During a recent visit to London, I happened to meet John Fisher, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and we had an engaging conversation about life and god. Below are the unedited excerpts from our conversation:
[Warning: This is an explosive discussion that can blow your mind, so please read with an open mind, a child-like curiosity and without judgment…fundamentalist, dogmatic and opinionated should stay away]
John: Why did God create us?
Me: Maybe because he was feeling lonely. Or, perhaps he wanted an army to fight the Satan (in that case, the purpose stands defeated). Or, probably GOD did not design the complex world of living beings, rather we created the god.
John: So, you mean God is a fiction?
Me: No, you got me wrong. Let me put it in the words of Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, India’s renowned mythologist, god is neither a fact (everybody’s truth) nor a fiction (nobody’s truth). Rather, it lies somewhere in between and that is called a myth (somebody’s truth).
John: But where did we come from?
Me: See, our origin is still a puzzle but quite possibly we also came from the Big Bang which gave birth to the universe around 14 billion years ago. According to the genetic data, which provides important insights into human evolution, we are just another animals and belong to the family of great apes. Chimps, our closest living relatives share 99 percent DNA sequences with us. There’s also a controversial claim that early humans and chimpanzees interbred producing hybrids called humanzees before splitting into separate species.
As per the evolutionary biologists, after the mass extinction of Dinosaurs around 65 million years ago, small mammals that survived became new rulers of the earth and this eventually led to the evolution of our own humankind.
So we owe our origin to the crater created by the Creator. I think it’s time for thanksgiving to express gratitude to the messenger of God, the great asteroid. And in its honor, we must build a place of worship at the spot where it struck the earth.
John: It is quite fascinating. Isn’t it what we call creative destruction?
Me: Absolutely! Nature is all about creative destruction. The end of the dinosaur era paved the way for the human era and similarly, the end of our era will pave the way for another era where some other animal or plant species (or maybe the AI) will become the new rulers of this kingdom. The only difference is that this time the break in the evolutionary record will not be caused by nature, but by the ruling species itself.
John: Again coming back to the topic, why did we the sapiens create God?
Me: Now, that’s a great question! Perhaps to instill fear in our minds so as to tame our animal instincts and create human culture and civilization. Another possibility is that the almighty God became necessary to give meaning to our existence which, scientifically speaking, is just a random event and doesn’t have any purpose. This helps us deal with the uncertainties of life.
John: But supposing that God actually exists, why did he give us extraordinary brains with the ability to think and reason?
Me: First, to create sin because the sinless world is all boring and monotonous, lacking fun and humor. Second, so that we could destroy the ecology to satisfy the infinite hunger of our infinitely growing populations. The aim was to make homo-sapiens the most powerful and influential species on planet earth and eventually fast forward the natural process of creative destruction.
But perhaps, going by the principle of equality and natural justice, god had no such intention. He was simply experimenting with different animal life forms. And unfortunately, somewhere along the line one of those experiments went wrong and our neocortex suddenly grew bigger in size. And thus accidentally and unknowingly god gifted humans with the fertile imagination, the source of all our joys and sorrows.
But scientifically speaking, as per Prof. Harari, the cognitive revolution (Sapiens evolving imagination) was possibly a result of a gene mutation that took place around 70,000 BCE and this gave rise to dual reality (the objective reality of river, trees, and lions, etc. and the imagined reality of gods, nations, and corporations, etc.).
John: But what purpose is served by the imagined reality?
Me: Actually, this helps us to weave a web of illusions (what we also call Maya) and remain entangled in it. But, as per Prof. Harari, the fictional reality enabled large numbers of strangers to cooperate effectively and flexibly. However, over a period of time, the imagined reality became more powerful than objective reality. And this gradually led to human domination of planet earth and alteration of the ecosystem on a large scale.
John: But again coming back to divinity, it is difficult to believe that God can also make a mistake.
Me: Let me tell you one of the best kept secrets about divinity. Even God is yet to achieve perfection and operates on Six-Sigma which is roughly equivalent to the efficiency level of 99.99966% and that still leaves out 3.4 ppm defects.
John: It’s been many centuries since God (or any of his Messenger/Avatar) visited our planet? What keeps them busy?
Me: Right now, they are busy fighting Satan/demons in another galaxy far off in the universe and by the time they arrive back, it will be too late. Actually, even god can’t travel faster than the light.
John: Can Matrix-like life ever become a reality under AI?
Me: You are asking the wrong question. It’s already here! We’re already living inside a Matrix-like simulated reality. The only difference is that instead of the intelligent machines or the aliens we’re enslaved by the trio of religion, business, and politics.
John: But how did they do it? What is their success formula?
Me: It’s very simple. Take, for example, business marketing; just keep on repeating a lie and people will start believing it to be true. This is because frequently repeating a lie creates an illusion of truth. In fact, this alchemy mantra is the only and only success factor behind the rise of the ad industry. So, it’s all about lies, lies, and damn lies.
John: Religion, business, and politics is a very recent phenomenon…how did humans live before that?
Me: We are still trying to understand but for sure they lived far healthier and happy life.
John: What is the eternal truth?
Me: Sorry, I don’t know! The only absolute truth I know about is that there are no round squares. And also that in the grand scheme of existence, we just do not matter. We’re no more important than cockroaches and mosquitos. On a more serious note, perhaps it is either nothingness or infinite and we understand neither.
John: If Aliens exist, which is almost confirmed now, why they are not making any attempt to either contact us or attack us?
Me: Haven’t you heard of UFOs. Actually, they are closely observing us and know for sure that shortly human species is going to be extinct, so why waste time and energy.
John: What will happen if humans become extinct?
Me: It will be a great favor to planet earth; ecology will thrive and so will all other plant and animal species.
John: But, doesn’t God love us? And won’t he save us from extinction?
Me: Difficult to say because we are yet to unravel the mysteries of the human mind; how can we read God’s mind? Anyway, all those Hindu religious gods and goddesses recently met on NASA’s newly discovered ultra-massive black hole and unanimously passed a resolution that non-interference is a better strategic option in the long-run. Actually, in Hindu mythology, god is an accountant and is just fed up maintaining those long journals and ledgers (still does manual accounting and is yet to install SAP). Therefore, he wants us to repay our debt at one go so that there’s no need to be reborn. He wants us, humans, to finally get liberation from this never-ending cycle of birth and death and attain MOKSHA. The Christian God has also decided that this seems to be the only way to end Satan’s evil influence over mankind.
Anyway, let’s not forget that in the grand scheme of existence, this blue earth is just a speck of dust floating around in the cosmos and therefore the human extinction simply won’t make any difference to the existence. For evidence, you should see the Pale Blue Dot, the most distant photo of planet earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.
But to tell you the truth, divinity is feeling helpless against humanity.
John: What? But why?
Me: Even if god does some miracle to save us from the climate crisis; he/she does not have any cure for AI-driven technological singularity. Again, god might save us from that also but subject to a condition. GOD wants us to first get rid of the greed virus the way we have eradicated the poliovirus. And that’s simply not possible. We just can’t go back in time and reverse those changes in our genome. Google engineers are yet to invent the time machine. For now, we can only hope that the quantum computer might help in the design process.
John: I don’t get it. How can a virus enter the human genome?
Me: See, it’s a subject of microbiology. It’s been long known that viruses reproduce by using the genetic machinery of the cells they invade. In the process, they leave behind viral DNA in many lifeforms including humans and these viral insertions play a vital role in the genome. In brief, most of our viral DNA comes from retroviruses, and probably, this greed virus is also a part of the retrovirus group.
John: But can’t we use the powerful gene-editing technique CRISPR to cut out the viral genome?
Me: Yeah, you are right. CRISPR-Cas9 tool offers the promise to edit any human genetic mutation. However, there are still many unknowns in this revolutionary technology that can cure any genetic disease.
Anyway, Chinese president Xi Jinping has taken up the matter with Trump. And the US president has promised to make it an agenda for the next climate summit provided he comes out clean from the impeachment proceedings.
John: So, what went wrong? How did we arrive at the point of no return? What is the root cause of human suffering? When did this greed virus enter our genome?
Me: It probably began around 12,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. As rightly pointed out by Professor Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens: The Brief History of Humankind, the agricultural revolution was history’s greatest fraud. We did not domesticate the plants such as wheat, rice, and potatoes; rather these plants domesticated us replacing our nomadic lifestyles with more sedentary permanent camps. This enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially and thus the seeds of our decline were sowed.
John: Simply Amazing! A single crop paradoxically becoming our nemesis and taking revenge on behalf of all other flora and fauna.
Me: And you know what? The futurist kingdom of flora and fauna will felicitate the wheat crop with a Nobel prize for finally ending the human era and correcting the GOD’s fatal error.
John: Any lessons you would like to share with the next species which will rule this kingdom after we are gone?
Me: Just ONE! The human era was short-lived compared to the dinosaurs’ era because of only one reason: the greed virus. Never forget this! Good luck and take care.
John: Finally, what is the moral of this story about homo-sapiens?
Me: There are three lessons: First, nature always prevails and the now the time has come for it to take-over. Second, true salvation lies in accepting the fact that we all (including religious, business, and political leaders; celebrities, judges and accountants, etc.) are idiots. Third, laughing at the absurdities of life is the best and the only antidote.
[Disclaimer: This is ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ may be different because in the words of Dr. Patanaik, ‘The Truth’ does not exist. This is also an attempt to mold the existing myths and is a work of fiction and part of The Faking Times, December 2019 edition.]
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