Career Break Notes Flashcards
“Science advances one funeral at a time”, Max Planck
Consilience - the linking together of different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory.
Gravity is a function of the bending of space-time.
The Selfish Gene binds together genetics and Darwinian natural selection.
Religion has nothing useful to say about cosmology, the age of the Earth, the origin of species or the curing of disease.
It inculcates unthinking credulity and servility.
We do not want the strictures you choose to impose upon yourself.
2 gains from the Enlightenment:
1/ Separation of church and state
2/ Introduction of institutions to further the tradition of criticism
Hitchens - “the best way to handle religion and politics is to keep them apart. Humans should not worship other humans at all. If they must do, it’s better that the worshipped ones do NOT occupy positions of political power.
Religion fetishises one book as the sole source of legitimacy.
Marxism - society’s inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and classless society.
Fascism - authoritarian right-wing system of government. Capitalist economy, violent suppression of the opposition and a policy of belligerent nationalism.
Hawkish - advocating an aggressive or warlike policy, especially on foreign affairs.
Neoliberalism - a small-state economic ideology based on promoting ‘rational self-interest’ through policies such as privatisation, deregulation, globalisation and tax cuts.
“Swift to the punish the original sins with which it so tenderly gifted us.”
It is now possible to read the human genome and correct all known errors.
Is death a transition or the end?
Evolution is based on difference and not on equality. There is only a blind evolutionary process, devoid of any purpose, leading to the birth of individuals.
Biology enables and culture forbids.
Over 1500 years Christians have slaughtered other Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.
We should study history to widen our horizons and to understand that the present situation is neither natural or inevitable.
Capitalism is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to. It has become far more than just an economic doctrine. It now encompasses an ethic - a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think.
The real root of suffering is the never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings.
Doublethink = cognitive dissonance
Big Brother’s regime exhibits all the elements of fascism: the single characteristic dictator, the corruption of spirt, the absolute human addiction to power, the total control of behaviour, the absolute subordination of the individual to the collective.
We have no reason to believe that anything can travel faster than the speed of light (Einstein Theory of Relativity).
Time dilation and length contraction work together to ensure that the speed of light remains constant for all observers.
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision and nothing so futile.
We do not need ‘universal applause’.
ZEST (great enthusiasm and energy) is the secret of happiness and well-being.
The man who has become emancipated from the ‘empire of worry’ will find life a much more cheerful affair than it used to be.
“In the history of the cosmos the event in question has no very great importance”.
We should acquire interests which will prevent our thoughts from dwelling perpetually on ourselves.
There is no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the Universe. There is no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles.
The comfort that religion offers is founded on the neurologically highly implausible premise that we survive the death of our brains.
Plate tectonics are impersonal.
If the history of science shows us anything, it’s that we get nowhere by labelling our ignorance God.
Sanctimonious - making a show of being morally superior
Inscrutable - impossible to understand or interpret.
“I believe that when I die I shall rot and nothing of my ego will survive”- Bertrand Russell
Egotism - the fact of being excessively conceited or absorbed in oneself.
Paradox = contradiction
Solipsism = extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s own feelings.
Inverse correlation between depression and exercise.
We can try to demonstrate that writers of these deeply flawed books, the creators of these eccentric ideas, were ignorant by virtue of their place in history.
The laws governing the physical world have no goals that pertain to human well-being.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
We must have the temerity to challenge the applicability of 7th century teachings to the 21st century world.
The biggest obstacle to the change within the Muslim world is its suppression of critical thinking. We cannot give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.
The US constitution is 225 years old and has 27 amendments. The Koran is 1200 years old and has never been amended.
Muslims believe in the superhuman perfection of Mohammed and the literal truth of the Koran as the direct, final revelation of God. It is literally God’s last word.
The Koran is not beyond reproach.
Religion is for human beings, not the state.
The Koran is not the ultimate repository of revealed truth.
Like it or not, we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes.
Over the past 100,000 years humans have become so accustomed to being the only human species, it’s hard for us to conceive of any other possibility. This makes it easier to imagine that we are the epitome of creation, and that a chasm separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are more closely related to one another than either is to gorillas or any other primate. From the perspective of this powerful test of biological kinship, humans are not only related to the great apes – we are one. The DNA evidence leaves us with one of the greatest surprises in biology: the wall between human, on the one hand, and ape or animal, on the other, has been breached. The human evolutionary tree is embedded within the great apes.
The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to our fragile social orders and hierarchies.
Composure = equanimity Initiative = gumption Exonerate = absolve Unreadable = inscrutable Fixation = preoccupation Render = predispose Cursory = ephemeral Impermanence = transience Cursed = ill-fated, ill-omened Hapless = unfortunate
Capricious = given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behaviour
Indolent = slothful
Illustrious - well-known and respected/distinguished
Spurious = fake/bogus
Belie = contradict
Effrontery = insolence or impertinent behaviour
Polemic = strong verbal or written attack
Insoluble = impossible to solve
Ignoble = shameful
Unlettered = unschooled, uneducated
Neuroscientists have found that making money stimulates the same parts of the brain that cocaine does.
Islam has a dangerous supremacy complex about scripture.
Marjoe - precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents. Popular tele-evangelist. He studied Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.
Rwanda genocide - one is struck by the persistent wish to exonerate the hierarchy and the institution at any price.
Because there have been so many religions and so many Gods throughout human history, every believer should expect to end up in Hell as a matter of probability.
Apologists have to use acrobatic theology to interpret scripture.
My antipathy to religion applies to ideas not people.
Antipathy = a deep-seated feeling of aversion
Every criticism of doctrine gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims or people.
Demagogue - political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than rational argument.
Science has largely been a fight against anthropocentrism.
Anthropocentrism - regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence, especially as opposed to God or animals.
People make judgements of right and wrong instantly. They make up supporting reasons later.
Skilled arguers are not after the objective truth, but arguments supporting their views.
When self-interest, partisan identity or strong emotions are involved, reasoning turns into a lawyer.
Why did God create 400,000 species of beetles?
Religion = most divisive ideology ever spawned.
“I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think that you think I am.”
Nazism won so much support by combining tribalism and belief. Hitler thought the Jews were the eternal mushroom of humanity.
Social Darwinism and Mendellian Genetics provided the basis for the movement.
Nietzsche points out that Darwin kept the theory of natural selection hidden for 20 years before publishing due to the consequences it was going to have.
Shock Doctrine: using moments of collective trauma to engage in radical social and economic engineering.
Opponents are systematically eliminated. Suppression is explained as part of the dirty fight against communism or terrorism, never as the the fight for the advancement of pure capitalism.
Sovereignty should not be considered inviolate when a country is slaughtering its own citizens.
You can gauge the success of any society/institution by how it treats its women.
One of the most destructive forces in the Middle East is tribalism.
Hitchens:
We don’t need to proclaim our rectitude or grovel and wallow in our unworthiness.
Diminish - to make less effective
The Koran has endless prohibitions on sex and the corrupt promise of infinite debauchery in the life to come.
Religion offers a redemption which is not theirs to bestow.
A theory that is unfalsifiable is always a weak one.
Why does the age of miracles seem to lie somewhere in the past?
Collectivisation of guilt is immoral in itself.
Is the Universe really preoccupied with our fate?
An open mind is not an empty mind.
We must challenge those who see themselves as guardians of life’s significance: the priests, imams and rabbis. To challenge their view is to challenge the power others seek to exert over us by their claims to special knowledge.
We are not a species programmed for liberty. Some of us prefer a quiet life and want to repose our trust in an authority. We want security.
The cultural task is to separate those transcendental impulses from the supernatural and superstitious.
Everybody has the experience that there is more to life than just matter. It’s very important to keep it under control and not have it exploited by priests and rabbis.
All great questions which divide religion and philosophy are reducible to 2:
1/ Did god make man or man make God?
2/ Is morality innate or a gift from above?
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Albert Camus
Freedom of speech is not just the right of the speaker to be heard, its the right of the audience to listen.
“Freedom of speech is meaningless unless it is the freedom of the person who thinks differently” Rosa Luxembourg
Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus.
Censorious instinct is that we know exactly what we already need to know.
Islam makes large claims for itself.
There are 2 ideas I don’t like in Islam:
- the idea of a perfect book
- the idea of a perfect man
It means that any challenge is seen as profane.
We’re made from stardust or nuclear waste. It’s as likely for us as any whale, dog or bacteria.
Alan Watts - the Wisdom of Insecurity
- Myths give meaning through making you part of a vast social effort.
- People fail to live because they are always preparing to live.
- There is no other reality than the present reality.
- Money is only a symbol of real wealth and the most blatant example of confusing measurement with reality.
- Life is a dance and when you are dancing you are not intent on getting somewhere.
- So long as the mind believes in the possibility of escape from what is at the moment, there can be no freedom.
The violence of political religions betrays the anxiety beneath then - men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark.
So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it.
The more my actions are directed towards future pleasures, the more I am incapable of enjoying any pleasure at all.
It needs but slight imagination to realise that everlasting time is a monstrous nightmare, so that between heaven and hell there is little to choose.
Life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself.
The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
- Thinking has become a disease. Most people live with a tormentor in their head which drains them of vital energy.
- Be totally present. The present moment holds the key to liberation.
- Learn to disidentify from your mind. Don’t take your mind too seriously
- Once you have understood the basic principle of being the “Watcher” of your mind, you have at your disposal the most potent transformational tool.
- As long as your ego mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease.
- To the ego, the present hardly exists. The ego’s needs are endless. It feels vulnerable and threatened, so lives in a state of fear and shock.
- The promise of salvation is not in some illusory future, but it is here right now.
- Take any routine activity and give it your fullest attention.
- Success is measured by the degree of peace you feel within
- Compulsive thinking is addiction and a serious leakage of vital energy
- When you are fully present your mind will be sharper and more focussed
- Ask yourself: is there joy, ease and lightness in what I am doing?
- Some people would ALWAYS rather be somewhere else. Their ‘here’ is never good enough.
- Stress is caused by being ‘here’ and wanting to be ‘there’.
- The body loves your full attention
- Most people don’t know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.
- There is an unconscious mindset that creates the illusion of salvation in the future.
- This is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You get ‘there’ by realising you are there already.
- The whole advertising industry and consumer society would collapse if people no longer sought to find their identity through STUFF.
Very hard to accept that we’re Darwinian creatures without purpose.
Are we under any obligation to find worth living? The idea that someone’s life has to be justified is an absurdity.
I act on the basis that bodily death is the end. The idea of an indefinite longevity does not appeal to me.
The deeper meaning of natural selection is that we are going nowhere. This is not progress to perfection. All we have is drift and transience.
Physics:
One of the greatest insights that comes out of modern physics is that of unity between the observer and the observed.
Matter and energy tell spacetime how to curve. Spacetime tells matter how to move.
General relativity defined objects moving at accelerated speed. Special relativity defined objects moving at constant speed.
The genius of Einstein was understanding that don’t need a force to accelerate an object. You just need to change the geometry of spacetime.
Science proceeds by fallibility. We are no longer at the centre of the Universe, but the intellectual ascent to demote ourselves was stunning.
Astronomy has replaced theology. We have less of the terrors but less of the comforts.
A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
Performance is highest at full attention.
The ability to manage emotions is inextricably linked to the ability to pay attention.
Quantum mechanics is a set of mathematical rules and ideas that explain the subatomic world. It’s a world built on probability and chance, where particles can behave like waves.
Catholic Church
Excludes half the human race from its decision-making hierarchy. It systematically excludes women. This shows a warped view of gender.
Historical record does not bear out its special insight into morality: Inquisition, child-rape scandal, anti-semitism, the Rwandan genocide.
Why all this scorning of women?
Why do we need the elevated high priests?
The New Testament is a colossal missed opportunity to apologise for the Old Testament. Jesus does not do this. He never talks about slavery. No women were invited to the Last Supper.
Because of technology, we’re not listening to each other any more.
Conversational competence might be the single most overlooked skill we have failed to teach.
You need to enter every conversation with the possibility of learning something.
Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply.
People who are led by passion rather than reason are easily manipulated by the clergy.
Metaphysics = branch of philosophy examining nature of reality.
Exclusive possession of truth
Bondage - the state of being a slave, servitude, subjection
Freudian - susceptible to analysis in terms of unconscious desires; Freudian slip
Intellectualism - the exercise of intellect at expanse of emotions.
Encapsulate - express the essential features succinctly
Parochial - narrow-minded, insular
