Dawkins on religion at salon.com

[sarahmichigan]

I know he's an arrogant fuck, but I love me some Richard Dawkins

How would we be better off without religion?

We'd all be freed to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We'd be free to exult in the privilege -- the remarkable good fortune -- that each one of us enjoys through having been being born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

I was quite happy when an organization I'm involved in got to have a live chat with Richard Dawkins a couple of months ago. He's a fascinating guy. If you haven't read The Blind Watchmaker yet I highly recommend it. Or pick up any of his books.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I have read "The Blind Watchmaker." I found it fascinating.

I also heard him referring to fundamentalists in the USA as bigoted ignoramuses when he was talking to (I believe) Terri Gross on NPR a few weeks ago.

[tacit.livejournal.com]

I've read, and thoroughly enjoyed, "The Blind Watchmaker"--arguably the best introduction to evolutionary theory ever written.

I would, however, tend to take exception with one of the things Dawkins says in the interview--namely, the We'd all be freed to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have,/i> part. That has definitely been true through the entirety of human existance, and is largely (though not completely) true now, but it will, I suspect, not be true in the future--and what's more, that "future" may very well be my lifetime.

There are two avenues of human exploration which both point toward a time when we won't have only one existance in the traditional sense of the word. The first is biomedical nanotechnology--the science of making molecule-sized, programmable machines with the ability to find and repair damage to living systems (such as us) at a cellular and molecular level. This science is still in its crude infancy, but already nanotech devices designed to reat cancer by identifying cancerous cells at a molecular level and destroying them are in clinical trials; the goal of biomedical nanotech is nothing less than a system where almost any disease, injury, or illness short of complete destruction of the brain can be treated. Aging and unintended death? Negotiable. I have a girlfriend who's currently in school pursuing a Ph. D. in biomedical nanotech.

The other is "consciousness uploading"--the idea that the identity, memories, and personality of a human being are the subject of physical processes that occur within the brain, and that these processes can be understood and modelled in other systems, such as computer programs. The idea of consciousness uploading is to be able to model all the structures and processes of a brain to such a great extent that the model itself is conscious and aware, and has the memories and personality of the original. This is not as farfetched as it sounds; we already have the ability to model simple organisms, and developing the ability to model something as complex as a human brain is more a matter of complexity than of any new theoretical breakthrough. My girlfriend's other boyfriend is currently in school pursuing a degree in neurobiology for the purpose of working in the field of consciousness modelling and uploading; we're a very extropian bunch. :)

By the way, hi!