Archives for posts with tag: individual

Choice

March 16, 2023 //
0


Basically, there are two meta-rules.

According to the first, if you follow the precepts – to the letter – you get ‘there’.
According to the second, avoiding the forbidden sets the stage for things going your way.

Unfortunately, things are not as simple as they look at first sight.
The first meta-rule deals with individuals. Getting ‘there’ is each individual’s job. They have to do what they are supposed to and failing to fulfill any item banishes the unworthy from the cherished ‘prize’.
The second one is even ‘trickier’. While its precepts must be followed, again, by the individual followers, the ‘spoils’ belong more to the community rather than to the individual. On top of that, they are not ‘certain’! Following the rule only ‘sets the stage’. Disobeying the rule makes it certain that the goal will never be reached while following it only ‘opens the door’. Makes it possible for each of the community members to search for their individual paths towards their particular goals.

Do I need to remember you that both these rules exist only in our heads?
As figments of our imaginations?
And that the difference between the two can be observed at the practical level?

The first rule can never be fulfilled. Nobody can follow it to its ultimate consequence. No matter how hard any of us might try. It would be like measuring with infinite precision. Something will always happen. Go wrong. Throw us back to where we have started.
The second one also leads to disappointment. Some members of the community will inevitably attempt to cut corners. Take the easy way out … Hence the rule needs policing. You’ve certainly witnessed at least on occasion when ‘bad (money) has driven out good’… at least temporarily! Furthermore, some members of the community – while faithfully sticking to the rule, will still fail to get ‘there’. Set their aims too high, didn’t have what it takes… or simply had lots and lots of bad luck! But regardless of the why’s, not getting there still generates disappointment. Usually directed at the rule… and creates a lot of doubt towards the weltanschauung based on the rule…

Which way out?
How to choose?

Would it be helpful to notice that, historically speaking, the communities which have followed the second rule, primum non nocere, have fared decently while those who had attempted to prescribe, and impose, a ‘recipe for happiness’ have invariably failed?
‘Don’t do anything, upon another, which you wouldn’t welcome when done upon you’ versus ‘treat all the others exactly as you would like to be treated yourself’?

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

Damned if you join, damned if you don’t?!?

October 9, 2021 //
0

Let me put this another way.

Nobody can survive alone.
Not for a considerable amount of time, anyway.

“It takes nothing to join the crowd”.
To join, maybe… but if you choose to remain, you must ‘follow the rules’.

So yes, it takes everything to stand alone… Your very life!
And the ‘membership price’ is your ‘absolute’ freedom…

Hard to make up your mind, eh?
Then let me raise up a few points.

I started this argument by mentioning that nobody can live alone. Not for long and not very comfortably. No matter how hard you may prepare yourself.
Don’t kid yourself. All those hermits and preppers you hear about – on ‘social media’!, are able to do that because of modern technology. Which technology has been developed by somebody else…
On the other hand, most individuals are able to survive, alone or in small groups, while jumping from ‘one boat to another’. Think emigration, for instance. Or ‘acculturation’.

But no crowd will ever survive its members leaving in droves!

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
Another very efficient way to help would be to share my posts.

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories 1989, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, teleology, The kind of world we live in, Trust

Conscience

June 1, 2021 //
0

You cannot explore the limits of something without knowning what that something is.
You might not know how that thing works, or came to be, but you need to have at least some idea about what that thing is!

So, ‘What conscience is?’

Huh?!?

‘Cognitive function…’, ‘ability to tell right from wrong’, ‘self awareness’… you name it.
Rathern confusing, isn’t it?
Specially when you already had a clear idea about what the word used to mean… Or was that only an impression?!? An ilussion, actually?

Let me introduce you to my version of things.

Everything that surrounds us has a ‘discrete’ nature.

Both matter and energy are, ultimatelly, made of quanta.
Certain theoretical considerations suggest that time and space are multiple of Planck time and space units, respectivelly. Any lenght, in time and/or space, smaller than a Planck unit not having any sense. The argument being the facts that the speed of light is limited and that matter/energy itself (which fills the space and generates time) is of a discrete nature. As in ‘made of quanta’.

And this ‘discrete nature of things’ is visible at every level.

We have quanta, quarks and other elementary particles, atoms, molecules/crystals. And ‘objects’.
We have substances, membranes, cells, organisms, species. And individuals.

When our scientifically minded forefathers first tried to make some sense of what we had already learned about the world, they had come up with the notion of ‘states of matter aggregation’. Or ‘phases of matter’.
At first, there were three of them. Solid, Liquid and Gaseous.
Currently, we recognize five. Solid, Liquid, Gaseous, Plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensate. The first four are deemed to be ‘natural’ while the last is considered to have been ‘made by man’.

The main difference between them being the manner in which the components ‘stick’ to each other. The amount of force with which each of them interacts with its neighbors.
The same ‘level of internal interaction’ governs the way in which various ‘objects’ interact when they ‘meet’. Two clouds of gas interact differently than two bodies of water. Which interact differently than two rocks. Furthermore, a stream of gas interacts differently with a liquid than with a solid object. And so on….

My point being that the ‘phase of matter’ one object belongs to determines the manner in which that object interacts with its exterior.

‘OK, somewhat interesting but rather hard to follow… anyway, what has any of this to do with ‘conscience’?!?’

Given what I’ve already written, where would you put a living organism? In what ‘phase of matter’?
Is it solid? Liquid? Gaseous? Plasmatic?!? Or, given the fact that it contains all three ‘classic’ phases it’s closer to a Bose-Einstein condensate?

For lack of a better word, I consider ‘conscience’ to be a ‘state of matter aggregation’.

We’ve associated ‘being conscious’ with self awareness. With the human version of self-awareness… the one described by Humberto Maturana. ‘The learned ability to observe ourselves in the act of observing‘.
I suggest that we point our attention towards any other living organism. And notice that it acts as if it was aware of itself. It keeps its inside separate from the outside. It choses what to ingest. What of it to digest. And what to excrete. Sometimes even where to excrete. Then it passes the instructions according to which it had performed all these tasks towards the next generations.

Or would it be more suitable to consider ‘life’ itself as a ‘state of matter aggregation’? And consciousness as a property of life? As hardness is for solids and viscosity is for fluids/gases?

‘And what about ‘the discrete nature of things’? What has this to do with ‘conscience’?’

You see, I’ve just proposed ‘conscience’ as ‘state of matter’. That ‘phase’ where life takes place.
That place where individual organisms interact, among themselves and with their environment, attempting to survive. And to pass on the information contained in them.
We, humans, have taken ‘conscience’ to the next level. Our conscience is far more than the natural tendency to uphold the functionality of the individual organism. We observe ourselves in the act of observing. We set what is good, and bad, for us. We set goals.

Sometimes without being aware that our goals might hurt us.
The individual ‘us’.
And the collective us.
The collective us which makes us, individuals, possible.

Primum non nocere!

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
Another very efficient way to help would be to share my posts.

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!

As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501646

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories awareness, biology, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, Mutual Respect, physis, Psychology, teleology, time

Learning from Virus

January 31, 2021 //
0

‘From virus? What?!? And from which one?’

From none in particular.
From all of them, since all viruses are nothing but information!

‘Huh???’

Most biologists consider viruses to be something ‘in between’. Not exactly ‘life’, since they cannot replicate themselves, but something more than mere matter.

Only this approach sets very straight limits to how we understand life itself.
Or should I rather use ‘narrow’ instead of ‘straight’?
‘Narrow’ as in ‘not wide enough’ minded?

“Information which perpetuates itself”.

Does this sound right for you?

We. humans, are individual human beings. ‘Social’, indeed, but, nevertheless, individual. It’s our individual-ness which sets us apart from our nearest cousins. Chimps and bonobos.
It’s our individual-ness which sets the parameters of our world-view. That being the reason for our attempt to define life as a characteristic of the individual organisms which happen to be alive.

This being the moment when I feel the urge to direct your attention upon a seminal book.

Hmmm… the Origin of Species…

If evolution is about ‘Species’, then what about life itself being more about species than about individuals?

What about life being more about the process through which information is passed along from one generation to another than about an individual organism being alive or not?

In this sense, ‘virus’ would belong to the realm of the living, right?

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, biology, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, fail better, In English, Psychology, teleology

Ebola

October 13, 2014 //
0

“Although hospitals are prohibited from denying treatment to patients seeking emergency care, it should be expected that they will charge for services provided. Emergency charges are usually covered in full by most insurance programs. Uninsured patients will be responsible for costs following treatment.”

And that is because in the US health care is seen more as an industry providing services for individuals than anything else.

In a sense this situation is perfectly understandable. Yersinia Pestis is endemic in the Western US but America has never seen a major outbreak of plague. Why? Simple. American cities are far apart and were built way after humankind learned that washing yourself is good for you. This is why America, as a nation, has never experienced a major pandemic except for the Spanish flu in 1918 when 20 to 40% of worldwide population fell ill and 670 000 Americans died.
Only this was children’s play compared to the European experience. While for most of the Americans ‘plague’ is some biblical punishment that zealots keep threatening us with for Europeans the word brings back memories of the Great Death that has visited  the continent from 1347 up to 1600. OK, most of us weren’t present at that time but an epidemic that kills one third of the population – as it happened in 1347-1398 – leaves more than a scar on the collective memory of the population. It alters the way society works.
I won’t enter into details now but experiences like that prompted ‘political’ rulers to ponder upon the need to take care of the ailing/sick portion of the population. Both to prevent such diseases from spreading so violently and to mitigate their effects once they had befallen on their subjects. And no, they weren’t soft-hearted lefties but hard core pragmatists: every major epidemic left behind not only a deficit of workforce but also it drastically reduced the number of ‘conscriptable’ males, something very dangerous for a kingdom in an era of constant ‘international’ aggression.

Here is what britannica.com has to say about this: “Stirred by the Black Death, public officials created a system of sanitary control to combat contagious diseases, using observation stations, isolation hospitals, and disinfection procedures. Major efforts to improve sanitation included the development of pure water supplies, garbage and sewage disposal, and food inspection. These efforts were especially important in the cities, where people lived in crowded conditions in a rural manner with many animals around their homes.”

In fact this is how the European style Public Health System came into being. If you’d compare a community with an organism it would be the social equivalent to the immune system, a section of the whole thing that (automatically) fights infection without individual cells having to bother with anything.

“But we are not MINDLESS CELLS, we are FREE human beings!” I hear some some of my conservative friends shouting at me.
“If they want protection they should get insurance!”

Fair enough, only:

We humans are not at all independent but, at most, autonomous. Try living by yourself, isolated somewhere if you don’t believe me.

I’m not talking about individuals here but about whole communities. The Black Death didn’t bring any benefits to any of the peoples of Europe, it didn’t just cull the misfits leaving more breathing space for the powerful to develop their potential. The disappearance of one third of the population teared apart the entire social fabric and I don’t think there where many, if any, people glad of what had happened in those times.

Insurers and service providers work for profit, not as a public service. As such any insurance is limited, one way or another, and each service provided bears an individual cost that is accrued to the total bill. Even Lloyds, the only place in the world where somebody could buy unlimited liability insurance has drastically curtailed the practice.
So, in the present conditions, who is going to pick up the tab if a real pandemic will happen in the US?

Not to mention the ‘technical’ and regulatory hurdles that appear due to the in-existence of a ‘national health care system’:
“U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety experts said.
Waste management companies are refusing to haul away the soiled sheets and virus-spattered protective gear associated with treating the disease, citing federal guidelines that require Ebola-related waste to be handled in special packaging by people with hazardous materials training, infectious disease and biosafety experts told Reuters.”
“CDC advises hospitals to place Ebola-infected items in leak-proof containers and discard them as they would other biohazards that fall into the category of “regulated medical waste.” According to DOT guidelines, items in this category can’t be in a form that can cause human harm. The DOT classifies Ebola as a Category A agent, or one that is potentially life-threatening.
DOT regulations say transporting Category A items requires special packaging and hazmat training.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency isn’t aware of any packaging that is approved for handling Ebola waste.
As a result, conventional waste management contractors believe they can’t legally haul Ebola waste, said Thomas Metzger, communication director for the National Waste & Recycling Association trade group.”

As of now individual solutions have been worked out. Americans are inventive and resourceful people but so far they had to deal only with isolated incidents. I hope things will peter out before anything more intense will take place but I also hope that those with vision will use this opportunity to educate the wider public about the necessity of a nation wide system capable to deal with medical problems of this magnitude.

 

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Culture, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in
%d bloggers like this: