Assisted Suicide and the Animalistic Perspectives of the Scientific Mind

Assisted suicide for the terminally ill was discussed in the UK Parliament’s (unelected) chamber, The House of Lords, on Friday July 18^th. The debate centred on the Bill, introduced by Lord Falconer, that would legalise assisted suicide in certain situations.

In the run up to the debate, there was a lot of discussion in the media about the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide, with plenty of emotive and rhetorical comments made on both side of the argument. And among all this, the noted theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking made his own emotional and subjective input.

I, being as I am, a professional writer concerned about the madness of the modern world, and making people more aware of this madness and its impact on future generations, feel obliged to make my own emotive comments. So here goes …

I will focus on Hawking’s remarks in particular, for in a few words he well illustrates what is wrong with western (European) culture, and its products in the form of orthodox (Dawkins) science and the fragmented scientific mind.

Hawking was interview by the BBC and he said, “We don’t let animals suffer so why should your pain be prolonged against your wishes.” He also said that there needed to be safeguards, which one can assume is an acknowledgement of the potential for assisted suicide to become a form of legalised murder.

There is another way of looking at these comments. What Hawking is advocating is treating human beings like animals, and putting them down (that’s the colloquial phrase that people use when they ask vets to give animals lethal injections), when terminally ill humans ask for this. Yet the whole thrust of religion over several millennia, and, in more recent times, secular movements too (such as socialism), has been a fight to stop people treating other human beings like animals. That religion in particular has often failed to do this, and has resorted at times to behaving in an animalistic way, is a measure of the difficulties and challenges involved in freeing the human mind from its inclination towards killing and destruction. And socialism has often done no better.

Here I also briefly note that scientists are the one group that can be singled out as having done more than most to contribute to killing and destruction. And in orthodox Dawkins science, humans are just another species of animal, and you will not find in this type of science, any declaration that human life is sacred, for what differentiates humans from other animals are just biological characteristics determined by genes, which are themselves just the result of a mindless chain of cause and effect. And this is what is packaged and presented in what is called evolution (which is in fact, just another creation myth – but this is something for another moment).

As for the matter of safeguards; have you not noticed over the past ten years and more, all those news items involving failures of safeguarding systems: Example 1: The serial killer GP Dr Shipman (we still do not know how many patients he killed – no doubt he would have liked assisted suicide!); Example 2: The Financial Services Authority and – here the list is quite long so I mention only few – the failure of Equitable Life; The Royal Bank of Scotland affair and the damaging actions that contributed to the Global Financial Crisis …; Example 3: All those cases where vulnerable children known to be at risk from their families and placed on local, Social Services at-risk registers, who were, despite this, abused and killed by family members; Example 4: elderly people in care who have been abused by their carers; Example 5: The abuse by Jimmy Savile at the BBC over an extended period … Need I go on? There are no safeguards other than not allowing assisted suicides. And I add here that I have personal experience of the psychological bullying tactics of relatives in dealing with elderly people, and I know too that the caring professions, who are working under pressure and short of resources, are not able to give the time that is needed to deal with such matters.

Yet again I ask the question why scientists are so smart yet so dumb? It seems to be a defining characteristic, the product of a mind that is no longer able to see matters in the whole, to recognise that science is just one very limited way of seeing the world, and also one, no more worthy of special emphasis than any other. And I add, one that has little worth saying about matters most important to humanity. And the more science moves towards being an instrument of government and business interests, the more this will be so. So, as I say in my book, A Tale of Two Deserts, “whatever you may chose as a name for yourself, you are Epimetheus and are indeed well named.”

And as for the matter of assisted suicide what can be said?

We live in a very dysfunctional society, where alcohol and drug abuse are rife, where the making on money has dominance over respect for people and the environment, where family breakdowns are endemic, and where disparities in wealth and opportunities remain as a sore on the body of society. It is also a society where it is becoming increasingly apparent that child abuse is widespread, where there is little respect for the elderly, and where the emphasis is on the image of being fit, young and healthy. And anything that does not fit with this image needs to be placed out of sight, removed, and disposed of. Some might say that assisted suicide is just a mirror of this attitude and the perverse nature of the society that we live in. They are probably correct in taking such views.

What I would say is that assisted suicide is a form of convenience killing. It is a personal final solution. And the road from optional convenience killing to compulsory convenience killing, from the personal final solution to the collective final solution, is shorter than many might think. All it takes is the creation of the right social, economic, environmental, and political conditions. The very conditions that the modern western world is well on its way to creating. Yes you may well convince yourself that assisted suicide is acceptable. You will ensure that it appears to be so by making it a medial procedure, as has been done with abortion. Yet both are examples of the normalisation of evil, and in a future blog I will explain what this means in terms of behavioural characteristic (it has nothing to do with religion) of human beings. And this is part of the hell on earth that I mention towards the end of my book Encounter with a Wise Man.

To conclude, I also note that, in some versions of The Bible, in the Old Testament, there is a commandment that says “Thou shalt not kill.” In other versions of The Bible, it looks as though the absolute command has been found to be too inconvenient and the wording has become “Thou shalt not commit murder.” It could be said that contemporary society now finds this commandment as inconvenient, and is proposing a new wording of the form, “Thou shalt not kill unless it is convenient to do so.”

Towards the end of my book Enigma, I write: “All human life is sacred and the taking of a human life is wrong: there are no exceptions.” Surely as a society we should be embracing this as an axiom, a self-evident truth requiring no justification, and finding ways to ease the suffering of the terminally ill through other non-animalistic means, which of course science can help to deliver. But as long as scientists behave in a way that is driven by the belief that human life is not sacred, and that we are just animals, biological machines, the view that convenience killing is acceptable will prevail and we will not attain the desirable goal of living our lives according to the aforementioned axiom. And I have also come to understand that until we change science, and shape a different type of scientist, we will continue with our dysfunctional way of living, and we will, ultimately, have to face the consequences, which we have already had a taster of in the 20^th century, through the thoughts and actions of people like Hitler and Stalin. This is why I work to reinvent science, which is without doubt a most important of subjects, but so is religion too. And a resolution of the conflicts of minds between the two is possible, and in ways most surprising. The construction of new paths does indeed start in the most unusual of places (a reference to a line in my book A Tale of Two Deserts).

ICT & ART CONNECT

In my blog of 18 May 2014 (On the Saying of Unreasonable Things) I mentioned that I had spent a day in the European Parliament in connection with initiative called ICT & ART CONNECT. Now is a good time to say more about this new activity.

The day in the Parliament was organised around a morning session of keynote presentations, which was chaired by Amelia Andersdotter MEP, and which included an address from the renowned artist, Roy Ascot. As for the afternoon session, a key part of this was a roundtable discussion chaired by Robert Madelin, Director General, of the European Commission’s DG CONNECT (responsible for the Horizon 2020 ICT Research programme). Also involved in the roundtable were three members of the European Parliament:  Maria Da Graça Carvalho MEP; Amelia Andersdotter MEP; Morten Løkkegaard MEP (who I have mentioned previously with regard to the New Narrative for Europe initiative).

In the evening there was a cocktail reception hosted by Amelia Andersdotter, and I had a long conversation with her about something close to both our hearts: the inappropriateness of current copyright laws and the need to change them to make them relevant to a modern internet-driven economy and society. About this I will say more in a future blog.

I wrote a report about the roundtable discussion, and this document sets the scene for the ICT & ART CONNECT initiative and highlights some important issues. So here therefore I present some further reflections:

Art is becoming popular! What was once just seen as a cultural activity is now being repositioned as an economic one, as evidenced by the European Commission’s Culture Programme, which is now focused on encouraging artists to professionalize themselves and to seek to use their creative talents in the world of business. And universities too are being urged to address the creative arts, with The League of Research Intensive Universities advocating that art should be given a more central role in strategy, since it offers multiple benefits that range from scientific insights and educational quality, through societal value, to economic profit. It is not therefore surprising that research funding bodies such as DG CONNECT should be taking an interest in the creative arts through its fledgling initiative known as ICT & ART CONNECT.

In brief, the idea, at least as it has been articulated so far, is to connect the European ICT and Art communities to foster productive dialogues, engagement and collaborative work between them. The interest expressed by DG CONNECT is for art to: contribute towards enhancing creativity and innovation in society, technology, science, education, and business; and to help to more gracefully embed science and technology in society.

There is of course nothing new in using art to develop ICT. Artists are already involved with ICT in their artistic practices. And this involvement turns out to be more than just using what is available, but also extending that which exists, as well as developing new ICTs. Additionally one can trace the involvement of artists in ICT back in time to the 1960s, and Roy Ascot, with his cybernetic art and telematic art, is one of the notable pioneers. Here also one has an example that goes beyond the notion of artist and technologist collaborating, to one where the artist becomes also the technologist – actually a fledgling case of trans-disciplinarity. So evidently the use of art in ICT is more complex that it might first seem!

This then, in brief, is the background and more astute observers will realise from the above, that the involvement of artists in ICT research and development raises many complex issues and challenges, and that, with the tremendous potential, comes the reality that is very easy to create an unsuccessful initiative (not that anyone would ever admit to such).

One of the main concerns is that ICT & ART CONNECT is just another example of government and economic interests appropriating art for their own agendas, which in this case, is the perpetuation of technocentric world views and progress defined in terms of increasing technological sophistication and materialism. And the words used by DG CONNECT certainly point towards this as being their aim. And it can be noted that when DG CONNECT say that art can be used to contribute towards enhancing creativity and innovation in society, technology, science, education, and business, there is no reference to DG CONNECT. And among the list of organisation in need more creativity and imagination, DG CONNECT is at the top of this.

DG CONNECT speak of enhancing creativity in the ICT sector, but this raises the question of what exactly is wrong with the ICT sector (and others) that requires the appropriation of the artist’s creativity? Yet to explore such a question is to admit that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the whole basis of modern science, technology and engineering. And this is something most definitely to be avoided, and hence one comes to back to that which is mentioned in my blog On the Saying of Unreasonable Things: ICT & ART CONNECT could become a means for those whom subscribe to technocentricism to avoid confronting the failing nature of this particular institution, and to construct a narrative that involves in effective making minor adjustments through a process of co-creation with artists.

And thus the true value of art, which lies in allowing people to see the world in different ways and to envision different futures, is lost because those with power, which is derived from money, do not wish the see the world in different ways or to envision different futures. And in this scenario, the artist once again has to become subversive, by simultaneously providing the much desired creativity while also, through their creative acts, demonstrating the true nature of what is happening. And thus it can also be said that, yet another opportunity for Europe will lost, simply because Prometheus, who, being bound to the rock of the past, is too busy reinventing himself in exactly the same form as he was yesterday, to be able to comprehend that he is doing exactly this.

In such circumstances it takes an extraordinary set of events to set Prometheus free. In the Prometheus story this extraordinary event was Zeus allowing Hercules to break the unbreakable chains that bound Prometheus to his rock. In my novel Moments in Time, the central character is also like Prometheus, and the extraordinary event that sets him free is essentially a … If a told you it would spoil the story, and it is in any case something that is not for the telling, but for each person to find for themselves.

A New European Renaissance

This week I turn to the matter of a new European renaissance. We most definitely need one; and not just a new renaissance, but also a new enlightenment.

That we need a new European renaissance – a rebirth – is the conclusion reached by the group of artists, writers and intellectuals that formulated the New Narrative for Europe Declaration. New Narrative for Europe is an initiative started by President Barroso.

Europe is bogged down in the past. Its institutions are out of touch with the real world. Everywhere one looks one can find tacit assumptions that the future does not involve a significant change to these institutions.

People who form these institutions are also living a delusion, as is the rest of society. The institution that is science is particularly disconnected from reality and in face of unease about science, asks not what is fundamentally wrong, but seeks minor adjustments through initiatives like Science 2. Science we are told will save us, so we need more of it. Yet the fact that it is increasingly out control and that it has been appropriated by governments and big business for the making of money – few want to consider such matters. That scientists have started to believe their own rhetoric; that they believe that they deal only with the rational and the objective; that only facts and evidence prevail, and that they recite such nonsense in public – again, few dare to criticise. And the reason for this silence is that to question science is a heresy and a sign of some deficit. Yet there is evidently an undercurrent in society of deep concern about the way that science has developed and its future path, and the consequences that follow. And we have been here before, with religion and its dogma, and the parallels are uncanny, with the most notable being that science too is a religion, compete with its own dogma, one that is eloquently exposed by nutty professors who constantly appear on television (you know the type – I have no axe to grind they say, and so forth.), but which in reality requires people not to think for themselves, but only to imagine that they do.

And the answer to the problem that is modern orthodox science, according to orthodox scientists, is more communication to the public. Which kind of makes the point about the need for a new renaissance, for when people talk about communication in this way, what they really mean is propaganda. And they are increasingly looking to artists to fill the role of propagandists. And the use of art in this way is yet another example of appropriation of human activities by economic forces – culture too is now seen as a way of making money! While artists need to make a living, the mind that only sees art as a factor of economic production, is a mind set on taking the world backwards, for it is a retrograde step and this points yet again towards the need for a rebirth, through new ideas, which historically is the role played by art. Yet the establishment, the orthodox thinkers, do not see art fulfilling such a role. Instead they want art to be used for the reinforcement of the orthodoxy – hence my use of the word propaganda.

This I would add is one of the concerns that I have about the initiative known as ICT & ART CONNECT, about which I will write in a future blog. This initiative can also be seen as pointer towards there being something fundamentally wrong with existing institutions. In this case it is the institution that is ICT research and development, and we are told that art is needed to enhance the creativity of technologists. But why do they need their creativity to be enhanced? What is wrong with the way such people currently undertake research and development that prevents them from being creative? A question I fear that will not be answered, for to do so means confronting too many unpalatable aspects of the institution that is the modern day technologist, as well as their employers, and research funding agencies, like the European Commission’s DG CONNECT (and DG Research & Innovation).

Through my work and writings I have, for 30 years, been trying to initiate a rebirth, but it has been a lonely journey, and continues to be so. At a time when a new renaissance is needed, what I see are signs of the exact opposite – a retreat into the familiar, that which is safe, that which is reassuring – otherwise known as the past. In the face of new, complex and difficult to understand circumstances, people look to that which has worked in the past, regardless of whether it is still appropriate. This is what is happening in Europe today, and as every day passes, the prospect of achieving a new renaissance becomes less likely.

So we are back once more to the Prometheus syndrome, and the reality that it is very improbably that Hercules will appear to break the unbreakable chains that keep Europe bound to the rock of the past. The prospects for Europe are bleak, but not to worry, for Europeans have their collective delusions to believe in, which should shield them from the reality that Europe is in decline and has no future as a significant economic player in the global market place. The decline of course is a cross-generational one, so few see it, and most do not want to.

Goodbye Europe, hello India and China – perhaps they might not be so reticent in pursuing the reinvention of science, to create an institution that is aligned with their non-European culture and which Europe will not be able to compete with. I hope so, for I am sorely tired of Prometheus and his unbreakable chains and his bag of bones dressed up with a little good meat.

An Explanation of Paul T Kidd’s Twitter Tales

In last week’s blog I mentioned something that I call Twitter Tales. This week I will explain this idea. In brief, Twitter Tales are an artistic comment on the fragmentation of the modern world, its stupidity, and its lost knowledge/wisdom. The tales are difficult to understand and difficult to find, even with a hashtag, which is part of the point!

In more detail, Twitter Tales are an experiment in using new social media (in this case Twitter) for storytelling and are linked to my interest to use information and communication technologies to enable innovation in storytelling and art. The tales are also connected with my use of the creative arts to challenge existing paradigms (in science, economics, engineering, technology) and to develop new ones, and to push the boundaries of creative writing while at the same time blurring the boundaries between literature and other types of artistic expression, for example the visual arts, performing arts, etc.

Twitter Tales use the 140 characters allowed for a Tweet (which also includes spaces) to make a point, tell a very short story, or convey a profound understanding. The tweets are linked together by a meta tag (the hash tag), but the tweets are also lost among all my other tweets, and, because of the way that Twitter operates, even using the meta tag does not guarantee access to all the tweets that are part of a Twitter Tale.

All the Tweets forming a Twitter Tale exist in the Twitter Sphere into which they are inserted, but with time, become lost within it, yet the possibility remains of rediscovering these, but to do so requires effort – much like certain types knowledge that have become lost, because of contemporary society’s value-based obsession with one particular type of knowledge. What I am referring to here is the excessive emphasis placed on scientific knowledge, which is often increasingly esoteric and inaccessible, but also over valued for various reasons, which include the sad reality that science has come to mirror non-benign interests – economic, military, security. And not only is this knowledge increasingly difficult to understand, but so too is the mentality that places science, as a way of knowing the world, above other ways that we as humans use to make sense of ourselves and our place in the universe, and to generate knowledge of the universe (in the sense of the totality of everything).

Twitter Tales also pose the question whether the difficulty in understanding the meaning of the tales lies in the reduction of knowledge to a series of fragments, and the difficulty in finding all the tweets that make up a Twitter Tale, or if the problem also lies in the fragmentation of the mind, where those who generate knowledge and those who access the knowledge, are both increasingly unable to fully understand, not because of inherent difficulties in doing so, but by choice. One might say they have chosen to ignore the great ocean of knowledge that is available to all, and to focus only of a few fragments.

The tales therefore invite reflection and the rediscovery of the need for learning and knowledge in the whole, and the importance of trans-disciplinary perspectives and of the bringing together of knowledge in one place, in one mind, so that the world can once more be viewed from the perspective of a totality of knowledge. Twitter Tales also invite the reader to fill in the gaps, so to speak, to formulate the provided fragments into something that is meaningful, or not, depending on the willingness of the reader to engage in a creative act and to also see the world in different ways, which those inclined towards dogma do not want to do.

In respect of the above, these Twitter Tales can be seen as a commentary on contemporary civilisation, where dogma prevails, but is not perceived to, and where the dogma that humans are machines, leads to people perceiving themselves as machines, treating others as such, which leads to the reduction of life to a series of many machine like fragmented activities that have to be done better, faster and cheaper, often through the use of information and communication technologies.

And being only machines, people are not able to choose any other way to live their lives, yet in choosing to believe this, they expose the contradiction that they are making such a choice, consciously or unconsciously! And thus one might ask whether the human intellect has made any progress at all over the past centuries: have we just swapped the view that human life is determined by the gods and fate, for one where human actions are determined by genes and biological programmes, and thus we have no choice at all, for everything is determined by a process of natural selection, and all we can do is comply and accept the lunacy that follows from this determinism?