Dear Philosophers,
A Martian observer, if forced to browse a few romantic novels and popular magazines, might conclude that planet earth contains the following items: soul-mates, forgiveness and true love. Since I don?t believe in souls, can?t work out exactly what?s left over in the concept of forgiveness once the purely Christian notions have been subtracted, and literally puke blood at the mention of true love, I think our Martian would have been mislead.
These and other ethereal absolutes are often referred to in our culture and together constitute a highly dubious system of folk-biology/psychology. The thought that true love exists like some perfect element deserving a place in the periodic table alongside gold, silver and titanium, or perhaps like some ideal chord which sounds deeply in the glens when ?soul mates? fornicate by babbling brooks, seems to me a peculiarly religious concept, and yet many of those who use this vocabulary are enlightened, scientifically inclined, and religiously disinclined.
For my own part, I believe the world contains stuff like rocks and photons, animals and species; we?re a bunch of ?little talking creatures upon the planet?s back.? On this particular worldview (which I admit is a matter of personal choice in as much as I think the attractive explanatory package we call natural science requires it) I just don?t see where soul-mates fit in. Plus there are all the old objections to dualism. (Please imagine that these parentheses contain a concise and undeniable exposition of the flaws of dualism. Ahem.) By the way, I?m not exactly of the ?all human emotion is about shagging and DNA replication? school of thought. I recognise that the human mind is a complex and imperfectly adapted thing.
Personally I find this liberating. When I find myself inadequate by these pseudo-spiritual standards, like when I find that loving my girlfriend just doesn?t make daffodils any more beautiful than they were, or when I find that once close friends pass out of my life and cease to be important, then my biological worldview absolves me from any compulsion towards self-flagellation. I do realise that not everybody feels the same way; they find the scientific/animal view too bleak.
Anyhow, what I?d like to suggest is that these mysterious spiritual phrases can function as useful metaphors, and that if we treat them as such then the scientific worldview loses its impersonal (carefully chosen word) edge yet retains its potential for liberation. What I mean is this: I don?t ever expect to meet a soul mate or to be someone?s soul mate; I never expect to feel the vapours of true love pumping through my veins; and yet, generations of people have used these phrases in an attempt to aptly describe their experiences. So?there must be some set of experiences which human beings are capable of undergoing and which in some important sense are analogous to true love etc. The implication is that we can use this mysterious vocabulary ?
metaphorically - to describe our lives. The words ?true love? mean approximately those experiences which generations of people were undergoing whenever they used those words. All we need ditch is the metaphysical baggage. After all, the spiritual stuff may only ever have been a theoretical posit designed to explain these remarkable feelings which humans are capable of. The emotions have primacy; they exist before the spiritual inference, and they can exist without that inference. So, yes, we can all demand of our lives that we enjoy true love with our soul mates, if that is what you really want. We can demand of our close friends that our interactions fill us with the emotions which make us want to spout spiritual imagery. Reject anything less. And, of course, these standards apply in both directions: the possibility of enjoying metaphorical
true love carries with it the responsibility of engendering it in those whom we encounter in our lives. (By the way, if we are going to talk of true love and soul mates, then why bother hanging on to the antiquated ONE true love, and ONE soul-mate clause. There are millions of souls out there.)
Lastly, thanks to all those who came to the
Nick