light hearted, and this is used to sustain attention, and also to counteract serious topics being too demanding. Sometimes there are hard sayings, and it is true that the truth is sometimes tough, but it sets you free, and the silver lining of hope and understanding and forgiveness are there to balance the situation.

The book was originally written in three instalments and published individually under the titles: The Human Mind and Belief - Opening Shots; The Human Mind and Belief - II Unplugged; The Human Mind and Belief - 3 Reloaded. As such it has three introductions, one for each part. The stimulus for writing was to try to throw some light on the true nature of man and life. It is also an attempt to answer those who say there is no God. It tries to describe the beauty of life lived by millions of people over the centuries who did put God as number one in their lives, and who are now happy ever after. It dips into the worlds of philosophy and psychology, and psychiatry and literature and popular music, and endeavours to make the workings of the mind and belief more accessible to ordinary people. These days people really need hope because there is so much negativity and bad news coming at them 24/7. This is also an attempt to instil hope. I hope I’m right!

INTRODUCTION TO PART 1

The philosophical and scientific debates about the existence of God, the credibility of human knowledge and the potential of the human mind, can be approached from many standpoints. The advancement of psychiatry and psychology, and the medical technologies now show the brain and its structures in real time. Much of the mystery and confusion concerning the nervous system and the brain and how they work are now less mysterious. We observe life and death and the trends in history and human thought, and they all point to unchangeable realities which everyone ponders on a daily basis.

These include, when does life begin? Can the human mind tell us anything about what the mind is made for, what we are destined for, and whether it is the only show in town? Is there another intelligence light years beyond ours? Is death the final frontier or is it just a beginning? Can observation of the human mind and peoples actions and lives, help us to get some inkling of why we are here, where we are going, and how we get there? Taking human life and history as the raw material, and our minds as the instrument we have to probe them, we can attempt some answers. Human experience shows that truth is true because it is proven by acts. When science is based on truth the hypotheses are true and the experiments work. Matter functions according to precise laws and these laws when obeyed function. Incorrect data or equations do not work. This we know. Why this is so we don’t know. Whoever designed this system knows.

The average person looking at life and pondering these ideas comes to his own conclusions. We approach the issue of life, happiness, right and wrong from a human point of view to show that it is reasonable, and consistent, and an unfinished business. God is not invoked as a possible author of all, or as an explanation, until the obvious even becomes overwhelming and certain.

We may from our own study or observation come to the conclusion that the existence of God makes perfect sense, but we try not to use this knowledge in the effort of teasing out the issues to see where pure human thought takes us. These arguments are self-evident and open to all to acknowledge and experience. There is nothing hidden in the logic and no reference is alluded to, except the reference of common human experience to which everyone can attest.

Some have said that God is a delusion of the human mind, others that God is the opium of the people, but God is not a delusion, man is not a delusion. Man is frequently deluded, not only about God, but about everything you care to think of. These observations are arrived at by our common human experience and reason, and are assessable to everyone.

The beginnings of life are crucial from the point of view of seeing where it all begins. As a consequence, we ought to rally to its protection as the most fragile seeds of life. Some politicians and scientists say the embryo is just a clump of cells and therefore you can do whatever you like with it. It is considered by some to be the same as an abscess or growth and no more. The fact that human life begins at fertilization or even before that is discussed, and the quality of life being both material or animal and spiritual or abstract, oozing into visual existence at fertilization, and wafting through death to invisibility is looked at. Life seems to be a continuum, and the bit in the middle that we see and live in the body, that kicks off at fertilization and ends at death, may be only half the picture. It makes no sense to say that life is initiated by the act of birth. Being born is a milestone like getting ones first teeth or one first hearing aid.

Scientists have attacked the idea of life beyond death, but it is not unreasonable, and in fact it makes good sense to consider that life is eternal, and that people live for ever. It is not repulsive to common or uncommon sense, and there is a good basis to accept this. Life beyond human experience i.e. spirits and God and supernatural life is logical, given our mind’s make up and human experience.

The approach used as mentioned already is that of a person using the knowledge of the profession of medicine and science and those of philosophy and humanities, to draw logical conclusions to illustrate the absolute reasonableness of spiritual life, and in particular of the existence of God.

CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW

Scientists delving into the origin and cause of life and the universe, posit that it all began with basic matter and energy. The emergence of life is described in terms of spontaneous occurrence in a primordial substrate. Things have moved on, and highly complex life forms abound, and man is the most developed life form visible to us. As such man is a key piece in the jig-saw, of finding out what it is all about.

All of the history and philosophy and science and learning to date, are an impressive armamentarium of human thought and achievement, and catalogue the constant progression of human knowledge. One could ask what the end game is and whether there is a grand finale. The pattern to date, is of exponential growth of knowledge, and in the past 100 years much of this is in the sciences. It has now come to the stage that we know how things work, and what they are composed of. We are drilling ever more deeply into matter to harvest more and more data. This is obviously great from the point of view of technical advancement, and harnessing of nature, but it is one vein of information in the multifaceted tissue of life. It could be called horizontal data from the philosophical point of view, because it gives more and more information from one point of view – the scientific one. This endeavour could be compared to an ant foraging more deeply into his own ant hill, and the result is more data about this ant hill. The ant, in this case man, needs to look up and around and see the entire universe outside of his own anthill, and use other points of view to get the big picture.

Life as we see it, is a kaleidoscope of realities and nuances, and the physical universe is maybe an insufficient and insignificant basis for it all to emerge from, and happen on. It could be compared to a TV set. If the TV is switched off, and a bunch of scientists say 150 years ago, got working on it, they would probably come up with some fairly wild stuff. They discover wires, cables, cathodes, valves, screen connections etc. It is just a box of matter. They then sit around and try to work out what it is all about. Some may say it is a nonsensical contraption fit for the junk yard, others may say it fell together spontaneously (the evolutionary model!) or else they may conclude; hey, we are missing something here, this thing didn’t fall out of the sky, someone very bright must have made it. This is the beginning……….. the TV then kicks into action when the power is accidentally switched on, and advertisements for toothpaste, and cowboy films and music and people appear on the screen and talk to them. This is beyond their wildest dreams and they are dumbfounded. The reality of a new life form emanating from a bunch of inert wires and a screen is incomprehensible. It is another realm or order of life, and how could it come from matter and energy? We now know it does, and how, some know.

The absolute richness and diversity and wonder of human life, are so much more than the matter and energy that underlie them, like the TV set and the programmes. The focus then should not just be on the wires of life, the matter and energy, but on the panorama or big picture. The realities of art, literature, love, hate, emotional life, spiritual life, disappointment, ecstasy, joy, human relationships, struggle, and pain and suffering, to mention a few that we are sure exist, requires a broader lens. The shortness of human life, the inequality of life, why some have goods in plenty and others have nothing, and the interminable quest for happiness in the human spirit, all call out for answers. Matter and energy cannot supply these answers, no more than the study of the TV wires and screen can answer the altogether different realm contained in the wonders of the programmes. Another language or knowledge is needed.

What instrument is therefore needed to decipher and understand all the strands of reality contained in life? All the computers in the world even 1000 years from now wouldn’t do. Computers will never have freedom or a human spirit because they can never be human. They will never have their backs against the wall, like experiencing suffering, death, or hardship, and this type of experience fine tunes knowledge and forces one to cut to the chase. Some may say that just because they are artificial intelligence, does not mean they cannot look in and suggest responses. That is true for much of what we do, but for the eschatological, life and death issues, and moral choices we are on our own. Dump the entire cascade of human knowledge and experience and life into an instrument capable of sifting it all, and coming up with a menu of possibilities, and there is your instrument.

Is the human brain up to this task? What is the brain? It is a soft bit of tissue with billions of cells and synapses housed in a skull. It is a mighty computer with attitude. It has cognitive skills and emotional reservoirs, and driving will and an impressive memory bank. It is made of human flesh and blood and matures over 25 years and declines over 35 years, and dies and decomposes at death. There is a discussion in medical and other circles these days, about what constitutes brain and what constitutes mind. Brain is the hardware, because without it nothing else would happen, like the wires and screen of the TV. The mind then is the content of the TV programmes, it is everything else beyond the physical brain. The mind with its intelligence and all its other faculties, is the instrument we have to understand the cart of human life and experience. It is the top of the range instrument we have to try to understand life and what it is all about. Put a few billion minds in synchrony through the internet for example and that is also a fine tool.

The study of music tells you more about music. The study of psychology tells you more about thought and behaviour, and the study of art tells you more about art. Every human endeavour and reality, has its own trove of information, be it art or literature or pain or sorrow. Each adds its contribution to the totality of human knowledge, but none has the monopoly of wisdom, meaning the understanding and explanation of everything.

Over emphasis on science will tell you loads about matter, but cannot say anything about the myriad of other human realities. It has its place and that’s it. All disciplines and experience look up to their generator and goal. Beauty asks who invented me or created me and for what purpose or for whom? Science asks where did I come from and who designed it all and makes it work? Literature asks who composed this and who is for? All human hallmarks and knowledge combined ask very loudly where did we all come from and why and what is our purpose?

The human mind has pondered these questions since for ever. Philosophers have come and gone with their theories. Relativists and reductionists are the flavour of some quarters at present. The perennial truths are always there and the same, like the nature of man, the nature of the planet, the laws of nature etc. From psychology, brain imaging, and behavioural sciences we gather more and more data on how the animal man works. From spiritual treatises and the lives of people we gather more data on how people live their lives. Anthropology develops from the study of man and builds up a portrait of Homo Sapiens. We have a warehouse of data from every conceivable angle, and now like the ant who looked up, we say what is it all and who made it and why? The study of the human mind itself is useful, because by knowing the instrument you can try to discover something about why it was made, and why it functions the way it does. The human mind or soul or spirit, is the best hint out there, as to why we exist and how. It is the pinnacle of creation and the jewel in the crown of reality. What is the mind for and is it a true interpreter of reality?

Some say God is a delusion. This could be seen as absolute human arrogance and stupidity – the fact that a miserly vulnerable and perishable creature (man), who didn’t cause himself, and knows little about himself, thinks he is the only intelligence around, when the evidence is that there is a seriously superior being hovering around, that did all there is, and we don’t know the rest! Man certainly did not do creation, so someone else must have! Some do not accept immortality. Some question the existence of a spiritual life. Some deny morality or objective truths, and right and wrong. Some say we are a lucky accident, and that life grew spontaneously from primeval matter and energy, and spontaneously evolved into the life forms we see today. Some say that you see only what you want to see. The study of the human mind and the experience of millions of people, who have lived beyond their human capacity, will help to elucidate these questions.

CHAPTER 2

WHAT? HOW? WHY?

Let’s get zany, cut to the chase and say it as it is! Scientists say life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago. Life, so they say, began as a simple life form like a cell or single cell organism. Scientists say that everything that exists is derived from matter and energy, and that life grew spontaneously from this fertile substrate and has developed into the sophisticated panorama we now see. The most advanced life form, man, is the pinnacle of this formidable unremitting process. There are here a number of facts. It posits a linear progression from simple or basic matter and energy to really complex and extraordinary life forms. This took some time, (billions of years) but it happened and is still happening. Two questions arise. What is the real beginning and what is the end? Picture another 3.8 billion years and we won’t recognise ourselves, or maybe we will, or maybe we will have regressed into simpler forms again and eventually have morphed into basic matter and energy. Nobody knows. This does not answer the question of where basic matter and energy are ultimately from or towards what destiny it is all heading.

What was there before matter and energy? If nothing, absolutely nothing, well then there should still be nothing. It is humanly incomprehensible to imagine something coming from nothing. It contradicts science as we know it and also philosophy. These are disciplines for extant reality, i.e. they depend on existing matter and life to function. A vacuum comes close to nothing, but it is a hole in something. Another problem with science and philosophy is that they are dependent on human intelligence. There may well be another intelligence light years ahead of ours out there. We could be compared to children discovering toes. We fumble through layers of wrapping and find another toy and another law and one more reality. After millennia of human existence we have achieved a limited understanding of 4% of what we think exists, and the other 96% of what exists, is dark matter, about which we know little or nothing. Maybe that is the way forward, a programme of study of dark matter and all that is out there, that we don’t even know about yet. How about white matter? We haven’t even discovered that yet! We have mapped the human genome and now we are mapping the human brain, and there will always be areas of the body and brain/mind that require further study. But will these new discoveries help us to understand the origin of the planet and life and its destiny? What do you think? Probably not. Taking the evolutionary path which seems to be accepted to date, we could develop into super bright spirits in another billion years …. or could we? Who can say? There could be another ice age or big bang or freaky frog that outstrips our intelligence? There is no blueprint to consult.

DNA is not the ultimate determinant of life forms, is it a facilitator. It does not engender and cause the nature of life (it is not the designer of the pattern of life development) nor is it the spark of life of the animal. It is a tool like a wheelbarrow or shovel. It is a template for protein synthesis, a tiny conveyor belt. The result is a human or an ox or a fish, good to go and brand new, but without instincts or behaviours or life. A fantastic human body but with no life, straight off the conveyor belt. The magic that makes the person come alive and be a person is missing. This has to be externally gifted (to the human body) and then the person acts as a human being. A fish is the same. The spark of life is a mystery. It is not inevitable nor can it be manufactured. It does not occur spontaneously (without cause) and never will. The idea that fertile matter and energy got together and life happened by chance is crazy; it has no evidence to support it and has never been seen or proven. Life is like electricity it must be generated and once in existence it can be passed on as in birth or new life. The key question is where does life emanate from initially, where is it generated and who generates it? You could say that life is part of the planet or universe, and say that whatever causes the universe also causes life to occur and propagate. Human reason tells us that nothing happens without a cause. We have a seriously sophisticated universe and a really advanced animal, the human being, neither of which we could even think about making…. and there they are right in front of us. They appeared out of nothing, they just evolved out of matter and energy over the years… this cannot be a serious answer.

Could one species turn into another? Let’s say yes. The DNA of a frog gets roughed up by trauma and it is changed into that of a dog or a human. Well then you have a fish turned human, and unless the life of a human is bred into this form, well then you get a fish that looks like a human, maybe a mermaid if it is female! Life is diverse and what is life? Cell life, animal life, human life, planetary life, abstract and spiritual life, and even mere existence, call out for a cause and a kick start. Expressed life may be material and tracked by our senses, or it may be invisible or abstract or spiritual. Life drives everything that is. A plank has the life of wood, an ant that of an ant, and a man has human life. The planet earth has its life as a planet, and similarly seasons and plants and gravity and dark matter have their lives. Human life seems higher than the other forms.

What is the origin of the human brain or mind? We are not responsible for it, and we can hardly understand it, and yet we all have one. Someone must be responsible for our intelligence. It is consistent across mankind, and some have higher levels of function than others. All use reason as the work-horse or basic computer language, and cause and effect as parameters within which reason works. We design things and they work when the reasoning is correct and they do not work when the reasoning is incorrect. Everything has a cause and if we don’t know it, it is because we haven’t found it yet. Everything also has a goal towards which it goes or a purpose for which it exists. When the purpose for existence ceases it ceases like the disappearing appendix. The absolute awesomeness of the planetary system, and of how on earth we happened to be on earth with all its conditions for life, is a mystery. The spectacle of the human brain with 200 billion cells and 125 trillion synapses is terrific. The vastness of the universe, and its order and cohesion, and the perfection and function of everything, is jaw dropping. Some think this is the result of serendipity. In that case serendipity is a powerful designer! Nature, from coral reefs to wisdom teeth, to patterns in rock pools and so on, forces one to ask who owns it? Who made it? What is it all for? Scientists say it all came from matter and energy 14 billion years ago with a big bang.

The language of nature and man is mathematics we are told, and the essence of all being is shot through with patterns and formulae and equations of a mathematical design. Nature and all that is/exists has its own signature, and as far as the human mind can comprehend it is mathematical and highly ordered and beautiful. This could not just happen by chance. The extraordinary precision of physical principles with their 11 constants (temperature range, tilt of the earth, force of gravity, distance from the sun etc.) in nature, which make life possible and endurable on earth, is beyond comprehension. Certainly it is beyond our comprehension to imagine how it all happened or came together, or where the power to do it all is or resides. It definitely is intelligent design, and points to an extraordinary intelligence and power to design and then to do it. The evolving story line (new discoveries by man and developments by man all the time), and the unknown beginning (big bang, and before that??) and definite linear progression (certainly from man’s point of view e.g. science, medicine and knowledge) to, God only knows where, seems a work in progress and a masterpiece in the making. Man does not know the big picture and is part of this progression, and he is in there looking out. The reality is that it is already at the last days of creation/existence/life on earth or whatever, and we are the last ones to find out! We are linearly progressing all the time in our knowledge and advancing in our achievements, and becoming masters of the world but that does not affect the world. The world will carry on its path inexorably and run its course, and there is nothing we can do about it. We are passengers on a sphere turning through space on a defined and specific orbit and route. Where it is all going we don’t know. When it all began we don’t know. Why it began and whether anyone is responsible, some say they don’t know. Others say God is behind it all and knows what it is all about.

Other experiences we have are those of freedom, evil, morality, love, hate, justice and the array of person-person, and person community/society interactions. There are also human-nature/world interactions and the realities of ideas and spiritual and religious life. These all come from human life, since they would not exist without human life … or would they? Is there a life which is independent, above and beyond human life? It makes absolute sense to think so. Why should man be the ultimate life form for which everything else exists? Man is a hybrid of matter and spirit and is not a pure spirit with pure spiritual life. Why not consider a life of a higher order of a purely spiritual nature? Evolution points towards more and more perfection, evidence from nature points that way, and the unanswered question of the origin of everything, points to a cause and evolution with its directionality (i.e. constant development and progress of human knowledge and species) aims towards some zenith. Man being a hybrid of body and spirit is not the highest life form imaginable, and a pure spirit would seem to be logical terminus for life forms according to our intelligence. Whether the hybrid which is man, will after another 3 billion years morph into a pure spirit is another question. This is conjecture. What is plausible though is that pure spirits already exist but we haven’t acknowledged them.

If life is a circle and that just keeps repeating every 500 billion years with development followed by regression and on and on, the questions of why, whence, and how, still have to be answered. Circular existence would seem to contradict the forward march of nature and evolution and frustrates our innate desire for progress. This of course presumes that the entire world is there as a service to man, or that man is the reason for the whole universe. Could it not be that it is just a symbiotic relationship, and the world does its thing, and man his, and both benefit from each other? Regardless of the natural turning of the universal wheel (some religions consider life as a constant turning of the wheel of life) we still have the problem of man, his freedom, his death, and the cause of the ultimate and overall design of his life, and its goal. There must be a cause and reason for everything, since that is the way our intelligence works, and the history of man shows our intelligence is correct and true, at least as far as our existence goes, and it works here on earth. If we accept our intelligence to be true then it should point to the whys.

Common sense suggests that there is a superior intelligence behind life. There are no contradictions in nature. Man dies and disappears and is therefore unintelligible, unless there is a reason for man’s life. A reasonable end would be that all the freedom, justice, morality, work and suffering, and comings and goings of man, are meaningful, and do serve a purpose, and have a result. Eternal life, reward punishment joy and retribution, are reasonable and suit our minds and how they work in this life. Why cannot they be true and point toward the target, that all the process of evolution and natural progression and development are tending? Yes they can. It is the most reasonable answer to life. Alternatives such as we don’t know, or that we will discover in time, is not an answer, and moreover is no consolation to the billions of humans that have come and gone to date. How do you explain the dead? They were in tough luck, because they were around too early for us to discover the cause of it all, and now we know but unfortunately it is not much good to them. This way of reasoning is an absolute contradiction of nature, of justice and of logic. Nature abhors a vacuum and contradiction, and man abhors an unanswered question. God is the ultimate cause of it all and this makes perfect sense and it explains everything. There is a superior intelligence, it is all designed and built and sustained in being, there is an ultimate direction and purpose, and we are taking a ride for 50 or 78 years and………… what explains that? We are on trial; and the goal posts are set and it is up to each man to discover the wisdom of life, and follow the path that leads and gains a fuller understanding of life, in all its meaning and grandeur and intensity.

DNA, Big Bang, brain mapping, computer science and whatever else you want, all work with a piece of matter or reality that we didn’t create. They are cumbersome tools or discoveries of something that someone somewhere kicked into our back yard, and we stumbled upon it. We created nothing. We don’t know who owns the yard or universe. We have very limited intelligence (millennia to get this far), and we are like ants groping through an earth mound. It is about time we changed our focus and looked up and saw farmer Tom coming with a big spade to flatten us!…………. or teacher Lydia cycling to school…… and ask what or who are they? Of course we have to study our planet and life, and in it we should catch a large glimpse of the designer, but to answer the question where it is all from and why, we need to change focus. We need to look up. Our intelligence is earthly and it is slow and fairly sure, and science by definition is about science, and can never and will never answer questions about French or sonatas or love, or why and who created it all. It may sniff a hint of the creator by study of the creature, much like a composition often reveals a faint image of the composer. Some other prism of study or enlightenment is the direct route to the team behind it all, or to the mind envisioning and creating it all with the blueprint of life.

We have been to the moon, and next is Mars, we have electron microscopes and digital communication, we live 25 years longer than our grand-parents did and so on…….. Like gold fish in a pond discovering more and more about our pond. Our brains or minds are bigger than those of a gold fish, and we have the capacity to reflect and take stock of things. We understand that by specialising in our gold fish pond we will become experts on our pond. This is the domain of science. To get out of the pond and see the rest of creation, we first of all need to understand that there is more to life than our pond, and then go beyond (and with science) to capture the bigger picture with our other faculties. These faculties include love, generosity, desire, and suffering and the world of emotion and belief. They include reflective thought and assimilation of observed life. They include philosophy which is similar but possibly more abstract. They include spirituality, hope and faith, altruism and charity and their meaning and effects on us and others. They include the world of relationships, and our interactions with one another and with animals and nature. These and many more are other ponds we must plumb the depths of, to get the many pieces of the big picture in focus. The totality of all human knowledge and experience combined together, is at least a beginning to putting all our cards on the table and having some chance at assimilating life in all its shades.

CHAPTER 3

TOO MUCH SCIENCE - BROADEN THE FOCUS

Too much of anything is bad for you. This holds true particularly in the modern technological and over medicalized world. Science or any intellectual pursuit in its pure form, needs to be balanced by the humanities or arts or life experience, in order to draw life or world view inferences. Science has as its object the study of matter and energy, and the social sciences and medicine study the human being and his/her behaviour. These disciplines have a focus on a specific area of life and as such do not have the big picture. No matter how much you study writing you never see a picture or hear a song. Yet music and art are major realities completely ignored by writing, understood in this narrow sense. Science tells you what things are and how they work, and sometimes where they came from, and it is a particular type of knowledge. Computers to some extent are similar, in commanding a particular slice of life. 50 years ago no one sat all day looking at a screen or typing, and now millions do. It is now part of ordinary life, but it was not always there, and maybe might not be there in another 100 years. The diversity of life with all the human experiences of death and new life, and war and peace, and music and art, and literature and theology and philosophy, and second hand cars, needs many different types of knowledge to have any chance of understanding it. The hallmark of life is the struggle of ordinary people from day to day with their hopes and sorrows and yearnings, and one could ask what has science to do with that? There is also the world of the abstract and of religion and justice and cultures, that thrive and disappear, and science really has little or nothing to say about that. The rich canvas of life may be built to some extent on material and principles based in science, but that may be as far as it goes. Science cannot explain life.

Beyond Science

These days scientific experts commonly pontificate about life and God and the causes for this and that. Artists don’t seem to do this, nor Olympic gold medallists nor star chefs, but scientists do. Why… you may ask is this happening? The answer is possibly because science has advanced so much so fast, and people think that it is just a matter of time until it will explain everything. This has to be false, because science or medicine or any discipline only see a shaft of knowledge. It’s like having tunnel vision and being an expert on scrabble, and then beginning to talk about rugby and polo and classical music, which is impossible, because scrabble has little or nothing to do with these. Well intentioned scientists get hamstrung in this way, and try to explain the life of man and God through the narrow medium of science. To be an expert in F1 cars does not make you knowledgeable about boats or children or stars. Science in excess can constrict the mind so that everything has to be understandable in scientific terms, and this is not true. Obsession with any discipline runs the risk of ignoring other ways of seeing things and of thinking. One then may think that their specialty knowledge has all the answers, and not realise that it is just a small part of the truth. These vocal scientists tend to attack religion particularly. They propose that science is the answer to reality and the origin of the universe and of man. They challenge religion saying that it is not needed because science can explain it all. Supposedly concrete facts are presented that contradict religion, and these they say, prove that God does not exist. True science has never and never will contradict religion, and on the contrary religion is beyond science. A low grade level of rationality is not the only game in town. Science is like a computer language which works for computing and that’s as far as it goes. It will not and cannot tell you the reason for illness or why we were created! Philosophy attempts to do this.

Knowledge

The brain is not just a frontal lobe (which processes executive function and rational thought), but has other lobes and centres that are the seat of affective life and animal life and spiritual life, and these areas have as much if not more influence on our lives than the frontal lobes. Love, hate, sex, subconscious, dreaming, impulses, habits, drives and personality and engrained patterns of behaviour emanate from these brain areas. Science and medicine serve by showing how we and our brains work, among other things. Reason is a true language or system but it has limitations because we are limited. There are many other ways of knowing things. Intuition, self-knowledge, abstraction, human experience of pain or relationships or love, to mention a