Why are you kind to strangers?

Throughout most of our history as humans on this planet we have lived in small groups. There was no knowledge of the wider world, yet alone the vastness of the Universe.

If our brains have evolved to deal with such a small world then is it any surprise that this sudden (in evolutionary terms) expansion of our awareness of things has left us feeling a little shell-shocked?

What if our brains just can’t cope with the world on that scale?

Could mental illness be a consequence of that inability to cope?

Are things getting out of control?

Each to their own (I'm right)

We all have different views on different things; but what if everything is reducible to scientific measurement? Things like morality; what if the only law is selfishness bound by a network of systems of control?

Wouldn’t that change things significantly?

I hear a lot about the big questions, for example: why are we here? Somehow it is assumed that there must be some great meaning behind the fact that we are living, thinking beings – I mean there must be!

But what if there isn’t a ‘great’ greater meaning? What if all of these questions have a surprisingly simple answer? What if I am a collection of organic material that is functioning under universal laws – just like a robot does?

Someone has to be right and someone else wrong at the end of the day; there is no room for ambiguity. If, as Richard Dawkins says, morality is inbuilt into us as selfishness (for example the achievement of social status through altruistic behaviour) then can every question be boiled down to the measurable science of nature?