Happy 80th Birthday Mom

Today my mother is 80. As you can see she is still active, in fact she still goes dancing, something she has enjoyed all her life. On the news today, also, was a piece about a woman of 103 who has had an operation. The doctor treating her said he had performed the operation because there was not much wrong with her in spite of her age. The operation was to relieve pain and was considered worth doing because she should live for some years yet.

Since having my heart attack I have become quite interested in life expectancy and amused my friends and family by suggesting that once my body is stabilised there is no reason why I should not live for another 40 years, which would mean I would die at the age of 96.

We are certainly on the verge of some remarkable medical achievements. Various forms of cancer, for example, are now mainly diseases of old age and with experiments in the area of stem cell treatments it may be that a whole new world of genetic therapies will see total mastery over cell manipulation. Also, there is news that statin treatment for heart conditions can also reverse damage, leading to speculation that some heart conditions can be prevented altogether.

One of the articles I read recently suggested that the first person to live to 150 has probably already been born. Others have suggested that immortality is just a matter of time (pardon the pun).

The social consequences of immortality do not bear thinking about and even the trend is having a marked effect on society. A few years ago we had an unfortunate tendency to write off anyone considered too old to be of any value. Now they are such a dominant force, in sheer numbers, that the elderly perspective cannot be written off. I just hope this will stop the throw away fad that has gripped us for so long. An attack of 'old is beautiful' would be very nice, thank you.

Alas, in the scheme of things, extending life is one thing. Immortality is quite another. Personally, I believe everything has a beginning, a middle and an end and it is inevitable that all things pass on. I say 'pass on' because it does seem that matter is neither created nor destroyed even if it does dramatically change its structure, nature's recycling plant. I can accept that most of me will end up as a cloud, being 80% water and little bits will contribute to other natural phenomena, mainly as nutrients for other life forms. As to whether 'life' and 'physical restructuring' are the same is another thing altogether. I must say I have difficulty thinking of conscious experience as essentially a physical thing and even greater trouble working out where it goes to in the process of bodily recycling. There has to be more to it than this. However, just as we are nowhere towards understanding the origins of the universe (see earlier article) I do not believe we have much of a clue about the nature and purpose of life itself. In which case how do we decide what is the appropriate way to live our lives?

 

THE ENEMY AT THE DOOR

For reasons not worth explaining I am the proud owner of 3 step ladders. At least I was until a few hours ago when this was reduced to 2. I am in the process of selling a house which is unoccupied but still has various possessions in (2 ladders among other things) and which includes the tv aerial which was on the roof until the chimney stack was demolished as unsafe. Not wishing to waste a good aerial I brought it home and rigged it up to work with my computer system to provide me with digital tv. Like all aerials it worked better at a height and so I found myself contriving more and more Heath Robinson ways of taking it up ever higher. The latest of these was the step ladder. I returned triumphant to the house to find I had a perfect picture on all channels - even Five and the History Channel. Come bedtime I decided to leave my contraption out overnight arguing to myself that I am situated on a crossroad and surrounded by houses. Also the ladder was behind the car and right by the front door. Most importantly, the gambler's rule, I could afford to lose it (because I had 2 more). You will not be surprised to learn that overnight the ladder went and the aerial was unceremoniously sitting on the ground when I investigated this morning. Bah!

Of all the urban myths in existence this has to be the biggest. We all go through life believing that most people are honest. The truth is that most people are thieves. Even the 'decent' ones. Even the ones who would do you a favour or help you out and not expect anything back for it.

Part of this urban myth of honesty contains reference to the 'golden age' when no one had to lock their doors because nothing would be taken. I heard a very interesting lecture by a man who had just written a book on this subject some years ago. It turns out that the various 'golden ages' were always your own childhood and it was impossible to locate one of them in history. At the time this book was written there was a lot of concern about football hooligans (the eighties) and the perceived 'golden age' was the 1930s. In truth, the violence in football, and in society in general, during that period was far more severe than it was in the 1980s. It was quite normal to have pitched battles among opposing fans. Nevertheless, the theory of moral degeneration received much coverage. Again, untrue. The evidence for the open house 'golden age' was similarly startling. In the first place it simply did not occur where there was any kind of mobility of the population or any quantity. In small towns and neighbourhoods that did not generally see strangers it is true that people did not perceive the need to lock their doors. As it happens these same people had no possessions of any value so there really was nothing to steal.

What then is the main cause of theft in society. The answer is glaringly simple. It is opportunity. Most people who saw something unattended which they wanted would steal it if they thought they could get away with it. The myth is that we are honest. Yet almost any conversation with your fellow will reveal at least some element of dishonesty. How many people believe (yes believe) that it is OK to fiddle the tax man. Yet this is directly stealing money which belongs to all of us. If we had an actual pot into which we all threw money according to some agreed principles and someone came along and helped themselves to it we would not be very happy. Yet that is what the tax thief does. When it comes to communal honesty what could be more central than that.

My view is that one of the most important activities of our age is that of security. Sad though it is we have to treat our fellows as potential thieves and act and plan accordingly. I like to think that people are not that different from animals, which, after all, is what we are. If you left your dog in the kitchen where you had prepared a huge meal would you expect to find everything untouched when you returned? I think not. The dog would see the food, want it and have it. Leaving aside morality, and I really think we should leave aside morality, the only difference between the dog and the human is that the dog would not worry about getting caught. yet do we believe the dog is evil or a psychopath. Not at all we just accept that dogs are like that and have to be supervised. You cannot expect too much of them. Some humans, I believe, are exactly like dogs. Others, most, will only steal if they think they will get away with it.

My conclusion is that security is not an optional extra in life. Everything we do must be done on a worse case scenario. Assume someone is out to get you and mess up what you are doing. Or at best that they are just feckless and reckless with regard to your welfare. Assume also that they are quite willing to wag their tail at you and lick you. The world of Victorian decency and scoundrels does not fit the modern world. I hesitate to say that we live in a dog eat dog world because dogs don't eat other dogs but if you stretch the metaphors enough you can certainly see the point. Probably a fuller analysis would reveal that ownership is part of a capitalist belief system and theft has to be seen against this backcloth whereas human relationships is about attachment behaviour. I shall muse on this distinction a little more before writing about it. What intrigues me is that both come together in the concept of democracy, that sacred word that no one is allowed to attack, but I am wondering if democracy has to be a part of capitalism or, indeed, if it has any real meaning at all.

Pierre

 

IN THE BEGINNING WAS NOTHING - THEN IT EXPLODED

Somehow the scientific community has come to believe that it has solved the great mysteries of the universe. It all started up with a big bang, expanded to whatever state it is in now, depending on which part of the universe you are in, and may or may not return to a dot not disimilar to the original dot from whence it came. There are available detailed descriptions of the state of the universe from the first few seconds onward. Much of this information is available courtesy of modern astronomical techniques but it is also underpinned by a happy marriage with Einstein's Theory of Relativity in its various forms. The easier part of this theory concerns the physical makeup of the atom and its constituents. From this the nature of how matter has behaved and evolved over mind boggling distances and periods of time can be deduced.

What we mean by 'matter' has always been a problem for philosophers of science and largely taken for granted by scientists, who just get on with the job. After all, there is not much point in describing sub atomic particles if there are none. Therefore, they must exist. Descartes must be turning in his grave to discover that so little progress has been made in the rigors of scientific discipline. The circularity of 'matter is what atomic scientists analyse' is compounded by the startling discovery that whatever it is, it only accounts for 15% of the 'material' of which the universe is composed. Somewhere out there is a massive 85% of 'dark matter', or so we think, theoretically. Well, probably. Since this 'dark matter' has not yet acquired any features it is difficult to be precise about it. But we are assured it is definitely out there.

Tied into the nature of matter is the 'glue' that holds it all together - the space-time continuum. The great thing about Einstein's theory is that it enables us to add perspective and portability to matter. Traditional science has assumed a point of view which it calls 'objective', as if it is possible to detach from the process and describe it in a way valid for all observers. Einstein realised that there is always a point of view relative to the event and its components. And in describing an event both space and time have to be included as integral.

However, both space and time are concepts which imply limit. They are systems of measurements. I cannot conceive of them as not systems of measurement, whether they are curved or whatever. By their nature they measure. Now, if you can measure something it has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Even if, like an Escher drawing, it tangles around and joins up back where it started, that still raises questions of width if not length and, of course, repetition if the journey just goes on for ever.

I am left with the inevitable questions: What is beyond the limits of the universe? What preceded the beginning of time? I have tried to imagine ways of thinking about time and space which satisfy these worries and I cannot. In my view it is fundamental to the concepts themselves that they raise these issues. So where does this leave us both philosophically and scientifically?

My view is that time and space are useless to our understanding of the nature and origins of the universe. We have not begun to make sense of what is truly going on. We do not even have more than a handful of the pieces of the jig saw. I would suggest that when about 1000 Einsteins have painstakingly worked out theories we might be a measureable amount closer - but by then we might just have run out of time (and space).

Pierre

 

HOW WILL HISTORY REMEMBER US?

I love history. There are many many reasons for this but one stands out above all. It is perspective. Winston Churchill said that he understood Hitler and foresaw World War Two because he read history. It takes us outside our own time and shows us cultures that think differently from ours. Someone once said that we should read history because although people from a different age make mistakes, just as we do, they make different ones to us.

Often people look back on their lifetime and wish they had been given the gift of hindsight. Others, either by skill, or luck, correctly see how things will turn out, and make their fortune.

An abiding theme, it seems to me, is the conceitedness of our own time. We always believe we are on the edge of a great breakthrough in understanding. We think that in our lifetime great issues will be decided and great scientific discoveries will be made which will settle major issues for ever. History suggests this perspective is wrong. It is exactly what our forefathers thought and their ancestors before them.

What we should be doing is to weigh up what we are fairly happy about and analyse what we still do not understand. True wisdom lies in knowing what you don't know. The latest scientific theory, however weighty, will give way to others. Easy now to understand why Newton failed to go far enough but Einstein could fill in the gaps in our understanding of gravity. Who, though, can see where Einstein is wrong? That's the real challenge.

Looking back on previous centuries it is relatively easy to see where the main growth points are. Not so easy at the time and not so easy to do the same thing for own time. So here is my question. In a few hundred years from now what will the scientists of the day think best characterises our age. There are many possible contenders. This has been the fastest growth period in all of history. You will not be expecting my choice.

I believe that we will best be remembered as the map makers. What we are doing is to catalogue everything in the world. Some of it is about actual maps. Some is about people and their vital statistics. Other elements are huge technical achievements such as the human genome. It is all going into computers and finding its place in the great doomsday book of life.

Surely there is more to it than that. No, I don't think so. Most of our so called huge scientific discoveries are still scratching the surface. They will not seem so momentous when there has been real progress. It is access to information that will endure. Imagine how people got around in days gone by with no maps to guide them. Lost in the wilderness. With an accurate map, however, all becomes clear. Take the human genome, for example. Our children will take it for granted but the use they make of it will be astounding - for centuries.

Pierre