ON THE MEANING OF LIFE

 

ESSAY 3 : ALONG THE ROAD TO TRUTH

 

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth – not going all the way, and not starting.

 - BUDDHA

 

 

In life, most of us make one of, and some both of, the mistakes Buddha identifies for us above. I have avoided the mistake of not starting and, as for the other mistake, I intend to go as far along “the road to truth” as I can. You are welcome to come with me and learn from my adventures, discoveries and stumbles.

 

In the previous essays I examined the House of God and the House of Disbelief. I found both to be unsound and, while they claim to contain the whole truth, the main thing to be found within their walls were souls seeking comfort – souls going nowhere along the road to truth. The cost of a life going nowhere, calculated in the currency of our spiritual lives, is high. The admission price to the House of God is belief in a parochial, jealous, and brutal small “g” god created many years ago around desert campfires in man’s image – and belief that the meaning of life is salvation from our innate sin. The entry fee to the House of Disbelief, on the other hand, is the outright denial of the spiritual – and of any belief in the special meaning or ultimate purpose of life. The denizens of both Houses thereby miss any opportunity for spiritual evolution that life outside allows. 

 

I invite those within their Houses to venture outside and join me in my effort to firstly find the road to truth, then go as far along it as I can. It will be a demanding journey into challenging territory – fraught with cliffs of fall but, hopefully, blessed with exhilarating heights and stunning views. We may be disturbed by what we find, but take heart – consider this, from one of the wisest of us all:

“Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel.”

                                    Jesus – Gospel of Thomas (2:1-3)

 

 

FINDING THE ROAD TO TRUTH

The Houses of God and Disbelief are built surprisingly close together upon the high moral ground – I guess that’s because it’s so narrow? A few brave souls emerge from their Houses at my invitation and we descend together to the fields below. These are the lush fields where the sacred cows of both Houses are grazed. As we cast about for the beginnings of our “Road to Truth” we are noticed by the soldiers of orthodoxy tending their cows. We discovered in the previous two essays that sacred cows are vulnerable, and they quickly escort us away from their charges.

 

We are forced to the banks of a river which has steep banks and wildly flowing waters. There is a rickety bridge across bearing a sign – it is Blasphemy Bridge over the River Ideology. But the bridge looks dangerous and some in our party hesitate, and return to their comfortable, safe Houses. The rest of us forge ahead bravely – taking some courage from George Bernard Shaw, who observed: “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” The bridge creaks beneath our feet and we can see through its decrepit planks to the treacherous river below – full of ideological whirlpools which can make the head spin before they drag you under, and infested with the crocodiles of academe – just waiting for a meal.

 

But we get to the other side without mishap and land at the beginning of a small track. It leads off quickly into the depths of a looming forest – could this be the start of our royal “Road to Truth”? It doesn’t look very promising, but it is all there is and we must take it. As we head into the forest the rashest of our band pause, and in a show of bravado, set fire to the bridge behind us. It is old and quickly alight. There is no going back now, but the flames do cast a little light – fortunately, because soon we are confronted by two pitfalls. One is sign-posted “Metaphysics” and the other “Supernatural”. These mark the entries into uncertain labyrinths wherein many escapees from the Houses are reputed to have ventured to seek Truth – only to emerge more confused than ever (if at all). Maybe we will explore these areas later if we can find a reliable guide, but for the moment, I propose we avoid these potential traps – that we dance around them and explore the unnatural rather than the supernatural, and the non-physical rather than the metaphysical.

 

THE UNNATURAL AND THE NON-PHYSICAL

What do I mean by these terms? By the “unnatural” I mean those things which cannot be adequately described by the natural, mechanistic explanation for everything and by the “non-physical” I mean those things which are not of the physical, material world created by the originally purely physical event – the big bang. So what are those “things”? To determine things unnatural and non-physical for our exploration let’s firstly look at the natural, physical explanation of everything to see where it fails. The natural, physical explanation goes something like this:

 

THE NATURAL PHYSICAL EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING

Everything in life can be explained as a natural consequence of a spontaneous, purely physical event which most scientists are calling the big bang – which occurred in the beginning about 13.7 billion years ago. There are competing terms for the beginning (the big expansion, big inflation etc.) but all basically envisage the same thing – that everything came from nothing – spontaneously and accidentally. The big bang was a multi-billion degree maelstrom of energy converting into matter – initially in the form of sub-atomic particles like quarks and gluons which formed quickly into protons and neutrons, which then combined with electrons about 380,000 years later to form the simplest atoms (hydrogen, helium). In time, bigger atoms occurred and eventually combinations of atoms became molecules. These natural, physical events led in time to another natural, accidental event – the occurrence of life (on at least this planet) – when somehow the originally inorganic conditions become organic. This life then evolved naturally through ‘natural selection’ into myriad lifeforms.

 

This is the natural, physical explanation for the universe which many people think satisfactorily explains everything. But there is much which remains mysterious. Why is there something rather than nothing? It is one thing to know about the interrelation of energy and matter (Energy = mass X speed of light squared) and deduce that matter came naturally from energy, but where did the original energy come from – was it natural, inevitable that it should exist? The relative, material universe emerged “spontaneously” only because the original absolute of energy existed. And, when life naturally emerged – the inert becoming spontaneously organic – it naturally evolved to the point of being able to observe the universe. Is it natural that stardust should be observing itself? Not only “observing”, but because human stardust has evolved to understand the language the universe was written in (mathematics) – stardust has come to understand itself. Understanding itself to the point of re-creating itself through genetic engineering. Humans then are creatures and creators both. Was it natural that this universe should organise its own existence, create its own life, organise its own observation, and understanding – and even its own re-creation? And this natural lifeform which calls itself “human” has some rather unnatural and unphysical things about it apart from understanding the language the universe is written in. It has, for example, an understanding and appreciation of beauty, music and humour. It has a sense of honour, shame, right and wrong. It has a concept and a regular experience of the numinous – it has much about it that can only be described as unnatural and non-physical – as spiritual. The natural, physical universe is mechanistic, but there appears to be a ghost in the machine!

 

Curioser and curioser. We have emerged a little from our gloomy forest into a little light, but now there are many tracks. Which way to venture? We need some direction, a compass. Let’s take out our philosophical compass at this point to see where it points us?

 

PHILOSOPHY NOW THE HANDMAIDEN OF SCIENCE

Scientific discoveries since Galileo have spurred philosophy to move away from being largely a footnote to Plato to become, instead, the handmaiden of science. Our physical sciences tell us that the universe is mechanistic, and our biological and psychological sciences have become dominated by evolutionary theory – telling us that we evolved mechanistically and all our behaviours can be described entirely in terms of animal survival and genetic imperatives. After this, what can philosophy rationally and logically deduce? Modern philosophy’s majority conclusion is that there can be no Divine first cause, and that humans have no Divine purpose or destiny – in fact there can be no Divine. Further, in a relative universe all meaning must be relative and there can be no special meaning or ultimate, Divine purpose. Philosopher Jacques Monod sees it like this:

“The ancient covenant is in pieces: man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged only by chance. Neither his destiny nor his duty have been written down. ” 

- (P.167, “Chance and Necessity”).

 

So, basically, we are wasting our time on our “Road to Truth”. The truth is: there is no “T” Truth. Our compass must necessarily point nowhere – we are lost in a sometimes magnificent but, ultimately bleak, land. We thought we were getting somewhere, but while our royal road to Truth is still a track we have come, so soon, to the brink of one of those previously mentioned cliffs of fall. Physicist, Paul Davies has this to say about Monod’s words:

“If the magnificent edifice of life is the consequence of a random and purely incidental quirk of fate, as the French biologist Jacques Monod claimed, we must surely find common cause with his bleak atheism.”

                                    - (P. 3, “The Fifth Miracle”) 

 

“Bleak” is the word. Here we are, dangerously poised on the brink of meaninglessness with no map and a spinning compass. But, Davies leaves us just a little glimmer – with his use of the word “if”. Let’s examine this little (but potentially giant) word “if”. If humanity has emerged out of the universe “only by chance”, if we are “the consequence of a random and purely incidental quirk of fate”, if everything has proceeded mechanistically from an accidental beginning – then meaninglessness and purposelessness must reign – we are lost and our bravery has been in vain. So quickly, let’s draw up a map of the “iffy” bits of the natural theory of everything. Let’s explore the things that don’t look like they are well explained by the words “random”, “chance”, “mechanistic”, “accidental”, “spontaneous”, “meaningless” – let’s look at the mysteries of life. Such things as :

 

·        THE INCREDIBLE UNLIKELINESS OF MATTER

·        THE INCREDIBLE UNLIKELINESS OF BEING

·        INTELLIGENT DESIGN

·        THE EXISTENCE OF ENERGY

·        THE ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES

·        GOOD, BAD, RIGHT, WRONG.

·        SHAME, ETHICS, CONSCIENCE AND AN INKLING OF THE SPIRITUAL.

·        BEAUTY

·        HUMAN BEAUTY

·        THE MATHEMATICAL ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE

·        OVER-DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

·        CONSCIOUSNESS

·        MUSIC

·        EVOLUTION – ONLY ONE GAP

·        AN UNCONSCIOUS CREATURE BUT A CONSCIOUS CREATOR

·        UNNATURAL SELECTION

·        SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION

·        HAPPINESS

·        SPIRITUAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL?

·        EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL

·        THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

·        HUMOUR

 

So, there’s our map. We have obeyed one of Buddha’s injunctions and set out on the Road to Truth, so now let’s continue on our path to bravely obey his other injunction to go all the way.

 

Let’s explore the first place on our map.

 

 

  • THE INCREDIBLE UNLIKELINESS OF MATTER

Shakespeare said that “The whole world’s at stage and we are but players upon it”. Let’s examine, firstly, that stage.

 

Some scientists have become aware that the more they learn about the universe the more they realise our existence is the result of a mysterious multitude of crucial, delicate settings between the forces of order, and disorder. The slightest alteration to any of them would reduce our intricately interdependent universe to a chaotic jumble of energy and radiation, which by rights it should naturally have been if it were the product of an accident :

“We really should live in a Universe with just radiation and no matter at all. But we don’t – and one of the most exciting aspects of modern cosmology is trying to understand what monumental accidents happened in the first microsecond of the Universe’s existence.”

– Cosmologist Larry Krauss (quoted in Universe, Couper & Henbest  P. 26). 

 

So, our universe is already looking a little unnatural. It is not a “universe with just radiation and no matter at all” as it should naturally be – it took some “monumental accidents” at the beginning to produce the universe we live in. Let’s consider firstly the accident of the unlikely formation of enough and suitable matter to form a universe – this from Krauss, in ‘Universe’ again (describing the initial moments after the beginning):

“Every time a particle of ordinary matter was created, a deadly twin of antimatter was spawned as well. The birth of every electron, for instance, also saw the creation of an ‘anti-electron’, or positron. The two have exactly opposite properties. If an electron and positron subsequently meet up again, they mutually annihilate in a burst of energy. In the young Universe equally matched battalions of matter and antimatter waged war on each other. The skirmishes produced radiation. …Why is there any material – matter or antimatter – left in the Universe today?…every now and then, one out of 10 billion interactions might have produced a particle of matter – one more than a particle of antimatter. In the end, you’d have 10 billion particles of antimatter, and 10 billion and one particles of matter. The 10 billion particles of matter and antimatter would annihilate, leaving just the one particle of matter left over. And that little bit extra is responsible for everything we can see today – it’s kinda remarkable!”

(Pp. 25-26 ibid.)

 

THE FINE BALANCE BETWEEN ORDER AND DISORDER

Kinda! And why not 10 billion and one particles of antimatter instead? And, not only is there a very fine balance between matter and anti-matter – something vs. nothing – there is an equally fine balance between order and disorder. All should be chaos in an accidental, spontaneous natural beginning – any accidental order quickly reduced by entropy. Professor Roger Penrose (mathematics, Oxford) has shown that to produce the complexity we observe in our universe the chances of naturally having the required amount of order to combat the forces of disorder is one in 1010 123 – a number so huge that the number of zeros totals more than all the atoms in the universe!

 

WHY IS THE UNIVERSE SO HUGE?

The question arises as to why is the universe had to be so huge – doesn’t it speak of some inefficiencies of design that you would not expect in a God? But apparently size does matter – not only were the above extraordinarily fine balances of matter and anti-matter, order and disorder critical – but the size and density of the universe is critical as well:

“…the mean density of matter in the universe at the very beginning has to be within 1 part in 1060 of the so-called ‘critical density’… If the density is smaller than it is by this amount then the universe will expand far too quickly for stars and galaxies to be able to form. If it is greater then the whole universe will recollapse under gravity in just a few months. … the universe needs to be the vast size it is in order for man to exist. This is the size it inevitably reaches in the 14,000 million years which it takes to evolve human beings…only if it is so vast could we be here! ”  

-         Dr. Rodney Holder, P53 “Think” – issue 12

 

The universe is not looking very accidental, is it? If anything it is looking amazingly like it has unnatural planning and intent? But we won’t enter the stormy waters of the Intelligent Design debate just yet. We will keep following our map because our chosen track is becoming more of a path – will it become a road? Let’s see. We have examined the physical universe and found its chances of occurring naturally (that is by accident) in its finely tuned state, to be so small as to be virtually zero. We have contemplated Shakespeare’s stage and now let’s contemplate life’s improbable players.

 

 

  • THE INCREDIBLE UNLIKELINESS OF BEING

How did the non-living transform into the living – the inorganic into the organic?

“What physical and chemical processes can transform non-living matter into a living organism?…It is currently being tackled by an army of chemists, biologists, astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians … On the basis of their research, many of them [scientists] fervently conclude that the laws of nature are, to put it bluntly, rigged in favour of life.…Belief that life is written into the laws of nature carries a faint echo of a bygone religious age, of a universe designed for habitation. …Many scientists are scornful of such notions, insisting that the origin of life was a freak accident of chemistry, unique to Earth, and that the subsequent emergence of complex organisms, including conscious beings, is likewise purely the chance outcome of a gigantic cosmic lottery.”

- Paul Davies, P. xii “The Fifth Miracle”.

 

But –

“The living cell is the most complex system of its size known to mankind. …How did something so immensely complicated, so finessed, so exquisitely clever, come into being all on its own? How can mindless molecules, capable only of pushing and pulling their immediate neighbours, cooperate to form and sustain something as ingenious as a living organism?” (P.5, ibid.)

 

HUMAN BEINGS – THE RESULT OF A TRIPLE FLUKE

So, let’s do the maths. We are not just “the chance outcome of a gigantic cosmic lottery” but actually the chance outcome of three gigantic lotteries: first there was the fluke of the material universe of atoms happening accidentally; then secondly the fluke of life happening in it accidentally; and finally “complex organisms, including conscious beings” arising accidentally from the first simple, single cell. The odds are so small as to be incalculable – one multi-billion chance multiplied by another, by another. We have consciousness down on our map for later exploration, so here we’ll just marvel that billions of cooperating cells made up of mindless molecules – begun spontaneously – can understand itself and the stars of the universe as well. We are conscious star dust understanding itself. Can this happen accidentally?

 

Philosophical conclusions, to be sound, must be made considering the available evidence – but then can only be held either: “on the balance of probabilities”, or sometimes “beyond reasonable doubt”, considering the strength of that evidence. That we stand here now as the result of an accident is not a conclusion that can be held even on the basis of the balance of probabilities – considering the available evidence is that it would have been as the result of a triple lottery win of staggeringly impossible odds – trillions and trillions-to-one against. Mechanistic evolution through natural selection can explain some part of the third leg of our accidental trifecta (the evolution of complexity) but it has nothing to offer as an answer to the question of the existence of something rather than nothing, and the spontaneous emergence of life – the organic from the inert.

 

Before we can declare life to be purposeful and meaningful we will need to examine more evidence, but at this point on our road to truth we can say that it is hard to see how meaninglessness has become the default philosophical speculation for the post-modern academic world. Those who subscribe to accident as a satisfactory explanation to the universe and the life within it seem to have accepted the totally unlikely multiplied by the completely improbable to the power of the incredible. We have a fair way to go on our journey, but Monod’s meaninglessness is already not looking good as a philosophy.

 

THE MULTIVERSE ANSWER

I must mention that a “Multiverse Theory” has been concocted (from no observations of its existence) with the aim of undoing the probability maths I have contemplated above. This theory hypothesises that, if there was an infinite number of accidental universes, one with the required amount of order to exist and eventually produce at least one planet with life on it – just had to occur by the laws of probability. It is a theory based on the existence of a thing which has never been observed, stacked with unnecessary complication which would be treated harshly by Ockham’s razor.

 

So, we have moved along our path, but our path has stopped at the shores of a lake which we will have to cross. There is enough material lying around to build a raft – but we must be brave because there is a storm brewing on the lake – whipped up by furious debate about matters of design that so far I have only just touched on.

 

 

·        INTELLIGENT DESIGN

The storm that is brewing on our philosophical lake is the wind and fury generated by the Intelligent Design debate which is raging in philosophy at present. We are forced into the storm when we talked (as we did above) of the unlikeliness of being accidentally alive in an accidentally occurring universe. And also when we quoted authors talking about: “a faint echo of a bygone religious age”; and the universe: “rigged in favour of life”; and things: “written into the laws of nature”. Let’s see if we can cross the lake safely?

 

What muddies the waters of the Intelligent Design debate is that the proponents of Intelligent Design are usually, on one side, followers of religions who are trying to insinuate their stone-age god into the fact that our unlikely-to-be-a-fluke existence in an unlikely-to-be-a-fluke universe is mysterious. Our suspiciously designed situation in their belief opens the way for their argument of irreducible complexity – leading to the conclusion that animals were created entire as we see them now (i.e. total creation in 6 days and the Biblical god is still a possibility). On the other hand, the opponents of Intelligent Design feel that if they successfully demolish Biblical design, and with it the Biblical god, they have succeeded in killing off any and all possible design and “D” Divine(s). Like Nietzsche in his definitive statement: “God is dead, and we have killed him” they are urging us to dance on the grave of any and every possible Divine when at the very best it contains only the corpse of a “g” god created around the campfires of primitive, pre-scientific, nomadic goat-herders – or is most likely, empty because such a god never existed in the first place.

 

Both have chosen the wrong argument to prove their position. Atheists have only proven that Intelligent Design is not science, and the religious have only succeeded in proving that mystery remains. There are plenty of arguments for the existence of special meaning, purpose, and a Divine (albeit not a god of any religion) every bit as strong as the observation that the universe appears “rigged”, with things designedly “written into nature”. So, the Intelligent Design debate is mainly about installing or killing off the old Hebrew “g” god and not about examining the apparent design of the universe for Truth. One thing that is not in doubt, looking dispassionately at the Intelligent Design debate is that I.D., as presented by the religious, is of religion and philosophy, not science. To attempt to bring religion into science classes by teaching I.D. as science, leaves Western civilization at risk of losing its position of pre-eminence – as the advanced for its time Moslem civilisation once did by this means.

 

IS THE UNIVERSE BIO-FRIENDLY?

But, within the I. D. debate there is an important issue – can it be reasonably concluded that the universe is bio-friendly? Will we most likely find life on other planets? Scientists have largely formed two camps on this important question – either life is a self-occurring chemical fluke peculiar to Earth, or the laws of nature in the Universe are inherently bio-friendly and we can expect to find life on many other planets.

 

The importance for philosophy is that thinkers supporting the first position take this as an indication of the accidental nature and hence meaninglessness of life. Thinkers following behind scientists adhering to the second position see this as potential proof of God and special purpose – bio-friendliness speaking of special design of the universe. Of :

“a universe designed for habitation by living creatures.”

- p.xi, The Origin of Life, Paul Davies (my underlining).

 

Finding life on other planets will be yet another shaft into the side of the already incredible Bible, and it also will not help religion’s god (who placed us at the centre of the universe as his only, and special, children). However, in “a universe designed for habitation” a larger Divine (one who was not just obsessed with humanity – us his only true sons and daughters) could have designed life to happen in as many forms as possible – as it does on Earth. Such a God is vastly different to religions’ gods.

 

SHARED DOCTRINE

Religion and atheism do share two pieces of doctrine: 1. Life is peculiar to Earth and 2. We only have one life.

 

The first doctrine interests us here (I will examine position 2. at another place). “Life is peculiar to Earth” doctrine allows the religious to maintain belief in the Bible, and at the same doctrine allows atheists to maintain that life is just a one-off fluke. But I argue that even if it is proven that life is peculiar to Earth neither position is necessarily established. Atheism is not established because a creator God could still have generated life on a single suitable planet (maybe eventually to populate the universe when evolved enough?). A creator God may have interfered with natural selection mutation processes acting on spontaneously occurring life so that, at crucial points, it was not entirely random – to influence the design and the differing speed of evolution of resulting animals – such differing speeds do appear to have occurred. Or any God could still have designed the whole process in the first place to follow its own random, but inherently creative path. Scenarios such as these do not assist our present religions because such a creator Gods do not resemble the old, tribal, “maker in God’s image” of the Old Testament who did it all in 6 days. The best that can be said for religion if it can be determined that life only occurs on Earth is that it does not contradict the Bible – it still does not confirm that life is 6000 years old and the rest of religion’s incredibilities.

 

We will have to wait the outcome of our explorations into outer space to establish the bio-friendliness or otherwise of the universe – not likely to be an issue solved any time soon because a resolution would involve exploration of all galaxies.

 

I don’t want to waste a lot of our expedition’s energy on the whole Intelligent Design argument but the bottom line is – even if it can be established that life occurs only on Earth it does not allow the establishment of the Biblical god, nor prove the “fluke” hypothesis and meaninglessness of atheism. Nor is it the end of the argument for a more rational Divine than the one allowed by our religions. There are more mysteries in human life arguing for a Divine, special meaning, and ultimate purpose than the apparent (but unprovable) “D” Design of the universe – it is not the sole pivot of our rational journey along the road to Truth.

 

So we have crossed the stormy I.D. lake without capsizing, and we can see a track on the shore, but it is winding into a thicket of thorns – having mentioned a “rational Divine” we have to see if we can contemplate what a rational Divine could be like.

 

 

  • THE EXISTENCE OF ENERGY

When we start talking of God in philosophy we run into problems – humanity, being of the relative, finds it hard contemplating the nature of the Absolute. But must the absolute remain totally ineffable to our relative minds?

 

The whole notion of a Divine is usually made ridiculous because God is diminished by religion into a human image for human understanding (and for marketing). This humanly constructed “g” god – male, jealous, parochial, brutal, in need of praise – is the one in most people’s mind whenever the word God is used. This incredible (and ancient) construct discredits the intellectual credentials of anybody prepared to affirm the possibility of the existence of “G” God in philosophy. Is it possible to talk of God and retain credibility? Can we gather and examine the evidence – our world and our life within it – and come up with a rational and credible God?

 

WHY DOES ANYTHING EXIST AT ALL?

To get closer to this giant question, first we need to consider another giant question – why does anything exist at all? We may know the mechanics of the emergence of the material universe, we may eventually know how life began, we do know how life evolved once it existed – but why is there something rather than nothing in the first place to evolve? This is a huge mystery for philosophy and the biggest problem for those who subscribe to nothingness. Some try to solve this difficulty by subscribing to scepticism : “How do you know that we exist – how do you know we are not something like a brain in a jar thinking this all up?” I address scepticism at another place in these essays, for now let’s stick to the track through this thicket and not take any existential by-ways just yet. Anything, everything, something – exists because energy exists.

 

NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING

Energy is the elephant in the House of Disbelief’s lounge room – no one wants to notice it because that involves thinking about the implications of its existence at all. The universe can not have accidentally emerged from nothing – nothing comes from nothing. Energy must always have existed and must always continue to exist – there can never be nothing, it is a basic understanding of science that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Energy always was and always will be – it is absolute. But science tells us it can be converted – to matter (Big Bang) and vice versa (atom bomb). Energy and matter are interrelated – E=mc2.

 

BEFORE THE BIG BANG

Our universe was created at the Big Bang. Any answer to the mystery of the creation of the universe must lie before the Big Bang. Is it possible to know anything about before the beginning – “before” the creation of time!? We can know only one thing – if energy cannot be created, energy must have existed before the Big Bang – the creation of matter. Now we come back to the original question of a rational God. I argue that the original singularity, that absolute of energy that existed before the Big Bang is what we try to approach when we use the word “God”. All matter in our material universe is from the originally existing energy, therefore everything is God (God incarnate in religious terms) – or at the very least – of God. All living beings, of course, have not only matter from the originally existing energy but also life energy from the same source – all living things are God body and life. I argue further (and present evidence later) that humans are spiritual beings. Therefore humans, at least (maybe other animals as well?), are of God: body (matter), life (energy) and soul (spirit/self).

 

This presents a philosophical corollary for humanity – those who claim to believe in God and claim to love or fear (more common, unfortunately) God, should consider more carefully how they treat others – other people being as close to God we are going to come this side of the absolute/relative divide. What we do to each other we do to God.

 

The clincher argument against the existence of God for atheist Bertrand Russell (and those of his school) is: “If God made everything, then who made God?”

 

The original energy was God, and we know energy cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore nobody made God because God must always have existed. God didn’t create the universe, God became the universe.

 

The other big question is “What can we know about the nature of God?” Some say that the nature of God is love, some say evil. Looking at our map this is something I see we will encounter further down the road, so I will discuss this question of the nature of God when we come to it.

 

Right now, we are through our thicket and just a little way ahead we can see a beautiful field. It is the fertile field of human virtues. Let’s examine virtues – notions which drive a lot of humanity’s more unnatural behaviours.

 

 

  • THE ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES

These are the human virtues as identified by Aristotle :

Courage, Friendliness, Temperance, Truthfulness, Liberality, Wittiness, Magnificence,    Shame,    Pride,    Justice,    Good temper,    Honour.

 

More modern virtues include: Modesty, Sincerity, Empathy, Humility, Integrity, Compassion, Tolerance, Honesty, Fidelity, Benevolence, Determination, Reliability, Insightfulness, Commitment, Persistence, Resourcefulness, Creativity, Enthusiasm, Perspicacity, Broadmindedness.

 

Now the thing is – if the majority scientific position is true (that the universe is an accidental physical event) how were these non-physical things generated in a physical and mechanistic world – a world comprised entirely of energy and matter? And if life happened equally accidentally and spontaneously and proceeds by mechanistic laws, how did one form of it develop these non-mechanistic behaviours? As we will discuss in a moment, neo-Darwinism attempts to show us how these things may have been selected once in existence – by natural selection – but where did they come from in a sea of physical atoms to be selected? Naturally selected from unnatural existence?

 

Can we perhaps deny they exist? We have all experienced virtues but we can’t touch them physically – as we can a tree, say. They contain no atoms from the white-hot atom factory of the beginning, yet although we can’t see them, we know virtues exist because we have felt them ourselves and witnessed them in others – and their absence – just the same as we have noticed an invisible force like gravity for instance. We know they exist as much as we can know anything exists. Weird, that this purely physical world can mechanistically generate the non-physical? 

 

But I hear the neo-Darwinians saying: “Virtues might be non-physical but they have been naturally selected!” Natural selection is the Darwinians’ one great idea. They see anything which can fairly be said to have natural selection advantages as having been somehow explained away, its existence no longer a mystery, no longer in need of explanations. To observe that something may be advantageous for a certain purpose does not explain how that something came to exist in the first place – nor, that purpose. For instance, the purpose of relativity is creation through evolution – it is not enough to recognise that fact to declare the relative universe is meaningless. Far from it – this fact gives the universe special meaning (as opposed to your, or my, meaning) based on this creativity. According to our map, down the track we are due to examine more closely just exactly what is being created.

 

And there is also the fact that the virtues are not unremittingly advantageous to the survival and propagation of the genes carrying them (if that indeed is where they reside). Some virtues (like compassion for example) have caused people to assist others who are non-related (and there nonrelated genes) to survive sickness, injuries and dangers. This ensures the survival of genes competing with yours in direct contravention to evolutionary logic. Neo-Darwinians explain this away by developing notions like “group altruism” – which could help individual genes survive by being a member of a successful group. But humans often help strangers (non-group members) – even wounded enemies on a battlefield (anti-group members). Virtues like compassion have evolutionary disadvantages in equal measure – so how were they naturally selected?

 

When danger enters the equation it is not enough to just have compassion, one must have another virtue – courage – as well. Compassion and courage in the face of danger can sometimes see its possessor not only helping someone with competing genes but risking their own precious genes in the process – double jeopardy to the Darwinian notion of all human behaviour being explicable by and reducible to purely survival and genetic imperatives. To answer this problem neo-Darwinians ideologists have developed a rationale they call ‘reciprocal altruism’ to explain away risky altruism. This is altruism to non-related others from whom you could reasonably expect pay-back – which would then help your genes survive. This from Richard Dawkins:

“The other [the first being kin altruism] main type of altruism for which we have a well-worked out Darwinian rationale is reciprocal altruism (‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’)”.

                                    “The God Delusion”, P. 216

 

But lives have been risked and even lost helping individuals from other groups (tourists from other countries for example) who we know can never reciprocate our altruism. We show altruism even to hostile strangers who are direct genetic threats – more likely to kill us than reciprocate (there are many examples of soldiers risking their lives to rescue enemy soldiers on a battlefield). Humans have also shown unnatural compassion and courage in rescuing animals of other species that they don’t own (neither as pets nor stock). I have two newspaper articles in my hand – one (The Border Mail – Albury/Wodonga 3/1/2008) about the Melbourne-based Rescue Squad undertaking a 600 kilometre round-trip to rescue an old dog from a mineshaft – and another (Herald-Sun – Melbourne 2/7/2008) showing the picture of a man in the USA who jumped into the ocean to rescue a panicked, 165 kg. black bear from drowning. Where’s the kin-, or reciprocal altruism in that? These are just two recorded examples of humans going to a lot of trouble (and risking their precious genes) out of compassion to save animals useless to them – and who cannot reciprocate. We all know of acts of compassion and bravery to animals (that aren’t useful to our survival) that do not make it to the newspapers. Some recent studies using university students as guinea pigs have shown that people sometimes act out of reciprocal altruism motives – but life shows us that this is not always, or even mostly, the case.

 

Well then, the neo-Darwinians may reply, how about the non-virtues – don’t they exist too and conform to the expectations of the neo-Darwinian theories of “selfish genes”? While we have a conception of non-virtues as something in themselves: e.g. “vices” – they don’t in fact exist. They only refer to an absence of the virtues, not a presence – cowardice is the absence of courage and so on. We can only have a virtue in some measure, a non-virtue just describes a non-presence.

 

So, to sum up, the unnatural is this: science tells us natural, self-occurring, physical processes accidentally formed life. But one life form thus accidentally formed has mysterious, unnatural, non-physical things called virtues which often lead to non-accidental behaviours which cut across the only natural purpose for human behaviour which science can ascertain – physical survival and genetic dominance. These non-physical virtues have driven us to be so much more than: “just bags of genetic material” (Dick Gross – “godless Gospel”, P. 238), or Pinker’s “meat puppet”. I’m not saying that Darwinian ideas do not explain any behaviours, just that they do not describe all human behaviour. Virtues are non-physical things in a supposedly purely physical world – so maybe the world is not purely physical and mechanistic, maybe there is a ghost in the machine, and virtues manifestations of it? More of this later.

 

The relative (good, better, best) world is definitely very creative and evolution is its sharpest tool, but maybe the evolution of virtues in human behaviour is about our spiritual evolution as much as our bodily evolution? I see spiritual evolution is on our map a little further down the road and we will explore it in much more detail when we get there.

 

For the time being, we have advanced a little on our journey, our track now seems to be more like a road. Let’s see if we can get further by examining what makes a behaviour a virtue, let’s examine humanity’s unnatural notions of good and bad, right and wrong.

 

  • GOOD AND BAD, RIGHT AND WRONG

Again, these are things non-physical and, again, we encounter the question of how the non-physical came to exist in a world made up of physical matter proceeding by physical forces and laws from a purely physical beginning? Why is it that we agree on subjective things such as good and bad, right and wrong – in an objective world where nothing is actually “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”?

 

And good, bad, right, wrong, shame, ethics are peculiarly human notions – no other animals have them – they are unnatural notions. Any human risking survival and selfish genes saving another human who is not kin (neo-Darwinian “kin altruism”), who is not of our tribal/social group (group altruism), or who is not able to reciprocate (reciprocal altruism) is still seen as “good” and “right” and rewarded with praise, respect, and even civilian medals. If life is solely natural – about survival of self and/or related genes – the above behaviour should instead be seen as perverse – naturally “bad” and “wrong” i.e. against nature. Also natural acts that would benefit you and your genes’ survival at the expense of others’ (robbery, rape and murder for example) are seen as “bad” and “wrong” by humanity and punished – even to the extent of ending that life by community-sanctioned murder (execution). Only one species of animal on this planet has notions of universal good and bad, right and wrong – notions which are not found in nature.

 

It could be argued that humans often behave in a more natural, Darwinian way – as if robbery, rape, and ethnic cleansing against members of other tribal and genetic groups was good. The Bible, for example, offers many instances where this was seen as good – sanctioned and even aided by God (the Hebrew god extended daylight hours so Joshua could more effectively cleanse Jericho of women and children). But religion is largely Darwinian – about the power of your group and animal survival for eternity – it is spiritual only in its art. Violence against other groups still occurs today but it is not condoned by the majority as good. The Darwinian ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia was condemned by humanity as an animal act, and stopped by countries with no kin, genetic or religious connections to the victims. The killings perpetrated in Iraq by the U.S.A. and their allies are also seen as bad and wrong by the majority of Westerners who have no kin, genetic or religious connections to the victims. The U.S. was forced out of Vietnam by public opinion at home because it was seen as “wrong” – even though the enemy were communists whose manifesto threatened Americans’ physical survival. U.N. troops have intervened in many similar conflicts. Moral behaviour at the risk of your own genes is unnatural as defined by science’s definition of natural animal behaviour.

 

So where does this sense of good and bad, right and wrong, come from? Some would say that because it is not within us, not natural, we have been taught it by religion. But to quote atheist philosopher Stephen Law :

“So it seems that humans have an in-built sense of right and wrong that operates anyway, independently of their exposure to religion. …I admit there is a difficulty [as an atheist] about explaining how we come by moral knowledge. But religion does not solve that problem.”

- (P.115 “Philosophy Gym”.) 

 

Considering the question of religion and how we came by moral knowledge leads us into another question for those who believe that everything is the mechanistic result of accidental physical events – where did religion come from? All societies have them. Religion is the result of our encounters with the numinous in life – the ghost in the machine. The fact that our religions are primitive responses to encounters with the numinous (and that they have been discredited by scientific discoveries) does not remove the fact of the existence of the numinous and spiritual experiences in the first place. 

 

By contemplating the spiritual and our “in-built sense of right and wrong” our road now approaches a fertile valley wherein some really strange and unnatural moral and spiritual ideas grow – “strange” and “unnatural” for those who believe that we are the natural mechanistic results of physical events. Ideas like shame, conscience and ethics.

 

 

·        SHAME, ETHICS, CONSCIENCE AND AN INKLING OF THE SPIRITUAL

So, our conscience, a sense of right and wrong, our moral knowledge, seems to be (in Dr Law’s words) “in-built”? Because it often interferes with our natural, animal and genetic imperatives, it is therefore a non-animal sense? Is it perhaps spiritual – “in-built” because it is in our souls? Is our notion of right and wrong to do with a spiritual notion of what it is to be a human being – a spiritual being?

 

Studying our behaviours – spiritual and animal – the best description of a human seems to be: a spiritual being with an animal body. In the course of a life we will do many things which are behaviours driven by our animal bodily needs, instincts, and genetic imperatives. But we will also do things governed by what our self decides – are they right or wrong. We have bodies but we are not our bodies – we are our selves, souls, spirits – call the being, what you will. Our bodies are natural, and do natural things. Our selves are spiritual and do many “unnatural” things. We have even turned the study of humanity’s unnatural notions of right and wrong into a discipline – ethics. There is broad agreement across humanity on the ethicality of certain actions, on what is good form or poor form – what denotes uniquely “human” as opposed to “animal” behaviours. We often call something of which we vehemently disapprove – “an animal act”.

 

So, what does it take to be uniquely human? To answer this question let’s consider a uniquely human notion – that of shame. A natural, wild animal does not have guilt or shame when it falls short of an ideal – of “good” behaviour for its species. A lion has, for example, no notion of the human concept of “brave”, or what is expected in terms of behaviour to define an ideal lion. A pack of lions tearing apart a baby elephant wastes no time debating the “shame” brought to the ideal of what it is to be a lion, or whether their actions are “brave” or “cowardly” – beneath the “dignity” of a lion. They have no “shame” at the “lop-sided match”, waste no time on the “ethics” of the “cruel” situation or what is “beneath” them as “kings of the jungle”. All of the notions in inverted commas are peculiar to humans and their ethics and ideals.

 

If notions of shame and dignity are not natural, what are they? They are spiritual – they speak of the human being, the “self”, not the animal body. One of our most prized possessions is our human dignity – the human sense of unique difference from all the other animals. Anyone who sees dignity or a sense of good and bad, ethics, guilt, or shame in other animals (except in pets who are not in a natural situation and are trained by us to behave like us – e.g. to be “nice” to other dogs etc.) is suffering from severe anthropomorphism. No wild, natural animal has a sense of “bad” behaviour as defined by their idea of their “selves”. Only humans blush from shame or embarrassment. A blush of shame is one physical proof of the existence of the spiritual. I’m told that hippopotami blush, but this is a flush of rage, not a blush of shame. Their flush is visible because of hairlessness and arises from anger when hippopotami fight. The animal in us can also flush with anger, but only the spiritual in us can blush with shame.     

 

Humanity’s unnatural ethics are even affecting the natural, physical Universe. The continued existence of some endangered animals hangs on humanity’s  notion of ethics – the responsibility we feel towards other animals because we recognise we are the peak life form in our world (maybe not in the universe?). Whales are a good example. Whales have been brought back from the brink of a natural extinction at our hands because we consider it “unethical” and/or cruel to prey on these gentle giants from our superior and uniquely knowing position. Neo-Darwinians would put forward the argument that we protect other animals only because we understand that bio-diversity is in the best interest of our animal survival. This is a part of the consideration, of course, but when we put forward arguments as to why we should protect other species – the most persuasive are based on the ethics, conscience and shame at human-caused extinctions of other species – the moral responsibility of being the peak species. When we were less spiritually evolved, when we were acting more like animals, we drove other species to extinction (Moas and Dodos for example) simply because they were easy to catch and eat. Now we are acting more ethically we get a sense of pride at conserving species – and shame when driving species to extinction. The more evolved spiritually we become the more ethically we behave.

 

I repeat, it is the human condition to be a spiritual being with an animal body. We can hear the natural drumbeat of our animal bodies and genetic imperatives, but what we think of our spiritual being, the self, is as important to us as animal survival and sometimes more so – many people have committed suicide because of shame. We are a natural evolutionary product, but have become an unnatural evolutionary force – because of our ethics, even our unnatural aesthetics (we save beautiful but useless animals just for their beauty, for example koala bears).

 

Beauty?

 

We have come to an interesting point on our road with a bit of a lookout. Let’s go and admire the view.

 

  • BEAUTY

 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

             - Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”.

 

What is this strange, unnatural, human idea of beauty? “Unnatural” because humans, alone of all the animal species have an understanding of what beauty is, and an appreciation of beauty in all its forms – natural and human-made. Because we’re on a lookout let’s first examine the unique human idea of scenic beauty. Humans speak of scenic beauty “taking our breath away” – Jack London, describing the beauty of the Marquesas Islands, was moved to write:

“One caught one’s breath and felt the pang that is almost hurt, so exquisite was the beauty of it.”

 

Darwin himself writes of being spiritually uplifted by the beauty of the world:

“In my journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the breath of his body.”

                        - Charles Darwin, Autobiography

 

“More to man than the breath of his body” Charles? That is exactly what these essays are trying to find out – it is, however, an idea that fills your latter-day ideological followers with fear and loathing.

 

So, what’s going on with humanity’s (unique in the animal world) appreciation of a “view”? Animals have never been spotted on lookouts admiring the view; when cattle settle for a rest they face any-which-way – not towards the view; a pod of dolphins doesn’t queue up to look into a glass-bottomed boat to view the wonders of humanity; Bonobo chimps don’t go to pretty places for picnics. Humans, alone of all the animals admire – and go to great (and dangerous) lengths – to see the view and are spiritually moved by it, and have universal agreement of what is beautiful in scenery (although we may differ on what is most beautiful).

 

The (exceedingly uncompelling) Darwinian explanation for our appreciation scenic beauty from evolutionary psychology is:

“Why do we find certain landscapes pleasing? Well, they are the ones that are most promising for hunting and shelter. Hence if we are attracted to them we have a greater chance of survival.”

                        - “The Secret Power of Beauty”, (John Armstrong, P. 105)

 

This may go a little part of the way towards explaining why we may find a view of an arable valley beautiful – but we don’t go to great lengths to view vast featureless plains even though they may be good wheat-growing land. And, why do we find a snow-capped mountain beautiful; a scene from Antarctica; a desert at sunset; a waterfall; a beach; an iceberg; even an advancing storm beautiful (and, for all those who remember the 60’s film Dr. Strangelove, consider the beauty in the atomic bomb detonations in the closing frames)? All of these things give no survival advantages (most are even inimical to our survival) but are seen as beautiful. It is unnatural that a purely physical pile of atoms combined in a certain way by natural forces to no particular purpose, with no possible survival or genetic use for us (like a snow-capped mountain) could make a form deemed universally beautiful and have an uplifting spiritual effect on the human soul. No, we need to look deeper into the question than the neo-Darwinians’ ideological theme of genetic self-interest allows.

 

Some would say beauty is just in the eye of the beholder – but all people find flowers beautiful, or a koala bear, or Miss Universe. There are some cultural and personal differences when asked to determine “more” or “most” beautiful – but there is often general consensus on the existence of beauty in a thing. For example, take scenic beauty again – asked to supply an example of beauty in landscape from their home country, a Norwegian might tender a view of the Fiords, an Englishman a view of the Cotswolds, an Australian a view of the Great Barrier Reef, an Arab a view of the desert, an American a view of the Rocky Mountains But all will judge all the scenes as beautiful – with some parochialism as to which was the most scenic.

 

And the beauty of colour? Sometimes colour transforms an ordinary scene into beauty. Even unnatural colour – like the Uluru monolith in the Australian desert turning purple at sunset – people come from all over the world at great trouble and expense to see Uluru, and are moved spiritually by it. Beauty purely through colour and form – rather than use – and being moved spiritually by it? What’s going on within this strange, unnatural, spiritual, human animal?

 

Why do we find certain animals beautiful? The neo-Darwinians will tender the usual physical and/or genetic survival explanations, but why do we hold certain useless (for survival) animals and plants to be beautiful? A koala bear or a rose is beautiful, but you can’t eat a rose and (I’m told) koala bears taste awful! Animals we find beautiful mostly have no natural selection advantages and can even be competitive or threatening. For example, a sea-eagle is still seen as beautiful though it may be eating your fish; a parrot as beautiful even though it is eating your fruit; a flower is beautiful even though it is taking up valuable, food-growing soil; a leopard beautiful even though it may eat you!

 

And there also is the mystery of beautiful smells. Being repelled by bad smells has selection advantages because excrescence and rotting things have germs which could endanger our survival – but why are we attracted to “nice” smells which have no survival advantage? We even grow useless flowering plants in vast, decorative (but useless) gardens because, as well as their form and colour, we like their smell. We find gardens spiritually uplifting. Worse than useless, gardens take up soil valuable for survival, and time we could better spend protecting our genetic kin – or giving birth to more of them – if animal life is purely governed by genetic and survival imperatives as we are assured by the neo-Darwinians.

 

We also find beauty through our other senses – touch: fur; taste: great cooking (as opposed to just feeding); hearing: music (an important area which will get its own section). All of these things we find “moving” and none have any survival value. Where do we get these unnatural human concepts from when they not only have no natural selection advantages but could perhaps even be fatal (the fur of a lion, the taste of a Japanese puffer fish)?

 

What do others think? This from that well-known judge of all things beautiful – Tink R. Bell:

“ ‘Beauty’ is a non-natural property. It is non-natural in the sense that the philosopher Robert Adams discusses: it ‘cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology.’ But let me tell you, beauty is real a thing in the world. Who among you is so cold-hearted as to deny that there is beauty in a piece of music, a poem, a painting, the face of a lover, an artful bed of tulips? You might well start pontificating that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, or some other such cynical nonsense. Are you going to start saying the same thing about the non-natural property of morality? That it too is in the eye of the beholder? Of course not. No, you may dispute about the degree to which something is beautiful or ugly, lovely or unlovely, but that is merely to debate the measurement of those aesthetic properties. To engage in such a debate is already to concede that there are aesthetic properties. The aesthetic qualities themselves are there, real, and not some physical things that one might pick apart on a lab bench. “

Tink R. Bell (otherwise known as Professor Steven D. Hales, Bloomsburg Univ., Penn) – “Think”, # 16 Winter, 2008. (P. 46)

 

Our knowledge and appreciation of beauty is unnatural – or as Professor Hales describes it – “non-natural”. Plato said that humanity had an a priori knowledge and appreciation of beauty. We are skirting the metaphysical here, but natural explanations have failed us. So let’s be naughty and step in a little deeper into the metaphysical – this from David Fontana, visiting fellow at Cardiff University and professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University:

“Are our thoughts, our creative endeavours, our art, our poetry, our philosophy, our music no more than the by-products of electro-chemical energy in a brain that would live out its earthly life just as well without them? Or are these creative masterpieces hints and whispers of a grander and finer reality of which we are all a part?”

                        - “Is There An Afterlife?” (P. 468)

 

I have eschewed the metaphysical so far in this search for truth, but the fact we are spiritually moved by beauty in all its forms is, at the very least, an empirical proof that humans are spiritual beings.

 

We are a strange animal. The unnatural is piling up. Let’s get a bit more personal with beauty.

 

  • HUMAN BEAUTY:

Seeing beauty in a body can be given a natural, Darwinian explanation. For example, big breasts and hips are attractive for breeding purposes in a female, or wide shoulders and muscular torso being recognised as similarly desirable in a male. But what about that beauty which humans regard as equally, if not more important – facial beauty? What instructions are there in the human mind which recognises a face as beautiful when it has no natural selection advantage? Darwinian apologists give the tenuous explanation that what makes a face beautiful is a healthy glow and shiny hair (hence good for breeding etc. etc). But what about ugly people whose visage radiates rude health, or those beautiful but wan heroines so loved in novels and films (Lady of the Camellias comes to mind)?

 

In fact, seeking facial beauty in a mate is often at the risk of the survival of our genes – facial beauty can blind us to narrow hips in a woman and weediness in a man, for example. A beautiful face frequently comes with vanity and a poisonous personality because people are constantly drawn to it and pander to it (usually in order to use its beauty for their own purposes). Having an egotistically damaged personality makes a partner an unreliable breeding mate to propagate your genes. An even more important point, if you are a woman, is that a beautiful partner is more likely to be wooed from you by others for his beauty and leave you and your offspring without a protector/provider – or, if you are a man, a beautiful woman is more likely to be impregnated by another and leave the man bringing up someone else’s genes – as Shakespeare said: “It is a wise man who knows his own father.” We should rightly be wooing “ugly” partners if all is Darwinian – but we are in fact repelled by ugly. Why?

 

And it’s not a cultural factor – facial beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Cultural factors can come into play when recognising beauty in body shapes – like big bottoms in Kalahari bushmen which have natural, survival explanation (reserves of fat to survive the harsh Kalahari Desert). But human recognition of facial beauty has no cultural explanation – there is broad agreement on human facial beauty as there is with landscape. For example, give Europeans photos of the faces of ten Asian women chosen by Asians – five at each extreme of the spectrum – beautiful or ugly – and the beautiful and ugly ones will be sorted by the Europeans every time. The same will happen with photos of similarly beautiful or ugly European women selected by Europeans and judged by Asians. Everybody agrees that Miss Universe is beautiful even though they may think the entrant from their own country most beautiful. Why does a certain combination of lip, nose, eye and cheek sizes and shapes make a face beautiful and so highly prized when it should be irrelevant or, more rightly for genetic purposes, shunned? What unnatural recognition of beauty, totally removed from natural selection advantages are we working with here?

 

Some studies have kept the neo-Darwinian explanation for human facial beauty alive by suggesting that men see certain characteristics as beautiful because they are associated with youthfulness (therefore good breeding stock), large eyes, small nose, full lips and small chin etc. But young people are very definite about recognising beauty and ugliness amongst their peers – youthfulness of features has no influence in this situation because they are all equally young – the recognition of “beauty” being the only determinant. Also women are very definite about what makes another woman beautiful – there is no Darwinian/genetic explanation for this. Other studies have shown men aren’t always attracted to younger women, much less to her fitness to reproduce.

 

There is also the issue of human eye contact – eyes, “the gateway to the soul”. Most human relationships are initiated by eye c