Photo courtesy the author
How, in this world that you describe, in which our brains and brain chemistry control our mood and our personalities, and in a world in which you don't find a spiritual element, how do you find consolation in life?
I in no sense downplay the importance of given experience in various sorts. For me, for example, music is tremendously important; music transports me. I regard Mozart's music as coming from heaven. That is only a way of speaking, but I can't help speaking that way. I find my joys in nature and in human art and culture. And sometimes in science. There's a lovely book by a great physicist called The Joy of Insight, and he describes epiphanies and ecstasies and feelings of revelation quite as intense as any religious person. But I personally have no taste for immortality. I think it would be a disaster for the species if any prominent way of averting death was found. I'd like a few more years of relative health to enjoy life and write and I will be happy to bill it in.
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