The Occasional Solipsist

I just watched one of the most interesting and truly thought provoking movies that I have seen in a long time. The movie was called 'The Man From Earth', by Jerome Bixby, a guy I had never heard of but who it turns out makes for an interesting footnote in the history of science fiction.

The movie starts with a group of college professors getting together to celebrate the early retirement of one of their own. The retiree has decided that before he vanishes to parts unknown, he is going to tell the rest of the group the shocking truth of his life, that he is a 14,000 year old man, and over the course of the movie divulges his unique perspective on human history.

As the story unfolds, it basically becomes a 12 angry men scenario as more details of the man who currently calls himself John Oldman's life are revealed and the group attempts to put what he is telling them into something they can understand, and decide if he is crazy, lying, or telling them the truth.

Aside from some of the really interesting historical observations in the film, it is it's discussion about religion that ends up taking center stage and provides for the most interesting dialogue. It turns out that John Oldman ends up playing a fairly pivotal role in the evolution of modern religious ideology, much to his own disappointment, and it is this part of the movie that provokes the most reflection.

I don't want to give too much more away than I already have, but this movie should be required viewing for pretty much any thinking person.

And it opens up some interesting lines of thought as far as the religious references go. I am an unapologetic atheist, as anyone who has stopped by here before is likely to already know. I just have such a hard time understanding why theists have to attribute more than there already is to the natural world. I look at the universe and marvel at its breadth, depth and grandeur and I see theists as looking at the same view and saying, 'Yeah so what else is there?' I can empathize with the need for an afterlife to settle up with the innate fear of death, but once you get past that, I guess I wonder why what is just isn't enough.

But I got thinking about one of the film's premises and got to wondering about this Jesus character. On some days, I think that there might once have been some dude named Jesus who lived 2000 years ago, made a few reasonably on point comments, and was subsequently gangbanged over and over again by revisionist history and a power hungry religious empire. On other days I have thought that maybe the guy is a total fiction, fabricated completely from the minds of that same self-serving organization that still seeks to own the nonexistent souls of its members through fear. How's that for a Jedi mind trick eh? Teach the masses that they have some unknowable, unseeable eternal spiritual avatar, and then teach them that the only way to avoid that avatar spending eternity in agony is by doing exactly what you tell them to. Uh huh.

But maybe this Jesus guy was a real guy, just some regular schmuck with the idea that things could change. What if, as the film suggests, he were around now to see how his unorthodox teachings had been used and bastardized over the generations between? Would he see the many different churches grown up in his name as anything other than abominations? Would he go mad, cry, seek to repair the damage? Or would he quietly hide out, hoping that someday we might drop all the religious nonsense and get back to his original message that people just be nice to each other?

It really was that good of a movie. Every thinking person should see it at least once. And if you’re a theist that refuses to allow rational thought in for fear that it might throw that antiquated belief system into the unrelenting glare of obvious truth, then you need to see it even more.

Labels: atheism, movies, philosophy, scifi

I recently rewatched one of my favourite movies 'The Thirteenth Floor' and was reminded of how fascinated I am with the nature of reality. What existence is, what it means, how it can be defined, what we can ever really know about it. I really have always found the subject a very interesting one: I did name this blog after a philosophical position after all. Though I am not sure whether solipsism is better defined as a question of philosophy or a state of mind, and I guess I'm not sure it matters. Solipsism amounts to a person only ever being able to know one's own mind, and that everyone else is merely an extension of that mind.

Far be it from me to presume then, that my mind is the only 'real' one in existence because I suppose that would make me god, and since I don't believe in one of those, ipso facto, I have just argued myself out of existence. Shades of Oolon Colluphid.

But while I'm on the subject of god and solipsism, I came across a great little story that sums up that relationship more clearly eloquently than I probably can:

Walter B. Jehovah, for whose name I make no apology since it really was his name, had been a solipsist all his life. A solipsist, in case you don’t happen to know the word, is one who believes that he himself is the only thing that really exists, that other people and the universe in general exist only in his imagination, and that if he quit imagining them, they would cease to exist.

One day, Walter B. Jehovah became a practicing solipsist. Within a week, his wife had run away with another man, he’d lost his job as a shipping clerk and he had broken his leg chasing a black cat to keep it from crossing his path.

He decided, in a hospital, to end it all.

Looking out the window, staring up at the stars, he wished them out of existence, and they weren’t there anymore. Then he wished all other people out of existence, and the hospital became strangely quiet, even for a hospital. Next the world, and he found himself suspended in a void. He got rid of his body quite easily and then took the final step of willing himself out of existence.

Nothing happened.

Strange, he thought, can there be a limit to solipsism?

“Yes” a voice said.

“Who are you?” Walter B. Jehovah asked.

“I am the one who created the universe which you have just willed out of existence. And now that you have taken my place-” there was a deep sigh “-I can finally cease my own existence, find oblivion, and let you take over.”

“But-how can I cease to exist? That’s what I’m trying to do, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said the voice. “You must do it the same way I did. Create a universe. Wait until someone in it really believes what you believed and wills it out of existence. Then you can retire and let him take over. Good-by now.”

And the voice was gone. Walter B. Jehovah was alone in the void and there was only one thing he could do. He created the heaven and the earth.

It took him seven days.

Here's the link to the original article.

Labels: everything else, philosophy

I saw a crazy news clip tonight whilst trying to massage my pregnant wife's calves in a rather inspired attempt to lull those same calves (and the rest of her) to sleep.

Leg cramps now.

Man, nothing to make a guy feel thankful that he's a guy than to watch a woman going through pregnancy every day. End result is great for me, but holy shit what a drag for my wife. Pregnancy apparently agrees with her though; she looks awesome and because of that, she's at least smiling through most of it. I'm starting to think she actually really likes being pregnant.

Oh crap.

Does she like it too much perhaps?

I'm getting worried that the whole 'Let's just have one baby ever' agreement we had just went out the fucking window.

What was I on?

Oh yeah, the news.

So the news clip in question was about a find (didn't catch where) of a large leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Not that strange you say? They've been digging up bones of this guy for years?

Well, this particular bone from an animal who is believed to have been walking around and playing bully over 70 million years ago had to be split in half for transport, and what was found inside made me turn the news up. Apparently, there is a small amount of organic material left inside the fossil.

I shit you not.

Scientists believe it likely that they will be able to process a complete DNA profile of the animal from this sample. Now, the last thing I want to do is suggest that this dinosaur has been in the ground for only the 7000 or so years that the Creationists will claim the Earth's age to be. But, I mean how the fuck can DNA be preserved for 70 million years? Seriously. How is that even possible?

And maybe I'm ignorant of the processes mother earth is involved in whilst fossilizing a bone (and quite frankly, I am), but that just doesn't seem right to me. So if it's not, what then? Throw the whole scientific community on its ass and go back to the church telling us the earth is flat?

Think I'm over-reacting? Ok, maybe a little. But, this could really be a coup for the Thumpers of the world. They can say that if we were wrong about something as 'big' as the dinosaurs, what else have we been wrong about? I say we because I'm a rational human being and have happily (maybe a little militantly) rejected any kind of spiritual answer to our creation and subsequent omnipotent observation and occasional interference, and instead embraced a scientific stance.

Not that I'm saying that it isn't at least possible that some entity or energy or whatever had something to do with the creation of the universe, or the big bang or whatever. I can't know that for sure. No one can. What I'm saying is that if there was something before the universe existed, then perhaps that something did create the universe. But I think that any assistance we received in development ended with that big bang. I think we've been on our own ever since. I know, sounds agnostic, but believe me I am not. I am an atheist in every sense, but I'm just allowing that I could be wrong. Just like I wish that Christians could admit that they could be wrong. Just could be. And then when they admit that they could be wrong, I could tell them that once they understand why they do not believe in other religion's gods, they'll understand why I don't believe in theirs.

Ha.

Half the time I subscribe to the Minbari philosophy that because we are all made up of the same basic elements (people, animals, this planet, this star system, this cosmos) each of us may be in a very small way a tiny part of the universe that has divided in an effort to explain itself. Sounds cool anyway.

Of course, the other half of the time I think it's very likely that we're all in some kind of Matrix-ian virtual environment and maybe nothing we know is real at all. Maybe not even ourselves. Read 'Are We Living in The Matrix' by Nick Bostrom in a book called 'Taking the Red Pill' if you get the chance. He gives a very convincing argument that we are in fact living in a simulation. I just took a few minutes out of blogging to re-read it. What a mind fucker.

But maybe I'm just ranting about some old bones.

Maybe, if given the chance, Arthur Dent would just tell me that when the Magratheans were putting the skeletons in the earth's crust just to fuck with us, they decided to throw in some DNA just to up the ante.

Or, maybe I should stop watching the news when I'm high.

Either way, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this one.

Labels: atheism, philosophy