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Douglas Adams and the Artificial God
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I've been reading this article which a friend showed to me, and finding it very interesting. It's a speech by Douglas Adams, and the idea is this: "there probably isn't a god or supernatural creatures, but strangely, some things work better when you act like this particular kind of god, or supernatural creature, is part of the situation".
I'm not talking about very general things like morality or being kind to each other. I'm talking about, and he's talking about, very particular situations where it works to assume there is a supernatural creature there for some reason. The examples that he gives are about the rice planting traditions of Bali, which are based on a very strict religious calendar, and Feng Shui, which is based on ideas like "how a dragon would move around this house, would they be comfortable here". And both times, scientists went in and said, we have modern knowledge now and you don't need this, you actually can be happier if you do it this modern way. And the modern way didn't work. For some reason, all the scientific calculations about how it was supposed to work, were not as good as the traditions that assumed there was a god or a dragon there.
And the point he comes to is this:
I felt like something like this was happening when I read about Dr Ian Stevenson's studies on reincarnation. If you read a good summary of these studies, they are actually really powerful because they give strong evidence for a thing happening that is like reincarnation that you can't really explain in other ways, like people lying or having false memories. The evidence is just too strong that they don't. (And, often involves physical things that people can't fake, like a birthmark in the place where there was a scar on the person they claim to be in the past life, which has been checked by medical records of that past person, who did live. Sometimes there were several birthmarks and they all matched. This is as well as memories, knowing what items belong to that person, knowing that person's family and where they lived, etc.)
Well, we probably don't want to jump to the conclusion that these things are true right now. But, what we can say, is that if we assume that "something like these things" exists, then it gives us a good model for how to work with the world. It's a model that we can understand that somehow makes these things make sense. Of course, if we find out later that the model doesn't fit some other part of the situation, we can throw it away. But right now, it seems to predict things that the other models can't predict.
And that is really how science works. If the best model for the situation really is "imagine that a dragon has to live in this house", then you imagine the dragon. The dragon might not be real, but the point is that the dragon-shaped model works for some reason and you use it as long as it works. You don't just throw it out because "dragons aren't real". It doesn't matter if dragons are real, it matters that the model works. And that doesn't make "common sense", but, it is how science is really done. A lot of things that are good science don't make common sense.
That's what I feel is also true about being therian or otherkin. On the chain of events that made me, I can't say if there is literally a swan at any point. That's why I don't base my therian identity on reincarnation. I also don't base it on the idea that I "really" have a "swan-like brain".
But, what I can say is that if I act like I have a swan-like brain, if I assume that I "am" a swan in some way that has a human body that was raised human, even though this doesn't seem to make any sense, it works. That seems to be the model I need.
And that's the important thing. That's the only thing. I don't want to throw away a model that works. And that's why I'm a therian.
I've been reading this article which a friend showed to me, and finding it very interesting. It's a speech by Douglas Adams, and the idea is this: "there probably isn't a god or supernatural creatures, but strangely, some things work better when you act like this particular kind of god, or supernatural creature, is part of the situation".
I'm not talking about very general things like morality or being kind to each other. I'm talking about, and he's talking about, very particular situations where it works to assume there is a supernatural creature there for some reason. The examples that he gives are about the rice planting traditions of Bali, which are based on a very strict religious calendar, and Feng Shui, which is based on ideas like "how a dragon would move around this house, would they be comfortable here". And both times, scientists went in and said, we have modern knowledge now and you don't need this, you actually can be happier if you do it this modern way. And the modern way didn't work. For some reason, all the scientific calculations about how it was supposed to work, were not as good as the traditions that assumed there was a god or a dragon there.
And the point he comes to is this:
...as we become more and more scientifically literate, it's worth remembering that the fictions with which we previously populated our world may have some function that it's worth trying to understand and preserve the essential components of, rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water; because even though we may not accept the reasons given for them being here in the first place, it may well be that there are good practical reasons for them, or something like them, to be there. I suspect that as we move further and further into the field of digital or artificial life we will find more and more unexpected properties begin to emerge out of what we see happening and that this is a precise parallel to the entities we create around ourselves to inform and shape our lives and enable us to work and live together. Therefore, I would argue that though there isn't an actual god there is an artificial god and we should probably bear that in mind.
I felt like something like this was happening when I read about Dr Ian Stevenson's studies on reincarnation. If you read a good summary of these studies, they are actually really powerful because they give strong evidence for a thing happening that is like reincarnation that you can't really explain in other ways, like people lying or having false memories. The evidence is just too strong that they don't. (And, often involves physical things that people can't fake, like a birthmark in the place where there was a scar on the person they claim to be in the past life, which has been checked by medical records of that past person, who did live. Sometimes there were several birthmarks and they all matched. This is as well as memories, knowing what items belong to that person, knowing that person's family and where they lived, etc.)
Well, we probably don't want to jump to the conclusion that these things are true right now. But, what we can say, is that if we assume that "something like these things" exists, then it gives us a good model for how to work with the world. It's a model that we can understand that somehow makes these things make sense. Of course, if we find out later that the model doesn't fit some other part of the situation, we can throw it away. But right now, it seems to predict things that the other models can't predict.
And that is really how science works. If the best model for the situation really is "imagine that a dragon has to live in this house", then you imagine the dragon. The dragon might not be real, but the point is that the dragon-shaped model works for some reason and you use it as long as it works. You don't just throw it out because "dragons aren't real". It doesn't matter if dragons are real, it matters that the model works. And that doesn't make "common sense", but, it is how science is really done. A lot of things that are good science don't make common sense.
That's what I feel is also true about being therian or otherkin. On the chain of events that made me, I can't say if there is literally a swan at any point. That's why I don't base my therian identity on reincarnation. I also don't base it on the idea that I "really" have a "swan-like brain".
But, what I can say is that if I act like I have a swan-like brain, if I assume that I "am" a swan in some way that has a human body that was raised human, even though this doesn't seem to make any sense, it works. That seems to be the model I need.
And that's the important thing. That's the only thing. I don't want to throw away a model that works. And that's why I'm a therian.
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Also, a big hoorah for Douglas Adams. I'm looking forward to finishing that article and getting back to this!
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This is going to be awfully long - the article and your points gave me a lot to think about. I hope it's not too late to discuss it more in-depth.
I'm going to put a few things on the table for context:
1: I am not spiritual because I can't find anything around me that says, "Yes, there is something definitely out there that is divine," or "yes, this is definitely what a soul is." I am fascinated by ritual and myths, but at the end of the day I have no understanding of what "makes them work" other than "there's something that we can't explain," or "our brains are very elaborate and something very complicated is happening in them that creates conceptions of the divine/afterlife/souls, etc."
2: Douglas Adam's explanation of how we come to believe gods exist is something I agree with. We think, because we are makers and controllers of things, that something must be making or controlling us, and since we're sentient, many people assume that the thing(s) is sentient, besides being like us in any number of ways. I don't actually think there's "something out there" - I just think we think there's something out there, that we imagined and invented, perhaps because of some need. Maybe we need divinity and religion and ritual in order not to lose our minds and kill each other and so forth, and it's a self-regulating device. I don't know. But those are the lines along which my thoughts run on the topic.
3: Despite being agnostic-leaning-atheist, I'm open to the idea that there are things influencing our perception that we are not even aware of. In fact, I'd expect that, whether those things are internal or not. I also long for ritual in many ways, and simply have not figured out some kind of personal practice that does not feel awkward or fictional. However, I understand that the process of ritual is often very soothing and helps solve internal problems in various ways, and so when I want to solve internal problems, I wish I had rituals that functioned in ways I can get behind. Essentially, I long for a personal equivalent to the dragon in the room.
(Just wanted to lay that as a base for the following discussion.)
Part of the conundrum of being a non-spiritual therian is that I cannot make myself believe in a concrete cause - a past life, a misplaced soul, a physically deerlike brain. There is nothing that tells me, "Yes, you have a reason to believe that those are true for you." But, I still feel deerlike. When I feel certain feelings I feel them through/as deer; I feel other feelings through/as horse, and no amount of, "How is that even possible," has turned off that filter. (There have been times where that filter was obscured, but I would attribute that to other identity crises taking the forefront in those times.) Therefore, I must act as if, in some way, I am deer/horse/etc., because the feelings exist even without an explanation. I can guess at explanations that fit my worldview (subconscious psychological impulses or tendencies, for example), but beyond that what can I do other than act as if the animal is there?
So, we get to the dragon in the room. People who believe in souls/reincarnation have a dragon that, from what I can tell, is quite easy and obvious for them to see. But when we're not spiritual, we still try to understand ourselves and our impulses - we just don't have the spiritual tools. Our brains say, "This doesn't quite feel like a human thing." Yet we understand we're physically human, and we don't necessarily attribute it to being a nonhuman soul/entity in a human body. The struggle to say, "Here's is why I think/feel I am an animal," is the struggle to see the dragon. For myself, I'd say that the eagerness for sociological/pyschological studies regarding therians is the same as the eagerness of the architect or engineer to figure out why the room is comfortable. It would be great if we could tell in a way that actually explained things in a way we can understand. But until then, we have to look at the dragon to understand why we feel we are animals, even if we have to squint to see it.
Maybe there will one day be a scientific explanation that will rule out any possibility of having an animal soul or animal-like brain. Obviously we are not close to that yet.
I think Adams' pointing out that money is "made up," yet crucial to how we function, is of a lot of importance here. Even if there is nothing in our brains that is actually "wired differently," or if somehow the idea of souls was to be disproved, it doesn't change that much - we still can't just stop identifying as we do because there's no physical backing, the same way most human societies can't stop using money even though it is pure invention. They're things that have become integral to the creatures that invented them. This is also where I (somewhat quietly) believe that one can potentially "become" a therian, because the identities we invent for ourselves often become very real. So if one somehow ends up on the path of, "I am an animal," without behavioral indications dating back to childhood, it can become just as inseparable a part of them as money is inseparable from human societies.
I am curious about the following paragraph and its potential application to the community:
...it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!'
But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'.
I think some of the disagreement between spiritual and psychological, and each feeling uncomfortable about the other, may have something to do with this. My guess (and it is only a guess) is that (some? many?) spiritual folks hold that the non-attackability of spiritual beliefs is important - that you're not allowed to question it or say bad things about it even though it is irrational. Perhaps psychological therians, on the other hand, are more likely to attack something because it is irrational, or come up with the most rational explanation they can ("Occam's Razor" is often cited here, and I think that there is a fundamental awkwardness between, "This is the least out-there explanation, so I like that one," vs. "This is the least possible explanation to dispute, so I like that one" - the ideals behind each seem so similar and yet so different) because something irrational simply does not fill that space as well for them. So spiritual therians may feel threatened by pyschological therians who refuse to hold irrational beliefs in a place of reverence or sacredness; psychological therians feel threatened by people who hold onto irrational beliefs when more rational ones are readily available.
Again, this is just musing, a guess, but I wonder if that's the root of some of the disagreements. I wouldn't be surprised if all the noise Jarandhel is making about the superiority and "objective, actual closeness" of spiritual therians to their animal identity is simply because he feels threatened that less and less people believe in spiritual causes. He is the Vatican; psychological therians are his Galileo... except we haven't quite proven anything with science yet, and it's in a more modern day, where those who think the Vatican is trying too hard to stop the flow of progress are more than just a few easily-silenced rebel "heretics."
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