*
We live in a society of declining intelligence, diminished capacity to store new memories; and which deploys fluent and superficially-plausible confabulation to generate pseudo-explanations of causal links between current events.
Our society is therefore closely analogous to the state of a dementing person.
*
Confabulation is seen most extravagantly in chronic alcoholics with Korsakoff's syndrome. These people are almost unable to form new memories, and suffer gaps in their long term memories; but are sometimes fluently able to fabricate (i.e. confabulate) superficially-plausible explanations to account for the current situation and answer any questions which may be put to them.
They retain a fair degree of empathic social skills, by which they can (in effect) manipulate other people into giving them the benefit of the doubt for these confabulations - such that presence of dementia may go unnoticed for some time, and the degree of dementia be underestimated.
*
Something similar may be seen i the dementia of an intelligent person: for example the poet and novelist Robert Graves.
If you follow, chronologically, the many interviews he gave throughout his life (for example in the book Conversations with Robert Graves) or read his short essays - knowing that Graves ended his 90 year life in a state of profound and progressive dementia, one can track the changes back to at least 20 years before his death.
What can be seen are bizarre statements backed by confabulations drawing upon his vast long term memory; a manipulative chumminess or mateyness, and behind that (if video interview evidence is studied) a fatuous quality to his emotions - a disconnect between what he said and the way he said it - a kind of blankness behind the eyes.
There was an absence of critical thinking based upon joined-up analysis; and a reliance upon perseverative and disconnected, slogan-like assertion of conclusions/ obsessions/ maxims arrived-at in earlier life.
Graves's interviewers did not notice or excused this on the basis that Graves was a 'Great Man' - just as we do not notice or excuse similarly senile incoherence on the basis that Harvard, or Oxford, was a 'Great University'; or that The Times of New York or London was a 'Great Newspaper', or the BBC was a 'Great Institution'.
*
If we thus regard our modern, media-dominated society as if it were a person - then dementia is a close analogy for what we find in the elite, intellectual mass media, universities, legal profession, science, medicine and so on.
The fatuousness of modern 'high brow' intellectual discourse, its shallow incoherence, its use of arbitrary linkages, its dependence upon emotional manipulations and a willingness of the consumer to give the producer the benefit of the doubt... all this is typical of contemporary intellectual discourse.
It is therefore as if the world of elite intellectual discourse was the dementing-remnant of a great and charming creative intellectual like Robert Graves - garrulously recalling bits and pieces from a vast memory, and generating shallow and superficially-appealing or vaguely-plausible ad hoc explanations, connections and associations - relying utterly on the indulgence and goodwill of an audience who are, as it happens, themselves in much the same state.
*
Thursday, 20 June 2013
A crude classification of societies by average intelligence
*
Average intelligence constrains the complexity of societies.
(Note: The level of intelligence does not guarantee complexity - complexity can be suppressed. Also, complexity can be imported from more- to less-complex societies. Also intelligence is necessary but not sufficient - average personality/ or 'national character', in particular, is very important.)
*
Assuming current average intelligence among natives in England as IQ 100:
115 - (i.e. average intelligence in England 120 years ago and probably for several hundred years previously). Can sustain an extremely complexly differentiated and specialized modern society based on continual medium term economic growth and the expectation of such growth, and underpinned by a continual stream of major technological breakthroughs.
(Note: breakthroughs also require creativity, very high intelligence is necessary but not sufficient.)
100 - Can not sustain modern society; but can sustain a large scale and complex but static agriculture and trade-based society. Innovations and breakthroughs happen but are too infrequent, dispersed and insufficiently revolutionary to affect the basic nature of the society - they simply lead to a greater population density and per capita wealth reverts to pre-innovation levels.
In the long term a society with an average IQ of around about 100 will stabilize at a no-greater-complexity than that of a moderately-complex but essentially static agrarian society - with moderately large cities, and moderate societal specializations - something like the Roman Empire.
85 - Simple agriculture, pastoralism, limited specialization of social function. No cities - only villages and towns. Simple technology.
70 and below - Immediate return hunter gatherer lifeways. Very little technology, no long term food storage, very little social differentiation, highly egalitarian.
*
Given that The West has probably gone from 115 to 100 in about 150-200 years (actually, I think the change has been somewhat greater or faster than this); it is interesting to speculate how far and how fast the process could continue.
Of course, at some point, social breakdown will reimpose the extreme harshness of natural selection on those of lower intelligence, but in the short to medium term, warfare, starvation and disease may mean that intelligence may continue to be selected against for a long time.
It seems conceivable, therefore, that the extreme rapidity of intelligence decline may - with a time lag, as societies benefit temporarily from the residual technological legacy of their ancestors - lead to a considerable overshoot of intelligence decline; such that there may be a reversion of two steps, not one.
The West may go all the way from modernity to simple agrarian societies - passing only briefly through a phase of complex agrarian 'empires' - in the space of a single digit number of generations from now.
*
Average intelligence constrains the complexity of societies.
(Note: The level of intelligence does not guarantee complexity - complexity can be suppressed. Also, complexity can be imported from more- to less-complex societies. Also intelligence is necessary but not sufficient - average personality/ or 'national character', in particular, is very important.)
*
Assuming current average intelligence among natives in England as IQ 100:
115 - (i.e. average intelligence in England 120 years ago and probably for several hundred years previously). Can sustain an extremely complexly differentiated and specialized modern society based on continual medium term economic growth and the expectation of such growth, and underpinned by a continual stream of major technological breakthroughs.
(Note: breakthroughs also require creativity, very high intelligence is necessary but not sufficient.)
100 - Can not sustain modern society; but can sustain a large scale and complex but static agriculture and trade-based society. Innovations and breakthroughs happen but are too infrequent, dispersed and insufficiently revolutionary to affect the basic nature of the society - they simply lead to a greater population density and per capita wealth reverts to pre-innovation levels.
In the long term a society with an average IQ of around about 100 will stabilize at a no-greater-complexity than that of a moderately-complex but essentially static agrarian society - with moderately large cities, and moderate societal specializations - something like the Roman Empire.
85 - Simple agriculture, pastoralism, limited specialization of social function. No cities - only villages and towns. Simple technology.
70 and below - Immediate return hunter gatherer lifeways. Very little technology, no long term food storage, very little social differentiation, highly egalitarian.
*
Given that The West has probably gone from 115 to 100 in about 150-200 years (actually, I think the change has been somewhat greater or faster than this); it is interesting to speculate how far and how fast the process could continue.
Of course, at some point, social breakdown will reimpose the extreme harshness of natural selection on those of lower intelligence, but in the short to medium term, warfare, starvation and disease may mean that intelligence may continue to be selected against for a long time.
It seems conceivable, therefore, that the extreme rapidity of intelligence decline may - with a time lag, as societies benefit temporarily from the residual technological legacy of their ancestors - lead to a considerable overshoot of intelligence decline; such that there may be a reversion of two steps, not one.
The West may go all the way from modernity to simple agrarian societies - passing only briefly through a phase of complex agrarian 'empires' - in the space of a single digit number of generations from now.
*
What are currently called 'examinations' would have been called 'cheating' a generation ago
*
Yes, I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again.
Giving someone unsupervised work to complete is not an examination except where there is an atmosphere of trust, selection by trustworthiness; and very strong, public and actually-imposed sanctions against those who betray that trust.
Sans this, there is simply endemic cheating; such that the honest non-cheat is harshly penalized for doing their own work instead of passing-off somebody else's work (quite possibly their own teacher's work, such is the ubiquity of corruption) as their own; and the results of such evaluations become essentially impossible to interpret.
And that, my friends, is the world we live in!
*
Yes, I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again.
Giving someone unsupervised work to complete is not an examination except where there is an atmosphere of trust, selection by trustworthiness; and very strong, public and actually-imposed sanctions against those who betray that trust.
Sans this, there is simply endemic cheating; such that the honest non-cheat is harshly penalized for doing their own work instead of passing-off somebody else's work (quite possibly their own teacher's work, such is the ubiquity of corruption) as their own; and the results of such evaluations become essentially impossible to interpret.
And that, my friends, is the world we live in!
*
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
MA Woodley's Treadmill metaphor to explain why the decline in intelligence from dysgenic selection is so much faster than was the rise in intelligence from eugenic selection
*
In an epic telephonic conversation I had with Michael Woodley yesterday, he came up with a brilliant, clear and useful metaphor to explain why it is that although it might take (say) 24 generations to raise general intelligence by one standard deviation, it has only taken about 6 generations to reduce intelligence by the same amount.
*
'Eugenic' selection to increase intelligence is like walking at 5mph on a 4mph treadmill going in the opposite direction.
This is because eugenic selection is a mutation-selection balance mechanism, in which natural selection is working against existing levels of inteligence due to a significant level of spontaneous deleterious genetic mutations; such that most of selection is simply a process of filtering-out the continually recurring mutations.
Most of natural selection is thus a Red Queen phenomenon of running fast just to stay in the same place.
*
So, intelligence-reducing mutations are the 4mph adverse treadmill which natural selection is walking against - but positive selection for higher intelligence was so powerful during the medieval era (with near zero reproductive success for those of low intelligence) that intelligence increased at (say) 5mph - so that there was progress at a rate of 1mph.
But suppose that natural selection stopped working to increase intelligence, and indeed began to work against intelligence - what would happen?
Well, even if natural selection merely stopped, and did not reverse, supposing that nothing more happened than natural selection ceased to filter-out the spontaneously occurring deleterious mutations - then this would correspond to the person walking more and more slowly, and then standing-still on the treadmill: then the treadmill would sweep the person backwards at 4mph.
*
This merely by the stopping of natural selection to favour intelligence, there would be a rapid decline in intelligence.
But in addition, to the 4mph backwards, which would by itself rapidly undo hundreds of years of intelligence gains - the past 6-8 generations in England (and The West generally) have also seen a reversal of natural selection for intelligence - a dysgenic pattern of selection - such that the most intelligent have the lowest reproductive success, and vice versa.
*
SO - the reason that intelligence is declining so rapidly is that we are walking on a treadmill of spontaneous deleterious mutations, and the treadmill is tending to push intelligence backwards at (say) 4mph - but instead of walking forwards we have now turned around and started walking backwards - in the same direction as the treadmill.
We have added dysgenic selection to the already existing underlying tendency for intelligence to decline due to spontaneous mutations.
We have turned around on the treadmill and started walking briskly in the wrong direction - adding our (say) 3 mph walking pace to the underlying 4mph of the treadmill.
And that is one way to understand why it is much quicker to undo intelligence gains than it was to generate them in the first place.
*
Note: This is obviously just a metaphor to get a specific point across! Don't, please, get hung-up on the fact that - presumably - this thought-experiment treadmill must be miles long... This is a ladder to be used to ascend to a higher level of understanding, then kicked-away.
An alternative metaphor could be that natural selection for intelligence is swimming upstream against the flow of deleterious mutations.
For some hundreds of years in medieval times, the speed of swimming was upstream faster than the flow of the river downstream and the swimmer advanced relative to the river bank. But over the past couple of hundred years Western man has turned-around and begun to swim downstream - adding the speed of his swimming to the speed of the current - and the river bank is now whizzing past.
It will not take long for the downstream swimmer to get back to the point at which he began his gradual journey upstream, and probably he will overshoot it; to find himself a lot further downstream than where he began.
In an epic telephonic conversation I had with Michael Woodley yesterday, he came up with a brilliant, clear and useful metaphor to explain why it is that although it might take (say) 24 generations to raise general intelligence by one standard deviation, it has only taken about 6 generations to reduce intelligence by the same amount.
*
'Eugenic' selection to increase intelligence is like walking at 5mph on a 4mph treadmill going in the opposite direction.
This is because eugenic selection is a mutation-selection balance mechanism, in which natural selection is working against existing levels of inteligence due to a significant level of spontaneous deleterious genetic mutations; such that most of selection is simply a process of filtering-out the continually recurring mutations.
Most of natural selection is thus a Red Queen phenomenon of running fast just to stay in the same place.
*
So, intelligence-reducing mutations are the 4mph adverse treadmill which natural selection is walking against - but positive selection for higher intelligence was so powerful during the medieval era (with near zero reproductive success for those of low intelligence) that intelligence increased at (say) 5mph - so that there was progress at a rate of 1mph.
But suppose that natural selection stopped working to increase intelligence, and indeed began to work against intelligence - what would happen?
Well, even if natural selection merely stopped, and did not reverse, supposing that nothing more happened than natural selection ceased to filter-out the spontaneously occurring deleterious mutations - then this would correspond to the person walking more and more slowly, and then standing-still on the treadmill: then the treadmill would sweep the person backwards at 4mph.
*
This merely by the stopping of natural selection to favour intelligence, there would be a rapid decline in intelligence.
But in addition, to the 4mph backwards, which would by itself rapidly undo hundreds of years of intelligence gains - the past 6-8 generations in England (and The West generally) have also seen a reversal of natural selection for intelligence - a dysgenic pattern of selection - such that the most intelligent have the lowest reproductive success, and vice versa.
*
SO - the reason that intelligence is declining so rapidly is that we are walking on a treadmill of spontaneous deleterious mutations, and the treadmill is tending to push intelligence backwards at (say) 4mph - but instead of walking forwards we have now turned around and started walking backwards - in the same direction as the treadmill.
We have added dysgenic selection to the already existing underlying tendency for intelligence to decline due to spontaneous mutations.
We have turned around on the treadmill and started walking briskly in the wrong direction - adding our (say) 3 mph walking pace to the underlying 4mph of the treadmill.
And that is one way to understand why it is much quicker to undo intelligence gains than it was to generate them in the first place.
*
Note: This is obviously just a metaphor to get a specific point across! Don't, please, get hung-up on the fact that - presumably - this thought-experiment treadmill must be miles long... This is a ladder to be used to ascend to a higher level of understanding, then kicked-away.
An alternative metaphor could be that natural selection for intelligence is swimming upstream against the flow of deleterious mutations.
For some hundreds of years in medieval times, the speed of swimming was upstream faster than the flow of the river downstream and the swimmer advanced relative to the river bank. But over the past couple of hundred years Western man has turned-around and begun to swim downstream - adding the speed of his swimming to the speed of the current - and the river bank is now whizzing past.
It will not take long for the downstream swimmer to get back to the point at which he began his gradual journey upstream, and probably he will overshoot it; to find himself a lot further downstream than where he began.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Haiku: *Everything* lost in translation
*
The lamest translation of the lamest poem ever written in the history of the world:
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Matsuo Basho translated (ahem) by Alan Watts
from
http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm
*
Are there any good Haiku in translation? I've read an inordinate number of the blimmin things, since I came across them heavily recommended by JD Salinger - and never found one that rose even to the level of mediocrity as a poem.
*
The lamest translation of the lamest poem ever written in the history of the world:
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Matsuo Basho translated (ahem) by Alan Watts
from
http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm
*
Are there any good Haiku in translation? I've read an inordinate number of the blimmin things, since I came across them heavily recommended by JD Salinger - and never found one that rose even to the level of mediocrity as a poem.
*
Double-negative morality - the triumph of secularism
*
...may be summarized as follows:
I feel there is no compelling reason why I should not go-along-with current practices and prevailing trends.
*
Modern morality is thus not, or not typically, actively evil - it is instead conforming to evil; and this conformity is not active but rather has a double-negative quality.
Of course, once a person has gone-along-with evil (because he feels no reason not to) then he will be corrupted by that collusion - and will usually come actively to embrace that evil, to defend it, then to propagate it - but the initial move is more of an un-principled acquiescence.
Such behaviour appears cowardly - indeed it is cowardly; but much of this cowardice arises because courage is neither activated nor mobilized; and courage fails to deploy because there are no grounding beliefs which demand implementation; or which, when violated, cause a strong reactive response.
*
This, then, is the triumph of secularism.
Not to make men actively pursue evil en masse; but to subvert, erode, demotivate, confuse and relativize-away any grounds men might have for resisting or failing-to-go-along-with consensus.
Then, consensus can be driven incrementally towards evil by even a tiny proportion of strategically-wicked persons - and this will passively be followed by the mass, because there is no compelling reason not to follow it.
*
...may be summarized as follows:
I feel there is no compelling reason why I should not go-along-with current practices and prevailing trends.
*
Modern morality is thus not, or not typically, actively evil - it is instead conforming to evil; and this conformity is not active but rather has a double-negative quality.
Of course, once a person has gone-along-with evil (because he feels no reason not to) then he will be corrupted by that collusion - and will usually come actively to embrace that evil, to defend it, then to propagate it - but the initial move is more of an un-principled acquiescence.
Such behaviour appears cowardly - indeed it is cowardly; but much of this cowardice arises because courage is neither activated nor mobilized; and courage fails to deploy because there are no grounding beliefs which demand implementation; or which, when violated, cause a strong reactive response.
*
This, then, is the triumph of secularism.
Not to make men actively pursue evil en masse; but to subvert, erode, demotivate, confuse and relativize-away any grounds men might have for resisting or failing-to-go-along-with consensus.
Then, consensus can be driven incrementally towards evil by even a tiny proportion of strategically-wicked persons - and this will passively be followed by the mass, because there is no compelling reason not to follow it.
*
A positive marriage/child ratio - index of ruling class decadence
*
When a significant proportion of the the ruling elite have had been married more often than the number of their children, then that society is deep into decadence.
Thus an average marriage/ children ratio of above 1 in a group is evidence of exceptionally deep psychological pathology of the self-loathing-suicidal type.
*
Note: Of course the above does not apply to each individual person, since individuals have different callings and serve different societal functions; but it does apply to cohesive groups such as The Ruling Class, or religious denominations/ atheists, or nations.
When a significant proportion of the the ruling elite have had been married more often than the number of their children, then that society is deep into decadence.
Thus an average marriage/ children ratio of above 1 in a group is evidence of exceptionally deep psychological pathology of the self-loathing-suicidal type.
*
Note: Of course the above does not apply to each individual person, since individuals have different callings and serve different societal functions; but it does apply to cohesive groups such as The Ruling Class, or religious denominations/ atheists, or nations.
Monday, 17 June 2013
Escaping alienation into Art, or maybe Mythology?
*
I think I first became fully aware of alienation - the meaninglessness, purposelessness, disconnectedness of mainstream modern life - in the summer of 1981 (a very similar summer and in the same place as this one, which is why I am reminded of it) when reading JD Salinger's 'Glass Family' novellas (Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters, Franny, Zooey, Seymour).
*
What I got from Salinger, was that the escape from alienation was into Art - probably into being an artist (and thus living inside the process of creation); and this became as kind of 'hidden agenda' for me from that time and for many years.
(Salinger also talks much of Eastern Meditative religions and of a Christianity seem through this lens - but these are means to Art, rather than ends in themselves.)
Escape into Art didn't work - and probably it never really has worked^, except maybe with Goethe - although one can be misled into thinking it has worked by artistic recreations of an artist's life.
*
Around 20 years later I engaged with Joseph Campbell and began to re-re-re-read Jung from the perspective that alienated meaninglessness could be cured by escaping into myth - and that myth was actually a representation of humanity's shared inner reality.
Thus myth, heroic journeys and quests; stories from all kinds of places and cultures which seemed to have a special power, breadth, resonance; were perceived as symbolically depicting not merely the escape from misery, or the search for pleasure, nor even the pursuit of assimilating ecstasy... but an adventure or task undertaken for the well-being of other people, of the community.
But this simply kicked the can further down the road.
Because if my life would not be justified - wold not be meaningful or purposeful - by seeking comfort, distraction, and ecstasy - then why should things be different when my life is dedicated to enabling increased comfort, distraction and ecstasy for other people?
Somewhere, there has to be some-thing worthwhile in and of itself.
*
One response to my earlier desire to escape alienation into Art had been to leave medicine for science - which was supposed to sustain and advance medicine; then to leave science for Art, specifically the study and practice of literature - which I supposed to be the 'end' for which medicine and science provided the 'means'.
Yet Art turned out to be just another means, and not an end in itself.
*
What of mythology? I perceived mythology to underlie Art, to be even-more-fundamental than Art - such that the best Art was mythical.
Yet if myth was supposed to move us, I found that sometimes it did and sometimes (more often) it didn't - and although myth was asserted to be universal and powerful (The Power of Myth was the name of Joseph Campbell's popular PBS TV documentary) - in actuality myth often was not powerful, and no myth seemed to be universally powerful - such that most people preferred soap operas, sexual titillation and trashy news stories and never exposed themselves to actual myths or anything approaching such.
So myth turned-out to be as atomic, subjective and variable, and as alienated, as anything else in modern culture - not an answer nor an antidote.
*
Only after I had exhausted medicine, science, art and mythology did I finally turn to religion; and to Christianity, which I had previously always excluded from my search.
And there was the answer - the problem framed, described, its consequences delineated. Staring me in the face.
*
I think I first became fully aware of alienation - the meaninglessness, purposelessness, disconnectedness of mainstream modern life - in the summer of 1981 (a very similar summer and in the same place as this one, which is why I am reminded of it) when reading JD Salinger's 'Glass Family' novellas (Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters, Franny, Zooey, Seymour).
*
What I got from Salinger, was that the escape from alienation was into Art - probably into being an artist (and thus living inside the process of creation); and this became as kind of 'hidden agenda' for me from that time and for many years.
(Salinger also talks much of Eastern Meditative religions and of a Christianity seem through this lens - but these are means to Art, rather than ends in themselves.)
Escape into Art didn't work - and probably it never really has worked^, except maybe with Goethe - although one can be misled into thinking it has worked by artistic recreations of an artist's life.
*
Around 20 years later I engaged with Joseph Campbell and began to re-re-re-read Jung from the perspective that alienated meaninglessness could be cured by escaping into myth - and that myth was actually a representation of humanity's shared inner reality.
Thus myth, heroic journeys and quests; stories from all kinds of places and cultures which seemed to have a special power, breadth, resonance; were perceived as symbolically depicting not merely the escape from misery, or the search for pleasure, nor even the pursuit of assimilating ecstasy... but an adventure or task undertaken for the well-being of other people, of the community.
But this simply kicked the can further down the road.
Because if my life would not be justified - wold not be meaningful or purposeful - by seeking comfort, distraction, and ecstasy - then why should things be different when my life is dedicated to enabling increased comfort, distraction and ecstasy for other people?
Somewhere, there has to be some-thing worthwhile in and of itself.
*
One response to my earlier desire to escape alienation into Art had been to leave medicine for science - which was supposed to sustain and advance medicine; then to leave science for Art, specifically the study and practice of literature - which I supposed to be the 'end' for which medicine and science provided the 'means'.
Yet Art turned out to be just another means, and not an end in itself.
*
What of mythology? I perceived mythology to underlie Art, to be even-more-fundamental than Art - such that the best Art was mythical.
Yet if myth was supposed to move us, I found that sometimes it did and sometimes (more often) it didn't - and although myth was asserted to be universal and powerful (The Power of Myth was the name of Joseph Campbell's popular PBS TV documentary) - in actuality myth often was not powerful, and no myth seemed to be universally powerful - such that most people preferred soap operas, sexual titillation and trashy news stories and never exposed themselves to actual myths or anything approaching such.
So myth turned-out to be as atomic, subjective and variable, and as alienated, as anything else in modern culture - not an answer nor an antidote.
*
Only after I had exhausted medicine, science, art and mythology did I finally turn to religion; and to Christianity, which I had previously always excluded from my search.
And there was the answer - the problem framed, described, its consequences delineated. Staring me in the face.
*
^The Re-enchantment of the World: Art versus Religion, by Gordon Graham
But seriously, what are the prospects for Catholic Christianity in the West? (Whether Roman or Orthodox)
*
When the leadership are the problem, the priesthood; then for the laity under corrupt authorities who are leading them astray as fast as they can contrive - well, there is a real problem.
My impression is that - consequently - there is a strong Protestant element especially in the most orthodox and traditional Catholics.
I honestly don't see any positive tidal trends in Catholic Christianity in the West - just small eddies and counter-currents, memories, ideas and hopes, as the ocean recedes.
*
When the leadership are the problem, the priesthood; then for the laity under corrupt authorities who are leading them astray as fast as they can contrive - well, there is a real problem.
My impression is that - consequently - there is a strong Protestant element especially in the most orthodox and traditional Catholics.
I honestly don't see any positive tidal trends in Catholic Christianity in the West - just small eddies and counter-currents, memories, ideas and hopes, as the ocean recedes.
*
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Pluralism is true, God is within reality: a metaphysical proof
*
If God made every particle of stuff and all the rules and laws and forces by which they interact; then God would be responsible for absolutely everything - both in terms of having made the nature of things and underwriting from moment to moment everything that happens.
This is monism.
Essentially there is God only - and everything else is a kind of swirling within God.
Clearly, there is no place for free will in such a monistic concept - everything is God.
(There is no such distinct thing as Good that could be compared with God - because Good is just a part of God. Good is God.)
*
If God is conceptualized as eternal within reality, and having shaped pre-existing stuff using pre-existing rules and laws and forces; then God is not responsible for everything.
This is - one type of - pluralism.
Essentially there is God and at least one other thing. Some things are within God, but others are not.
With pluralism, God is not everything; and is therefore contained by everything (as the most powerful thing, vastly the most powerful thing - but not infinitely the most powerful thing: not every-thing).
Free will is a possible consequence of the fact that some things are not (or to be exact, not wholly) within God.
*
Thus free will is not a gift of God but either:
1. An illusion - if monism is true;
or else
2. a possible but not necessary fact of reality if pluralism is true.
*
However, for Christians, the reality of free will is a truth given by revelation.
Therefore, since free will entails pluralism; then pluralism is true.
Thus, reality is plural - God is within reality, and not vice versa.
*
Note: clearly, Christianity is not strictly monist, but Trinitarian - and the Godhead is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Q: What difference does this make? A: The above argument is not affected. Either the Godhead is everything, contains everything; or else the Godhead is not everything, and is contained by everything.
If God made every particle of stuff and all the rules and laws and forces by which they interact; then God would be responsible for absolutely everything - both in terms of having made the nature of things and underwriting from moment to moment everything that happens.
This is monism.
Essentially there is God only - and everything else is a kind of swirling within God.
Clearly, there is no place for free will in such a monistic concept - everything is God.
(There is no such distinct thing as Good that could be compared with God - because Good is just a part of God. Good is God.)
*
If God is conceptualized as eternal within reality, and having shaped pre-existing stuff using pre-existing rules and laws and forces; then God is not responsible for everything.
This is - one type of - pluralism.
Essentially there is God and at least one other thing. Some things are within God, but others are not.
With pluralism, God is not everything; and is therefore contained by everything (as the most powerful thing, vastly the most powerful thing - but not infinitely the most powerful thing: not every-thing).
Free will is a possible consequence of the fact that some things are not (or to be exact, not wholly) within God.
*
Thus free will is not a gift of God but either:
1. An illusion - if monism is true;
or else
2. a possible but not necessary fact of reality if pluralism is true.
*
However, for Christians, the reality of free will is a truth given by revelation.
Therefore, since free will entails pluralism; then pluralism is true.
Thus, reality is plural - God is within reality, and not vice versa.
*
Note: clearly, Christianity is not strictly monist, but Trinitarian - and the Godhead is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Q: What difference does this make? A: The above argument is not affected. Either the Godhead is everything, contains everything; or else the Godhead is not everything, and is contained by everything.
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Graphic sexual slang on secular Right blogs - what does it mean?
*
Most secular Right blogs make frequent use of graphic sexual slang and analogies - and often they take this to considerable extremes of inventiveness and explicitness.
(The exceptions are among the sR bloggers I like best; such as Steve Sailer, Dennis Mangan and Foseti - who maintain good manners and gentlemanly standards in their posting; although I wish they would censor comments more ruthlessly.)
I presume that they swear and cuss in order to advertise their 'Red Pill' credentials and appear as someone who sees-though hypocrisy and sham, knows all-about sin and corruption, and is unafraid-of the seamy side of life...
But to me it shows that these people are radicals not reactionaries, nihilists not traditionalists, on the side of evil against Good.
It is quite simple: strategic use of sexual slang by a blogger demonstrates that they have not rejected the sexual revolution.
And if you have not rejected the sexual revolution, then you are a progressive at heart, a Leftist; however you may choose to self identify.
*
Most secular Right blogs make frequent use of graphic sexual slang and analogies - and often they take this to considerable extremes of inventiveness and explicitness.
(The exceptions are among the sR bloggers I like best; such as Steve Sailer, Dennis Mangan and Foseti - who maintain good manners and gentlemanly standards in their posting; although I wish they would censor comments more ruthlessly.)
I presume that they swear and cuss in order to advertise their 'Red Pill' credentials and appear as someone who sees-though hypocrisy and sham, knows all-about sin and corruption, and is unafraid-of the seamy side of life...
But to me it shows that these people are radicals not reactionaries, nihilists not traditionalists, on the side of evil against Good.
It is quite simple: strategic use of sexual slang by a blogger demonstrates that they have not rejected the sexual revolution.
And if you have not rejected the sexual revolution, then you are a progressive at heart, a Leftist; however you may choose to self identify.
*
In this refulgent summer...
*
In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life.
The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay.
Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy.
The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily. The corn and the wine have been freely dealt to all creatures, and the never-broken silence with which the old bounty goes forward, has not yielded yet one word of explanation.
One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide; how rich; what invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man!
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 'Divinity School Address', Harvard, July 15 1838
**
Refulgent means something like sparkling with reflected light.
Here in Newcastle upon Tyne for the past few weeks, we too have been enjoying a refulgent summer - and these words of Emerson's have come to mind more than once as I step outside.
(I try not to think of the fact that the rest of Emerson's address goes-on to advocate the most extreme, proto--Nietzschian and anti-Christian, subjectivism!)
*
In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life.
The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay.
Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy.
The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily. The corn and the wine have been freely dealt to all creatures, and the never-broken silence with which the old bounty goes forward, has not yielded yet one word of explanation.
One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide; how rich; what invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man!
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 'Divinity School Address', Harvard, July 15 1838
**
Refulgent means something like sparkling with reflected light.
Here in Newcastle upon Tyne for the past few weeks, we too have been enjoying a refulgent summer - and these words of Emerson's have come to mind more than once as I step outside.
(I try not to think of the fact that the rest of Emerson's address goes-on to advocate the most extreme, proto--Nietzschian and anti-Christian, subjectivism!)
*
Friday, 14 June 2013
The sophomoric Red Pill nonsense
*
Well isn't it sophomoric?
I gather that in a movie called The Matrix, the protagonist was offered a Red Pill which allowed the perception of tough reality, while the chooser of the Blue Pill lives a life of deluded happiness.
At any rate, the Red Pill has - I notice - become a self-congratulatory trope beloved of self-styled secular realists who want to self-advertise their brand of tough, selfish realism about politics (and sex).
This term - like The Cathedral - seems to be another of those unfortunate obfuscatory memes inadvertently launched by Mencius Moldbug.
So, what is the motivation of those who claim to have swallowed the Red Pill? Apparently, inferentially, it enables more effective understanding, prediction and manipulation of the world with the ultimate goal of increased status, pleasure and power, and avoidance of suffering.
In sum, the Red Pill enables its smug users to outwit pathetic, wishful-thinking, soft-headed, reality shirking dupes - including the mass of Leftists and the minority of Christians - and run the world for their advantage.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot... and for somebody else's advantage as well, according to various theories - those who it is mutually advantageous to help, or the family, or the nation, or race...or when helping someone else increases personal satisfaction.
Yes, well... I would be more impressed by the protestations of realism if the users of this term were more realistic about what actually has been and is successful; rather than wildly theoretical abstract schemes of what might/ would/ could be a successful strategy (if only everybody else would go along with it...)
*
Note: I wonder what the Red Pill is supposed to contain? Cocaine, perhaps? Most likely anabolic steroids to enhance the effects of body building and provide chemically-fueled machismo rage.
Well isn't it sophomoric?
I gather that in a movie called The Matrix, the protagonist was offered a Red Pill which allowed the perception of tough reality, while the chooser of the Blue Pill lives a life of deluded happiness.
At any rate, the Red Pill has - I notice - become a self-congratulatory trope beloved of self-styled secular realists who want to self-advertise their brand of tough, selfish realism about politics (and sex).
This term - like The Cathedral - seems to be another of those unfortunate obfuscatory memes inadvertently launched by Mencius Moldbug.
So, what is the motivation of those who claim to have swallowed the Red Pill? Apparently, inferentially, it enables more effective understanding, prediction and manipulation of the world with the ultimate goal of increased status, pleasure and power, and avoidance of suffering.
In sum, the Red Pill enables its smug users to outwit pathetic, wishful-thinking, soft-headed, reality shirking dupes - including the mass of Leftists and the minority of Christians - and run the world for their advantage.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot... and for somebody else's advantage as well, according to various theories - those who it is mutually advantageous to help, or the family, or the nation, or race...or when helping someone else increases personal satisfaction.
Yes, well... I would be more impressed by the protestations of realism if the users of this term were more realistic about what actually has been and is successful; rather than wildly theoretical abstract schemes of what might/ would/ could be a successful strategy (if only everybody else would go along with it...)
*
Note: I wonder what the Red Pill is supposed to contain? Cocaine, perhaps? Most likely anabolic steroids to enhance the effects of body building and provide chemically-fueled machismo rage.
Free will is not exactly God-given but, ultimately, a product of us being eternal autonomous beings
*
My current understanding is that each person has existed eternally as an autonomous (but not, initially, personal) essence - and that at some point in Time we became Sons of God, which made us into persons.
(God shaped us into personhood when we became his spirit children, before we entered mortal life.)
*
Our free will is rooted in our eternal autonomous existence, but was made effectual - choices were made possible - by our having become Children of God.
This is what made The Fall possible.
*
On the one hand, our personhood comes from God and the reality of our situation is that we are in a profound relationship with God since He is our Father and made us persons; but on the other hand we existed as essences before we had a relationship with God; and this pre-existence is what enables us to reject God, and to deny the primacy of our relationship with Him.
*
It is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we are able to choose (to have the divine attribute of being unmoved movers, or first causes).
And it is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we must choose to acknowledge God's Fatherly love for us, and our child-like love of Him - because we cannot be compelled (not even by God - it is vital to recognize this) to acknowledge God's love, nor can we be compelled to love Him.
To be Christian is a choice because it must be a choice.
*
Therefore, Satan could not and cannot remove the ultimate (metaphysical) autonomy of persons, nor can Satan control free will - although he can of course enslave the body and compel actions.
Satan can influence autonomy only indirectly - principally by demoralization and corruption of the will - so that a person will choose to use his autonomy to deny his autonomy; and deliberately, repeatedly, systematically choose to sin and to destroy Good - while denying at every moment that he could choose otherwise.
And this is, of course, the great triumph of Satan in this modern era: to have so deeply confused and corrupted modern man that he uses his eternal and indestructible freedom of will in actively-denying the reality of his own freedom.
*
[Note: The above schema is the only one that (currently) seems to make sense of free will to me, therefore I present it for consideration. It leaves intact all core Christian doctrine, but modifies the metaphysical back story - so that some things are re-explained. It is, I think, pretty much identical with the implications of Mormon theology as I get it from Sterling McMurrin and Terryl Givens - but there are quite likely aspects which go beyond, or conflict with, what many or most Mormon theologians seem to say - so far as I can tell - which is not very far.]
My current understanding is that each person has existed eternally as an autonomous (but not, initially, personal) essence - and that at some point in Time we became Sons of God, which made us into persons.
(God shaped us into personhood when we became his spirit children, before we entered mortal life.)
*
Our free will is rooted in our eternal autonomous existence, but was made effectual - choices were made possible - by our having become Children of God.
This is what made The Fall possible.
*
On the one hand, our personhood comes from God and the reality of our situation is that we are in a profound relationship with God since He is our Father and made us persons; but on the other hand we existed as essences before we had a relationship with God; and this pre-existence is what enables us to reject God, and to deny the primacy of our relationship with Him.
*
It is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we are able to choose (to have the divine attribute of being unmoved movers, or first causes).
And it is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we must choose to acknowledge God's Fatherly love for us, and our child-like love of Him - because we cannot be compelled (not even by God - it is vital to recognize this) to acknowledge God's love, nor can we be compelled to love Him.
To be Christian is a choice because it must be a choice.
*
Therefore, Satan could not and cannot remove the ultimate (metaphysical) autonomy of persons, nor can Satan control free will - although he can of course enslave the body and compel actions.
Satan can influence autonomy only indirectly - principally by demoralization and corruption of the will - so that a person will choose to use his autonomy to deny his autonomy; and deliberately, repeatedly, systematically choose to sin and to destroy Good - while denying at every moment that he could choose otherwise.
And this is, of course, the great triumph of Satan in this modern era: to have so deeply confused and corrupted modern man that he uses his eternal and indestructible freedom of will in actively-denying the reality of his own freedom.
*
[Note: The above schema is the only one that (currently) seems to make sense of free will to me, therefore I present it for consideration. It leaves intact all core Christian doctrine, but modifies the metaphysical back story - so that some things are re-explained. It is, I think, pretty much identical with the implications of Mormon theology as I get it from Sterling McMurrin and Terryl Givens - but there are quite likely aspects which go beyond, or conflict with, what many or most Mormon theologians seem to say - so far as I can tell - which is not very far.]
Thursday, 13 June 2013
A breakthrough in understanding creativity - the primacy of Long Term Memory
*
This morning I seem to have experienced a breakthrough in my understanding of creativity, and its links to the mode of thinking associated with dreaming sleep and psychosis.
*
I have been puzzling over the nature of dream logic - that is to say, the principles by which dream association works.
I had got as far as recognizing that the strange nature of dreams (which I take it are selective and partial samples of a mostly unconscious and fundamental brain process going-on especially during REM sleep), and the creativity of dreaming (such that new phenomena are produced and not just a mosaic of our previous experiences) are both a reflection of the different principles of dream processing, compared with waking processing.
*
In other words, I had got so far as understanding that dreams are not just a quantitative variation on the logic of the awake mind, dreams are not merely a matter of 'looser associations' in which the associations are of the same sort as waking associations, nor are strange and unreal dream contents wholly explicable in terms of errors in memory - but rather, the association of ideas and meanings which is going-on in dreaming sleep is qualitatively different from the associations of the awake state, and operating according to a different set of rules than during the waking state.
*
However, my attempts to understand dream logic were getting nowhere - except that I recognized that dreaming was something to do with Long Term Memory (LTM) being autonomous from the Short Term Memory (STM - and equivalent to Working Memory) which dominates the waking state; and dream logic had something to do with associations via emotions or feelings which formed some degree of contrast with waking logic which was at least relatively (or potentially) more-independent of emotions and feelings.
*
The breakthrough came, as so often, when I un-asked the question - when I recognized that I was asking for an explanation of that which was primary, and taking for granted that which was secondary.
In other words, I suddenly recognized (and remembered) that Long Term Memory was primary and Short Term Memory (Waking Memory) was a secondary phenomenon - a tiny sample of the content of perception and of Long Term Memory which was represented as patterns of neurons activated for a matter of seconds (this is what are aware of and attend to, and can manipulate by will/ executive function).
*
Therefore the associative principles or logic of Long Term Memory (which is also dream logic, and also the logic of creativity) is actually the full range of associative processes of which the human brain is capable - that is to say, all humanly-possible associations.
But this is implicit; it is the hidden part of the iceberg of which Short Term Memory is the only part that is explicitly available to introspection (becoming explicit by being activated in Short Term Memory).
*
By contrast, waking logic is a tightly-constrained, partial, distorted and tiny sub-set of the vast amount of information and vast richness of associations which are located in Long Term Memory.
So, creativity is the business of becoming aware of the vast richness of information and associations in Long Term Memory - and making these explicit and available to introspection in Short Term Memory.
*
Creativity deploys the enormous knowledge and densely rich associations of Long Term Memory - and brings the results into Short Term Memory.
Thus (to emphasize the point) creativity does not interfere with the processes of LTM; in particualr creativity does not impose STM processing onto LTM contents - it only takes the outcomes of LTM processing.
*
But how does creativity access the contents of Long Term memory, when these contents are mostly inexplicit and inaccessible to introspection?
This is where emotions and feelings come in: Creativity is the means by which STM accesses LTM through emotions and feelings.
*
Let us suppose that the processes of LTM have led to certain insights or conclusions, then this will in turn lead to an emotion; and that emotion may be experienced consciously - which is what we call a feeling.
Therefore, creativity is about the feelings we have in response to the goings-on in LTM - the feelings serve as evaluations, and these evaluations derive from the enormously complex and mysterious processes of Long Term Memory - that embody all the knowledge and associations (interconnection) of which we are capable.
*
Creativity works by feelings. For example there are positive (happy or pleasurable) and negative (uncomfortable, maybe painful) feelings that may provide an evaluation of ideas and experiences.
There are hunches which point us toward doing this, rather than that; there are felt-links between what superficially appear to be diverse and unrelated facts and domains; there is the sense of knowing when we are right (or on the right lines) and conversely the dissatisfaction and irritation when we are wrong (or going down a blind alley, or following a red herring).
This is the stuff of creativity! And it is a matter of feelings.
*
But of course these creative feelings are ultimately dependent on the knowledge and experience stored in Long Term Memory. these feelings can be no better a guide than the LTM stores which sustain and generate them.
And this conception explains how creativity becomes linked to a specific problem or domain in which the individual becomes 'expert'.
What is happening is that, by focusing their experiences and their thinking over a prolonged period of time, the creative person is orientating their LTM towards a particular problem or domain - such that Long Term Memory begins to deploy its vast informational and processing resources upon that problem or domain.
*
The creative person has a LTM which is, in the first place, well-filled with relevant knowledge to a theme, and in the second place orientated towards that theme so that during dreaming sleep (plus other times) LTM is working-on that theme.
If or when Long Term Memory comes up with answers or insights, then the creative person becomes aware of this fact during the waking state by becoming aware of the emotions which are engendered in relation to that theme - and then it is a matter of STM discovering and making-explicit the implicit and not-directly accessible associations of LTM that underlay those answers or insights.
***
More to follow, no doubt... Interestingly this breakthrough, as it seems, followed a discussion with my daughter in which we tried to understand the associations of her dream last night. Afterwards I realized that we were trying as to make explicit the primary and actual associations of the dream - we were using awake STM to explain dreaming LTM...
This morning I seem to have experienced a breakthrough in my understanding of creativity, and its links to the mode of thinking associated with dreaming sleep and psychosis.
*
I have been puzzling over the nature of dream logic - that is to say, the principles by which dream association works.
I had got as far as recognizing that the strange nature of dreams (which I take it are selective and partial samples of a mostly unconscious and fundamental brain process going-on especially during REM sleep), and the creativity of dreaming (such that new phenomena are produced and not just a mosaic of our previous experiences) are both a reflection of the different principles of dream processing, compared with waking processing.
*
In other words, I had got so far as understanding that dreams are not just a quantitative variation on the logic of the awake mind, dreams are not merely a matter of 'looser associations' in which the associations are of the same sort as waking associations, nor are strange and unreal dream contents wholly explicable in terms of errors in memory - but rather, the association of ideas and meanings which is going-on in dreaming sleep is qualitatively different from the associations of the awake state, and operating according to a different set of rules than during the waking state.
*
However, my attempts to understand dream logic were getting nowhere - except that I recognized that dreaming was something to do with Long Term Memory (LTM) being autonomous from the Short Term Memory (STM - and equivalent to Working Memory) which dominates the waking state; and dream logic had something to do with associations via emotions or feelings which formed some degree of contrast with waking logic which was at least relatively (or potentially) more-independent of emotions and feelings.
*
The breakthrough came, as so often, when I un-asked the question - when I recognized that I was asking for an explanation of that which was primary, and taking for granted that which was secondary.
In other words, I suddenly recognized (and remembered) that Long Term Memory was primary and Short Term Memory (Waking Memory) was a secondary phenomenon - a tiny sample of the content of perception and of Long Term Memory which was represented as patterns of neurons activated for a matter of seconds (this is what are aware of and attend to, and can manipulate by will/ executive function).
*
Therefore the associative principles or logic of Long Term Memory (which is also dream logic, and also the logic of creativity) is actually the full range of associative processes of which the human brain is capable - that is to say, all humanly-possible associations.
But this is implicit; it is the hidden part of the iceberg of which Short Term Memory is the only part that is explicitly available to introspection (becoming explicit by being activated in Short Term Memory).
*
By contrast, waking logic is a tightly-constrained, partial, distorted and tiny sub-set of the vast amount of information and vast richness of associations which are located in Long Term Memory.
So, creativity is the business of becoming aware of the vast richness of information and associations in Long Term Memory - and making these explicit and available to introspection in Short Term Memory.
*
Creativity deploys the enormous knowledge and densely rich associations of Long Term Memory - and brings the results into Short Term Memory.
Thus (to emphasize the point) creativity does not interfere with the processes of LTM; in particualr creativity does not impose STM processing onto LTM contents - it only takes the outcomes of LTM processing.
*
But how does creativity access the contents of Long Term memory, when these contents are mostly inexplicit and inaccessible to introspection?
This is where emotions and feelings come in: Creativity is the means by which STM accesses LTM through emotions and feelings.
*
Let us suppose that the processes of LTM have led to certain insights or conclusions, then this will in turn lead to an emotion; and that emotion may be experienced consciously - which is what we call a feeling.
Therefore, creativity is about the feelings we have in response to the goings-on in LTM - the feelings serve as evaluations, and these evaluations derive from the enormously complex and mysterious processes of Long Term Memory - that embody all the knowledge and associations (interconnection) of which we are capable.
*
Creativity works by feelings. For example there are positive (happy or pleasurable) and negative (uncomfortable, maybe painful) feelings that may provide an evaluation of ideas and experiences.
There are hunches which point us toward doing this, rather than that; there are felt-links between what superficially appear to be diverse and unrelated facts and domains; there is the sense of knowing when we are right (or on the right lines) and conversely the dissatisfaction and irritation when we are wrong (or going down a blind alley, or following a red herring).
This is the stuff of creativity! And it is a matter of feelings.
*
But of course these creative feelings are ultimately dependent on the knowledge and experience stored in Long Term Memory. these feelings can be no better a guide than the LTM stores which sustain and generate them.
And this conception explains how creativity becomes linked to a specific problem or domain in which the individual becomes 'expert'.
What is happening is that, by focusing their experiences and their thinking over a prolonged period of time, the creative person is orientating their LTM towards a particular problem or domain - such that Long Term Memory begins to deploy its vast informational and processing resources upon that problem or domain.
*
The creative person has a LTM which is, in the first place, well-filled with relevant knowledge to a theme, and in the second place orientated towards that theme so that during dreaming sleep (plus other times) LTM is working-on that theme.
If or when Long Term Memory comes up with answers or insights, then the creative person becomes aware of this fact during the waking state by becoming aware of the emotions which are engendered in relation to that theme - and then it is a matter of STM discovering and making-explicit the implicit and not-directly accessible associations of LTM that underlay those answers or insights.
***
More to follow, no doubt... Interestingly this breakthrough, as it seems, followed a discussion with my daughter in which we tried to understand the associations of her dream last night. Afterwards I realized that we were trying as to make explicit the primary and actual associations of the dream - we were using awake STM to explain dreaming LTM...
What is the use of mathematics in biology?
*
I can think of two uses:
1. Statistical summary of complex phenomena - so they may be comprehended 'at a glance' - or patterns seen. A prime example of this is the tabulation of measurements.
It's hard to argue against the usefulness of this kind of summary use of maths in biology - certainly I've done it a lot; but equally it is a long way from being the essence of biology - and it certainly doesn't 'tell you' what is true and what isn't.
(For example, statistical 'tests of significance' have nothing (i.e. nothing) to do with determining biological causality - in the sense that they are orthogonal to understanding causality.).
*
2. Modelling - when biological entities are given mathematical identities, and real life processes are selectively summarized in mathematical processes - and the resultant construct is used to simulate reality.
It's a case of if this and that and the other, in such and such amounts, and if nothing else matters - then the following will follow.
In modelling, pretty much everything depends on the 'ifs' - and it is always hard to know when nothing else significant is going-on in reality so that the model really does capture the essence; but in sum, modelling is - or ought to be - only a small part of biology; embedded (as it were) in the larger subject.
*
To put it another way - when maths is applied to biology, reality is transformed into abstraction - quantities and processes - in order that reality can be studied and manipulated in various ways.
Assuming no calculation errors, the validity of modelling therefore hinges entirely on whether the transformation of reality into an abstract mathematical entity is valid.
We must always evaluate whether any particular model - an abstract mathematical entity - matches-up with biological reality in its essential attributes: and evaluating this match-up is something which the model itself (obviously!) cannot do.
*
It is noteworthy that the greatest users of mathematics in biology, who are among the greatest biologists, were generally immersed in biological reality in one way or another, or had spent a significant chunk of their lives in this fashion; so that their mathematical representations were in a feedback-relationship with biological reality.
This was the value of large scope sciences and practical subjects as a training for science - Biology and Medicine, for instance - replete with a lot of field work, clinical work and the like, which provided an open-ended and immersive (personality-changing) contact with the realities of the subject.
These early years of immersive experience have the potential to discipline the emotions in-line with the realities of the subject - so that people may develop a feeling for the subject - so that their 'gut feelings' may become a (generally) valid guide to reality.
*
This broad and immersive experiential education leading to an emotional identification with the-science-as-a-whole, is probably (or so it seems ) the only antidote (albeit partial) against scientists becoming captured by their methodology - and coming to believe that the tool in which they personally have expertise is the only thing that matters; believing that their technique captures the essence of the whole of biological reality.
And this belief rapidly hardens into delusion - because once you believe that your own technique captures all that is important in biology, then you will use that technique to evaluate everything in biology and reject anything which disagrees with this evaluations, and reject anything which is not amenable to this evaluation.
Modern science is full of such people - indeed there are few (very few) people in modern science who are not of this type, and modern science is run by deluded methodologists.
*
But (insofar as this is how they function) such people aren't scientists - no matter how powerful or prestigious, no matter how clever or ingenious - they are technicians posing as scientists.
They are merely a specific instance of the general phenomenon that when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A real biologist is not a hammer, but a person who wields a hammer, as necessary - plus many other tools, as appropriate.
*
I can think of two uses:
1. Statistical summary of complex phenomena - so they may be comprehended 'at a glance' - or patterns seen. A prime example of this is the tabulation of measurements.
It's hard to argue against the usefulness of this kind of summary use of maths in biology - certainly I've done it a lot; but equally it is a long way from being the essence of biology - and it certainly doesn't 'tell you' what is true and what isn't.
(For example, statistical 'tests of significance' have nothing (i.e. nothing) to do with determining biological causality - in the sense that they are orthogonal to understanding causality.).
*
2. Modelling - when biological entities are given mathematical identities, and real life processes are selectively summarized in mathematical processes - and the resultant construct is used to simulate reality.
It's a case of if this and that and the other, in such and such amounts, and if nothing else matters - then the following will follow.
In modelling, pretty much everything depends on the 'ifs' - and it is always hard to know when nothing else significant is going-on in reality so that the model really does capture the essence; but in sum, modelling is - or ought to be - only a small part of biology; embedded (as it were) in the larger subject.
*
To put it another way - when maths is applied to biology, reality is transformed into abstraction - quantities and processes - in order that reality can be studied and manipulated in various ways.
Assuming no calculation errors, the validity of modelling therefore hinges entirely on whether the transformation of reality into an abstract mathematical entity is valid.
We must always evaluate whether any particular model - an abstract mathematical entity - matches-up with biological reality in its essential attributes: and evaluating this match-up is something which the model itself (obviously!) cannot do.
*
It is noteworthy that the greatest users of mathematics in biology, who are among the greatest biologists, were generally immersed in biological reality in one way or another, or had spent a significant chunk of their lives in this fashion; so that their mathematical representations were in a feedback-relationship with biological reality.
This was the value of large scope sciences and practical subjects as a training for science - Biology and Medicine, for instance - replete with a lot of field work, clinical work and the like, which provided an open-ended and immersive (personality-changing) contact with the realities of the subject.
These early years of immersive experience have the potential to discipline the emotions in-line with the realities of the subject - so that people may develop a feeling for the subject - so that their 'gut feelings' may become a (generally) valid guide to reality.
*
This broad and immersive experiential education leading to an emotional identification with the-science-as-a-whole, is probably (or so it seems ) the only antidote (albeit partial) against scientists becoming captured by their methodology - and coming to believe that the tool in which they personally have expertise is the only thing that matters; believing that their technique captures the essence of the whole of biological reality.
And this belief rapidly hardens into delusion - because once you believe that your own technique captures all that is important in biology, then you will use that technique to evaluate everything in biology and reject anything which disagrees with this evaluations, and reject anything which is not amenable to this evaluation.
Modern science is full of such people - indeed there are few (very few) people in modern science who are not of this type, and modern science is run by deluded methodologists.
*
But (insofar as this is how they function) such people aren't scientists - no matter how powerful or prestigious, no matter how clever or ingenious - they are technicians posing as scientists.
They are merely a specific instance of the general phenomenon that when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A real biologist is not a hammer, but a person who wields a hammer, as necessary - plus many other tools, as appropriate.
*
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
2008 - We were warned but it did no good. We did not repent.
*
I was thinking about the 2008 economic crisis, which I now regard as less of a profound international crisis and more of a warning.
It was a warning that we in the West were spending more than we were producing, that apparent 'economic growth' was an illusory mixture of borrowing and inflation, and we were living off capital not income.
*
What should have happened was a recognition and repentance, followed by reform - first to cut consumption, then to decide whether or how much to increase production.
But 2008 was a warning which has not been heeded.
*
There was no recognition, and no repentance - but instead there has been denial, lying and wishful thinking.
Consequently there has been more of the same: corrupt spending; frivolous and harmful consumption, reckless squandering of resources; raids on property and the productive population; mass immigration of economic dependents and continued channelling of resources to economic dependents: in sum, a continued destruction of productivity and all that sustains it.
There has been not just zero but negative significant remedial change since 2008 - whatever were the mechanisms that led to the 2008 crisis are in place and in operation, taking us towards another and inevitably far more severe crisis.
*
We were warned, and did nothing.
But how could it be otherwise?
As a society we utterly lack motivational resources - and lacking these, there is no incentive to recognize reality and take personal responsibility.
(If you already know there is not going to be any effective action - you might as well blind yourself to dangers and live by soothing lies - for as long as possible.)
*
We are morally bankrupt, and the 2008 crisis has revealed this bankruptcy.
Instead of recognizing the problem, we lied; instead of doing something helpful, we prevent any helpful responses and amplify the destruction on all fronts.
*
The non-response, the anti-response to 2008 reveals that knowledge is irrelevant in a world without motivation.
In a world without motivation, nothing else matters - because motivation is an aspect of courage, without motivation there can be no courage because there is no reason for it; and without courage there can be no virtue.
Nothing motivates but religion, and for us - who lack it - nothing matters but getting religion; yet nothing seem less likely in the West than repentance of secular Leftism and a Christian revival.
But that is our choice. The consequences will follow.
*
I was thinking about the 2008 economic crisis, which I now regard as less of a profound international crisis and more of a warning.
It was a warning that we in the West were spending more than we were producing, that apparent 'economic growth' was an illusory mixture of borrowing and inflation, and we were living off capital not income.
*
What should have happened was a recognition and repentance, followed by reform - first to cut consumption, then to decide whether or how much to increase production.
But 2008 was a warning which has not been heeded.
*
There was no recognition, and no repentance - but instead there has been denial, lying and wishful thinking.
Consequently there has been more of the same: corrupt spending; frivolous and harmful consumption, reckless squandering of resources; raids on property and the productive population; mass immigration of economic dependents and continued channelling of resources to economic dependents: in sum, a continued destruction of productivity and all that sustains it.
There has been not just zero but negative significant remedial change since 2008 - whatever were the mechanisms that led to the 2008 crisis are in place and in operation, taking us towards another and inevitably far more severe crisis.
*
We were warned, and did nothing.
But how could it be otherwise?
As a society we utterly lack motivational resources - and lacking these, there is no incentive to recognize reality and take personal responsibility.
(If you already know there is not going to be any effective action - you might as well blind yourself to dangers and live by soothing lies - for as long as possible.)
*
We are morally bankrupt, and the 2008 crisis has revealed this bankruptcy.
Instead of recognizing the problem, we lied; instead of doing something helpful, we prevent any helpful responses and amplify the destruction on all fronts.
*
The non-response, the anti-response to 2008 reveals that knowledge is irrelevant in a world without motivation.
In a world without motivation, nothing else matters - because motivation is an aspect of courage, without motivation there can be no courage because there is no reason for it; and without courage there can be no virtue.
Nothing motivates but religion, and for us - who lack it - nothing matters but getting religion; yet nothing seem less likely in the West than repentance of secular Leftism and a Christian revival.
But that is our choice. The consequences will follow.
*
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Dignity in Dying - Your choice: prolonged torture or swift murder
*
The patrons of the pressure group Dignity in Dying include some people I know (or have known) personally, plus many others I have considerable respect for, in some way; plus some others who are famous and/or influential.
http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/about-us/patrons.html
*
It is interesting, therefore to reflect on how it is they find themselves supporting such a wicked policy, and one which is absolutely certain to be widely and savagely abused even beyond its intrinsic wickedness.
The reason seems clear from the justifications or rationalizations given for the patrons support of this cause.
They perceive that at the end of life there is for many - and increasing numbers of - people a stark choice between prolonged torture and swift murder.
*
The assumption which is accepted as inevitable, is that modern medicine, health and social service institutions now control death - and that their intractable default is to perpetuate life at any cost until finally defeated by death.
Therefore, these patrons reason, since prolonged torture is the worst imaginable thing; the only solution is for this same set of medical, health and social services that currently maintain people alive as a torture, should instead murder them before they have to suffer prolonged torture.
Anyone who works for such organizations as the National Health Service will therefore have to commit murder when required by their bosses, as part of their job; or to collude in murder.
*
(This outcome is what is termed Death or Dying with Dignity - although I can't see what dignity has to do with it - surely it is about pain and suffering?)
*
My (inevitably incomplete) solution to this impossible dilemma is quite simple: to distinguish between life-extending treatments and palliative or suffering-reducing treatments - and as a default, unless requested otherwise, as the norm, to refrain from life-extending treatments in the elderly and terminally ill.
Everybody must die of something, and towards the end of life people need to be aware that someone saved from dying from X now, will inevitably die from X, Y or Z later - and the dying later may be much, much worse than the dying now.
In particular, we each need to be aware of this in ourselves. If we insist in being dragged back from death's doors (or refuse to step through them when called) - than that is not the end of the matter.
Those who refuse to consent willingly to death will have death nonetheless forced upon them - willing or not.
If we become willing to die, and let die, when the time comes - then this will mostly eliminate the pressure for people to be 'humanely murdered' in order to avoid the terrifying and horrifying consequences of what passes for modern 'health care'.
*
The patrons of the pressure group Dignity in Dying include some people I know (or have known) personally, plus many others I have considerable respect for, in some way; plus some others who are famous and/or influential.
http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/about-us/patrons.html
*
It is interesting, therefore to reflect on how it is they find themselves supporting such a wicked policy, and one which is absolutely certain to be widely and savagely abused even beyond its intrinsic wickedness.
The reason seems clear from the justifications or rationalizations given for the patrons support of this cause.
They perceive that at the end of life there is for many - and increasing numbers of - people a stark choice between prolonged torture and swift murder.
*
The assumption which is accepted as inevitable, is that modern medicine, health and social service institutions now control death - and that their intractable default is to perpetuate life at any cost until finally defeated by death.
Therefore, these patrons reason, since prolonged torture is the worst imaginable thing; the only solution is for this same set of medical, health and social services that currently maintain people alive as a torture, should instead murder them before they have to suffer prolonged torture.
Anyone who works for such organizations as the National Health Service will therefore have to commit murder when required by their bosses, as part of their job; or to collude in murder.
*
(This outcome is what is termed Death or Dying with Dignity - although I can't see what dignity has to do with it - surely it is about pain and suffering?)
*
My (inevitably incomplete) solution to this impossible dilemma is quite simple: to distinguish between life-extending treatments and palliative or suffering-reducing treatments - and as a default, unless requested otherwise, as the norm, to refrain from life-extending treatments in the elderly and terminally ill.
Everybody must die of something, and towards the end of life people need to be aware that someone saved from dying from X now, will inevitably die from X, Y or Z later - and the dying later may be much, much worse than the dying now.
In particular, we each need to be aware of this in ourselves. If we insist in being dragged back from death's doors (or refuse to step through them when called) - than that is not the end of the matter.
Those who refuse to consent willingly to death will have death nonetheless forced upon them - willing or not.
If we become willing to die, and let die, when the time comes - then this will mostly eliminate the pressure for people to be 'humanely murdered' in order to avoid the terrifying and horrifying consequences of what passes for modern 'health care'.
*
Socially-conditioned ingratitude - Leftist family life as a 'perfect bureaucracy'
*
It is interesting to notice how pervasive is the Leftist anti-family social conditioning which trains children that they should not be grateful to their parents: that they 'didn't ask to be born', that it is therefore their parents duty to provide, and that gratitude is not just needless but inappropriate (when things are thus properly considered...).
On the other side, parents are told that they have chosen to have a child like a fashion accessory - for their own pleasure, and must therefore serve that child's needs with no expectation of gratitude, nor of a personal and loving relationship.
*
In sum, the parent is supposed, as an ideal, to be a dutiful official who impartially distributes and administers the necessary goods and services to their clients (children) whose 'right' it is to receive them.
Parents are conceptualized as if perfect, detached, ideal-bureaucrats; diligently serving a deserving minority. Children are simply receiving what is their due.
Any emotions that might accompany this neutral transaction would be... inappropriate.
*
One particularly appealing antidote to this nightmare scenario of modernity (and one which sustains the family) comes from that aspect of Mormon theology which sees each of us as precisely having asked to be born; and being born into a situation in which mortal and immortal powers are personal, and necessarily - and properly - have passions such as love, sorrow, compassion.
In such a world view, the natural propensity for personalizing human relationships does not need to be suppressed - and certainly suppression of the personal is not regarded as a virtue.
Rather, from God and Christ and the Holy Ghost on downwards through angels and men, the most important reality is of personal relationships - in which gratitude for help is both natural and desirable; and the lack of gratitude is correctly seen as a moral failure rather than a consequence of superior insight.
*
It is interesting to notice how pervasive is the Leftist anti-family social conditioning which trains children that they should not be grateful to their parents: that they 'didn't ask to be born', that it is therefore their parents duty to provide, and that gratitude is not just needless but inappropriate (when things are thus properly considered...).
On the other side, parents are told that they have chosen to have a child like a fashion accessory - for their own pleasure, and must therefore serve that child's needs with no expectation of gratitude, nor of a personal and loving relationship.
*
In sum, the parent is supposed, as an ideal, to be a dutiful official who impartially distributes and administers the necessary goods and services to their clients (children) whose 'right' it is to receive them.
Parents are conceptualized as if perfect, detached, ideal-bureaucrats; diligently serving a deserving minority. Children are simply receiving what is their due.
Any emotions that might accompany this neutral transaction would be... inappropriate.
*
One particularly appealing antidote to this nightmare scenario of modernity (and one which sustains the family) comes from that aspect of Mormon theology which sees each of us as precisely having asked to be born; and being born into a situation in which mortal and immortal powers are personal, and necessarily - and properly - have passions such as love, sorrow, compassion.
In such a world view, the natural propensity for personalizing human relationships does not need to be suppressed - and certainly suppression of the personal is not regarded as a virtue.
Rather, from God and Christ and the Holy Ghost on downwards through angels and men, the most important reality is of personal relationships - in which gratitude for help is both natural and desirable; and the lack of gratitude is correctly seen as a moral failure rather than a consequence of superior insight.
*
Monday, 10 June 2013
Max, Nigel Molesworth, Just William, Horrid Henry - nasty/ mean kids made heroes
*
As a good kid (or, at least, one who tried to be good ) I thoroughly disliked the way some authors would portray bad kids in an approving fashion.
By bad kids, I mean nasty, mean, selfish, sadistic kids; the kind who would deliberately smash your toys for a laugh, chuck your hat into a tree where it was lost, or burst the football so nobody could play.
(You can tell a bad kid by the look on his face - this will be a sneer, of one or another type.)
I now look back and perceive such fictional characters as early weapons in the anti-Good culture wars - part of a concerted, and almost-wholly-successful, attempt to subvert, ridicule and actively-attack those kids - or adults - who sincerely try to be helpful, honest, smart and truthful.
*
As a good kid (or, at least, one who tried to be good ) I thoroughly disliked the way some authors would portray bad kids in an approving fashion.
By bad kids, I mean nasty, mean, selfish, sadistic kids; the kind who would deliberately smash your toys for a laugh, chuck your hat into a tree where it was lost, or burst the football so nobody could play.
(You can tell a bad kid by the look on his face - this will be a sneer, of one or another type.)
I now look back and perceive such fictional characters as early weapons in the anti-Good culture wars - part of a concerted, and almost-wholly-successful, attempt to subvert, ridicule and actively-attack those kids - or adults - who sincerely try to be helpful, honest, smart and truthful.
*
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Everybody wants 'a happy life' - differences are about the perceived nature of 'life'
*
When someone asks the purpose of life, the answer can become a bit convoluted - but the simple and universal answer is to be happy.
On this, I think, everyone agrees - everyone seeks a happy life.
The differences come when considering the scope of 'life'.
*
The three main variables are:
1. Time-scale - short-term versus long-term
There are trade-offs between being happy immediately and being as happy as possible overall, across life; between the immediate certainty of here-and-now happiness by doing exactly what you want, and deferring happiness now - or accepting suffering - as an investment in building less-certain but potentially greater happiness later.
2. Mortal life versus post-mortal life
The modern secular person is concerned only by happiness during mortal life, but most religious people are concerned with happiness across a life which extends beyond mortality. Therefore the scope of a happy life varies in duration between a finite (but uncertain) number of hours, days or decades; up to some greater unit than mortality, which varies between religions and extends up to infinity.
3. Personal happiness versus the happiness of a larger unit
There is a wide variation in the understanding of that unit whose happiness is to be pursued and maximized. At one extreme it is just me - the individual; but beyond that there are many increasingly larger units of all believers; the family, tribe, nation; all humans, the living world - potentially up to the whole existing universe.
*
If it is assumed that the desire for a happiness is intrinsic and universal, this scheme can be used to classify all religions (whether private or public) in terms of whether the aimed-at happiness is now or later, for mortal life or beyond, and just for me or some larger group.
Both the modern secular hedonist and the devout Christian seek a happy, but the differences in attitudes and behaviour may be vast - not because they conceptualize happiness differently, but because they perceive reality differently; and therefore conceptualize the scope of happiness and the scope of life differently.
If you see 'life' as ending in death, and only concerning your-self, then a strategy of maximizing happiness leads to quite different results from a person who sees 'life' as extending beyond death and encompassing others people - past, present and/or future.
*
All people are the same insofar as they all want to be happy, their aim is to have a happy life; and differences between people can be reduced to differences in the perceived nature of reality.
*
[Note: Differences between people 'can be' reduced to differences in perceived nature of reality - and this is enlightening in some ways; but this analysis (this kind of analysis) is necessarily a reduction. Meaning that much is left-out by it. To put it mildly.]
When someone asks the purpose of life, the answer can become a bit convoluted - but the simple and universal answer is to be happy.
On this, I think, everyone agrees - everyone seeks a happy life.
The differences come when considering the scope of 'life'.
*
The three main variables are:
1. Time-scale - short-term versus long-term
There are trade-offs between being happy immediately and being as happy as possible overall, across life; between the immediate certainty of here-and-now happiness by doing exactly what you want, and deferring happiness now - or accepting suffering - as an investment in building less-certain but potentially greater happiness later.
2. Mortal life versus post-mortal life
The modern secular person is concerned only by happiness during mortal life, but most religious people are concerned with happiness across a life which extends beyond mortality. Therefore the scope of a happy life varies in duration between a finite (but uncertain) number of hours, days or decades; up to some greater unit than mortality, which varies between religions and extends up to infinity.
3. Personal happiness versus the happiness of a larger unit
There is a wide variation in the understanding of that unit whose happiness is to be pursued and maximized. At one extreme it is just me - the individual; but beyond that there are many increasingly larger units of all believers; the family, tribe, nation; all humans, the living world - potentially up to the whole existing universe.
*
If it is assumed that the desire for a happiness is intrinsic and universal, this scheme can be used to classify all religions (whether private or public) in terms of whether the aimed-at happiness is now or later, for mortal life or beyond, and just for me or some larger group.
Both the modern secular hedonist and the devout Christian seek a happy, but the differences in attitudes and behaviour may be vast - not because they conceptualize happiness differently, but because they perceive reality differently; and therefore conceptualize the scope of happiness and the scope of life differently.
If you see 'life' as ending in death, and only concerning your-self, then a strategy of maximizing happiness leads to quite different results from a person who sees 'life' as extending beyond death and encompassing others people - past, present and/or future.
*
All people are the same insofar as they all want to be happy, their aim is to have a happy life; and differences between people can be reduced to differences in the perceived nature of reality.
*
[Note: Differences between people 'can be' reduced to differences in perceived nature of reality - and this is enlightening in some ways; but this analysis (this kind of analysis) is necessarily a reduction. Meaning that much is left-out by it. To put it mildly.]
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