The Ultimate Question (Revisited) - not Highway 61.

What is being? This question is well documented as one which has been asked for centuries, and I imagine was asked in pre-history for as long as we have had the capacities of self-awareness and cognition. Given recent revelations about the capacity of both the elephant (!) and the dolphin for self-awareness [http://www.livescience.com/animals/061030_elephant_mirror.html], and assuming young earth creationists are wrong,* it looks like self-awareness has been around for a considerable length of time. And no, I’m not suggesting new evolutionary linkages between humans, elephants and dolphins, or that either of the latter two have been asking the question – merely that the question is very likely an ancient one.

Logic would dictate that if ancient questions are still being asked, those asking the question are either unsatisfied with previous answers, or are ignorant of them.  The extensiveness of the range of scientific and philosophical disciplines which have been brought to bear on the subject, over centuries of scholarship, suggests to the Slicer that the problem is not ignorance of a satisfactory answer; rather that no answer which is regarded as satisfactory has been provided. It should be no surprise (and some relief) that the Slicer doesn’t claim to provide a new answer.

A common and understandable response to a persistent question with no easy answer is to ignore it and focus on something else until (a) you feel better equipped to deal with it (perhaps after a few pints down the local – it’s amazing how Guinness or Heineken can equip you with new reasoning skills), or (b) you are forced to make a decision which relies on an attempt at an answer. Another option (usually confined to those who have the luxury of not being in the “(b)” category) is to parody it. Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” is one obvious example; “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything” (Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy) is another. For the uninitiated, the answer to the Ultimate Question is calculated to be “42,” but the Ultimate Question itself isn’t ever computed or known. Because it’s too much trouble to work out the real question, “How many roads must a man walk down?” is suggested as the Ultimate Question. The Slicer enjoys the parody, and is particularly sympathetic to the use of a Dylan quote to provide the question.

The “being” question can take various forms from the relatively specific “What is a human being?” through to “What is matter?” or even “What is reality?” The first of these forms of the question has been asked with renewed urgency in recent years because of ethical debate around new or increased options provided by technological advance.  Varying perceptions of the answer to “What is a human being?” go some way to explaining the divided opinion on ethical matters from the start of life (eg infertility treatments, cloning, termination of pregnancy, Synthia [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1279988/Artificial-life-created-Craig-Venter--wipe-humanity.html]) to its end (eg withholding/withdrawal of aggressive treatment, euthanasia, assisted suicide).

Attempts to define, explain or even just plain describe “being” include the philosophical (specifically ontological), biological, anthropological, sociological, theological, genetic, environmental, and (Slicer’s particular favourite) the science of physics.  Slicer suggests that we don’t need to avoid these areas just because we’re not expert in them. In fact, he goes further. He argues that we have a responsibility to attempt to engage with any description of our species or the world/cosmos around us, particularly if those generating such descriptions suggest they should inform or influence how we act (ie our ethics, whether or not we call it that or consider ourselves ethical).  Any expert in their field, wishing to be taken heed of by a non-expert, should be able to demonstrate that they live up to Einstein’s maxim "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Slicer is non-expert in all the above-mentioned fields which attempt to describe being. He is expert in one or two areas of applied physiology, which he would sum up for the non-expert as:

“Oxygen is good, blood should go round and round, toxins are bad.”

This is the sort of explanation he expects from those who are expert in other fields. More information than this may be helpful but risks skewing the truth, particularly if the bias of the expert is allowed free reign. (With apologies to my post-modern friends who have no truck with any notion of a universal truth – which by definition is itself a self-refuting argument - it is a universal truth that all experts are biased). According to glam-rock stars The Sweet, “Love is like Oxygen – you get too much you get too high.” The Slicer claims no authority in matters of love, but he frequently gives people 100% Oxygen, and has yet to see someone get high on it. He does have one or two other things in the cupboard, however, which could have that effect… This, of course, does not negate other claims by The Sweet on Oxygen: “Not enough and you’re gonna die.” Slicer would see this as a much more accurate description of reality than The Sweet’s former statement. What better demonstration is there that non-experts in applied physiology can understand a “take-home message?” Despite being a non-expert on love, Slicer would also suggest that The Sweet are correct in drawing a comparison between Oxygen and love, but for the opposite reason - a shortage of either is bad news and too common.

Over the course of several future entries on this blog, the Slicer will (as a non-expert, and therefore at some peril) engage with summaries by those with expert credentials in some of the above fields, which purport to have something to say on being. For those of you who are tearing your hair out at this stage, rest assured that these will be interspersed with lighter issues which merely are part of the experience of being (ie fun), rather than claiming to have anything definitive to say on the nature of being.

The Slicer is happy to finish with another quote:

“I never engaged in this kind of thing before

But yes I think it can be very easily done”

 

 

*intellectual integrity requires me to assume they are wrong; and (for those who would judge me to lack spiritual integrity for saying that) spiritual integrity requires me to have intellectual integrity just as much as integrity in my tax return.