Butterfly Options

*With rising temperatures, methane will, of course, continue to be released from melting permafrost peat bogs (perhaps as much as 70,000 million tons of the stuff). But it is also known that there are vastly greater amounts of methane trapped as methane clathrate deposits beneath sediments on the ocean floors. Since methane clathrate actually occurs in the form of ice, a rise in sea temperatures could trigger a sudden release of marine methane. But the scale of this would be immense and almost apocalyptic in outcome, resulting in a 5ºC rise in temperatures globally. It has been hypothesized that it was just such a scenario which led to the mass extinction event that occurred during the Permian-Triassic age.

*Talking of the oceans, something else that is likely to occur with global warming is a diminution in the capacity of this vast sink for carbon dioxide to actually absorb this greenhouse gas, resulting in increased levels of carbon dioxide, and therefore in higher temperatures. Raised CO2 levels are also likely to cause acidification of the oceans, which will in turn detrimentally impact on corals and other marine organisms.  

*It is also the case that water vapour, which is by far the most potent greenhouse gas, accounting for something like 36% to 66% of the greenhouse effect, will become more concentrated as temperatures rise; something which is likely to result in turn in to a further raising of temperatures, and consequently to a further increase in water vapour concentrations. 

*We know that ice, being white, reflects heat, and that the sea absorbs heat. With global warming, of course, there will be a reduction in the area of the earth’s surface covered by ice (resulting in a reduced albedo) and an increase in the area covered by sea, leading to a further rise in global temperatures, which, in turn will exacerbate this situation.  

*Finally, it has been noted that, amongst the many and varied effects of global warming, in many mid-latitudinal areas, such as Mediterranean Europe or Australia, there will be a greater frequency of droughts. With these droughts will come an increased incidence of forest fires, and when the latter occur, huge amounts of carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere, thereby compounding the problem of global warming.

What we can see from this small selection of factors is that they will feed off one another as the rise in global temperature is both cause and effect in each case. It’s a frightening situation: We are only now beginning to get a glimpse of the hellish future that awaits us if we fail to properly address this issue.  But, what has this to do with capitalism, you may ask? Well, in a word, everything: Scientific opinion across the world is now practically unanimous in concluding that the relentless course of global warming is mainly attributable to one factor: man. More specifically, to his barely restrained burning of fossil fuels, his slashing down of vast tracts of rainforest, and his disembowelment of the earth in pursuit of minerals and metals. And what drives these destructive activities? In a word: money (or the lack of it). Now, it may seem unfair to bracket desperate Brazilian peasant farmers compelled to clear a patch of virgin forest in order to grow cash crops with avaricious executives of a car manufacturing company. But for both of them, their situations offer little option other than to do what they have to do: Not to take the environmentally damaging option may well have an adverse effect on their personal fortunes, perhaps even disastrously so. What’s more, there will always be less scrupulous competitors willing to step into the breach and carry out these destructive activities. Moreover, because of capitalism’s short term outlook, where planning looks no further than the next shareholder’s meeting, and it’s blinkered approach which disregards all but the need to make a profit, the longer term consequences and ramifications of economic decisions are rarely accorded the consideration they deserve. This is inherent in the system: No matter what vaunted declarations emanate from the IPCC, beneath the mantle of high-mindedness and reasonableness affected by statesmen, the economic id of capitalism will bubble away, seeking out the smallest chink through which to pour out its poisonous energy. That it might thereby threaten our lives and the lives of our children seemingly counts for nothing.

The foregoing points constitute both a formidable critique of capitalism and a vindication of the case for communism – genuine communism – I would contend. Defenders of capitalism will sometimes acknowledge that this may to some extent be true. However, they almost invariably then sagely shake their heads, and proclaim that the notion of a society built on the principles of common ownership, democratic control, free access and liberty does not square with ‘human nature’. What is it, one wonders, that makes them so certain about this? Dogmatism, a failure of imagination, misanthropy, a touch of schadenfreude, or plain old cynicism?  Perhaps it is a bit of each. These same apologists will say that they are being ‘realistic’. But what they singularly fail to take into account is that it is fundamentally the very ‘dog-eat-dog’ nature of capitalism moulds some of into selfish, aggressive specimens, and consigns most of us to lives of ‘quiet desperation’, as Thoreau put it. Small wonder then that the prevailing take on human nature is anything but flattering. So what I intend doing now is to have a closer look at the whole question of ‘human nature’, and then show that an altruistic approach to life – specifically, an ethic that enjoins one to leave this world a better place – sits very comfortably with our ‘human nature’. What I would like to propose is a somewhat slippery notion, one that pulls together many strands of my discussion heretofore: Let me call it (somewhat unimaginatively) the ‘Organic Model of Human Advancement’. (As will become evident, the term, ‘organic’, is appropriate for a number of reasons; not least because the component propositions sit well with one another, because it highlights the physicality of human beings, and because the term resonates with the espousal of mutuality). What the model amounts to is this:

1. We human beings are a highly complex arrangement of atoms, and our capacity to think and feel is somehow contingent upon certain key features of this arrangement. When this arrangement breaks down – when we die – no vestige of us remains. We do not have an afterlife. Ultimately, this is not something that can be verified for the obvious reason that verification would entail ‘crossing that bourn from which no man returns’. What we have here is a situation analogous to imagining nothingness: This is impossible for the reason that the observer cannot be excluded. Likewise, non-survivalism could not be verified without excluding the verifier whose very testimony would bear witness against non-survivalism. That said, there are a number of very strong arguments against the proposition that we are somehow able to survive, to maintain an identity, to remain sentient conscious beings, after we die:      

 In the first place, no one has ever returned from the dead to tell the tale. Certainly, all manner of phenomena have been cited as evidence for some sort of connection or contact between the living and the dead: Ghosts, poltergeists, séances, regression hypnosis, near death experiences, and so on. But in not a single instance has there been any verifiable proof of a connection or contact with dead people being  established, nor grounds for excluding any other explanations, known or unknown, for the phenomenon in question. Far from being a dour materialist who scoffs at the notion of mystery, I am more than happy to admit that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than is known in my philosophy’. It is the proponents of survivalism and all manner of other non-empirical notions, such as God and destiny, which have the world cut and dried. Even on the question of an afterlife, I am prepared to admit a degree of agnosticism, albeit one heavily skewed towards the non-survivalist position for the reasons I am providing. Furthermore, I am persuaded in this by the fact that over the centuries, under the hot glare of scientific scrutiny, non-empirical explanations of an ever-increasing number of phenomena, from the motion of the planets to the aetiology of diseases, have simply evaporated. Those phenomena still currently saturated with ethereal, untestable explanations are now few in number, and there is no reason to think they cannot in principle succumb to empirical elucidation. Science is not above criticism, but those who take a virulently anti-science stance often tend to confuse poor science or the application of science with the scientific method per se. The latter being an elaboration of ‘common sense’ and logic, the common sense and logic exercised by detractors of the scientific method could be called into question.    

 A second argument against survivalism (and, by default, in favour of non-survivalism) is that it trips up on its dualistic premises, on the notion that we are essentially composed of two sorts of substances: body and mind. I am not inclined to wade into this particular metaphysical swamp, but it suffices to point out that dualism – or, more particularly, that species of dualism known as ‘substance dualism’ – is beset with a number of problems, such as where and how causal interaction between body and mind could occur, and the fact that phylogenetically and ontogenetically human beings start out as purely physical entities.                                                         

A third reason for rejecting the notion that we somehow survive death is one that impresses me personally. Having worked for many years with patients suffering from various forms of dementia, I am very aware of how these tragic conditions can effect a diminution of what – for want of a better word – one might term ‘the mind’. Crucially, such patients begin to lose their memories; initially and most noticeably their short term memories. And memories, of course, are the threads from which personal identity is woven. They also begin to lose awareness; in particular, self awareness. All of the orientating information pertaining to time and space which ordinarily hums along in the background simply fades away: They may not know where they are or what day it is. Nor might it occur to them that they should look both ways before crossing the road, for example. It may sometimes seem that their behaviour is analogous to acting on the basis of the conclusion of an argument without being apprised of its premises. Unforgivingly and tragically, their mental wattage drops lower and lower. What we know, of course, is that this deterioration proceeds pari passu with changes in the brain: the greater the destruction in the brain, the greater the destruction in the ‘mind’. Now, what I would like to argue is that, extrapolating from this, it is reasonable to suppose that when the former is total, as happens in death, then the latter is total as well. Those who argue for our survival after death have also – I would contend – to address this brain damage issue. Even if they could theoretically show that we do somehow survive death, it would be incumbent on them to also show how the mind could recover its former functionality if in life its ‘owner’ had been subjected to a dementing illness.

 A fourth argument is that, notwithstanding the very similar genetic make-up of man and his closest cousins, the other primates (It has been shown that even the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) shares nearly 60% of its genes with us) or the impressive similarities between us and other animals in respect of physiology, anatomy, and even embryonic development, we have no difficulty in comprehending the fact once an animal dies, it does not then pass over to some idyllic Valhalla. Heaven is not swarming with butterflies and bees, nor filled with the yapping of euphoric poodles. The fact that all life originated from unicellular cyanobacteria that carpeted the sea floor billions of years ago, should in itself disabuse us of this notion of an afterlife. From an evolutionary perspective, possessing an afterlife would have to be considered an ‘emergent property’, if hypothesised, and that would raise a host of how, why, and when questions.      

There are doubtlessly many other arguments against the proposition that when we die, we somehow live on in some de-materialised state. But the foregoing are sufficiently powerful in themselves to put paid to this delusion. Incidentally, in pooh-poohing this idea, it is not my intention to thereby cast gloom all about me (Who would not wish to go to heaven if such a place, state, or condition existed. It even sounds a bit like communism, if you ask me!) Rather, I would argue that this idea stands in the way of attaining happiness in the only place that really matters: The world we can see and touch.

2. For us what really matters in life is happiness. That said, happiness is far from being a simple notion. There are different sorts of ‘happinesses’. The most profound sort is intrinsically bound up with what we are, with our personality, and this amounts to what some might care to characterise as a sort of spiritual bliss. However, it is not really what is in ‘inside’ us that accounts for our experience of happiness. The ultimate sources of all forms of happiness must surely be located outside of ourselves, or derive from our interaction with things outside of us; not least significant others. Even our innermost thoughts, from which we may derive a measure of consolation or elation, are profoundly informed by the world around us. The quality of this external world determines our experience of happiness, albeit through a variety of modalities: 

Those with a background in psychology will have recognised that what I have proposed bears more than a passing resemblance to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It will be recalled that Maslow suggested that needs at the bottom of the hierarchy take precedence over those higher up: Faced with a famine, an individual will be driven to rummage for food, rather than seek to realize his or her destiny to become a concert pianist. In a way, this is an acknowledgement of our ‘epiphenomenal’ nature: we are physical beings first and foremost and our ‘psychological’ needs are, in a sense, secondary. This dovetails with the point that when our bodies no longer operate then we are no more.

3.  As subjective entities capable and desirous of experiencing happiness, it is in our best interests to ensure that the external world, the source of our happiness, is optimally developed to deliver happiness. This is what the establishment of communism is all about at a macrosociological level: Not only would communism ensure that everyone’s basic needs (like having enough to eat and a roof over your head) were met, and eliminate nearly all of the large-scale causes of stress and insecurity (such as war, crime, and poverty), it would also create a psychological climate far more conducive to the development of happiness than today’s angst-ridden, fractured, cynical, greed-driven zeitgeist. Self-actualisation, the Holy Grail of the ‘me’ generation today, would become a commonplace because obstacles, such as inimical conditions or not having the wherewithal to achieve this, would have been largely eliminated.

4.  Now here’s the really slippery bit: If it is accepted that once I am dead I am no more, then it behoves me to contribute in whatever way I can to the happiness of the countless generations either surviving or following me for the simple reason that at the point of death the distinction between myself and others suddenly disappears (as does any rationale premised on this distinction for remaining aloof from the suffering of others). And if anything matters subsequently it can only matter to other conscious subjective entities; extant or as yet unborn; each of whom will ultimately be directed – as I am in life – by a resolute longing for happiness. It is their subjectivity that will persevere – at least for a little while – and the world, being in some sense a subjective ‘construction’, their existence could be said to ‘make the world go around’, to give it relevance and meaning. What I would like to draw from this is some basis for behaving altruistically towards others. Although not easy to do so, I should like to demonstrate how my very non-survival as a conscious, subjective entity after death constitutes grounds for me taking an altruistic stance in respect of those surviving or following me. Furthermore, I would contend that the most significant act of altruism which humanity collectively might undertake would be to establish communism as this would more radically impact upon the welfare and happiness of succeeding generations than any other collective act of will (Individually, we are powerless to alter the modus operandus of our world, and our individual acts of altruism – although they might advance the happiness of specific others – could ironically perpetuate this modus operandus; firstly, by making it more bearable, and secondly, because focusing exclusively on the symptoms of the many problems afflicting present day society channels people’s energies into fixing these at the expense of addressing the underlying causes)                                                       

Let’s look at it this way: ‘I’ cannot be equated with the memories others have of me, nor with my life’s works or my physical remains; all of which may persist for some time after I have gone. (Interestingly, those who argue for an afterlife are often transfixed by the spectacle of physical remains, as though these served – as a kind of comparator – to suggest that one might leave somewhat more enduring ‘psychical remains’. One has only to look upon the ‘cadaver tombs’ such as can be found in Wells Cathedral to see that this could be a subtextual meaning in these emblematic works of arts. Who knows, were we simply to vapourise at the point of death, the notion of an afterlife may have had less of a hold on people). Whilst alive, what I am, an individual with an identity – rests upon my being a conscious, subjective entity capable of thinking, feeling and willing, and aware of myself as such; however we construe this. In my workaday life, when not engaged in rarefied discussions about metaphysics, I assume that much the same can be said about others as well. That is to say, I ordinarily take it for granted that the faculty for being aware of oneself as a conscious subjective entity is universal, albeit one that individuals exercise in different ways; with more or less frequency or intensity, for example. What will obviously be unique to each individual is, as it were, the content of this awareness: Apart from the unique unfolding of experiences every second of the day, this content includes the myriad facts that feed into one’s overall identity, what has been designated the ‘me’ component of a conscious subjective entity (as opposed to the ‘I’ component – the subject in this act of ‘internal perception’. This might be termed the ‘subject/faculty’ meaning of ‘I’, which differs from the ‘identity’ meaning of ‘I’ deployed when one says, for example, ‘I am an accountant’. In the latter usage, the fact stated is incorporated into the ‘me’). Now the reader may protest that I have surreptitiously introduced analogy into this account in the form of a homonunculus that sits inside one’s head, observing what goes on. Amongst other things, there is the problem of infinite regress here – does the homonunculus itself not possess a homonunculus, and so on? But the homonunculus account is not something I would wish to defend. The only, dare I say, non-philosophical and perhaps trite point I would wish to make in this regard is that, as I have said, when not engaged in philosophical discourse, we are all aware of ourselves and others as being conscious subjective entities. This pedestrian perception – even if metaphysically suspect – is a working hypothesis in our everyday lives. It is also, in fact, embedded in many of the humanities and social sciences, from history to psychology. How one might justify it philosophically is another matter, and the reason I do not wish to pursue it is that I am more concerned with ethics right now, rather than metaphysics. And ethics have to do with ‘ought’ questions, rather than ‘is’ questions. All manner of unverifiable notions about what is the case may implicitly underlie ethical deliberations. A convincing rebuttal of the former does not disprove any particular ethical position; it merely deprives it of certain justifications (In fact, ethical positions are not something one ‘proves’ or ‘disproves’). In this respect, ethical positions stand apart from scientific hypotheses. That we should see the world as peopled with others like us – which nearly all of us do on an everyday basis – simply squares with adopting an altruistic stance, as altruism is intrinsically all about others. In other words, if you don’t see yourself and others as conscious subjective entities, then I’m afraid what follows may not convince you.                   

As a conscious, subjective, and indeed self-aware, entity, my own happiness is of fundamental importance to me, and I am the ultimate arbiter of whether or not something has made me happy, though not necessarily the best judge of whether something has the potential to make me happy. So I will spend my days attempting to pursue goals conducive to my own happiness. The drive to attain or retain a sense of well-being – what one might loosely term ‘happiness’ – surely underlies most, if not all, human volition. There may be something circular in this: Happiness in one of its multifarious guises is often the affective reaction of the individual managing to successfully exercise his or her will, and yet it is also the object of the exercise. Moreover, in one way or another, much of my volition will concern other people. That is to say, my happiness is bound up with other people, either in a purely instrumental way – where I regard others simply as a means to augment my own happiness, or humanistically/altruistically – where my happiness is conditional upon theirs, upon the recognition that they too are conscious, subjective entities. That, of course, cuts both ways: Others may view me in the same light.                        

But with my death, all of this simply ceases: With the blink of an eye, the slideshow that is the human condition moves on, and the very next slide no longer features me. Existentially-speaking, others are now no longer ‘others’ because, in this context, the very term implies a distinction between myself and comparable entities. From my standpoint, which itself instantly collapses when I die, that dichotomy expires with me, notwithstanding the fact that in ordinary parlance I may still be referred to as if I retained an identity, an ‘other’ to others. Perhaps it is appropriate, therefore to differentiate between a ‘public identity’ and a ‘substantive (or self) identity’ (cf. with the different meanings attached to ‘I’ referred to earlier) – one that necessarily entails being aware that one is alive. The latter necessarily ceases when I die. Not only am I then absent: Any concern or indifference I may have entertained in my lifetime regarding the happiness of others abruptly ceases as well. Such feelings or attitudes I can only entertain during my lifetime as an outsider, never able to directly access the minds of others. This ‘outsidership’ is ultimately what allows me to distinguish between my interests and yours: I can never directly experience your pain and distress, so the drive to eliminate these will for me lack the immediacy and force that it has for you and derive from a wholly different source, call it empathy, sympathy, or perhaps just guilt or a sense of propriety. But, of course, being outside your pain also allows me to say that, in the final analysis, I can walk away from it, I can chose not to be burdened by it. When I die, however, I can no longer be outside anything. Assuming there is no afterlife, this capacity for ‘outsidership’ ceases with my death: I cannot then view my death from some external vantage point (if we put aside more literal reports from people who claim to have had ‘out-of-body’ experiences, and seen their bodies on operating tables, etc); I don’t find myself in some spectral cocoon looking down upon the world. I surrender my ‘I-ness’, or subjectivity, and all that that entails. ‘I-ness’ now only resides in those surviving me.                                         

It is not my intention in utilizing this neologism, ‘I-ness’, to suggest that I have a vested in the happiness of others because, after my death, I can somehow recover my own ‘I-ness’ through paradoxically becoming someone else – becoming reincarnated. Such a view is not one I would go along with. It is to fall for the illusion that death is like switching a light off and then finding oneself in a different body and a different room when the light is switched back on. To succumb to this illusion is to succumb to spurious analogical reasoning; the analogy being based on that old Cartesian chestnut – the ghost in the machine, where the ghost has abandoned one machine in favour of another. The key to understanding the non-survivalist point of view is to accept that, really, there is no existential continuity between me at the point of death and others after my death. There is simply nothing. Such an understanding is far from easy. In fact, paradoxically, it is almost impossible because nothingness cannot be perceived or imagined without throwing a spotlight on the observer or thinker – as a solipsistic something in a sea of nothingness – thus invalidating the exercise. At best, nothingness can only be understood abstractly (or perhaps even mathematically?) as a negation of everything. If one concurs with the non-survivalist view, then there is no ‘me’ when I am dead, and the very statement, ‘I am dead’, is metaphysically (though obviously not metaphorically) impossible to assert – or at least could never be literally true were I, the person writing these words, to utter this sentence. Contrast that with the statement, ’He is dead’, as uttered or written by another in reference to me: This is one that is both meaningful and empirically verifiable (albeit thankfully incorrect at the time of writing), and it is also one that I could use in relation to another, whether I was a non-survivalist or not.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               After my death, if anything in the world is observed and understood, then it has to be the case that there is at least someone relating to the world – engaging in observation and understanding – as it were, from the inside, as a conscious, subjective entity, as an ‘I’, just as I am relating to the world at this very moment of putting pen to paper. Let us call this standpoint an ‘I-standpoint’. Basically, an ‘I-standpoint’ involves looking out on the world from an inside perspective, and contrasts with what might be termed an ‘other-standpoint’ – any standpoint presented by someone other than oneself; the status or content of which can only ever be apprised or indirectly inferred by drawing upon shared symbolic resources (language in particular), cultural intelligence, and knowledge of the supposed mental correlates thought to accompany particular sorts of observed behaviour, amongst other things. An ‘other-standpoint’ presupposes an ‘I-standpoint’ engaged in processing manifestations of the former. That the world will continue to be observed and understood after my death, and moreover, observed and understood from a myriad ‘I-standpoints’, may be inferred from the fact that the world will continue to be acted upon in ways indicative of the exercise of human volition, as opposed to simple physical causation: the sowing of a crop is the outcome of human volition, but the passage of the seasons depends purely upon physical events. Moreover, you, the reader, could hardly fail to bear witness to there being other ‘I-standpoints’ other than the one in which I, the writer, am ensconced. An ‘I-standpoint’ of necessity does not incorporate direct observation and understanding of the actual ‘possessor’ of this standpoint from any other standpoint – I literally do not see myself through other’s eyes or automatically entertain the notions they have of me: I can only imaginatively reconstruct, more or less successfully, how others see me and what others think of me; the reconstruction being essentially my own. Because it is a reconstruction, my knowing how another sees me or what another person thinks of me cannot literally be construed as or equated with the ‘I-standpoint’ observations or understandings of this other person. To me, from my ‘I-standpoint’, this other person’s views can only ever spring from an ‘other-standpoint’ – of necessity. But at the same time, external observation and understanding of a possessor of an ‘I-standpoint’ indicates that the person doing the observing and understanding likewise possesses his or her private ‘I-standpoint’, to which the former presents as one possessing an ‘other-standpoint.’ If the latter is similarly scrutinized, that too would betoken the existence of yet another. The potential regress involved in this interpersonal scrutiny mirrors the regress entailed in that putative homonunculus referred to earlier which is supposedly located in one’s head, intrapersonally eyeing one’s own inner world – as well as looking out upon the world. Except that the regress in the former case is not potentially infinite, but is limited to the number of conscious subjective entities in existence at any one time (and ’homonunuculi’ are merely abstractions, not actual entities). The picture that emerges therefore, is of a world peopled with ‘Is’, each of whose standpoint is totally their own. Another way of putting this is to say that the world out there can only be known through the prism of a person’s consciousness, through an ‘I’.  That is to say, that the world is rendered subjectively real (although, intending not to confuse epistemological claims with ontological claims, I would not wish to say that the world is merely a ‘subjective reality’ as such). This means that there are as many ‘worlds’, or rather, ‘takes’ on the world, as there are conscious, subjective entities. After my death, the world will still be known through ‘Is’ – but not through me as my own ‘I-standpoint’ will have, as it were, been switched off. Any observing and understanding that goes on, including that entailed in scrutinizing others, will be undertaken by living beings, each of whom will be aware of him or herself. This is not something I shall ever be able to prove because my demise will preclude me from doing so. However, it is reasonable to assume just this because right now we all continue to observe and understand things going on around us, notwithstanding the fact that other people die in droves every second of the day.                        

Now go to A Point of View 3