Dream a little dream.

I wrote a bunch of stuff on paper today and my blog posts are never really well developed so I might as well spill them out like I always do.

Intelligence: http://www.slate.com/id/2177228/ There won't be any scientific evidence behind any of what I say, since I'm not familiar with advanced statistical analysis and other methods for evaluating my hypotheses--I'll just share ideas.

I mentioned the idea that intelligence is distributed throughout the population following the restrictions of the normal curve. If genes influence intelligence, some ask, why is it Jewish people throughout history have been so well-endowed with it? Brilliance isn't exclusive to them, in any case, as Newton and Darwin are examples. But look at the long list of famous thinkers throughout history that have had so much influence on our world: Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, Chomsky, von Neumann, Teller, Oppenheimer, Pauli, Sagan, Proust, and many many others. There might be something to it. It's just something interesting to think about, we'll likely see more in the future.

Edit: Looking at Einstein's Ideas and Opinions, he writes, "The second characteristic trait of Jewish tradition is the high regard in which it holds every form of intellectual aspiration and spiritual effort. I am convinced that this great respect for intellectual striving is solely responsible for the contributions that the Jews have made toward the progress of knowledge, in the broadest sense of the term. In view of their relatively small number and the considerable external obstacles constantly placed in their way on all sides, the extent of those contributions deserves the admiration of all sincere men. I am convinced that this is not due to any special wealth of endowment, but to the fact that the esteem in which intellectual accomplishment is held among the Jews creates an atmosphere particularly favorable to the development of any talents that may exist. At the same time a strong critical spirit prevents blind obeisance to any moral authority." Well said, I'll forfeit on that argument. I think it's of peculiar interest that he considers it a matter of cultural or traditional importance. I know, for one thing, in my community the only thing people are concerned with is telling children growing up, "get married" as soon as possible, finish high school and get yourself a nice piece of land to set up shop. College, or any of that higher level stuff isn't worth your time. That mentality is embedded in their psyche, and I think Einstein's answer is quite right in attributing it to cultural/traditional factors.

Anyway, one person to watch out for is Ray Kurzweil, he's brilliant and I think he's on to something with his books on the Singularity. Most folks gawk at the concept because "the software sucks" or it's a nerd's religion/pipe dream. But those who berate it are missing out on something: imagination. I'm not thinking about the "magic school bus" sort of imagination, but just the ability to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Our conscious experience is the result of the massively parallel processing architecture of our brains, which we've inherited through a thousand million years of evolution. Homo sapiens have been around for about 200,000 years. Think about that. Try to imagine six billion people living, eating, loving, dying, praying, and rewind the video of our evolution, our story, from now to 200,000 years ago. Imagine all of the variables, the people, the lives they've led. Now imagine the constitution of our bodies: how we're all reducible to atomic structures. Consciousness is akin to a computer program, but few realize this. The brain's atomic structures are electrochemical in nature, owing to the fact that animals are defined and reproduce trying to adapt to their environments. Advances in science, especially that of electromechanics have brought us the computer. Atoms are interacting with other atoms in order to create a more efficient means of processing themselves. Just imagine, we'll be able to recreate consciousness artificially instead of relying on our DNA for the job. It's not a nerd's pipe dream, but rather the naturally progressive character of the universe. This silly brain that has served our ancestors quite well(there's almost 7 billion of us, right?) will become obsolete. The brain's information storage and retrieval abilities are not well designed for its efficient utilization because evolution works through indirection. Hence, science is a collaborative effort of specialists in many fields as a single brain is severely constrained in its ability to absorb and recall any extensive amount of information, and always risks deterioration of memories in disuse. Hard drives on the other hand can search through terabytes worth of information and recall them upon request. It appears we're agents in bringing about this change. Atoms can think: A discerning one who realizes this might soon come to say, "I am the universe." When technology advances to the point where intelligence saturates enough matter, will the universe as a whole come to say, "I am the universe"? It's curious.

I agree with Hume and Kant on our inability to ever find objective evidence for God, but it's understandable that, "each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast, and, from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependent." Although they might like to think of themselves as prophets, Dawkins and Dennett are impulsive with their rationalizing of atheism--especially Dennett who should be familiar with Kant and Hume. Rebelliousness to the dogmatic assertions and certitude of religious faith is one thing, but going on the opposite end on the spectrum of dogmatism isn't the most reasonable course of action. It's like a shock tactic. The point they're making is that religion is a natural phenomenon, which makes sense, but it's unnecessary to go so far as to say that there is no God beyond a reasonable doubt, since it's impossible to prove and isn't an unassailably forceful argument. Religion can be viewed favorably as a foundational cradle uniting communities, safeguarding them until their descendants are ready to sprout and burst free in full realization of their true cosmic nature. In suggesting empiricism logically disproves any foundation for religiousness Dawkins and Dennett treat the issue with a careless levity in ignoring, as you'll read below, "the enormous strength and ineradicability of the metaphysical need of man."

I don't think all forms of religiosity are inherently bad, take for example the profound literature of the Upanishads which, in introducing his World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer writes of favorably, "If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century (1818) may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I say, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him." In another context he writes, "In the whole world there is no such study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life ; it will be the solace of my death." This is coming from a man whom most only characterize as a pessimistic grouch.

Also consider Hume's introductory paragraph in his Natural History of Religion, "As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty..." This acknowledgment, too, coming from the great writer who brought us his wonderful Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Schopenhauer points out in a explanatory format similar to Hume's Natural History, "Yet as a rule men have a weakness for putting their trust in those who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge rather than in their own heads, but if you bear in mind the enormous intellectual inequality between man and man, then the thoughts of one may very well count with another as a revelation...The fundamental, secret and primal piece of astuteness of all priests, everywhere and at all times, whether Brahmin or Mohammedan or Buddhist or Christian, is as follows. They have recognized and grasped the enormous strength and ineradicability of the metaphysical need of man: they then pretend to possess the means of satisfying it, in that the solution to the great enigma has, by extraordinary channels, been directly communicated to them. Once they have persuaded men of the truth of this, they can lead and dominate them to their heart's content. The more prudent rulers enter into an alliance with them: the others are themselves ruled by them. If however, as the rarest of all exceptions, a philosopher comes to the throne, the whole comedy is disrupted in the most unseemly fashion."

Matter's ascendancy by natural selection allows an admirable outlook in understanding our origins and what role religion plays in society. One may accept, as Dawkins and Dennett likely would, Hume's phrasing, "I deny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who guides the course of events, and punishes the vicious with infamy and disappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honour and success, in all their undertakings. But surely, I deny not the course itself of events, which lies open to every one’s inquiry and examination." So instead one way of thinking about the world is through the concept of an impartial creator, similar to Spinoza's substance, "Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to your deities." This 'substance' bears a striking resemblance to the Vedantic conception of 'Brahman', the same thing Schrodinger wrote in My View of the World that, "consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves," and further, "This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world."

Matter heads ever onward towards an omega point(read Chardin's Phenomenon of Man) as the universe ascends to higher levels of complexity, "The complexification of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more personalization, of which human beings are the highest attained form in the known universe. They are completely individualized, free centers of operation. It is in this way that man is said to be made in the image of God, who is the highest form of personality. Teilhard expressly stated that in the Omega Point, when the universe becomes One, human persons will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. This is because the Omega Point unites creation, and the more it unites, the more the universe complexifies and rises in consciousness." From atoms to molecules to cells to animals, life rises in complexity over time, wherefore humanity will increasingly realize that we aren't punished as subjects to despotic deities for the crime of existing; rather, we are all actors in a play, a grandiose story of the atom coming to know itself through itself. We're here for creative love: 'Substance' is a theater for boundless pursuit of imaginative interests, and when I think of what 'God' might be, I think of an arbiter of everything within this realm whose creative capacity is boundless, including but not limited to everything from clever feats of engineering to the splendidness of literature, the goldenness of comedy, the magnificence of music, and so on ad infinitum. "What is made is Mine!"

Equating evolution with atheism will only discourage others from teaching it and keep our relatives in ignorance for longer than need be. There's something to be gained from studying some religious texts like the Upanishads; I admonish Dawkins and Dennett to reconsider their pretentious "super rationality" to profound alternatives so that we may share with our relatives the depth generated in that sensation of meaning and wonder like Einstein maintained with his attachment to Spinoza's God, and his admiration of the perennial wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita.

The ineradicability of man's metaphysical need would be best served this way for future generations: for those coming to understand what to make of "being" this optimal system offers an outlet in assuaging these needs and deriving from it the gift of utmost solace, while being itself consistent with reason. When I think, "Why am I me, trapped in this conscious experience?" I find little support for the notion that the scheme of nature and my place within it is a fluke, a meaningless mishap. I'll conclude the point with a quote from Max Planck's Scientific Autobiography, "No matter where and how far we look, nowhere do we find a contradiction between religion and natural science. On the contrary, we find a complete concordance in the very points of decisive importance. Religion and natural science do not exclude each other, as many contemporaries of ours would believe or fear; they mutually supplement and condition each other. The most immediate proof of the compatibility of religion and natural science, is the historic fact that the very greatest natural scientists of all times--men such as Kepler, Newton, Leibniz--were permeated by a most profound religious attitude. At the dawn of our own era of civilization, the practitioners of natural science were the custodians of religion at the same time. The oldest of all the applied natural sciences, medicine, was in the hands of priests, and in the Middle Ages scientific research was still carried on principally in monasteries. Later, as civilization continued to advance and to branch out, the parting of the ways became always more pronounced, corresponding to the different nature of the tasks and pursuits of religion and those of natural science. For the proper attitude to questions in ethics can no more be gained from a purely rational cognition than can a general Weltanschauung ever replace specific knowledge and ability. But the two roads do not diverge; they run parallel to each other, and they intersect at an endlessly removed common goal. There is no better way to comprehend this properly than to continue one's efforts to obtain a progressively more profound insight into the nature and problems of the natural sciences, on one hand, and of religious faith on the other. It will then appear with ever increasing clarity that even though the methods are different--for science operates predominantly with the intellect, religion predominantly with the sentiment--the significance of the work and the direction of progress are nonetheless absolutely identical. Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against scepticism and dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: "On to God!"

Another problem I have with Dennett(I've been fortunate to meet him when he came to UCONN, and Dawkins at a book signing in NYC, despite all of this they've been a powerful influence in my own thought) is that I think his commitment to that "quagmire of evasion" of compatibilism is unfounded. This has more to do with his devotion to the power of Darwin's theory in explaining changes found in the biological world, and thus hastily attributes the natural progression towards self-consciousness as reason to believe "freedom evolves," without considering the possibility that self-conscious beings are also determined; even though people feel free, their "freedom" amounts to their ability to follow a new set of options exclusively available to self-conscious animals. All events rely on the primacy of causality. It would seem that the ability to discuss the topic of free will would necessarily entail a reason to believe in it, especially regarding arguments of this format: "Look at me! I'm writing this sentence because I'm making myself do it, therefore, I'm free!" However strong this argument appears to be, it took the universe billions of years to get to this point and when you consider the promise our future holds in being billions of times smarter than us one may come to assent that our short transitory nature has already been factored into the equation. “A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.”

Schopenhauer's prize essay on the freedom of the will has many gems of explication, such as, "For, like all objects of experience, the human being is an appearance in time and space, and as the law of causality is a priori valid for all of them and consequently without exception, he also must be subject to it. Thus the pure understanding states it a priori; it is confirmed by the analogy that runs through the whole of nature; and it is testified to by experience every moment, unless we are deceived by the illusion created by the fact that the beings of nature become more complex as they rise in the scale, and their susceptibility is enhanced and refined from the merely mechanical to the chemical, electrical, irritable, sensible, intellectual, and finally rational, such that the nature of the operating causes must also keep pace with this enhanced susceptibility and at each stage must turn out in conformity with the beings on which they are to operate. Therefore the causes also appear less and less palpable and material, so that at last they are no longer visible to the eye, although still within the reach of the understanding, which presupposes them with unshakable confidence, and also discovers them after a proper search. For here the operating causes are enhanced to mere thoughts that wrestle with other thoughts until the most powerful determines the outcome and sets the human being in motion. All this happens with a necessity of causal connection that is just as strict as when purely mechanical causes act against one another in complex conjunction, and the calculated result infallibly enters."

Moreover, "What would become of this world if necessity did not permeate all things and hold them together, but especially if it did not preside over the generation of individuals? A monster, rubbish heap, a caricature without sense and significance - the work of true and utter chance. To wish that some event had not happened is a foolish piece of self-torture, for it is equivalent to wishing something absolutely impossible; it is as irrational as to wish that the sun would rise in the west. Just because all that happens, both great and small, occurs with strict necessity, it is quite futile to reflect on it and to think how trifling and fortuitous were the causes that led to that event, and how very easily they could have been other than they were. For this is an illusion, since they have all occurred with just as strict a necessity and have operated with a force just as perfect as that in consequence of which the sun rises in the east. On the contrary, we should regard the events as they occur with just the same eye with which we read the printed word, well knowing that it was there before we read it."

Finally, "Whoever is shocked by these propositions has something still to learn and something else to unlearn; but then he will recognize they are the most fruitful source of consolation and peace of mind.-- Our deeds are certainly not a first beginning, so that in them nothing really new comes into existence, but by what we do we merely come to know what we are."

I sit here, as an animal limited to the experience of sensuous impressions; inhabiting, pondering, thrown into being without my consultation, living inside what seems to be something analogous to a computer simulation. Everything that I am amounts to an infinitesimal variable in some grand equation. I'm impressed with the entire configuration of the universe. Atoms are like an arbitrary toolbox of lego-like life-creators responsible for everything there is and ever was. Occasionally I think about my "homelands" of Bosnia and Montenegro, the beauty of its landscapes, the wonderful inhabitants, the senses of humor, the love, most notably from the people of Plav, Janja, and Sarajevo. The smell of the air, the nonchalant attitude to life, when all things considered lead one to love their country, one of many on this beautiful planet. If people could see the interconnectedness, the interrelatedness of all life on earth, their pride in nationalism might transcend itself into "internationalism" and they may even find something much more spiritual than any form of dogmatism can offer in viewing life this way. I'm privileged to have come from such sources, where my extended family is close-knit; privileged in being able to say I have many wonderful cousins I've come to know and love; privileged in coming from a clan-like background providing me with a surname I share with hundreds, and moreover to come to know these wonderful people as my closest relatives on the tree of life, sharing with millions characteristically similar south-Slavic surnames; privileged to share a sweetly intonated common language I've only recently begun to appreciate in the musical and poetic arts "my" people (embellished without ethnocentricity) have contributed to this realm.. "balkane moj", "I stari rece tad vidis sada citav svijet zna da postoji grad gdje se kafa zakuha i fildzan ostavlja ako ko naidje, jebi ga to ovdje svako zna, To je raja iz Sarajeva, to ovdje svako zna, raja iz Sarajeva, iz moga Sarajeva"; privileged in attending weddings with 300+ relatives to witness causality tie another knot in the fabric of space and time. I've come to cherish the profundity of this vast system, and in considering our common ancestry the exalted majesty of the story of our very being strikes chords within, overwhelmed by wondrous emotion as in the heartfelt third movement of Brahms' 3rd symphony. I'm decidedly humbled by my externally imposed limitations as a creature of perception--closing my eyes I focus on the fragile beating of my heart, and think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

Assuming I'm still alive 50 years from now I'll have a good laugh at all of this, but if I don't make it I guess everyone else can do it on my behalf--even if it's laughing at me. :p I might not think there's anything waiting for me in the hereafter, but despite it there are genuine reasons for spirituality, Julian Huxley writes in another paragraph in Transhumanism that, "The great men of the past have given us glimpses of what is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual understanding, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. We need to explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as the realm of physical geography has been explored and mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living? What can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment; to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experience (after all, one can acquire the technique of dancing or tennis, so why not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?); to develop native talent and intelligence in the growing child, Instead of frustrating or distorting them? Already we know that painting and thinking, music and mathematics, acting and science can come to mean something very real to quite ordinary average boys and girls —provided only that the fright methods are adopted for bringing out the children’s possibilities. We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration."

Many atheists laugh at any attempts at forging spirituality, but it is possible and consistent with reason and "rationality"(the word most atheists use for themselves). Perhaps this new spirituality will move away from dogmatism to a refined meditation upon self related to the "primeval Indian wisdom" espoused in the Upanishads by reaching an elevated state of cosmic consciousness, similar to Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy of a, "metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal." This outlook is best expressed in a quote taken from Adi Shankara expounded later in the book, "Talk as much philosophy as you please, worship as many gods as you like, observe all ceremonies, sing devoted praises to any number of divine beings--liberation never comes, even at the end of a hundred aeons, without the realization of the Oneness of Self."

If I may draw an acute resemblance between the realization of the Oneness of Self with Planck's rallying cry it appears to suggest that religious adherents in the future will disperse of their dogmatism and leave it behind as a relic of natural history; maybe an eventual assimilation as the unification of mind is brought about. The next phase in the history of the universe is indescribably hopeful. We still have to put up with a lot of garbage in our day-to-day lives, but it's all part of the adventure. I'm sure hard-headed dogmatists will grind their teeth at this outlook and tear it apart with their insuperable logic but I think they'll be on the wrong side of history from the point of view of a conscious being in the future. How, you say, would I know that? It's just a hunch.

"If the way which, as I have shown, leads hither seem very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. It must indeed be difficult since it is so seldom discovered; for if salvation lay ready to hand and could be discovered without great labour, how could it be possible that it should be neglected almost by everybody? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

Utopia

"Of many thousand mortals, one, perchance,
Striveth for Truth; and of those few that strive-
Nay, and rise high- one only- here and there-
Knoweth Me, as I am, the very Truth.

...


Yet soon is withered what small fruit they reap:
Those men of little minds, who worship so,
Go where they worship, passing with their gods.
But Mine come unto me! Blind are the eyes
Which deem th' Unmanifested manifest,
Not comprehending Me in my true Self!
Imperishable, viewless, undeclared,
Hidden behind my magic veil of shows,
I am not seen by all; I am not known-
Unborn and changeless- to the idle world.
But I, Arjuna! know all things which were,
And all which are, and all which are to be,
Albeit not one among them knoweth Me!

...

Richer than holy fruit on Vedas growing,
Greater than gifts, better than prayer or fast,
Such wisdom is! The Yogi, this way knowing,
Comes to the Utmost Perfect Peace at last.

...

I am alike for all! I know not hate,
I know not favour! What is made is Mine!
But them that worship Me with love, I love;
They are in Me, and I in them!"

Sir Edwin Arnold's translation of the Gita is the finest I've seen. The meaning behind the words strike me with awe; there's nothing greater: the pinnacle of selflessness, the ultimate realization. It's been a while since I've last written, but as I glance over my past blog posts and notice the foibles of my character development I ask, "Was that really me?" It was. Lo, it is, the story of my accumulated mental processes and insecurities intertwined with an earnest search for something I knew not what. It's the story of a second-rate intellect's journey for peace of mind. I know I've been accustomed to self-deprecation in the past, and the previous sentence may seem like another case of it, as if I've learned nothing from it all. I think it's an objective assessment of my own faculties, there's a desperate feeling within where my passion for learning desires to break free from my genetically inherited constraints. There's a deepness waiting to burst and flower forth, but it can't. I'm at least happy with having a somewhat reflective personality and feeling the impact of the meaning behind Spinoza's philosophy and the Bhagavad-Gita. Nature doesn't endow its gifts equally to all, intelligence is distributed amongst humans following the restrictions of the normal curve as heuristic evolutionary algorithms mold life according to it, moreover, my past musings are sub-par in terms of thoughtfulness, and I now find much of it disagreeable. It's unreasonable to expect myself to reach any acclaim-bearing levels of thoughtfulness at this point in time, there's much work ahead of me.

The future is wide open to possibilities. I've noticed an awfully depressing tone in my writing about how I'm going to die and so are all of everybody's descendants, yadda yadda, and how I'd love to live in an advanced civilization according to the Kardashev scale's projections but don't think there's even the slightest chance. There may just be such a chance available to us. In the coming years, it seems, technology is accelerating at such a rate that superhuman intelligence may allow for the possibility of transcending biological constraints. The "singularity" with technology will allow intelligence to far surpass ours, by billions of times ( http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/WER2.html ). It's possible we may have the ability to live much longer than we do at present. In some of my incoherent ramblings in the past I've felt like death was looming and that I had to do something before time runs out. I have an idea of what I've been wanting to write, but the ideas are only written down in a few fragments here and there. I hope to craft it into a small treatise, but until then must focus on improving my writing. The foremost constraint being the electrochemical neural activity of our brain's information processing capabilities. But that's how it's all supposed to work, you see, life is a simulation and we're all bits on a grid striving for one cosmic purpose: to uncover the hidden powers of the universe through the method of scientific discovery. Those latent powers will radically change the world as we know it in only the next few decades; and here I am striving to hop on the train of progress and maybe contribute something along the way.

It's just a ride...

And it's the coolest one of all.