Rational Philosophy

The Golden Compass, Dark Chocolate, Marijuana, and The Future of The Human Race.

When Google’s search engine trawls a website, its bot uses the first couple of sentences at the top of the post as an abstract. I just found this out. So, as of today, I will add a brief topic summary to the top of my posts. As always, I want to add value for you, the reader, so in the topic summary I’ll try to be at least descriptive, and perhaps even amusing.

BBC’s world service this morning interviewed Phillip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, now a movie: The Golden Compass. Some have criticized Pullman for being atheistic and anti-religion. The American Catholic League has launched a national campaign encouraging people to boycott the film. Any “ism” can be criticized of course, and many can be problematic. But when asked about the controversy, Pullman gently steered the question toward one of rationality. Whether he is atheist or not, Pullman’s concern lies with the harm that organized religion can do when it meddles with politics and when politics uses religion as a rationale for war, murder and oppression. Pullman spoke with such sense and good intent that a national campaign in support of the film seems to be called for as an antidote to the actions of the American Catholic League.

Dark chocolate and marijuana, two guilty pleasures for many, both take a medical beating today. Beware of flavenolless impostors, we’re warned, when it comes to dark chocolate, and don’t eat too much. And for the pot-heads among us, it seems that marijuana, which constricts the blood vessels in the brain, may have long term ill effects on memory and the chances of a stroke. For anyone who knows a pot-head, of course, the news about long term effects comes as little surprise. It’s not that spacey, sieve-headed slackers (no offense intended) are drawn to the substance so much as it encourages these qualities in its partokers.

Where am I going? One more story will get us there.

The men’s satellite TV channel, Bravo, commissioned evolutionary theorist Dr. Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics to report on the future of the human race. Dr. Curry hypothesizes two mid and long-term shifts, the first a racial homogenization over the next 1,000 years, the second, in the 10,000 year time-frame, a split in the human race into two species, one talk, attractive, intelligent, graceful, and the other short, stupid, ugly and goblin-like. We can take heart in Dr. Oliver’s first prediction: Us men will be taller, more athletic looking, deeper-voiced, square-jawed and with bigger peckers. You gals will be wide-eyed, downy-skinned, pert-breasted… But watch out if you rely too much on technology, because 10,000 years on your heirs may be part of the underclass.

I warn my daughter about this when I’m helping her with her math homework. (Not the ultimate goblin-featured fate of her progeny, but the over-reliance on technology.) It’s a terrible thing. We don’t know how a sine function works. We don’t know how our cars work. We don’t know how our phones work, or the GPS devices that guide us from point A to point B. We don’t know how our HDTV works, or what HDTV is for that matter. Well, somebody knows, presumably, since it has been invented, trademarked, licensed and mass-produced, but most of us don’t.

But is Dr. Curry’s work conjecture or science? Is it prejudice wrapped as prescience?

We’ll never know. We’ll be long gone. But it strikes me (my own conjecture!) as sinister, mean-spirited, and downright pessimistic to predict that the long term effects of human consciousness will be to make one segment of the population more stupid. Being conscious and aware, we also have the capacity to self-monitor as a species, to detect our own over-reliance on technology and do something about it. If we can divert ourselves from the rocky shores of faux dark chocolate and pot smoke, we can surely counteract the dangers of technology.

I try to keep this in mind as I read about poor Robert Schoff, who made it to seventy seven years of age before suffering the indignity of spending his Christmas Eve stuck upside-down in the opening of his septic tank, feet waggling in the air. It would be uncharitable to dwell, as Dr. Curry might, on Mr. Schoff generous girth and diminutive stature (5-foot-5 and 135-pounds). His septic mishap notwithstanding, Mr. Schoff sounds like an eminently sensible man. He knew, after all, that he had a septic tank, that it was blocked, and how to unblock it. His fault lay not in his cognition, but in the execution of his plan.

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

Putting into perspective a report that illegal drug use in the UK army is on the rise, the UK’s Ministry of Defense points out that ”Positive rates in the army over the past four years average around 0.77 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in civilian workplace drug testing programs in Britain.”

Barak Obama has admitted drug use as a young man, risking voter backlash, but doubtless winning support for his honesty — a rare thing in politics.

Then we have the baseball steroid report, and Marion Jones stripped of her Olympic medals. (As a side note, if she weren’t broke Marion Jones would be paying back her winnings — I haven’t seen anything about baseball players returning earnings…)

In making this connection between recreational drug use and the use of drugs in recreational activity, I’m not immediately sure whether a connection exists.

Still another way, of course, that we use drugs, is to help us get better or feel better when we’re sick. (Like the antibiotics I’ve been taking for my pneumonia.)

If a philosophical connection exists it must derive from the idea that an external substance taken into the body to cause some response can be deemed unnatural and therefore suspect.

To the list of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy, opium, steroids, stimulants, antibiotics, antihistamine, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, etc. we would then have to add tobacco, coffee, tea, and alcohol.

Society makes a further distinction by labeling some drugs illegal, whether they be recreational drugs, or performance enhancing drugs. But if we take legality out of the equation for a moment, and think about the spectrum of drugs from first principles, how would we begin to determine whether some drugs were OK and others not OK?

Surely alcohol is to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from marijuana, heroin, amphetamines and cocaine if we consider the risks and affects of its consumption? And tobacco has a less profound effect on one’s state of mind, but really does a number on your long term health.

I’m not necessarily arguing that illegal drugs should be legalized, but instead that there’s a good deal of emotion involved in our perspective on drugs rather than sound, rational thought.

The vilification of drug-takers in sport centers on the unfair advantage that the drug-taker has over the none drug-taker. This is indeed a rational perspective. The none drug-taker presumably has chosen to avoid drugs (one imagines he can get them if he wants them). His choice is rational — the drugs he’s avoiding aren’t condoned and are perhaps illegal, and may even be detrimental to his health. His rivals achieve higher levels of performance just because they take the drugs, without declaring their advantage. He’s not a sucker; his rivals are cheats.

Nevertheless, the way society regards performance enhancing drugs depends on the rules and principles that society adopts.

But there are two things, as far as I can see, that can be intrinsically wrong with recreational drugs:

1. That they can be detrimental to a person’s health. For this reason, society should strive to educate people about the dangers of drugs and provide adequate treatment for drug users.

2. That they can cause people to harm or endanger others. The drunk driver, the cocaine-hyped killer, etc. It’s reasonable for society to protect itself from those who abuse and endanger. But the degree of protection must be weighed against the risk and against the loss of liberty for those who can behave responsibly.

(In case you can’t read the cartoon text, it says: “Jerry doesn’t do drugs anymore. He says he gets the same effect just standing up really fast these days.”)