The past is no longer here. The future is not yet.
We learn about the past and discuss about the future.
The present, the place we live in, is a story. Information about the past mingled with professed intentions about the future.
Which future heavily depends, decisively even, on how we treat the story. On how we tell it and on how we read it. On how we relate to it. To what unfolds around us…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
“I’m going to die” and “I’m going to live” are ‘half-truths’. Glass half-full and/or half-empty is another.
Each of the above are true. Technically speaking. But also incomplete. Hence “half”-true. True, as in factual, but only half-true because each of the above are ‘incomplete’. Waiting!
‘I’m going to die’ makes absolutely no sense. Of course ‘I’m going to die’… Every individual ever born was meant to die from the first moment of their lives! ‘I’m going to live’ also makes very little sense. For as long as anybody is able to mutter a few words, that individual is going to live for a while. For a few seconds, at least…
Same thing with the glass. It being half-full or half-empty depends on the evaluation made by an interested party. Interested enough to make the evaluation…
Evolution-wise, ‘survival of the fittest’ denotes lack of adequate comprehension. Evolution is about survival. Coping with change. Getting through the ‘dire straits’. Evolution is free. The only thing that matters is to get through. Nothing else but getting through in one piece. No referee other than the dire straits themselves and no points for the artistic impression. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is ‘getting through in certain conditions’. Getting through after knocking down all competition… Survival of the fittest is not about coping with change. Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with winning. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is
‘Now, will you make up your mind? Is there a best religion or not?!?’
Is there a better DNA? Or a better religion? Better against which benchmark?
Exactly!
DNA is how species translate information from one generation to the next one. Religion is how cultural species translate, and conserve, Weltanschauung.
Of course there are differences. But I’m more interested in the similarities present.
We have discovered DNA, and genetics, a couple of generations ago. Evolution, as a process, in the XIX-th century. Yet animal husbandry and plant breeding are as old as agriculture… Which means that in certain conditions – having reached a certain ‘maturity’ – humans have started to behave ‘as if’. Our ancestors, lacking any formal knowledge regarding genetics or evolution, somehow managed to breed a variety of farm animals and plant crops. Each adapted, as in bred to fulfill certain needs, to the ‘task at hand’.
DNA/RNA, the existence of genes, supports all life forms. Plants, animals, fungi, viruses and everything else that lives. As far as we know, there is no life form outside the ‘genetic’ realm. There are many forms of life and all of them work according to the same principle. Each species functions in a specific manner, which manner is transmitted from one generation to the other. The relevant information ‘written down’, encoded, in genetic messages is passed from parents to off-springs. Evolution, the phenomenon, is a consequence, not a goal. The messages passed from one generation to the next one are not ‘rigid copies’ of the previous ones. When the messages are put together by the previous generation alterations occur inexorably. Whenever an alteration, or a combination thereof, is incompatible with life, the organism sporting that alteration dies. The alteration disappears. If the individual organism survives, and is able to generate a new generation, the alteration also survives. And may come in handy when something changes in the environment. Or may prove to be too burdensome in certain circumstances. Individuals sporting certain alterations have better chances to survive in circumstances where the alterations are useful while the ‘normal’, unadulterated, individuals might struggle. Alternatively, alterations which may have survived for a number of generations might become too burdensome after something had changed. The point being that evolution occurs ‘outside’. None of the individuals has anything to say about the matter.
‘But you just said that animal breeders have altered their farm animals according to their wishes!’
Yes, the animal breeders have influenced the evolution of their animals! The animals themselves, the individual organisms suffering the process of evolution, still had nothing to say about what was happening to them.
Which brings us to religion. Information being transmitted from one generation of people to the next one and fundamentally shaping the fate of the community. Of the cultural species being defined by each religion.
And this is where the parallel between DNA/genetics and religion stops.
We don’t know for sure what was going on in our past. Historians and archeologists have a few ideas but those ideas change as more and more information is literally dug out. But no matter how much we’ll be able to learn in the future about our history it is safe to say that we’ll never know exactly how we got here. In the present. But it’s also safe to say that the past was different.
And the most obvious difference being the fact that community mattered more. In the sense that each and every member of the community was acutely aware of the fact that they could not survive alone. Each and everyone of the adults living a few thousand years ago were vastly more capable than any of us to survive, for a while, in the ‘bush’. Yet all the evidence we’ve gathered so far suggest they lived in close knit communities.
Absence of proof is no proof of absence? The fact that “all the evidence we’ve gathered so far suggest they lived in close knit communities” doesn’t mean there were no individuals who managed to survive for long periods of time on their own. Or in small groups. No, it doesn’t! The fact that “all the evidence we’ve gathered so far suggest they lived in close knit communities” only suggests, strongly, that close knit communities are more likely to survive. And to leave behind discoverable traces of their existence!
We are terrified of the unknown. We don’t know what that is, so it may be dangerous. We are also afraid of the incomprehensible. Of things which challenge our already held convictions. Which challenge the things we currently believe to be ‘true’.
We turn our backs to the unknown and ignore, if we can, the incomprehensible. If what we don’t understand seems ‘far enough’, without much direct impact on us, it’s simple. We just ignore it and that’s it. Especially if it doesn’t carry any emotional charge. But if it affects us, directly or emotionally, we perceive the unknown as being abnormal. And declare it as such. An abomination…
By being familiar, the things which surround us make us feel safe. We’re familiar with them, we entertain the notion that we understand them, so we know what to expect of them. We end up feeling ‘good’ in their presence. Things that come into flagrant conflict with the familiar, which challenge the order we consider to be natural, are also considered to be aberrations! So we don’t pay attention to them. They are not part of our familiar, they are considered rare. Rare, aberrant and, consequently, not worth taking into account.
But after we find out… Or after we’re no longer able to ignore what’s going on…
A mafia-like gang sexually exploiting underage girls. One of them – at least one – commits suicide. The public assumes that if there had been others, the press would have brought it forward. For some people, sexual abuse is part of the things that happen. Which is not OK, not ‘good’, but still part of everyday life. Like earthquakes. For these people, the suicide of the victim is an aberration. Something that should not have happened! If the rest of the girls survived… it means that there was something ‘more’ involved. It was she who was not strong enough. Her support system was not adequate. Or something else might have pushed her in the wrong direction… After all, it doesn’t matter! An ‘aberration’… One of those things which are not worth much of our attention…
For other people, sexual abuse is something caused by aberrant individuals! An aberration from one end to the other! Earthquakes are normal, sexual abuse is not! For this kind of people, sexual abuse cannot be normalized! Under any circumstances.
This is where the interesting part starts. Even those who think that sexual abuse is part of life don’t feel good when they learn about specific cases. When the victims ‘get names’. They know that it ‘happens’ but they don’t think about this phenomenon all the time. They have nothing to do with it, it doesn’t affect them… Until they can’t pretend anymore. Until it affects them. Not necessarily in a direct manner… Until the reality of the fact can no longer be ignored! To escape the psychological discomfort they experience very suddenly, these people need to do something. Quick!
‘Aberration’ to the rescue! Epstein becomes an aberration. Andrew becomes an aberration. Even the victim who committed suicide becomes an aberration! In reality, ‘the aberration’ is that these things happened at all! That they happened before our own eyes!
This aberration could unfold, for so long, only because too many of us are ‘resigned to the fact’ that sexual abuse is ‘a part of life’. A ‘normal thing’. ‘Normal’ at least as long as it doesn’t affect us….
This aberration – industrial-scale sexual abuse, practiced by apparently ‘respectable’ people revealing their true nature under Epstein’s ‘direction’ – has been made possible precisely by too many of us having chosen to ignore the information ‘sloshing’ around our feet! ‘Silently’ shouted by the victims we have chosen to ignore. Until it was too late…
As I mentioned earlier, individual organisms remain alive for only as long as: They manage to keep their innards in and most of everything else out. Or, in more formal parlance, to maintain their structural integrity. They manage to take in what they need in order to continue their metabolism and to excrete the consequences of the before mentioned metabolism.
To perform those tasks, organisms need two things. Matter and rules. Substance distributed in such manner as to constitute the organism we’re talking about and instructions regarding what to do in each circumstance. For example, while not all organisms need to breathe, all of them need to take in some ‘matter’. Use some of it for ‘maintenance purposes’ and the rest as fuel. In order to recognize the precise substances needed, each organism needs very specific ‘filters’. And information from ‘inside’ regarding the amount needed in each moment of time. Then, once the required quantities of those respective substances have been ‘ingested’, the organism needs to perform certain precise tasks in order to obtain the necessary results. Not to mention the fact that ‘substance distributed in such a manner as to constitute the organism we’re talking about’ has to be ‘distributed’ in a certain manner… yet even more information!
So life is about matter and information. Big deal! Nothing new under the sun… Even Pulcinella knows that living organisms rely on genes to pass information from one generation to the next one.
True enough. My point being that transfer of information is inherent to being alive!
A ‘new born’ cannot ‘become’ unless the pertinent information is ‘put forward’ by its ‘parents’. And it cannot remain alive unless information continues to flow between the individual organism and the environment where it lives. As well as inside the above mentioned organism…
But there’s a problem here. I keep saying ‘information’. But what is it? How do we recognize a signal as being information? The answer is contained in the question. To have information we need signals and a key to interpret the inputs. For instance, ‘get some more oxygen, or ‘food’ ‘, and a receiving agent, capable of performing the task, which can decipher the signal. ‘Lungs’, or ‘guts’, able to simultaneously understand the signal and to fulfill the need expressed by the ‘managing center’.
To cut a long story short, languaging is how things work in the living world.
True or false? Does it make any sense to sent false signals? To interpret them ‘differently’?
At some point, there were way more driven/ridden horses than wild ones. Currently, there are substantial numbers of cows, chicken, pigs and so on raised by humans and almost no wild brethren of the above mentioned animals. Same with quite a number of plants.
Are we even aware of the whole situation?
Why? Because so few of us are still needed when it comes to ‘raising food’?
I’m afraid we’re very soon going to face the consequences. Directly!
Direction, protection and order. These are what a leader is supposed to provide. According to the current lore, that is.
Until the start of the previous century, drivers used to drive horses. Then cars. Since computers have come of age, drivers enable the OS – operating system – to run the hardware. To drive the printer, for example. Which makes sense. A driver – a person or a computer script – makes the link between the problem which has to be solved and the means which will be used to accomplish the task.
Furthermore, a driver – regardless of its nature – must act inside a certain ‘perimeter’. Certain things must be balanced in order for the drivers to be able to accomplish their tasks. For instance, horses – or donkeys, oxen or even camels – must be harnessed to the carriage. But not zebras! Despite zebras being very much similar to horses… Same thing for computers. No matter how well written, no driver will ever be able to cajole a printer to perform the task fulfilled by a mouse.
Comparing human and computer drivers, they share one thing. And are set apart by another. Human drivers must assume the task, despite the fact that they are never sure – not even after reaching the destination – about the final consequences of what they’re doing. Just as the computer drivers. Only the computer drivers don’t care. ‘Cause they cannot care…
Then how come human drivers … ?!? Human drivers, like their computer counterparts, have their ‘orders’. The direction of the journey, the rules they have to follow… and they are even shielded from some of the consequences. How many of you would start a journey into a completely anarchic ‘unknown’, just for the fun of it? Into a real life completely anarchic unknown, not into a computer generated virtual reality experience pretending to give the impression…
For the fun of it, into a place you know nothing about but the fact that there’s no established rule you can count on…. and without any form, whatsoever, of insurance.
I encourage you to click the picture and to read the post. Highly illustrative for the points I was trying to make. Direction, protection and order… making possible the interaction. My gratitude goes to Jess3152.
‘Evolution is not as much about the survival of the fittest as it is about the demise of the unfit‘. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is
As an engineer, I’m more concerned about consequences than fascinated by explanation. OK, explanation – as in understanding the process – is necessary when trying to improve things. To fine tune. To ‘increase efficiency’… But ‘survival wise’… sometimes it’s enough to bring things back to square 1. To repair. Specifically when the thing which no longer works used to make wonders.
Passeist? Anti-progressive?!? No, as I already mentioned, I’m just a ‘don’t fix it if it’s not broken’ engineer. And currently … IT is broken.
Democracy doesn’t work anymore. Not like it used to, anyway! If we want to fix it, we don’t necessarily need to understand what happened. Only to return democracy back to where it was. For that, we need to understand what democracy is, not what had happened to it.
Looking back, we notice that all authoritarian regimes had failed. Crumbled under their own weight, usually, and failed abysmally when attacked from outside. Usually, again. While no democratic regime had ever failed as long as it had managed to conserve its democratic nature.
‘But the Pharaohs have run Ancient Egypt for three millennia, give or take. In a very authoritarian manner…. they were absolute monarchs, you know!’ Not so fast. During those three millennia, The Ancient Egypt had been run by 33 dynasties. By 33 different authoritarian regimes… When each of those dynasties were no longer able to run the country – when each regime fell under the weight of its own mistakes, with or without ‘outside’ contribution – another dynasty, the next one, took over. ‘Usually’ not in a nice manner… Same goes for all other authoritarian regimes!
While under a democratic regime, whenever those at the helm of the government start behaving badly, or commit too many mistakes, they are changed in a peaceful manner.
So, basically, democracy is a social arrangement which is able to change itself. To adapt! To what happens inside or outside it. While the authoritarian rulers do their best – or worse? – to conserve their own power/position at the helm, the democratic regimes contribute to the survival of the entire society. For as long as they manage to conserve their true democratic nature. Their openness. Their ability to depose those who overcome their welcome at the helm of the government.
Aici este loc pentru o discuție cât se poate de ‘generoasă’.
Despre distanța dintre cauze și responsabilitate…
Fenomenul alfabetismului disfuncțional are multe cauze. Doar că nu putem aloca responsabilitate în altă parte decât pe umerii profesorilor. Nota bene, pe casta profesorilor! Nu pe fiecare dintre profesori.
Și hai să mai facem o distincție. Între cei responsabili și cei care trag consecințele. Noi, întreaga societate, tragem ponoasele unei educații deficitare. Suntem și responsabili pentru situația în care ne aflăm?
Da, din punct de vedere practic. Noi tragem ponoasele, noi trebuie să facem ceva pentru a remedia deficiențele. Nu prea, din punct de vedere teoretic. Responsabilitatea implică cunoaștere. ‘Ar fi trebuit să știi.’ ‘Era treaba ta să știi, așa că ești responsabil pentru ce a ieșit!’
Fiecare dintre noi și societatea în ansamblu știm câte ceva. Fiecare dintre noi știe să-și facă meseria iar societatea în ansamblu știe – sau ar trebui să știe, ce ne învață mamele noastre în cei 7 ani de-acasă. Să nu furăm, să dăm bună-ziua, să fim conștiincioși! Societatea, în ansamblul ei, nu se pricepe la mare lucru. Ăsta fiind motivul pentru care există diviziunea socială a muncii… Cei care ar trebui să știe care e treaba cu educația sunt… „cadrele didactice”. Corpul profesoral!
Ca societate, avem altceva de discutat. Cum am ajuns în situația asta? De ce dă greș funcția socială cunoscută sub numele de „educație”. Corpul profesoral este demotivat, deprofesionalizat sau ambele la un loc? De ce? De ce sunt atât de slabe rezultatele muncii lor? De ce acționează ca și cum ar fi lipsiti de responsabilitate? Repet, toate considerațiile de mai sus se referă la întreaga categorie. Avem profesori dedicați, cu rezultate de excepție. Cu rezultate excepționale care asta sunt. Excepții… Per total, rezultatele obținute de sistem lasă mult de dorit!
Un foarte bun exemplu pentru deriva în care se află sistemul este chiar termenul folosit pentru a descrie fenomenul. „Analfabetism funcțional” este o calchiere din limba engleză. În nici un caz o traducere! Conform logicii limbii române, un analfabet funcțional este o persoană care se descurcă, care FUNCȚIONEAZĂ, cu toate că nu știe să citească. Produsele sistemului românesc de educație știu să citească dar nu înțeleg ce citesc. NU funcționează! Suferă de alfabetism disfuncțional…
Nu putem administra un tratament eficient înainte de a formula un diagnostic corect!
Era să uit. Tot ca societate, mai e o chestie care ar trebui să ne macine. La care avem nevoie să găsim răspuns… Copiii noștri nu prea mai sunt interesați să învețe. Vă las pe voi să puneți semnul. Ne întrebăm, ne mirăm, dăm vina tot pe profesori…
Space is where ‘evolution’ happens. Where interaction shapes whatever is.
For space to exist, something must be there. Space needs ‘limits’. Which define it. ‘There’s a gap between these two bricks’. ‘This pile of bricks blocks the way’
‘Space’ is, simultaneously, a place, a concept and a word. We, writing and reading about it, exist. Somewhere. Somewhere in ‘space’… We’ve realized that. That we exist. Hence we came up with the concept. We needed to share that knowledge. To discuss it. We needed the word!
A wise man, using tools crafted by his predecessors, has calculated that whatever exists in space shapes its form. The heavier the object, the deeper the dent. Which depth of the dent influences the flow of time…
Time… the metric we use to measure ‘evolution’. The order and speed of happening… Time… Another ‘thing’ which exists, simultaneously, as a ‘reality’, a concept and a word.
Einstein, the wise man with the calculus, did his thing trying to understand. To put together an explanation for everything. Reading his findings, the results of his calculating, we can push our imagination. How about switching time for space?
How about considering ‘time’ as being the place where events exist? Interact, producing the ‘space’ needed for that process? Where the ‘weight’ of events, their ‘importance’, shapes the form of time. Which form of time influences the space ‘becoming’ as a consequence of those events existing/interacting in the place called time…
My point being … You see, Einstein’s predecessors had developed what we call ‘mathematics’. Our predecessors, also called ‘ancestors’, had developed a thing called language. Used it to communicate. Among themselves, as individuals, and among themselves – as a cultural species – and the surrounding reality. Language as the tool we use to digest and reshape the reality… Before we ‘do’ anything, we think about it. Using language to parse pertinent information stored in memory. Using language to consult with others. Using language to coordinate with others…
One of the languages we’ve developed is mathematics. Einstein, using this language, reached a ‘conclusion’. Wrote a story. Others call it a theory. Convincing enough for interested people to try. To try to prove it, to try to disprove it. To attempt to implement it into practice…
We exist. In space, using whatever resources we can identify and building time as a consequence of our actions. We do this using language. To explore, think and coordinate. That’s how we’re calling things. Space is where things happen and time is the ‘conclusion’ of whatever we do. Mathematics suggest that time and space are interchangeable.
So what?!?
Have we already solved all our immediate problems?
After all, we’re the only adults in the room. In the limited space called planet Earth. Or, at least and for all that it might matter, we’re the only adults in the room who care. Who should care about our own fate… Time’s running out, faster on the route we’re currently using!
nicichiarasa 