The case for reality...

I care about the truth a great deal. I cannot knowingly accept a fantasy. My drive to make sure that my beliefs jive with reality stems from this predisposition.

But is a predisposition all this is? Is my striving for truth just a personal choice?

The standard argument for seeking truth and against fantasy is the harm that believing comforting fictions can cause. Our beliefs affect our actions, and when beliefs are disconnected from reality, it is all to easy for toxic beliefs to thrive, ending in atrocities like 9/11 and the Holocaust.

The harm caused by magical thinking, superstition and pseudoscience is not always on such a grand scale, however. Much of the harm done occurs on the personal level, where it slips past headlines for the most part. Conspiracy theories divert attention away from real social issues. Bogus psychics offer comfort to grieving families, and do not deliver. Alternative medicine remedies offer hope to the terminally ill, and do not deliver.

But what if the psychic pretends to speak to a dead relative, and the family goes away satisfied, believing the fantasy? What if a patient takes a fake homeopathic remedy and feels better (the placebo effect being what it is)? Why hate on horoscopes, when no one really believes them anyway? Is there anything objectively bad about believing in fairy tales and reassuring fables, when such fables do no harm?

My response is that allowing this kind of thinking to flourish in our discourse may not be dangerous in itself, but will provide cover for the more verminous, dangerous and extreme superstitions. If reason is in exile, then all kinds of superstition will thrive, not merely the fluffy, garden variety woo that people like to believe in.

But all these arguments are based in the consequences of allowing fantasies to grow unchecked. Is there any properly basic reason to search for the truth in and of itself, rather than as a means to an end (i.e. a better, friendlier society)? I don't know, though I would be overjoyed if I discovered one.

In lieu of this, I must appeal on human terms.

I feel that it is sentimental and childish to embrace comforting fables when the truth is out there. No matter how comforting a fable is, there is also comfort and awe to be found in the world as it really exists, we don't have to demean it with pathetic fairy tales. If only we could get past our fear of being tiny, we could appreciate the vast wonder to be found in knowing the actual circumstances of our existence.

We are only here for a short time. And we are, shall we say 'blessed', with a tremendous opportunity. Our civilisation has progressed to such a degree that the tools to find the truth are at our feet. All we need do is show our maturity by picking them up.

Don't kill people

Some things are complicated. This isn't.

There is no reason to kill apart from self-defence. Full stop. Whatever justification you think you have means exactly nothing.

This is a pitifully simple dictum, and yet it proves elusive on even a casual survey of the Google News homepage. Headlines like;

Ivory Coast: UN warns attack could reignite civil war

Teenager shot dead by gang

Two Christians killed in wave of Baghdad bombings

I am in general optimistic for us, as I have said before, but there are times when I feel like disowning my species. Surely, I think, I can't be cut from the same genetic stock as those who maim and slaughter like it's the norm? I know I am not alone in this.

The human mind, as a rule, is fickle and easily manipulated. As much as we would love to believe that our mind is a temple which no other may enter, it really isn't true. Ideology, social pressures and pathology can overcome even the most deep-seated aversions and principles. Perhaps if more people were aware of how easily they can be controlled they would be more equipped to fight against it.

Regardless of what we might like to believe, us humans are quite fragile organisms. A bullet, a stab wound, a particularly nasty fall or a particularly violent infection is all it takes to end us. All the more reason to take extra care.

It isn't naive to cherish life.

A solid ethical base...

I sometimes wonder how people who don't think like I do understand ethics*.

By that, I mean the people who are not sceptical nor scientifically literate, but are also not especially religious. I know how the religious fraction of PWANMs rationalise it - they have their books, so there's no room for musing there.

Of course, their actions are informed by their consciences. But a conscience is just an evolved mechanism to promote social cohesion, promoted through kin selection. Don't misunderstand, there's nothing wrong with obeying your conscience (it does get it right most of the time - ain't that a coincidence), but to do so blindly conveys a certain...unresponsibility, at least in my eyes.

To blindly obey one's evolutionary programming, rather than self-analyse and evaluate, seems a characteristic in common with an automaton.

Perhaps I'm not in a position to judge, considering how I am unsure exactly what I think about ethics. I bought into Sam Harris' ideas for a while, but then I noticed he was just dodging a deeper question (yes, Sam, I agree that the optimum path to maximum wellbeing can be found using science, but why is wellbeing our metric for 'goodness' in the first place?). I should have twigged earlier that it couldn't be as easy as that.

Perhaps it isn't the fact that others don't have answers that I'm bothered by, perhaps it's that they don't even ask the questions. In fact, I'm certain of it.

In any case, I feel quite strongly that an awareness of ethics that goes deeper than 'I do what my conscience says', can help one become a better person. For instance, I've noticed that I'm more polite to others than the average person. I smile a lot. I donate a little more to charity than my peers (It still isn't much - I am a student after all). I think before I say things, especially if my words might have consequences. I simply cannot leave a conversation if I think I've upset the other person. I try to keep the knowledge that everyone I talk to has a history, desires, principles and emotions at the forefront of my mind.

This is an extremely unscientific anecdote. I'm open to being proved wrong. Until then, a conviction that simply asking the questions about ethics can make one a better person seems appropriate.

I also don't mean to self-promote. I know full well I'm far from perfect, and I have flaws aplenty, just as we all do.

*I use this word deliberately. 'Ethics' conveys a more honest, rational approach, rather than the authoritarian, monolithic connotations of 'morals'. I am told that morals are universal principles (eg. ten commandments), whilst ethics are heuristics for individual situations. By these definitions, I'm not sure morals even exist, but ethics seem like useful things to have.

**PWANM - people who are not me