Isn't progress a magnificent thing......

From the time we started to think as modern Homo sapiens we have sought out explanations for this strange world around us and its mystifying skies full of stars above. Initially it was with myth and superstition that we filled the dark voids in our knowledge. Both served as the best and in fairness, only alternative true understanding. Perhaps it is because we adopted this way of thinking so early on, that it seems in many ways to have more or less becomes an internal fixture in our minds, a habit of thought from which it has become very difficult to break free.

 

Constantly seeking to explain the world we see around us, even now we seemingly struggle to accept that there are questions to which we will never know the answers. In the past it was into that void in our understanding and our knowledge that our ancient ancestors poured the quick drying cement of their superstitions and ancient faiths, based on fantasy and often fear. Yet, even today, everything must still have an explanation, and in the absence of this we too often fall back superstition and myth. We don’t call it that of course, now it's the paranormal, the pseudoscientific, so called "revealed knowledge, pure (blind) faith and so on. Just consider that crowded gallery of competing gods to whom we pledge our competing allegiances. The majority are ancient memes whose shadows stretch back, sometimes into antiquity. Their characters and attitudes seem like those of flawed heroes from out of ancient legend (which perhaps they are). They all seem to exhibit a spectrum of startlingly schizophrenic behaviours: violent and loving,  forgiving but capable of blood chilling all damning  judgement, barbaric hateful savagery mixed in with enlightened philosophies of peace and tolerance to others ; more likely it is our imaginations in permanent overdrive.

 

Yet it was our endlessly  enquiring minds that may well have been what was essential to our survival as a species, especially at the dawn of the human era. After all, we have few other self-preserving physical assets, like tough skins, poisonous bites or stings or being able to move at anything more than a rather feeble walking speed over any meaningful distance. Understanding our environments, being able to explain why events transpired as they did, being able to predict the likely behaviour of prey, not to mention predators, all would have been key to the survival of early humans.

 

As with cause and effect, grappling with why things happened and understanding and being able to foresee the outcomes of our actions would have been an integral part of how we developed. This ability to project what if scenarios and to anticipate, even influence the course of future events, all would contribute to the development of our concepts of the passage of time and our fleeting place within it.  As we became more aware and perceptive with this increasingly advanced form of thinking, it seems only natural that we would have started contemplating more deeply our own position in the order of things:  why we exist and are we alone, how did it all come into being, and what happens to us when we die?

 

In so many ways our knowledge is immeasurably greater in every sense since our earliest ancestors started contemplating these questions. Yet some of these questions will always remain a mystery. And in that sense, sometimes it seems we have hardly changed. It is as if we are still in those dark caves of our ancestors, and, with crude ochre paints, etching out our fantasies and dreams in the flickering half light of guttering fires, and mumbling our clumsy words of worship before stone alters. The astute observer will of course happily and perhaps caustically  point out that we are no longer, quite literally, in the caves of such ignorance. For we have now applied the satisfying veneer of sophistication to our fantasies and superstitions. Now we worship super beings in magnificent cathedrals, argue whether aliens are stealing our DNA and debate how we will spend eternity in Internet forums and on Whatsapp.

 

Isn't progress a magnificent thing

Authentic politicians: Only the Mavericks are real.

Watching the Labour Party trying, with some apparent difficulty, to select its next leader is very revealing, not just about the Labour Party, but politicians of all views and hues in general.

 

There are 4 labour candidates, Jeremy Corbyn, Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper. Of them, only Mr Corbyn appears to be real. What marks him out is that he appears to sincerely believe what he says. Whether you think it makes sense or not, is not the point here. It's that he comes across as more or less authentic, answering questions and talking his mind, much perhaps as he would if asked the same thing by a fireside or in a pub. This is indeed rare in politics, and especially unusual with a politician on the stump.

 

By comparison the other three could not appear less authentic if they deliberately set out to be. It's as if they have forgotten how to talk like normal humans; every utterance is as an opportunity to slight another, undermine a "colleague" with oblique barbs or attack an opponent for holding a different view. In the case of Cooper and Burnham particularly, it seems that both have had every last shred of individual character burnt out of them after too many years in the House of Droids.  Perhaps it's their watery, shifting stances on any issue slightly more contentious than apple pie (yes, even motherhood became an argument). Perhaps it's the smoothly meaningless word-salads they regurgitate at the sight of a press opportunity or television camera. In a sense, they are the meat puppets manufactured for and by a political machine that seeks power for power's sake but which has long since relinquished the need for real, meaningful views about anything at all.

 

This is not unique to one party though, they are largely all the same. In the USA by coincidence the same process is unfurling in both the primaries as they select their presidential candidates. The ultimate exemplification of ruthless, insatiable hunger for power is manifest in the Clinton campaign. The anointed machine candidate Hillary, robotically practiced and carefully coiffured, is the CGI  of the perfect candidate designed by a political focus group. What is on show is in reality the composite expression of power-lust, privilege, wealth and vested interest.

 

Set against the Clinton machine is the outsider, in the form of Bernie Sander, daring to challenge preordained Democratic Party fate. Sanders is a bit like the U.S. version of Corbyn. Angry, seemingly genuine in his views and an apparently authentic politician. Whether you support these views is, again, not the point. His views are his, not those of a circus of spin doctors, lobbyists, political focus groups and special advisors who have lost all sense of the real amidst a psychosis of trend and data analysis, sampling and polling.

 

In the Republican camp you have another outsider in the form of the very weird Donald Trump. "The Donald" and Sanders could not have less in common ideologically, yet they are both mavericks challenging the party machine. Trump is currently riding high because, amongst other things, he is seen as speaking his own mind (again, whether you like the clutter that emerges is not the point here) and not being some soulless cut-out suit, pre-programmed with a pattern of politically correct strap-lines and all the personality of an empty paper packet. He is now being pushed by another "un-political" politician in the form of a retired neurosurgeon, Ben Carson. Once agin, trailing away in a dusty third, fourth and so on come the droids of the party machine.

 

Ultimately, even if elected, any one of these mavericks will probably fail, for as we know, good intentions are not nearly enough in politics, just ask Alexander Tsipras. The now famous quote that "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure", could be regarded as the First Law of politics. If so, the Second Law would be that, "Eventually, all politicians will at best disappoint, at worst betray, those who vote for them". Even the mavericks. Just ask those who voted for Alexander Tsipras.

Kevin Pietersen: Another droppod catch by the ECB

So Kevin Pietersen has not been selected for the English Cricket Test team after scoring 356 not out.

 

What a missed opportunity - and it looks like another ECB decisions from the twilight zone of Losersville.

 

KP is one of the most devastating upper middle order batsmen in the world, an area of current (or is that perennial) weakness in the English test team, the superb Joe Root aside. KP would have applied some steely determination, arrogant swagger and never say die defiance to the otherwise buttery vertebrae that currently constitute the curved spine of the unsettled English test team ahead of one of the most important summers of test cricket. For the Ashes are upon us, and that grail was poached by the enemy down under a few years ago.

 

The Ashes start in July. For England and Australia, winning this competition is the holy grail of test cricket. Forget about world test rankings, or other test series, or the commercialised banality of overhyped limited overs slog-fest yawns. The real, if unwritten, mission statement for English ( and Australian) test cricket is "Win the Ashes". Win it at all costs - everything else is secondary.  Like no other player, KP is noticeably salivating at the chance of getting to grips with the Aussie bowlers and scoring big centuries against them. But no matter.

 

However, England's new director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, says there is no trust between KP and the England and Wales Cricket Board and therefore no place in the test team for him. I could be wrong of course, but I don't think any members of that venerable board will actually be out there on the hot pitch, facing the bouncing wrath of Shane  Watson and trying to win the Ashes. So who cares if they don't like each other. This gob-smacking decision appears to go slashing, with cross-bat precision, across the only recent undertakings given to KP about getting back his test place if he reverted to  playing country cricket once more, accompanied with all that "hail fellow, well met" back slapping talk of slates being wiped clean and fresh starts. Adding insult to injury, in some tragi-farce act of bumbling management incoherence, KP was then offered an alternative option of advising England on one day cricket instead. Huh? Trusted to advise the team but not play in it!? With nuanced aplomb, Strauss manages to mix absurdity and contradiction without any sense of irony. But, no matter.

 

Well, so much for picking your best team to win. If we had crushed the West Indies instead of meekly settling for the pointless irrelevance of a drawn series; if we were regularly scoring 400 plus per innings or our bowlers terrifying opposition batting orders, then perhaps there would not be such an obvious need for KP.  If there was a burning zeal to take on and vanquish the Aussies, as opposed to an "oh no, here we go again" trepidation, perhaps the team would not need the OTT self confident and self belief KP brings. Yes, he often comes across as a rather weirdly obnoxious individual with both feet in his mouth at the same time, but that's the price, for he is also a giant bowler-killing, match winner with that "I refuse to lose" arrogance that rubs off on those about him (after all who can forget the sight of him dancing down the pitch to that pie-chucker Glen McGrath and swatting one of his mediocre lobs into outer space). And if it's not about winning against the Aussies, then it's not about anything ( there are no Cups for losing with dignity or for trying your best, or sticking to some ossified set of Victorian sporting principles). If you don't win, then in so far as sporting history is concerned, you may as well have not existed.

 

At least the Aussies will be pleased with Strauss' decision.

Dead Ends: The empty promise at the heart of modern faith

For countless people of faith, the primary promise of their religion is that, in some form or other and following a brief life here on earth, they are to be rewarded with eternal life in heaven or some variation thereof.  No other promise has so powerfully captivated the thoughts of modern Homo Sapiens and endured with such resilience across long millennia. To many people, that heaven exists is a fundamental certainty as clear as is the one that every Monday follows a Sunday or that Antarctica is a real place. Furthermore, to persuade them that this might not be the case, is about as challenging as trying to convince them that one of those following statements is likewise a fiction too.

 

I am not one of these people. I consider Heaven to be both a philosophical and practical impossibility. I find it inconceivable that such a place, be it physical or non physical, could exist. It is the dead end of rational, sensible thought to consider it both possible and probable that each human's individual consciousness or "soul" (and what point is a soul without awareness of self) is going to maintain an awareness of itself for all time. This applies whether God is factored into that existence or not. Forget even the science for a moment, and just think about it; it's simply a conceptual nonsense.

 

Consider, how in times of great grief, when we have lost a loved one and are at our emotionally weakest, we are plied with phrases and terms that, although seemingly embedded in our culture, serve to perpetuate this grand illusion. With comforting words we are encouraged to imagine the recently deceased having being gathered to the arms of the Lord or that they have been called for by the Saviour and now wait for us to soon join them in the everlasting.  In truth words such as these are almost definitely no more than whimsy; a collection of meaningless, if lyrically composed words strung together and sugar coated into shallow prose; a palliative to dull reality. Conceptually, by seeking to link each individual's consciousness and therefore self awareness to an endless endurance beyond death, we are perpetuating the greatest of all humanity's delusions, namely, that we are immortal. What is clear, is that we do not understand the concepts tripping so loosely off our tongues.

 

If we consider the science of big numbers, then we can begin to appreciate just why the popular concepts of eternity in heaven and immortality are such philosophical non starters. Take the number 10 to the power of 80. That's  a "1" with 80 zeros after it. This is the estimated number of fundamental particles in the known universe, including sub atomic ones like Quarks and Leptons. The name for this number is “One Hundred Quinquavigintillion”

 

This is a vast number, but it has a name and can be written out although not comprehended. It is at least finite. Yet, it is many many times greater than the number of sand grains on every beach and in every desert on our planet and any and every other planet in the universe. Yet, not even this almost "numberless" number can begin to get even remotely near to describing the length of time that the chosen and the so called saved are to spend in heaven with their saviours. Our universe will, over the course of trillions of future years, have expanded out into ultimate emptiness, every star, even those yet to be born, will long since have burnt out and even the most vast of galactic scale black holes withered away into dark silence. Yet, even this near measureless span of time is no more than a rapid eye blink in what we fondly term as eternity. Despite this, many still believe that  the spark of our individual self awareness, our consciousness, is going to endure along with and beyond all of this. We are deluding ourselves.

 

Eternity is an 8 letter word, yet it seeks to engage our minds within the terms of a concept  that is incomprehensible. Perhaps because it is a word around which we can get our tongues and commit to writing; that in the normal course of our lives we work into our daily routines (after all , who has not felt that waiting for a delayed train on a dark rainy platform can feel like an eternity), that we have become comfortable with it and familiar too. We all know what familiarity breeds so perhaps it would have been better had eternity been spelt as a jumble of incoherent letters so that we could not use it in our conversations and every time we saw that incoherent jumble, we would know it as symbolic of the undefinable and that not measurable with any number. Almost certainly, we are not going to spend eternity there.

 

Yet, we speak of and imagine heaven as a more or less physical place where God lives, for subconsciously it has become some kind of perfect, upgraded intellectual habitat from which is somehow banished, for all time, all that is displeasing or unpleasant about our daily human lives. It is the ultimate fairly tale believed real. Yet it is hard to hold a genuine conviction that heaven exists as a place. It can only be expressed in terms that allow it to be excluded from any material or physical world. It must take refuge in the esoterica of the unworldly along with our personalised concepts of gods and saviours. For it was at the point that the concept of God morphed from being the term adopted by those seeking to contemplate the origins and circumstances of that vast panorama of our world, our being, our origins and all that was so inexplicable within it and about it, into its current usage and understanding, that it entered a philosophical dead end.

 

As with terms like eternity and infinity, God was a mere word to refer to that beyond understanding. That concept has now been squeezed into a predominantly male body, imbued with human emotions, senses and body parts, given superhero like powers and expected to have a personal relationship with everyone, or at least those who want one with him. Subject to constant reinterpretation and ever more ridiculously detailed analysis, we know amongst other things, that he dislikes death metal music, cartoons of himself and working on Sundays, or Friday's, depending upon your view. This, the supposedly ageless creator/sprit of the universe. For God is now a word to refer to a competing collection of deities. In one sense he remains a Middle Eastern relic from the age of the Crusaders and Saladin, whilst elsewhere he is become a hyper energetic avatar from the phantasmagoria of US-led Evangelicalism bothered about every aspect of the day to day world. For dispassionate observers, he can appear as some out-of-step and an increasing spectral entity from the old world, whose papal cheerleader struggles to translate into real world relevance in the face of gay rights, disapproval of the use of condoms and tolerance of child abuse by the custodians of his creed. For God is trapped within the straight jacket of inflexible religious ideologies in a madly changing, diversifying world where he also has to be all things to all believers. So we see the so called supreme deity passing from original myth and undefinable presence, via sinister medieval autocrat into something closer to modern day comic book superhero.

 

We are now in the philosophical cul de sac down which the various stands of modern religion have raced each other over the past few centuries. Because too many religious leaders have been insistent that their holy books' parables and stories are rooted in iron fact they have done their faiths an extraordinary and incalculable disservice. As a result generations have been raised, often compelled, and taught to treat as infallible and certain, events both past and predicted that were never meant to be more than parable or myth. It's not quite like insisting that the story of Narnia is historical fact, but it's not that far short.

 

In reaction to this we have seen the rise of what's termed militant atheism, writing it's angry books about why, say, the bible isn't true or narratively coherent. It was never meant to be and undertaking a savage dissection of its contents to show as much serves as much point as undertaking the same exercise with the "Just So" stories. Those convinced their holy books are irrefutable statements of universal fact will seldom be swayed by these logical  yet belittling assaults against their citadels of absolute certainty. Few will suddenly forsake a life long held conviction that they are due to be rewarded with life eternal for having been a loyal member of their faith when faced with a torrent of scientific abuse that seeks to tear down and expose as nonsensical deeply held convictions hard wired into their thinking.

 

So, where to next? Not much is likely to change for as long as people continue to believe as fact the myths of their faiths. Modern religion needs to find a way out of its cul de sac and back to a wiser, far less fanatically literal interpretation of events and of the great unfurling, awe-inspiring reality before us. Perhaps science can help it,  but for that it will need to speak with a calmer and less hectoring voice. Ridicule inspires change in neither heart nor mind. Religion as a wider more benign form of philosophy for living may have a role to play in modern and future life. But for that, it needs to stop deluding its adherents with impossible guarantees about rewards in a life hereafter. For it is this alone which is surely the single biggest driver of much of the deviant and alarming behaviour amongst the faithful. This is manifest both at an individual level and collectively right up to the level of independent states and governments that are directly, or even indirectly, run as theocracies, for it is these doom-transfixed ideologies that threaten us all, faithful and unfaithful alike.

Family Bush v Family Clinton: America’s Rotating Monarchy

Today Hillary Clinton threw her rather predictable and well trailed hat into the presidential ring and became the first Democratic contender for the Game of Thrones (season 5)…er…sorry, I mean 2016 US election. Everyone has been expecting this since she lost against Obama in 2008.

On the Republican side, it’s very likely Jeb Bush (son of George, brother of W) will also run and will soon announce his candidature.

If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush wins in 2016 (which must be odds-on) it will mean that, for a period of 32 years there has only once been a President not either a Bush or a Clinton. Or, to put it another way, Barack Obama is the only non-Bush or Clinton president since the days of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. That’s almost before the age of the internet!

Looking forward, if Hillary wins, Jeb could always have another pop in 2020. If so, and if he wins in 2020 (he will be in his late 60s), then, just conceivably, he could be president for 8 years from that point through to 2028. Alternatively, Hillary Clinton could win a second term in 2020 through to 2024 (although by then she will be into her 80s). It is quite possible therefore that America could have a President Bush and Clinton again from 2016 to 2028.

And it’s not necessarily over. Who is to say that, by 2028 or the early 2030s, Chelsea Clinton, by then well into her mid-40s, might not fancy a crack at the family job (sorry, presidency). Could we could be in a position where, for 40 or more years, Obama stands out as the only president not a Bush or a Clinton?

Is this healthy democracy in action?  Increasingly it could resemble a sort of alternating monarchy between 2 mega powerful “royal” families. How do they do it? The political conspiracy theorists will have a field day…..