When I think the world has gone to hell, every so often I get some evidence that goodness stilll exists. In fact, I think that these occasions of unexpected and unsolicited generosity in people are one of my main points of proof that God exists. The "argument from design" doesn't get you very far these days, and the arguments from medieval philosophy about entities and causality are faded pressed leaves in between the pages of dusty old books. And you cannot say to intellectual and educated readers that God exists because the Bible or the Koran says he does.

Evolutionary psychology and anthropology give us a picture of an inexorable and rather grim human existence, in which actions and choices are judged to be ultimately successful only when you and your tribe's genetic heritage survives and reproduces. Even science, art, and music have been explained as male display behavior, intended to impress females so as to increase the (male only) artist or scientist's chances of reproduction. Generosity or empathy or altruism exist, for the evolutionary psychologist, because they are features which benefit the genetic relatives of the individual. So you help your kin or your tribe survive, because they carry some of your genetic material. The evolutionary psychologists claim that they now have a biological basis for most of human morality.

But what happens when totally unrelated people are good to each other? What about friendship and good deeds among people who don't share any genetic material except for being members of the same human species? What about childless people who do good things for other folks who have no kinship to them? I am speaking from personal experience here. Electron readers may remember that in March of 2006, a trio of my friends totally surprised me by giving me a fresh new Macintosh laptop, which I named "SoyMac," now an essential part of my art studio. They didn't have to spent all that money on a computer, and I'm not related to them. But they did.

Just last week I experienced this metaphysical generosity again. Two other friends, not the same ones who gave me the Macintosh, have given me a MIDI keyboard. It is a Roland "Edirol" PCR-800, a tool for electronic music. The couple who gave me this are members of my online electronic music community and whom I often converse with in the virtual chatroom. But I have never met these people in person. They have heard me talking about lacking equipment for soundmaking, and they knew exactly what I needed from what I had said. Since one of this couple is an electronic (ambient) musician, I assumed that they had an extra keyboard gathering dust in the studio and had decided to give it to me. But when I received it in the mail and opened up the heavy packaging, I found that this was a brand new keyboard in its original box! I wasn't quite sure what to say, except, of course, thank you.

In the social economy I grew up in, all good deeds are "tit-for-tat." Each positive deed must be answered by another equally positive response. If someone gives you something, you have to give them equal value back. You keep elaborate accounts in your head of what you owe and what is owed to you. But gifts like the computer and the keyboard, from non-relatives who don't feel obliged by kinship, confound me. How can I pay them back? I asked the computer people this very question. How could I pay them back for their generosity? "Do good work," they replied. To continue the economic theme, their investment of money in a fancy piece of equipment for me would be rewarded by my production of worthwhile, culturally creative works.

The same thing will be true for the keyboard, then. It doesn't make any sounds by itself. It plugs into the computer and controls sounds made by software. Macintoshes come loaded with a music synthesis program called "GarageBand." This is for consumers and hobbyists rather than professionals, but it is a perfect place for me to start, or rather, start again. I was an electronic musician almost forty years ago. If I decide to do more, there are plenty of fine software synthesizers out there in the Networld, some of them even free of charge. The keyboard will connect to the Macintosh laptop, and every time I work with this system, I will celebrate the divine generosity of five amazingly good people.

Posted at 2:53 am | link