Cosmic suicide

 

Credit: Godbolemandar

Some stray reflections, but you probably heard it before…

There seems to be a strange contradiction at the heart of modern atheism/secularism/materialism. On the one hand, there is the Western Idea of Progress, according to which there is almost automatic, unlimited, eternal progression of human civilization, indeed “our destiny lies in the stars”. But this perspective almost presupposes that humans are part of some grand cosmic plan, and that Reality is therefore teleological, with us (who else) being its telos. In other words, it´s a perspective completely at variance with modern science and materialism! 

So it´s hardly surprising that it really “came to its own" in the Soviet Union with the cult of Gagarin and Laika, since Marxism is something as strange as a teleological form of materialism (Stalin had killed all the Russian Cosmists, otherwise *they* would gladly have created the new quasi-religion of the Space Age). For various reasons, capitalism has great difficulty creating this kind of pseudo-religion, instead worshipping Mammon, Pleasure or what have you. But even individualist capitalism has its own vision of perpetual progress as transgenderism transitions into transhumanism. Behold the new religion of the “secular” West. 

It´s also interesting to note that this vision virtually always entails a belief in space aliens (despite this making it harder for Homo sapiens to conquer the galactic expanses), probably because the existence of such advanced creatures (really demigods) would somehow “prove” that unlimited progress is indeed possible. This is why these people are so worried about Fermi´s paradox: where the shmuck are the aliens, anyway? (Note the similarity with the theological problem of God´s hiddenness – probably not a co-incidence!)

These ideas co-exist rather uneasily with the entire opposite perspective: we have been dethroned by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud; our planet is just a “pale blue dot”; climate crisis or some other ecological-type crisis can kill us all, the universe is one of pitiless indifference to human (and humane) concerns, and humans themselves are just a kind of genetically preprogrammed meat-golems. The logical consequence of this view is that we should all jump into a lake, making it a kind of pessimistic and quasi-apocalyptic foil to the first perspective, although many people probably try adhering to both, since they are both kind of “official”. 

But, of course, that is impossible so atheists often resort to a kind of “ontological cheating”. On the one hand, evolution is blind and we´re here (at least ultimately) due to chance (yes, really) or perhaps due to equally blind determinism. But on the other hand, this non-teleological process in an indifferent cosmos nevertheless leads to *exactly the state of human affairs preferred by the atheist making the claim*. Thus, a liberal atheist would tell you that of course blind evolution leads to the emergence of a liberal human society, a libertarian atheist will say that it leads to a libertarian society, and so on. Indeed, the cosmic process itself will one day – purely by random chance – turn humanity into demigods who create entirely new “dimensions” through a Matrix-like super-computer the size of a Dyson sphere (or whatever). After all, given infinite time in an infinite universe (or perhaps multiverse), *all possible outcomes will be fulfilled* and presumably all outcomes are possible (except, I suppose, theism sensu stricto).

But here we have the Achilles heel of this entire form of reasoning: it´s based on the idea of perpetual progress. But if *anything* can happen in the universe, given enough time and space (or enough universes), what´s to stop the universe from going completely ga-ga instead? Nothing, especially since the number of ga-ga states must be almost infinitely higher than the number of states congenial to human life (or humanely built Dyson spheres). 

As a rando named Enchanted Fruitbat pointed out in a posting I quoted on my blog two years ago: if the above really is true, then even the resurrection of the dead is possible, but not in the Christian sense, but rather as a never-ending cycle of random resurrections in a chaotic universe. That way, madness lays. 

As far as I can tell, there is no good counter-argument to this quasi-Nietzchean-Ouspenskyite scenario. Not unless somebody wants to claim that at some point, humans will (blindly) evolve into some kind of Godhead and then leave this plane of existence altogether, taking its creatrix-like capacities elsewhere, but how on earth is that not, say, a Theosophical notion? If we are forever stuck in this universe/multiverse, then a googolplex insane zombie resurrections might await us, rather than some kind of bright and shining transhumanist future!

So atheism, at least in its standard materialist version, should logically lead to the deepest despair. Indeed, not even suicide is a solution, since your body and mind might just get randomly reassembled (or blindly re-evolved) in a googolplex years…which to you will seem like just an instant.

The question is therefore: Is there an emergency exit somewhere? And how can we find it?