Sushila Subramanian was a natural musician, a talented engineer, and one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever known. She was also my wife for 12 years. For two long years she fought a battle with cancer. I am still in awe of the courage, grace, and dignity with which she faced that horrible disease.
Six years ago today, I sat by her side as she took her final breath. At that moment, my life passed through the eye of a needle. In an instant, the universe compressed to include just me and her and silence. I honestly don't even remember who else was in the room with me at that moment. All of our plans, every possible future that I could have had that included Sushi disappeared.
Sushi ceased to exist, but my life has continued after that moment. There are still threads passing through the eye of that needle to connect me to my past. However, in some ways, just like trying to look through the eye of a real needle, as I move further away from that moment, it becomes more difficult for me to see what is on the other side. I can only see the needle and the small circle formed by its eye. Tragically, I can no longer remember the sound of Sushi's laugh, but I can clearly remember, in every detail, the sound of her last breath. I can catch glimpses in my memory of her playing music or dancing or cooking or walking on a beach, but my memories are overwhelmed with chemo and losing hair and weakness and surgery and hope and lost hope.
Having gone through that experience does not define who I am. For a brief time after Sushi's death I joined a support group for people who had recently lost their spouses. But I quickly broke off from that group because I didn't want to define myself as a widower. I am more than that, and my life is defined by more than that moment. However, going through that experience did change me. I'm the same person I was before, but I'm not the same. In some ways I'm better, in some, worse.
I've gone on to live my life after that moment. I've found love and happiness and the joy of being a parent. I aspire to enjoy every single day. I look for happiness in things big and small. I try to learn and grow as a person and contribute positively to the world. To do any differently would be a betrayal to my own beliefs about the importance of living life, and it would be a betrayal to Sushi's memory. Cancer took from her the opportunity to live a life. I feel that I honor her by living a life, in part, for her.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Religion and Deception
I'm in the process of reading Nicholas Wade's "Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors". This is a very interesting and enjoyable book that examines the evolution of humans and human society using the results of recent research in genetics to inform the large body of research in traditional anthropology.
Today I happened to read his section on "The Evolution of Religion", and I don't completely agree with its central premise. He poses the question of when religion first evolved. He hypothesizes that it co-evolved with language, "because language can be used to deceive, and religion is a safeguard against deception."
First, I don't think this argument is logically sound. Religion requires language in order to be transmitted from one person to another. As such, it is as vulnerable to deception as any other language-based aspect of culture. In fact, because religion is based on unfalsifiable ideas (I refuse to call them "facts"), then it is itself a deception. Second, history is full of examples of "pious frauds", people who lie in order to support their religious beliefs. Any number of religious artifacts have been proven to be frauds, but religious leaders continue to claim they are authentic just to support the religious belief they represent. Thus, to claim that religion protects society from deception is provably false. Therefore, religious belief would not be selected for for this reason.
This is not to say that religion could not have an evolutionary basis. A secondary claim that Wade makes is that religious belief helps to form an exclusive community of believers. If religious observance requires sufficient expenditure of time and resources, then having a religious community can help to exclude outsiders who do not know the rituals and thus may not be trustworthy. Also, those who do not participate in the religious obligations and are thus "freeloaders" on society may also be excluded and will not receive other benefits of participation, such as business opportunities, access to mates ("don't marry outside the religion"), or support in times of crisis.
In "The Greatest Show on Earth", Richard Dawkins discusses the concept of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS). He uses the concept of game theory to give examples of how a population can be divided into individuals demonstrating different types of behaviors where the relative proportions of each type of individual is stable across generations. In the case of religion, as described by Wade, there could be an ESS where a certain percentage of the population is religious and a complementary percentage is not. The fact that this is a stable strategy might be sufficient for religion to be selected for. In a small, otherwise homogeneous community, the likely ESS is to have a majority be religious. There are already evolutionary advantages to having group cohesion. Religion can provide that cohesion and could thus prosper.
This idea would also explain why religions like Islam can prosper in fairly homogenous cultures like you find in the Middle East, but they have more difficulty gaining traction in more heterogeneous cultures. Dividing the population into different sub-populations of belief systems or philosophies is not as stable (in terms of an ESS) as having a single majority religion.
The fact that religion can be found in every culture is proof that it must have been selected for at some point in our evolution and continued to confer sufficient advantage that it wasn't selected against. However, as our culture becomes more diverse, and we have other philosophical and political means of encouraging social cohesion, we have less need for religion (or any particular religion) to serve that role. Also, as our scientific knowledge of the world grows, the mere fact that religions are based on ideas that are not true gives greater reason for them to be rejected in favor of positive philosophical belief systems that are based on our existing and evolving knowledge of reality. I disagree with Wade's claim that religion originally evolved to safeguard against deception. However, perhaps we are now witnessing the evolution of skepticism and humanism as a safeguard from the deception of religion.
Today I happened to read his section on "The Evolution of Religion", and I don't completely agree with its central premise. He poses the question of when religion first evolved. He hypothesizes that it co-evolved with language, "because language can be used to deceive, and religion is a safeguard against deception."
First, I don't think this argument is logically sound. Religion requires language in order to be transmitted from one person to another. As such, it is as vulnerable to deception as any other language-based aspect of culture. In fact, because religion is based on unfalsifiable ideas (I refuse to call them "facts"), then it is itself a deception. Second, history is full of examples of "pious frauds", people who lie in order to support their religious beliefs. Any number of religious artifacts have been proven to be frauds, but religious leaders continue to claim they are authentic just to support the religious belief they represent. Thus, to claim that religion protects society from deception is provably false. Therefore, religious belief would not be selected for for this reason.
This is not to say that religion could not have an evolutionary basis. A secondary claim that Wade makes is that religious belief helps to form an exclusive community of believers. If religious observance requires sufficient expenditure of time and resources, then having a religious community can help to exclude outsiders who do not know the rituals and thus may not be trustworthy. Also, those who do not participate in the religious obligations and are thus "freeloaders" on society may also be excluded and will not receive other benefits of participation, such as business opportunities, access to mates ("don't marry outside the religion"), or support in times of crisis.
In "The Greatest Show on Earth", Richard Dawkins discusses the concept of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS). He uses the concept of game theory to give examples of how a population can be divided into individuals demonstrating different types of behaviors where the relative proportions of each type of individual is stable across generations. In the case of religion, as described by Wade, there could be an ESS where a certain percentage of the population is religious and a complementary percentage is not. The fact that this is a stable strategy might be sufficient for religion to be selected for. In a small, otherwise homogeneous community, the likely ESS is to have a majority be religious. There are already evolutionary advantages to having group cohesion. Religion can provide that cohesion and could thus prosper.
This idea would also explain why religions like Islam can prosper in fairly homogenous cultures like you find in the Middle East, but they have more difficulty gaining traction in more heterogeneous cultures. Dividing the population into different sub-populations of belief systems or philosophies is not as stable (in terms of an ESS) as having a single majority religion.
The fact that religion can be found in every culture is proof that it must have been selected for at some point in our evolution and continued to confer sufficient advantage that it wasn't selected against. However, as our culture becomes more diverse, and we have other philosophical and political means of encouraging social cohesion, we have less need for religion (or any particular religion) to serve that role. Also, as our scientific knowledge of the world grows, the mere fact that religions are based on ideas that are not true gives greater reason for them to be rejected in favor of positive philosophical belief systems that are based on our existing and evolving knowledge of reality. I disagree with Wade's claim that religion originally evolved to safeguard against deception. However, perhaps we are now witnessing the evolution of skepticism and humanism as a safeguard from the deception of religion.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Where are you sitting?
In a recent conversation with a gentleman I met, we were discussing the expectations we have for our children when they go to college. He related the advice that his older brothers gave him when he went to college. They told him, "When you are sitting in a large lecture hall, sit directly in the middle. Then, look to your left. Those people are smarter than you. Then look to your right. Those people are dumber than you. Get used to that, and you'll be happy."
My first reaction was, wow, what an amazing acceptance of a life of mediocrity. Here's a person who will never aspire to be better than they think they are, and will muddle through life accepting whatever comes along as "good enough". What a loser.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is actually some wisdom in what he told me. I think that one of the most important character traits that we can have is self-awareness. It's extremely important to know who you are, where you are in your life, what you like, what you dislike, and where you want to be in the future. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we have to live our lives according to some pre-defined plan. And we certainly don't want to spend so much time "finding ourselves" that we don't actually live life. Also, I think the big flaw in this guy's philosophy was that he chose his seat before he ever looked around to see where he was and who was around him.
Just asking the question, "who am I?" is what leads us to freedom. I owe a great intellectual and philosophical debt to my college sophomore roommate who challenged me with the question, "you should question what you believe." It was a simple statement, but it changed my perspective on how I understood who I was and what my place is in the world. The question was posed to me in the context of a discussion of religion (I grew up in an area where there was a church on every corner, and that shaped my world view), but it could apply to any type of belief.
To go back to the "going to college" example, I graduated high school at the top of my class. I had always been "the smartest kid in the class", so my graduation ranking didn't surprise me. In college, I realized that I was swimming in a bigger pond. I was competing with students from all around the world. I no longer had an expectation to be at the top of my class, but I certainly wanted to do as well as I could. I graduated 7th out of 512 in my class. While not the very top, I was pretty happy with my place. Grad school was a completely different picture. I knew that I was in an even more elite group, and I couldn't expect to be at the same level. I was aware of my capabilities, and I set my expectations accordingly. In many ways, getting a Ph.D. is a pass/fail proposition, and that was a good thing for me. I worked hard, I did my best, and I passed, but I realized that there were a lot of other people there who were much brighter than I was. Nevertheless, I was proud of my accomplishment, and I could say that I was successful at what I tried to achieve.
Throughout my life, I've traveled some paths that could be considered quite conventional and some that were quite unconventional. Along the way, I always tried to understand who I was, what I was doing, and where I was going.
As another example, there are some things in my life that others would label as failures. For a while, I worked as a research scientist. This is a faculty position at a university which has an expectation for promotion to higher levels. However, if you don't get promoted, you lose your job. When promotion time came along, I realized that I hadn't done what was needed to get promoted, and my chances of promotion were slim or none. One of my responsibilities was to manage research projects in addition to the normal tasks of doing research, publishing, getting funding, etc. I felt the management part was more important to the bigger project and more interesting to me, so this is what I spent my time on, to the detriment of the other areas. Promotion is based on those other areas, not on project management. So I changed jobs and removed myself from consideration. Looking back on this, I don't consider this a failure in any way. At each point during that time, I made decisions carefully and deliberately with the understanding of what I wanted and what was important to me. The fact that this lead to a different path than was planned doesn't bother me.
In the bigger scheme of things, being aware of who and what we are has an impact on the decisions we make with respect to politics, the environment, technology, population growth, and the future we want this world to have. The name of this blog and Carl Sagan's quote that I took it from are perfect examples of being self-aware with respect to our place in the universe. It doesn't represent resignation to a fate, but it says, this is the lecture room I find myself in, this is who I am, and this is where I choose to sit.
My first reaction was, wow, what an amazing acceptance of a life of mediocrity. Here's a person who will never aspire to be better than they think they are, and will muddle through life accepting whatever comes along as "good enough". What a loser.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is actually some wisdom in what he told me. I think that one of the most important character traits that we can have is self-awareness. It's extremely important to know who you are, where you are in your life, what you like, what you dislike, and where you want to be in the future. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we have to live our lives according to some pre-defined plan. And we certainly don't want to spend so much time "finding ourselves" that we don't actually live life. Also, I think the big flaw in this guy's philosophy was that he chose his seat before he ever looked around to see where he was and who was around him.
Just asking the question, "who am I?" is what leads us to freedom. I owe a great intellectual and philosophical debt to my college sophomore roommate who challenged me with the question, "you should question what you believe." It was a simple statement, but it changed my perspective on how I understood who I was and what my place is in the world. The question was posed to me in the context of a discussion of religion (I grew up in an area where there was a church on every corner, and that shaped my world view), but it could apply to any type of belief.
To go back to the "going to college" example, I graduated high school at the top of my class. I had always been "the smartest kid in the class", so my graduation ranking didn't surprise me. In college, I realized that I was swimming in a bigger pond. I was competing with students from all around the world. I no longer had an expectation to be at the top of my class, but I certainly wanted to do as well as I could. I graduated 7th out of 512 in my class. While not the very top, I was pretty happy with my place. Grad school was a completely different picture. I knew that I was in an even more elite group, and I couldn't expect to be at the same level. I was aware of my capabilities, and I set my expectations accordingly. In many ways, getting a Ph.D. is a pass/fail proposition, and that was a good thing for me. I worked hard, I did my best, and I passed, but I realized that there were a lot of other people there who were much brighter than I was. Nevertheless, I was proud of my accomplishment, and I could say that I was successful at what I tried to achieve.
Throughout my life, I've traveled some paths that could be considered quite conventional and some that were quite unconventional. Along the way, I always tried to understand who I was, what I was doing, and where I was going.
As another example, there are some things in my life that others would label as failures. For a while, I worked as a research scientist. This is a faculty position at a university which has an expectation for promotion to higher levels. However, if you don't get promoted, you lose your job. When promotion time came along, I realized that I hadn't done what was needed to get promoted, and my chances of promotion were slim or none. One of my responsibilities was to manage research projects in addition to the normal tasks of doing research, publishing, getting funding, etc. I felt the management part was more important to the bigger project and more interesting to me, so this is what I spent my time on, to the detriment of the other areas. Promotion is based on those other areas, not on project management. So I changed jobs and removed myself from consideration. Looking back on this, I don't consider this a failure in any way. At each point during that time, I made decisions carefully and deliberately with the understanding of what I wanted and what was important to me. The fact that this lead to a different path than was planned doesn't bother me.
In the bigger scheme of things, being aware of who and what we are has an impact on the decisions we make with respect to politics, the environment, technology, population growth, and the future we want this world to have. The name of this blog and Carl Sagan's quote that I took it from are perfect examples of being self-aware with respect to our place in the universe. It doesn't represent resignation to a fate, but it says, this is the lecture room I find myself in, this is who I am, and this is where I choose to sit.
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