Book Review

The Invention of God: The Natural Origins of Mythology and Religion by Bill Lauritzen

In this book Bill Lauritzen postulates a brand new theory of Invention of Gods by the Homo sapiens. His theory is that primitive people might have believed that gods came from volcanoes (as they lived therein). He puts forth a convincing argument based on his research and references. Bill has reference to more than 200 works (from research papers to journals and books) in this small 160+ page book (EBook). The book is neatly compiled into nine relevant chapters with appendices like Timeline (I liked this section) and References. There is an interesting mention in the book, based on the likely belief prevalent at that time, that Egypt’s dead Pharaohs are kept at the base of a pyramid (representation of a volcano) with the eternal hope of their resurrection. 

  

We all have heard stories about life emerging on this planet due to some cosmic collision; like a comet with a nucleus carrying life matter hitting the Earth. There, however, doesn’t appear any credible evidence to that effect. The comet theory by and large remains only in the realm of fiction. In this case, Bill’s argument about emergence of life abiogenetically after volcanic eruptions is convincing.

Volcanoes and Oxygen are the two important areas on which his theory of Invention of God is based.

Volcanoes as the originators

Volcano eruptions not only created myths of gods and their wars but also gave impetus to the ideas of creation, sustenance and destruction of life. The life-death-rebirth concept of Hinduism is also equated to the volcanic acts of eruption, dormancy and re-eruption. The cosmic-egg (also mentioned in the Rig Veda – the oldest recorded book in human history) as the originator of life of the universe is nothing but hot flowing lava / magma, rolling down as a fire ball in water. 

Oxygen as the soul

Very rarely do we come across such convincing evidence in any case as we have here. The author has lucidly presented that oxygen was the original soul thought about and worshiped by ancient people across the globe. He cites examples from various religions / mythologies ranging from the Far East (Oriental) to Greek, Egypt, Rome and Africa.

After I had finished reading the book, I revisited the chapter ‘Volcanic Lightning Bolts’ for it carries, in my view, the essence of the postulated theory by explaining the god-demon wars like the one between Zeus and the Titans (Greek) or the one between Rama and Ravana (Hindu). Volcanic eruptions are accompanied by thundering and lightning as if coming from the blue and cloudless skies. Whether the lightning bolts silenced the ferocious inferno or it died out after spewing out its matter is best left to our imagination. 

Though not mentioned anywhere in the book, mountain peaks have a special significance as Gods’ abodes. Zeus lived on a mount as did the God of Mosses. The preacher of Islam is said to have received his orders from the top of another mountain while Shiva, the God of Hindus abodes a mountain in the Himalayas. These mythical beliefs give credence to a volcano – seismic theory related to emergence of gods etc. 

This book is written in simple English without any use of jargon or tough words as are so commonly found in works of similar kind. You don’t need to possess knowledge of philosophical and medical / technical terms in order to understand the content. In fact, you can go through it without feeling the need for a dictionary at all. The book is very engrossing and a pleasure to read. It is not heavy on your head.

Overall a good read.

A Book Review

Hello Bastar

Hello Bastar , a book by journalist Rahul Pandita is a story of the Maoist movement in India. The author presents a vivid and firsthand account of how the revolutionary movement started and is shaping up and the way they are gaining support among the poor masses. No surprises then that the Prime Minister of India recently termed the Maoists as the biggest danger from within to the country.

This is a story of an India hardly seen or perceived by a majority of us in this country owing to the illusion created by economic development that in fact is enriching only a few.  This tells us how the poor in this country survive on wild berries they collect from forest and how some poor  women around Delhi earn 60 paise to rupees 1.25 after a day of sifting through paper garbage for making a kilo of cardboard.

The book details the ideological and strategic thinking of the leadership of the movement. The revolution they believe should start from rural bases and gradually spread to the cities. The genesis of the struggle lies in unfair distribution of land and exploitation of the mineral wealth and natural resources.

The sordid tale of the atrocities committed on the tribals and the downtrodden by the State’s repressive machinery – the security forces, and the apathy shown by the civil authorities by ignoring their genuine demands makes a rational mind think many times over before dubbing the movement terrorist.

An eye opener indeed

Looking for definitions.

Looking for definition of consciousness lands us in a myriad of conflicting ideas. From the simple 'awareness' to arguably very complex ‘a creature is conscious if there is something it is like to be' definitions galore. Some persons have equated consciousness with god, others with the soul and yet others with the self, at times using the terms interchangeably.

When I read that one word - sentience, used by Sam Harris, it immediately struck my senses that this definition had substance. After all consciousness was a sensory experience. We can't have consciousness if it was not for our senses to perceive something. Every sensory input is processed by the brain and channelised into further use and the same holds good for consciousness as well. No matter how much exalted your consciousness is, it can’t foretell anything about the behavior of a conscious creature. It is highly subjective or phenomenal and we come to know of it only after some involuntary action had already happened.

There are a number of processes going on in various organs inside our body. Are we conscious of them? Human brain is processing lots of data at any given time and trillions of neurons are in action which we are not conscious of. A wound is healing but the individual is not conscious of the healing process. And when a malignant mutation is taking place somewhere inside the body, a medical scanner is required to detect it, not consciousness. What does consciousness do then? The closest analogy we can make is with ‘free will’ since consciousness is said by some to be directing functions of the brain. However, scientific studies on ‘free will’ have revealed that consciousness has always lagged behind involunteer acts of brain. In a sense consciousness is a thing of past as far as conscious observations / experiences are concerned.

Is consciousness some extra ability in addition to the ones we have like perceiving and feeling (sensory)? If yes, it means we evolved without it and it somehow got embedded into functioning of the brain. Where did it come from and with what functionality?

If on the other hand this is something intrinsic to our brains then do we have a need to make the issue complex by pursuing it? Why not then apply Ockham’s razor to consciousness and leave it aside for all practical purposes?

In my earlier blog post I raised this question; what would have happened if consciousness, as it is known, was removed from the human brain?  Here is another similar dilemma which I'd like to portray in a hypothetical scenario like this:

Assume a human being without knowing any language or manners of expression (linguistic or sign). How would that individual then convey to others his conscious feelings? And in a society of such individuals (it is not an animal state) it would be impossible to consciously communicate unless human brain adapted to the new reality and devised some ways of doing so. Releasing of hormones or scents and / or developing special organs like compound eyes or heat and vibration seeking forked tongues, helps animals get over the problem. That was all possible through evolution. Since I have portrayed this problem for a human state, it appears consciousness would be helpless unless the brain worked a way out.

Understanding a phenomenon from its ‘opposite’

Understanding a phenomenon from its ‘opposite’ is a perfectly valid method. Science is working on models that take the course of tracking events backwards. The Big Bang model is being tested the similar way.

In reply to a comment on my original post “Of consciousness and confusion” I asked, what will happen if we hypothetically removed consciousness from human beings. Will they cease to exist as human beings in absence of consciousness? Of course, all my doubts and reservations on the subject remain while this ‘removal of consciousness’ cropped up as a vague idea.

My friend Herbert Peters seems to have independently given this idea a serious thought and come up with a caption as above. However, I’d stick to word ‘opposites’ leaving out ‘antonyms’ that sounds too literal.

Herbert has cited ‘Fainting’ and ‘Death’ as two examples of the processes involving temporary and permanent loss of consciousness. I’d like to take on the permanent part as it somehow appears to be approximately in consonance with my vague idea of removal of consciousness.

Death is more than a mere permanent loss of consciousness, I think. To understand death we take the help of its ‘opposite’ – life. Life starts with Germ-plasm (that abiogenetic jelly like globule of protoplasm called cell of life) but as we go up the evolutionary ladder from simple to complex, life starts developing somatic cells which carry the element of death in them. Somatic cells die but the germ (plasma) cells don’t. Death, therefore, is a failure of one or more of the organs having somatic genesis. Then a brain dead person is technically alive and so is the one in terminally deep coma. However, consciousness in both the cases is absent implying that permanent loss of consciousness is possible even without being dead.

Attention is another grey area in this matter. Herbert’s statement – it looks like that during unconsciousness, attention is disabled – appears to be true but its opposite is also true. Consider children quarrelling in your back room while you are busy with something else. Unless you are told about their fighting you may not even notice them shouting and crying. This implies that attention could be disabled even you are fully conscious. The ticking of the table clock by my bed side is noticed only during night when no other sound draws my attention. I’ll struggle to explain what I had for breakfast and that too only when you asked me about that, else that thing doesn’t appear to be in my consciousness.

Does this mean; a) something is not happening if I am not aware of that (children quarrelling). Where is my consciousness then in the first place which pops up suddenly when I am made aware of an event happening within my audible range? And, b) Am I doing many things automatically without being conscious of them (ref: Libet’s free will experimentation) like going through routines like having breakfast?

My idea is not semantics. What I am interested to know is how consciousness came into being and whether it directs human brain to do things in a particular way or this is purely a function of brain like cognition, perception, attention etc are.

To continue…..

Of Consciousness and confusion

The common viewpoint and generally accepted definition of consciousness is “awareness of the self or I”. This concept of “I” makes most of the confusion related to consciousness. Honestly, I haven’t so far been able to understand, accept or deny, or define this phenomenon which even science has just started studying and philosophers have always found difficult to handle.

Is consciousness something which has not been already defined? Is it different from human behavioural traits like perception, value judgement, sociability, emotions, and morality etc.? In short does consciousness at all exist as a separate and unique phenomenon?

If yes, then where does it come from? Is it something innate to our brain or it comes from outside of our physical self? If intrinsically related to our brain as a physically caused phenomenon then consciousness really doesn’t deserve any privileged position vis a vis other behavioural traits.

If it is something external to brain (not necessarily supernatural) where is it from and what is its purpose? We know every organ in our body, including brain, is meant for some function. Can consciousness manifest without being physically caused and then overwhelm and become causal of brain’s functioning? If yes, how and where does it fit in the evolutionary process if at all?

One viewpoint is about epiphenomenalism of consciousness. That is it has no causal powers. If that be the case, why bother about it? Could it better be left aside as non-existent or decidedly given another name, say, perception – which we already know a lot about scientifically?

Man with Indomitable spirit

This man, Kannan Kunhi Raman from Cannanore district of Kerala, despite having a physical infirmity as both his legs are rendered useless by polio, has a nerve of steel I must say. When I arrived at the conference venue of the Kerala Rationalists Association at Kollam, the man was already there and greeted me reminding that we had earlier met at Trichy in January of this year. Yes, I recognised him. He knows only Malayalam, the local dialect and I could understand only two words he spoke; Bhashana (speech) and Trichy (the venue city). He was referring to my speech at Trichy. Language or no language, but his face exudes a radiance of determinism and confidence. My friend Mr Raghunath, a Keralite now settled in Latur, was kind enough to translate for me his words and also tell me more about him. Raman's family has some land with Rubber plantation on it. He has gone as far as to Delhi in connection with a protest march held by some rationalist organisation.

As if his handicap wasn't a malady enough he suffered a serious injury to his hip when he fell down while boarding a bus. He had to be hospitalised for over a month. But all this infirmity and the accident couldn't dampen Kannan's spirit. A rationalist and an atheist with a commitment, Kannan has plans to go to any place in India if he came to know about a rationalist gathering.

Honestly, I feel envious of this man's indomitable spirit and determination.

Hats off to you Kannan.

In this picture (L – R) Mr K Raghunath, Yours truly and Kannan K R

On 'Why We Believe in God(s)' a book by J Anderson Thomson

Why We Believe in God(s) by J Anderson Thomson

A Review.

At the first glimpse one wonders why this 140 something page small format book was brought out in a book form when all this could well have been published online as an essay. However, the author explains that he wanted to write a small book which the reader can go through in a couple of hours. Point taken, but you certainly need more than that; a couple of days actually.

Anderson tries to explain scientifically how faith evolved in human mind whereas it has been proved that no “god centre” existed in the brain. Darwin’s Natural Selection is based on the concept of adaptation to the environment. How religion enters our mind is not through the evolutionary adaptation but as a by-product of adaptations that occurred for other reasons. What are these adaptations? Well, the psychological mechanisms like ‘social bonding’, ‘attachment system’, ’pleasure’, ‘craving’, ‘seeking protection’ and ‘desire’ are some of the adaptations our brain has through the evolutionary process.

The human brain has developed a region called the Medial Frontal Cortex for the purpose of perceiving the non-physical. Anderson calls this ‘hard wired’ for the things non-physical.  God was created as a protective figure and the attachment system (an adaptation) is keeping it alive in human psyche.

The abilities of the human mind like ‘decoupled cognition’, ‘theory-of-mind mechanism’, ‘transference’, ‘hyperactive agency detection’ etc. are directly responsible for perception and interpretation of religious phenomenon, in the guise of the non-physical. The author pertinently provides a link with the primitive religion and the mechanisms through which it affected human brain.

The earliest and the most primitive form of religion that our ancestors practiced was that of rituals based on song, dance and trance. When in a trance brain chemicals get a boost and the neurotransmitters that regulate various social functions of our brain caused specific behavioural patterns depending upon the intensity of their stimulation. The state of trance was caused by excessive physical exercise, sleep deprivation for longer periods of time and also some potions or concoctions etc. In trance people spoke to their dead ancestors (later gods), heard extraordinary voices etc. The author also reveals that the feeling of “oneness with the universe” – as claimed by the godly and the religious people, is in fact a disorder of a specific area of the human brain. Similarly, epilepsy of the Frontal Lobe of the brain leads one to behave with extreme religiosity. Some godmen claiming having experienced contacts with god were in fact epileptic and suffered from hallucinations and that sort of mental disorders caused by electro-chemical disturbances in the brain.

What reinforce religion in our brain are the factors like ‘deference to authority’, ‘kin psychology’ and ‘morality’. Morality is easily identified with religion which is not at all true because our primitive ancestors living in social groups and in absence of religion would not have survived without the sense of right or wrong. Therefore, putting morality in realm of religion is not only conceptually wrong but also scientifically untrue.

Anderson believes that once religion’s psychological roots are exposed – something this book does, it will wither away. Moreover, his research is helpful in revealing that religion was man made and not sent from any heavens.

All in all, a nice little ‘mind-opening’ book. 

- R K Sudan