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Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life?

by Dr David Bell
23 December 2024 7:54 PM

Imagine for a moment that there is nothing of worth in this world, as worth has no intrinsic meaning. Each human, like each worm or bacterium, is simply a product of chemical reactions occurring over millennia – biological mass. Eventually, inevitably, they end up replicating certain patterns, as almost any alternate configuration decays its structure, returning it to a chemical soup. Movement of charged particles between some cells results in contraction of others, or avoidance of nearby objects once in motion, or a state within our neurons that increases potential to preserve the pattern and replicate it. At its complex level in humans, we term this ‘thought’.

The state that enhances preservation and replication we can call ‘self-gratification’. It is also called greed – a drive to enhance oneself through the use of other objects. If we are simply chemical constructs, then this is all that matters. Those objects can be anything – rocks, plants or other humans. The object does not matter in itself – other humans become meaningless chemical constructs unless closely sharing the same genetic code. What matters is that their use makes replication of the genetic code that determines our patterns more likely, so that it will persist through further generations. Codes that express greed most effectively may replicate more effectively. This means accumulating wealth and power to safeguard descendants. In this view, our relationship with all other matter only has meaning through its enhancement of ourselves. We are programed for short-term gratification.

The other consequence of viewing humans only as biological mass is that when a body’s internal environment deteriorates to an extent that it can no longer maintain itself, it ends as a specific entity. It is not death, as ‘life’ never really existed. A highly complex set of chemical reactions ceased to be self-sustaining and another cascade took over, breaking down the physical structures the former had produced. The neuronal circuitry we call the mind disintegrates, and what we call thoughts stop. This end seems like looking into a void of blackness, except there will be nothing to look. The horror or fear this may induce is not meaningful in any way – just a product of more chemistry tuned toward persistence for self-replication.

However, it is horror and fear to the extent that a body perceives it or feels it, and many people do every day. We feel a horror when staring into the void, and that has made humans wonder for millennia whether there is more than emptiness and self-gratification. Such thoughts can be put aside by doing things that distract us – numbing our brains with drugs, concentrating on the pursuit of money or using and disposing of any other object to satisfy our drives. These may include humans on an Epstein Island, families in the way of a pipeline, or children in a mine digging rare earths for smartphones. It really does not matter who or what they are, if there is no real meaning to existence. Any abuse to enhance the self is rational. It is just nature playing itself out.

The only viable alternative to staring into the void is the opposite: total unmeasurable meaning. If absence of meaninglessness is a possibility, then there is no middle ground. Meaning implies infinite and omniscient presence, and an absolute absence of irrelevance. If we have glimpsed both the void and the infinite, we see they cannot be reconciled. Recognising meaning beyond ourselves makes possible all we cannot understand directly – demons, angels, evil and unrelenting love. Because reality is no longer bound by deterministic processes, it implies realities beyond physics and time.

If we see life that way, then we have a perspective that is incompatible with the perspective of those who see us all as temporarily complexities. The concept of ‘we’ itself is incompatible between these two viewpoints. We may have experienced the black horror of emptiness, but we cannot be limited to a path that ends in it. We can only understand the fear of those who have seen no further, and recognise the implications of suppressing the infinite from our thoughts. We are all tuned by our chemistry to be capable of that.

The impossibility of reconciling these two world views is the only way to make sense of an omniscient presence appearing as a baby to socially non-conforming parents in a subjugated population, and then being killed off early with no legacy beyond local memories of what he had said and done. An infinite presence living and dying in relative obscurity in the Middle East means the power humans seek must be irrelevant compared to the value of life itself, the value of simply being as a human. The value of any person must be immeasurably greater, and have immeasurably more meaning, than the power and wealth of a corporation, country or cause. A being who must rationally have understanding infinitely greater than ours has demonstrated entirely different values.

Those that recognise this and seek to act accordingly, however inadequately, can never look smart or rational to those who see only the void. Even those who glimpse the infinite can never expect to well understand it, as we are limited by the vessels we inhabit. We can only understand the incompatibility of the two possible world views, and perhaps begin to see why things then play out in this world as they do.

The Christmas story, beyond the current themes of presents, food and self-gratification, provides a window on how distant the world’s dominant value system is from that which a recognition of meaning in life represents. And why these two value systems, or understandings of reality, cannot be reconciled. An image of a baby lying in a borrowed haybox is so far removed from the world’s view of success that it can only come from another place, and mean something completely different.

Dr. David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modelling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at FIND in Geneva and coordinating malaria diagnostics strategy with the World Health Organisation. He is a Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute.

Tags: ChristianityChristmasMaterialismScience

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19 Comments
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FerdIII
FerdIII
1 year ago

Cook’s original 97% consensus is a well known fraud, it is the opposite 3-5%, blame humans for climate – an utter unfounded stupidity. And why the hell would I believe the label ‘science’ or ‘scientist’ – who are they? Priests, Prophets, Doom Mongers for sale? Climate-itutes?

Consensus means nothing. Anthropocentric Climate Change does not exist. There is no physical proof it exists. It exists only in models and maths, and fake data. It is tautological. I ‘prove’ the maths therefore the theory is right. Or, my data is ‘peer reviewed’ which proves my theory. Both are tautological lies. $cientism. Science was the study of the physical. Now it is just marketing of maths and fake data.

Einstein’s postulates (amongst a thousand examples), suffer from the same (unproven canonical models) but who has the balls to question the nonsense of STR? (or much else for that matter)

153
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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  FerdIII

To be fair Einstein’s theories of relativity are testable and have been shown to work. On the other hand QM and the wave function are articles of faith. I tend to be attracted to pilot wave theory but physicists get techy about the existence of pilot waves whilst simultaneously accepting the wave function without evidence. The interpretation particles exist only as probabilities till arbitrarily measured has to be the most stupid theory in all of science.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

Yes but no one is trying to reorganise the global economy based on what they claim about relativity or black holes or evolution. But they are trying to do that with climate change, and they are mostly succeeding because most people think matters of science are not to be questioned. They think scientists know more than them. This mostly is true, but what they forget is that the issue of climate is highly politicised and is no longer about science. A good analogy is the used car salesman. He knowns probably way more than me about cars, but I don’t always end up buying one. —WHY? Because I use my own experience and initiative in making the decision.

98
0
wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

Totally agree the climate nonsense is a scam and interpretation of QM aren’t destroying the economy. Science fundamentally however has been irrational a long while, the replication crisis shows it’s largely descended in to lying and superstition, ppl trying to get high profiles with extreme claims unsupported by evidence, eg Neil Ferguson.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

What about the hypothesis (not even a theory yet…) that CO2 controls temperature?

28
-1
wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

Rising Co2 is an effect of the small amount of warming coming out of mini ice age as described by Henry’s law. Cold liquids hold more co2, warming oceans therefore release it, plus we add a burning to co2 concentrations burning fossil fuels. The idea it’s earth’s thermostat is preposterous cow manure.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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JXB
JXB
1 year ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

Refuted by the lack of correlation between the increase of CO2 emissions and alleged increase of rate of global warming.

Scientific ground rule: if there is a causal relationship between two variables, then there MUST be correlation. It can’t just be sometimes.

In fact as emissions have increased, alleged rate of global warming flatlined (late 90s) then within 8 to 10 years started to decline slightly.

I say alleged because the Climatists collect average temperatures from around some of the Globe, most not accurate to 0.5C, run them through their algorithm-rich computer programme and out the other side comes numbers with greater accuracy than the input numbers, to show alleged warming to two decimal places.

25
0
wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago

Keep chipping away at this evil lie Chris, great work.

143
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago

What all this shows, more than anything else, is that public opinion is driven by whatever the media chooses to amplify. And to the extent that policy is driven by public opinion, policy is driven by whatever the media chooses to amplify.

The question that no one seems to be getting at is: how does the media select what it chooses to amplify?

97
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MichaelM
MichaelM
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

Yes, I think “chooses” should be within inverted commas. Who tells the media what to amplify?

44
0
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago
Reply to  MichaelM

Money. Especially the profit margin.

35
-1
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
1 year ago

No Climate Crisis 
leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.

02b-No-Climate-Crisis-MONOCHROME-copy
48
0
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

Claims that 99% (or even 97%) of climate $cientists believe humans have caused most global warming is the equivalent of Courtiers claiming that the King is wearing the most beautiful suit of clothes ever seen when he is obviously naked…..and they obviously have “a personal interest” in going along with the pretence.

Plenty of eminent physicists disagree but they are silenced.

87
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AEC
AEC
1 year ago

Thank you for keeping on following the money, Chris.
And as for the rest, per Einstein: “to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.”
Indeed.

57
0
HicManemus
HicManemus
1 year ago

Another excellent expose of the fraud that is climate science…follow the money. But who is listening in our Government? I can see the monkey’s now with their hands over their ears.

50
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

No new reports are required. —-Matters of science are NOT decided by a show of hands from government funded data adjusters. But political matters are, and that is what climate change is —-POLITICS. The IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one, and its conclusions are all entirely political. Climate is the excuse for the politics. The politics of “Sustainable Development” which is all about a world run by unelected technocrats controlling all of the world’s wealth and resources. The quicker ordinary people realise that the more likely they are to rise up against being fobbed off with heat pumps and expensive energy and the whole GREEN eco socialist scam. ———–But this is highly unlikely as most people too busy with work and family life blindly accept what they see and hear on 90% of the media and the endless pronouncements from bureaucrats at UN podiums about a climate crisis which no real science actually supports. As someone once pointed out “Practical Politics is all about scaring the populace with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary, se we clamour to be led to safety”

headinsand
61
0
MichaelM
MichaelM
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

Most people I know buy in to the “western liberal democracy” myth. They assume democracy works to ensure that governments do what the people want. They believe the media holds power to account on their behalf. “But why would they lie to us?”, they ask.

45
-1
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  MichaelM

My brother said the very same thing—-“Why would people say there is global warming if it isn’t true”? ———-mmmmmmm Oh dear where to begin. So I said to him “Most people don’t believe a word coming from government these days. They don’t trust them on many issues, like immigration, the economy, foreign policy, welfare etc etc etc. So why do you want to believe everything that say about climate change? ——-So he said “because the scientists are telling us this”. ——————-I said “Can you even name a climate scientist? —–Nope he can’t and what he doesn’t realise is that all of these “scientists” he thinks he is referring to are all funded by the government, and as someone wisely pointed out “never buy medicine from the same doctor that diagnosed your malady”. —-A wise man indeed.

15
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MTF
MTF
1 year ago

I recommend reading the Lynas paper and the Israeli paper. The Israeli paper makes two main criticisms of Lynas:

“No opinion” papers are counted as conforming to the consensus

Sceptical papers may not appear as sceptical in the abstract

The second objection has some validity but is really hard to quantify. The first objection dismisses the fact that in the Lynas paper he gives two estimates of the proportion of sceptical papers – one counting “no opinion” papers as conforming to the consensus and one omitting these papers – both give an estimate of over 99%. The Israeli paper does mention this but dismisses it with these words:

However, this was not the main result presented by Lynas et al., although they briefly mention this point.

In fact Lynas et al give both approaches almost equal weight and anyhow both approaches support the headline of over 99%.

Our estimate of the proportion of consensus papers was 1 − (4/2718) = 99.85%. The 95% confidence limits for this proportion are 99.62%–99.96% (see R code in supplementary info), therefore it is likely that the proportion of climate papers that favour the consensus is at least 99.62%.

Recalculating at the 99.999% confidence level gives us the interval 99.212%–99.996%, therefore it is virtually certain that the proportion of climate papers that do not dispute that the consensus is above 99.212%.

If we repeat the methods of C13 and further exclude papers that take no position on AGW (i.e. those rated 4a), we estimate the proportion of consensus papers to be 99.53% with the 95% confidence interval being 98.80%–99.87%.

Surely the much deeper problem with this approach is that it measures papers not scientists. Some scientists publish many more papers than others.

1
-16
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

I make the further observation that both studies only refer to peer-reviewed published papers. This might seem an inconsequential detail but given 1) the almost total capture of scientific publication by regulatory and other vested interests and 2) the ongoing discrediting of the peer-review process (in large part predicated on 1 above), it would be interesting to examine the thousands of papers languishing on pre-print servers. I suspect the percentages will appear very differently!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328721001695

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hank-campbell-the-corruption-of-peer-review-is-harming-scientific-credibility-1405290747

19
0
YouDontSay
YouDontSay
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Certainly opinion polls of scientists give much lower numbers, for example this survey of American meteorologists found just 52% who thought global warming was happening and was mostly due to human causes https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/95/7/bams-d-13-00091.1.xml (first row of table 1) which is why the campaigners look at abstracts instead.

3
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  YouDontSay

Yes but let’s remember that “opinion” is just that.—— “Opinion” isn’t evidence of anything. Computer models full of assumptions that many wrongly like to class as “science” are not evidence of anything either and that is where the idea of a climate crisis emanate from. Models full of speculation, assumption and guesses where many of the parameters are either not fully understood, or unknown altogether. If what is claimed by all of those with an “opinion” cannot be falsified then it isn’t science and it does not matter what anyone’s “opinion” is.

7
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Consensus ————–The last refuge of scoundrels. It allows the many to say what no individual is able to say. Plus since almost all climate science (especially pertaining to climate change) is funded by government you can see why many are reluctant to question the political dogma that exists around this issue eg it is hard to get a person to disagree with something when his ability to pay his mortgage and feed his family depends entirely upon agreeing. ——-But you will find that most people will think that humans have some effect on the planet and they too will all be counted as part of the consensus. But climate change is not a simple black and white issue. It is not the case that there is either (a) climate change. or (b) there is no climate change. But that is how the discussion of this issue is framed by proponents of global warming and anyone who dares question any aspect of it is immediately named called as a “denier”.

10
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/co2-is-not-a-bogeyman-and-heres-the-proof/

Further evidence that Co2 is not the bad guy. Not that I ever believed a trace gas constituting 0.04% of our atmosphere and without which all life would die could be harmful.

25
0
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
1 year ago

Dr Jerome Corsi’s presentation to MD4CE on Tuesday evening blows the climate apocalypse due to man made CO2 propaganda up completely.
An erudite, knowledgeable man with some interesting & challenging perspectives on a number of challenges which we’re currently facing.

Well worth a watch.

https://rumble.com/user/cbkovess

14
0
Corky Ringspot
Corky Ringspot
1 year ago

Have read this sentence several times and I don’t think I understand it:

 “The Israeli authors note that sceptical scientists tend not to emphasise scepticism in the opening abstract as work not supporting the political narrative on climate is now almost impossible to get published in the major science journals.”

Anybody care to enlighten me?

3
0
David101
David101
1 year ago
Reply to  Corky Ringspot

It’s really just business as usual. Just more of the same myopic focus on just one side of the scientific narrative. The expression of any kind of climate scepticism in a paper’s abstract opening (which will presumably be read by the editors of journals when considering for publication) will mostly lead to immediate rejection. So, the speculation here is that the authors of many papers will cleverly word their abstract by dressing up their rejection of AGW as “taking no position”. This is the only way they can get published. Speculative though it may be, it ties in with the fact that on the follow-up to the Cook study in 2003 that led to the spurious “97%” result, emails sent by Cook himself to the authors of a random sample of the 12,000 or so papers confirmed that the “abstract scanner” volunteers had come to the wrong conclusion of any given paper rejecting AGW, since the abstract (the only part of the papers they read) misled them about the content!

6
0
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
1 year ago
Reply to  Corky Ringspot

“Sh*t guys, our conclusions don’t support the current Narrative™ which means it could affect our funding. Better make sure the abstract is as woolly and vague as possible and bury the conclusions somewhere in the text where the money schmucks won’t see it”.

Something like that, anyway.

22
0
JXB
JXB
1 year ago

A bit late. The fake percentages were discredited (and take-downs published) over a decade ago.

8
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
1 year ago

Only if Greta Thumberg claims it, will I believe it 😁

2
0
Kornea112
Kornea112
1 year ago

97% of climate crisis scientists would be unemployed if there was no climate crisis.

8
0
JohnnyDollar
JohnnyDollar
1 year ago

A very Good morning to those who Bought into this Fraud & now are smelling the coffee….they’ve Milked the industries out of finances! But don’t worry…. there will be something else you can believe in instead of the Climate Crisis soon…. just for you… Banking crisis… CBDC…. Viruses… or even as WEF promised , Cyber Attached or even aliens….. Just made for Fraud Lovers.

6
0
mistaron
mistaron
1 year ago

The greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind is barely a few clicks away, there for all to see and understand, if only people stopped for a moment to research and question the incessant drumbeat generated by oligarchic and institutional manipulators in chorus with the self-righteous and the ignorant. Because of the ubiquitous commitment behind the “Great Reset” being applied by those behind what is now known as agenda 2030, people have surrendered themselves, as have many through the ages, that once again ‘the sky is falling’.
Doomsday is upon us unless we get on our knees, diminish our entire civilisation, and self-flagellate until penanced into a computer-modelled, and thus achievable, utopian salvation.
The younger generation has, and is being indoctrinated within our seats of learning by an inexorable gospel that feeds on assumption and distorted theory.
Our children’s futures are in the hands of false prophets who will by no means be sharing in the deprivations and trials which are soon to be wrought upon we, the herded masses. The most evil of which is the imposition of Net Zero.

2
0

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