You know, in the past, I've always been telling myself how awful my writing is but I don't think I've ever changed my methods to do something about it. Most of what's written here amount to doodles of first drafts. If I should have learned anything from Strunk and White it would be: revising is a part of the writing process. I expected gold to come out of my mind every time I touched a keyboard. I'm also aware now that some of the poetry I've jotted in the past is actually kind of sketchy, and others are all right. Reading them back to myself is a funny task. They're so sappy and self-defeating, as if they're portrayals of some barren wasteland, a "desolatopia." The emptiness is there for the sake of being empty, as structural underpinnings of emotional deprivation. My poem "Love is not for me" befuddled me after an audible recitation. It's actually pretty weird, was I suggesting some sort of child abuse left me devoid of emotion? I've always wanted others to read and "discover" this, but damn, that poem is just weird, I doubt it'll be regarded favorably. There's no happy ending, it just stops. I guess happy endings don't always happen in the real world. If anything, I'll consider it Elliott Smith-esque, maybe somebody will like it. That's the point of art, isn't it? No it's not at all comparable to the Shakespeare's, Dryden's, Johnson's of the world, but it's unique, it has its own little flair. It has a certain flavor to it some could relate to. Some products as such are the work of genius, of those who've dedicated their lives, striving to fulfill one niche in the vastness of knowledge, and they're great for that reason. Practice makes perfect, but our constrained animal capacities leave us with so little to show for it, winning in the genetic lottery to have their life work considered "worth preserving" for future generations. I don't consider myself a winner in the genetic lottery, but that doesn't stop one from trying. People are so quick to judge things negatively by treating others' thoughts or creations with vitriolic disdain. "This shit sucks." "Are you retarded?" "This is worthless." Perhaps in terms of money-making, let's say, Hollywood won't accept every script they get, but sometimes it's not about the money; this is the work of an imagination, and as such is a contribution to humanity. Maybe it's a waste of your time, but something new and wonderful has been added to the noosphere of creativity. So what am I trying to say? We are creative beings, and ultimately our purpose here is to express ourselves in one way or another. The creative impulse shouldn't be discouraged or abandoned, especially if some cigar smoking shot-caller says you'll never make it. You're being you is all that matters. In a way, I hope this blog I've been dabbling with is viewed in this light. No, maybe it's not extraordinary, but this is what my attachment to this vast causal nexus produced. It's digital, too: as long as Google doesn't go out of business it'll be here for ... possibly, ever. This is my stamp, my contribution. I also figure it's what I've been determined to write, given the chain of causal connections leading to the determination of my intelligence, past states of mind, self-contempt, and everything else that lies herein. I'm transitioning now to a more positive, contemplative, state of mind and dissociating myself with the emotional-roller-coaster of the past. I'm happy with being me, and it's beautiful. I can now truthfully say I'm "free," although I'm still conditioned per causality. Thomas Henry Huxley put a meaningful emphasis on it in an essay regarding animal automatism, "It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes [244] holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act. We are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the only intelligible sense of that much-abused term–inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we like–but none the less parts of the great series of causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has been, and shall be–the sum of existence."
When this dawned on me in its fullness it became something of a "permanent effect" that remains with me ever after. Relating to the same feeling, Balzac shares the experience of a Cosmic Sense in a verse, "nous ne sommes que par l'ame[All we are is in the soul]" and in another instance, "Are you certain that your soul has had its full development? Do you breathe in air through every pore of it? Do your eyes see all they can see?"
I wonder how many at this same exact moment share this feeling? I wonder what their families are like, what their conversations consist of. A gentle smile? Pointing out parables to children? Discovering something new in a research facility somewhere? Whenever I drive through or walk in New York City I'm almost speechless. Look at this place. Trying to imagine all of the stories of people that have shared the experience of simply walking over the Brooklyn bridge is mind-blowing. Even at my own home, could there have been Native Americans looking at the same ponds and rivers, the same kinds of animals, and thinking to themselves "what a remarkable spectacle this great Nature is." I try to imagine them running around Sleeping Giant state park by Quinnipiac University; what a miraculous world we happen to find ourselves in. The thought itself motivates me. Due to the conscious experience I found myself growing into, I realized I'd always be dissatisfied without understanding what to make of sense-experience. Most probably have the same goals, but generally settle upon something incomplete. They're still subject to the emotional-roller-coasters, to appeasing carnal desires and what not caught up in the causal web.
The Bhagavad-Gita is a beautiful text for those who are curious, and its setting interpreted allegorically is the battlefield in the soul of every being. Gandhi was deeply influenced by it and praised it thus, "The Gita is the universal mother. She turns away nobody. Her door is wide open to anyone who knocks. A true votary of Gita does not know what disappointment is. He ever dwells in perennial joy and peace that passeth understanding. But that peace and joy come not to skeptic or to him who is proud of his intellect or learning. It is reserved only for the humble in spirit who brings to her worship a fullness of faith and an undivided singleness of mind. There never was a man who worshiped her in that spirit and went disappointed."
Followers of all stripes of religions believe in the revelatory authenticity of their sacred texts for the most part upon circular logic: "It's the Word of God and should be treated as such because it says so in the Book." Devotees of countless religions base their worldview, actions, and lifestyles, on such threadbare evidence. It basically amounts to an adherence to tradition, for the sake of tradition. I've known a few people go from atheism back to Catholicism, or from Judaism to Islam or vice versa, and it's interesting. I understand the traditional component is quite strong in influencing opinion, but out of all the sacred texts the world has produced the strains of thought coming from the East are the most profound it's hard to understand why the West continue on with their ways, besides the fact that it's a historical accident. The religious feeling is an emotional appeal to something greater than oneself, yet everybody has their own take and oftentimes it leads to competing claims about the superior validity of this or that text, followed by argumentation and eventually into wars. For this reason Edward Bellamy turned against the Christian religion since, "the church failed to put the emphasis on religion where it belonged, namely on the translation of the Golden Rule into human relations; that it sang constantly about the glories of Heaven and did not denounce or attempt to correct evil and wickedness here below." But this is, after all, human nature we're talking about: Flawed is our middle name.
Where does this leave us? It's beginning to look like the various faiths of the world have something fundamentally wrong about them. I have a friend who regards any critique of religion as "biased," for they're all somehow equally valid. In the Gita it is written, "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" By this logic it might make sense, for example, if God created everything and all religions then they're all valid but think about it in various ways. There's a saying that relates to this, "All paths lead to the one Truth, but many call it by different names." But this doesn't seem to me an adequate solution to the innumerable problems they bear, notwithstanding their desire of Truth. A new paradigm is forming behind knowledge of the inner workings of the world, bearing the banner of science and in many respects reveal contradictions and inconsistencies of the sacred texts billions of people regard dearly. One recent BBC documentary hosted by a Christian on the legacy of Darwin's theory found no problem in reconciling his faith with the theory. It's possible to reconcile just about anything with faith, for one, especially if considered allegorically. Still, some of the claims held by these groups make absolutely no sense, for example, Judgment Day. The End of Times, you say? How long have you been waiting for Jesus to come back? Oh, it'll have to be in 2012 this time? So what do you say when 2013 comes around? In light of the new understanding of the inner workings of the world many of these commonly held beliefs are rightly held to be insubstantial or just plain wrong. If you understand the law of causality and nature of the 13 or so billion year old universe how can you possibly believe the chain of causes and effects will stop anytime soon? It's for reasons like this, among others, that I find traditional religion to be incomplete and incoherent to the point of doubting their validity at all. I find it hard to believe one can reconcile faith and science without some sort of cognitive dissonance between the two. But then again, that's just the way it is. 'Brahman' makes the faith of every being in their deity very steady, you can't deny that. However, these people have interests that affect the decisions another individual can make, for example, homosexuality is against God's Law in the Bible and is therefore illegal and considered "immoral" in depressingly many parts of the world. But, if God created everything then he also created homosexuals, if it really was against God's Law he wouldn't have bothered making animals gay in the first place. But here we are faced with a dilemma, the so called "value voters" show themselves to be as bigots instead. If you really loved your neighbor as yourself, sexual preference needn't matter. But, oh no, this is an ordained and "holy" institution you're going up against. Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy points it out, "The moralists cease to be realistic and commit idolatry inasmuch as they worship, not God, but their own ethical ideals, inasmuch as they treat virtue as an end in itself and not as the necessary condition of the knowledge and love of God--a knowledge and love, without which that virtue will never be made perfect or socially effective... The virtue which is accompanied and perfected by the love and knowledge of God is something quite different from the "righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," which, for Christ, was among the worst of moral evils. Hardness, fanaticism, uncharitableness, and spiritual pride--these are the ordinary by-products of a course of stoical self improvement by means of personal effort, either unassisted or, if assisted, seconded only by the pseudo-graces which are given when the individual devotes himself to the achievement of an end which is not his true end, when the goal is not God, but merely a magnified projection of his own favorite ideas or moral excellences. The idolatrous worship of ethical values in and for themselves defeats its own object--and defeats it not only because, as Arnold insists, there is a lack of all-round development, but also and above all because even the highest forms of moral idolatry are God-eclipsing and therefore guarantee the idolater against the enlightening and liberating knowledge of Reality."
Is there a solution? I think there is, but it's hard to find. It lies in the Cosmic Sense, and the Sense I'm referring to is hard for anyone to find: Spinoza ended his Ethics (the work itself uses a geometrical outline as proofs but I think the value is not in the proofs and Q.E.D.s themselves but when interpreted 'allegorically' as a means to find the Cosmic Sense) writing, "all noble things are as difficult as they are rare." Einstein, as you probably figured from the rest of my posts, admired the Ethics and hinted at what lies ahead, "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity."
How are we to think about religion, then? Well, for those who've comprehended the Oneness of Self know the universe to be something deeper and more meaningful than adherence to a set of religious rites. The Bhagavad-Gita teaches that one may find utmost peace of mind as the subject understands itself to be One with and not as something separate from the universe, the cycle of births and deaths along coupled with consciousness keep beings ignorant of their true nature. This ignorance is referred to as the delusion of dualities, wherein minds become tied up in sense-experience(Maya) born of likes and dislikes, so that the mind or ego of an individual rarely allows them to discover their relationship to their surroundings, a relationship transcending personal identity. It's something so close, yet so far away.
Richard Bucke's book "Cosmic Consciousness" is a collection of biographies and writings of people endowed with the so-called Cosmic Sense, and makes some bold inferences, which are yet logical extensions. For the record, I believe this inference is right, and is a valid insight regarding the future due to its logical consistency and also its support by the new understanding of mind provided by science.
I'll first begin with an account of the history of the universe as it relates to the scientific understanding of cosmic evolution (link to Chaisson's cosmic evolution website: http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html). Causality has a foremost role in the playing out of the history of the universe: from the Big Bang onwards atoms have been in slowly working to bring about the life we find ourselves in today, although it's 2009 we could more accurately place the "current year" of the universe between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. In this vast causal nexus we find ourselves here today as the result of an accumulation of increasing forms of order in the universe. Atoms, the building blocks, assemble themselves into increasingly complex structures, at this point in the cell whose networks of interoperability(various systems required for living: digestion, immune, etc.) have endowed animals with the capacity for thought. In Minsky's "Society of Mind" we come to find that our ability to reason comes through the brain, whose cells can't "think" by themselves, but can by operating together in a great processing network. The causal nexus/sequence has been working since time immemorial up to where we find ourselves today, however, the journey doesn't end here. As increasing forms of order constitute more or less the "operating instructions" behind the machinery of the universe, we see that world history is itself akin to a computer simulation(if you will) playing itself out in front of our eyes, based on natural and statistical laws. I believe the causal sequence ultimately culminates into the technological Singularity, not merely because "I said so," but insofar as I am conscious and able to imagine a future: the design of our brains suggest that intelligence is a characteristic of our being that can be understood by reverse engineering, and with the help of intelligent machines it may indeed even be amplified.
Now, as pertaining to direct quotation from the book, here are a provided few,
"The view he takes is that our descendants will sooner or later, reach, as a race, the condition of cosmic consciousness, just as, long ago, our ancestors passed from simple to self consciousness. He believes that this step in evolution is even now being made, since it is clear to him that men with the faculty in question are becoming more and more common and also that as a race we are approaching nearer and nearer to that stage of the self conscious mind from which the transition to cosmic conscious is effected. He realizes that, granted the necessary heredity, any individual not already beyond the age may enter cosmic consciousness. He knows that intelligent contact with cosmic conscious minds assists self conscious individuals in the ascent to the higher plane. He therefore hopes, by bringing about, or at least facilitating this contact, to aid men and women in making the almost infinitely important step in question." ... "The immediate future of our race, the writer thinks, is indescribably hopeful. There are at the present moment impending over us three revolutions, the least of which would dwarf the ordinary historic upheaval called by that name into the absolute insignificance. They are: (1) The material, economic and social revolution which will depend upon the result from the establishment of aerial navigation. (2) The economic and social revolution which will abolish individual ownership and rid the earth at once of two immense evils--riches and poverty. And (3) The psychical revolution of which there is here question. Either of the first two would (and will) radically change the conditions of, and greatly uplift, human life; but the third will do more for humanity than both of the former, were their importance multiplied by hundreds or even thousands. The three operating(as they will) together will literally create a new heaven and a new earth. Old things will be done away and all will become new." ... "In contact with the flux of cosmic consciousness all religions known and named to-day will be melted down. The human soul will be revolutionized. Religion will absolutely dominate the race. It will not depend on tradition. It will not be believed and disbelieved. It will not be a part of life, belonging to certain hours, times, occasions. It will not be in sacred books nor in the mouths of priests. It will not dwell in churches and meetings and forms and days. Its life will not be in prayers, nor hymns nor discourses. It will not depend on special revelations, on the words of gods who came down to teach, nor on any bible or bibles. It will have no mission to save men from their sins or to secure them entrance to heaven. It will not teach a future immortality nor future glories, for immortality and all glory will exist in the here and now. The evidence of immortality will live in every heart as sight in every eye. Doubt of God and of eternal life will be as impossible as is now doubt of existence; the evidence of each will be the same. Religion will govern every minute of every day of all life. Churches, priests, forms, creeds, prayers, all agents, all intermediaries between the individual man and God will be permanently replaced by direct unmistakable intercourse. Sin will no longer exist nor will salvation be desired. Men will not worry about death or a future, about the kingdom of heaven, about what may come with and after the cessation of the life of the present body. Each soul will feel and know itself to be immortal, will feel and know that the entire universe with all its good and with all its beauty is for it and belongs to it forever." ... "The universal scheme is woven in one piece and is permeable to consciousness or (and especially) to sub-consciousness throughout and in every direction. The universe is a vast, grandiose, terrible, multiform yet uniform evolution." ... "The philosophy of the birth of cosmic consciousness in the individual is very similar to that of the birth of self consciousness. The mind becomes overcrowded (as it were) with concepts and these are constantly becoming larger, more numerous and more and more complex; some day (the conditions being all favorable) the fusion, or what might be called the chemical union, of several of them and of certain moral elements takes place; the result is an intuition and the establishment of the intuitional mind, or, in other words, cosmic consciousness. The scheme by which the mind is built up is uniform from beginning to end: a recept is made of many percepts; a concept of many or several recepts and percepts, and an intuition is made of many concepts, recepts and percepts together with other elements belonging to and drawn from the moral nature. The cosmic vision or the cosmic intuition, from which what may be called the new mind takes its name, is thus seen to be simply the complex and union of all prior thought and experience--just as self consciousness is the complex and union of all thought and experience prior to it."
The above is most likely the best description of what Einstein meant by "cosmic religion," and I believe this is our future and our destiny as human beings. If you noticed, Bucke also threw in a little shot at private property. For what it's worth I also do believe that private property sooner or later will be unnecessary. Most of the political theory I've read leading me to believe this is influenced for the most part by Noam Chomsky's seminar on "Government in the Future," furthermore by the less well-known political writings of John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Bertrand Russell's Proposed Roads to Freedom, Rudolf Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism, et al. Some may find this as reason for believing I'm not rational given the current social order of state-capitalism, the success of economic theory, and the influence of popular opinion, e.g. Fukuyama's "End of History". The reason for being skeptical is rational and warranted. However, in envisioning the possibilities of social ordering after the Singularity it appears as the universe heads into this next phase we'll find laws of economic theory won't hold in the future, namely that economics as, "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses," will not apply anymore. Scarcity as a fundamental economic problem will cease to be as revolutions in nanotechnology will be able to create basically anything, the only constraint being merely having the information (probably just a model of the atomic structure) required to build it. As the causal sequence unfolds in the history of the universe we see a gradually democratizing force becoming more prevalent; after hundreds of thousands of years of tribal warfare, followed by changes brought from the agricultural revolution--wars between cities, as technology keeps building upon itself we find warfare now between states and larger cultural groups like religions, and so on. Given human nature's propensity for violence, we should be careful in bringing about the changes of the Singularity. Hugo de Garis, for example, is predicting a cosmic war in the future as a result. I really hope this isn't the case, but given our track record it's worth considering and preparing for overcoming it, to keep your eyes open if anything goes out of line and make the transition peacefully as it would completely change everybody's living conditions for something unimaginably better.
In the movie Waking Life a professor of chemistry comments on the "telescopic" nature of evolution and hints regarding how the future scenario might work out: "If we're looking at the highlights of human development, you have to look at the evolution of the organism and then at the development of its interaction with the environment. Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life perceived through the hominid coming to the evolution of mankind. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man. Now, interestingly, what you're looking at here are three strings: biological, anthropological — development of the cities — and cultural, which is human expression. Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time scales that are involved here — two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, 100,000 years for mankind as we know it — you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then when you get to agricultural, when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution, you're looking at 10,000 years, 400 years, 150 years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's gonna telescope to the point we should be able to see it manifest itself within our lifetime, within this generation. The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence. The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism. And you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before on the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping. Okay, independent from the external. And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process, emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human, okay, with a new individuality and a new consciousness. But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until we reach a crescendo in a way could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human, human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual, the multiplication of individual existences. Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space. And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution, manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive. That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold. It's sterile. It's efficient, okay? And its manifestations of those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay? Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution. And that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice." [link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxX-Z6w3p4]
"The universe doesn't care about us!" you might say. If you understood the bit on telescopic evolution and its relationship to the coldness of "old evolution" you might come to that conclusion, but I think there's more to this Substance or divine Ground of being than that. The universe as a whole acts as a brilliant creator of innumerable forms and richness in the diversity of life. Not only does it create, but it also unifies, given the nature of substance in itself. Diverse forms rich and varied all arise from a single mesh of building blocks. Teilhard de Chardin refers to in Phenomenon of Man of a future point where all is unified by such cosmic consciousness as the Omega point. I think the Oneness of substance in its diversity and unity will provide the foundation of this new cosmic religion.
I've been reading some obscure books lately and I've found what might be a great justification or grounds for everything mentioned above namely, Yale theologian Jonathan Edwards' End of Creation. In an attempt to crown this cosmic religion with a few examples from the book, I hope to illustrate why Bucke believes "Doubt of God" would be impossible in the future. My favorite line of Bucke's reasoning would be as quoted before, "Each soul will feel and know itself to be immortal, will feel and know that the entire universe with all its good and with all its beauty is for it and belongs to it forever." Why go throughout this long-winded process in the first place? Edwards has a few things to say about it, and for what it's worth, although theological arguments aren't popular in general I think this one is different owing to our soon-to-be potential immortality. Therefore, I think Edwards does a good job in arguing his case, and these ideas might even be used to support the "why?" behind cosmic consciousness,
"I now proceed to enquire, how God’s making such things as there his last end is consistent with, his making himself his last end, or, his manifesting an ultimate respect to himself in his acts and works… Therefore I would endeavour to show, with respect to reach of the forementioned things, that God, in making them his end, makes himself his end, so as in all to show a supreme and ultimate respect to himself; and how his infinite love to himself and delight in himself, will naturally cause him to value and delight in these things: or rather, how a value to these things is implied in his love to himself, or value of that infinite fullness of good that is in himself." ... "So if God both esteem, and delight in his own perfections and virtues, he cannot but value and delight in the expressions and genuine effects of them. So that in delighting in the expressions of his perfections, he manifests a delight in his own perfections themselves: or in other words, he manifests a delight in himself; and in making these expressions of his own perfects his end, he makes himself his end." ... "And with respect to the second and third particulars, the matter is no less plain. For he that loves any Being, and has a disposition highly to prize, and greatly to delight in his virtues and perfections, must, from the same disposition, be well-pleased to have his excellencies known, acknowledged, esteemed and prized by others… And this it is fit it should be, if it be fit that he should thus love himself, and prize his own valuable qualities. That is, it is fit that he should take delight in his own excellencies being seen, acknowledged, esteemed and delighted in. This is implied in a love to himself and his own perfections, and in seeking this, and making this his end, he seeks himself, and makes himself his end." ... "Besides, God’s perfections, or his glory, is the object of this knowledge, or the thing known; so that God is glorified in it; as hereby his excellency is seen. As therefore God values himself, as he delights in his own knowledge; he must delight in every thing of that nature: As he delights in his own light, he must delight in the every beam of that light: And as he highly values his own excellency, he must be well pleased in having it manifested, and so glorified." ... "And it is to be considered that the more those divine communications increase in the creature, the more it becomes one with God: For so much the more it is united to God in love, the heart is drawn nearer and nearer to God, and the union with him becomes more firm and close: and at the same time the creature becomes more and more conformed to God. The image is more and more perfect; and so the good that is in the creature comes for ever nearer and nearer to an identity with that which is in God. In the view therefore of God, who has a comprehensive prospect of the increasing union and conformity through eternity, it must be an infinitely strict and perfect nearness, conformity, and oneness. For it will for ever come nearer and nearer to that strictness and perfection of union which there is between the Father and the Son: So that in the eyes of God, who perfectly sees the whole of it, in its infinite progress and increase, it must come to an eminent fulfillment of Christ’s request in John xvii. 21, 21. “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, I in thee, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” In this view, those elect creatures which must be looked upon as the end of the rest of all the creation, considered with respect to the whole of their eternal duration, and as such made God’s end, must be viewed as being, as it were, one with God. They were respected as brought home to him, united with him, centering most perfectly in him, and as it were swallowed up in him: So that in his respect to them finally coincides and becomes one and the same with respect to himself. .. What has been said, shows that as all things are from God as their first cause and fountain; so all things tend to him, and in their progress come nearer and nearer to him through all eternity: which argues that He, who is their first Cause, is their last End." ... "In God, the love of what is fit and decent or the love of virtue, cannot be a distinct thing from the love of himself. Because the love of God is that wherein all virtue and holiness does primarily and chiefly consists, and God’s own holiness must primarily consist in the love of himself; as was before observed. And if God’s holiness consists in love to himself, then it will imply an approbation of and pleasedness with the esteem and love of him in others. For a Being that loves himself, necessarily loves love to himself. If holiness in God consists chiefly in love to himself, holiness in the creature must chiefly consist in love to him. And if God loves holiness in himself, he must love it in the creature." ... "That God in seeking his glory, therein seeks the good of his creatures. Because the emanation of his glory (which he seeks and delights in, as he delights in himself, and his own eternal glory) implies the communicated excellency and happiness of his creatures; and that in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself; because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God’s glory: God in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself: and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused and expressed, (which he delights in, as he delights in his own beauty and fullness) he seeks their glory and happiness." ... "God’s respect to the creature’s good, and his respect to himself, is not a divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at, is happiness in union with himself. The creature is no further happy with this happiness which God makes his ultimate end, then as he becomes one with God. The more happiness the greater union: when the happiness is perfect, the union is perfect. And as the happiness will be increasing to eternity; the union will become more and more strict and perfect; nearer and more like to that between God the Father, and the Son; who are so united, that their interest is perfectly one. If the happiness of the creature be considered as it will be, in the whole of the creature’s eternal duration, with all the infinity of its proneness, and infinite increase of nearness and union to God; in this view, the creature must be looked upon as united to God in an infinite strictness."
Okay, that's about it. Now, I understand as a matter of principle arguments as such aren't considered to be philosophically or logically or what have you rigorous. But insofar as you consider God as the creator and unifier of all life, the immortality of cosmic consciousness will be enriched by the thought that we all share in the glory of the wisdom behind this creation we find ourselves involved in. If someone tells you God's love is unconditional you could surely deny it by pointing out, for example, then why doesn't he heal the 11 million children infected with the African eyeworm? I think the question is targeted the wrong way, although the "cold" evolution we're working ourselves up through harbors horrible facts of life, they will nevertheless be subject to de-emphasis. Through overcoming the negatives in life, and as we head towards cosmic consciousness, I think these ideas will ultimately converge and provide us with a different, yet reasonably persuasive, way of thinking about religion in the future.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thursday, December 03, 2009
:]
Don't have much to say for this post, but I'll leave you with a spliced English translation of Einstein's poem for Spinoza's Ethics. It's succinct and beautiful, and every time I read it there's this remarkable quality about it; I wander off into my imagination to see them all smiling at me.
How I love this noble man
More than I can say with words.
Still, I fear he remains alone
With his shining halo.
Such a poor small lad
Whom you'll not lead to Freedom
The amor dei leaves him cold
Life drags him around by force.
Loftiness offers him nothing but frost
Reason for him is poor fare
Property and wife and honor and house
That fills him from top to bottom
You'll kindly forgive me
If Münchhausen here comes to mind
Who alone mastered the trick
Of pulling himself out of a swamp by his own pigtail
You think his example would show us
What this doctrine can give humankind
Trust not the comforting façade:
One must be born sublime.
There's also a rarely heard song Bill Hicks wrote I've come to love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCTOQPLKsYk
You and I have got the moon on our side... :]
How I love this noble man
More than I can say with words.
Still, I fear he remains alone
With his shining halo.
Such a poor small lad
Whom you'll not lead to Freedom
The amor dei leaves him cold
Life drags him around by force.
Loftiness offers him nothing but frost
Reason for him is poor fare
Property and wife and honor and house
That fills him from top to bottom
You'll kindly forgive me
If Münchhausen here comes to mind
Who alone mastered the trick
Of pulling himself out of a swamp by his own pigtail
You think his example would show us
What this doctrine can give humankind
Trust not the comforting façade:
One must be born sublime.
There's also a rarely heard song Bill Hicks wrote I've come to love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCTOQPLKsYk
You and I have got the moon on our side... :]
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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."
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."
Saturday, September 12, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύτερος.
Days go by... things aren't the same. I feel like I now understand what Einstein meant by Spinoza having a "permanent effect" upon him. It's quite a wild feeling, a sort of entrapment; I've noticed myself not keeping up when other folks speak, because I've become attuned to and absorb the surrounding environments as they're made available to my apperception. I've gained a fonder appreciation for my home as well, especially the pond--teeming with life of all sorts: turtles, geese, ducks, beavers, varied sorts of fish, and what not. My study room downstairs is penetrated by the resonating chirps of so many different and beautifully sounding birds. My conscious experience has been, and increasingly so as time goes by, so very blissful. I can't explain it, however, I'd like to direct you towards a hearty passage from the Bhagavad Gita for the sake of quotation:
"Four types of virtuous ones
Worship or seek Me, O Arjuna.
They are: the distressed, the seeker of Self-knowledge,
The seeker of wealth,
And the wise one who knows the Supreme.
Among them the wise one,
Who is ever united with Me
And whose devotion is single minded, is the best.
Because, I am very dear to the wise, And the wise is very dear to Me.
All these are indeed noble,
But I regard the wise as My very Self,
Because the one who is steadfast
Becomes one with the Supreme Being.
After many births the wise ones resort to Me
By realizing that everything is Brahman indeed.
Such a great soul is very rare.
They, whose wisdom has been carried away
By various desires impelled by their own Sanskaara,
Resort to other gods and practice various religious rites.
Whosoever desires to worship
Whatever deity with faith,
I make their faith steady in that very deity.
Endowed with steady faith they worship that deity,
And fulfill their wishes through that deity.
Those wishes are, indeed, granted only by Me.
Such gains of these less intelligent
Human beings are temporary.
The worshipers of Devas go to Devas,
But My devotees come to Me.
The ignorant think of Me, the Para-Brahman,
As having no form or personality and I can take form;
Because (these) people are not being able to comprehend
My supreme imperishable and incomparable existence.
Veiled by My divine Maya,
I am not known by all.
Therefore, the ignorant one does not know Me
As the unborn and eternal Brahman.
I know, O Arjuna, the beings of the past,
Of the present, and those of the future,
But no one really knows Me.
All beings in this world are in utter ignorance
Due to the delusion of dualities
Born of likes and dislikes, O Arjuna.
Persons of virtuous deeds,
Whose Karma has come to an end,
Become free from the delusion of dualities
And worship Me with firm resolve."
"Four types of virtuous ones
Worship or seek Me, O Arjuna.
They are: the distressed, the seeker of Self-knowledge,
The seeker of wealth,
And the wise one who knows the Supreme.
Among them the wise one,
Who is ever united with Me
And whose devotion is single minded, is the best.
Because, I am very dear to the wise, And the wise is very dear to Me.
All these are indeed noble,
But I regard the wise as My very Self,
Because the one who is steadfast
Becomes one with the Supreme Being.
After many births the wise ones resort to Me
By realizing that everything is Brahman indeed.
Such a great soul is very rare.
They, whose wisdom has been carried away
By various desires impelled by their own Sanskaara,
Resort to other gods and practice various religious rites.
Whosoever desires to worship
Whatever deity with faith,
I make their faith steady in that very deity.
Endowed with steady faith they worship that deity,
And fulfill their wishes through that deity.
Those wishes are, indeed, granted only by Me.
Such gains of these less intelligent
Human beings are temporary.
The worshipers of Devas go to Devas,
But My devotees come to Me.
The ignorant think of Me, the Para-Brahman,
As having no form or personality and I can take form;
Because (these) people are not being able to comprehend
My supreme imperishable and incomparable existence.
Veiled by My divine Maya,
I am not known by all.
Therefore, the ignorant one does not know Me
As the unborn and eternal Brahman.
I know, O Arjuna, the beings of the past,
Of the present, and those of the future,
But no one really knows Me.
All beings in this world are in utter ignorance
Due to the delusion of dualities
Born of likes and dislikes, O Arjuna.
Persons of virtuous deeds,
Whose Karma has come to an end,
Become free from the delusion of dualities
And worship Me with firm resolve."
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Realm of thought
Random thoughts on education: I've thought about it for a little while and came upon the idea that knowledge of the physical world should be considered a basic level of knowledge for one's self. Children should be imparted with the impressions that education is fundamentally wonderful; give them a sense of self by relating it to experience, I believe the majesty of the story of cosmic evolution is awe-inspiring and quite possibly if regarded as fiction it would amount to something like "the best story ever told" as every story would be in it amongst the billions and billions. Having children use their imagination to understand their relation to the universe would retain the wonder of such an insight, and the attention of even the most lethargical thinker. Basic knowledge of the substantiality of experience should be thought of as an ideal to aspire to;to venture out into the realms of thought that most interest you, and as you gain a wider sense of knowledge of a single field and realize the depth of all thought in general one would not remain content with curiosity unfulfilled--why does this or that work? Plant a seed, enrich it with nutrients, and watch it flourish in its own wonderful way. The attainment should be less focused on tests and more on students given to a great ideal to aspire to: for the sake of the human enterprise, know the essence of at least your existence. The world of science is much more meaningful once the story of cosmic evolution is properly understood, by understanding that it's incomprehensibly difficult to imagine the entire tree of life in its billions of years in ascendance leading to the sense-experience we all perceive and are capable of reflecting upon.
Taking Huxley's first sentence from his piece 'Transhumanism' we come to find, "As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to under stand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe —in a few of us human beings." Homo sapiens are agents in pioneering the "waking up" of the substance of the universe, having evolved a material architecture allowing us not only to perceive but also reflect upon our perceptions. This knowledge is realized by very few among us as matter experiences itself subjectively and is born into ignorance among the ignorant. The first ones in realizing this truth are those fitting the description of finding courage for "enlightenment" as Kant describes it, "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!" and a few paragraphs further he expands, "Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really incapable for the time being of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use (or rather misuse) of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity. And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity and in continuing boldly on their way."
There's no more wonderful a feeling than that of this cosmic "religiousness" or consciousness, and any single mind would not be able to find a reason not to aspire to this ideal. It's a reciprocally cyclic connection and its ideality as an educational-style is inherent in the subject matter itself--the universe. Growing up I've never been exposed to or even remember any relation of myself to the universe. It wasn't until I watched Cosmos on my own that it really changed the way I understood my self in relation to everything else. It's an empirical tidbit of knowledge which deserves more air time. It's impossible to ever fully imagine, individuality is as Einstein thought, a sort of prison when trying to imagine the universe as a significant whole.
So I've thought about this, and I've no excuse now not to learn this for my self--instruction can't go so far. The natural world and universe deserves its due. I've bought this collection of "great books" and I'm going to see how much I can go through by the end of the summer, so that by the time my next semester starts I'll have access to the library and its science textbooks so that I can start on my journey into the sciences and all other fields of thought, as there's no excuse not to.
Taking Huxley's first sentence from his piece 'Transhumanism' we come to find, "As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to under stand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe —in a few of us human beings." Homo sapiens are agents in pioneering the "waking up" of the substance of the universe, having evolved a material architecture allowing us not only to perceive but also reflect upon our perceptions. This knowledge is realized by very few among us as matter experiences itself subjectively and is born into ignorance among the ignorant. The first ones in realizing this truth are those fitting the description of finding courage for "enlightenment" as Kant describes it, "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!" and a few paragraphs further he expands, "Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really incapable for the time being of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use (or rather misuse) of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity. And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity and in continuing boldly on their way."
There's no more wonderful a feeling than that of this cosmic "religiousness" or consciousness, and any single mind would not be able to find a reason not to aspire to this ideal. It's a reciprocally cyclic connection and its ideality as an educational-style is inherent in the subject matter itself--the universe. Growing up I've never been exposed to or even remember any relation of myself to the universe. It wasn't until I watched Cosmos on my own that it really changed the way I understood my self in relation to everything else. It's an empirical tidbit of knowledge which deserves more air time. It's impossible to ever fully imagine, individuality is as Einstein thought, a sort of prison when trying to imagine the universe as a significant whole.
So I've thought about this, and I've no excuse now not to learn this for my self--instruction can't go so far. The natural world and universe deserves its due. I've bought this collection of "great books" and I'm going to see how much I can go through by the end of the summer, so that by the time my next semester starts I'll have access to the library and its science textbooks so that I can start on my journey into the sciences and all other fields of thought, as there's no excuse not to.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Interlude
Looking back at past blog posts I've noticed a discontinuity between the writing from fall and spring. A lot has changed since then, and I haven't yet bothered to explain. At the moment, I'm enduring the toils associated with finals week, but I'll be done come Friday. When it's over I'll set aside some time to elaborate on the changes. I'll include a recap, and what I think of the content in past blog posts, it should be comprehensive.
Back to work, then!
Back to work, then!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Infinity
Do I believe in a God as necessarily existing somehow, as if in infinity? Possibly. Heaven? Not so much. I think the way this universe is structured it's providing all life a glimpse at the infinite power, to the point where as Einstein had once mused, did God even have a choice in creating it? Influenced now by some of Kant's thoughts on the subject lead me to reflect upon my limited scope of understanding anything in general, the thoughts espoused by Kant my mind processes the information as if a key were churning. I can't avoid the thought of the universe based on a statistico-deterministic foundation, having read Schrodinger's "What is Life?". This planet is so widely varied within itself among the amazing and complex varieties of languages, art, music, etc. The statistico part of the equation is so powerful in regard to the size of a single life form, I can't help but imagine that every other form of intelligent life must follow the same pattern. Imagine if Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, what other kinds of miraculous life roam among us in this universe? Don't imagine it like a Star-Trek film, imagine actual life forms actually existing, necessarily existing by relation to us as we all share the same gradual organizing principle of evolution, my faculty of fantasy pales in its inability to imagine the infinitely powerful essence as it presents itself to us, in the most important fashion: size.
The God of most terrestrial religions are small Gods, concerned with the fates of its humanly subjects. The God of Spinoza is truly great, as it gives us another reason to cite evidence for its supreme energy and power. Best of all, here it is, in a system, for you to discover and to come to know me in this immensely difficult task. Having been born ignorant is one thing, but remaining in ignorance is truly destitution. Religion's worship of "perfect" books, i.e., the Bible or Quran is almost like idolatry in comparison to the God beyond that of Earth, the God of this masterful exposition of its qualifications. Religion at its current state will continue to influence the state of the world for many years to come, however I think sooner or later they will be outdated and remembered as fragments of our struggling for spiritual freedom. I think religion will eventually move away from its organized and dogmatic origins and transcend into something more suitable, something individualized as opposed to being institutionalized. For that reason I make a distinction between religion and God: the religions of the world may be said to praise "the God of Earth," while the all-powerful author may be referred to as "the God of the actually existing Universe."
The Hubble telescope is reportedly only capable of observing approximately 80 billion galaxies. Imagine further, if you could, that by the time civilization reaches the ability to peer even further through the universe, that as this newly minted capacity is developed, the 80 billion we currently observe bears the same relationship in size as we do to itself as it does with this newly observable universe, for dramatic effect. How wild my imagination runs in fantasizing the life forms occupying the many other galaxies of the universe. Knowing my inability to even comprehend its magnitude amounts to evidence in favor of the powerfulness of its essence, as if to introduce us to this world and reflect upon its greatness and the greatness of its creator, what better proof can God give of his power than setting up the world in such a way that we are so poorly incapable of even picturing it. We can't even see beyond the measly limits of telescopes! My mind faulters in its processing of fantasies, for even the wildest of them are unable to fully comprehend the nature of our existence. When I think of heaven, my mind says, who needs it? This place is where its at. For the funny fact of the matter is that we also live in a world so big it is possible to eek one's existence away in a corner of the world without even the slightest conception of relativity between the universe and their respective positions. To them, this world is massive as it is, and in my travels I easily came to that conclusion.
The world is so massive you'll never get to know most of the other people that inhabit it. How stunningly remarkable! The absolute immensity of existence is scarily evident at all levels! I'm unable to even conceptualize 6 billion other fellow human beings, nevermind the rest of the universe--my goodness! How I would love to know how a type 3 civilization(Kardashev scale) operates! What sorts of energy acquirement technology and engineering necessary to process it for civilizational needs. How absolutely mind-blowing the thought. I have no reason to envy anybody for anything, because it's a petty trait, but oh how I envy those who will participate in such a civilization. Your reality is my imagination, and although the chances are this message wouldn't reach them since it's in English and from the silly little planet Earth among other in the Milky Way galaxy, it wouldn't last long enough on its own even as an idea that could be transmitted memetically through time, there are so many conditionalities and I highly doubt on the basis of probability they'll all ever be fulfilled.
I wish I could know, but hey, the sensation of incomprehensibility keeps me more than satisfied. Our brains are so poorly constrained we can barely understand usually no more than 2 of the great many languages derived among humanity. Imagine that, being able to apreciate the poetical verses in their beautiful and varied ways, my mind struggles even to know a fraction of the information this great planet has on it. Here I'll share one I've been interested in lately,
Zu Spinozas Ethic
Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fuercht’ ich, dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.
So einem armen kleinen Wicht
Den fuehrst Du zu der Freiheit nicht.
Der amor dei laesst ihn kalt
Das Leben zieht ihn mit Gewalt.
Die Hoehe bringt ihm nichts als Frost
Vernunft ist fuer ihn schale Kost.
Besitz und Weib und Ehr’ und Haus
Das fuellt ihn vom oben bis unten aus.
Du musst schon guetig mir verzeihn
Wenn hier mir fellt Muenchhausen ein,
Dem als Einzigen das Kunststueck gediehn
Sich am eigenen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu zieh’n.
Du denkst sein Beispiel zeigt uns eben
Was diese Lehre den Menschen kann geben.
Mein lieben Sohn, was faellt dir ein?
Zum Nachtigall muss man geboren sein!
Vertraue nicht dem troestlichen Schein:
Zum Erhabenen muss man geboren sein.
The God of most terrestrial religions are small Gods, concerned with the fates of its humanly subjects. The God of Spinoza is truly great, as it gives us another reason to cite evidence for its supreme energy and power. Best of all, here it is, in a system, for you to discover and to come to know me in this immensely difficult task. Having been born ignorant is one thing, but remaining in ignorance is truly destitution. Religion's worship of "perfect" books, i.e., the Bible or Quran is almost like idolatry in comparison to the God beyond that of Earth, the God of this masterful exposition of its qualifications. Religion at its current state will continue to influence the state of the world for many years to come, however I think sooner or later they will be outdated and remembered as fragments of our struggling for spiritual freedom. I think religion will eventually move away from its organized and dogmatic origins and transcend into something more suitable, something individualized as opposed to being institutionalized. For that reason I make a distinction between religion and God: the religions of the world may be said to praise "the God of Earth," while the all-powerful author may be referred to as "the God of the actually existing Universe."
The Hubble telescope is reportedly only capable of observing approximately 80 billion galaxies. Imagine further, if you could, that by the time civilization reaches the ability to peer even further through the universe, that as this newly minted capacity is developed, the 80 billion we currently observe bears the same relationship in size as we do to itself as it does with this newly observable universe, for dramatic effect. How wild my imagination runs in fantasizing the life forms occupying the many other galaxies of the universe. Knowing my inability to even comprehend its magnitude amounts to evidence in favor of the powerfulness of its essence, as if to introduce us to this world and reflect upon its greatness and the greatness of its creator, what better proof can God give of his power than setting up the world in such a way that we are so poorly incapable of even picturing it. We can't even see beyond the measly limits of telescopes! My mind faulters in its processing of fantasies, for even the wildest of them are unable to fully comprehend the nature of our existence. When I think of heaven, my mind says, who needs it? This place is where its at. For the funny fact of the matter is that we also live in a world so big it is possible to eek one's existence away in a corner of the world without even the slightest conception of relativity between the universe and their respective positions. To them, this world is massive as it is, and in my travels I easily came to that conclusion.
The world is so massive you'll never get to know most of the other people that inhabit it. How stunningly remarkable! The absolute immensity of existence is scarily evident at all levels! I'm unable to even conceptualize 6 billion other fellow human beings, nevermind the rest of the universe--my goodness! How I would love to know how a type 3 civilization(Kardashev scale) operates! What sorts of energy acquirement technology and engineering necessary to process it for civilizational needs. How absolutely mind-blowing the thought. I have no reason to envy anybody for anything, because it's a petty trait, but oh how I envy those who will participate in such a civilization. Your reality is my imagination, and although the chances are this message wouldn't reach them since it's in English and from the silly little planet Earth among other in the Milky Way galaxy, it wouldn't last long enough on its own even as an idea that could be transmitted memetically through time, there are so many conditionalities and I highly doubt on the basis of probability they'll all ever be fulfilled.
I wish I could know, but hey, the sensation of incomprehensibility keeps me more than satisfied. Our brains are so poorly constrained we can barely understand usually no more than 2 of the great many languages derived among humanity. Imagine that, being able to apreciate the poetical verses in their beautiful and varied ways, my mind struggles even to know a fraction of the information this great planet has on it. Here I'll share one I've been interested in lately,
Zu Spinozas Ethic
Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fuercht’ ich, dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.
So einem armen kleinen Wicht
Den fuehrst Du zu der Freiheit nicht.
Der amor dei laesst ihn kalt
Das Leben zieht ihn mit Gewalt.
Die Hoehe bringt ihm nichts als Frost
Vernunft ist fuer ihn schale Kost.
Besitz und Weib und Ehr’ und Haus
Das fuellt ihn vom oben bis unten aus.
Du musst schon guetig mir verzeihn
Wenn hier mir fellt Muenchhausen ein,
Dem als Einzigen das Kunststueck gediehn
Sich am eigenen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu zieh’n.
Du denkst sein Beispiel zeigt uns eben
Was diese Lehre den Menschen kann geben.
Mein lieben Sohn, was faellt dir ein?
Zum Nachtigall muss man geboren sein!
Vertraue nicht dem troestlichen Schein:
Zum Erhabenen muss man geboren sein.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Spring arrival
Another interlude, another day; insouciant blossoms exude in perennial Arcadian fray. Beatitude in existence, forsooth, is buttressed by its decay.
"My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus;
This life itself holds nothing good for us,
But ends soon and nevermore can be;
And we knew nothing of it ere our birth,
And shall know nothing when consigned to earth:
I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me."
"A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalisation of God." -Nietzsche
I've been thinking.
"My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus;
This life itself holds nothing good for us,
But ends soon and nevermore can be;
And we knew nothing of it ere our birth,
And shall know nothing when consigned to earth:
I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me."
"A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalisation of God." -Nietzsche
I've been thinking.
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