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Where?

April 2, 2024 //
0

What? When? Where?
Opportunity Evolving in Time.

‘OK, I can accept the concept of opportunity evolving in time.
After all, the whole thing is nothing but a truism.
Opportunity is fluid by definition. Evolution is its natural destiny. And time is the natural consequence of evolving opportunity.
But where does this whole process take place?!?’

In our heads, where else….

Opportunity, evolution, time and, yes, ‘space’ are concepts.
Ideas coined by us, conscious human beings acting as thinking agents who use contextualized observation to further our understanding of what’s going on around us.

‘Huh?!?’

Consciousness is a state of mind.
A mind is like an AI machine. Something more than a live brain but not yet a wake, conscious, entity.
The closest thing to a ‘mind’ is a sleeping human conscience. Sleeping – hence not doing its ‘thing’ – but able to be awaken. Able to do what it’s capable of doing.
A brain is nothing but hardware. A mind is like a computer. Hardware and software put together. The only difference between a mind and a computer is that a mind is an expression of natural evolution while a computer is an expression of human ingenuity. Another thing minds and computers have in common is that both need a will to start them. To point their attention towards a goal.
This being where consciousness takes over. A mind which is aware of its own ‘wokeness’ is a conscious mind. It can pay attention, do things and generate meaning.

‘Hardware, software, natural evolution… aren’t you throwing too much ‘content’ into a single post?’

I’ll try to keep it simple.

We, humans, are the pinnacles of ‘natural evolution’. According to our interpretation of the information we have gathered until now.
As you already know, a pinnacle is a small thing perched on top of something way bigger. And for pinnacles is far easier to notice other pinnacles than to perceive what lies under them.
Our bodies – including our brains – depend on what’s going on ‘beneath’ us. In fact, ‘our’ whole world – the world we depend on, the one we live in – is working ‘in the back ground’.
Yet most of the time we’re interested only in what the other ‘pinnacles’ are doing… ‘Cause they are the ones which grab our attention!

Well, the ‘cool’ fact is that this is only ‘natural’.
In the sense that this is how we’ve become human in the first place. That’s how our minds got their ‘software’.
We’ve learned self-awareness by interacting with other human beings. We’ve built our culture by remembering the lessons learned by our ancestors. And we’ve built our civilization in concert with our brethren.
Individually, we may know little. But together we can move mountains. As we did.

And got cocky.
Our success has narrowed our attention span.

Somewhere inside the book which metaphorically recounts how we’ve learned self-awareness – the Bible – Mark, one of the evangelists, quotes Jesus:
“Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence to yonder place,’ and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
I’m not a psychologist. But I find this idea as being very explicit regarding the manner in which our minds work.
We cannot start anything, in a voluntary manner, before ‘believing’ in the outcome. We need to have ‘faith’ in that action. No matter how simple.

How do we get that faith?
We don’t get it, it’s being built into our conscience during the process. Continuously.
There are two factors which build our faith. Experience and reason. Past interactions we had with the wider world and the meaning we’ve derived from them. Putting it bluntly and oversimplifying things, based on previous experienced we convince ourselves, involuntarily, that it was us who were entitled to claim the merit for what had happened. Either we’ve done something right, ‘believed’ in the right things/gods or both at the same time.

Up to not so long ago, we have evolved in a religious manner.
In the sense that faith was shared amongst us. We used to share a ‘core faith’. That things not only work in a certain manner but also that things should go in a certain direction.

Success has changed that.
We’ve become so confident in our ability to generate meaning that we have emptied what’s left of the core faith.
We, the pinnacles, have reached such heights that we’re no longer aware of our link with the rest of the mountain. We’re racing ourselves for the top forgetting that we need fuel and spare parts. That our very racing completely changes the ‘racetrack’. For better or for worse…

And everything described here takes place inside our heads!
Happens inside our heads and changes, through our actions, the very world which keeps us alive.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game

1 2 3 4 5 A B C

March 20, 2024 //
2

Conserving the subjective self-perception

Robert Prechter’s “socionomic hypothesis” is that naturally occurring waves of social mood are the primary regulator of social action.”

“Objective through shared subjectivity”

‘Popular belief’ posits that ‘objective’ is based on facts while ‘subjective’ is based on whim.
True enough but facts need to be identified as such first and then agreed upon before they become ‘facts’. Before they are recognized as facts by the interested parties. Before they become the foundation for objective knowledge.
On the other hand, ‘subjective’ is indeed personal. A personal ‘take’ on something which has happened inside the same reality where facts take place. In fact, all the facts we agree upon have started their lives as subjective impressions. Which had been shared with other people and eventually stated as facts after ‘negotiation’.
Furthermore, no matter how subjective a perception, all perceptions are perceived using the same senses. And ‘processed’ using the same brains. According to culturally accrued ‘habits’.
Even a hallucination will conserve some degree of normalcy. If of a visual nature, for example, the hallucinatory perception will be experimented and described in visual terms. Pondered upon and discussed with others using the same brain which usually deals with facts. Shared with others using language and evaluated according to ‘customs’.

Self-preservation

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a rationalization is “an attempt to find reasons for behaviour, decisions, etc., especially your own“.

According to my research, all conscious agents will first attempt to arrange all information at their disposal in such a manner as to conserve the subjective impression they have already acquired about themselves.

Salvation

According to Merriam-Webster, salvation is “deliverance from the power and effects of sin“
Having to do with religion, some people will say salvation is subjective by its very nature.
Being understood in the very same way across various cultures and religions, salvation becomes objective.
Not real in the materialistic sense of the word but real in the sense that belief in salvation has very real consequences. Real enough to become material. Set in stone!
Shared belief in Christian salvation has driven people to build churches while shared belief in Buddhist salvation has driven people to build monasteries. The fact that people involved in so different religions as Christianity and Buddhism share their faith in salvation makes salvation an objective ‘thing’.
Makes salvation something ‘natural’.

Self-actualization

According to Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, for a person to be able to attempt self-actualization that person must have fulfilled all other needs they might have had.
Having fulfilled those ‘previous’ needs is no guarantee for self-actualization being a success, only a prerequisite.

Copernican Revolutions

In a sense, each Copernican revolution humankind has sailed through – of which there have been many – has been a self-actualization.
I’m going to mention three and wrap up this post.

Instrument and possession

Many animals – relatively speaking, are able to use tools. To purposefully alter pieces of matter in order to be more useful towards the intended goal. But nobody except us carry them around.
Furthermore, a lion will defend its pray. And its hunting ground. In a sense, a lion behaves as if it defends its possessions. But only us, humans, talk about possession.
It was us who have conceptualized possession. Who have instrumentalized the notion of property.
This has happened more or less simultaneously with the advent of organized agriculture. Which needs instruments and order. Tools to work the land and the expectation to be able to enjoy at least some of the end-results of your work.

Money and nation

Systematic agriculture has thoroughly transformed human society.
Or, more exactly, the humans who had invented systematic agriculture had to adapt themselves to the new reality brought upon their heads by their own invention.
The spoils of systematic agriculture – abundant food – have created vast opportunities. Some of the people involved in the process were ‘free to do other things but toiling the fields. Hence specialization of work and social division. ‘Professional people’, priests, soldiers.
The source of this new found abundance, and the spoils themselves, had to be protected. And organized…. a.k.a. taken advantage of! Hence ‘rulers’. Arable land had been taken into possession along with the people working the fields. Nation building had begun.
The hoarded produce could be traded. Hence they were. Along with the ‘things’ produced by the ‘professionals’ fed with the accumulated ‘excess’ food.
Trading would have been easier if money was available. Hence it was invented. And used. By traders as a tool for trading merchandise and by rulers as a tool for ruling ‘their’ nations. Which weren’t yet called as such. Only functioning as such…

Rights and reason

Systematic agriculture and trading had been the stepping stones for the advent of ‘industry’. For professional people producing things for sale.
Oekonomy – the art of making ends meet on a yearly bases, as understood by the Ancient Greeks – had become ‘the Economy’. The engine moving society along the passage of time. A process so complicated that a single agent was no longer able to control it. L’etat had become so complex that even Louis XIV could no longer claim it as his own. For the ‘system’ to maintain its ability to function, to go forward, individual agents had to be freed.
Hence the freedom of the market and the human rights.
Hence individual human beings indulging in the habit of thinking for themselves…

Salvation no longer came in an organized manner. According to rules.
To each their own. Reason had been freed once and for all.
Each of us has assumed the freedom to rationalize according to their own wish.
To their own purposes.

To which end?
Only history will tell…
But before proceeding we’d better remember Ernst Mayr’s words.
‘Evolution has nothing to do with the survival of the fittest.
There’s no such thing as ‘the fittest’! The fittest to what since everything changes all the time?!?
Evolution is about the demise of the unfit.’

Until now, evolution has been ‘blind’.
Increasingly, some have become cocky enough to consider they know better. To consider they know where they should lead ‘their subjects’. Lenin, Hitler and Stalin are but a short selection from a long list.
Those who have followed the advice and have facilitated the ‘pestilence’ put in practice by this kind of people are those who have forgotten the deeper meaning of “You must not make any idols. Don’t worship or serve idols of any kind, because I, the LORD, am your God”.

Which ‘God’ brings us back to where we started.
To ‘objective as something agreed upon by many subjective agents’.
You see, I quote the Bible and I mention God quite a lot. And still define myself as being ‘agnostic’.
The fact that I don’t know whether God had actually created the world doesn’t alter the fact that the Bible is a trove of knowledge. As for God’s very existence… things are complicated!
How do you determine whether something exists? You check for the consequences of its existence, right?
A table exists only if you can ‘touch’ it. Since you cannot touch something which doesn’t exist, the fact that you can touch it is a consequence of its existence.
Same with God. Irrespective whether it has actually created the world – or anything else, as a conscious agent – God does exist. People acting as if God was real – people’s faith in God – had and continue to have consequences.
People acting as if God was real have brought God to life. The God we know, talk about and have faith in…

My last affirmation is rather hard to swallow?
Then how about money?
What makes them so valuable? Except for our ‘faith’ in them? Except for our belief, our shared belief, in the ‘fact’ that we are able to get things by paying for them?
And how about ‘rights’?
Do we respect human rights because we believe in them? Or only because ‘that’s the law and there is no other alternative, at least in public’?

See what I mean?
We live in the reality of our own making. And we tinker with it incessantly.
Attempting to make it more and more comfortable. To us!
Each of us tries to make the world ‘a better place’. Each of us working for themselves, each of us according to their ‘own advice’.

Which brings us to ‘how things work’.

Time and time again, reality has told us that we cannot survive, let alone thrive, individually.
That everything we have done is the consequence of us working in concert.
It was our shared belief in ‘money’ which has given us capitalism. Economic effervescence and elevated life standards.
It was our shared belief in God which had convinced us that ‘we were brothers’. And, as brothers, that we should respect each-other. That we should respect each-other’s rights.

Now, that ‘God is dead’ and it has become obvious that ‘capitalism is no better than those who put it into practice’, we have arrived at an inflection point.
Are we able to preserve the true nature of the things which have brought us here?
Or are we going to transform them into idols?

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Categories 1989, awareness, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, man as a measure for all things, Money, Trust

Consequences

March 12, 2024 //
0

“I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun,
because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.“
Ecclesiastes 2:18

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.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, religion, skin in the game

How far?

March 9, 2024 //
0

“Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
“Because you have so little faith.
Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,
you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’
and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:19-20

According Archimedes, an engineer, all you need is a long enough lever and a fulcrum. If you wish to move the world…
According to Jesus, a leader, all that his disciples need is faith. If and when they want their expressed wishes to come true.

We’ve been moving our world down the history lane for quite a while now.
2000 years, give or take a couple of centuries, since the two mentioned above have shared their apparently conflicting advice, we’ve arrived at an infliction point.

We’ve almost levered ourselves out of our history.
And replaced ‘us’ with ‘ME’.

Chimps have learned to use grass blades to fish ants. And sticks to spear bushbabies.

We, the smartest among apes, have learned to lever the walking stick into a club.
To whittle clubs into spears and then lever them into arrows.

Using tools we’ve levered ourselves from working beasts into humans.
Using weapons, some of us have levered themselves into leaders.

Using money, some of us have levered themselves – collectively – into relative abundance. Relative to others…
Using ‘borrowed’ money, a few of us have levered themselves into financial gurus. And others into homeless people. 1929-1933 and 2008 are but two of the more poignant examples.

Using printed information – a.k.a. books – we’ve levered ourselves out of ignorance.
Using widely disseminated and specially crafted information – a.k.a propaganda – some of us have levered themselves into temporarily powerful positions. At the expense of those gullible enough to swallow that poison and causing immense suffering to the bystanders who had the bad luck to be there.

Using automation we have levered skilled workforce into clerks.
Using procedures, we have levered clerks into pen-pushers who check for conformity instead of thinking by themselves.

Nota bene!

Neither of these is an argument against leverage!
After all, we live in the best world we’ve been able to build for ourselves…

The only thing we should pay attention to is the fact that our levers have become progressively powerful.
As in starkly more and more powerful. And not necessarily more powerful in a progressive way… On the contrary, more likely.

Our weapons have become so powerful that we are able to obliterate life on Earth. If enough ‘unstable persons’ among us will somehow end up controlling enough of those weapons…
Our single-mindedness regarding profit, levered by an intense Neo-liberal propaganda about money as a panacea, has dramatically changed everything. From the very geography of the Earth to the way we relate to the world.

Nowadays we have started to leverage our thinking.
Not for the first time, indeed, but with renewed intensity!

Writing has allowed us to divide a big problem into smaller problems. Each of those smaller problems was assigned to and eventually tackled by a specialist. Ultimately, it was the job of the ‘project manager’ to assemble the ‘solution’ by making ‘good use’ of the results provided by the specialists.

No longer.
Powerful enough computing and skillful code writing have been levered into Generative AI.
Very soon, ‘project managers’ will no longer need specialists. Only specialized generative AI apps.

Those apps will constitute Archimedes’ ‘long enough lever’.
The already existing automation will constitute the fulcrum.
The wishes of those happening to be able to use the apps and control the fulcrum will constitute the faith mentioned by Jesus.

Are we ready for this?

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Categories 1989, awareness, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game

Which One?

March 7, 2024 //
0

“Truth used to be based on reason.”
J.P.Moreland, Introduction to
Escape From Reason 2006
by Francis A. Schaeffer

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’.

Currently we understand reason as “the intellectual faculty that adopts actions to ends“.

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

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Categories awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, freedom, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game, Trust

Counting Dimensions

March 5, 2024 //
0

Is it possible to see a new colour?
David Hume, 1739

According to Newton, there’s no new colour to be seen.
The spectrum he had ‘split’ from what was called white light was continuous. And still is.
So, in order for us to see a new colour we should rename one of the already existing ones.

That’s according to the ‘light splitters’….

According to people who study vision – how humans see – “People can be made to see reddish green and yellowish blue—colors forbidden by theories of color perception.”

Oops!

There’s more to light than meets the eye… at the first glance, at least.
The way our brain works has something to do even with what we see of this world!
The good thing being the fact that once we understand how our brain works, we are capable of by-passing at least some of these limitations.

But what has any of these to do with ‘dimensions’?!?

I’ve argued in my previous post that having evolved as ‘runners’ we basically live in a 2.5 dimensional world. That we are biased against a proper perception of depth. And that we loath to go back and reconsider already entrenched convictions.

In this post I’ll go further and say that dimensions are tools.
Gimmicks we have invented to help us make sense of the world. And not only invented but fine tuned to fit our purposes.

We have invented length and breadth when we needed a way to impose taxes on arable land.
We have invented weight and volume when trading cereals and wine.
We have invented time when needing to pin point our position on a map while sailing around the world.
We have radically altered geometry when the old one was no longer useful.
We have even learned to adjust dimensions when speed had became fast enough to demand it.

Now, time is ripe for us to reconsider them altogether.
Opportunity, space and time.
We can make do with only three basic dimensions.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, skin in the game

2.5

March 4, 2024 //
0

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….

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, physics, Psychology, skin in the game, yes but

“Don’t Look Back in Anger”

March 2, 2024 //
0

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law
if it acquires the political power to do so,
and will follow it by suppressing opposition,
subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young,
and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100.

Religion is the metaphusical ‘thing’ inside which people who hold a set of tenets to be true are able to build a community.

Religion is sociological phenomenon. Something belonging to the realm studied by those who try to understand how large number of people work together.

Religions – on the other hand – are ‘sets of tenets’ put in practice by various groups of people.
Sets of tenets which survive for as long as they continue to help the people who uphold them in their quest to survive as a group. As a community.

Religion cannot be ‘changed’.
Religion can be studied. May be better understood.
Like physics. You can’t ‘change’ physics! With what? With chemistry? Things don’t work like this. The only thing you may do about physics is to ‘deepen’ your knowledge about it.

Religions can, and sometimes have to, be changed.
By the very people who ‘use’ them to survive.

Since nobody can survive on their own, each and everyone of us needs to belong.
To a community.
To a religion, actually!

And what do people do when they realize survival is impossible in certain conditions?
Die or do something about it, right?

Now, which community can survive based on hate?
It doesn’t matter whether you are asked to hate somebody inside or outside your community.
Whether you hate individually or collectively.
Hating – or despising – somebody blinds you and exhausts you. Puts a huge burden on your back. Focuses your attention so tight that you are no longer able to notice the real dangers.
Those which actually make you less likely to survive.

And this is valid both for you as an individual and for you as a hating community.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion, skin in the game, Trust

Hoax

March 1, 2024 //
0

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!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, Bounded rationality, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game

Panta rei

March 1, 2024 //
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Tao, Karma, Future

Janus offers us an insight into the worldview of the Romans. He was worshipped because he helped them to control changes and transitions and allowed them to understand time and the nature of the world. For the average Roman, the god personified important forces that that he wanted to control.

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…
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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology
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