Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (29 page)

Swift was a major influence on two parallel aspects of my life. It was the place where my design career started, and it was also the real-life stage where I determined religious beliefs in my unique way. Like the physicists who are trying to find the Grand Theory of Everything, I attempted to integrate all aspects of my life by using my visual mode of thinking. The night after I first killed cattle I could not bring myself to say that I had actually killed them myself. Instead, during the next two weeks I made further suggestions for simple improvements that would reduce bruises when I visited the plant.

About a year later I got my first large design project at the Swift plant, building a new cattle ramp and conveyor restrainer system. The construction crew and I named this project the Stairway to Heaven, after the Led Zeppelin song. At first the construction crew thought it was a joke, but as the stairway took shape, the name started to take on a more serious meaning to everybody who worked on it. Friends told me to make sure that Swift didn't cheat on paying me, but I felt almost mercenary in accepting money for what I had done. The changes I initiated at the plant made it more humane for the cattle. Even if I didn't get paid, I was at peace with myself knowing that twelve hundred cattle a day were less frightened.

It was difficult to handle my relations with Swift strictly as a business venture. The emotional involvement was just too great. I would remember the times when I would circle the plant in my car and look upon it as if it were Vatican City. One night when the crew was working late, I stood on the nearly completed structure and looked into what would become the entrance to heaven for cattle. This made me more aware of how precious life is. When your time comes and you are walking up the proverbial stairway, will you be able to look back and be proud of what you did with your life? Did you contribute something worthwhile to society? Did your life have meaning?

The Stairway to Heaven was completed on September 9, 1974. It was a major step in defining my purpose in life. In my diary I wrote, “I greatly matured after the construction of the Stairway to Heaven because it was REAL. It was not just a symbolic door that had private meaning to me, it was a reality that many people refuse to face.” I felt I had learned the meaning of life—and not to fear death. It was then that I wrote the following in my diary:

I believe that a person goes on to somewhere else after they die. I do not know where. How a person conducts themselves on Earth during their life will have an effect on the next life. I became convinced that some sort of an afterlife exists after I discovered God at the top of the Stairway to Heaven. The Swift plant was a place where beliefs were tested in reality. It was not just intellectual talk. I watched the cattle die and even killed some of them myself. If a black void truly exists at the top of the Stairway to Heaven, then a person would have no motivation to be virtuous. [September 1977]

For several years I was quite comfortable with my beliefs, especially concerning an afterlife, until I read Ronald Siegal's article about hallucinations in the October 1977 issue of
Scientific American
. As it turned out, many of the feelings and sights described by people who were resuscitated after they had died could be explained by hallucinations triggered in a brain deprived of oxygen. The vast majority of cases described in popular books about near-death experiences were victims of lack of oxygen. Cardiac arrest and blood loss were the most common causes of death mentioned in both Moody's books and more recent books such as
Embraced by the Light
and
Saved by the Light
. But the biggest blow to my beliefs was the discovery of the effects of biochemistry on my own brain.

In the summer of 1978 I swam through the dip vat at the John Wayne Red River feed yard as a stupid publicity stunt. Doing this provided a great boost to my career and got me several speaking engagements. However, coming in contact with the chemical organophosphates had a devastating effect. The feeling of awe that I had when I thought about my beliefs just disappeared. Organophosphates are known to alter levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, and the chemicals also caused me to have vivid and wild dreams. But why they affected my feeling of religious awe is still a mystery to me. It was like taking all the magic away and finding out that the real Wizard of Oz is just a little old man pushing buttons behind a curtain.

This raised great questions in my mind. Were the feelings of being close to God caused by a chemical Wizard of Oz behind the curtain? In my diary I wrote, “To my horrified amazement the chemicals blocked my need for religious feelings.” They made me very sick, but gradually the effects wore off and the feeling returned. However, my belief in an afterlife was shattered. I had seen the wizard behind the curtain. Yet there is something in me that really wants to believe that the top of the Stairway to Heaven is not just a black void.

The possibility that a void exists after death has motivated me to work hard so I can make a difference—so that my thoughts and ideas will not die. When I was working on my Ph.D., a coworker in our lab told me that the world's libraries contain our extra soma, or out-of-body genes. Ideas are passed on like genes, and I have a great urge to spread my ideas. I read an article in the newspaper about an official at the New York Public Library who said that the only place on earth where immortality is provided is in libraries. This is the collective memory of humanity. I put this on a sign and placed it over my desk. It helped me to persevere and get through my Ph.D. work. When Isaac Asimov died, his obituary contained the statement that death was not much of an issue because all his thoughts would live on in books. This gave him a kind of immortality. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks achieved immortality by leaving behind the pyramids, the Parthenon, and writings by great thinkers. Maybe immortality is the effect one's thoughts and actions can have on other people.

To destroy other people's culture is to rob them of their immortality. When I read that the Olympic stadium and the main library in Sarajevo had been destroyed, I wept. Newspaper pictures of the shattered library were most upsetting. That culture was being eliminated. The Olympic stadium, a symbol of civilization and cooperation, was in ruins. I had a difficult time reading a newspaper article describing how the stadium seats were used to make coffins—the last civilized act in a world that had become hell. I become very upset and emotional when I think about the loss of knowledge and culture, and I am unable to write about this without crying. One nation was deliberately destroying the literature, architecture, and civilization of another. A civilized city where people had cooperated for centuries was now blown to bits. This was emotion gone wild. I don't know what it is like to hate somebody so much that you would want to destroy their culture and civilization.

___

It was quantum physics that finally helped me believe again, as it provided a plausible scientific basis for belief in a soul and the supernatural. The idea in Eastern religion of karma and the inter-connectedness of everything gets support from quantum theory Subatomic particles that originate from the same source can become entangled, and the vibrations of a subatomic particle that is far away can affect another particle that is nearby Scientists in the lab study subatomic particles that have become entangled in beams of laser light. In nature, particles are entangled with millions of other particles, all interacting with each other. One could speculate that entanglement of these particles could cause a kind of consciousness for the universe. This is my current concept of God.

In all the years I have worked in slaughter plants, I have intuitively felt that I must never misbehave near the kill chute. Doing something bad, like mistreating an animal, could have dire consequences. An entangled subatomic particle could get me. I would never even know it, but the steering linkage in my car could break if it contained the mate to a particle I disturbed by doing something bad. To many people this belief may be irrational, but to my logical mind it supplies an idea of order and justice to the world.

My belief in quantum theory was reinforced by a series of electrical outages and equipment breakdowns that occurred when I visited slaughter plants where cattle and pigs were being abused. The first time it happened, the main power transformer blew up as I drove up the driveway. Several other times a main power panel burned up and shut down the plant. In another case, the main chain conveyor broke while the plant manager screamed obscenities at me during an equipment startup. He was angry because full production was not attained in the first five minutes. Was it just chance, or did bad karma start a resonance in an entangled pair of subatomic particles within the wiring or steel? These were all weird breakdowns of things that usually never break. It could be just random chance, or it could be some sort of cosmic consciousness of God.

Many neuroscientists scoff at the idea that neurons would obey quantum theory instead of old everyday Newtonian physics. The physicist Roger Penrose, in his book the
Shadows of the Mind
, and Dr. Stuart Hameroff, a Tucson physician, state that movement of single electrons within the microtubules of the brain can turn off consciousness while allowing the rest of the brain to function. If quantum theory really is involved in controlling consciousness, this would provide a scientific basis for the idea that when a person or animal dies, an energy pattern of vibrating entangled particles would remain. I believe that if souls exist in humans, they also exist in animals, because the basic structure of the brain is the same. It is possible that humans have greater amounts of soul because they have more microtubules where single electrons could dance, according to the rules of quantum theory.

However, there is one thing that completely separates people from animals. It is not language or war or toolmaking; it is long-term altruism. During a famine in Russia, for example, scientists guarded the seed bank of plant genetics so that future generations would have the benefits of genetic diversity in food crops. For the benefit of others, they allowed themselves to starve to death in a lab filled with grain. No animal would do this. Altruism exists in animals, but not to this degree. Every time I park my car near the National USDA Seed Storage Lab at Colorado State University, I think that protecting the contents of this building is what separates us from animals.

I do not believe that my profession is morally wrong. Slaughtering is not wrong, but I do feel very strongly about treating animals humanely and with respect. I've devoted my life to reforming and improving the livestock industry. Still, it is a sobering experience to have designed one of the world's most efficient killing machines. Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

Recently I read an article that had a profound effect on my thinking. It was entitled “The Ancient Contract,” by S. Budiasky, and it was published in the March 20, 1989, issue of
U.S. News & World Report
. It presented a natural historical view of our evolving relationship with animals. This view presents a middle ground between the supporters of animal rights, who believe that animals are equal to humans, and the Cartesian view, which treats animals as machines with no feelings. I added the biological concept of symbiosis to Budiasky's view. A symbiotic relationship is a mutually beneficial relationship between two different species. For example, biologists have learned that ants tend aphids and use them as “dairy cows.” The ants feed the aphids, and in return the aphids give a sugar substance to the ants. People feed, shelter, and breed cattle and hogs, and in return the animals provide food and clothing. We must never abuse them, because that would break the ancient contract. We owe it to the animals to give them decent living conditions and a painless death. People are often confused by the paradox of my work, but to my practical, scientific mind it makes sense to provide a painless death for the cattle I love. Many people are afraid of death and can't stand to face it.

Often I get asked if I am a vegetarian. I eat meat, because I believe that a totally vegan diet, in which all animal products are eliminated, is unnatural. Even the Hindus, traditionally vegetarian people, eat dairy products. A completely vegan diet is deficient in vitamin B
₁₂
, and using dairy products does not eliminate killing animals. A cow has to have a calf every year in order to give milk, and the calves are raised for meat.

But someday in the distant future, when slaughterhouses become obsolete and livestock is replaced with products of gene splicing, the real ethical questions regarding the creation of any kind of animal or plant we desire will seem far more significant than killing cattle at the local slaughter plant. Humans will have the power to control their own evolution. We will have the power of God to create totally new forms of life. However, we will never be able to answer the question of what happens when we die. People will still have a need for religion. Religion survived when we learned that the earth was not the center of the universe. No matter how much we learn, there will always be unanswerable questions. Yet if we stop evolving, we will stagnate as a species.

Bernard Rollin, a philosopher on animal rights issues at Colorado State University, points out, “It is true that free inquiry is integral to our humanity, but so too is morality. So the quest for knowledge must be tempered with moral concern.” A total lack of moral concern can lead to atrocities such as the Nazi medical experiments, but medical knowledge was also delayed for a thousand years because of religious taboos about the dissection and study of human bodies. We must avoid intellectual stagnation, which retards the progress of medical knowledge, but we must be moral. Biotechnology can be used for noble, frivolous, or evil purposes. Decisions on the ethical use of this powerful new knowledge should not be made by extremists or people purely motivated by profit. There are no simple answers to ethical questions.