Read carefully, this means that the Supreme Court of the USA is telling the Colorado Supreme Court: ‘Stand down, this is a matter too important to be decided state by state! This has to be settled at the federal level’! Nota Bene, the gist of the matter – was Trump involved in insurrection? – remains in limbo! The Supreme Court says nothing which might enlighten us about this subject.
Do I have to remind you that up to 1865 it was legal, in some US states, for people to own other people? People could be lawfully owned as slaves… And “the people and their elected representatives” were OK with that. In some states! So OK that a war had to be won by those who were not OK with “elected representatives” having the power to determine whether people could be owned. Only after the conclusion of that war the 13th Amendment could be adopted! Enshrining each individual’s freedom to steer their own fate, within the confines of the law!
Fast forward back to our days.
When “elected representatives” – at state level – have been given back the power to determine how wide is the lawful space inside which a woman can dispose of her own body. When “elected representatives” – at the same state level – are denied the power to ascertain whether a president, after losing an election, has incited his supporters to storm the Capitol.
And who has done that? Who’s been determining what “the people and their elected representatives” might do at which level? A team of nine individuals named by various presidents and only vetted by the Senate? Who are judging according to their “own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy.“?!?
Our hunting/gathering ancestors had been very successful. So successful that hunting/gathering has survived to this day. Not only that most hunter/gatherers continue this lifestyle even when offered an alternative but a few ‘civilized’ persons have also decided to embrace this manner of ‘making ends meet’. According to many sociologists, it was during this stage of development that humankind had ‘invented’ spirits and totems in their quest to make sense of the world.
Agriculture – the ability to grow/raise a far more predictable amount of food than that available to the hunter/gatherers – had been the first game-changer. Specialization is natural. Individuals are different hence each of them is better at doing diverse things. And this was valid from the very beginning. Some of the hunter/gatherers were better at knapping others at curing hides. But because food had to be gathered constantly, by essentially every member of the clan, the specialists didn’t have many opportunities to advance their craft. Agriculture had changed all of that.
Work specialization had given birth to social division. Tools had been transformed into weapons and used to defend stashed crops. This process had engendered ‘landlords’ and had transformed some of the peasants into soldiers. Temporarily at first and professionally later. Meanwhile, the specialists could stop gathering/growing food and offer the results of their toil in exchange for whatever they needed. Trade had appeared naturally and the notion of property had to be invented in order for things to remain orderly. A new narrative was needed to provide meaning and social cohesion. Productivity had shot up and societies had started to produce more than they needed for day to day life ‘Left over’ resources had started to be accumulated and then used to ‘make things’.
Among other things, accumulated ‘left over’ resources had allowed local ‘rulers’ to hire more soldiers and to enlarge their fiefdom. To put more and more (social) distance between them and the ‘common people’. And to ‘hire’ ‘thinkers’ whose job was to make sense of what was going on. Hence organized religion and, simultaneously, ‘science’.
At some point, technology – the practical side of science – had become sophisticated enough to have a huge impact on trade. When people have enough ‘spare time’ in which to think about ‘meaning’ they also have enough time to look for and design easier methods for doing things. For achieving practical goals. To fabricate things, to transport them, to preserve food… That was how a new profession had been invented. The trader!
Who needed a specialized tool! Money.
Trading, more and more intense and reaching farther and farther away, had furthermore increased social productivity. Having more diverse resources at their disposal meant that people had to learn more crafts. The longer and longer distances which had to be covered induced a new technological leap in this realm. More and more things which had to be learned, understood and made sense of enticed the birth of ‘real’ science
Science, what we call ‘science’, has again played havoc with the established order of the world. Not only that the innumerable new technological breakthroughs have vastly increased productivity, modern science has also proposed new meaning. A new narrative for making sense of the world. An impersonal one. Devoid of any almighty and fully responsible agent. Abruptly, people were left without any ‘origin’ on which to peg their understanding.
‘Man as a measure for all things’ had acquired a totally new meaning. For those who could ‘afford’ it.
Etymologically speaking, reason comes from ratio. ‘Reason’ in Latin but also having to do with ‘reckoning’. With dividing the ‘big picture’ into easier to understandable slivers. Slivers meant to be analyzed and later assembled back into meaning. Into ‘truth’.
Now, which of the two reasons gives birth to the ‘genuine’ truth?
The analytical/synthetic one which attempts to develop reality into meaning or the one which defends and embellishes the already known truth? The revealed truth?
The whole thing depends on the “ends” of the reasoning agent?
Reason, hence truth, depends on the intention of the individual performing the act of reasoning?!?
Quite unreasonable, don’t you think? Truth was supposed to be anchored in reality, right?!? Not on ‘intention’….
Truth as unhiddenness… is a concept developed by Heidegger. Basically, this whole thing is about individuals being unable to discover nor formulate the ‘entire’ truth so a ‘bigger’ truth may be reached only through cooperation. Everybody ‘says’ – unhides – everything they know about a subject and that’s how the most complete truth available at that moment is ‘uncovered’.
‘But this means the Truth becomes fluid. No longer ‘fixed’. Unreliable!’
I’m afraid you’re right! Except for the ‘unreliable’ part. As long as enough people do their part, and honestly speak up their minds, the most reliable truth knowable at any given moment will become apparent to everybody. To everybody who cares to look for it! To everybody who accepts that their reason, while imperfect, can and should contribute to the common effort to get closer to truth. To everybody who accepts that other people’s reason, while imperfect, can and should be listened to in the common effort to get closer to truth. To everybody who accepts to continue this effort knowing very well that no matter how hard they will try, people will never find the entire truth
I’m not going to discuss any of these ‘calls’. In a normal world, it doesn’t matter who makes a decision. At which level.
In the present world, which is far from normal, something jumps at any open minded observer.
‘States are good enough when it comes to setting rules about when a woman might have – or rather not – an abortion but they shouldn’t be allowed to decide, individually, whether a would-be president has been involved in insurrection.’
I agree with the legal minded among my readers that there are sound arguments, legal-wise, for each of those decisions. Unfortunately, most people are ‘legal-blind’. Instead of delving into the obscure paragraphs which shed light into the nook and crannies of any judicial sentence they prefer to decide based on what they see at the first glance. And what’s staring at us is the fact that the President of the USA is elected state-side. Each state sends a number of people to Washington with a clear mandate about who should be the next POTUS. Which means that candidates need to ‘win’ more delegates, not necessarily more individual votes from the general public. States play a critical role in this process. Equally staring at us is the fact that ‘individual rights’ are defined and upheld at the federal level. States no longer have anything to say about an individual right as soon as a particular ‘something’ is assumed – at the federal level – to pertain to the realm of the ‘individual human rights’.
Life needs ‘thickness’. As suggested in the drawing above, if animals had only two dimensions they would have had to make do without any digestive systems.
Hence we live in a 3 dimensional environment. But we, the only fully conscious beings on Earth, live ‘on a surface’. We’ve learned to fly rather late in our evolution. Most of us behave as if able to fully process only two and a half dimensions. We make good use of height and length, the things we ‘face’, but depth is rather tricky for most of us. OK, we’ve climbed up and down trees and mountains since only ‘god’ knows when but we’re basically runners. And runners run on a surface. Runners run along a mostly linear trajectory which happens mostly on a surface. This whole thing takes place in a three dimensional environment, true, but our ‘running’ nature has left some influences on the way we think.
The most obvious one being the discursive nature of our reasoning. We start from ‘premises’, go along a logical path and end up with conclusions. We very much like the things which fit into a narrative. And we hate going back to reconsider our ways.
Since Einstein has noticed that things were ‘relative’ – to the manner in which we measured them – we have started to add dimensions. To the previously 3 dimensional environment into which we used to live. The first dimension which had been added was time. Nowadays, many scientists believe that ‘the universe operates with 10 dimensions but 6 of them are very tiny‘.
I’m not going to contradict them. For the very simple reason that I don’t know – and don’t care – about the other 6. Dimensions. I’m sure that they are out there, somewhere, and that those who have discovered those dimensions knew what they were doing.
What I’m going to do is to propose a new manner of counting. ‘Dimensions’. Redefine them, first, and only then (re)count.
What do you think about mass? Is is a dimension? How about energy? ‘White’ (aka ‘visible’), ‘dark‘ … whatever…
Since the ‘jury is still out’…
I’m going to pause the narrative here to make a point.
‘The jury is still out’ means two things. The obvious and the one which stops us from sleeping at night. The fact that the jury – us – hasn’t (yet) been able to fulfill the task.
Back to our main thread.
How about we return to our good old 3 dimensional Universe?
Where space is what separates ‘things’, time is what separates ‘events’ and opportunity is what sets the stage for ‘things’ to evolve into ‘events’?
Easier said than done? In the sense that it’s very easy to put it into words but there’s no mathematics available to describe in ‘absolute’ terms what I’ve just narrated? They key word hasn’t been mentioned in the phrase above. There’s no mathematics available yet… The mathematics used by Einstein to demonstrate his theories wasn’t available to Newton… Mathematics – a form of artificial language – is invented by those capable to do that as soon as the opportunity arises. As soon as there’s a need for new ways to express new perceptions of reality.
And no, don’t expect me to come up with new mathematical expressions of anything. I’m no artist. I have enough trouble expressing my using with mere words.
Since this post is about dimensions, not about my limitations, I’ll end up remembering the three (meta?) dimensions. In a more ‘natural’ order.
Opportunity.
Anything which makes things possible. Mass – visible and/or dark, energy – visible and/or dark – and anything else which ‘works’ in this sense. I’m going to make a second – and a lot shorter – ‘transgression’ here and remind you how ‘relative’ things are. How right Einstein was. We speak about visible matter being “normal” and about “dark” (invisible to us) energy/matter having to exist in order for us to be able to make sense of the Universe as we are able to perceive.
Space
Whatever it is that separates, and also harbours, ‘islands of concentrated opportunity’. Mainly ‘mass’ but who knows (yet) what else might be ‘separated/harboured’ by space. Energy – as we know it, is somewhat distributed ‘along’ space rather than ‘separated’ by space.
Time
Whatever it is that separates, and also sequences, events. Happenings. ‘Notable’ ‘intersections’ between matter and energy. Here, again, we have a difference between matter and energy. While matter seems to ‘survive’ better ‘in time’, energy seems to be more ‘vulnerable’ to the passage of time. Entropy….
Time, like everything else human, has two sides. Like a coin.
A ‘base’ and an interpretation.
There’s no interpretation without a base – even hallucinations are based on ‘something’ – and there’s nothing which has penetrated human conscience and ever managed to evade interpretation. In fact, human conscience needs to interpret, to assign meaning to, everything it ‘sees’. Everything it perceives. Anything which is uninterpretable, which has no meaning, cannot be controlled.It is, hence, dangerous. If you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you can assume anything. And since assuming the worst – and preparing for it – is far more useful towards survival than sleeping over it, we are biased towards erring on the side of caution. And towards relentlessly searching for meaning.
Time, like everything else human, is both a phenomenon – it happens – and a concept. The difference between the ‘time’ of a star and the human time being that ours has a name – given by us – and that the star cannot do anything about it. While we do!
We can do things to and about time!
We named it, we measure it, we attempt to interpret it…. and we try to do the best of it! We try to do, while alive, what we consider to be ‘the best’.
The best (?!?) for whom?
Tao.
The ‘road’. If everything flows, it has to flow ‘somewhere’. Not only from the start/spring to the ‘end’ (?!?)/never tranquil sea. Everything flowing needs a ‘riverbed’ to flow ‘through’. A plant needs soil to sprout, grow, bear fruit and ‘return to nature’. Even a star needs an Universe in order to shine… besides enough ‘fuel’, of course! I have started this post by saying that there’s no interpretation without a ‘base’ and that we, conscious human beings, need to attach meaning (a.k.a. interpretations) to everything of which we become aware. Same thing here. For anything to happen, a venue is needed. Some wise people in our past have used ‘Tao’ as a name for THE venue. For the venue where everything takes place.
Karma.
At first, when conscience had dawned on us, we were alone in the ‘dark’. And afraid about what was going to happen to us. To assuage that fear, we have identified God. As the ‘the meaning’ of the world. At first, when both the world and time seemed to be endless – to us, consequences came from God. We had to behave. Or else… God was there to punish each and every transgression. Sometimes using one of us as his proxy. After a while, some of our ancestors have learned to write. To reliably transfer information over generations. Very soon, those ancestors of ours have learned the link between cause and effect. Between behavior and consequence. Very soon God had become an outside observer. Or was out-rightly forgotten. But Karma survived.
Future.
I keep hearing that ‘evolution has no purpose’. Like many other human utterances, this one conveys far more information about the utterer than about the phenomenon described by the utterer.
‘This wooden table has 4 legs’. We learn about the table that it is in front of us, that it is made of wood and ‘has’ 4 legs. We learn about the utterer that: It was conscious when uttering those words. Only conscious agents are capable of ‘speaking like a human’. It has, at some point, learned to speak. English, and possibly other languages. It has, at some point, learned to count. At least up to four. And it had conserved that ability up the moment when it uttered those words. It was capable of identifying ‘wood’ as a material. When uttering that phrase, it was in a ‘casual’ state of mind. A ‘scientifically minded person’, a ‘grammar nazy’, for example – when in that mood, would not attribute human ‘abilities’ to a table. Which table is a mere object and objects cannot posses other objects. Tables cannot ‘have’, hence that person was speaking colloquially. Or, given the current ‘technological’ developments, those words might have very well been uttered by a statistically ‘minded’ AI application…. A man made ‘parrot’!
See what I mean?
Let’s go back to the presumably purposeless evolution.
Evolution is a phenomenon. Like a thunder. It takes a lot more time to unfold than a thunder, it’s about as hard as a thunder to predict the exact point where it will ‘strike’ but we know enough about both to be able to point out, quite reliably, a few ‘rules’ about how both phenomena take place. About where, when and how they will unfold. What’s the purpose of thunder? To ‘close the circuit’? To discharge the energy pent up in the cloud? I’m afraid that attributing purpose to thunder is akin to allowing tables to ‘have’ legs. What we have here is a ‘figure of speech’. An ‘implicit’ figure of speech… so implicit that it’s not even considered as such… Same thing when it comes to evolution.
Which evolution is paramount to survival. Just as no cloud can accumulate ad infinitum electric energy – hence thunder – no living thing ever – no species, more exactly – has yet been able to survive ‘everything’. Everything mother nature has thrown at it. Hence ‘evolution’! Which is a mere process which makes life possible. In certain conditions – in a certain Tao – after it had sprung up. And, again, attributing purpose to evolution is akin to allowing a table to own legs.
Then what about ‘future’? If God no longer decides for us – the God we have identified – and if evolution is ‘pointless’… then ‘future is blind’?!?
Not so fast!
Question: Where was God at Auschwitz? Answer: Where was man at Auschwitz?
Could any of those present at Auschwitz have done anything to fundamentally change the outcome? Probably not. Could we, as a species, have done – have behaved, actually – in such a manner as to avoid Auschwitz altogether? Specially after the Armenian Genocide had already taken place? Should we, as a species, have done differently when so many Tutsi had been killed in Rwanda? When 8000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys had been murdered in Srebrenica?
See what I mean? About the future? About our future?
What do we have here? “Eternity and endless return?” Or past mistakes haunting us through time? Until we figure out the way forward? Or else…
Language is the tool we use to convey information. To speak our minds…
The consequences of tool use – messages, in this case – depend on the yielder. The consequences of shooting a gun depend mainly on the person aiming the gun. The consequences of using language … depend on those who are at the both ends of the ‘barrel’.
Messages – consequences of language being used to put together batches of information with the intent of transmitting them to an audience – are interpreted as soon as they reach their ‘target’. Meaning – what the receptor makes of a message, using the same languaging tools as those put to work by the emitter – depends mainly on the receptor. In fact, most of the times, there’s more information to be gleaned from a message than that intended to be conveyed by the person initiating the exchange.
If interested in who said what and what Orwell thought about the subject… just click on the link above. I’ll only add the reasons for which I know it to be a misleading affirmation.
The factual truth is that only dictators need to be guarded by rough men during their sleep. And during the rest of their lives… We, the rest of ‘the people’, go to sleep at night knowing there’s only a very slim chance to be targeted by thieves. Yes, we know that the police will likely come to investigate after the fact. After the fact… But we also know that we are less likely to fall prey to violence than those living in other countries because our societies work better than those which are more violent than ours.
Because our society works better, not because we employ more ‘rough men’ to guard us… On the contrary! The more violent a country, the more ‘popular’ the ‘rough men’ are. On both ‘sides of the isle’!
And the more violent a country, the less peacefully people sleep in that country…
Unfortunately, it was a ‘deep critical thinker’ who had come up with this idea in the first place. That ‘if you want to control, you need to isolate the intellectual’.
A ‘plain-clothes man’ doesn’t think in these therms!
Let me rephrase the whole thing.
I am rational. Which means that all my conclusions are valid. Simply because I have reached them in a rational manner. Hence all other conclusions are wrong. For the simple reason that they are different from mine. Since they are wrong, they should not reach their audience. For they might displace my conclusions from the public mind! Which brings me to the conclusion that if I want to conserve my position – as the official thinker – I must make it so that all other intellectuals must be isolated from the public. Only I need to dress up this conclusion as if it was about the greater public good.
And this is why Protagoras of Abdera and Socrates had been banished from the forum. Why Plato maintained that before being allowed to rule the philosopher-kings had to be specially trained for the mission. Taught to keep an open mind towards alternatives! Why Marxism, Fascism and all other authoritarian lines of thinking lead those who pursue them into the same dead-end. Into abject failure…
History doesn’t go anywhere. It pesters us with lessons. Until we figure out their meanings. Or until there’s no one left. No one left to be pestered! Darwin 2.0
One of the recurrent lessons history is peppered with: ‘Imperia always fail. Sooner or later, eventually all imperial social arrangements end up in abject failure. Empires as well as monopolies.’
And no, the Pharaonic empire didn’t last for 3000 years. What happened there was 30 something successive empires. Read dynasties. Whenever a dynasty lost its grip, its empire folded. Whenever a new dynasty took over, it presided over a new empire. Same thing happened in modern France. Same territory, same population, same culture, 5 republics and two empires since 1789. The fact that the last three republics have been consecutive doesn’t merge them into a single one.
Europe has been the scene of a whole host of wars. Some of them worldwide wars. Since the French Revolution, all empires which had attempted to subjugate their neighbors have failed.
Napoleon’s attempt had initiated the German ‘coming together’ and turned Russia’s attention back to Europe. Napoleon the 3rd had helped Bismark to finalize Prussia’s taking over the rest of what we currently call Germany. WWI was started by people who had no clue and put on hold by people who had no vision. Started by imperialistically thinking people who didn’t see any need to evaluate the consequences of their countries going to war and put on hold by (other) imperialistically thinking people who continued the well established tradition. Again, without any attempt to evaluate the consequences. Hence the vanquished - the only vanquished that was still standing at the end of the war, Germany – was presented with a hefty bill. And made to pay crippling war reparations. Which clumsy actions had prepared the scene for Hitler’s advent to power. WWII – or, more exactly, WWI 2.0 – was ended by far wiser decision makers. Who had chosen to integrate the vanquished rather than deepening the trenches. Although fought with ‘softer’ weapons, WWIII – also known as the Cold War – fits perfectly. It was also lost by the aggressor. Not as much won by those resisting as lost by the empire attempting to widen its grasp.
What we currently have on our hands, WWIV, is a ‘pinnacle’. Putin attempting to revive Russia’s ‘old glory’ and the reaction of the ‘free world’ are a case study. And a horrible remake. Mistakes already made since the French Revolution have been reenacted as if never happened. The aggressor failed to realize that at some point his actions will beget a reaction. That even if that reaction will be late, it will surely come about. The ‘good guys’ have forgotten – never really cared to understand? – the lessons of WWI and WWII. No real attempt to integrate post communist Russia into the democratic fold had been made. Not in an organized manner, anyway. Everybody was happy that ‘history had finally reached its end’ and Russia was left to its own devices. Even worse, it was treated as a no-man’s land. Mutatis mutandis, post-communist Russia had been treated just as South America and Africa had been treated after they had been discovered by the Europeans. Even worse, the ‘good guys’ have forgotten – or had never understood – that a bully has to be stopped early. And that the easiest way to stop a bully is to encourage his ‘sycophants’ to free themselves from his influence. And to help, in earnest, those who are bullied to overcome their plight.
Now, almost two years after the aggression organized by Putin against Ukraine has become ‘hot’, there still are people who consider Ukraine should negotiate. Should accept the inevitable. Other consider that helping Ukraine is ‘money down the drain’. That there’s no way for Ukraine to win.
The way I see this, we’re back in 1942. Nazi troops were controlling most of Europe and most of North-Africa. But the signs were already there. Russia, nor Britain, didn’t collapse under the onslaught. The nazis had been driven out from Moscow’s suburbs and Leningrad remained out of reach. From there on… Hitler kept making stupid moves. Until the Third Reich crumbled under its own weight. Helped by the Allied bombardments. And let’s not forget the huge amount of western weapons and munitions shipped by Russia’s then allies to Murmansk. Nor those hauled using the Iranian railway.
Now. Will we relearn the lessons which are readily available to us? The lessons we should have already learned? What’s keeping us? Does anybody still think Putin, or any other dictator, will ever stop? Tired of waiting? Be glad Ukraine isn’t. Be glad Ukraine isn’t tired of fighting!
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