I set out to obtain as much
knowledge as possible, hoping to create a set of practical ethical values and
morals, in anticipation of a more purpose driven and meaningful life. In a world
where it is difficult to justify religious beliefs and the only realities
appear to be the laws of physics and mathematics the task has become more
difficult than ever before. After many years travelling around the world
working as a vet and living in different countries I have developed a simple set
of rules and beliefs as an aid to a healthier, happier and more meaningful
life. I would like to share these values with the hope of making the world a
safer and happier place, starting with you and me.
Introduction
The harsh reality of an objective world where
God is dead and mathematical and physical laws appear to be the only realities
we can cling to morality is under threat.
We will only discover a happy
life under conditions of total freedom—Freedom from fear of rejection, poverty,
suppression, death and our own ambition. In other words, complete freedom from
objective fixations, including the mind itself. Through this detachment, we
obtain pure love and understanding. Add to this an understanding of a higher purpose
for our presence here, and we are enlightened
The idea of biological replication and its proposed desperate
drive to mutate, adapt and survive must surely be more than just a senseless
mass seeding of DNA. In fact, from a relative point how do we define ‘survival’;
and from a more philosophical viewpoint why is it so highly regarded?
To some entirely lost in the evidence-based scientific
view of the world, these issues may seem either too trivial or perhaps too unrewarding
to be a worthy pursuit. For others perhaps
more sceptical about the confines of objective science, and what religion or
perhaps philosophy has to offer, it may come as a refreshing alternative.
In brief, physics
sets the boundaries of the universe supported by objective evidence—evidence
mainly found in the basic elements and an ongoing discovery of new energy
forces, this then expressed mathematically. In turn, in the natural sciences, our
foundations are more equivocally based on DNA and genetic coding; changes in
organisms accounted for as adaptations to environmental stimuli. Technocrats
are designing computers and machines with the aim to simulate human activity
and behaviour mechanically and electronically. Driving research in all these
progressive fields is principally an out of control financial machine with the
focus on profits.
In an era of computerization and extreme, at times
cruel materialism, ‘reality’, vehemently set by genetic and financial
limitations can be daunting. Marketed as computerised statistics and with information
overload on every imaginable topic it can be, to say the very least, become
confusing. In healthcare materialism now extends, but does not limit itself to
longevity medicine for the rich, with its’ other extreme acceptance of basic
nutritional deficiencies, substance abuse, mental health issues and infectious
diseases in the poor taking a distant second place.
Add to this the fact that we are living on a planet
under environmental stress, increased prevalence of natural disasters, religious
fanaticism, terrorism, on a growing list, what an overwhelmingly fearsome
place the world must seem to a new generation.
Natural selection theory (the selfish, greedy and
‘senseless’ DNA) with a survival of the fittest strategy seems to be the
logical and sensible conclusion to explain our origins and most of us aggressively
and without much thought jump into its hierarchical mayhem. Most conventional
religions offer fleeting alternatives for the desperate, creating no more than self-interested
segregation, secured in egocentric rejection of others and their beliefs. Followers
of theses religions justify suffering and inequality with the promise of a
glorified special place in an afterlife or a burning inferno for the rest. Depressing
as these facts already seem, the neglect of our mental health and sensory
wellbeing is an added concern, and a mostly overlooked or completely ignored
issue.
It is a sobering
reality of our narrowly defined objective world that, as recent as the 1990s,
scientists considered issues like pain in animals as rather trivial matters. With
such an ignorant Cartesian view of life, we are now also oblivious to the
poverty and suffering around us. Pre-occupied with material wealth and electronic
and mechanised devices, we spend more time admiring the lifestyles of the rich-and-famous,
involved with our own petty ambitions instead of concerning ourselves with the
suffering of others. In fact, considering the current diversity of quality of
life on our planet, we need to redefine suffering.
Before we do so a few reminders of how embarrassingly,
slow sensory evolution has been for humankind:
Some examples—the church’s ignorance of a Copernican
world, Platonic thinking in philosophy, not realising our animal origins,
apartheid, eugenics, the misuse of nuclear energy, and mismanagement of natural
resources and the current primitive
fiscal system controlling life and creating a growing gap between the rich and
the poor. To add fuel to the fire we tolerate an era of misinformation in
marketing and corruption in our higher financial institutions with amazing calm.
In recent years, a new awareness, driven to protecting our Earth and addressing poverty
and inequality is emerging, but as usual full of objective economic and
political checks and balances; encumbering sense.
Humankind’s significant advances, be it in the sciences,
the arts, or other fields, were all initially based on assumptions triggered by
feelings. Such feelings, the liberating factor for the human mind from its
solipsistic dull state.
Our inability
to understand and pay heed to an emerging new sense could yet again pose to be a major obstacle in the next phase of
our evolution.
We live in amazing times, advancing into a new
universe. Set in the never before background of global internet access opinions,
ideas and feelings now freely float around with the potential to make others
aware, or more confused. Posted on the internet is anything from teenage social
blogs to recent medical and scientific research papers, all this with the
ability to simultaneously link millions of minds together. Minds, each in turn,
connected with millions of neurons and with options to decide and elect what is
worthy of assimilation.
Unscrupulous marketing and business people tend to exploit what
they can with this new marketing tool, principally for self-gain—misdirecting
the human intellect. Politicians and the wealthy are fighting for control of
this new media to gain more power, and of course for financial gain. Presented
with such confusing and many times unproven information promoted by greedy
marketing tactics and financially induced censorship, one has to often resort to
feelings and sense to sift through useful information and mere gibberish.
In ensuring that such feelings have the opportunity to
evolve soberly and sanely, the issue of mental health and ethics have also
never been more urgent. We are ‘empowered’ by a new era of scientific
achievement to a point where, if uncontrolled, we have the ability to, in extreme,
destroy our entire planet by means of a nuclear
war, or life itself by means of uncontrolled genetic manipulation. On a smaller
objective scale, if we mess things up badly, we may create unimaginable
suffering through unchecked development and greed. Such greed augmenting
inequality and setting the background for revolution and war.
We should seriously ask ourselves, if this blink of
intellectual empowerment is a mutative off-chance event driven by a selfish
gene, or if this ability of self-destruction and global communication is not
perhaps a new hallmark in the start of a more responsible, less egocentric and
more benevolent era. Responsible action would involve all of us, regardless of race, culture, standing, or even species. Concerning
ourselves with something as precious and urgent as our delicate future and
mental-wellbeing, not only then become apparent as the key to solving the
problems causing all the angst seen around us, but also the most important
determinant of our destiny. It would be more than a revolt against the
Darwinian cruelty still taken for granted around us, but it would also prove to
be invaluable as the first step in setting Sense
free in a new more enlightened period of our existence. In today’s world ‘senselessly’
ruled by a survival-of-the-fittest concept, we will have to be more proactive
to change concepts kept in place by misinformation and false marketing,
ferociously driven by an unflinching
money machine.
Objective science, under the influence of narrowly set
financial confines, were (and to some extent still is) very much the cause of
this ignorance towards animal and human suffering—perhaps the growing
acceptance of euthanasia as a ‘treatment’ option. As a reminder of man’s limitations,
we should historically go back to Descartes almost 400 years ago. His objective
views and endeavours to understand the human body became well embedded in our
thinking. As a respected philosopher, he convinced the church to see the human
body and spirit as complete and separate, promising not to interfere with the
mental and spiritual realm that belonged to the church. This split between mind
and body sadly and embarrassingly has set the pattern of thought in scientific
and medical thinking ever since. Interestingly he went further to lay claim
that the pineal gland was the seat of the human soul and therefore only people
had souls, and not animals, resulting in vivisection that continued for
centuries. Embarrassingly, in his lifetime he had to admit that animals also
have a pineal gland, but still declined their sense of pain.
This objective construct (although a significant part
of our mental advancement), firmly created a wall between the mental and
physical causing much of the neglect of animal and human mental welfare. Such
is the sleepwalking existence of man.
It is equally troubling to know that it was only after
the war in the late 1940s that the tiny profession of psychology was established,
driven by a need to cater for the mental scars of post-war veterans. Sadly, we
needed a war to maim and kill in order to trigger a more concerted interest in
the mental welfare of our own species.
Psychiatry, the other main caretaker of our mental
health (although it existed in name as early as 800 A.D. in the Islamic world
and in Hebrew times), became more of an academic pursuit with little to offer
therapeutically than homes for the mentally ill until recent years. Confronted
by a limited number of treatment options to alter the mind, lobotomies were a common treatment
option as recent as the late 1970’s. Our deleterious objective approach, to if
something is dysfunctional to ‘cut it out’ and get rid of it.
Amazingly, the most important aspect of our existence
has received the least of our attention and understanding, and is still
generally left as an afterthought to the objective body. Armed with this
underrated enigmatic organ we make all our decisions and judgments. It also
became more apparent that our mental health depends heavily on addressing the
quality of life in others, including our fellow creatures.
In veterinary medicine the principle criteria used as
recently as 1981 was pure objective science, and in agriculture it’s still
ongoing today, affecting production efficacy. The guidelines are mostly set
using efficiency of food use and reproduction, with mortality and morbidity
worked into the equation only as threat to production efficiency. Most of science
and health care, augmented by today’s technocratic society, still blindly
follow such restrictive objective values.
We should thus take care, after our explorations and
analysis, not to end up with the same inconclusive objective and technical
barriers when dealing with feelings, pain, and suffering. Intertwined in all
objective pursuits is inescapably the enigma of life, with all its
complex diversity and richness based on feelings and sense. This we should give
much more credit.
All this potential awe-inspiring benevolence demands a
progressive new gaol directed view, detached from pure objectivism, greed, and the idea of an
aimless selfish DNA. Needed is, a more benign and inspiring philosophy. Set in a
deceivingly ordered computerised world we now need a new set of ethics and
morals, with no egoistic motives, to re-enchephalize humankind—free form greedy
politics, economic bias or restrictive religious beliefs.
Why we are here and how are we supposed to live a good,
honourable and pure life, and why should we? For our purpose, we discuss this
under three main subunits:
I. Higher purpose (cerebral thinking and sense)—without a reason for
our existence this sentence would end right here, we would have no awareness of
1 +1 = 2 and we may as well stop harping on about the meaningless of it all. We
can therefore safely assume there is a higher purpose. The proof is the fact
that we are here and constantly changing. We can continue to debate if the
higher purpose has any purpose or not, the futility of this speaks for itself.
II. Calculative
(limbic)—the inner self; our ego. The mind objective, geared for survival,
greed and hierarchical placement of ourselves in society—what gave us an
evolutionary advantage and simultaneously made us conniving smart apes. This is
also the damper on our evolutionary advancement. Most of us are entrapped in
this stage and as a result suffer needless pain and illness; it is responsible
for most of the crime and even war. Noteworthy is that ignorance of a higher
purpose of our presence here we enhance our ego and create further entrapment
in this intermediate stage of our sensory evolution.
III. Action
(hypothalamic)—the basic somatic self (our basic anatomical and physiological
self)
Simple changes in our perception and management of
these three can make life complete, meaningful and less stressful.
Purpose
Chapter One
Higher Purpose
"The destiny of humanity depends more than ever on the moral forces it is capable of generating" Albert Einstein
Definitions: (as used in human and veterinary medicine).
Suffering- an unpleasant emotional state or an undesirable mental state that people or animals
would normally prefer to avoid. Suffering can refer to a wide range of intense
and objectionable subjective states such as fear and frustration. It can be of
either physical or psychological origin.
Pain- an unpleasant sensory and emotional
experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or is described in
terms of such damage. The inability to communicate in no way negates the
possibility that an individual is experiencing pain and is in need of
appropriate pain relieving treatment.
To be purpose driven to
survive and not suffer or be in pain, would be a rather pragmatic approach to defining
life’s purpose. To be purpose driven to make money or obtain a higher education
without well-defined goals also hardly suffices and the majority of us need a
better purpose.
Seen as the highest
evolutionary achievement in our known universe, there are two ways we can view
human higher perceptive ability (our brain), the only means at our disposal to
figure out the purpose for us being here.
a)
An environmentally induced mutative off-chance event, with
higher perception merely as a freak tool to improve survival. This option
immediately limits our ability to do much more. As seedlings of a freak
off-chance event, we were extremely lucky, and we have now reached an objective peak in our sensory evolution, we may even regress. We also have to
relie entirely on natural selection and environmental changes to make minor genetic adjustments over eons to come. We would most likely go extinct or maybe not.
b) Achievement of higher perception as a universal drive with much more to come.
Under this more optimistic option we have only started the
initial stages of an amazing journey in a universe filled with infinite
potential… our intellect and cognitive ability evolving explosively.
Why sensory advancement and global well being is not
only our ultimate purpose, but the only choice:
Key facts: The brain is the source of all suffering
and pain, no one wants to suffer or be in pain.
From a
universal point, all life is of equal importance, a single strand of viral DNA
can wipe out vast numbers of humankind.
The excesses of some create suffering in others.
Excessive individual wealth results in corruption, nepotism and protectionism. It
furthermore results in manipulation of ethics and morals to mollycoddle the
already powerful and rich. These excesses of a few, backed by unscrupulous
marketing, also sets false values and aspirations in others. Survivalist
strategies at the cost of others are not conducive to mental health or in fact
survival.
The above facts seem easy to relate to but we tend to
ignore them and as such their damaging effect on mental health. Furthermore,
the above facts can only be justified under a Darwinian survivalist strategy, option
(a).
Mindset that there is not enough to go around and fear
driven by an antiquated economic system inflating shortages rather focusing on
alternatives, it rewards the ‘haves’ at the cost of the ‘have nots’.
Subsequently the latter have now become no more than cheap labour for the
former. In a market driven economy with few jobs where a good day’s work may be
worth less than dinner from the local grocer or a
course of antibiotic tablets for your dog, the rich have
become extraordinary rich. These individuals take pride in their achievements
making fortunes while they sleep or sit in a $1000 an hour spa, while the poor
in many parts of the world work for $2 an hour. Even as staunch supporters of
option (a) we have to admit, the rich are not necessarily the fittest or the
smartest.
We have subsequently broadly stratified society into
three sub-groups:
1)
Homo sapiens supremus – an elitist group of firm believers in the superiority
of their genetic makeup and achievements (or in some deserving of God’s special
recognition), as the determinants of their elevated position and lavish lifestyles.
Many cheat, bribe and deceive in their attempts to belong to this group, subsequently
reducing the average morality standards of its solipsistic driven members. Some
just thank their lucky stars.
2)
Homo sapiens comfortis – The rather content and harmless middle class.
Comfortable and secure, if not too busy complaining or pretending to be happy
they dream about how good life would be in sub-group 1. With relative easy-acceptance
of their safe place in this pretentious hierarchy, they are the easiest targets
for unscrupulous marking. They are also the backbone of our society.
3)
Homo sapiens ignoramus— Ignorant, either due to an unfortunate genetic
shortfall, bad luck or a self-created, drug-induced ignorant bliss. Due to their
inability to part with much money, they are predominantly of use to the other
classes to boost their egos, promote political images or do their dirty work.
With such a background we now have to create a purpose
with a system of ethics and morals to satisfy the lot. For some of more
enquiring mind we also have to create a system of beliefs to add meaning and
purpose to life. An enormous task indeed—with science having determined
reality, the existentialist having killed God (after the churches have already
done a good job scaring people off), and worth measured in monitory terms.
Military regimes are not very fashionable; although under current systems of
democracy guns have been replaced with money.
With such an overwhelming task it can be easy to see
how most failed entrants of sub-group (1) quickly accept their place in the
scheme of things, or else fall victim to sub-group (3).
Either way, we
are mortal beings with a limited lifespan, facing the reality of needing a
purpose with ethics and morals to justify our stay here. We are inevitably
again faced with the, possibly unrecognized impact on our existence here, of
deciding between the brain as a freak event or an emerging goal directed sense.
In
this search for meaning and purpose there has always been an undercurrent of
awareness of something higher, something more meaningful than a struggle to
survive or get rich quick. Some are quite happy to ignore issues like these
since they appear to be of no value in their rather short objectively defined
lives.
Others
of more enquiring mind, or those lucky enough to have exhausted the pleasures
of what money can buy, need something more. There is then a profound wish to
dig deeper than religion and science (politics and economics being an unworthy pursuit
for our purposes here).
In
order to start somewhere we need to tap on all we can— ancient and present day
religious wisdom, philosophical thinking and inevitably science. The task seems
enormous but possible due a vast amount of duplication and cyclic activity in
human thinking.
We
start our search in China. Revived again today in modern-day China is
Confucius’s ancient wisdom, where it has become especially popular amongst some
Chinese intellectuals. This has enormous benefits to its populace in elevating
moral standards in a new more democratic and capitalistic China where unchecked
greed and capitalism has slowly planted its’ segregating roots (we in the West are
already experts at this).....
