History, Human Morality, Nature, Society

The Herd Instinct – is it good or bad?

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In addition to the basic human instincts described in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” here we consider another, the so-called herd instinct. By ‘herd instinct,’ we mean the inexplicable striving of the individual (also a herd animal) to gravitate towards the herd.

In “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” we explain that this striving is derived exclusively from the ‘Law of Gene Preservation,’ since the individual can most reliably preserve their genes when they constitute part of a group. So, essentially, the herd instinct does not give us anything new. However, recently I came across the following definition of the herd instinct in Wikipedia:

The herd instinct is the mechanism underlying the instinct of self-preservation, applicable equally to both people and animals. The herd instinct shows that a group of individuals, human or animal, can act collectively without centralized direction. As noted by W. Trotter in his work ‘The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War,’ it is pointless to search for the causes and derivatives of the herd instinct, since it is something primary and something ‘which cannot be split up’.

Coming across this definition, I realized that it is worth looking at the issue of the herd instinct in more detail.

First and foremost, drawing entirely on “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” as a source, we express our total disagreement with all the provisions of the definition cited above.

  • Firstly, as pointed out in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“, the self-preservation instinct does not exist entirely in and of itself. It is a consequence that derives from the Law (or Instinct) of Gene Preservation.
  • Secondly, it is NOT at all pointless to look for the causes and derivatives of the herd instinct, since it is NOT in fact something primary.

If we recall what distinguishes primary from secondary assertions (or instincts), we see that if assertion B derives from assertion A, and assertion A does not derive from assertion B, then assertion A can be called primary, and assertion B secondary, or a consequence of A.

If the herd instinct is primary, then how does one explain regular examples of herd disintegration, in particular, constant examples of expulsion from the herd in the case of young males who have reached reproductive age, as well as elderly males?

This phenomena can be quite easily explained in the context of the Law of Gene Preservation.

  • Young males pose a threat to the genetic purity of the offspring of the harem that belongs to the strong, dominant but not yet elderly male.
  • Young expelled males seek the opportunity to form their own herd for the sole purpose of gene preservation, in response to the herd instinct.

‘So why are the elderly males pushed out?’ You may ask. Well, for almost the same reason.

  • Usually, this happens to an elderly male who has lost a harem tournament to a young, aspiring male, but has not yet lost all reproductive power and, therefore, must be constantly controlled by the newly established dominant male. In addition, an elderly male in a herd soon becomes a burden and an extra mouth to feed, when he is unable to forage for food independently. Old, lonely males of this type generally come to a tragic end.

As you can see, there is no evidence of the herd instinct here. It all comes down to the Law of Gene Preservation!

And now the challenging reader will ask, ‘Why then aren’t the elderly females who are incapable of procreation expelled?’ Again, the answer is simple.  

  • As a rule, older females make excellent nannies and often help raise the offspring of the dominant male, i.e. the explanation is the same: The Law of Gene Preservation!

Hereinafter, we use the term ‘herd instinct,’ with the proviso that it exists as a simple consequence of the Law of Gene Preservation.

The type of scenario described above can be particularly well-observed in a pride of lions or herd of elephants. The unenviable fate of male lions and elephants after they have fulfilled their role in the program of the Law of Gene Preservation is no exception.

In other species, males suffer an even more tragic end: among bees, the drones die immediately after copulation and among grasshoppers and spiders, the males are eaten by the females instantly after mating.

This sad list could go on forever, and evoke even more morose thoughts. Right now, I am plagued by the vague idea that in the distant historical past, our brother ‘man’ was treated in the same way or at least in a manner very similar.

‘On what grounds?’ You ask. Let me explain.

For 3-4 million years, humanity has lived in many respects no differently from the surrounding animal world driven only by the same Law of Gene Preservation. Scientists have found traces of human cannibalism in all areas of the world until relatively recently. The same goes for evidence of human sacrifice.

The rudiments of a humanist morality appeared in human society, you could say, just yesterday in terms of historical time, and there are no weighty reasons to believe that in the human herd, males in antiquity were treated any better than males in the rest of the animal world.

Now, we are beginning to examine the herd instinct in the most interesting herd of all, human society. I say the most interesting because human beings have another important option, which is not present in the animal world, and that is Freedom of Choice!

The herd instinct is present in humans, as in any other herd animal, and is followed by the majority of the masses. Should we perceive this fact to be a blessing or a curse? Here, we will try to give an exhaustive answer to this question as far as that is possible.

Because the human individual has Freedom of Choice, a human being often finds themselves in types of situation that do not arise in the animal world such as when society splits into two, three or an even greater number of groups, which are all pushing in different directions. The individual finds themselves in a position where they have to choose one particular group, if of course, they have free choice.

In the absence of any strong personal conviction, we often choose to follow the choice of the largest group, in an example of what we call the ‘herd instinct’.

Why? Because if the group we have chosen really is the largest, we intuitively hope that it will include others smarter and more experienced than ourselves, who will, with all probability, lead the group in the right direction, and in the case of intra-species conflict, win victory over the rest.

Indeed, this hope is most often justified, which further reinforces the herd instinct. At least, in the majority of cases!

Here, once again, I should emphasize the difference between the herd instinct as expressed in human and animal groups. Remember the biblical parable about the herd of mad swine who rushed into the sea? If it had not been pigs but humans instead, there would undoubtedly have been those among the herd who would have tried to turn the herd around and avert the tragedy.

We do not always listen to our sages and seers because they are so ahead of their time, and so we end up learning the hard way. But their messages are never wasted becoming realized in time and history is created according to their predictions in a manner that is most desirable for the majority.

Do individuals exist who are truly free of the herd instinct and if so, what is their role within the human herd?

In “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“, we wrote about people with absolute Freedom of Choice, who appear to be capable of finding revolutionary solutions to seemingly hopeless social crises, be it in the area of legal relations, the economy, science and technology, or art and sport.

  • I recall how academician Andrei Sakharov sat immersed in complete solitude after his speech at the First Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989, when a huge hooting crowd of party deputies raged around him.
  • Suffice to recall how calmly and stubbornly Albert Einstein continued to insist on his new space-time concept, which was met with hostility by many authoritative physicists of the time, who led a fierce attack against him in the press and in scientific journals.

In “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“, we refer to individuals such as these as geniuses and revolutionaries. Now, we can add a new facet to their character – absolute freedom from the herd instinct.

It is these individuals, who embody absolute Freedom of Choice and who are completely free of the herd instinct that lift us from one level of Freedom of Choice to the next, higher level, thereby realising the effect of the Law of Humandynamics.

Over human history with all its many different spheres of activity, the list of such figures is extremely short, consisting of a few thousand, no more, a very small percentage of the total population.

Once, in my youth, I asked a friend, ‘If all civilization was created by this small fraction of a percent, then why did God create everyone else?’ His answer was brilliant: ‘To give birth to that small fraction of a percentage!’

Anyway, it is impossible to imagine a society consisting entirely of geniuses completely free of the herd instinct! It would instantly fall apart!

The other day, I was listening to a television interview between two very clever people, Dmitry Gordon and Viktor Shenderovich. They were talking about the herd instinct and came to the conclusion that the instinct is always a force for evil, citing examples of destructive influence of the herd instinct in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Likewise, they concluded that everything that is right and good is undertaken by individuals, who are acting from some impulse other than the herd instinct.

With the greatest of respect to both interlocutors, I cannot agree with either statement.

  • First of all, what can be found lacking in the herd instinct, when it calls a person to defend the Motherland or support Revolution?
  • Secondly, individuals like Stalin and Hitler were also totally free of the herd instinct. The point is that at the same time, these people hated Freedom of Choice, and skilfully manipulated the herd instinct of the crowd, leading their people in the twentieth century into the most terrible catastrophe in human history.

In all totalitarian societies, be they fascist or communist, managing the ‘herd’ or, in other words, grooming the herd instinct becomes state policy, and any deviation from that policy is met with severe punishment. Those who lived under the Communists or the Nazis, will remember this very well.

The attitude towards the herd instinct in society, especially among the intelligentsia, tends to be rather superior and derisive. If you do a Google search on the topic, you will immediately come across a bunch of articles on how to be rid of the herd instinct. At the same time, an overwhelming portion of society, obeys the instinct blindly and religiously, although they might not want to admit it.

The book Jonathan Livingston’s Seagull, written by Richard Bach in 1970, was once like an anthem for all those who considered themselves free from the herd instinct. 

But is the herd instinct really something always to be ashamed of? Why, for example, when we find ourselves in danger do we instinctively follow the crowd?

I remember seeing television images of the floods after the tsunami in Thailand in 2004 when crowds of people fled randomly in different directions. The only survivors were those who managed to get to raised areas, or climbed the stairs of sturdy, multi-storey hotels, and those who ran after them simply following the herd instinct.

At the end of the conversation, Gordon and Shenderovich expressed the shared opinion, that when you see a huge crowd running in one direction, you should run in a different direction. As we can see from the examples above, generally speaking, this is not great advice.

You have to know why the crowd is running, what slogans it is using, and ask yourself whether it is encroaching on anyone’s rights to Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice.

In the well-known examples of communism and nazism, slogans openly called for the elimination of these rights among the nobles and the rich, the bourgeoisie in the case of the former and the Jews and other non-Aryan races in the case of the latter.

The principle of democracy by which the minority is obliged to obey the majority is none other than an expression of the herd instinct! Who ever proved or said that the majority had to be right? No-one did, ever! Nothing other than the herd instinct can explain the need for this principle. Yet, as the above examples illustrate, democracy does not always guarantee the right decision is made, 1933 Germany being a point in case.

Democracy’s most recent mistake must be Brexit. Brexiteers won by a majority of less than 2%. Brexit is a mistake because it will never increase Freedom of Choice in any way at all. Quite the opposite in fact; it will lower the overall level of Freedom of Choice in Britain. This will become blatantly obvious within a few years after Brexit is delivered, if of course, Brexit is not canceled by a second referendum. This will be obvious already to the most ‘aware’ among the British people.

However, in democratically accepting the power of the majority, we generally expect the decisions the majority make to prove to be the most expedient, and history back this up. Moreover, even if a democratic majority does make a mistake, as long as the mechanisms of Freedom of Choice (democratic institutions) have been preserved, there is no reason why the mistake should not be quickly corrected.

Powerful opponents of democracy in authoritarian and totalitarian countries hide behind various national peculiarities and special historical pathways as a way of justifying their authoritarian government regimes. But there are no special historical pathways! This is simply an example of distortion and primitivity, which can be easily demonstrated.

If, for example, two imaginary states A and B have different forms of government and ways of life, but after some time state B’s form of government and way of life changes to become the same as state A, then this can only mean one thing: state B was lagging behind State A in terms of evolutionary development.

We know many examples of countries in which women who have traditionally worn the hijab start to remove them at the risk of losing their personal freedom (Iran), yet we can cite no example of a country, in which the reverse process would be the case. The recent case of Islamists who came to power in Egypt and for a short time forced women to wear the hijab obviously does not count. This was purely a short-lived fluctuation in Freedom of Choice.

We know many examples of countries in which an authoritarian government has gradually changed to a democratic system, yet we know of no opposite example, with the exception of a few fluctuations and failures, which are described in sufficient detail in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” .

And for one more interesting thought: countries in which permanent presidents strive to extend their power by fraud and artifice resemble animal herds and flocks, who are controlled by permanent leaders and dominant males until such time as they become weakened and are overthrown by younger, stronger males. The reader can decide for themselves, which type of society would appear to be closer to its primitive, bestial beginnings.

Now we come to the question posed in the subheading, ‘The herd instinct — good or evil? Should we be following the herd?’

Considering all the above, there is clearly no categorical, conclusive answer to this question! There can only be a probabilistic answer. Either way, it is always best to use your head and think for yourself. However, if you cannot come up with an individual decision or solution to a problem, then it is best to join a group represented by authoritative intelligent individuals.

And if you find yourself in a position where you have to make a decision randomly, then join the largest group, based on the assumption that it will include clever, experienced individuals. None of these tips are 100% watertight, but they give good chances of success based on probability!

Generally speaking, the world around us is fundamentally non-determinable in character. It consists of probabilities, and the number of questions to which the answers are probabilistic is far greater than the number of questions to which one will find a suitably determined, categorical answer. The physicists were the first to reach this understanding when at the beginning of the last century, they dived into the truths of the microcosm.

To conclude, let me give an example from a recent news feed on outbreaks of measles in civilized countries like France. The outbreaks occurred because some parents had refused to vaccinate their children, some for orthodox religious reasons, others after reading that the vaccination had certain side effects. Both groups cite their right to personal freedom of choice in matters concerning their children.

However, whereas the chances of suffering from side effects is one in a thousand, there exists an almost 100% chance of a healthy child catching the condition when coming into close contact with an affected child. Moreover, given how much people travel in today’s world, it is practically impossible to provide total quarantine.

So, choose whichever probability you think sounds most attractive. In this regard, discussions have arisen in France concerning forced restriction of personal Freedom of Choice, where there is a threat to society i.e. the Freedom of Choice of others.

I remember when in the Soviet Union all children were vaccinated, without asking permission either from the child or their parents. I personally would have no objection to compulsory vaccination.

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

History, Human Morality, Society

Private Property and the Law of Gene Preservation

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Today, we’re going to take a more detailed look at one of the most important conditions that sustains humankind’s material existence – the principle of private property.

Why is it that some people spend their entire adult life depriving themselves of rest and peace trying to amass private property? We are not just talking about the poor individual, worrying how to put a meal on the table for their children the next day, we’re talking about the billionaire who has accumulated enough wealth to ensure a comfortable life for their children, their grandchildren and many more generations to come.

People will stop at nothing to amass private property. People have laboured hugely, committed despicable crimes, even risked war, all in the name of the ultimate goal of seizing resources belonging to another or protecting their own resources.

All nations have their own version of a saying about the mortality of humankind and the fact that wealth cannot be taken to the grave. Even Christ instructed us, ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…’

Why is it that for thousands of years, the words of the wise still have no real effect on humankind however reverently we might listen to them? What is it that shapes the individual’s desire to endlessly accumulate?

Many philosophers have answered this question but, unfortunately, their answers are often complex, unconvincing, and sometimes just downright incomprehensible. Reference to such works can easily be found on the internet. In our opinion, the answer ought to be something fairly plain to see.

Let us begin by establishing the role private property has played in human society. The great and unshakable principle of private property, (which most likely arose simultaneous to the emergence of monogamous marriage as far back as the stone age), has served and still serves as the material basis for the existence of individual and society.

Without the principle of the inviolability of private property, society could not develop. All historical attempts to paint private property as evil and to build a state on the principle of its negation have ended up representing an even greater evil, and led eventually to the state’s collapse.

The most vivid examples of this can be seen in the history of the Soviet Union and China, both states that have killed tens of millions of their own citizens in the name of eradicating the sanctity of private property.

Even the partial, mild form of the denial of private property that we see in the countries of the so-called people’s democracy in Eastern Europe has made these countries uncompetitive in relation to the countries of Western Europe and hence we see them lagging behind in all areas of the economy, science and culture.

Opponents of private property often cite the Israeli kibbutz as a successful example of the principle in practice. However, to live in a kibbutz, one has to give up private property, as well as sacrifice almost all personal Freedom of Choice, which is almost impossible to imagine among the Jewish people, who have such a keenly developed sense of Freedom of Choice. The kibbutz has never been especially numerous. It emerged in the difficult war years, which required a special kind of unity among the people. In recent decades, the kibbutz has begun to drop in numbers, and this trend will continue, for as long as peace lasts, albeit relative.

The same thing goes for all other types of commune that have ever existed. Even today, one still reads in the Russian press nostalgic ‘memories’ of the idyllic life that people lived in the peasant communities, which in reality turned out to be unproductive and unviable and explains why they disappeared from history.

The romantic hippy communes of the 1960s and 1970s broke up for the same reason. In all fairness, though, the hippie communes did provide their members with maximum Freedom of Choice, while the absence of private property and monogamous marriage made it almost impossible to provide for a normal future for the members’ children.

This brings us to the fundamental conclusion that private property, which most people spend their entire life trying to increase, lies at the foundation of the material existence and development of humankind!

Does this mean that in addition to the laws of Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice, a third fundamental law exists which can be said to determine the life of humankind – the Law of Private Property? Does this mean that The Last Faith is inaccurate and even erroneous in only presenting two? Happily, the answer is no! The Last Faith remains an accurate presentation of ideas and here’s why.

On the theme of mankind’s inexhaustible desire to amass private property, including businesses and bank accounts, we should ask ourselves, ‘what do we need private property for?’

Any single, childless, mentally healthy person would agree with the sober understanding that all they really need in life is two comfortable rooms in which to live, one good car in which to travel to work, a good but not necessarily whopping great bank account in case of illness and old age, and the opportunity to travel on vacation and go to the odd concert. That’s it!

So who, then, buys apartment after apartment, car after car, tirelessly expands their business, and accumulates more and more money in the bank, or alternatively just steals and goes on stealing?

These are people who represent the absolute majority of adult society: these are people with children, or put simply, parents.

Why do they do it? Let’s take an honest look at ourselves. We do it because we want to transfer all our property to our children because we cannot foresee what the future holds for them.

We want to believe that the more we leave them, the greater their chances of survival. And when we have managed to provide for our children, we want to be sure of providing for our grandchildren, and so on.

Look at how the presidents of non-democratic states steal. By stealing millions, even billions, it is as if they want to provide for their descendants for 100 generations to come. What they do not understand is that this is in fact impossible! Great wealth deprives one of reason. Recently, the press reported that the daughter of the former President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the ‘socialist’ guardian of the people, was the richest woman in the country, enjoying a multi-billion-dollar fortune.

Of course, some will argue that not everyone is like this. There are others like Bill Gates, for example, who bequeathed his billions to charity, and other billionaires are following in his footsteps. There have always been individuals like this and there always will be.

But who are they? They are the kind of people we are always talking about, people with Unlimited Freedom of Choice, people capable of going beyond the greatest human instinct, the instinct for Gene Preservation. We are constantly pointing out that these individuals are extremely small in number. Just take a look at their biographies. As a rule, the life of these people before they became rich was associated with a great deal of intellectual, and, therefore, spiritual work. It should be added also, that while donating their basic resources to charity, they do not leave their own children without means. That is to say, they are quite normal.

Bill Gates’s charity movement will, of course, inspire and attract more and more members. But we should not be deluded into thinking that this number will ever include any great portion of the society.  Very few are really capable of going beyond the Law of Gene Preservation…

Conclusion: The aspiration that sits within us, often unrestrained, to accumulate private property emerges entirely from the Law of Gene Preservation and does not symbolise anything fundamentally new. So, The Last Faith, which holds to the principle that there are two, and only two, fundamental laws that govern human behaviour remains true for now!

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

Human Morality, Religion, Society

Celibacy – the double crime of the Catholic Church

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Once again, a paedophilia scandal has shaken the world’s Catholic Church. And there is no doubt that celibacy is the main reason for this shameful phenomenon!

Celibacy or the vow of celibacy for Catholic priests became the mandate in the Western Church in the era of Pope Gregory I the Great (590-604 AD) and has remained in existence since then.

Like any tradition, the celibacy must have become established not simply for the sake of serving the God, but rather for reasons more profound and simple.

It is well known that the wealth of the Catholic Church heavily depends on the plentiful donations from its members. The father founders of the Catholic Church were clearly intelligent people who understood human nature and felt the Law of Gene Preservation intuitively. They understood that no power, no fear of God could be strong enough to stop priests from sneaking into the Church’s treasury if it provided a solution in providing for their children and grandchildren. The celibacy was established to avoid the risk of the ‘devotees’ succumbing to this temptation. As simple as that!

What is celibacy from the point of view of The Last Faith?

It is not just a sin, it is a true crime against human nature, a double crime against two fundamental principles of The Last Faith:

  • against the right of the individual to Gene Preservation
  • and against the right of the individual to Freedom of Choice

Neither God nor Christ could have come up with the idea of celibacy. Did God not instruct the people: ‘… be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth…‘?

The paedophilia among the Catholic priests is the perverted and shameful result of celibacy and abstinence from the “normal” sexual relationships.

The Vatican must repent and decide on the abolition of celibacy if it hopes to prevent the continuing diminishment of its authority!

Sadly, the Pope’s speech, recently delivered in Ireland, showed that this is a step His Eminence is not yet willing to take. As before, what he proposed was to treat the symptom but not the cause.

Christ made the ascent to Calvary for the sake of urgent reforms…

Martin Luther was forced to hide from the threat of death throughout Europe to continue the struggle for the Reformation…

What does Pope Francis have to lose? His rank, his papacy? Why is he afraid to face the root cause of the issue?

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

P.S. Dear readers! The main objections to this article are that not all Catholic priests are paedophiles and that there are married Catholic priests who happen to be paedophiles. I absolutely agree with you!
Your objection could also apply to a well-known fact that on average married men live longer than bachelors since there are bachelors who live to 100 years and married men who die young.
But this article is all about statistical evidence!
Despite the fact that the percentage of paedophiles among Catholic priests is small, it is still significantly higher than the average figures among the non-clerical population.
How would you explain this statistic? The only reasonable explanation here is celibacy, which does not lead directly to paedophilia, but increases its probability due to voluntary suppression of the most basic and natural instinct.
History, Politics, Society

The dark side of the Law of Gene Preservation: Populism and Propaganda

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A brief summary of the main ‘axioms’ in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“:

  • Every living creature, including the human being, strives to preserve their genes. Gene Preservation is what underlies the ability of parents to sacrifice themselves (and others) for the sake of their children, the phenomenon of large families in developing countries as well as the phenomenon of smaller families in developed countries (more details are provided in the book).
  • Only human beings are endowed with Freedom of Choice which allows to act and think both in accordance and contrary to Gene Preservation. Freedom of Choice stands behind science and art as well as all the great discoveries in the world and its most grievous crimes. It is Freedom of Choice which explains the words of Omar Khayyam: “Man, like the world in the mirror, is multifaceted. He is despicable and he is immensely great!”

If you look around, you can see that the majority of people live solely for Gene Preservation (and dedicate their Freedom of Choice to it): mother’s milk, nursery, school, university, work, home, wife/husband, lover, divorce, second/third marriage, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, drinks with friends, books/TV/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, a stroke/heart-attack, the grave/crematorium. There is nothing wrong with this. People are honestly fulfilling their key biological function.

A slightly smaller percentage of people exists, who successfully combine Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice – working, raising their children and managing not to lose a “child’s” interest and curiosity about the world they live in. They are always interested in something new, they try to discover more about the world around them, and try to formulate and express their own understanding of the world. Some even manage to change it. What distinguishes people like this is a high level of erudition, an open mind and liberal views on life.

The percentage of people who live solely by Freedom Choice is negligible, and often they lead unenviable lives in terms of the revolutionary and marginal nature of their behaviour and attitudes (take for example the fate of Christ, fanatically calling people to have a compassion for their neighbours contrary to the dominant morality of the time). Yet it is these people who have significant influence on the development of human society, who conquer new horizons and make revolutionary discoveries, that change the lives of all human beings without exception (more details here).

If we look back over the history of human civilisation, we see an obvious tendency towards the growth of Freedom of Choice – slavery has been abolished, the feudal system has vanished into oblivion, information, cultural and geographical boundaries that used to separate people are being erased before our very eyes. The basic rights of the individual are recognised in most countries around the world. In general, people are displaying more tolerance and less aggression in comparison to previous generations (more details here).

The reason for this tendency is the fact that increased Freedom of Choice creates better conditions for Gene Preservation. This is why the majority of people support the achievements of human civilisation and prevent it from slipping back into the past (more details here).

So how do we explain temporary regressions and spikes in violence among the population such as that witnessed during the two world wars? How do we explain the emergence of Nazism in Germany and Communism in Russia? And quite recently, in a much more humanistic form, the election of Trump and the vote for Brexit?

The reason is, again, quite simple – in all the cataclysms listed above, people believed that they were improving conditions for the fulfilment of Gene Preservation:

  • Communism in Russia emerged as a fierce reaction to the terrible gap that existed between the ruling elites (including the Tsarist family and the Church) and the rest of the population in terms of basic rights and general well-being. Result: the burning of churches, the execution of the Tzar’s family, civil war.
  • Nazism emerged as a fierce reaction to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the economic slowdown on the backdrop of the Great Depression. Result: concentration camps and the Second World War.
  • Those people who voted for Trump and Brexit come mainly from economically disadvantaged areas, which emerged as a result of the post-industrial economy (limitation of the industrial sector, the growth and natural concentration of the services and information technology sectors in large megapolises). Result: nothing good is likely to come of it.

Why is it that in all the cases mentioned above, people actually ended up worsening conditions for Gene Preservation? Does this behaviour not contradict the fundamental law of all life?

Apparently not! The answer to the apparent contradiction lies in the mass propaganda carried out by the populist supporters of Communism, Nazism, Trump and Brexit.

In every case, the propaganda model is exceptionally simple – it creates the image of an enemy (internal or external) that is supposedly threatening the ‘people’s’ capacity for Gene Preservation on the one hand and proposes a suggestion for a simple way of fighting the enemy on the other:

  • Communism: bourgeoisie, capitalists, imperialists and churchmen. Solution: power to the workers and peasants, dekulakization, repression and totalitarian atheism.
  • Nazism: the Jews, Communists, enemy countries in the First World War. Solution: Concentration camps, invasion of Europe and the Soviet Union.
  • Brexit: Immigrants from the European Union, money to the EU instead of local hospitals. Solution: Leave the European Union.
  • Trump: Mexicans, Muslims, bad trade deals made by corrupt Democrats. Solution: the wall on the border with Mexico, prohibition on the entry of residents of Muslim countries, trade war with the rest of the world.

Squashing the fundamental law of all life, populist propaganda-makers succeeded in drumming up blind rage, xenophobia and nationalism among most of the population, for whom Gene Preservation comprises the most important aspect of life.

Taking into account the fact that every individual is capable of sacrificing their own life for the sake of Gene Preservation, it is not surprising that we witness an animal savagery in the fight against ‘the enemies’ created by the propaganda machine.

Cruelty has nothing to do with nationality! It is fundamentally inherent in all living beings for the sake of Gene Preservation.

Communism and Nazism fell, having taken millions of lives and without delivering on its indubitably false promises. Trump still has a couple of years to go before the end of his first term and no heavenly manna has descended on America yet. Brexit will most likely be reversed, if not in the next couple of years, then during the next quarter, when the British will understand that Gene Preservation is easier and more profitable as part of the European Union.

Will propaganda bear fruit in the future?  The answer is ‘always’. Since it appeals to the most basic instinct of all life, there is nothing anyone can do to change this.

The only hope is that the percentage of people with developed Freedom of Choice, who are capable of critically evaluating complex economic and political situations will increase. This should be facilitated by an increase in freedom of choice of information and a growth in access to the internet by all (more details here).

Only the future will show what new political fluctuations we can expect to encounter and whether we will manage to see them through with minimal losses…

Alanbek Yussupov, based on the model proposed by “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“

Family and Relationships, History, Human Morality

Medea and The Law of Gene Preservation

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We all remember as children reading the great tragedy of Medea by Euripides. In a terrible tragedy, as her husband plans to leave her for another woman, the heroine Medea kills their two young sons in a fit of jealousy in the final scene. What inexplicable, unimaginable power could drive a mother to murder her own children?

From the numerous examples cited at the beginning of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”, we know that in nature, any mother, either among humans or the animal world, will sacrifice her own life without a moment’s hesitation, in order to save her child, her young.

What could compel a mother to overcome this fundamental law of nature, the Law of Gene Preservation? Or might the law be fallible?

Literature gives us many examples too of how the madness of love and passion can inspire a lover both either to achieve the greatest feat or commit the gravest crime:

  • Andriy from Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba betrays his father, brother and brothers in arms for the sake of his Polish lover.
  • The young man from Gorky’s fairy tale, “The Heart of a Mother,” who is in love agrees to take his mother’s heart, essentially agreeing to her murder, at the whim of his beautiful beloved.
  • The murder of a competitor (male or female) in love triangles is also a common theme, although, more often than not, even today murders committed in a fit of jealousy involve the object of the murderer’s passions, as was the case with Jose who killed Carmen.

The Law of Gene Preservation cannot be traced in any of these examples, except for the example in which the mother tears out her own heart for the sake of her son’s ‘happiness’.

Yet to kill one’s own children as Medea did? Recalling how early on in the play, Medea kills her own brother in order to delay her pursuers, I could just have put Medea down to being psychologically inadequate and leave it at that. Yet to take such an approach would be to underestimate the complexity of the issue. I decided to route through my memory to see if I could come up with an example I had witnessed in real life. Then I remembered something…

When I was young I had a friend. He was a handsome man, good humoured, always joking around. He had a beautiful voice, played the guitar and was brilliant at telling a good story. He was the life and soul of any party or company of men or women, a fighter and a gambler; in other words, a smooth operator. Naturally, he enjoyed great success with the “weaker” sex and was very responsive to any manifestation of their feelings.

But one day, he met his one and only and with the fiery passion that burned between them, they married in just the second month after having met. A year passed and they had a son, who was the copy of his father. All this time, my friend loved his wife although perhaps not quite as passionately as before, and he adored his son but was unable to fight his own nature and continued secretly visiting his former girlfriends ‘in arms’ as well as our boys’ nights.

When his son was older and going to school, my friend openly and more frequently went out, often not returning home until morning. Things continued in this vein for a couple of years and then one day he called his friends and in a grave voice asked them to stop inviting him to friendly get-togethers. After insistent demands for him to explain why, he gave in and revealed that every time he disappeared from the house, his wife beat their son. We never saw him after that.

I do not know how his family life unfolded, but I heard that he brought up his son, gave him a good education and that his son later married. In other words, he brought him up until he could stand on his own two feet and fulfilled the Law of Gene Preservation.

I could not help comparing my friend’s wife with Medea. Thank God we live in different times according to different customs and values.

Readers of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” may remember that of all the conceivable and inconceivable questions posed in the Prologue, only one was left unanswered – the riddle of Love.

In saying that the foundations of the Law of Gene Preservation are to be found in Love, we only half answered the question. What we did not express is why Love is so selective, why a person in love can see no-one else in the entire second half of humanity except for the object of their love, their passion.

I imagine this second half of the riddle of Love to be like a dark matter that is capable of suppressing the Gene Preservation instinct and driving a person to commit the most horrific crimes possible in human nature; a dark matter, such as that which fills our Universe and continues to remain the cosmological mystery of our day.

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

Family and Relationships

Parents and Children, Brothers and Sisters

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No individual is capable of blindly loving their parents, brothers and sisters in the same way that they blindly love their own children.

The reason for this is simple: human beings do not carry out gene preservation via their parents, brothers and sisters. This is only possible via their own children.

Hence we reach the conclusion that blood is not always thicker than water! There can simply be any degree of affection for one’s parents, brothers and sisters (from a huge amount to none at all) which is developed via parenting and cohabitation over a long period of time.

The reason for the development of amicable relationships between brothers and sisters is also simple: it is a way for parents to maximise gene preservation. The closer children are when growing up, the greater the chance that they will preserve their own genes, and, by consequence, the genes of their parents. This is why the majority of parents try to create a warm atmosphere in the family, fostering friendship and mutual support between their children.

Despite expectations built on myth and literature, when children grow up living in separate homes, adult meetings between brothers and sisters are often unsuccessful. The same goes for meetings between biological parents and children brought up in children’s homes. There is a reason for the Kazakh saying that goes: ‘I didn’t see you being born, and I won’t cry when you die’.

In the majority of cases, the love that a person feels for their own children is ‘blind’ and limitless because it is based on gene preservation. This is why parents can love their children their entire lives without getting anything back, even if their children do not love them in return.

Alanbek Yussupov, based on “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer“

Religion, Science

God in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

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God in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” refers to the UNKNOWN. It is a convenient figure of speech, a literary technique.
There was a time when God began beyond the cave, when people had no idea how to explain thunder and lightning. Today, God has been ‘pushed’ by science to occupy a space behind the Big Bang and human consciousness.
We don’t yet know what existed before the zero moment, how a person thinks and how thoughts are born in the mind.
Neither do we know why man freezes dumbfounded before the ocean surf, why we stop in peace before the still surface of a morning lake, or why the soul hurts when it hears the sound of a crane’s cry in the sky … And so, we call it God. The unknown, albeit as yet unknown…
We will refer to the God of the churches, mosques and synagogues as ‘religious God’. The Last Faith has nothing to do with this God, who decides everything for everyone and everywhere works magic.
Family and Relationships

What is childfree all about – mutation or extreme Freedom of Choice?

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In recent years, in some streams of Western media and throughout the world, articles have appeared that some conservative-minded segments of the population have found disturbing. The subject of these articles are the ‘childfree’, adults and often couples who voluntarily choose not to have children of their own.

The question instantly arises, “What kind of a phenomenon is this? Is it possible to deliberately suppress the Gene Preservation instinct inherent in all living nature?”

Statistics show that childfree adults are most common among highly educated, urban, successful, well-off and less religious portions of the population above the average childbearing age. Following the principles of The Last Faith, I would say that the ‘childfree’ are among those with higher than average levels of Freedom of Choice.

Without doubting the original statistics, I would be inclined to interpret them differently.

According to my personal observations, the majority of these people originally come from a relatively poor background, are aware of high standards in life and when they were younger, dreamt of being able to provide these standards of living to their own children in the future.

Devoting themselves entirely to the achievement of a successful career, they do not notice how quickly time passes and by the time they have achieved success after 45-50 years, they face the real threat of not having enough time left to bring their own children up until they are old enough to stand on their own two feet.

Moreover, by this age they are drained by the fear that having children will mean that they will lose the comforts of life to which they are now accustomed, i.e. they develop that well-known phenomenon: age-egoism.

Now they simply find themselves having to explain their situation and so they tell others that their decision not to have children is deliberate, i.e. that they are childfree.

In my opinion, the situation is in fact exactly the opposite, i.e. in their youth, these people experienced an over-inflated sense of responsibility for their future children. In other words, for the Law of Gene Preservation. Their claims that they are satisfied by relationships with their favourite pets, or at best, with their nieces and nephews, are not entirely convincing.

It brings to mind a story from many years ago published in the Russian ‘Literary Magazine’ about two students from the same university who were in love but then argued and split up over some trivial thing. To prove himself to his love, the young man devotes himself to science, in the end becoming a well-known scientist, academic, and winner of all kinds of awards. And then one day, once he had retired, he was walking through a square and came across an elderly lady, surrounded by a bunch of merry grandchildren and recognised that she was the girl he had loved in his former university days many years ago. They gave each other a hug, sat down and began to reminisce about the past. When it came to parting, the academician gave a sad sigh and said: “How gladly I would give up all my titles and rewards for all these charming little ones to be our grandchildren.”

Of course, among the childfree there are those genuine individuals who decided not to have children at a young age. There are even so-called ‘childhaters’.

Returning to the main question however: ‘what makes a person suppress their natural instinct, mutation or extreme Freedom of Choice?’, I am of the opinion that the question is something for geneticists. I am sure that genetic studies are already being carried out in this area, just as once studies were made of homosexuals.

Either way, the more conservatively minded portion of the population can rest assured – the childfree phenomenon by definition, cannot be passed on genetically.

P.S. During the period 1960-70, ethologist J.Calhoun conducted experiments on rodents placed in artificial, ideal living conditions with food provided. In the case of rodents, these conditions led to the cessation of reproduction, however, the transfer of these results to equivalent behaviour in human beings raises great doubts. We all know that couples who are already rich or become wealthy at the peak of childbearing age almost always have many children.

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

History

Dreams from a Soviet childhood: “Klava”

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In our fourth-year primary school class, there was a girl called Klava. I don’t remember her surname. She was quiet, inconspicuous and plain, short and poorly dressed all in grey. She did not take part in class games and never even jumped the skipping rope with other girls during school breaks.

She always got average marks and was her parents’ only daughter. Both her parents worked at the school, her father as the boiler man and her mother as a caretaker.

Klava was the only Orthodox believer in our class. She was the constant concern and headache of our teacher Faina Grigorevna, a woman who was as beautiful as she was clever and kind.

Once, our teacher went off sick for quite a while and so was replaced by the Head Teacher, who taught history and social science to the older classes. Naturally, I don’t remember her name.

When she learned there was a believer in the class, she was completely horrified. She shouted that while she was Head Teacher there would be no religion in our school. That same day, in place of the last lesson of the day, she announced a special ‘town hall’ meeting in which she called Klava to the blackboard and demanded that she publicly denounce God in front of the entire class.

Klava did not say a word and hung her head in shame. Seeing that the silent Klava was not going to respond and having exhausted all her cries and threats to expel Klava, the Head Teacher decided to switch to a gentler approach.

“There is no God! There just isn’t! I am not afraid of God! He can’t do anything with me, you see?” she continued calmly.

Klava remained silent.

Losing all patience, the Head Teacher finally went back to shouting.

Klava’s lower lip began to tremble furiously and several times she tried to speak, but all she could do was make strange sounds. There was an oppressive silence but right at that moment Nikolay, who shared a desk with Klava, grabbed hold of his stomach and fell to the floor with a terrible groan.

Leaving Klava by the blackboard, the Head Teacher came over to see what was wrong with Nikolay and sent someone for the doctor. Right at that moment, the class was saved by the bell, Nikolay made a sudden ‘recovery’ and everyone went their own way home.

Klava did not come to school the next day. Her parents did not come to work the next day either. The Head Teacher sent Nikolay and I to visit their tiny cottage on the outskirts of the town to summon the entire family to the school.

When we got there, the door was wide open. There was no-one inside and the house was empty. The neighbour said that the family of three had said a quick goodbye the evening before, loaded their things into a small truck and set off, who knows where, without saying anything to anyone.

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

History, Religion, Theory of Knowledge

Original sin or the great feat of Adam and Eve?

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Question:

Why does the Christian Church refer to Adam and Eve’s transgression of God’s prohibition to approach the tree of knowledge as the “original sin”? What right do we have to call this transgression a ‘sin’ given that we emerged as a result of it?

Why has no-one yet discovered the real reason that compelled Adam and Eve, having tasted of the tree of knowledge, to consciously break God’s prohibition, full in the knowledge that they would be driven out of paradise?

Answer:

Because a paradise with restrictions, a paradise without Freedom of Choice, is no paradise at all, but a golden prison! It is impossible to come closer to God, let alone stand beside Him, in a paradise such as this!

Our ancestors Adam and Eve favoured Freedom of Choice endowed by God Himself (consciously or inadvertently) over living in that kind of paradise. In other words, they chose a hard life here on “sinful” Earth, where they gave birth to their children in pain and by the sweat of their brows they ate their daily bread.

Having tasted from the Tree of Knowledge, our ancestors Adam and Eve learned not only Love, Good and Evil, but opened the gates to any Knowledge!

Many centuries since then, Jesus Christ, the worthy descendant of Adam and Eve, rebelled against existing religious views, proposed a compassionate morality for humankind, and consciously went out to Golgotha.

And all humanity’s efforts on Earth over thousands of years have been directed towards increasing the value of human life, the right to Gene Preservation, Freedom of Choice, and the right to independently experience the world around them.

And the results are extraordinary! There is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, along with flights to the Moon, preparations for a flight to Mars, the creation of the Big Bang theory, explorations of the beginnings of the Universe, and much, much more.

And all this started with Humanity’s first uprising, the uprising of Adam and Eve, which we should herald as a great feat! We owe them a low bow and our eternal gratitude.

Incidentally, that is why it seems naive and ridiculous that certain earthly powers attempt to curb and suppress their citizens’ efforts to expand Freedom of Choice, because it was something even the Creator was unable to achieve.

Karmak Bagisbayev, professor of mathematics, author of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”

An entertaining and thought-provoking dialogue with God written by a scientist from the former Soviet Union