This is another way of saying that a logical train of thought must begin with some hypothesis. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it is important not only to derive valid conclusions, but also, where possible, to apply logic to the hypothesis itself. If the hypothesis, or faith, cannot withstand the logic, then the hypothesis must be abandoned. Some of the conclusions may survive, but the one thing one cannot do is abandon logic itself. It is a tool of reason. It is a universal tool to be used at will. It will not go away. Mankind did not create logic; mankind discovered it.
The idea of there being a personal creator of the universe, from whom our moral framework is derived, has been discredited by the discrepancies among believers. We might ask, therefore, what if anything can take its place? We need another hypothesis.
The present universe is estimated to be about 15 billion years old. All of the material which makes up our Solar System is reckoned to have been formed from the remains of previous stellar explosions. Our planet, Earth, is a multi-generation recycled creation. It is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. It is hard to grasp the scale of such aeons.
To bring the numbers down to a more comprehensible level, let us liken the earth to a person in the prime of life, now aged about 45 years. Apart from the numerological convenience of "4.5 billion" and "45", it is true that the earth is about half way through its life before the sun makes it uninhabitable for such as we. I can do no better than quote from a pamphlet from Green Peace which came through my letter box one day.
"........only at the age 42 did the earth begin to flower. The dinosaurs appeared a year ago, and mammals 8 months ago. At the weekend past, the last ice age enveloped the earth, but modern man, Homo Sapiens, has been around for only 4 hours. The industrial revolution began one minute ago......"
Our 4-hour existence in the "life" of our earth-person's generation is negligible. It is approximately 0.000003 of the age of the universe. So far as Nature, as Nature, is concerned we are minusculely insignificant on its time-scale. Similarly, we can consider the size of the Universe. The Milky Way, our own galaxy, is one of hundreds of millions of galaxies, each consisting of hundreds of billions of stars. It is about 100,000 light years across, compared with the distance from the Sun to the Earth of some 8 light minutes. So far as Nature is concerned we can barely be said to exist, in space, or in time. It does not matter how special we believe ourselves to be; on the scale of the universe, we are negligible. All it would take is for a comet to hit us, as it did Jupiter in 1994, then there would probably be no record of our ever having existed at all.
Yet we do exist. "Cogito ergo sum" {I think therefore I am}. In this simple Latin tag lies the key to what our existence has brought into the natural world; i.e. thought and foresight. Man's brain is an unsolicited gift from nature that nature itself does not have.
Nature, for all its wonders, does not wonder. Nature just happens, following inexorably its material laws of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Chaos, Complexity, and no doubt others some of which we may have yet to discover. It does not take decisions. It does not differentiate between good and bad. It is no crime for a star to commit suicide. Who is guilty when a cow's tail swats an annoying fly? In the Galapagos, octopuses drown penguins, and what can anyone think when they see films of Killer Whales playing "badminton", using their tails as racquets, with young sea lions as "shuttle cocks". It is suggested that this helps the whales to separate the flesh from the hide before the sea lions are devoured. Did the Devil make them do it?
Nature is amoral. Morals or ethics are an invention of Mankind (and perhaps a few of the "higher" mammals). So far, we are the leading creatures on Earth to have developed the skill, and the will, or at least the illusion thereof, to decide consciously to change our environment. We are the Earth's leading technologists. In Europe, for 100,000 years, Neanderthal Man's technology was virtually at a standstill. 50,000 years ago, however, Modern man replaced the Neanderthals. There has since been a technological explosive expansion. Morality is primarily a set of principles on which the decisions are based as to what ends to use our technology.
In order to judge the effectiveness of such decisions, we need to have a purpose, an objective, preferably recognisable and measurable. Nature evolves blindly. It may have a memory, in our genes, but it has no foresight, no planned purpose. Mankind, in order to exercise our apparent power of decision taking, needs to invent one. There may be no natural purpose in life itself, but that is no reason for us to have no purpose in living.
We have existed for such a relatively short time, and have seen in detail such a tiny fraction of the Universe. Our specific knowledge and understanding of it is limited. We would therefore be wise to be humble. We may be special in that the probability of our existing is so low that our very existence makes us special, to ourselves at least, but special or not, it is cosmic snobbery and arrogance of the grossest kind to assume that mankind is supreme in the Universe. We do not know all the answers. We hardly know most of the questions.
What progress the cosmologists have made recently suggests that the Universe will be here forever. It will asymptotically slow its expanding and then may well not contract.
"An infinite time-span offers unbounded potential for intelligence." {Gribben & Rees}.
As Messrs Gribben & Rees also say in their book "The Stuff of the Universe": "We should regard present life on Earth as the beginning of a process with billions of years still to run."
Moreover, as John L Costi concludes in his mammoth survey of several of the great problems facing the human race:
"Whatever we humans are and whatever we can be, I think we have a responsibility not to lose it through carelessness or neglect, benign or otherwise."
Logically therefore, the only prudent mission for mankind is to improve our total understanding of the Universe in which we exist.
The corollary is "Survival" By adopting this strategy we can hope, eventually, to accumulate enough knowledge and experience to be able to determine subsequent goals. If Mankind is to learn it has to live. Survival and the search for knowledge are positive rewarding missions for Mankind; much better, I think, than the negative religious view that the purpose of living is preparation for death, whether into paradise, hell, or blissful oblivion. Human thought and technology give us more than does mere existence, they provide a source of hope. The objective may be survival, the purpose is the search for truth.
It is only fair, however, to ask "Survival of whom?". Nature, unthinkingly perforce, often appears to adopt the strategy "Survival of the fittest", or to put it more pragmatically "Survival of the survivors".
"Life is one huge lottery where only the winning tickets are visible."{Josten Gaarder}
From this view of Nature comes much of the thinking of so-called right-wing politics. An alternative way of regarding natural strategy has been the "Survival of the species", from whence has been derived much of left-wing politics.
We have here a typical example of two conflicting ideologies logically deriving from a common hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that Nature is "good", or in some sense correct and worth emulating. We can only conclude that this hypothesis is flawed. Nature is, we cannot deny, but right, or left, it certainly is not.
Nature, as a whole, just exists. It consists of Matter and Energy, nothing else.[footnote 1] That concentration of Matter and Energy we call ourselves must determine what is good, or bad, for our own collective survival on Earth, or eventually elsewhere in space. There is no other source of morality.
The deists, by their diverse views and well argued bickering, have shown that there is no known God [footnote 2], nor therefore any revealed supernatural moral force. Nature, by nature, couldn't care less about you, or me, or any one else, or any thing.
"Nature has no principles, she furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil." {Anatole France}
Even when Nature does exert its influence in evolutionary terms, it looks only to the short term.
"We, whose demands have grown so huge, whose tools have grown so potent, whose populations have grown so vast, cannot allow ourselves to do what comes naturally." {John Hart}
Thought has given us foresight, a talent we should not waste. Morality, to be effective, should be a long-term strategy. I would also claim that it should be fractal, that is: independent of scale. To put it more colloquially: what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Footnote 1
"Belief is an illusion...the Universe is naught but a net of pure power." {Katherine Kerr}
Footnote 2
The wise Athenians had an altar "To the Unknown God". It is a great pity that Paul claimed it for Christ.