I am a bundle of (adorable, anxious, Monty Python-loving) neurons.

There’s a fun little story up at The Times on the imperfections of perception and memory, due to our brains being, alas, less than mere receivers of reality.

It looks at phenomena that most readers are probably familiar with – the power of misdirection, the unreliability of our senses. However I never get tired of reading about these aspects of neuroscience — it seems fundamentally important to me that one always remember that not only are you your brain, but your brain is quite the trickster.

A lot of people know and understand this but do not necessarily apply it in everyday life. For example, how many times have you gotten into a huge argument with a friend about the particulars of certain events that took place maybe days, maybe years ago? Most of us insist our memory of the events are correct. But this is usually a mistaken confidence. More of us should probably, much of the time, really question how our accurately our brain has recorded these occurrences, notorious as it is for rearranging details to fit the narratives we like to tell ourselves.

I personally enjoy questioning my memories — especially my childhood ones — and wondering what was real, and what as been created in post-production. I suppose for some people meditating on this can make them uneasy — knowing that our memories and senses are not entirely reliable can disturb one’s sense of control and understanding. However, I like to look at my cognitive mistakes as another chance to get to know myself — what is my mischievous brain up to now, and what can I learn about my thoroughly human condition from its shenanigans and mistakes? Once you let go of the idea that “you” are completely in control, living with the fact that you are your brain and, moreover, you’re not always in the driver’s seat, instills not so much terror as intense curiosity. We’re all along for the ride, and we’re all unique, so go ahead and get to know your brain — which is to say, go ahead and get to know yourself.

Atheists and Spirituality: the problem of personality.

Simon Critchley, a professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, recently had an interesting series published at the Times on the at-least-partially-insanity-driven philosophies of Philip K. Dick, the famous science fiction author who wrote many acclaimed novels (which turned into many acclaimed movies) and went a little wacko towards the end of his life.

Now, the general storyline here of Dick himself is not too important, largely because it is familiar – assisted with the use of some drugs (probably a combination of the drugs he was on at the time and had been experimenting with for a while) and probably not a little bit of mental health issues, Dick had a revelatory experience one day which led to years of occasional discussions with the bright unifying light of God/everything and an extensive journal in which he recorded all of the revelations he experienced about the nature of the universe.

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David Barton: still not an historian.

 David Barton, the pseudo-historian and Religious Right activist, went back on the Daily Show this week to promote his new book The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. Now, I haven’t read Barton’s book, so I do not know every wrinkle of every argument within it – nor do I think I want to make the effort, lest you find me in the bathroom the next morning with a bullet through my skull.

But based on the conversation between Jon and Barton, it’s very clear that Barton spends a good time arguing against the belief that Jefferson was an atheist – he was actually a devout man, Barton wants us to believe. So real quick, two things:

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The only thing more fascinating than cryptozoology is cryptozoology.

It was a sad day when I admitted to myself that there was no dinosaur in Scotland’s Loch Ness. Partly this was due to the fact that a minimalist sketch of a plesiosaur was and remains the only thing I can even remotely decently draw. But mostly it was due to the little bit of wonder that went out of my life when reason persuaded me that even in a relatively large lake like Loch Ness, there would be no way for a huge, prehistoric animal to exist without leaving behind some tangible, indisputable bits of evidence – especially as the hunt for Nessie, as she is affectionately called, provides the basis for a local tourist industry and certain fame to whoever proves her existence. Indeed, Loch Ness has been searched, scanned, and scouted more thoroughly for Nessie than Afghanistan was for Bin Laden.

And yet no Nessie. And that makes sense. Just as it makes sense that there has been no body or bones found for Big Foot – despite a plethora of various sized and shaped footprints and even video of Bigfoot out for an afternoon walk – and no Ogopogo remains washing up on the shores of Okanagan Lake, either. And this is because very large animals that live in relatively constricted areas that do not leave behind verifiable evidence of their presence probably do not exist. Almost certainly do not exist, in fact.

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Slavoj Zizek hearts atheism.

So I don’t know how many philosophy buffs we have out there, but if you’re into theoretical speculations about the nature of things (or lack thereof) you’ve probably heard of Slavoj Zizek. Zizek is one of the most well-known and well-regarded of contemporary philosophers, in part due to his willingness to talk about things everyday people consume (movies, the media) and in part because he’s just a very entertaining guy. But he also says, as far as I can tell, a lot of smart things that I won’t even attempt to come to an understanding of so that I might summarize them for you. I’ve watched him speak twice on film and so far I’ve deduced that 1) Children of Men is a very, very good movie and 2) rather than fetishizing nature and “the natural” we should in fact strive to become more, not less, artificial. Hard core.

But for our purposes here, the important thing is that Zizek is an atheist and, furthermore, makes a good argument about why, at the end of the day, atheists love your religious freedom more than religious people do. On the topic of intolerance towards Muslims, he wrote this a few years ago for The New York Times:

These weird alliances confront Europe’s Muslims with a difficult choice: The only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the “godless” atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies.”

The entire article, titled “Atheism is a legacy worth fighting for,” is a succinct and clear refutation to perhaps the most common misconception about atheism – that without religion, we will all set about killing each other without restraint. If anything, Zizek points out, it is religion that makes such behavior possible, not atheism.

But my larger purpose in bringing this article to your attention is to provide you one possible alternative to the Four Horsemen when engaged in conversation about atheism with your left-leaning, New Agey or agnostic friends. Often, Dawkins and Hitchens are criticized for being not terribly well-educated in fields that intersect with their narrow interest in theology-as-a- hypothesis- about -reality, and consequently write books lacking nuance, historical knowledge, and philosophical sophistication. We can argue about whether or not that is true all day – I happen to feel the point about simplifying history is quite true in the case of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris – but if your acquaintances do not trust the intellectual rigor of these guys, Zizek is a great person to refer them to instead. I hardly see how anyone could go after Zizek for lacking nuance, although I’m sure someone has. But the point being, if your atheism-skeptical friends want someone who is deeply steeped in philosophy, history and politics to make the same arguments about atheism being good for society as do the infamous New Atheist horsemen, Zizek is your man.

And if they still disagree with you, you can just direct them to his wiki page and demand that they fully comprehend and explain his philosophy to you before claiming that his position is invalid. They will quickly give up and concede.

“Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea.”

This week, my favorite Times columnist ever[1] decided to analyze the phenomenon of Jefferson Bethke’s video, “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” Turns out, once confronted with the arguments of battle-worn theologians who responded to his accusations against the church, Bethke found out that he does love religion, after all. This caving change of heart was the focus of Brooks’s[2] column, in which he talks not so much about religion but opposition to established institutions in general.[3] The problem these days about rebels, Brooks argues, is that they know how to destroy but not to create; they are quick to attack existing institutions but have no idea what to replace them with, and lack a coherent world-view that would offer an alternative. With his signature style, Brooks cuts through all the confusion with a simple, satisfying finger-pointing at the naïve anti-traditionalism that has destroyed everything good about the Victorian era:

My own theory revolves around a single bad idea. For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea.[4] Very few people have the genius or time to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous worldview.”

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