Se abstinere ab incongressibilise percontatio

Prologue

How often at dinners with friends, the conversation that begins on the most mundane topics, ends up depending on value judgements? And always, everyone gives his interpretation, relies on his experiences and refers in the last resort to what he believes is fundamental to human existence. Thus I find myself in front of people who believe in a higher being or universal forces that govern their existence and of course those of others. For them, everything is justified or understood in the light of external interventions that are inexplicable and unavoidable. These people’s lives are subject to conventions that they cannot and will not try to challenge. Politeness and kindness ensure that usually consensus is made on the right of personal opinion and everyone finds himself thus strengthened in what he believes to be his right.

Faced with the difficulty, the complexity of expressing my point of view, feeling helpless to express my conception of the world, finally with others, I raise my glass to the beautiful harmony and pleasure of living together pleasant moments. But remaining dissatisfied, frustrated that I could not participate fully as I would like to, did I come to the need to structure in a document all my arguments, my thoughts, these evidences, these proofs of an illumination moment, always so clear, but all of which, usually, ended up fading away in the oblivion of time.

Demonstrating and convincing is not an easy task when it comes to vague concepts that are known to be unverifiable and unsubstantiated. It is rather difficult to conceive a structure of arguments that can shake the one for whom such concepts are fundamental and assumed truthful. So how to demonstrate that a question is inadmissible, that it is impertinent, irrelevant, that it always leads to a dead end and that ultimately one must refrain from asking it? By its nature, no question is impertinent in itself since it always aims to know a subject, clarify the purpose and finally determine the exact nature of the object in question. Questioning is the expression of intelligence, freedom, desire to understand, insight, comfort and security.

How could there be a question so far out of place, totally disconnected from reality, that one should not imagine it? What question can it be that cannot be formulated and stated? It is the question of the origin of all things and its corollary which is the end. This is the question to which we have always given as an answer what has been called the Truth. This particular question could never find a logical answer according to the understanding and knowledge without the contribution of indisputable postulates, where any argument is inadmissible, ending the discussion. Moreover, such postulates have always proved not only unreasonable but out of the realm of knowledge, hostile to the reality of nature and most often harmful to man and society.

Since man has been asking the question, he has applied himself by all means, by all reasoning, by a plethora of examples, by deduction, by inference, in short by all possible and imaginable tricks to find an answer. He never questioned whether his question was reasonable or justified. We therefore intend to demonstrate that the question whose object is the origin or the end of all things, whether it be that of man, that of the universe or of life, is a trap question, that it is not only unsolvable but fundamentally irrelevant. It’s the question that makes you crazy. It is a non-question, an irrelevant question, a question that cannot be addressed and must be avoided. The sincere search for an answer, despite everything, is doomed to failure forever and anyone who claims a solution can only be a fabulator. That is the task we are tackling here.

This essay is based on an analytical grid based on the three fundamental characteristics of any system, namely integrity, security and reproduction in a Darwinian evolutionary context.

1. Interrogation

This first chapter will allow us to identify the origin of the question, of this fundamental research that is so much a concern for humans. This will be an opportunity to define the terms that appear in the context of this exploration. Thus we will discover what is the Truth and this will be an opportunity to measure its extension.

1.1 Awkwardness

Since the human being is aware of himself, since he knows that he is mortal, he has not stopped questioning the cosmos and nature. It must at all costs find a satisfactory answer that enlightens it about its nature and its future. The precariousness of his existence, the diseases that ruin his health, the break of his social ties, the loss of loved ones in short, suffering in all its forms has no explanation, no reason to be. Everything seems to be cruelly determined on its existence. Rich or poor, no matter what level of social life he may be, life constantly brings him its share of annoyances and aggression. But why must he always suffer the vagaries of everyday life? Could he not enjoy the present moment without always being tormented by the end that awaits him patiently, irredeemably, by this sword of Damocles which will cut the thread of his life, whatever his actions, whatever his will, whatever his understanding of the world and whatever he does to escape it. Does not happiness lie in the quietness of the moment, in the absence of all these evils, in peace, serenity, joy, sweetness of life? What imponderables place him in the discomfort and torment of the incomprehensible? Mastering the unknown becomes an inexorable necessity, a constant struggle.

1.2 Answer

To quench his thirst, to calm his suffocating anxiety, the man has concocted many explanations which have consequently shaped his life and his behaviors. He disciplined himself and imposed on himself rules of life that were in keeping with his understanding of nature. It is from the analysis of the world in which he lives, events that have never ceased to overwhelm him and with the tools he has acquired over time that he has built a Truth. It is this Truth that we will discover, obviously in opposition to all the others from the eons and millions of brains who have dedicated their lives to it. For the Truth in this matter can only be unique. Otherwise, it would be just one Truth among others, all equally valid. The Truth is thus absolute, for it gives a global answer to all questions without reference to anything else. It is also total, that is to say complete, because it covers all possible aspects of human life without exception.

1.3 Words

How then to discover this Truth? In order to avoid any confusion, imbroglio, confusion or misunderstanding, it is essential to define the words and the language. Because these do not always have the same resonance according to people, subjects treated and history. A clear and precise definition of meaning and context is essential so that there is no room for interpretation, in order to limit leakage or misdirection as much as possible. The name defines the subject, idea, object in question. The verb indicates an action, an affinity, a relationship between two different objects normally a subject and a complement. The adjective qualifies, adds to the description, to the nature of the subject. Dictionaries of all kinds list the words in the language, giving the accepted definition and contextual use. Thus, the attainment of Truth can only be achieved on the express condition of proper use of words, clarity of concepts, respect for grammar and syntax, by a clear, precise and precise formulation of ideas and concepts.

1.4 Affirmation

Usually, the Truth is a rather long description. It appears in the form of a story, an allegory, a cosmogony which is extended into lessons of morality. It is therefore essential to summarize the approach and synthesize the underlying spirit through an appropriate definition. We then define Truth as follows:

«The Truth is an affirmation that explains the place of the human being in the universe, which justifies his fate and the adversity he undergoes and offers him a means to go beyond his ultimate end.»

This definition has four elements. The first characterizes Truth as an affirmation, that is to say a concise statement, a postulate, a fundamental idea on which the whole building rests, and which is always the creation of the world and man. The other three elements concern man himself, where he first sees his human nature, its finitude and the fate that is reserved for him, then sees himself as protagonist of the world around him, able to act on it-he is a European citizen, and eventually discovers an escape route to what he considers to be detrimental to his existence.

The fundamental characteristic of this affirmation is to extract, to expel the human being from his natural environment to place him in another dimension, in another imagined world, supposed to solve his difficulties, capable of answering all his questions. This world is the world of all-powerful forces, manipulated and controlled by the gods, making a fantastic story in which he participates. In this world, his happiness is based on the respect of the protocols agreed with these deities and the obedience to the established rules, which were designed according to his needs. His existence in the natural world, full of pitfalls, is then only a passage to a paradise that he will be able to reach only after his death, whether natural, accidental, criminal, suicidal or ritual.

These concepts come from philosophical, theological and sociological reflections that transpose into this parallel world, attributing them to the world of deities, the needs and socio-cultural relations of the world it inhabits. This is pure anthropomorphism. The connection between these two worlds is at least abracadabrant. The common object, the human being, inhabits the real physical world, which controls his biological person, while his fate depends on a parallel world that intervenes in his social behavior. The hazards of this behaviour are directly related to the hazards of the biological world to which it temporarily belongs. His ultimate end, despite the decomposition and scattering of this physical and biological substrate, will continue in this parallel world if and only if he believes in the real existence of this parallel world, provided of course that he has not violated its rules of conduct.

The mere fact of believing in a certain proposal for which he has no certainty of likelihood, this single act of accession automatically guarantees him an entry ticket to these imagined places. He still believes that his own nature is binary, that is formed not only of the biological being, but also of a portion from this parallel world. This portion he attributes to what he feels as the inner self, which determines his essence, which he finally calls his soul. Thus, this portion of the parallel world that is embedded for a certain time in him, which is actually himself and not this body, which produces and directs his feelings, emotions and actions, will later return to this parallel world. This is on condition that the rules governing his behavior have been respected, thus safeguarding the original purity of this portion of parallel world defining what he calls spirituality. Any suffering felt by the human is conceived as resulting from a transgression of rules which has as consequence to negatively affect this other part of itself. How does it work? What is the engineering? Nobody knows it but the Gurus who according to the event or the situation concocted for the occasion of the most absurd explanations in agreement with the imagined world.

Thus, the human being is above all that extraordinary portion which constitutes his identity, his personality. He is a portion from this parallel world inserted in a fleshly envelope, inhabiting the material world for some time to finally return to this parallel world at the end of his biological life. It is similar to the diver, in its protective shell, exploring the sea floor, and at the end of his day’s work, will rise to the surface, in the open air. He is still like the butterfly in the caterpillar which must work hard and hard to survive until the construction of its cocoon where in a relative death it will extricate itself to take flight towards freedom. He thus disdains his physical identity, this putrescent body which is not worth any consideration or the worth of decent maintenance, which he rejects as a ball causing him to suffer unnecessarily, which he condemns to geenna. He will justify this state of things by a cosmogony, by a human history of betrayal and infidelity towards the powers of this parallel world where it is always possible to rehabilitate oneself from faults committed through various ascetics. This is how he will mutilate himself, undergo bizarre treatments, privations and other suffering. The absurdity of it is that to escape suffering, there are more.

This is the Absolute Truth which explains the origin of the world, the nature of the human being, his difficulties in living as well as his happiness, his ultimate end and the conditions that will emancipate him from the physical world.

1.5 Truth

The Truth is a word that unites both a definition and its validity, a word that consecrates as true what it covers. We need a definition of true and to start, let’s refer to what the dictionary says about true. For example, the Antidote 9 correction software states:

The true is what conforms to the truth.
Says something concrete that is really what it is.
Not copied.
Which has all the properties in accordance with its nature.
Who is well named.
Which is perfect in its own way.

We complete by adding

A statement is true provided that what it describes is verifiable or observable by means or tools of observation, comparison or inference of what is stated.

In the absence of such capacity, it is impossible to hold a statement true. And to hold it true without being able to validate it is to usurp the sense of truth, it is then what we call belief:

Belief is defined as opposed to truth in that it is held to be true when there is no possibility of validation.

1.6 Belief

As we have seen, the Truth dissociates the world into two components. The first is real and material, the evidence of which cannot be doubted. To deny it is to affirm one’s own inexistence which is absurd since the nothingness cannot affirm anything. The other component of Truth is a pure creation of the mind, totally imaginary, imagined, invented. A fabricated, fictional, unreal, manufactured, chimerical, mythological, mythological, fanciful, fabulous, fantastical, fantastic, legendary. The Truth is only a belief and has all its strengths. To affirm that the Truth is true, it is to usurp rational logic, it is to create a break in the natural process of knowledge, it is an insult to intelligence. Because knowledge is derived and built from the real world by the human neural machinery. It expresses itself, communicates and perceives itself through its anatomical structures whose five senses are the main vectors. All the ideas populating the theatre of an imaginary parallel world can only be concepts from the real world, which have been misused to build a system of convenience and thus are outside the field of rational logic. They come from philosophical and theological suppositions of the times before the advent of scientific knowledge of the world. And that is why the creators of beliefs have rational logic and scientific knowledge in abomination. Neither belief, nor the power of words, nor magical thought allow escape from the real world in which humans live. Belief is based on fear, the unknown and the inability to control the environment in order to ensure one’s own safety. It is this visceral fear that is exploited by the sellers of afterworlds, the gurus of absolute systems, the hypnotists of unknowing, fear that they transpose in fire of hell or other curse appropriate to the context, unscrupulous impostors.

1.7 Usurpation

In parallel with belief, there are what we can call intellectual impostors supported by supposed experts in social sciences and denounced by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. They are the creators of hollow and misleading ideologies that rely in a wrong and fallacious way on scientific research results. They were all trapped and discredited. These ideological drifts are called “Postmodernism” and “Cultural relativism”. The proponents of these ideologies use and abuse an imposing jargon and an apparent erudition where they are masters of the discourse, abstruse, hermetic and obscure. They slip into irrational drifts where everything and its opposite is possible. They are abusers of ideas whose emulators foment protest movements always in opposition to the social order. The meaning of words and truth is, for these people, the least of their concern. They are skilled at travestie words and putting them in a context that is out of place. Their activism gave birth to the social philosophy of "political correctness."

No less important, the political correctness put forward by real luminaries of intellectual circles counts for destructive currents of ethical boundaries. Gender studies, animal studies and bioethics are the main areas of study. They have in common the transposition of natural and fundamental differences from the natural field into the social domain, following rational arguments, but unbridled ones come surprisingly to destroy the ethical differences and borders. Jean-François Braunstein, Jean-François Braunstein analyses and deconstructs the aberrant if not abject conclusions of these exlucubrations of the well-beingthinking which are powerfully installed as new foundations of a social justice having all the appearances of a religion. Mathieu Bock-Côté, Mathieu Bock-Côté criticises and reveals the flaws of a transformation of the city, that of man who gives up his freedom to think and who cuts himself off from all his roots. History also shows us that societies evolve by themselves, abandoning habits and customs which they consider obsolete to adopt new ones. There are dissensions and fights to establish new Truths.

1.8 Societies

Each culture produces its own Truth and in this matter, there is no relativism where all the Truths would be socially equivalent and morally acceptable. According to their dictates, some Truths will be able to coexist or tolerate each other while others will be incompatible and violently intolerant. Democratic societies will be able to accommodate the former, while the latter can only exist exclusively in totalitarian societies. Thus, every society has its Truth that reflects a particular vision of the world, thus ensuring conflict resolution methods guaranteeing its sustainability. Such societies are based on founding principles that explain the origin, laws and reasons for existence. They ensure the social balance of a plurality of individuals who have shared their ways of living and resolve their differences. In a binary world, a mythical pole and a realistic pole give birth to spiritual authority and civil authority which complement and justify each other. Social balance is maintained by the controls imposed by both of the variety of individual opinions thus preserving the Truth.

When new currents of ideas appear in society the various nuclei that compose it will collide and according to their openness and their level of tolerance to diversity or adversity, in the name of their Truth, they will struggle for survival, either by eliminating or absorbing their competitors. Thus, Shmuel Trigano analyzing the new ideology called “post-modernism” which attempts to change the social and political order but above all human, identifies the centers of power and the new order it establishes. The following conclusions are drawn:

In terms of the mind, post-modernism encourages the destruction of disciplines and intellectual methods, it vows language to confusion and misguidance. Politically, it poses a serious threat to democracy as a regime. His ambition to refound the human allows us to glimpse the premises of a utopia that is part of the lineage of historical totalitarianism. These were already imposed in the name of democracy, freedom and humanity. On the moral level, he advocates a stunning reversal of values, confusing the victim and his executioner, in the name of equality.

The Truth that will prevail will be the one that has favored or not opposed the best strategy in the circumstances because there is only one and only Truth.

1.9 To sum up

In order to satisfy his insatiable need for security, man invents his story. He composes it from his daily experience and sociological needs. In this he creates words, concepts, rules, obligations, gods, heaven and a morality which he declares all true and necessary to his existence. This is what he decrees as the Truth, the only one and only, which he will want to impose on all.

2. Being

In this chapter, we explore the structures and mechanisms that lead to the formation of the main components of being, its personality, which will lead us to make a clear representation of the human.

2.1 Schéma

Figure 2.0, "Consciousness", roughly outlines the constituent parts of being and their interactions that make up its dynamic construction. From these multiple processes emerges the self and consciousness that directs choices, decisions and actions towards the being itself and on the other hand towards the environment in which it is located. To himself appear the feelings and emotions that maintain the integrity of the system. Towards the environment, the latter is modified and modulated under the control of laws, under the pressure of social norms and finally by political, economic and other factors. The new perception that emerges compares with that of his previous memories and thus new analyses, choices and decisions are made. A dynamic process recreating at any moment the "I", the "Self", the "Consciousness" in the permanence of a loop that stops only at brain death.

2.2 Personality

Humans are born into the world with a neural machinery that allows them to grasp the outside world and it is through their five senses that they perceive their environment. During the first years of his life, through his multiple interactions with the outside world, the human model and shapes his nervous system. The brain produces new neurons, connects them according to their excitability, stabilizes functional links and creates new architectures. These are representative of the interactions with the external world as well as internal states of its own structure. Thus he builds the spatio-temporal references necessary to distinguish between the external world and himself. It is born with an adaptive neural machinery that allows it to integrate harmoniously into the different physical, social and cultural environments from which it emerges. The acquisition and processing of information varies according to the richness of personal experiences and the quality of the social and cultural environment in which it is found. The knowledge of the world of such an individual is necessarily permeated by the values in vogue and modelled by the prevailing social genres. This is what makes all individuals unique, as they are the result of an infinite number of different interactions with their environment creating personal experience. This is what allows each person to interpret in a unique and creative way all the events of life encountered over time. And everyone can make choices and decisions that ensure the basic needs of being, which is their security and integrity. All these choices and decisions are obviously assessments dependent on the past or previous conditions that determined personal references of each. From all these processes emerges the self, the individual with his personality.

2.3 Self

All those complex process being the same for everyone makes sure without exception that all see in the same way a clear separation between themselves and the rest of the world. Everyone notices the internal world of the being and the external world in which it performs and with which it must constantly interact. The frontier between those two worlds is the epidermic skin, this envelope inside which boils numerous processes necessary to maintain integrity of the being. Into this envelope is the brain, a neuronal machinery that copes with a myriad of signals coming from all the internal part of the body and also from the external world through the five senses. What is constantly building is a virtual production looking as a theatre where the principal actor, the self is interacting with other actors of the external world bathing into a scenery representing the global environment. Into this internal animation, the self plays various scenarios, make decisions, analyze problems and then commit itself. This is at this very moment that the individual really and physically act on the environment and communicate with other external actors who do the same as himself. In return, all those actions taking place in the physical world are simultaneously comprehended and represented anew onto the internal scene which is constantly changing. Retroactively, the self memorize those various states, transform and modify the virtual scenery, pursue its analysis in order to make new decisions and so govern the real life in the external world.

The self is the virtual actor, the decision-maker, the one who directs the internal theatre. But where is it, and what does it consist of? We understand that it does not exist as a defined entity, nor as an identifiable region of the brain, nor as a particular process but rather that it is all the activities acting anonymously which realize the self. There is no particular structure, but several actors. The self is a conceptual vision of a set of activities stable in time and virtual space of the inner world. The self is like a forest, it is all the trees that make up it, it is neither a tree nor an arbor that one could find there.

2.4 Integrity

When the integrity of the neuronal structure making this internal theatrical play is corrupted, be that even minimally, then results comportment turmoil. Even if it is due to natural alteration of the structures, to fortuitous accidents, to traumatizing experiences, to drugs or medication, to the physical constraints causing altered states of awareness, in short to any event affecting or modifying the structures unexpectedly, the normal functions, the personality or the mental state, the self is always altered. Any trauma that goes farther than the tolerance limits of the organism makes permanent changes by the modification of the normal and habitual functions. The death of a loved one, the separation of a couple, the loss of a child are examples. Being conscious of such affections, even traumatizing ones, full of despair is always a harsh moment. Just think of the post-traumatic shock lived by returning military. But when consciousness disappears irremediably, there being gained the vegetative state and becomes like a vegetable. The coma that follows the destruction of the precise zones of the brain makes this state irreversible. Vital functions may continue to work adequately even with external assistance, but the human has vanished. The global integrity of the system and particularly the brain one is fundamental to the expression of humanity.

2.5 Human

What is that distinguish the human in this world, what is its principal characteristic? Without going back to first molecules of life, it can be said that he has the assets of the living world, that is the capacity to reproduce, to protect its integrity and to assure its survival. Following taxonomy, it is a mammal characterized by its anatomic parts. It is a primate and it has numerous cousins looking alike with which it has more than 90% of its genes in common. It is a bipedal with an evolved brain communicating with a verbal language and living in complex social organizations. It is not the sole mammal to have emotions or feelings. Its capacity to reproduce, simulate and live events suffered by others seem to be its proper. The consciousness of itself and the finality of its existence are probably a distinctive characteristic making it different of other living beings. We can then say that:

«The human is the social being whose natural survival instinct crystallizes in a knowledge society and whose fundamental preoccupation is its final ending»

His way to see himself makes him distance pompously from the animal world.

2.6 Animal

How does an animal differ from a human, at least when considering mammals with appreciable brain size relative to their body size. It seems that the animal differs from the human in its inability if not inefficiency to interact with its environment proactively. For the rest, mammals have the same attributes as humans except that they are not all at the same level of performance. Animals have feelings, emotions, event awareness, memory, sensitivity, and environmental interaction, all common to evolved mammals, but at varying degrees of development. Not so long ago, men considered those who were not part of the group as inferior beings and gave themselves the right to exploit them as slaves, a situation that has only recently disappeared. For most men, the animal is an object of commerce, a utility at his service, not worth any respect. He is treated as an inanimate object without further consideration and for his sole personal benefit. Anyone who is interested in life discovers the little difference between the animal world and man. Carl Safina has observed mammals in their natural environment and through their behaviour clearly shows that they have emotions, think and feel in striking ways. Anyone who is aware of himself, his feelings and emotions can only find obvious similarities. The shameless exploitation of animals becomes sad to him as unworthy of a human conscious of himself and takes compassion in this situation. The human developed language and culture which allowed him to propel himself forward as a paragon of the animal kingdom. Quite the contrary of edicts of a religious nature, this does not give him any right to claim the right of life or death over the inhabitants of the planet. In fact it is totally dependent on it as a member of a planetary ecosystem. And in this he is his own enemy because nothing resists him. Its ever-growing population magnifies its destructive actions. Its activities pollute the atmosphere and seas. Its high food needs result in the destruction of land, forests and habitats and drain their contents from ecosystems. Its mercantile greed, economic, political and military practices destabilize and destroy the fragile balances of societies. In all and for all, it is the planet’s supreme invasive predator. The human being is distinguished from the animal by a highly evolved brain, this particular survival instinct and this unwavering concern for its finitude. His knowledge and experiences lead him to deny the animal world, to distance himself from it, to create parallel universes and to dream of eternity.

2.7 In summary

Every human is born with a plastic neural structure that allows him to understand the world and build his own personality. The self is a virtual concept based on the temporal stability of the regulation of internal functions whose integrity is fundamental to existence. Although the human shares the same physiological and emotional processes as members of the animal world, his consciousness of himself and his purpose make him a different being leading him to alienate himself from this world thus contributing to validate his Truth.

3. Eternity stories

Since the dawn of time the human being worried about himself. Maybe since he learned to share his sentiments with others and discuss them, to analyze the causes and links between nature objects, he began to create stories about them. Those were comforting explanations useful for the knowledge and his survival in a hostile environment. But also useful for the social cohesion, for the State stability and for the personal profit of the leaders over the people.

3.1 Beginnings

In the book «Dieu ne joue pas aux dés» (God don't play dices) (pp. 24-25) Henri Laborit gives a probable way to the development of this interest (electronic translation).

The primitive man searched a certain order throughout the apparent world disorder. A simple causality principle gave him a way to order things and beings and to give a meaning to his actions. Animals were constrained to do the same. But thank to his imagination, man gave an extra reason for the existence of events for which he could not discover any causal reason. He attributed to things and to being conscience and a comportment analogous to what he faintly felt inside him. A hidden spiritual source infiltrated understanding of the world that was necessary to act and protect his life. This new world became a vast space where anything was living, conscious, hostile or on the contrary benevolent and favourable if he could understand its language and talk with it. He bathed in a poetic world - if we believe that poetry was falsified by knowledge - in a world he felt he belonged, where he felt himself included like springs, seas, rocks and other living bodies. He talked with those, believed to understand their language, but could not imagine they could have any power, different from his, but superior to his. He needed to find another world, parallel to this one, as the source and origin of those objects, of those creations, looking more or less like him, from which he often took his food, while giving them respect, he also had to fight, and this became the world of gods. An acting invisible world with which it was preferable to be in accord because being stronger than the human world. To act, he needed efficient laws. Often deceived by the absence of apparent causality of events, he imagined new ones and tried to obey them individually as well as a group. To protect his own existence, his well-being, his survival and the group one, he needed to follow the new rules of this new causality, the god desires, which later became through the monotheist religions, God's. The angst that comes from the impossibility to act without rules was concealed by the application of the rules he had created, those of the gods.

Let us go on with the modern man who, according to that schema, complicates and multiply profusely the systems.

3.2 Universality

A long time ago, well before city electrification and even candle lightning, man was looking at stars into the black sky. He found a link between annual cycles of constellations and seasons and he learned to sail following the stars. In darkness, predators were terrifying him while during the day they were looking for their meal. He found the healing power of plants. He did bequeath much evidence about his culture. At most we find temples, stone structures, burial mounds, graves ornamented with paintings, engravings, statuettes, vases, all a testimony about his universe and his preoccupation on the afterlife. So many groups with various tales, so numerous believe we count. We then tally a plethora of belief from the simplest to the most elaborate. With shamanism the speaker sees, hears, feels and communicate with the invisible world where live the forces and the spirits. He is a healer and adviser who links to spirits. With Totemism an animal with symbolic power is a clan guardian, protector or an individual characteristic which determine its security and prosperity. After death, the Egyptian leave for a long journey for the beyond where he is subject to the judgment of the soul. The corpse of the most important is mummified, placed in a sarcophagus and protected under a monumental building. For the Greek, piety consists to know how to pray and sacrifice while saying and doing what is pleasurable to the gods providing salvation of families and of the state. Eleusis mysteries clear up death fear and guarantee a happy life in the hereafter. All Indian gods emerge from Brahman, a divine, non-created and eternal principle, the creator of the universe. His companions, Shiva a destructive and revival principle, Vishnu which preserve the equilibrium between those two and Ganesh that help go over daily difficulties. Hinduism pretends that the human being is submitted to the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth according to the good and bad actions. He escapes it and gain nirvana by the absolute devotion to a divinity and the observance of his Dharma obligations. The three monotheism, those called religion of the book, Judaism with Torah, Christianity with Bible and New testament, Islam with Coran, all shape more or less the actual culture. All those beliefs bear a founding myth, associated rights and rules of daily life providing an unconditional guarantee for an eternal post-mortem life. Around those standard belief gravitate many sects, various religion derivatives, picking some elements of their credo and rejecting others according to their taste. Pantheism is a philosophical doctrine according to whatever exists is in God, an immanent god, not external nor superior to the world, not even creative or personal, identified with nature. New Age picks copiously into all those religions, sects, beliefs, and even in wrongly understood scientific knowledge to produce scores of jumble concocted by auto proclaimed gurus. It is clear that since the dawn of time the human has been fond of mysticism and tipsy with all kind of spirituality.

3.3 Mysticism

Luigi Cascioli, in his book «La favola di christo», «The Fable of Christ» (chapter 6, The cult of mysteries, pp. 59-69) describes the origin of mystical belief and its evolution. (electronic translation)

In the beginning, cults linked to magical and sacred rites solicited natural forces to awake after the winter pause, and later in a second phase address the condition of the human soul after death. Like the seed that comes back to life with its burgeon after having stayed underground during winter, man thought by the same way he could come back to life for a second life. This is by this projection of himself into a seed that revives by burgeoning that man conceived the resurrection after death.

One becomes an adept of those sects by the rite that Greeks called baptism, from «baptizzo» meaning I immerse. All Middle-East religions, supported by various imperialism, were practising baptism.

Since immortality was a god reserved advantage, it was necessary to find a way to transfer it to man. So they incorporated immortality by drinking the blood of animals they sacrificed to them. After having cut the throat, adepts drank the blood and eat the liver to assimilate through those divine essences they contained, the first among others being immortality, the one that permits to live a second and eternal life after resurrecting death (primitive theophagy). Ceremonials became more refined and complicated, blood was replaced with wine and bread appeared as a substance transformable into God body. Those communal meals were ingested at events called «Eucharistic banquet».

Because of theological evolution, those practices looked doubtful: «How can a divinity transmit to man the resurrection virtue if itself doesn't have it since being eternal, it never died?» Then they drove God coming down on earth, becoming human, dying and then resurrection to acquire the virtue of resurrection and the power to transmit it to man; they were called «Soteres» meaning saviours. Those gods were presented as preachers who after being challenged and fight by their enemies, the representatives of Bad, were invariably captured and killed by them. Being always based on the primitive principle that associated resurrection with the rebirth of nature, all divinities died and resurrected in the spring. Those saviour gods were given the title of Kyrios, Lord after their victory over death.

The reason why Mazdeism gained over other religions to the point of being declared State religion by Rome in the second century before common era is due to the fact that this religion favours the blending of peoples by making universal the fight of Good against Bad, a thing that other religions reserved only to their adepts, the followers of the cult of mysteries. Mazdeism searched to convince the masses to support the weight of imperial dictatorship by promising to unsatisfied social classes a reward after death if and only if they suffered with humility and resignation social injustices.

Throughout Greece all mathematicians and philosophers opposed all those theories whose nonsense, refused by reason, couldn't be only a fraud against progress and social evolution. Those thinkers, negating any divine principle, were prosecuted by the religious and political imperialists who based their power on on the intellectual alienation of people. As a consequence of the incompatibility between science and belief, all religions still oppose here and everywhere to scientific research and consider as their worst enemy.

Photo of a IVth century (320-350) mosaic showing the cult of mysteries. It covers a wall of the Piazza Armerina, in the Roman city of Casale, Sicilia, owned by a representative of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, probably a Roman prefect. There they drink blood and eat the liver of the lamb to gain eternal life. Very apparent in middle of front the third eye of foresight.

Following those mystical wanderings, there still remain exploitation by civil powers in accord with religious one. Everyone on its platform acknowledge and praise the other, both congratulating themselves. There is the source and the justification of the power of the other, a tautology.

3.4 States

Since there is no fundamental difference between sect and religion, one can understand that a given religion pretensively asserts that the other belief systems are sects because they do not possess the right Truth, they may not bear the title of religion. It is more plausible to think that a sect is a religion when it is integrated, even informally, into the structure of the state and society. When it is part of the judicial system and dictates all aspects of the lives of individuals, the state is called theocratic as a Muslim state. A more loose integration, but supported by the civil power constitutes a Catholic, Jewish or Hindu-type state. Complete separation and independence between civil power and religious organization, constitutes a secular state. Some states say they are secular, but there is currently no state that can deserve this name, the closest to this definition being perhaps the French state. The 1905 law established secularism in place of the 1801 concordat.

The concordat or treaty signed between the Vatican and a state defines certain mutual obligations between the signatories such as religious freedom, tax collection and other approvals. The Lateran Accords are a treaty between the Holy See and Italy reducing the temporal sovereignty of the pope to the sole state of the Vatican City, confirming that the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion remains the only religion of the Italian state, in accordance with the Statute of the Kingdom of 1848. The United Nations (UN) has recognized the Holy See since 1964, and it has an observer seat.

To enlighten oneself, one need only see what heads of state do at major events, read the text of constitutions, note allegiances, treaties and relations with the papal state or other spiritual leaders. In this respect, one will be surprised by the diplomatic behavior of heads of state compared to that of the people they lead and their personal mentality.

3.5 Precursor

The first avant-garde to unmask the perfidia of religions is none other than a Catholic priest from France, Jean Meslier (1664-1729), discreet and isolated man, first atheist writer. Unable to publish during his lifetime for cause, he leaves posthumously three copies of his "Mémoire contre la religion" whose foreword begins as follows:

Memory of thoughts and feelings of J[ean] M[eslier] Pre[tre]cu[re] d'Estrep[igny] et de Bal[aives] On part of the Errors and Abuses of the Conduct and Government of Men, where clear and obvious demonstrations are seen of the vanity and falsehood of all Divinities and all the World Religions to be addressed to his parishioners after his death and to serve them as a Testimony of Truth, and all their like.
In testimoniis illis, & gentibus.

Further on, in section III of the foreword, he says:

Know, therefore, my dear friends, know that it is only errors, abuses, illusions and impostures, of all that is deposed and practiced in the world for the worship and adoration of the gods. All the laws and ordinances which are published under the name and authority of God or gods, are truly only human inventions, neither are all these beautiful spectacles of feasts and sacrifices or divine services, and all these other superstitious practices of religion and devotion that are done in their honor.

All these things, I say, are but human inventions, which were, as I have already noted, invented by political purposes and cunning, then cultivated and multiplied by false seducers and impostors, then blindly received by the ignorant, and then finally maintained and authorized by the laws of the princes and great men of the Earth, who have used these kinds of human inventions to hold more easily by this means the common men in a rein and make them whatever they would like.

and section VIII, on the first evidence, he says, referring to the authors whom Christians call saints and sacred:

And in their book of Wisdom it is expressly stated that the invocation and worship of idols or false deities is the origin, cause, beginning and end of all evils in the world. (Wisdom XIV-27)

Whereas, as is known, like their predecessors, these same Christians are themselves the inventors of all Christian deceptions.

We too easily tend to forget the past and neglect the elders who like us had eyes, ears and reason to decode the hommerie of time which has not changed a iota since.

3.6 To sum up

Primitive man imagines an invisible world responsible for what he observes in everyday life, a world with its laws and obligations. Magical universes emerge where mysticism reigns as a universal culture. Belief and political power merge to create various forms of states that serve the people for their own greater interest.

4. Dissent

These ideas about man and his beliefs have not been shared by all thinkers. From the beginning they were criticized and refuted, and although they were predominant and invasive, they always had their share of objectors.

4.1 Philosophy

The first thinkers who left us some indications on their reflections, even minimal despite the poverty of the documents that have arrived at us, are of Greek origin and we can classify them in two categories. The first one welcomes materialist thought and we know Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, Leucippe, Democrite, Epicurus, Lucretia. These thinkers who denied any divine principle, were persecuted by the political and religious imperialists who based their power on the intellectual alienation of the peoples. The other category, known to celebrities who have questioned themselves about life, the city, society and man, are the classics Socrates and Plato. Based on their reflections, Aristotle left us the basis of a structured reasoning that is now called philosophy. Inspired by this, the first attempts to justify beliefs on a rational and reasoned basis date back to Augustine D'Hippo. Old Manichean, knowing Platonism, he invents God as a principle that causes not caused. He makes it up with the ideas of perfections, the superlative of positive qualities, essences, all things decreed as objective realities while they are pure speculations. They are the basis of metaphysics, an attempt to integrate the scientific method with philosophical reasoning in order to ennoble it, to confer on it greater credibility, thus creating theology. This intellectual construction, pursued by Thomas-d'Aquin has the purpose of logically justifying faith in the Christian system (Zev Sternhell).

4.2 Theology

Theology, philosophy to the aid of religion, proceeds from the fathers of the church according to the same scenario. It is a question of denying or camouflaging the logical contradiction of reasoning in the first proposition of syllogism which she pompeously calls the ontological argument. These are the five arguments of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) in favour of the existence of God. Ref: Marco DeRossi, p 279.

1. "There is a motive cause for every movement, and God is the first unmoved motor."
2. "Every effect has its cause, it cannot be traced back to infinity, so God is the first efficient cause."
3. "God is necessary in itself, it is the first necessity."
4. "God is the perfect model."
5. «Nature is ordered and requires an intelligence that commands it, God is the intelligent guide of all things.

The first affirmation appears to be a hoax, which should have logically stated: “There is a motive cause for every movement, so there can be no undriven first engine”. The second proposition is a variant of the first, it should have stated: «Every effect has its cause, one cannot go back to infinity, therefore I cannot know of first cause». The third is a free tautology. The fourth affirms a quality, perfection, not an object. The latter reaffirms the preceding, the chain of cause and effect. There is not a shadow of a logical and rational proof or demonstration.

Another example: the problem with evil shows the nonsense of the properties given to God which reduce to its own negation:

1. God is almighty, knows everything and is infinitely good;
2. Evil exists and God knows it or he is unaware of it;
3. He knows it and he can suppress it but he doesn't do it;
4. This is impossible since he is infinitely good;
5. He wants to suppress it but he can't;
6. This is impossible because he is almighty;
7. He doesn't know that evil exists;
8. It is impossible because he knows everything;
9. If God exists with all those attributes there can't be any evil;
10. This is impossible because evil exist;
11. The god hypothesis is impossible according to its intrinsic properties, this is a logical contradiction.

It is clear that the process is always the same, namely a free affirmation which is not based on anything and which carries within itself its own contradiction, its negation being implicit in its expression.

4.3 Greek refusal

Epicure (341-270) is the Greek philosopher who most distinguished himself by refusing mystic and whose thoughts and teachings endured the longest life span. There still were Epicurean schools in the third century AD. Epicure built a knowledge theory founded on senses, on truthfulness of feelings, the sole way able to guaranty that we know reality. He negates God existence using the Evil problem.

Following his master Lucrèce (99-56) undertook to teach the epicurean system, pure materialistic thinking opposed to sophists one. Let us cite sentences from his work «De la nature», (electronic version)

• Nothing can arise from nothing, and we must recognize it since everything needs a germ to begin (I, 205-206)


• Nothing return to nothingness but everything disintegrate and join the elements of matter. (I,248-249)


• To what can we refer? Couldn't we have something else safer than senses to distinguish between true and false ? (I, 669-700)


• First I say that spirit named intelligence, where stay council and government of life, is a part of man as is a hand, a foot, eyes and are parts of the whole of a living. (III, 93-96)


• But the one who thinks that none know don't even know if it is possible to know since he avows to know nothing. I will not plead against the one who decided to walk upside down. Even if I grant him this unique knowledge, if he hasn't seen anything true in the world how can he tell me he knows what it is to know and not to know, where do come from notions of truth and falsity, what is the criteria to distinguish between doubt and certainty. You will discover that senses built the first notions of truth and they are foolproof. (IV, 469-479)

Michel Onfray says of Lucretia that it offers the perfect breviary of the fight against all superstitions:

With him comes a formidable idea, simple and true: religion, the religious are born of inculture and lack of knowledge. The believer is satisfied with faith, for he does not know. The sacrifice to the divinities, myths, illusions proceeds from a lack of information about the true cause of what is happening. When the philosopher worthy of the name works, the priest steps back. When the clergy dominates, intelligence regresses. Lesson that applies to the pagan backroom sellers, Jews, Christians, certainly, but also for all those who do not advance in the brutal clarity of atheism.

Lucretius attacks religion in its foundation, he traces what constitutes it and reveals the reasons why men make idols, worship them, disband themselves, alienate themselves and end up putting their fate into the hands of priests, of the clergy who shamelessly use faith and piety as opportunities to dominate bodies and souls, and then exercise real and formidable political power. Men create the gods in their own hypostazed image. Starting from their weaknesses, they structure forces to which they rely for their greatest misfortune.

4.4 Renaissance and Enlightenment

The Renaissance originated in Italy in the 15th century and spread throughout Europe. It is an artistic movement that rediscovers the art of Greco-Roman antiquity whose perfection must be imitated. It is associated with the rediscovery of literature, philosophy and sciences of antiquity. Humanism appears and gives a new place to the man he conceives capable, thanks to his intelligence, to grasp all areas of knowledge. It is from the Renaissance period, in the 16th century, that rationalist thought is reborn and makes its way into the clutter of medieval illusions. All systems of ideas, incompatible with the deep knowledge of nature, will be put to a halt by Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Bacon and others. The Enlightenment wanted to free the individual from the constraints of history, from the yoke of traditional and unverified beliefs, it brought humanism, universal values, democracy, greatness and autonomy of the individual and made him master of his destiny. The Enlightenment is carried by Locke, Rousseau, Kant who will put an end to all speculative philosophies, Voltaire, d'Holbach, Condorcet, Diderot and d'Alembert who publish the Encyclopédie, Condillac, Saint-Just and many others. The Enlightenment that followed saw the Declaration of Human Rights, gave the individual his freedom and opened the way to scientific knowledge and technological discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries. Zeev Sternhell in a striking analysis of the reaction of Anti-Enlightenment, whose initiators are Vico, Burke and Herder, shows us that this

Denies reason the right to question the existing order. Human rights, like the idea that society is a product of the individual’s will and exists only to ensure his well-being, are a dangerous chimera, a real revolt against Christian civilization. What exists has been consecrated by experience, by collective wisdom and has a raison d'être which may not be clear at all times for each individual but is the fruit of the divine will present in history.

They see the individual as being determined and limited by his or her ethnic background, history, language and culture. The anti-rationalism that follows is accompanied by cultural relativism and nationalistic communitarianism. One of the main lines of the argument developed by Zeev Sternhell is that

The rejection of the Enlightenment since the end of the 18th century is not only a negation of the principles on which democracies of the 19th and 20th centuries are based, But, to the extent that the ability of the individual to control the world in which he lives is a fundamental constituent element of liberalism and later liberal democracy, this revolt undermines the foundations of liberalism itself.

He adds that

The veneration of the particular and the rejection of the universal constitute the common denominator to all thinkers of the counter-enlightenment regardless of their environment and their time.

Even today, even discredited philosophies and theologies still have their entries in the high-knowledge institutions that are universities. It now includes the postmodernists and multiculturalists, direct heirs of this anti-enlightenment movement.

4.5 Questionner crowd

It is estimated that three million years ago, the first humans on Earth were about 100,000 individuals. By 50,000 BCE, the world population may have reached 1.5 million individuals. It is 40,000 years old the population is about 5 million and has about 100 million twenty centuries BC. There would be about 500 million of them at the end of the 15th century, 650 million around 1750, 1.2 billion around 1850, 2.5 billion in 1950. The population of 1 billion at the beginning of the 19th century has now grown to over 7.6 billion people. An estimated 100 billion people have lived since the appearance of Homo sapiens on earth 200,000 years ago. So it’s roughly 100 billion people who have searched for their lives during the answer to the question. Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here? Where do I go? Why should I suffer? Why should I die? What happens after death? And no one, no one, has ever found a satisfactory answer except for mythical theatrical creations. Could we question this particular fact that no intelligent answer has been found despite the amount of grey matter involved? Assuming that a true knowledge of the real world did not begin until around the 15th century and that only 1% of the population had access to this knowledge, it still concerns about 300 million brains eager for knowledge, and still no answer. Does this inability not raise the slightest suspicion of a fundamental pitfall?

4.6 To sum up

Philosophers and theologians have presented many proofs of the existence of God, all of which were challenged and denied in the name of rational logic. Despite the countless number of thinkers, no one has produced any evidence on this subject.

5. Structures

In order to find an explanation for the fact that no one has found a valid answer in view of the current knowledge of the world, it is necessary to examine not the external world but rather the inner world of the questioner. It is necessary to analyze the processes that take place within the being. We need to look at the neural structures, the circuits that carry information from both outside and inside the human body. One must see how this body works, understand how its memories, analyses, emotions, feelings, personality, decisions and social interactions are developed. It is necessary to reflect on the means by which the general mechanisms of acquisition and processing of information are determined, which construct and determine the being.

In the following chapters, we draw on research conducted over the past several years to understand how the brain works. We particularly value the work of Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist, neurologist and psychology researcher. He is the author of numerous books, including: «L'Erreur de Descartes», «Le sentiment même d'soi», «Spinoza was right», «L'autre moi-même» and «L'Ordre étrange des choses», all available in english.

5.1 Evolution

First of all, it must be aware that the human being, like all other terrestrial organisms, is the completion after more than 500 million years, approximate date of appearance of life on earth, of an infinite number of interactions between all the individuals who preceded it and their environment, itself changing according to geological eras. It is the fruit of evolution, in the Darwinian sense of the term, of the genetic code that defines and constructs it. Thus one must see in its current structure the accumulation of elements that at some point in history, ensured its survival and progression in the organism currently endowed with the most developed brain on the planet.

Notable fact, throughout the evolution, which has developed new and amazing forms and functions within each group of vertebrates, some traits have not moved at all. And one of the things that has never changed in the hundreds of millions of years of evolution is the structure of thyroid hormone; not a single atom has changed between a tadpole and a human. The same molecule needed to orchestrate the transformation of a tadpole into a frog is also needed to ensure optimal brain development in all vertebrates, including humans.

In particular, the neurons that will make up the brain develop at specific locations and then migrate to other locations, according to various time sequences and subsequently establish connections between them. The thyroid hormone affects all these processes, whether it is proliferation, migration, synapse formation or myelinization of axis cylinders and it intervenes in all parts of the body and brain, not only during the months of pregnancy, but during the first two years of life in humans.

These processes are extremely sensitive to external influences, notably endocrine disruptors and anything that may interfere with development in general. That is why the fetus develops in the protected environment of the maternal womb. Again, it is not immune to the vagaries of the mother’s life. Even after birth, neural connections are not permanent and are modified according to the learning of the baby and child.

This is the message that Barbara Demeneix delivers to us, namely the extreme importance of thyroid hormone in the formation of the human being, the maintenance of the integrity of the brain and all neural apparatus, essential to the establishment of cognitive structures of being.

5.2 Brain

Obviously, the brain is the central point where all signals from both outside and inside converge. It is the command center that presides over the decisions and consequent reactions of the being. The brain is a neural structure whose processes have the function of regularizing and maintaining at an optimal level both the internal states of the organism and the relationships between the individual and his environment. In all living beings, three fundamental principles are observed that govern the whole of organic functions: to maintain the integrity of the whole, to ensure safety and to guarantee reproduction. Integrity is about the internal functioning of the organization, maintaining good health, managing communications with the external world whose main channels are language, emotions, gestures, actions and movement. Safety concerns the supply of food by livestock techniques, agriculture, food preparation, immediate body protection including production of clothing, air conditioning of premises, ensuring rest and comfort, the isolation of aggressors and predators by shelter and ramparts of all kinds, both for the individual and for the group. As for reproduction, the appropriate behaviors are genetically inscribed in the neural structure and hardly modulated by social norms. All these necessities essential for survival are the same in varying degrees for both human and other living beings. They are possible thanks to a brain that learns and decodes its environment, which reacts by making the most judicious choices and takes the actions that will ensure the necessities of life. Those who perform best and are most adapted to external changes will reproduce more effectively at the expense of others, thereby ensuring their prevalence.

5.3 Personality

Personality is the result of all interactions between the individual, his environment and many other individuals similar to him. This is modulated by all social norms, at the first level by parents and then in a variable way according to the vagaries of life by family, friends, village, country and finally the world as a whole. The development of a person begins at birth from the first contact with the mother and subsequently follows the whole range of stages of development, throughout life, until the end. Throughout his life, the individual accumulates experiences, makes good or bad decisions, remembers them and buries them in the depths of the being with the help of vivid and structuring emotions. The personality encloses the necessities of life in social protocols whose expression varies infinitely according to individuals. These protocols are based on models of understanding the world, on conventions transmitted by authority, on inhibitions, on feelings, on enmities, on friendships, on fashions, on happy or unhappy experiences, etc. Some personalities will have affinities with each other while others won’t. Some may be affected by difficulties of integration within the group or by health disorders. The personality is structured in such a way that an individual can develop appropriately in his physical and social environment. Poorly adapted, the individual becomes delinquent or suffers from psychological problems that will vary from mild to deep. The set of interacting individuals composes a global reservoir that defines society with its rules, its habits and customs, a global personality, finally a unique and distinct society and built in the same way as others. The various societies, framed by a state and political structure define nations and nationalisms.

5.4 Affects

The structure of the brain has been mapped and shows areas or domains to which behavioural functionality is associated. The most obvious are the visual, language and motor areas that can be seen on the outer surface of the cerebral cortex. Other areas were also discovered and circumscribed as a result of traumatic brain injury that destroyed or seriously affected the person’s behaviour. Schizophrenia, paranoia, psychopathy are well-known personality disorders. Degenerative neural diseases such as Parkinson’s or Lou Ghering disease are more well known, but agnosia and anosognosia are even more surprising pathologies, affecting in a fractional and disjointed way the abilities of self-awareness. Hormones, drugs and drugs directly affect the functioning of certain neurons and result in disorganized, abnormal physical states or altered states of mind. Certain areas are crucial to existence itself and their alteration causes the coma, leaving the individual in a vegetative state where self and consciousness are absent while other organic functions are not affected. Damage to specific areas of the brainstem leads to death. From the knowledge of the organic functions of the brain and their external relationship with personality, it is clear that personality is a human characteristic dependent on the neuronal substrate. The brain is an extremely complex neural structure supporting dynamic processes that can be affected and modified at any time by the vagaries of life. Consciousness and self are dynamic neural processes constantly regenerating themselves endlessly from birth to death. Any disturbance is a source of problems reflected externally by both organic and psychological dysfunctions.

5.5 Emotions

Emotions are physiological and physical reactions resulting from a dissonance or reinforcement of choices essential to the survival of the individual, choices highly beneficial or carrying contradictions whose resolution is manifested by typical behaviors. They convey and accompany external signals for survival, such as fear, flight or catalepsy in the face of danger or joy and happiness in protective and constructive situations. They intervene and set the behaviour when resolving internal conflicts. They are intimately linked to the reprogramming of codes, internal models, the reorganization of memories, the construction of decision alternatives, new emotional links between objects, choices essential for survival. Emotions set, deeply fix behaviors and attitudes and change them require others, equally intense. They are what Antonio Damasio considers as somatic markers.

5.6 Feelings

Feelings, not to be confused with emotions, remain within the individual. They represent internal states of consciousness affecting the self. They are also closely related to emotions when the environment changes as guiding elements. Feelings are essential to decision-making when rational deduction cannot make a difference. They selectively orient and direct behaviour. For example, one may have feelings of hatred or love, rationally unjustifiable but produced unconsciously as a result of past forgotten experiences or even as a result of imperceptible physico-chemical agents. Popular expressions like "I can’t feel it" or "she’s getting on my nerves" are good examples.

5.7 To sum up

Evolution has accumulated by building in the neural structures of the brain the processes through which emotions, feelings, consciousness, self and personality emerge. Through its adaptive reactions, this plastic structure eminently sensitive to disturbances, ensures the durability of the being thanks to homeostasis. All this demonstrates the absurdity and ineptitude of mystical speculative ideas: there is no essence, soul or homunculus residing somewhere in this fleshly envelope as representatives of self or properties of consciousness.

6. Understanding

The understanding of the world is based on all these elements that we have just described. Feelings, emotions, behaviours, decisions, past events, good or bad experiences, social relationships, health status, misfortune or happiness all reflect personal values. Everyone may have a vision of the world which, of course, is associated with their well-being, their survival both physically and socially, but what about deeply?

6.1 Liberty

Freedom, in its global and general sense, is the absence of constraint. For the individual, freedom of thought means his ability to choose, decide and act from within, that is, his profile, personality, personal values. Seen from the outside, every individual is limited by the richness or indigence of his life experiences. Different individuals have different limits, areas of action that are compatible, common, disjoint or opposite. Everyone seeing the real world through their own glasses may have the impression of total freedom, but in fact it is limited. All freedom is exercised in accordance with the internal image that a person has of the world, always within his sphere of action. All individuals are free, because they have the neural mechanisms that allow them to analyze, memorize, choose and act. These are necessarily healthy individuals with no binding lesions. What differentiates people is the inner culture, how it is maintained, its richness.

6.2 Free will

Although free, each individual is forced to exercise his freedom in a well-defined field, that of his inner garden. But what if the garden is not fully representative of the outside world? When the individual has not been able to evolve without limits or constraints to experience and live freely the real world in its totality, necessarily, he has not been able to build correct and comprehensive mental representations. His vision of the world is restricted, coloured by its biases and limits. In this case, it is still free, but it cannot judiciously arbitrate its interactions with the real world. So, it is said conditioned, limited, unprepared, because, having integrated subversive elements limiting its ability to arbitrate or on the contrary not having integrated essential elements for a proper understanding of this world, it does not have what we call free will. Although he feels that he is making all choices and taking all actions in full conscience, which is the case, he cannot arbitrate his decisions with full knowledge of the facts. Even when faced with the obvious, he will refuse to act in a rational and logical way, because he will be under the influence of his feelings and emotions preferentially linking him to other experiences, to other ways of being.

6.3 Society

It is from this inner garden that everyone evolves and takes actions in relation to the real world. Thanks to memory, each person has a set of reference points, internal references that allow him or her to face the real world. All individuals through their interactions confront all these memories and, put together, end up building a global, virtual individual. Thus, this set of references, collective memories builds and defines a national identity and the global culture of the group. In return, society models the individual and his or her worldview. But, according to the values prevailing in his culture, the individual remains captive in a certain way. However, it is possible for him to emancipate himself and go beyond what his family, friends and village impose on him as long as the society in which he was born allows it and does not impose too strong constraints on his free will. Personal efforts to maintain social relations, education and instruction are a guarantee of their emancipation and the construction of an enriched and global worldview that in turn can contribute to the evolution of society.

6.4 Law

This society, as the reflection of individual experiences shared, balanced, distilled, formulated in a way agreed by all, defines laws, convenances, the Community’s customs and traditions, thus establishing a framework within which everyone will be obliged to evolve. Some aspects will be unconditional and no one can derogate from them without condemnation while others will be more lax and will rather maintain convenances and good manners. The laws make explicit the places and the behaviors subject, applicable to all without distinction and from which no one can escape. In view of the generality and restrictive nature of laws, law allows for demands, imposition and protection against injustice, discrimination and abuse. Recognizing that men are born and remain free and equal in rights, a charter of rights and freedoms defines fundamental postulates on which laws and law will be based. Thus, a constitution of the society is based and as many distinct societies, as many constitutions.

6.5 Tolerance

The individual whose worldview sort of oversteps the limits of the group’s overall vision conflicts with the values accepted by the society to which he belongs. It enters in opposition otherwise materializes a deviance source of animosity towards the other members. The freedom of thought and expression being a fundamental value of society guaranteed by civil laws, the notion of tolerance appears. First of all, let us mention what the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in its article 29(2):

In the exercise of his rights and in the enjoyment of his freedoms, everyone is subject only to the limitations established by law exclusively with a view to ensuring the recognition and respect of the rights and freedoms of others and in order to satisfy the just requirements of morality, public order and general welfare in a democratic society.

Extending these limits beyond their raison d'être becomes tolerance. This is to accept a difference, a deviation from the norms in force in the name of respect for certain human values. Tolerance is possible only if what is tolerated cannot be a destructive source of the very values of society, compromising peace and security. Otherwise, it is opening the door to a form of social suicide. It is appropriate to quote Karl Popper on this subject:

Unlimited tolerance has the fatal consequence of the disappearance of tolerance. If one is of absolute tolerance, even towards the intolerant, and does not defend the tolerant society against their assaults, the tolerants will be annihilated, and with them tolerance. This is not to say that the expression of intolerant theories should always be prevented. As long as it is possible to counter them with logical arguments and contain them with the help of public opinion, it would be wrong to prohibit them. But the right to do so must be claimed, even by force if it becomes necessary, for it may well be that the proponents of these theories refuse any logical discussion and respond to arguments only with violence. It should be considered that, in doing so, they are outlawing themselves and that incitement to intolerance is criminal as well as incitement to murder, for example.

The integrity and security of any system cannot accept anything that could endanger it, laws must always have force and precedence over the intolerable.

6.6 To sum up

The absence of constraints ensures the individual’s full freedom, which is reduced to free will by limited experiences. Society, which is built on the aggregate of individual experiences, defines a formal framework through its corpus of laws and an informal framework through its customs and practices. Enjoying his freedom within such a framework, he can only get out of it if the tolerance of others allows him without putting society in danger.

7. Archetypes

We examine here how the guiding principles, the fundamental criteria that eventually become the cornerstones, the archetypes of ethics and morality are founded.

7.1 Systems

In order to understand the functioning of a structure, it is usually dissected according to its most obvious parts and components. We put each of them to individual test and at the end, we finally discover the constituent mechanisms all of which were hidden in the beginning. When the structure is too complex to be cut, a different approach is used: a black box with inputs and outputs. An input stimulus usually induces an output response. The relationship between reaction and stimulation is called the transfer function of the system and describes the properties of the structure. Depending on the system’s response to various input stimuli, some of them will have a more significant impact than others. We will discover that among several states of being of the system, some stimuli will have a most important impact and will thus be considered optimal in the sense that the system fulfills its function fully. Conversely, there may be other stimuli where the system is inhibited and these can then be judged negatively. The inputs or conditions favourable to such optimal states are then seen as the best and those which deviate from them are seen as unfavourable. For a system to work in the most efficient and effective way, input states seen as optimal must be prioritized while others must be left out. For a system, the conditions which induce beneficent states constitute what can be called good while those which induce the opposite and hinder it constitute what can be called evil.

7.2 Good and Evil

In view of the above, we can consider the good as that which favors the states best suited to a given situation while the evil, its opposite, opposes it and leads to the deterioration of the situation. It is the same in ethics and, is good or good for a given system what values acceptable and bad states, what is harmful or adverse to them. As there may be several states that favor a system, and also several that disadvantage it, the one who maximizes the benefits is the greatest good and the one who maximizes the disadvantages is the greatest evil. Good and evil are external conditions of the system, not intrinsic properties of the system. A system is functioning well or badly in response to its environment.

7.3 Perfection

Considering the existence of optimal states, one can be interested in the search for conditions that would induce a higher state, which is the greatest maximum achievable, which would be perfection. This is the superlative associated with an ideal state. The superlative of perfection is not a realistic state, for it goes beyond what is actually possible, it goes beyond the intrinsic capacities of the system, beyond the maximum possible. The notion of perfection corresponds to the notion of infinity which is only a simple view of the mind. Perfection has no objective reality and its pursuit is a guarantee of failure and disappointment. In "Critique of pure reason," Chapter III, "The ideal of pure reason," Section I, "Of the ideal in general," Emmanuel Kant states:

We have seen above that the pure concepts of the understanding, regardless of all conditions of the sensitivity, can not at all represent us objects (keine Gebgenstände), since the conditions of objective reality are lacking and nothing is found in them but the simple form of thought. Yet, they cannot be presented in concrete when applied to phenomena, because the latter constitute for them themselves the material required for the concept of experience, which is nothing but a concept of the understanding in concrete. But ideas are even more distant from objective reality than categories; for one cannot find phenomena where they can be represented in concrete. They contain a certain perfection to which no possible empirical knowledge arrives; and reason only envisages in them a systematic unity, from which it seeks to approximate the possible empirical unity, but without ever reaching it fully.
What I call ideal seems even more distant from objective reality than idea, and by this I mean the idea not merely in concreto but in individuo, that is to say considered as a determinable singular thing or entirely determined by the idea alone.

If one calls a certain state of perfection Good and its opposite Evil, then one must consider Good and Evil as views of the mind without any relation to reality. It is absurd to try to design further education programs in order to achieve them, because the absolutes in this area are utopian.

7.4 Good of all

If we consider several interconnected systems where each of the outputs serves as input to the other, it is highly likely that none of these systems are operating in their optimal state but rather in an intermediate state. This set is, overall, in a state that depends on external inputs. In such a case, it is impossible to find the external inputs that would simultaneously put each of the systems in their optimum state. Similarly, it is ethically aberrant to seek the simultaneous good of all components. There is no external constraint that can ensure that all elements of a system are placed in their good state. One can want the good of all, but there is no environment that allows it. Some will be favoured while others will be disadvantaged and all sorts of combinations may occur. Therefore, any proposal to eradicate a state deemed malignant in a complex whole is impossible to achieve and doomed to failure. Such a proposal can only be described as utopian.

7.5 To sum up

The optimal functioning of a system induces the notion of perfection which is none other than the idea of Good and in corollary the Evil. Since there can be no complex system of ideal situation for all members, it is fallacious to claim the Good of all. Then the notions of morality, of good and evil can only be conceived in relation to life which implies examining how it maintains itself and in what direction it evolves. Both biological and social life maintain their coherence through the requirements of a corpus of constraints.

8. Life

The living is characterized by a set of processes that survive only through homeostasis. It is the automatic maintenance of a point of equilibrium where all parties complement each other and contribute to unifying the stable and lasting existence of the individual.

8.1 Order and disorder

The states of a system can be analyzed, classified and sorted. The organization of a system is expressed by links between its elements. These links may be rules, laws, associations, or other principles, all linked together in a certain logic. The notion of order corresponds to the organization of the functions rendered by all the links. Order represents a high level of consistency while disorder shows an absence of affinity between the elements. Well-organized structures have a high level of order, and the elements function more or less close to their most favorable states. For example, the cellular tissue of human body organs that retain their properties and mutual relationships over time. Lack of structure or weak organization represents disorder, a low affinity between the components. For example, a cluster of cancer cells that multiply uncontrollably without a defined set pattern. Similarly, a play shows a high level of organization while the crowd that circulates on the street has very little. Society which, with its laws, rules, language, customs and habits, has a high level of order or organization is opposed to anarchy. Order is an essential component of the organization of complex systems. This order or disorder corresponds to the notions of Good and Evil.

8.2 Motion

Movement is a fundamental characteristic of nature. Even at absolute zero, there remains an energetic minimum animating the atom. Molecules are in constant motion both in their internal constitution and in their interactions with other molecules. Without movement, they cannot interact with each other to react chemically and produce new compounds. Viruses, bacteria, animals, all beings, from the smallest to the largest, are always animated and interact with each other. The cellular transformations, their divisions and multiplications are only possible through the interactions and energy transfers that take place. At the molecular level, everything is managed according to a general plan translated by the genetic code. Every living cell is the vehicle and expression of genes appearing in its chromosomes. Cells are present in all living structures and their movements result from well-defined, coordinated organizations and programs.

Macroscopically, however, nothing determines the orientation of movements. The interactions that are most closely related to each other, and the more likely they are to occur, take place at random. There are no preferred directions other than those created by the interactions most favourable to the balance and stability of the system as required by environmental constraints. Life is movements, transformations, incessant interactions, adaptations.

8.3 Life

Life is therefore an orderly, maintained movement that maintains an integrated system, stable, permanent in time and space. A living system begins at some point, lasts for a while and eventually disintegrates. This is the birth, life and death of a system. This process applies to both living things and non-biological systems. Everything has a beginning, a life span and eventually a death.

Life, an orderly process, constantly in motion, defining unique individuals. In turn, these beings interact with others, similar, forming groups that share the same environment and history. Life is the global movement created by the multitude of animated beings, endowed with genetic codes, reproducing themselves similar to themselves, maintaining the stability and temporal permanence of the group.

8.4 Goal of life

The purpose of life is none other than to keep functional what has already been considered as essential characteristics of any system. That is, ensuring the integrity, security and reproduction of said system. And this is because of the fundamental principle that life is an unbroken, endless movement. A movement that constantly produces new structures with new properties better adapted to the environment. Life is a never-ending, evolutionary sequence of creating and destroying temporary moments of stability. And at all times, what favours this goal is good and what detracts from it is evil. In a constantly changing environment, the purpose of life is to maintain and adapt to this new environment. This may require the system to modify, acquire or put some of its components into a dormant state. It is the application of the homeostatic imperative that imposes on its constituent elements to preserve themselves and to survive against all odds. Antonio Damasio, "The strange order of things" is what determines its evolution, and by leaving traces in its genome, constitutes its history. You would think that by reading this story, you would discover that life has a purpose. But this is a misjudgement, because what we would discover there could be none other than the history of the past environment. It is the imprint of events that have contributed to the transformations, the adaptations that systems have faced. Life has no definite purpose or goal towards which to evolve. On the contrary, it is sailing without any particular direction carried away by the incessant flow of environmental fluctuations. There is no better way to go wrong than to pretend otherwise under the implausible Truths.

8.5 Survival and adaptation

Let us do a pause to appreciate what paleontologists are saying about hominids from pre-humans up to Homo sapiens and the conclusions they came to. This is an excerpt of what paleontologist Yves Coppens wrote about this in his Memories pp. 197-199, 255 (electronic translation).

As for hominids, they were obviously no exception since they were an integral part of ecosystems and found themselves confronted, like their neighbours the elephants, pigs or rhinos, to the climate crisis that was opening up the landscape and reducing plant nutrition. [...] Around 2 million years (in fact, at least 2.7), these are two responses to the crisis that we see in the descent (and adaptation) of previous prehumans [...]. The brain of the Zinjanthropes or paranthropes develops very little while that of the prehumans, still called robust australopithecines, acquires a massive size and a denture with enormous premolars and molars (and the superstructures of the skull that go with it) to crush and grind seeds, hard-shell fruits and fibrous plants that remain from the previous environment and that they did not consume until now. [...] And we can say that the second answer (it is neither a hierarchical nor chronological order!) was an «intellectual» response. This time, the size does not change much, while the brain grows in volume and complexity (folding of the lobes, irrigation), that the jaw is equipped with an omnivore teeth that will add meat to its residual vegetarian menu and that the upper respiratory tract is transformed to breathe better in a dry atmosphere. These two responses are obviously interesting natural selections and they are worth the change of leg of the equine or the development of the molar of the elephant. But it turns out that the «choice» of man will lead to unexpected consequences, even extravagant! The brain surge will generate a new level of consciousness and this consciousness, for the first time, will create culture, technical culture (tools or weapons), but also intellectual, spiritual, symbolic, aesthetic, ethical of this culture which, in their generous development, will constitute, at least in the long term, the man’s own. The change in airway will cause the larynx to descend, the resonator box between the vocal cords and the mouth, while the palate deepens and the symphysis (the anterior part of the lower jaw) is slimming, freeing the tongue and creating articulate language, new breathing, facilitating walking long distances and running. In other words, it is the pirate use of a simple natural selection intended to invent new strategies to escape predators in an open landscape, it is the equally pirate use of the larynx, of the pharynx, gnathic regions and those of the brain that manages them, and it is the supply of animal proteins to this encephalon that becomes demanding, which will distinguish man, by chance, from his vertebrate companions. And, in his own mind, the dialogue between hand, word and reflection will never cease, leading to this bizarre emergence of a thinking matter, free and responsible
This embroidery of nature - called vicariance - around the theme of climate change adaptation is quite exemplary; its obsession is to save species, the family and to do with what we have (the basic little genetic suitcase), by adding the selection of some new mutations and by giving preference to a locomotor function or other, an organ or another. The human race has thus distinguished itself by its "big head" - simply because its choice to survive was to think better in order to find strategies to escape, in very exposed terrain, from predators -, its new teeth and its new breath. That’s all!

8.6 Equilibrium

The purpose of life is to adapt to changing conditions in the environment, it is realized through the mechanism of reproduction. Until adaptation is achieved, the unadapted individuals perish and those with favourable variations have a better survival rate. This results in fluctuations in population, sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing. When adaptation is achieved, reproduction must be regulated by various mechanisms. Whether it is longevity, accidents, health status, cultural values, the global population must sooner or later stabilize in relation to the resources supporting it. Otherwise, endless growth is suing its own loss through saturation and destruction of its environment. There must always be a balance between resources, users and waste reabsorption, otherwise the disturbed environment requires further adaptations contributing to the regulation of the system. This is also demonstrated by all the models of simulation of complex systems, whether in relation to the evolution of populations, resources, climate or other variables Lambin, CIA, Meadows, Meadows, Laszlo, Laszlo, Bertalanffy. In a stable environment, society must establish mechanisms by which the regulation of its population and environmental action keeps it in balance with that.

8.7 Hierarchy

Considering the imperatives of any system, namely integrity, security and reproduction, without which no system could exist so much as itself, these are not unrelated. Integrity is the cohesion and unity of the whole. Without integrity, no system can exist and decomposition is guaranteed. Integrity is then fundamental, the first, essential to the identity and stability of the system. This is based on mechanisms that ensure its permanence through internal control and regulation processes. Then, when integrity is assured, security comes in. It protects the system against external aggressors. It is the extension of integrity in the system environment. When these two conditions necessary for existence and lasting life are present, the reproduction of the system is possible. It will only be achieved if integrity and security are guaranteed to a minimum of permanence. Thus a new system can emerge which acquires over time the original characteristics of the reproductive system. In short, these three elements are mutually dependent. They are like a building whose basis is the integrity on which the security rests all supporting the upper stage of reproduction.

8.8 To sum up

Order and disorder characterize complex structures that are modified by the incessant movements and changes of the components which constitute their life. The latter evolves in accordance with environmental constraints, giving it no other priority than maintaining integrity, the safety and efficient reproduction that regulates the global population and keeps it at an optimum level with respect to resources. Reproduction is based on security, which in turn is based on integrity.

9. Support

We must now see how the development of the brain came to house structures that will allow communication between individuals and thus create language. It becomes the support of a network of universal knowledge distributed in the cloud of the multitude of human brains. Very quickly this language will replace its object and gaining independence will be seen as the source of knowledge itself. Hence the wandering of philosophies seeking to understand the world alienated by words. The Truth always comes out totally disconnected from reality.

9.1 Neurons

To follow the evolutionary plan, on the model of embryogenesis, we design the production of cell groups that specialize according to the genetic code. In the application of this plan, mutations occur from time to time that produce new groups which will survive if they provide the host with a valid evolutionary advantage. Thus, new groups of neurons can be seen to appear in the cortex. Neurons have the plastic property of connecting to each other according to the electrochemical excitations they receive. In return, they generate a signal for the stimulation of other neurons according to rules based on the weighting of the signals received. The dendrites receive signals from the proximal environment of the neuron while the generated signal travels a cylinder-axis over large distances to benefit distant areas. The signals produced are short, repetitive and last for short intervals. The connections between contacts have the property of being maintained more and more strongly and for a longer time according to the frequency and intensity of the currents that pass through them. After a certain time, these contacts become almost permanent and may not be untied until after a long period of inactivity. Thus complex zones are constructed which reach their stability after a certain time of learning to receive signals from other zones operating in a similar way. Such areas, cores and sets of cores, having acquired stability represent well-defined functionalities in the overall set of interconnections. Thus there is a multitude of specialized nuclei that have accumulated and reproduced in a constant way over the eons because they are useful to their owners.

9.2 Neocortex

First of all, we must consider a first ancestor, a vertebrate, a mammal, with a very small head in which there was a brainstem and a cerebellum jutting the spinal cord. At that time, these structures supported the functions necessary for survival by storing in a first primitive cortex the corresponding functionalities. This structure had to support simple survival behaviors, reactions actions without sophisticated means of heuristic analysis, that is to say without optional decision strategies. Over time, we see this cortex grow in accompaniment to the evolution and development of new faculties. Thus, the basic structures of aesthetics, language, reasoning and logic will develop. And at the same time the skull expands to accommodate the brain volume. Today, the surface of the cortex represents well-defined cartographic areas which are all connected by connections in the underlying volume represented by the thalamus. As it became necessary that the increase of the surface follow that of the total volume, this surface has increased by its folding and the development of multiple sinuosities giving the current aspect of the brain. The evolution then produced a system of memory zones dedicated to specific functionalities. As examples, we know the sensorimotor zones, visual and auditory cortex for which it is not necessary to indicate the function. All these areas are interconnected by underlying nuclei allowing the analysis of complex situations. One thing led to another, the growth of the cortex and the structuring of nuclei useful for the survival of the host continued because their owners were thus better adapted compared to those who had not produced them. Brains capable of generating reasoning and decision making will produce beings increasingly performing in their physical and social environment.

9.3 Beauty

The aesthetics, beauty and ugliness, which are far from rational reasoning find their foundations precisely in the constitution of the first layers of the neocortex at the time when it began its initial development. Indeed, the first environmental situations had set by emotional reactions the most common commonplaces which represented the safety and well-being of individuals. Predators, masters of the night had senses better adapted to the nocturnal environment than humans. While he was terrified during the night, the sunrise ended this reign, announcing warmth, light and a secure social life. The source of life water and the source of heat and light fire were essential to survival. Thus their omnipresent and safe images have become universal representatives engraved in this emerging neocortex. The first images and symbols that have survived cover the surface of prehistoric caves, rock art. The symbolism of the five elements air, water, fire, earth and metal is well known and the beauty of simple geometric shapes seems natural. This is why it is difficult to define beauty, ugliness, the pleasant and the unpleasant in terms of language, rationality and logic. Popular language says that tastes are not to be discussed. These properties have long been deeply embedded in the neural circuits of the cerebral cortex because they were closely associated with survival strategies. Beauty, art and aesthetics have roots well before the appearance of language and it is difficult for language to establish criteria of social acceptability.

9.4 Sound

The ear as a sound sensor has certainly played a major role in the selection of individuals, because it allows its wearer to be warned about the presence of predators or dangerous situations. A pair of ears on each side of the head will have allowed directional orientation according to the sound source, still giving a selective advantage. A complex sound environment will have contributed to the subsequent appearance of an inner ear specialized in frequency analysis. The structure of the cochlea, which allows for well-defined stationary waves, gave precedence to the detection of frequencies corresponding to the chromatic range. Music, singing, speech all rely on the analysis of sounds in relation to the auditory areas of the cerebral cortex. These auditory zones, connected with the visual and sensory areas, contributed to behavioural reactions, ensuring more selective benefits for the wearer. Thus auditory memories are associated with visual memories, that is to say the interconnection between objects and sound-image memories.

9.5 Verbal exchange

It seems plausible that the individual who has developed a complex survival system in his environment with the help of an evolved brain must have had some awareness, memories of past incidents, and the ability to make even minimal choices. Individually able to act on his environment according to his needs he had the neural structures for communication, but must have felt isolated by the inability to communicate his visions to others. Such an individual with his fellow-beings where he formed association, even if only to reproduce, feed and protect himself from other predators, would have had only simple means to exchange with them. If he hadn’t exploited the sounds and images, he wouldn’t be where he is. The organs of speech must have evolved at the same time as those of hearing so that a minimalist repertoire of communications could appear. Thus the individual who already manifests a form of intelligence will have been able to use it collectively from the moment when he was able to exchange with his fellow men.

Before the appearance of minimal language, it can be assumed that individuals who lived in small groups had a primitive communication system. By the gestures and grunts, one could consider a semaphore system attached to a repertoire of sounds. These associations gave birth to a first language allowing the true communication of images and feelings felt in face of multiple situations experienced. The neural structures that supported this activity became permanent by selecting individuals capable of maintaining them. Like birds that can sing without hearing, these structures that allow language belong to all humans, regardless of their language.

The development of the representation of the outside world is an individual phenomenon based on the biological structure of a self-reliant individual. Several individuals with the same mechanisms manage to exchange and standardize their internal representations by attributing sounds, gestures or other external attitudes common to the same objects or situations. The first sounds generated will have served as a means of defence and warning against predators or to terrorize potential food sources. It can be assumed that the detection of sounds was concomitant with the production of sounds. Thus, we see a chain where action and feedback come into play, feeding memories of his image and amplifying the complexity of relationships. When two or more individuals meet and enter such a circuit, they share and put into play their personal directories. Those who were able to standardize and share the same image-sound associations were able to dominate others by acquiring a collective strategic advantage. The common vision of the outside world is then based on communication and sharing patterns through speech.

Sequences of sounds associated with images corresponding to objects, actions and results have built the first sentences. In doing so, a first language, means of exchange, has allowed to develop advantageous strategies. The diversity of cultures has led to various groups producing different languages, developing appropriate grammatical and syntactic elements over time. This is why members of social groups are always communicating and exchanging the fruits of their individual experiences. This is what has made the strength, expansion, development and supremacy of the group over the individual. The society exists only through communication between its members.

9.6 Semantic

Language is based on the matching of particular elements of the real world and their internal representation. Each noun or verb corresponds thus to certain particularisms, to finite elements of the external world. Since an exhaustive description of the real world would require an infinity of such descriptors, then words will take over time an extension that goes beyond the original relation object-meaning. The word gains in extension, covering an agglomeration of objects sharing common characteristics, verbs gain in extent, relationships between words multiply and meanings are generalised. Thus sentences describe the external world from relationships built in the internal world using image-signifying words. As long as there is a two-way correspondence between the external and internal, communication remains intelligible. When statements contain elements that cannot be linked to each other in the way they would relate in the real world, or do not have a connection with the real world, then they describe a truncated, non-existent or imaginary world. The ability to produce statements and their suitability for the real world is irrelevant to the existence of what they describe. Metaphysics considers the elements of language as objects having an existence in themselves regardless of their possible existence or not in the real world. It is then forget the origin of words and their use.

9.7 Communication, language and society

Let us summarize the above. Life, by its incessant movement, constantly evolving in emerging environments, adapting to them, has produced increasingly complex structures. This is a universal and general process, so it is also the case with regard to the development of the whole neural system. The emergence of diversified and specialized areas of the neocortex, since a first ancestor, has multiplied as well as the parallel development of individual and community activities. We can imagine the first communication relationships through the use of gestures, mimics, cries, behaviors or rituals. Thus the first interactions between individuals using sounds, images and actions are realized. From there, signifiers and their relations with sound sequences are born. The evolution of selecting individuals better able to modulate sounds and distinguish them through more efficient vocal strings and an adapted ear, promotes the appearance of a first language as simple as it can be. From its very beginning, language has only followed an exponential course, first sticking to the expression of daily necessities. Through the interactions and feedbacks between individuals communicating and exchanging more frequently, a dependency has developed that lays the foundations of a community united by language communication. Its members have become dependent on it in their interactions, gradually replacing them without abandoning completely the first means of exchange. Even today we speak with our hands and accompany our speech with facial mimics. In relation to the necessities of survival, the first group of individuals who had achieved such an environment could only supplant all the others by the effectiveness of the new means. It has become increasingly successful and thus ensured its survival and sustainability for the millennia to come. Later, all the Homo groups will have language and through their splitting and isolation will develop different languages. Thus new words, phrases and concepts will emerge that contribute to the acceleration of Homo’s domination over its environment. Subsequently, concepts will appear, leaving their intimate relationship with the real world to produce imaginary constructions.

9.8 Logic, reason and creativity

From birth, the newborn is in contact with the world. Its brain has the structures and interfaces to understand it. He has everything to know and learn in order to integrate as harmoniously as possible, so his survival depends on it. He begins this learning by the first contacts with the mother where he sees the taste of breast milk, the warmth of her breast, the softness of her skin and the reassuring caresses. Soon after, he opens his eyes and ears so that his cerebral cortex collects the first images and sounds which he will associate with other sensations coming from other senses. The repetition of the same situations establishes the foundations of the first briefs. The internal structures, genetically determined, will break down these images into multiple components, their fundamental properties, which will be associated with each other in various ways in order to reconstruct these images in a timely manner. Thus will populate the components from the recognition of the lines of cut of faces, colors, smells, body movements and other body signals. The child rises to defy gravity and acquire freedom of movement builds spatial references and learns the right movement and thus the sense of geometry. Later on it will be the notions of color, volume and then it will reach the third dimension. Through all these processes, he builds images of the environment that affects him and associates appropriate reactions to it with his survival. He moves, runs, cries, laughs, shows emotions, feels pain and pleasure. He has built a system that is adapted to ensure his survival, integrity and security.

In particular, this process must consider the interaction between similar systems which creates two-way communication and feedback channels between two systems with identical functionalities. The voice and hearing will then develop in association with the interactions between the external world and the corresponding images, thereby carrying out a transfer of structuring information. Thus the auditory cortex will make a bank of words, each associated with images, linking categories of words between them, and even more, between categories between them, to finally arrive at the simple sentences associated with scenarios of actions taking place both in the external world and between its stored images. Under the influence of the language he learns, syntactic structures are then built which implicitly convey the notions of logic. This logic will control the evocation of images and their representation both verbal and written. And following on from this, these evocations will be representative of the external reality and allow to understand and control it. The complexity of language results from the accumulation of these confrontations between the evocation and reality, constantly adding to the thesaurus of knowledge not only an individual, the community which shares the same language defining what is agreed to call rational.

The flow of images that never ceases to appear to consciousness is constantly under the control of linguistic logic. A word usually covers more than one category of images and a phrase that combines several of these words according to multiple rules has the property of being able to generate an incalculable number of images themselves interrelated according to previous life experiences. This is what allows creativity and an almost infinite potentiality of situations to be presented to the consciousness. The self chooses sequences or associations that have a greater prevalence, as to use, as to importance of emotions associated with it. Thus, hypotheses, scenarios, theatre, music and everything else that everyone is interested in appear. Communicating these new knowledge objects to other members of the community enriches the overall culture of society.

This enrichment, where new knowledge and new objects appear, whether technological, literary or artistic, is by no means a pure creation. Creativity is totally alien to the sense of spontaneous generation. As Lucretius and many others later said, «Nothing is born of anything», «Nothing is lost or created». What appears to us as a creation is nothing more than the discovery, the recognition of what already exists but which was hitherto unknown or ignored. Creativity is only the expression of selecting strategies that optimize the balance of the system with its environment.

9.9 Veracity

Although using language and its semantic terms, the Truth is placed on the periphery of the knowledge circuit of the external world. It is an act of creativity that is on the same level as literary or theatrical, amusing, comic, tragic, dramatic, etc. production whose purpose is to please, make people think or entertain. To analyze language and its terms in order to make it say something other than what it has been, is to misdirect and pervert the processes that maintain its integrity, because these are intrinsically based on the external world. Defining or pronouncing a word with any intention has no impact on the external world. Reality follows the opposite path, because the external world is understood through the five senses associating images-sounds-signifiers-actions-reactions with neural memories, which will be structured in order to enrich the language that corresponds to them. Wanting to understand or redefine the world from internal patterns inconsistent with reality can only lead to utopias. It must be remembered that sounds, language and communication are only used to share real representations of the outside world between people. They become the vehicle for knowledge transmission in the social sphere.

9.10 To sum up

Neurons by their plasticity realize zones or nuclei with specialized functions. Over time the growing number of such nuclei and zones has increased the cerebral cortex from which multiple specialized areas are recognized. The interconnection between all these realizes states of perception such as aesthetics, musicality, voice, conversations, memories, logic and rational thought. It is by building on these that language communication and its rules are developed, uniting the members of a knowledge society built in relation to its environment.

10. Knowledge

Without assuming in any way that the brain processes the signals it receives, events can be rationally designed, methods and analytical processes that must exist in a logical way to organize and structure the essential actions in response to the constant challenges posed by the environment. Ensuring the integrity, security and reproduction of the structure of which it is an integral part is the vital minimum for which knowledge must exist. We distinguish the correct and realistic knowledge of the outside world, but also false and unfounded extensions such as the Truth.

We are now at a turning point in our investigation of the Truth. Knowing all the ins and outs that have contributed in one way or another to its production and maintenance, we must examine the manner and processes involved in the production of knowledge. So you have to look at how a system produces knowledge, how it uses it to change the course of its life, how it acquires it, how it enriches itself, how it is used, how it directs the person. We will outline here the likely processes that govern knowledge construction. Thus we will understand how and why false knowledge appears, how reality is disguised under the makeup of Truth.

10.1 World

It is clear that the environment is in constant motion. It affects the systems that evolve in it and these must constantly adjust to the variations that stress it. In response, in order to make any decision, any system must maintain a description of the various states it perceives of its environment. Thus, he must have taken a copy of the state of this environment at an earlier time and have placed it in memory. Similarly, any action taken by the system in response to an event must also be stored and associated with the corresponding memory of that environment for which the action was taken. Any decision is necessarily based on a comparison between a present state and one or more memories of previous states including the actions associated with these stored states. On the other hand, any action or reaction by the system changes the environment. The association of this modification with the action causes the system to determine the relevance and value of the action which are also stored. This dynamic game of action, feedback, evaluation, constantly capturing in memory the states of the system and the environment, marks these as negative or positive, according to whether they have had as consequence to destabilize the system or on the contrary, were favorableThat is, they have contributed to its basic needs. These mechanisms are particularly evident in the newborn, who must structure his neural connections establishing his skills to walk, speak, recognize his environment, then until adolescence to socialize and integrate the tools necessary for survival in the adult world.

10.2 Self

The internal structure of any system, through its means of action and communication, supports the functionalities that are necessary to interact with the external world. Unlike the external world which is dynamic and changing, the internal world, that is to say the machinery and its functions constituting the being, is regulated so that it remains stable and one can no longer be identical to itself in time. This stability, the proper functioning of these internal mechanisms, their reliability and their consistency are necessary to ensure the integrity and overall permanence of the system, that is to say a state of health which must remain impeccable. To achieve this end, it is necessary that there be constant supervision of the states and functions of this internal environment. This can only be done if there is a mapping, an overall plan of the system and that its states are stored at all times. Since this structure is stable and durable, only the differences from the normal state become useful for internal controls where any deviation or difference detected leads to corrective reactions. The memory representative of this global, lasting state, constitutes then a fixed image of the system as such in relation to other dynamic memories that are representative of the external world. This dichotomy makes it possible for a system to clearly distinguish the internal components constituting the system itself on the one hand, and on the other hand, what represents the external environment and the actions executed against that environment. Thus the self is born naturally by this segregation between these two worlds.

10.3 Consciousness

This segregation will allow the self to perceive itself as a protagonist in the representation of the outside world. The confrontation of the real self and its representation in the image of the external world, a few moments later gives rise to a dynamic repetitive process that constitutes consciousness. The same dynamic process of differentiation-comparison between the representation of the present moment and the last memories of previous moments give rise to the consciousness of the external world. This continuous perception, the back and forth between the two selves, as well as between the last images of the outside world, brings to life the consciousness of these objects. There is awareness of the self as well as of the external world by the dichotomy that defines them. It is exercised in the same way, as much on moments of the present as on all memories of the past. Thus one can relive the past to the present.

10.4 Space

The confrontation of memories of the environment with the identification of various states, positions and situations of the external self taking into account the memories of signals generated by the internal self to realize them will build the notion of space. Thus appear the lines, surfaces, volumes, colors where the external self moves in relation to the internal self coherently. The self as a character perceived as a component of the external world, is an object well distinct from all other objects of the external world, it becomes the conductor who directs all movements in the real world. Thus the self learns to move and coordinate its activities in space, in the real world.

10.5 Time

Physiological time can only be built by using the dynamic process presiding over the construction of consciousness as a reference clock. Consciousness as a dynamic process is unique and only works on one situation at a time. Although the neural processes involved are multiple and perform actions in parallel, the results of these are all presented simultaneously to consciousness. Thus it can be said that the consciousness sweeps memories one after another, which it does sequentially and thus defines the sense of time. Evolving in space of spatial memories, it constructs time and marks events according to their order of appearance. Thus the notion of time for the inner self is born, which is subject to the physiological time of neuronal activity.

10.6 Movement

Space and time being constructed, objects occupy positions in a temporal reference which allows to construct movement, that is to say the consciousness of successive positions in space and time. Ubiquity is not a characteristic of the physical world, this necessarily sequential movement establishes a link between the various states of a given object. Thus, the past, present and future are born as the consciousness of a particular state at a given moment, necessarily located in a temporal sequence of moments. According to the order of appearance, every event has a precedent and a subsequent one and the consciousness thus builds the movement and animation of objects. As a representative construction of reality, the journey of these stored states can be made in one direction or the other. This movement allows us to mentally relive the past and build the future.

10.7 Emotions

Possible actions self can envisions come from analysis, comparisons, confrontations of multiple memories about previous events where it is a protagonist, is placed in intimates situations, all events profoundly affecting him. Those events produced emotions, intense physiological reactions beneficial or problematic to self. They result from oppositions or dissonances leading to conflicting actions or inversely to seek their recreation. They are qualified more or less important by links with those causing memories. They are an important factors in decision-making and future development. Here is what eminent neurologist Antonio Damasio, a leader on emotion research, writes in his book, «The feeling of what happens».

«just like emotion, consciousness is aimed at the organism survival, and that, just like emotion, consciousness is rooted in the representation of the body p. 37»

«emotion is integral to the process of reasoning and decision-making; p. 41»

«The term feeling should be reserved for the private, mental experience of an emotion, while the term emotion should be used to designate the collection of responses, many of which are publicly observable; p. 42»

«emotions are biologically determined processes, depending on innately set brain devices, laid down by a long evolutionary history; p. 51»

«The first function is the production of a specific reaction to the inducing situation [...] The second biological function of emotion is the regulation of the internal state of the organism such that it can be prepared for the specific reaction; pp. 53-54»

“Emotions of all kinds help to weave a link between homeostatic regulation and survival values in relation to all events and objects of our autobiographical experience; p.54”
Virtually every image, whether perceived or recalled, is accompanied by reactions belonging to the repertoire of emotions; p.58

10.8 Future

The future is built from memories by using the similarity existing between previously remembered events, favoring those that have less difference or more affinity with the present moment. Some memories are more important than others because they relate to significant emotional states. The selection of memories depends on their emotional content and their reuse more or less important in the past. Thus, through heuristic processes, proposals are woven that may meet the basic needs of the system. The dynamic and continuous processes of analysis and selection constitute what is known as the knowledge and intelligence of the system, which construct the future towards which the self engages actions on the external world.

10.9 Self-consciousness

The consciousness of the external world is realized by the inspection of memories, by this dynamic and constantly repeated process of differentiation. Because the outside world is always changing, there is always a difference between two successive perceptions and therefore a residue to present to the self. But when this process is directed towards the self instead of the external world, no residue can result, for the self is a construction whose fundamental property is stability and permanence. Then the consciousness turns empty, it has nothing to fix itself on, no anchor point on itself. It results in the impression of trying to define, to touch a shadow constantly fleeing. The self cannot perceive itself, it can only perceive the external world and its own representation in that one. Memory, self, consciousness, knowledge, analysis are dynamic processes that are constantly active. They are devoted to the conservation of the system and the permanence of its functionality, that is to say its homeostasis. This ensures the three necessities of life of any system: integrity, security and reproduction.

10.10 Information

All the memories and the complexity of the links between them accumulate throughout the life of the system. They are used to improve its performance, efficiency and effectiveness. At the beginning of its existence, the choices and decisions that are made are simple and sometimes random. Later, at the height of his life, this system of analysis and decision became more and more rich, complex and efficient. Since any analysis is necessarily limited to the whole of available memories, that is to say the experience more or less rich and diversified of the system’s experience, it will never be possible to go beyond the thesaurus thus acquired. Since this one was built expressly through its interactions with the outside world, it will always be compatible and coherent in regard to any future situation. There can never be dissonances between the real and its internal representations. The analysis of event memories allows to isolate particular situations and produce concepts common to several events experienced by the system. Thus the thesaurus is enriched with new rules and concepts that will guide the system in subsequent analyses. However, these rules, concepts and ideas, derived and constructed from a limited set of cases, cannot be generalized globally and applied to the real world without some degree of uncertainty associated with them. Only the confrontation with concrete cases can validate them and otherwise reduce them to nothing. The validation of new rules in relation to the accumulated informational thesaurus will qualify them as true, while otherwise they will be false or unverifiable.

10.11 Boundaries

Here we hold that all the information that a system contains is linked to each other according to a temporal sequence following in this the lived experience of the system, its own history. The ultimate analysis consists at the simplest level of examining temporal sequences of memories. Thus this movement of analysis always associates with any experience a previous moment and a subsequent moment. The connection between all the memories involved constitutes a time chain. Necessarily the chains constituting various events must be bordered by an initial event and a terminal event. And so is any channel, whatever it may be. It follows that the concept of beginning and end is inherent in the process of knowledge creation, that is to say, in the establishment of event chains, a property of any system whatsoever. It is therefore impossible for the analytical mechanisms to go beyond these limits. It is possible to lengthen the sequence by adding new limits, but the sequence remains limited. The production of information that crosses these intrinsic boundaries is therefore fraught with uncertainty and potentially inconsistent. Thus the notions of time and space which can conceptually be boundless, infinite and unlimited, are not transposable to events embedded in limited and limited event chains.
Thus are invalid and pure unreason the philosophical creations such as essences, ideas necessary in themselves, perfection, true ideas by the mere fact that they are conceptualized, all the doubtful reasoning which have founded theologies, because all of them overstep and exclude the framework of natural processes of knowledge.

10.12 Infinity

Although one can imagine the infinity or finiteness of elements in a set, and even of sets, the concept of beginning-end is incoherent and unapplicable to an infinite chain, it can only be applied to its segments. Conversely, the concept of infinity is incoherent and unapplicable to segments; it can only concern their unlimited number. It is impossible for a system to represent itself the infinite, because it operates basically according to finite sequences. For this it would need a memory structure of infinite dimension to represent them. The notion of infinity is therefore inconceivable by a finite system, because it cannot be modelled. So it is with concepts magnified beyond their limits, their finitude, because they exceed their field of applicability.
The simplest illustration is the irrational number which has an infinite number of decimal places which do not repeat cyclically. The representation of such a number is always limited to a finite number of decimal places, whatever it may be. The meaning of infinity rests on the constant and endless process of an ever more precise, but unattainable, never-ending representation of an idea. The number pi, the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is a classic.
Likewise, the notions of perfection, of the greatest good or the greatest evil, of ideal, are inconceivable and could never represent reality.

10.13 To sum up

Perception is an incessant dynamic process of analyzing stimuli in relation to previously lived states. These processes, realizing the distinction of self from its environment and the temporal segregation of environmental states, create consciousness. The same sequential perception of events will create space, time and movement allowing the self to interact with the environment. The emotions that accompany it seal the memories and actions undertaken. The future is built on the projection and extension of the continuity of previous actions most related to the present situation and actions of the self. Self-awareness is impossible given its invariability. Information appears through defined and autonomous structures of connections between memories defining concepts or ideas. Connections built by other than interaction with the environment are fraught with uncertainty. The connections are in finite number which implies the limitation of possible representations. The notions of finitude and impassable limits follow.

11. The failure of Truth

There is no doubt now that the search for Truth is a utopia that condemns to wandering without end. It is only possible to get out of it by understanding that we must absolutely refrain from conceptualizing it. In fact the Truth is an oxymoron, a dead end, a dead-end street, a project that leads to nothing, a pure failure.

11.1 Oxymoron

Questioning whether the universe is finite or bounded leads to an endless series of contradictions. If it is narrow-minded, what beyond that is not part of the universe itself, a nonsense. And if it is infinite, it is impossible for me to imagine it, because every image is narrow and cannot contain infinity. Similarly, it is also nonsense to ask how or when it started. Asking the same question about the existence of things, whether they are limited or eternal does not lead to any answer. The representation of finite and bounded sequences cannot include the eternal which requires an infinity of elements where there is neither beginning nor end. In a finite world, there is always a boundary, a before and after, where every event has a precedent and a next. The eternal leads to an infinite chain impossible to model for a finite system. As we can see, this kind of question induces a series of contradictory questions, it is a sort of oxymoron. This word has its source in the Greek «oksumōron» meaning «whose absurdity is blatant». This style figure consists of combining two apparently contradictory words. Here the contradiction is not obvious, and that is why, for so long, we have been searching in vain for an answer by all possible means. This is why no one has and can never find an answer to this type of question. And to persist in this dead end justifies the title of this essay: La question qui rend fou and it makes crazy in every sense of the word. Thus, as soon as the idea of the question appears to the consciousness, already its simultaneous contradiction is formulated. It is therefore not necessary to pay attention to such ideas, not to maintain them and let them pass as proposed during the Zazen meditation. Since we must not and cannot formulate it, we must refrain from doing so, and this is what makes us formulate it differently according to a sentence in Latin "Se abstinere ab incongressibilise percontatio", that is to say, abstain from the question that cannot be addressed.

11.2 Questioning

What can a man find out about his fate? Where does he come from? Is there a sequel after his death? What about the world in which he lives? How do we respond to our fears? Is there a Truth? As we have shown, there are no possible answers to these questions. And since the question cannot be asked, consequently no answer can arise. And yet, the tension and desire to ask it remains, the intrinsic need for security is the main reason. This is so strong that the unreason, to give itself the right to invent an answer, discredits the rational by declaring all kinds of absurdities as true and which it is fashionable to believe.

11.3 Nonsense

As we have just seen, the assertion that constitutes the Truth is a nonsense by nature, by construction. It proposes a solution incompatible with the knowledge of the real world, an affirmation, a pretension, never an hypothesis that can be verified, confronted with the real. It is that the man placed before his inability to solve the problem has ended up inventing a solution, the Truth, which of course can only lead to implausibilities without any affinity with the real world. Faced with adversity and weakness, man found himself unable to know his Truth, his creation, a perfection. In fact, at first he affirms the incomprehensible and for the rest of his time he tries to define the properties of this incomprehensible that exceeds him. Could he not be worse than that? His perfect Truth required his unconditional adherence, the abandonment of all certainties he had acquired during his evolution. Because he did not know the functioning of any finite system, he could not realize in which impasse, in which cul-de-sac he was placed. The Truth is an accident of course which, today, in front of knowledge, has no reason to exist.

11.4 Illusion genesis

The origin and source of all questioning is simply the need for security. This is systematically sought by every living organism, because it derives from its personal survival and the propagation of its species. Evolution has produced beings built and structured to adopt the most effective survival strategies. This is how knowledge and intelligence have emerged to ensure safety, integrity and reproduction, always improved and adapted to changing environmental conditions.

Knowing has become a survival mechanism that no one can escape. Man discovers, perfects and creates new ways to meet his vital needs. In doing so, he goes beyond these concerns and compulsively questions himself about what he is, where he comes from, why he lives and how he will end his short time in this world. And it cannot escape this natural process. In fact, nature has evolved and adapted to build living organisms with emotional mechanisms and external world modelling that allow them to survive and reproduce in the most efficient way. Knowledge and intelligence as part of these adaptations are not an exclusive function of the real world, but an important part of a virtual world, the social world, a world of conventions, that is, of words and signifiers. This world is not subject to the changing constraints of the environment, it has its own autonomy and independence. This is why some intellectual activities are totally disconnected from their origin and reason for being, which makes them out of tune with the real world. Although knowledge is a perfectly adapted mechanism for survival, it is totally inappropriate in relation to fundamental questions concerning man. Because this questioning is not necessary and cannot lead to a logical solution, and as long as an answer does not appear, it can only result in an unquenchable thirst, an insatiable intellectual activity, a source of torturing suffering.

This explains why religions and beliefs are valued. They propose, ad hoc, existential solutions out of nowhere, without any connection with the real world. Consequently, they can only survive if reason is neutralized and blocked, preferably before the brain acquires processes related to knowledge. It is therefore of great importance for them to condition the child from birth. Thus, the natural mechanisms of the brain are exploited to perfect its structure outside the womb during the first years of life. This approach is more effective than brainwashing them, which only reprograms their already acquired behaviors partially and late. This is easy to exploit, because the child is already programmed by evolution to unconditionally copy and absorb the behaviors of its parents, a mechanism of survival most effective. Knowledge being thus blocked, it develops in the brain of the child and the adult that he becomes, only processes of type behaviourist. Religion thus relegates the human to its pre-human condition. Like the bird that learns its song by listening to others, it recites prayers and invocations without end, like others, it parades, bows, kneels, makes an act of submission, delights in rites, theatrical plays that it repeats without end. Convinced that he is the paragon of human existence, he becomes a proselyte and conqueror, a robot destroyer of humanity.

11.5 Morality

The simplet who finds that God is a fantasy believes himself all of a sudden free and freed from the injunctions that controlled his life. He will say that in this way he can do whatever he pleases. But society is not built essentially on mystical precepts, it depends on social and cultural values embedded in civil laws. The end of morality does not mean in any way the end of laws and social obligations. The fundamental principles of integrity, security and reproduction of any organization remain true and prevail, otherwise the organization is doomed to extinction.

Morality is to the religious power what ethics is to the civil power. Morality consists of all judgments and ordinances arising from religious beliefs affecting private and social behaviour. In fact, these are well human imperatives that have been diverted from their source and encased in mythological injunctions. Ethics rediscovers human values in accordance with rules that ensure a just society where everyone equally enjoys the same privileges and considerations. Its foundations are based on universal values independent of time, place, society and culture.

The simplest example is the religious moral injunction «Thou shalt not kill». It is usually good and applied only to the group that affirms it, and it does not apply to others. It means that you will not kill your parents, brothers and sisters, children or even neighbors. Thus it has no value to eliminate those who do not believe or accept the dictates of the group. It has no value to those who apostatize or whom it declares criminals. It is even less valuable to foreign groups to declare war on them, whatever the reason. It is a very restricted injunction, without any universality, all in particularities and accommodations to the taste of the day.

11.6 Ethic

As a human value, the equivalent must be found in a universal, practical ethic applicable at all times, in all places and for all equally. It should be based on what life is in its most fundamental sense, for all individuals have life and the mission to propagate it. This is simply understood if we refer to the source, the germ that creates its expression and conditions all individuals, the gene, the plan of construction and operation of everything. Thus, protecting and ensuring genetic expression is the key to such a definition.

As we have already seen, life has reached the present level through the mechanisms of genetic evolution and natural selection where the individual enjoying his full individual freedom realizes the many possibilities that evolution brings him. In this context, no policy or ideology should be designed to promote, limit or direct in any direction, interfering with these fundamental mechanisms essential for the survival of species. Such ethics could be based on the statement:

«Genes are the fundamental elements of life which ensure the integrity, security and reproduction of their bearer, who is free to control for himself the hazards as he wishes, but cannot in any way destroy them, promote, control change or alter the conditions of the release.»

In Quebec, the human being lives in society under the charter of rights and freedoms of the person which stipulates in article 9.1

«Fundamental rights and freedoms are exercised in a manner consistent with democratic values, public order and the general well-being of Quebec citizens. The act may determine the scope and the exercise of such powers.»

It automatically follows the principle of reciprocity, the universal golden rule that dates back to at least Conficius. Rodrigue Tremblay writes:

«The first humanist rule is about human dignity. It is the most important, all others are derived from it. Respect for human dignity is therefore the fundamental principle that should govern relations between individuals and nations. [...] The fundamental principle of reciprocity is that each of us should treat others as we would like to be treated. The corollary is also true: we should not treat others in a way that we would not want to be treated by them.»

It is clear that the principle of reciprocity necessarily implies that the rights of some stop where the rights of others begin. Contrary to morality, a rigorous ethics can only be based on sensible reality and human values.

11.7 Overpopulation

Although individuals are organized by their reproduction, which allows the entire population to adapt to changing environments and evolve towards maximum stability and efficiency, they cannot do so without consideration. A bacterium placed on a culture medium in a Petri dish will reproduce indefinitely until it has used all the resources available to it and especially the surface available. So is humanity on the surface of the earth, which can only inhabit spaces available or colonizable, both because of the need for a space of mobility and a space for the production of food and energy resources. These areas are dependent on the climate, which despite natural fluctuations is highly sensitive to human activity. Even if we imagine that human ingenuity could adapt to it, it is undeniable that there is an insurmountable limit, a limit which in the current state of knowledge is totally unknown to us. In any case, the finitude of the planet and the precautionary principle require that the expansion of the earth’s population be regulated to maintain a balance between the availability of resources and their consumption. Today’s society is based on growth and its acceleration, which leads to an unconsidered, exponential expansion of all variables. This is obviously impossible to maintain indefinitely and, as in the case of the Petri dish, stagnation and upheaval of civilization will follow. We must now implement a vision of the future that stabilizes populations, protects and values the planet’s resources, in order to achieve a balance ensuring the sustainability of civilization.

11.8 To sum up

To question, understand, or what is the same thing, to model the origin or the immeasurability of anything is inherently impossible for any person or system. No congruent solution is possible, the postulate takes over the power of a response. Thus usurping the knowledge he diverges, he takes control of the minds under the cover of a moral satisfying the passions of power. Only the ethical management of people and resources, based on human dignity, is a guarantee of a healthy and happy life for all.

12. What to do?

Before concluding, we must review the path taken and guide those who need to question history more thoroughly.

12.1 Summary

We began our quest by discovering the source of man’s deep anxiety and having explored it, seeing how he has been appeased by a salutary though totally irrational claim. In order to understand the why and how of this behavior, we have been led to explore the deep nature of one who delights in such comfort. Thus, we have seen how the knowledge of the world integrates with the construction of the personality and the inner self, which has allowed us to clarify the uniqueness of the human being by a definition of his true nature. Taking our journey, we have followed the historical evolution of this affirmation from its implantation in concepts of the simplest to the abstruse modern theologies, making it a universal phenomenon. In doing so, we have found that through this global movement there has always been a part of rejection and negation of these ideas. Building on modern work in neurological and psychological research, we have shown that all aspects of the mental being are only neurological processes which rest on the whole anatomical structures and depend on the actions and reactions of the person in his environment. This is how we were able to understand and define the fundamental notions of freedom and free will, then consider the elements that form the moral universe by continuing the analysis of the notions of perfection, good and evil. We have been led to understand that movement is the foundation of everything, and especially life, and consequently to appreciate its meaning according to its evolution. As a final step we integrated all these facts to paint a picture of the construction of the mental universe, that is to say the manufacture of knowledge and information. We have finally shown that because this system is finite and narrow, it cannot adequately answer the fundamental questions of man. And so we came to understand the impossibility and the non-relevance of questioning the notions of beginning and end as well as finite and infinite. Hence the impertinence of the Truth that we have thus deconstructed involving the falsehood of all beliefs and myths, whatever they may be. Finally, we have considered the whole process again and stressed the root cause of this global phenomenon which is based essentially on the search for security. Since morality is based on religion, obviously mythical and discredited, it became clear to us that it would be wisely replaced by a secular ethics, essentially based on human values.

12.2 Getting out

Knowing why one feels sick and the origin of one’s suffering allows for prevention, healing and avoidance of sources of contamination. And in this case, the remedy is to abstain and stay away from the subject when it shows up. With his Truth, man gave himself a basis to gratify himself of a most noble origin, to build up a code of conduct in order to extend beyond his death. The Truth being declared obsolete and null, how can it replace it?

At all times, the Truth has been challenged by thinkers and philosophers who saw its absurdity. Unfortunately the credulity of numbers eclipsed them to the benefit of misleaders, religions and theocracies. Now that these are discredited and relegated to the accidents of human history remain the fruits of those thinkers who relied on the real, the concrete, on the true nature of man, on his social needs. Two millennia later, we must rediscover these ancient philosophers and, since the renaissance, the modern ones, and integrate their vision into today’s society.

First of all, it is essential to unmask the propagators of absurdities, the terrorists of dark thought percolating the social fabric, we must sanitize the reason infected by the viruses of the shadow, a necessity of any moment. Already many fight the stench of these ideas used by educational projects such as libraries, summer camps for children, websites, meeting places, etc. The beginning of emancipation begins with saving readings that concretely show the ineptitude of beliefs, a sure path that one will expand oneself as one progresses. In the next section, we find the presentation of several books written by authors who have become aware of the evil and who are altruistic in their work, trying to help their fellow men break the chains of slavery.

In order to ensure a stable and sustainable foundation of society, it is essential that the state ensures the protection of its members by fair and equitable laws rejecting and excluding from its activities the truths, ideologies and magisteries stemming from religions, sects and other organisations pursuing similar objectives. The state must be secular and confine truths and their spokesmen to private domain.

As long as the Truth infects the public place, the daily fight against the most trivial nonsense cannot stop. Like enkysteed spores that can survive extreme conditions, the Truth can be revived after many years. Like diseases thought to be eradicated, which return on the occasion of trips abroad or through uncontrolled migration, the Truth can bloom again. Vigilance will remain forever even after the conditions for its eradication have been achieved.

12.3 Conclusion

We conclude by affirming without restraint that the gods, beliefs, religions, myths and their assimilated are all absurdities disconnected from reality. They may have served the evolution of society at certain times in history, but certainly this could only be done as a side effect, and with many irreparable damages. In today’s technologically advanced society, they are anachronisms that no longer have a purpose. Not only are they counterproductive and retrograde, they are a pure negation of humanity.

Much credit is given to the oriental wisdom. Some would have understood by means of meditation what has been demonstrated here in a rational and scientific way. We learn from their experience some abstract phrases conveyed by the Japanese Zen. These are koans that perfectly illustrate our purpose, here are three:

«In a conversation between the Zen master and a monk seeking the way of awakening, the master, clapping his two palms against each other, said to the monk: "Here is the sound of two hands striking each other, tell me what is the sound of one hand?" The astonished monk returns to meditate on an answer.»

«And another, in his subsequent conversation with the master, as a response, places his cup of tea on his head, and runs around the room like a hen without a head.»

«Likewise, you are advised that if you ever meet the Buddha, you must kill him.»

No Truth exists, whatever it is and if it meets, it can only be an idealistic construction in the service of an obscure power. All Truth is a lie.

Having demonstrated the ineptitude of Truth, it follows that the concepts of Deities and religious systems derived from them are equally so. Not only that the burden of proof has always rested on the one who claimed the existence of God and no evidence has ever been produced other than free assertions or tautologies, now it is known that the very idea, in addition to being irrational, is functionally impossible. From the nature of Truth logically follows atheism which is defined as:

«The formal and unconditional rejection of Truths and theisms and assimilated which are declared, by their nature or properties, absurdities incompatible with the sensitive reality.»

In this the atheist is anti-theistic, that is to say he opposes the belief in the existence of any God or assimilated, what he or she considers as dangerous, destructive or encouraging harmful behaviors.

We affirm that we must always refrain from questions of limits and absolutes which do not correspond in any way to the mechanisms of knowledge.

13. Epilogue

The timeless debate of belief in gods is that of all human beings. It has been and is still the cause of enmity between individuals and wars between nations. Holding the «Truth» and consequently being the Chosen people, the King, the supporter, the defender of a peremptory ideology justifies all possible fights, conquests and subjugations. To hold the «Truth» is to feel the philanthropic need of one’s whim as a gesture of Love, an overwhelming passion, a gift that no one can refuse. Very few people will turn away from the royal route that will save them from their daily lives. Very few are those who will resist the conquerors under their unbearable pressure. History is only a collection of tragedies linked to the "Truths".

Logical and rational thought leads to the knowledge of the physical and biological nature of the world which is opposed to the prevailing magical and mystical vision. By allowing itself to be known and studied only through the scientific method, reality gradually removes the «Truth» from the public sphere and relegates it to the restricted and circumscribed domain of individual freedom. The "Truth"-Love receives this expulsion as a gesture of hatred and isolation, hence the feeling of frustration, of degradation, of the rejection of the other and his difference. The enemies named are at war.

Society is driven by the world of ideas whose accountability rests on civil law and ethics. Formed of a multitude of individuals each with their own «Truth», the society groups them in homogeneous sets with rights, benefits and responsibilities. The convergence of the plurality of «Truth» groups leads to their mutual opposition, thus reviving the history of tragedies of "Truth". The state, being responsible for maintaining a stable and peaceful society, can only contain these conflicts by prohibiting the public exercise of the prescriptions required by the "Truth", activities which conflict with the common law. The secularism of the state is the only avenue guaranteeing to all the individual right and freedom. The state is secular; people are not secular, they are religious or atheist.

The best thing to do in this life is to follow the advice of Jean Meslier:

«Enjoy, therefore, the time wisely by living well and enjoying soberly, peacefully and joyfully, if you can, the goods of life and the fruits of your labours, for this is your sharing and the best part that you can take, since death, ending life, also puts an end to all knowledge and all feeling of good and evil.»

And I add:

«Abstain from the question that should not be asked»

«Se abstinere ab incongressibilise percontatio»

14. Suggested readings

At the invitation of Jean Soler: "To the few who are still reading and taking time to reflect", we must emancipate ourselves and forge ourselves through selected readings. The following is a brief overview of the contents of bibliographical references supporting this essay.

14.1 Québécois

In “Believing in God is now useless”, Marco DeRossi explores contemporary religious trends as well as several expressions and manifestations of various beliefs. It seeks to raise the contradictions of certain religious centers that never cease to spread their tentacles and proclaim the supremacy of their ideology and their God. It aims to dissolve the strong propensity of many people to abandon themselves too easily in certainties acquired by the transmission of various teachings. Through materialistic, dialectical and argumentative reflection, he will fill an existential void.

In «Heureux sans dieu», Normand Baillargeon and Daniel Baril allow fifteen Quebec personalities to testify their atheism and come out of the closet to explain that one can be happy without relying on a religious faith, To affirm loud and clear that one can do it without god.

In “Quebec Atheist”, Claude M.J. Braun praises atheism without cutting religions. He intends to demystify atheism in general, but especially Quebec atheism from the beginning of the colony until today. It paints the portrait of twenty atheist Quebec personalities, it offers a real family album that encourages us to question our beliefs, our culture and our past, but especially about our future.

In "La Mort", Richard Béliveau and Denis Gingras demystify life. They paint a complete picture of it, covering all facets, biological, molecular, psychological and philosophical. Thus they make it possible to understand what life is and the degradation of all the processes that support it leading to its evanescence in death.

In "The Great Illusion, how natural selection created the idea of God", Daniel Barrel proposes to explain the need, universality and persistence of the religious by resorting to the theory of evolution. Referring to the adaptive advantages of religious affiliation, social morality, ritualistic behavior and belief in the supernatural, it is led to consider the religious as a phenomenon derived from the cognitive mechanisms necessary for social life.

In "The Code for a Global Ethic", Rodrigue Tremblay proposes a universal code of rights and responsibilities that applies to all individuals, whether they are ordinary citizens or leaders of countries, of societies and religious organizations. Such a code is based on the principles of rational humanism in a world characterized by geographical narrowing and greater political and economic interdependence.

In "The trust of faith", Jean-Pierre Gosselin and Denis Monière explain the exact role played by sects as an important ally of crisis capitalism, teaching their adherents passivity and helping to disarticulate conflicts through their idealistic and fatalistic vision of history such as the movements of Jesus, the children of Mo, Krishna consciousness, Charismatic Renewal or the Moon sect.

14.2 Francophone

In “Religion as seen by a historian”, Arnold J. Toynbee presents a philosophical analysis of history through the study of religions. It deals more particularly with religion in the westernized world and the great spiritual revolution of the seventeenth century, reaction of the West against its Christian heritage.

In “Choosing to be human”, René Dubos strives to place the man in his future. Refusing to submit passively to the influences of one’s environment, drawing an enrichment from difficulties that stimulate imagination and creative faculties, this is human being.

In "New history of man" Pascal Picq, paleoanthropologist, sets the stage for a new history of evolution, Grand Prix Moron de l'Académie française for the defence of a new ethics.

In "God does not play dice", Henri Laborit, with the vision of a biologist, noting that the living systems that lead to the human brain seem to be very localized in time and space, he explores the notion of levels of organization where between the infinitely small and the infinitely large seems to point out more and more complex.

In "Intellectual Imposters", Allan Sokal and Jean Bricmont denounce postmodern relativism for which objectivity is a simple social convention. The authors show that, behind imposing jargon and apparent scientific scholarship, the king is naked.

In “Monotheistic violence”, Jean Soler focuses on studying violence that is practiced for religious reasons. He argues that the extremism which is reflected in mass massacres before our eyes is a tendency inherent to the three monotheistic religions and has its source in biblical ideology. It takes us on a journey of human thought from antiquity to the present day.

In “Who is god?” , Jean Soler highlights six contradictions about the god of the Bible, relates his genealogy and explains why this belief may lead to extremism and violence more than others, as seen with the Crusades, the Inquisition or the Wars of religion, and as we see today with the conflicts in the Middle East.

In "La fable de Christ", the original Italian title of "La favola di Cristo", Luigi Cascioli makes an irrefutable demonstration of the non-existence of Jesus Christ. It analyses the protohistory of Christianity and shows how the bible was constructed, rewritten in three versions, to invent and give the people of the desert glorious history and nationality that they never had. In doing so, he demonstrates that the invention of Jesus is a construction based on history, exploits and identity theft, those of Jean de Gamala, an Essene terrorist of the time.

In "Traité d'athéologie", Michel Onfray describes the three theisms as having more morbid: hatred of life, hatred of sexuality, women and pleasure, hatred of the feminine, hatred of bodies, desires, impulses, As to say the crucified life and the celebrated nothingness. He has written about thirty books in which he formulates a hedonistic, ethical, political, erotic, educational, epistemological and aesthetic project.

In "The ancient wisdom," Michel Onfray devotes himself to the ancient philosophers who were dismissed by Christianity, which, while valuing the idealistic victor, has set aside the materialist opponent from history.

In "De la nature ou De rerum natura", Lucrèce, a Latin poet of the 1st century BC, living in an era of violence and oppression, essential guardian of the doctrine of Epicurus, explores the Greek universe and knowledge, and reveals ways of happiness accessible to all.

In "Toxic Cocktail", Barbara Demeneix, biologist and professor at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle de Paris, shows how endocrine disruptors could well, in a more or less near future, Be responsible for a global decline in cognitive performance in humans.

In «Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity», first edition published in Hebrew in 2011 and translated into about thirty languages, Yuval Noah Harari is mixing history with science to challenge everything we thought we knew about humanity. It proposes an evolutionary approach showing how our species, Homo Sapiens, has managed to dominate the planet, to create the concepts of religion, nation, human rights, to depend on money, books, laws and more.

In "Origins of man, origins of a man, memories", Yves Coppens tells us about the Memoirs of humanity through his own memories and in the light of the most fundamental discoveries that have marked his life. He is the world-famous discoverer of many famous human fossils, including Lucy. He is a paleontologist, professor at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, professor at the Collège de France, member of the Académie des sciences and the Académie de médecine.

IIn "La philosophie devenue folle, (The Genre, the Animal, the Death)", Jean-François Braunstein has done a considerable and innovative work: he has read these new Western thinkers to the crazy philosophies; he goes back on their ideas, their contradictions, their personal journey; he analyses, underlines, contradicts, deconstructs. He is a professor of contemporary philosophy at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches history of science and philosophy of medicine and medical ethics.

In "The New Dominant Ideology", Shmuel Trigano, examines today’s representation of identity, humanity, nature, democracy, foreign relations, the very content of knowledge, the finality of law, as an ideology that plans to change the social and political order, but above all human.

In "To save the planet, get out of capitalism" Hervé Kempf explains how capitalism has changed its regime since the 1980s and succeeded in imposing its individualist model of behaviour, marginalising collective logics. To get out of it, you must first and foremost get rid of this psychic conditioning. The future is not in technology but in a new arrangement of social relations.

In "Earth on a String", Eric Lambin brings us a synthesis of recent scientific data and current theories, before proposing an original analysis and solutions to keep the earth moving on its thread.

In “The world in 2030 as seen by the CIA” CIA, the NIC National Intelligence Council presents a report on the state of the world in 2030.

14.3 English

The autobiography of Joseph McCabe, a monk who, with superior intelligence, climbed the internal structures of the church, having seen all the corruption, has stripped and subsequently devoted his life to scooping out all the deceit of the system.

In “To End God” original English title “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins argues that there is no supernatural creator and qualifies this belief in a god personified of delusion as a false and persistent belief standing up to the evidence that contradicts it. It reminds us that we do not need religion to be moral and that the origins of religion and morality can be explained in a non-religious way.

In "The Selfish Gene" original English title "The Selfish Gene", Richard Dawkins creates the expression "egoistic gene" to describe evolution and natural selection dependent on, not the carrier, the survival machine, but of its ruler, the gene. So the genes command and the brain executes, the gene commands the survival machine that houses it to do what it can best to keep both of them alive. He invents the concept of meme as being the unit of cultural evolution, by analogy with gene.

In "God is not great" original English title "God Is Not Great", Christopher Hitchens attacks the evil force of religion in the world. An engaged polemicist, icon of the atheist movement, recognized as an influential intellectual, he described himself as an anti-theist, defender of the ideas of the Enlightenment. He denounces the concept of a god as a «supreme entity» as a totalitarian belief that destroys freedom and endangers the world.

In "The End of Faith" original English title, "The End of Faith," Sam Harris famously critical of religions and scientific skepticism, advocates separation of church and state, religious freedom, and the freedom to criticize religions. He is a world-class figure of militant atheism and a recognized advocate of scientific thought.

In “The shaping of modern thought”, historian Crane Brinton traces the evolution of modern thinking from the Renaissance to the present day, through the various views of the world as answers to fundamental questions that man is asking.

In “Essays in freethinking” we find a series of essays written by Chapman Cohen, third president of the National Secular Society of Grande-Britain, which involve many ethical questions about everyday life subjects.

In “The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, vol. Karl’s "I" Popper is an interesting reflection on tolerance (chap. 7, note 4, p. 265).

In «General system theory», Ludvig von Bertalanffy, creator of the general systems theory, It sets out the laws that can be applied in a wide range of fields of knowledge, from biology to economics, psychology and demography.

In "The systems view of the world" Ervin Laszlo applies systems theory to understand the complexity of the world in which humans live.

In "Goals for mankind," Ervin Laszlo tells us that without a revolution of global solidarity, humanity cannot hope to meet the challenge of feeding the world, ensuring energy growth, security and environmental problems before they degenerate into disasters that threaten or lead to the destruction of the human community.

In "Thinking in Systems," Donella H. Meadows uses computer-based mathematical models to show the consequences of uncontrolled growth on a finite-dimensional planet. With more than 30 years of additional data accumulated, it sounds the alarm bell for the devastating effects of humanity on climate, water quality, fisheries, forests and other resources at risk.

In "Thinking in Systems", Donella H. Meadows offers everyone a vision of problem solving at any scale, personal or global, who breaks away from the world of computers and equations for a tangible world by showing the reader how to develop system thinking, which all world leaders consider essential.

Antonio Damasio 1 2 3 4 5 is a professor of neuroscience, neurology, psychology, philosophy and heads the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is also an assistant professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla and has led the department of neurology at the University of Iowa. He is one of the most important and original neuroscientists, and sheds light on the emergence and construction of emotions, feelings and consciousness. He sees the principle of homeostasis as the driving force behind life’s evolution from its very beginnings to the construction of cultures and societies. He is the author of five flagship books translated into several languages . In our opinion, Antonio Damasio is the one who deconstructs definitively the myth of the soul and its divinity. It gives a natural meaning to emotions, feelings and consciousness, giving man the humanity that the gods had appropriated.

In "How language began" Daniel L. Everett, ultimately explains what we know, what we would like to know and what we probably will never know about how humans went from simple communication to language. It clearly demonstrates that language is a cultural artifact and that without culture there is no semantic understanding, no background, no tacit knowledge to support thought. It states that the individual is the repository of culture and the reservoir of knowledge rather than society as a whole.

In "Beyond Words," Carl Safina introduces us to the world of sensitivity and emotion in highly gifted mammals. He takes a human and sensitive look at the relationships that these animals have with each other. It looks at how we interact with them, how to protect their habitat, prevent poaching and the influence of climate change.

14.4 Enlightment

The thinkers of the Enlightenment in the 18th century were the first to make a great cleaning in mythical thought by rediscovering the old and then creating a new vision of the world based on reality. The most famous writing is undoubtedly "L'Encyclopédie" by Diderot and D'Alembert.

In "The System of Nature II," Paul-Henri Thiry D'Holbach deals with divinity, evidence of its existence, its attributes, and how it affects human happiness.

The "Sketch of a historical picture of the progress of the human spirit" by Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet, is the testament of the one who prepared and served the Enlightenment revolution. It is an attempt to take a single look at the history of humanity and recognize the "perfectibility of the human being". He has the courage to say that what men have done best since they came to this earth is to be educated, cultured, to have done philosophy, science and art, to have invented critical thinking, democracy and freedom.

But long before the Enlightenment, Jean Meslier (1664-1729), a discreet and isolated man, curate of Etrépigny, the first openly atheist writer, bequeathed to his parishiers a copious philosophical sum distributed in eight «Evidence of the vanity and falsehood of religions» which leads to virulent social and political criticism. It is a forerunner of the revolutionary upheavals that will follow and it announces.

In "The Age of Reason", Thomas Paine gives his philosophical reflections. Anti-dogmatic work conceived as a testament, culminating in the Enlightenment, it marks the beginning of a scientific materialist critique of the Bible and monotheistic religions.

In his "Critique of pure reason", Kant has driven the final nail into the coffin of theology.

In "Anti-Lumières", Zeev Sternhell shows that those who fought the Enlightenment are from all eras and to avoid the man of the 21st century sinking into an icy new age of conformism, the prospective vision of an individual who is master of his present, if not his future, remains irreplaceable.

14.5 Média

Homnidés

Les fondements neurologiques de la conscience, des émotions et de la mémoire selon A. Damasio

Qu’est-ce que la conscience

Zones fonctionnelles du cortex cérébral

Recherche de l’esprit

Réseaux de neurones et deep learning

Développement et définition des systèmes d’information

Tableau synthétique des Lumières

Tableau synthétique de la critique des religions

Tableau synthétique de la philosophie des religions

Projet Gutenberg

Libres penseurs athées

David Rand

Charles Darwin

Luigi Cascioli

Pew Research Center

Culte des morts

La Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme

15. References

Reference books.

15.1 Books

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[Bock-Côté 2017] Mathieu-Bock-Côté, Le nouveau Régime, 2017, Les Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 978-2-7646-2419-7.

[Bock-Côté 2019] Mathieu-Bock-Côté, L'Empire du politiquement correct, 2019, Les Éditions du Cerf, ISBN 978-2-204-11636-7.

[Braun 2010] C.M.J. Braun, Québec Athée, 2010, Les Éditions Michel Brûlé, ISBN 978-2-89485-469-3.

[Braunstein 2018] J.F. Braunstein, La philosophie devenue folle, le genre, l'animal, la mort, 2018, Bernard Grasset Paris, ISBN 978-2-246-81193-0.

[Braunstein 2022] J.F. Braunstein, La religion woke, 2022, Éditions Grasset \& Fasquelle, ISBN 978-2-246-83031-3.

[Brinton 1963] C. Brinton, The shaping of modern thought, 1963, Prentice-Hall, LCCC 63-14031.

[Cascioli 2001] L. Cascioli, La fable de christ, 2001, 01020 Roccalvecce - VT- Italia, Luigi Cascioli.

[Cohen 1987] C. Cohen, Essays in Freethinking, 1987, American Atheist Press.

[Condorcet 1988] Condorcet, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, 1988, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, Flammarion, Paris, ISBN 978-2-0807-0484-9.

[Coppens 2018] Y. Coppens, Origines de l'homme, origines d'un homme, mémoires, 2018, Odile Jacob, ISBN 978-2-7381-3605-3.

[Damasio 1994] A. Damasio, L'Erreur de Dascartes, 1994, Odile Jacob, ISBN 0-14-303622-x.

[Damasio 1999] A. Damasio, Le sentiment même de soi, 1999, Odile Jacob, ISBN 978-2-7381-1118-0.

[Damasio 2003] A. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, 2003, Harcourt Books, ISBN 0-15-100557-5.

[Damasio 2010] A. Damasio, L'Autre moi-même, 2010, Odile Jacob, ISBN 978-2-7381-1940-7.

[Damasio 2017] A. Damasio, L'Ordre étrange des choses, 2017, Odile Jacob, ISBN 978-2-7381-3608-4.

[Dawkins 2006] R. Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006, Houghton Mifflin Company, ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9.

[Dawkins 1989] R. Dawkins, The selfish gene, 1989, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-192-86092-7.

[Demeneix 2017] B. Demeneix, Cocktail Toxique, 2017, Odile Jacob, ISBN 978-2-7381-4006-7.

[DeRossi 2014] M. DeRossi, Croire en Dieu est désormais inutile, 2014, Les Éditions Première Chance, ISBN 978-2-924408-10-0.

[D'Holbach 1990] P.H.T. D'Holbach, Système de la nature II, 1990, Librairie Arthème-Fayard, ISBN 978-2-2130-2630-5.

[Diderot 2010] Diderot et D'Alembert, L'Encyclopédie, 2010, Flammarion, ISBN 978-2-0812-2685-2.

[Dubos 1974] R. Dubos, Choisir d'être humain, 1974, Éditions Denoël, ISBN 978-2-7381-1940-7.

[Everett 2017] Daniel L. Everett, How Language Began, 2017, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, ISBN 978-0-87140-795-5.

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[Harris 2004] S. Harris, The End of Faith, 2004, W W Norton \& Company, ISBN 978-0-3933-2765-6.

[Hitchens 2007] C. Hitchens, God is not great, 2007, Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group USA, ISBN 978-0-7710-4142-6.

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[Tremblay 2009] R. Tremblay, Le code pour une éthique globale}, 2009}, Liber}, ISBN 978-2-89578-173-8.

[Trigano 2012] S. Trigano, La nouvelle idéologie dominante, 2012, Éditions Hermann, ISBN 978-2-7056-8407-5.