It’s absolutely normal, and perfectly OK, for magnolias to be in full bloom on the First of March.
In Bucharest.
Climate change is a leftist hoax!
Archives for category: effective communication
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Tao, Karma, Future
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?
“Eternity and endless return?”
Or past mistakes haunting us through time?
Until we figure out the way forward? Or else…
‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic
in order to be True.
It also needs to be epistemologically correct.’
Oscar Hoffman, 1930-2017
This morning (February 22, 2013, thanks FB) I had a very interesting discussion with my son.
Trying to ‘soften’ him up to my arguments I said: “I don’t understand how a person with such a command of logic as yourself is unwilling to accept that…”
I should have seen this coming:
“If you have such an admiration for MY logic why don’t YOU accept that…”
That very moment I recalled a lecture by Professor Oscar Hoffman: ‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic…’
How do you translate that to a 13 years old?
“Look here. Being Logical is only the beginning. You cannot do anything without it but it isn’t enough just by itself. It’s only the formal side of Things”.
And that was the very moment when inspiration hit me:
“Let me give you an example. You have a lot of wooden pieces: spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones..etc. and two boards with holes in them: circles, squares, triangles. Your task is to put each wooden piece through the corresponding hole but you must also follow a second rule: half the wooden pieces are made of red oak and they belong to the red board while the other half are made of birch and they belong to the blue board”.
“Let’s presume you have no idea about either geometry or kinds of wood. Using logic you might separate red oak from fir using the grain and then learn to thread various shapes each through the corresponding hole. But no amount of logic will ever enable you to associate the correct pile of wooden pieces to which colored board unless somebody tells you which pile is made of red oak and which pile is made of fir.
Savvy?”
I’m proud to report that he got the point!
Present day edit.
He remembers the discussion but neither of us can recall where it started!
“Man as a measure for all things“
In order to survive, individual organisms have to ‘communicate’ with their exterior. To import nutrients and to export the by-products of their metabolism.
In order to thrive, individual organisms need to know as much as possible about what’s going on as far as possible.
In order to maintain their congruence – read sanity, individual organisms which happen to be aware of their own selves have to make sense of what’s going on around them.
We, the only fully conscious beings know to man – to us, gather information using what we call ‘senses’. In order to survive, thrive and make sense of the world we smell, taste, touch, listen to and look at it. At the world.
Smelling and tasting have very much in common with ‘feeding’. The organism ‘imports’ tiny bits from the surrounding reality and uses them to learn things about what’s going on around it.
Touching is the first sense which ‘closes’ the frontier between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.
Hearing is about becoming aware of other things interacting among themselves. Hearing a stream flowing means water moving relative to the banks. Also, hearing means both the hearer’s ears and the interacting things reside inside the same sound transmitting medium.
Seeing means becoming aware of light bouncing off things happening to be ‘in range’. The seer’s ability to see depends on light being emitted in such a manner as to be reflected – or obscured – by the observed object towards the eyes of the seer.
Making sense of things means integrating gathered information into a scenario where no piece of information contradicts any other. Specially any byte of information stored in the long term memory and held to be true.
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.
The text attributed to Orwell is too simplistic and too misleading to had been penned by Orwell.
Hence Google…
“There is no substantive evidence that George Orwell who died in 1950 made this remark. The earliest known matching statement appeared in a column in the Washington Times newspaper written by the film critic and essayist Richard Grenier in 1993“
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…
And the truth shall set you free.
There’s no other meaning but that attached by men to the stories they had spun themselves. For their own use.
Children are afraid of the dark. Not of ‘darkness’ but of ‘the dark’.
Children, not babies!
All babies let us know when they wake up. For the simple reason that they wake up to eat. Or to have their diapers changed.
With small children – babies who had developed a certain level of self awareness – things are a little more complicated. They need more than simple sustenance. They need to learn. Their budding consciences needs to fit themselves into the world. Play being the first step.
But play is impossible ‘in the dark’. Specially when previous experiences, hastened by ‘well meant warnings from well wishing adults’, suggest that ‘the dark’ is full of ‘hidden’ dangers.
In fact, it’s actually fascinating to observe how self awareness transforms darkness into the dark.
Sheep – who are hunted during the night by various predators – don’t go into depression at sunset. OK, sheep are never alone and their senses – other than vision – are far sharper than ours. But I’m sure you understand what I’m driving at. While the rest of the animals do not have problems related to darkness, we – humans – are not comfortable in ‘the dark’. To the tune of developing various forms of phobia. From claustrophobia to agoraphobia.
Simply because conscience – our ability to observe ourselves experiencing life – realizes it can observe/control less when in ‘the dark’. When its ability to see/influence what’s going on is reduced.
The point being that it’s our consciousness which makes the difference between darkness – lack of light – and ‘the dark’. That place/situation in which the conscious agents who cannot see/intervene experience their impotence.
And call it for what it is.
‘The dark’.
We, the people
Imagine yourself living some 4000 years ago.
Yes, you who have enough spare time to read things like these and are open minded enough to continue.
Who don’t worry too much about what you’re going to eat tomorrow and who would like to figure out what life’s about. What’s the meaning of all this which is going on around you.
You who have just figured out you’re different from the rest of the animals.
That you’re able to think.
And that you’ll never make it alone.
That no matter how smart you are, you’ll never be able to pull it on your own.
That no matter how strong you are, now, you’ll always need to be helped by your brethren.
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!
