Why would anyone oppose the labeling of foods containing genetically-modified organisms?

If you live in California, you are no doubt aware that next week voters will find a proposition on their ballots which would require the disclosure of genetically-modified ingredients on the label of foods made with such ingredients.  This proposition has been designated Proposition 37, and its full text can be found here.

It is difficult to imagine why some voters would not want to have GMO ingredients labeled on the food that they consider for purchase and consumption (GMO stands for "genetically-modified organism").

One reason that opponents are putting forward as a reason to vote against this proposition is the fact that the labeling requirement provides numerous exceptions, which opponents attack as arbitrary and contradictory.  However, since the vast majority of dollars contributed by opponents of 37 come from the producers of genetically-modified foods and the producers of chemicals used to spray genetically-modified crops, it is disingenuous of opponents to argue that they would actually support a labeling law if only it had fewer exceptions.  Does anyone really believe that these opponents would become supporters of labeling GMO ingredients, if only the proposed law were tougher?

If consumers actually desire to know when food they consider purchasing and consuming contains genetically-modified ingredients, then refusing to vote for some labeling requirements until there are no exceptions does not seem to make much sense.  There may be other reasons to withhold support for this initiative, but the argument that it doesn't go far enough does not seem to be one of them, since it is hard to argue that some labeling is not better than no labeling, unless you are dead-set against labeling for any reason.  

That's kind of like saying that, if labeling of GMO ingredients is not required, then we should not require any ingredients to be identified or labeled on the foods we shop for!   If ingredient laws are not perfect -- if they don't require everything that I think they should require -- then we should vote to remove any ingredient-listing requirement!  Does that make sense? 

I like being able to read the ingredients on the labels of the foods that I consider for purchase.  It is possible to take a strictly libertarian or anarchist or voluntarist position and argue that the government should not require any ingredients to be listed.  Such purists might argue that forcing companies to label ingredients is morally wrong. If companies don't voluntarily wish to list ingredients, that should be up to them.  Consumers can choose to avoid buying the food of companies that don't voluntarily list ingredients, and only buy from those who do.  They can contact food companies who do not list ingredients, and ask them nicely if they would consider doing so.  This argument does seem to have some merit.

However, it seems far-fetched to believe that the majority of people who are planning to vote against Prop 37 are doing so because they have a moral problem with requiring the listing of ingredients at all.  The number of people raising their voices to say that mandating ingredients on food packaging is an evil seems to be very few.  This fact does not mean that ingredient laws are right: just because the majority thinks something is all right does not make it so (we can think of slavery in past centuries as an example).  

However, against those who take a purist position and argue that food companies should never be forced to disclose any ingredients we can offer the counter-argument that consumers of food are generally at the mercy of food companies.  In modern societies, it is very difficult for people to grow all of their own food, to produce every single item that they consume.  Those who do so will not have much time for anything else.  If we want people to pursue careers programming computer networks or designing semiconductors or manufacturing automobiles or building houses, then those people will be "forced" to rely on others to produce at least some of the food that they themselves consume (while those who produce the food must rely on them to program the computer networks that they use or the microchips that guide their farm equipment or the cars or trucks that they drive to town or the houses that give them shelter from the elements). 

In light of this fact, the purist position against requiring ingredients becomes more difficult to maintain.  It is not impossible to maintain, but it does seem that the person forced to rely on others to provide food does have some right to know what is in the food, and some standards of ingredient-labeling seem to be necessary. 

But, unless you are against ingredient laws of any sort, it is difficult to understand why anyone would be against the inclusion of genetic modifications in those lists of ingredients.  Genetically-modified organisms contain genetic material from other organisms -- shouldn't consumers be notified of that, just as they expect to be notified if a product contains peanuts, salt, or monosodium glutamate?  

The image above shows some of the "ingredients" of genetically-modified H7-1 beets.  Those beets contain genetic material from the figwort mosaic virus, genetic material from the Arabidopsis thaliana plant, and genetic material from Agrobacterium.  Why would you argue that the ingredients shown to consumers should not include an indication that the beets contain genetic material from other organisms?  

(Note that the proposed law as written does not require the actual listing of the genetic material described above, but only the statement that the product "May be Partially Produced with Genetic Engineering" -- but even though we might argue that it would be better to include the list of every organism that contributed its genetic material, that does not seem to be a good reason to argue that we should therefore provide no identification of the genetic engineering whatsoever, as has been discussed already).

Another argument that is advanced by opponents of labeling is the argument that genetically-modified food is completely safe.  However, those who are arguing that it should be identified on the package are not necessarily arguing that it is unsafe.  We already require ingredients to be listed on nearly all foods -- we don't only require the listing of ingredients that might be unsafe.  Of course, it is also possible to argue that the safety of genetically-modified foods has not yet been completely settled.  However, even if they were completely safe, this is no reason to argue that they should therefore not be identified at all.  In fact, if they are proven beyond any doubt to be completely safe then there should be absolutely no reason to fear that labeling GMOs will lead to much lower sales of foods containing such ingredients.

It is very difficult to understand why anyone who consumes food produced by others would not want to be able to see what is in that food.  It is very difficult to understand why anyone would not want to have the ability to know if the food they are purchasing contains genetically-modified ingredients.

However, it is possible to understand why some people would think that such labeling might lead to lower sales of food products that do contain GMOs.  This might be a motive for opposing the labeling of GMOs -- the concern that sales of some products will decrease.  The contributions by opponents of Prop 37 reinforces this suspicion.  So, we have perhaps discovered one reason why someone would oppose GMO labeling: the profit motive*.

It is, however, difficult to imagine why anyone else would oppose the labeling of foods containing genetically-modified ingredients.

--------------

* Note that just because some people might oppose labeling because they fear the loss of some of their profits, this does not mean that everyone who produces genetically-modified food is automatically against the labeling of that food.  One would hope that there are those who have no problem with disclosing what is inside the products that they sell to others, especially if they believe in what they are selling.  Many products (not just food) require that the seller disclose to the buyer many or all of the aspects of the product they are selling, even if the buyer does not ask.  It would be hoped that most people who produce or sell goods do not seek to avoid having to say what is in the product.  The fact that some people who oppose labeling may do so because they fear a decrease in profits does not mean that every person involved in the production or sale of food in some way also opposes labeling because they fear a decrease in profits.  In fact, it is quite possible that only a very small minority oppose it for this reason.  However, it would also be naive to think that none of the opposition is related to profit motive.

It should go without saying that some of the supporters of Prop 37 may well have their own profit motive for supporting the proposed law.  Nevertheless, it would seem that disclosing ingredients gives consumers a better capability of exercising their own voluntary choices in the selection of products.  Hiding information does not.

War of the Worlds, 1938

It was the end of October -- 1938.  Everything seemed to be business as usual (although the weather reports did describe an atmospheric disturbance, causing a "low pressure area to move down rather rapidly over the northeastern states") . . .

Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle -- intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic -- regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the Great Disillusionment, near the end of October.  Business was better.  The war scare was over.  More men were back at work -- sales were picking up.

On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crosley Service estimated that thirty-two million people were listening in on radios . . .

The lesson of that famous (infamous) broadcast?  Perhaps, don't believe everything you see and hear in the media, or everything you are told by someone with a sonorous, authoritative-sounding voice . . .

Do your own due diligence . . .

 

(consider as well that special effects have come a long way since 1938, but even their special effects were pretty effective)

The Pleiades, the Upton chamber, ancient traditions and Halloween

Above is a diagram of the setting of the Pleiades over the western horizon as viewed from the Upton chamber in Massachusetts, an astronomically-aligned stone site in New England, discussed in this previous post. 

As shown in the map diagram that accompanies that previous post discussing the Upton site, the chamber itself is aligned to allow an observer in the chamber to look out towards the north-west, with a line of sight which proceeds out over the body of water today known as "The Mill Pond" (and to the south of the body of water known as "Pratt Pond") and up to the summit of Pratt Hill to the west, and a narrow band of sky above the crest of the ridgeline of Pratt Hill.

Also discussed in that previous post is the pioneering work done by authors and archaeoastronomers James W. Mavor, Jr. and Byron E. Dix, whose analysis of that site and many other important New England stone structures is contained in their 1989 text entitled Manitou: The Sacred Landscape of New England's Native Civilization.  

They first surmised that Pratt Hill would likely contain a corresponding mound to enable siting from the chamber -- and upon exploring Pratt Hill in the predicted location they found not one but three mounds along the horizon as seen from the Upton chamber.  These they designated A, B, and C (sometimes calling them Cairn A, Cairn B, and Cairn C).

They then examined setting positions of the summer solstice sun, as being the first thing to check based on the azimuth from the chamber to the mounds, and were rewarded with precise alignments over Cairn C, as described on pages 45-46, calculating that the rate of changes in the obliquity of earth's axis gave a probable construction date of AD 670 plus or minus 300 years.  This in itself is strong evidence arguing that this site (and the many others in the New England region that are commonly called "root cellars" and attributed to early colonial settlers) was made prior to the arrival of Europeans after Columbus.

As Mr. Mavor and Mr. Dix explain, an even more exciting discovery awaited them as they turned their attention to the significance of mounds A and B.  Here is their description:

Then came the astronomical breakthrough.  With a tentative date in hand, we looked at possible events during the same time period that could have been marked by the long mounds A and B.  Stars change their positions of rise and set due to precession of the equinoxes and proper motion by about one-half degree per century.  This can provide a very precise dating technique.  We discovered that in AD 710, Alcyone, the brightest of the Pleiades cluster of stars, grazed the top of mound A and set in the notch between mounds A and B.  Also, the match between the combined widths of mounds A and B and the width on the horizon of the Pleiades visible to the unaided eye, the eight brightest stars, is precise.  Alcyone, Electra, and Pleione set in the notch between mounds, whereas Merope set on the southern end of mound A, Atlas on the northern end of A, and Maia, Taygeta and Asterope on mound B.  46.

Above is a rough drawing of the more precise diagram found on page 47 of Manitou and showing the mounds visible on the horizon-line at the summit of Pratt Hill from the Upton chamber, with the setting of the Pleiades, which are perfectly delineated by mounds A and B.

Equally compelling, the authors note that they have "identified a total of seven large stone mounds near the summit of the hill and two about 300 yards to the north" (47).  It is very interesting that the Pleiades are known as the "Seven Sisters" the world over, describing the seven stars plus the two "parents" Atlas and Pleione (who are following at a distance from the seven), just as shown in the diagram above and also as appears to be indicated by the mounds at the summit of Pratt Hill (only three of which are visible on the horizon-line from the Upton chamber, those being mounds A, B, and C).  There are also stone rows in the vicinity of the cairns, remarkably similar to those at other important New England aligned sites (see one discussion of the possible significance of these in this previous post).

An astute observer looking at the diagram above will only count six "sisters" plus the two parents Atlas and Pleione, and this is because the seventh of the Seven Sisters is famously difficult to see with the naked eye, for reasons discussed by astronomer Steven Gibson here.  

As you can see in this previous post discussing the Pleiades and containing a diagram that can help you locate them using Perseus and other landmarks in their vicinity, the diagram above and the description in Mavor and Dix does not include Celaeno, who would have already set when Electra is in the position shown above, and who is one of the faintest of the Seven Sisters (although Asterope or Sterope is composed of two close-together stars which individually are each fainter than faint Celaeno).  This other previous post discussing the probable role of the Pleiades in the famous myth of Aphrodite and Ares being caught in a net prepared by Hephaestos also contains a diagram of the Pleiades showing Celaeno.

The reason that I am bringing up the Pleiades and the excellent work of James Mavor and Byron Dix on this particular day of the year is the fact that the Pleiades are also anciently associated with this particular night of the year, as those authors also discuss in their book (and as can be found in many other resources discussing the Pleiades in myth and ancient culture, such as the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades: Stories from Around the World, by Munya Andrews (who herself was taught about the Seven Sisters in the Dreamtime and the traditions of her people in Australia by her grandmother, as she relates in the book).

As Mavor and Dix explain:

The Pleiades have been admired and critically observed in all ages of world history, second among the heavenly bodies only to the sun and moon.  According to the historical astronomical literature, their heliacal rise and set and their midnight culmination have marked festivals, seasons, and calendars throughout the world.  The Greeks saw this group of tightly interconnected quivering stars as a flight of doves, carriers of ambrosia to the infant Zeus, and used it for orienting their temples.  The date of the midnight culmination was observed in the ancient Druids' rites of November first, and it became the traditional date of the Witches Sabbath or Black Sabbath in medieval Europe.  This tradition has come down to the modern world as Halloween, though the midnight culmination has now slipped to November 21.  52.

By "midnight culmination," Mr. Mavor and Mr. Dix refer to the transit of the stars, or the time when they reach their highest point in their arcing journey across the sky (every object in our sky appears to trace out an arc, caused of course by the turning of the earth, and the highest point in that arc is the transit point or the culmination point -- for the sun, we call this point "high noon").  In other words, the Pleiades reached their highest point at midnight at this important day at one time long in the past, but the delaying action of precession now causes that midnight culmination to take place later in the month of November.  

Even more interesting is the discussion of the quartz and water elements in the Upton site and their significance to other Pleiades-aligned sites in other parts of the world, which Mr. Mavor and Mr. Dix explain on the page following the passage just quoted:

The role of the Pleiades in the life of the Inca is known through historical records and surviving structures.  The Inca saw this cluster of stars as a universal mother who gave birth to the other stars, as well as to the new sun of the June solstice and the new year.  The earth mother, the sun and the Pleiades were also related in Inca myth by association with crystal, or quartz: a crystal fell into the water before the sun god emerged, and the rising of the sun from a spring was considered to be a birth not only from the water but also from the Pleiades.  Further, these stars were related to water in the forms of springs and rain.  All of these elements were brought together at the Coriancha Sun Temple, the most magnificent structure in Cuzco, originally sheathed in gold [note: this temple is usually called the Coricancha and spelled thus -- this is perhaps a typo by the publisher in the Mavor and Dix text].  There the rise of the Pleiades over a basin of water, also used for libations to the sun god, and the June solstice sunrise are marked by structural alignments as seen from a single observation point at the great gate.  We have already pointed out that all of these elements are likewise present at Upton, where there is a single observation point for the summer solstice sunset and the Pleiades set, and the Pleiades set sightline passes over a lake.  And quartz from the nearby quarry is frequently used in the stone row.  Thus hydrography and topography at the Upton site indicate a cosmology in which the Pleiades and water are parts, with the Pleiades representing an earth mother, observed from a stone chamber buried in the earth.  53.

As stated previously, the Pleiades are not culminating at midnight right now (although thousands of years ago they were), but rather are reaching that highest point just before three in the morning and doing so about four minutes earlier each night, on their way to a midnight culmination. The reason for the four minutes earlier each night are discussed in this previous post on Orion and precession.

At this particular moment as this post is published, the nearly full moon is almost right on top of the Pleiades, effectively drowning them out from view.  Tomorrow night (Halloween) the moon will be lower, and as it continues to wane the Pleiades will become more and more visible and easy to locate in the eastern sky after sunset (this diagram from the always-excellent night-sky diagrams at Sky & Telescope gives some visual detail).  Look above the "V"-shaped Hyades that make up the Bull of Taurus and which are diagrammed in this previous post (bright Jupiter is still in Taurus -- the opening of the top of the "V" directs you to Jupiter, making the Hyades and hence the Pleiades easy to locate once the moon moves out of the way), as well as with some step-by-step instructions guiding you to find the Hyades and the Pleiades in this previous post from this very same time of the year, one year ago. 

While many argue that the midnight culmination is the ancient origin that led to Halloween, I believe it is also important to point out that this festival marks a solar "cross-quarter day" in the annual yearly cycle, and that this significant transition towards winter is just as likely to be the impetus for Halloween.  This previous post on Beltane (a cross-quarter day in May) discusses Samhain, the cross-quarter day most closely associated with modern Halloween, and cites the arguments that some have cogently made that if summer solstice is called "Midsummer" and winter solstice is called "Midwinter," then the cross-quarter days on either side of them were probably thought of as the start and end of summer or winter (you sometimes hear people declare that summer begins on summer solstice or that winter begins on winter solstice, but the tradition of calling the solstices mid summer or winter belies that interpretation).

In any event, now is an excellent time of year to begin enjoying the beautiful spectacle of the Pleiades, and to consider their tremendous importance around the world.  It is also a good time of year to think with appreciation upon the work of James Mavor and Byron Dix in opening up new perspectives on the Pleiades with their analysis of the Upton site.

 

Master Po on nonviolence

Readers of the previous post entitled "Reflections on Simone Weil's 'The Iliad, or the Poem of Force' and the Question of Consciousness" may be asking themselves, "How does this have anything to do with my life, since -- unlike Achilles or Ajax in the Iliad -- I am never faced with the question of using lethal force against another person?"

That is a good question.  

However, even if we (unlike Achilles, Ajax, Hektor, and the rest) are not engaged in daily life-or-death struggles around the walls of Ilium, this does not mean we do not encounter other human beings every day.  If we do, then we undoubtedly wrestle with the problem presented by Simone Weil's definition of force (or violence): that which turns a person into a thing.

As the interesting little segment above from the classic early 1970s television series Kung Fu tries to convey to its viewers, it is possible to be filled with a form of violence, even without doing physical violence.  In the flashback to the Shaolin Temple, Master Po (perhaps the most well-known and beloved character in the series) explains:

In a heart that is one with nature, though the body contends, there is no violence.
And in the heart that is not one with nature, though the body be at rest, there is always violence.

The essay by Simone Weil cited in the previous post opens an interesting perspective onto this seemingly contradictory pair of declarations.

If violence (as she believes) is that which turns another person into a thing, then our hearts can be filled with constant violence without our body ever raising an actual finger in physical contention with another.  To select a simple and unfortunately familiar example, we can in our minds (and our words) treat other drivers on the road as things and not as other people as we drive along the highways and roads during our day-to-day errands and commutes (and we can sometimes perceive others doing the same to us).  We may even refer to another driver as a "stupid pick-up truck" or some other phrase, showing that we are reducing that person in our minds to an object.

This may seem to be a bit of a stretch -- the reader may think, "well, I am not really confusing the human being in the vehicle with the mechanical object that he is driving."  However, if we are honest with ourselves, we may reflect on times that we have done the exact same thing by reducing the spiritual being in front of us to the physical aspects of the body that they are inhabiting at the moment!

This brings to mind the powerful monologue delivered by the late great Israel Kamakawiwo'ole at the beginning of his stunning performance of "Kaleohano" in May, 1996 when he said of the human body (as opposed to the eternal soul): "It's only a facade, brah.  It's a thin curtain.  It's only temporary.  Us guys is forever" (see the 2:15 mark in this video of the event itself).

To return to the assertion of Master Po from the clip above, then, we can apply Simone Weil's definition of violence as that which seeks to turn a person into a thing and agree with the Shaolin monk that it is possible for one who does not physically contend with others to nevertheless be filled with violence, and that it is also possible for one who does not wish to physically contend with another to find himself or herself in a situation where he or she must physically contend with another, while yet seeing the adversary as completely human and refusing to treat him as anything less (though this is very difficult).

It is noteworthy that Master Po precedes each of his statements with the qualifying statement "the heart that is one with nature" (or, in the second case, "the heart that is not one with nature").  We have seen that Simone Weil (and the Iliad) both provide overwhelming arguments that to reduce a person to a thing is contrary to nature.  It is unnatural, and it is wrong.

It is also worth noting that Simone Weil argues, perhaps contrary to Master Po although not necessarily, that it is almost impossible to use force without being "turned to stone" oneself -- that employing force not only reduces one's adversary to a "thing," but that it threatens to reduce the one who uses it to a "thing" as well.  The previous post cited her assertion that:

[. . .] the conquering soldier is like a scourge of nature.  Possessed by war, he, like the slave, becomes a thing, though his manner of doing so is different -- over him, too, words are as powerless as over matter itself.  And both, at the touch of force, experience its inevitable effects: they become deaf and dumb.  

Such is the nature of force.  Its power of converting a man into a thing is a double one, and in its application double-edged.  To the same degree, though in different fashions, those who use it and those who endure it are turned to stone.  22.

It is extremely interesting that at the legendary Shaolin Temple (which was in fact a real institution, and which historians agree was instrumental in the development of the incredible martial arts of China) took such care to inculcate in those who trained in these methods of combat an abiding focus on compassion and humanity.  It is as if they knew that handling such methods of violence could easily turn the martial artist into "a thing," and they wanted to avoid that dangerous possibility.  Rather than walking through life seeing others as targets to be attacked or objects to be subdued, the masters of the Shaolin Temple stressed the opposite: affirming the subjectivity and humanity of everyone, even those who have for whatever unfortunate and unnatural reason become an adversary.  

Recent scientific studies of brainwave patterns appear to confirm the conclusion that the kinds of thoughts that we dwell on for thousands of hours actually create physical changes within our brains and our brainwave patterns as well, as discussed in this post from last October.

In light of all this, it would seem that this is a subject of great importance to all of us in our daily lives, whether we are involved in actual "combat situations" like those immortalized in the Iliad or not.  We might want to consider Master Po's advice to young Kwai Chang Caine, and seek to avoid reducing other people to the status of things, even if we are only doing it inside our minds.

Reflections on Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force" and the Question of Consciousness

Three previous posts have discussed Chris Carter's three-volume examination of the question of the relationship of consciousness and matter -- most recently in "Chris Carter's Science and the Afterlife Experience," and then previous to that in "Chris Carter's Science and the Near-Death Experience" and "Chris Carter's Science and Psychic Phenomena."

His three books present extensive evidence and compelling analysis which suggests that human existence comprises more than the strictly material: that consciousness exists beyond the merely physical, and is not bounded by the material life of the body nor "generated" by the physical organ of the brain.  

This conclusion is remarkable mainly because the overwhelming weight of modern academia and intellectual opinion argues the opposite: that there is no "soul" that is separate from the body, there is no consciousness that is independent of the brain, and that in short there is nothing beyond the material, because everything has its beginning and its end in matter.  What we call consciousness is a play of chemicals and electrical impulses coursing about in the brain, and when the cells of the brain cease to function, the consciousness generated by that particular brain ceases to exist.

It strikes me that this modern dogma of materialism reduces a person to a thing, in the formulation made famous in Simone Weil's powerful 1940 essay, "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force" (available in its entirety online here, translated into English from the original French by Mary McCarthy).  This connection is remarkable, and worth pondering.  

Simone Weil's essay deals with the effect of violence, both on the victim and on the perpetrator, and her examination of the Iliad in this regard is absolutely profound (and gives the reader of her essay a new appreciation for the profundity of that ancient epic).  Her definition of violence (or "force"), offered at the outset of her text, is justifiably famous, and informs her entire exploration of the subject: 

To define force -- it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing.  Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him.  Somebody was here, and in the next moment there is nobody here at all; this is a spectacle the Iliad never wearies of showing us:

. . . the horses

Rattled the empty chariots through the files of battle

Longing for their noble drivers.  But they on the ground 

Lay, dearer to the vultures than to their wives.

The hero becomes a thing, dragged behind a chariot in the dust:

All around, his black hair 

Was spread; in the dust, his whole head lay,

That once-charming head; now Zeus had let his enemies

Defile it on their native soil.

The bitterness of such a spectacle is offered us absolutely undiluted.  6.

In her essay, Simone Weil shows us that this bitterness -- which she notes is the pervading tone of the entire epic of the Iliad -- arises because this restriction or reduction of the person to a thing is profoundly wrong.  She says:

In whatever aspect, its effect is the same: it turns a man into a stone.  From its first property (the ability to turn a human being into a thing by the simple method of killing him) flows another, quite prodigious too in its own way, the ability to turn a human being into a thing while he is still alive.  He is alive; he has a soul; and yet -- he is a thing.  An extraordinary entity this -- a thing that has a soul.  And as for the soul, what an extraordinary house it finds itself in!  Who can say what it costs it, moment by moment, to accommodate itself to this residence, how much writhing and bending, folding and pleating are required of it?  It was not made to live inside a thing; if it does so, under pressure of necessity, there is not a single element of its nature to which violence is not done.  7.

Thus she conveys the dehumanizing aspect of violence, and the threat of violence, and demonstrates with numerous examples that the poet of the Iliad conveyed the same truth.

Does not the materialist dogma that the human being is nothing more than a collection of atoms, that human consciousness is nothing more than a collection of chemical and electrical impulses, attempt the same unnatural transformation "of a man into a stone"?  Does it not objectify something that is actually far more than just a physical object?  Does it not seek to deny that the human being not only has a soul but actually is a soul, and by turning that soul into a thing, distort it and contort it and twist it in the very way that Simone Weil describes so vividly and painfully in the passage above?  And does not such modern materialist objectification of people who are in reality not merely things go a long way towards inviting and condoning brutalization and violence and the use of force, which marked the twentieth century quite as much as did various manifestations of an arrogant, supremely confident materialist philosophy?  

The realization and appreciation of the supernatural (super-physical and super-material) aspect of every human being we encounter should dissuade us from the use of force and violence, if Simone Weil is correct that the supreme characteristic of force is its tendency to efface the personhood of the victim and reduce him to a thing.  Likewise, the ascendency of philosophies of absolute materialism often appear to go hand-in-hand with a willingness to reduce people to things (whether through naked violence or merely the threat of violence).

Later in her essay, Simone Weil explains that the use of force tends to work its dehumanizing effects on both the perpetrator and the victim. 

[. . .] the conquering soldier is like a scourge of nature.  Possessed by war, he, like the slave, becomes a thing, though his manner of doing so is different -- over him, too, words are as powerless as over matter itself.  And both, at the touch of force, experience its inevitable effects: they become deaf and dumb.  

Such is the nature of force.  Its power of converting a man into a thing is a double one, and in its application double-edged.  To the same degree, though in different fashions, those who use it and those who endure it are turned to stone.  22.

This is a subject that has tremendous implications for civilization, and -- as Simone Weil points out in her essay -- the Iliad itself treats as its subject the utter destruction of an entire city, and in fact of an entire civilization.  As such, the connection between the question of consciousness (and its existence beyond the merely physical or material) and the issues explored in Simone Weil's essay (and explored in the Iliad itself) is one we should ponder long and carefully.

Tao Teh Ching 61. Tao Teh Ching 22.

A great country is like the lower regions of a river:
A place where all the streams of the world unite.
She is the mother of the world.
The peaceful and feminine
always overpowers the masculine.
Being peaceable, one takes the lower position.

Tao Teh Ching, 61. Translation by Hua-Ching Ni.



The yielding are preserved whole.
The crooked become straight.
The empty become filled.
The depleted are renewed.
What has little will gain.
What has much will become confused.

[. . .]

Indeed, the ancient teaching that
"the yielding are preserved whole" is no empty saying.

Tao Teh Ching, 22. Translation by Hua-Ching Ni.

Chris Carter's Science and the Afterlife Experience

I recently had the unforgettable experience of reading Chris Carter's Science and the Afterlife Experience for the first time, and cannot recommend it highly enough to every reader who is interested in the subject of our existence here in this body and whether that existence continues after the death of the body.

If you have not read it yet yourself, you are in for a treat.  

This newly-released examination of the evidence for the survival of consciousness and personality after the death of the material body is the powerful concluding volume in Chris Carter's three-volume examination of the evidence for "super-natural" (or "super-material") aspects to human consciousness (with some evidence for similar super-material aspects to animal consciousness as well).  I have discussed the previous two volumes in previous posts, "Chris Carter's Science and the Near-Death Experience" (the second in the series) and "Chris Carter's Science and Psychic Phenomena" (the first in the series).

The evidence in this third book -- and the carefully-documented accounts underlying that evidence -- is even more gripping than that presented in the first two books.  The cases themselves are unforgettable, beginning with the first section on reincarnation, continuing into the second section on apparitions, and finally the third and longest (and perhaps most compelling) section on communication from those who have crossed over into the great beyond.

Throughout, Chris Carter builds a carefully-reasoned and sober case for the conclusion that human consciousness consists of something more than the strictly material, and that it survives the death and dissolution of the material body.  

He does not ignore the fact that such an assertion is tremendously controversial, and that many respected and well-educated analysts vehemently deny such a possibility.  He states right up front that such contrary arguments are important and that honest critics must be given an opportunity to provide alternative explanations for the evidence at hand, saying on page 11 that "Genuine skepticism is an important part of science."  Throughout the book, as he has in previous volumes, he examines at great length the alternative explanations that have been put forward, and the strengths and weaknesses of each argument for and against the survival hypothesis.

It is the evidence that is provided to counter the most determined skeptics that really astonishes the reader, proving the point that skepticism is important (without it, some of the experiments described might never have been attempted).  Among the cases that appear most well-documented and publicly-accountable -- and which leave perhaps the deepest impression on the reader -- are the "cross correspondences" of Frederic Myers, and the remarkable chess game between Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi and the deceased Grandmaster Geza Maroczy.

That chess match was arranged to demonstrate that that the "medium" supposedly channeling the consciousness of a deceased individual would have great difficulty mimicking a skill which the medium did not possess -- in this case, a level of chess-playing skill that only a few individuals in the world ever achieve (other examples cited in the book with evidence of eyewitnesses include speaking in languages unknown to the medium, while supposedly in contact with individuals who during their life had spoken such languages).  Chris Carter explains that in the mid-1980s, 

asset-manager and amateur chess player Dr. Wolfgang Eisenbeiss decided to initiate a chess match between living and deceased persons.  Eisenbeiss had been acquianted with the automatic-writing medium Robbert Rollans (1914-1993) for eight years, and trusted his assertion that he did not know how to play chess and had no knowledge of chess history.  Rollans was not paid for his services, and his stated motive for participation was to provide support for the survival hypothesis. 

Eisenbeiss was able to persuade the world-famous chess champion Viktor Korchnoi, then ranked third in the world, to participate.  Korchnoi was ranked second in the world for more than a decade, and was described in Chessbase (April 4, 2002) as "unquestionably one of the great chess players of all time."

Eisenbeiss gave Rollans a list of deceased grandmasters and asked him to find one who would be willing to participate in a game.  On June 15, 1985, a communicator claiming to be the deceased Hugarian grandmaster Geza Maroczy confirmed his willingness to play, and then opened the game by making the first move.  Geza Maroczy was ranked third in the world in 1900, and was known for his remarkably strong endgame.  204-205.

This amazing event makes fascinating reading, and is very difficult to explain away by the skeptics.  It is difficult to argue that Korchnoi or some other living chess grandmaster was somehow in on an elaborate scheme to fool the public.  For one thing, Korchnoi never actually communicated with Rollans in person -- the entire game was played with Eisenbeiss as the intermediary.  Abundant evidence surrounding the case and discussed in detail by Chris Carter in his examination of the match make it very difficult to argue that the thoroughly-documented and highly-scrutinized game was a ruse.

Further, the style of the play was consistent with that of Maroczy during life, and would have been extremely difficult to imitate (especially when the game progressed and his reputation for brilliant endgame play surfaced in moves that no mere amateur could have thrown at Grandmaster Korchnoi). At the twenty-seventh move of the match, Viktor Korchnoi commented on the quality of the play of his opponent, saying:

During the opening phase Maroczy showed weakness.  His play is old-fashioned.  But I must confess that my last moves have not been too convincing.  I am not sure I will win.  He has compensated the faults of the opening by a strong end-game.  In the end-game the ability of a player shows up and my opponent plays very well.  206.

There are other pieces of evidence surrounding this match that Chris Carter brings out which make it quite a compelling case in support of the survival of consciousness after death.  And there are many other similarly-compelling cases in the book -- cases which should be more widely-known because they provide such important perspectives on this critical subject.  Every human being should have access to this evidence and be allowed to examine it for himself or herself.

Chris Carter has done his readers an invaluable service by collecting this evidence and presenting it in such a clear and sober manner.  He guides us through it with lucid comments and insightful analysis, and brings in the possible alternative explanations and the arguments of those opposed to the survival hypothesis whenever appropriate.  

The conclusions at the end, and the discussion of a theory that ties all of this evidence together, have far-reaching implications.  This is a profound and important subject, and one with tremendous potential to impact on many levels the way we live our lives.

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Readers of this post may also want to check out previous posts discussing other evidence relevant to this subject (from cases not found in the above book), such as:

"A heartfelt portrait of John Blofeld from Daniel P. Reid"

"Don't miss the intriguing interview with Sheldon Norberg on New Dimensions Radio"

and

"Scary ghost story (West Point)"