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– THE MYSTERY OF BEING HUMAN – Is Number”: Mathematics, Reality and the Madness of Max Tegmark’ – it is in the analogy between the reduction of values to prices in neo-liberal economics and of quality to quantities in physical science and the increasingly prevalent idea that the universe and the human world boils down to numbers. In accordance with the humanist spirit of the opening essay, the final piece considers the significance that the ideas of God and Eternity may have for an infidel. It is motivated by the belief that escaping from religion is only the beginning, not the end, of a quest for deeper understanding of what we are. Humanity, after all, is a work in progress and truly humanist thought – that begins with questions and ends with questions – should reflect this. xiv
page 17
1 – Humanity: Neither God’s Work nor a Piece of Nature – I have called myself an atheist since I was a teenager. In recent years, however, I have noticed a tendency, particularly when on the podium, to describe myself as ‘a secular humanist’. This still sometimes seems to be a borrowed coat that is many sizes too large for my dayto-day existence. Religious believers probably feel the same when they classify the self that runs for buses, supports Manchester United, and waits impatiently to be served at the bar, as ‘Catholic’ or ‘Anglican’ or whatever. My preference has to do with something believers point out with a regularity that I am inclined to call monotonous: namely, that ‘atheism’ is a negative term, a position defined merely by that which it opposes, like a vacuum by its non-vacuous surroundings. Being a ‘Not-ist’ doesn’t sound very fulfilling and most certainly does little justice to the philosophical sentiments that infuse the life and thought of the rich god-free stream of humanism. More importantly, much atheist thought is, usually unintentionally, anti-humanist. It would be unfair and distracting to single out individual thinkers; sufficient to note that some of the most prominent theocides not 1

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– THE MYSTERY OF BEING HUMAN –

Is Number”: Mathematics, Reality and the Madness of Max Tegmark’ – it is in the analogy between the reduction of values to prices in neo-liberal economics and of quality to quantities in physical science and the increasingly prevalent idea that the universe and the human world boils down to numbers.

In accordance with the humanist spirit of the opening essay, the final piece considers the significance that the ideas of God and Eternity may have for an infidel. It is motivated by the belief that escaping from religion is only the beginning, not the end, of a quest for deeper understanding of what we are. Humanity, after all, is a work in progress and truly humanist thought – that begins with questions and ends with questions – should reflect this.

xiv

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