Darwin visits SaddleBrooke via Socrates

VIA SBINSIDER| February 17, 2023

The meaning of life is not a topic usually attacked at 55 plus retirement developments. Wine tasting, golf scores, pickleball, fine dining and travel, grandchildren normally dominate the conversations and folks leave the big questions for Sunday and church. One of the great characteristics of living in SaddleBrooke is the abundance of special-interest clubs that can stretch the body and the mind and the series on Socrates in SaddleBrooke is another outstanding example.

Thursday, in Part 4 of a series on the topic OUR QUEST FOR MEANING AND IMMORTALITY, put on by the “Socrates in SaddleBrooke” club with a presentation on how a single-cell amoeba has an effect on our thinking of life’s purpose and the thousand-year debate on the idea of mind-body dualism.

Stuart Orr did the presentation and admitted his personal bias that he is a believer in the idea of mind-body dualism, but pointed our that the materialists and science community, in general, do not. In their view, if a thing cannot be measured, or repeat experiments generate the same results, it does not exist. Darwin’s publication of the “Origin of the Species” in 1859, virtually closed the door to any idea that man was more than his biology, as is true with all other animals. In Darwin’s theology we have no purpose except to reproduce and then get out of the way of our progeny. Orr’s contention is our sense of love, curiosity, and an innate sense of a creator which exists in all cultures and the growth of intelligent design arguments has re-opened the question in recent years. The rise of quantum mechanics in biology, quantum entanglement and open system science have also reinvigorated the other side of the mind-body argument.

Orr is obviously well versed in existential arguments that dominated the 20th century and kept the presentation moving by not straying to other aspects of the topic-some of which he noted would be covered in later presentations.

The presentation lasted about an hour and a period of Q\A followed in the room at Mt. View. The hosts invited all attending, about 35 folks, to join them for dinner to continue the discussion. One quibble with the presentation is Mr. Orr replied a bit too heavily on reading the information off the screen from the power-point. But you can watch the video and judge for yourself.