Wise Words from the Train Journey

A couple of days ago on my way home, I happened to listen in on parts of a conversation between two elderly people behind me. I say conversation, it was mostly the older man sharing some of his observations on life. There were three main conclusions that he had come to that I heard. There was his theory on a long marriage, his theory on a reason for life (or not death) and one that is fairly hard to simplify.

His theory on a long marriage is that after about 40 years, you and your wife or husband are the same person; you love her/him the same as you love yourself. This is why he says that after a long marriage, you very rarely see a divorce.
His reason for not being dead is that he still has dreams. Without dreams, he says, you're dead. There has to be something that keeps you wanting to be alive, and that thing is positive hopes for the future, no matter how good or bad it is now.
These are both moderately interesting and to some they may be profound thoughts. The next one is even better.

Following on from his dreams, he says that if he were to experience one moment of perfect joy, one moment of profound happiness (my paraphrase, his words were closer to a moment that he wanted to have extended infinitely), that he would like to be destroyed at that moment. As an interesting aside, this is close to the deal made to Faust by Mephistopheles in the poem by Goethe, the difference is that Faust at that moment gave his soul to the devil. Now as far as I can read it there are two major reasons that you would want this.

Firstly and most simply, you want to go out on a high point. What he wants is to do is die at the highest point of his life; a bit of a downer some might say, but what could be better than having the last thing that you know being perfection (or as close as you can perceive it). This is something that many people don't think about in their interpretation of death. If death is an end, then the moments leading up to it don't really matter. But enough of that semi-morbidity.

The second reason is slightly different, but definitely related. If you have a moment of perfect happiness, then everything after that will be less than second best: the best meals will taste like tofu, the most awesome music will sound like a three year old on the violin, the best literature will read like a Hansard and the greatest joy will feel like a pale imitation of sadness. If nothing can match it, then what is the point of anything else?

Multiply/Fracture

Some recent thought has led me to an interesting point. Decartes theorised that the body and the mind or spirit are separate or different parts. By way of a proof, he offers this
1. The body is tangible, therefore, both finite and divisible.
2. The spirit is intangible, therefore, both infinite and indivisible.
Therefore, they can not be the same part of a person. As a secondary point, if the body is merely the vessel of the spirit then they share the same relationship as a house does to the people living inside it or a bag does to its contents; the inner is what is of interest and the outer, while we may grow to be attached to it, doesn't actually have any use beyond containment.

Now the first part leads to an interesting question. There is a condition known commonly as Multiple Personalities and more scientifically as Dissociative Identity Disorder. Where it could get interesting is when you look at in in terms of Decartes' theory. If the mind and body are separate, then this is definitely possible. However it leads me to one of two conclusions. Either there is more than one mind in the body, or, there is only one mind, but it is fractured. You either have to look at either Multiple or Split (fractured) personalities.

When you look at documented case histories, most diagnosable cases fall under multiple; you have two (or more) different but fully recognised people bumping around in your head. Which is where my thinking took an interesting turning. Everyone acts different around different people or in different situations. How do you talk when your girlfriend is around? Is it the same as when you're with a bunch of mates? How about when you're at work or class or which ever? Is it the same as when you're at the pub? No. You have different personalities for different circumstances. You may only change some things, like your choice of language, but there are recognisable changes that separate different parts of your character.
It follows then that everyone has somewhat fractured personalities. What that means, I don't really know, but it is an interesting point.

Deadness

Now last time, I said that I would discuss the preconception that suffering (and for the purposes of this post also death) are innately bad or evil. I should make it clear from the outset that I do no agree with this. I would put forth that in and of itself, death and suffering are not bad. Death is at most neutral and suffering depends on the outcome. Before I explain this I should say two things. Firstly that this is somewhere where agree to disagree is a very valid answer and if you don't agree, possibly the best answer. Secondly, I came to this conclusion through means that out of context (which is where they are sitting) can be easily ignored; please don't if you want to understand where this comes from.

I'm going to begin with suffering. Yes, suffering can be, and often is, bad. However, this is not because suffering is an end, or rather because it somehow has been imbued somehow with the metaphysical properties of bad. It is often bad because no good comes of it. Yes, suffering caused deliberately is disgusting. However, often medicine is disgusting and that has a good outcome. If suffering has a positive outcome, I believe that it can in hindsight be called a good thing. The problem is that suffering is called bad before people have the chance to get out of it, and that label sticks.
It will always hurt, but hurt isn't always a bad thing. The simplest example is that the body uses hurt to tell you to stop putting your hand on the hotplate. If you don't do it again in the future, then that (very minor) suffering was a good thing.
So in the context of the last post, the Suffering of Christ was a good thing because it had a good end

This second part is going to be harder to put down.

William Drischler proposes this viewpoint that I agree with. "Death is neither good nor evil and that is why people have so much trouble accepting it." I think that this is the way that lots of things work. I will use the example here of money because I can take a very will known quote and make my point. Timothy 6:10 'For the love of money is the root of all evil.' Too often people interpret this as 'For money is Evil' when it never says that. It says that a devotion to money or greed is what causes most if not all evils. Money in and of itself is not bad, neither is it good. What it is, is neutral. But if the end of a neutral thing is bad, then humanity tends to put neutral things in the bad pile.
The song 'Thoughts of a Dying Atheist' by Muse features this line. "[Death] Scares the hell out of me and the end is all I can see". The end that is seen is nothing, so it isn't a positive, so by extension it is bad, and therefore, or so the argument goes, death itself must be bad. This relies on the argument that the end justifies the means - the method of something takes the qualities of the end of it. Not many people actually like this argument any more though, so why is it still the viewpoint in this case. I don't know and so I won't answer.

Death in and of itself is merely a change from one state to another - a change from a state of life to a state of not life. And so I can't see how it in and of itself is a bad thing. Especially when it is one of the three ultimate guarantees (birth and taxes being the other two). State changes are bu definition not bad, they just are.

Easter

Someone commented today that saying Happy Easter is a contradiction in terms - since Easter literally means suffering, how can that be happy? This leads me onto my next post, but before I discuss that particular one, I will answer the primary assumption.

The context of this was saying that since Easter was the death of Christ, we shouldn't be celebrating it - It isn't a happy occasion. Now, from my understanding, the death of Christ should be the happiest day of the Christian calendar. If Easter is indeed the day that Christ rose from the dead (I don't intend to make this an argument so just run with it if you don't agree) for the purpose of taking the sins of his chosen on himself, then it is the most unbelievably amazing thing that has ever happened, not a cause for mourning. At the time, I can understand that response. In retrospect however (which is what we've got the advantage of) it should be a cause for dancing in the streets (if you feel liberated enough to take advantage of this possibility).

And if that isn't enough reason for celebration, there's small, almost elliptical balls of chocolate to eat. What more could you ask for?

Recent Developments in the world of the brain

The World Psychiatry Association has recently decided that the list of drug-treatable mental illnesses isn't quite long enough. Not really, they've just decided that there needs to be an increase in the diagnosable illnesses and so they have put forward a list that they think should be added. Below I've got a list of some of my favorites. Some of these haven't made it into medical journals and so are still basically under wraps (I know a few people in the Psychology Business, in fact most of my counsellors are in this industry)

Pre-Adolescent Psychosis - Actually defined as "A teenager who is a bit odd". Brilliant, because we need a few more of them.
Associative Identity Disorder - Similar to Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personalities) except it covers people who act different ways in the presence of different people or in different circumstances.
Atypical Paranoia - This is an interesting one; it covers people that are worried that they aren't worried about things.
Monopolar Disorder - Covers people who don't have major changes in their emotional response.
Pre-Echolalia - Covers people who manage to know what is going to be said before it is said (thought to be related to an overdeveloped Temporal Cerebellum)
Daymare Disorder - Similar to Nightmare Disorder but covers the time spent day dreaming (This one is a bit controversial as it is still unclear whether it is a self-imposed illness or one born out of some trauma)
Anti-Defiance Disorder (Jones' Syndrome) - This one is probably a teachers best friend. It covers kids who show a higher than average propensity for following orders.
Attention Surplus Syndrome - Roughly the opposite of Attention Deficit Disorder where people have an attention span greater than the average. It is unclear whether this is an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Cognitive Tourette's - Similar to both Standard and Somatic Tourette's Syndromes (where someone is incapable of controlling some of their speech or actions). In this variation, a person is unable to control their thought patterns. Characteristically they consistently change the topic of a conversation or are incapable of following a continual argument.
Boanthropy - A disorder where the sufferer thinks he is a cow (Don't believe me, look it up)

Almost Obligitory Healthcare Discussion Post

In the midst of all of the fallout over Obama's healthcare reform package I've been somewhat confused over the incredible backlash. Admittedly, I do not and have never lived in America and I also don't know all of the details, but as far as it seems to me this is a good move. Something like another 300 million people who were previously unable to will now gain healthcare. While I'm not sure about all of the arguments, from where I stand they appear to boil down to these 300 million people not being worth the same as everyone else. I may be mistaken, but the Declaration of Independence which America is built upon says point blank that all men are created equal. As far as I can figure out, this argument is backing down on that.
Where I have been most confused about this particular development is the backlash in Christian circles. When you look at the Early Christian church, they looked after one another. Example, Acts 4: 34-35 "There were no needy persons among then. From time to time those who owned lands or fields sold then, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need' The early church was built upon the same principle that is being generally hated among America - a country where 79% call themselves Christian and 58% say that religion plays an important role in their lives.

Additionally, there are an estimated 45,000 deaths every year that were linked to not having health insurance. 45,000, some quick maths lets me know that this is a number roughly 1 and a 1/2 times the population of my home town. So every 2 years, my home town is completely replaced 3 times. Now for a country that prides itself on being in the forefront of medical technology that is moderately un-good.

Some more numbers then. The US already spends a higher percentage of GDP and more money per capita on health care and yet, the world health organisation still places the US health system 37th in the world. The infant mortality rate is behind all of western Europe (which all has public or socialised health care). The Life expectancy is also a year shorter than the European figure. Additionally over the last 20 odd years, the US has fallen from 11th to 42nd on the list of life expectancy.
Final number then. The US is the only developed country that doesn't have universal health care.

The only almost legitimate argument that I can think of is the argument that says that this is a foot in the door for a socialist take over of the US. I don't know why, but the US seems to see itself as the last bastion against the evils of 'non-capitalism'. To achieve this end, anything that is remotely publicly funded must be hated, abandoned and destroyed. (A bit of a disclaimer, this is just the way that I read it, I could well be very wrong). The problem with this is two fold. Firstly, this is not the way it works. Australia (which does have universal health care) is as much capitalist as the US. Secondly, there are greater evils than socialism.



Just a note, the next post will be an April Fools thing - enjoy it.

Bemusement

It is an interesting sensation to be trusted or praised. As an example, one of my lecturers recently told me quite genuinely that he would be happy to give me a professional reference now if he thought it would help me get a job, less than a year into study. A long term reader of this will possibly know that I don't often consider myself deserving of this sort of thing and so I was quite bemused - especially since the subject that I had him for was the one that I rushed most at the end. When someone gives you something positive that is undeserved because they think you deserve it, something doesn't quite seem to gel in your mind. Nagging in the back is the thought that somehow this person is deluded "What if they find out? I'm basically just a fraud." comes to the front. Either that, or you get a sense of embarrassment related to modesty.

It's interesting that in a day and age when we are told that not only do we have to put ourselves out there for any kind of exterior improvement, but that we also deserve every positive thing that swings our way, many of us don't feel comfortable with this approach. It's even more interesting that there is a clinical term for this sort of thing - Narcissism - and it is considered a mental problem (albeit an untreatable one and therefore one that goes mostly ignored).
Which isn't to say that a good self esteem is a bad thing or that extroversion is a bad thing, just that people can get carried away in it.

Just something that made me curious last week.

Follow-up

Ok, I said that I would talk about people who want to know only about their chosen field and nothing else, so here it is. I'll get my initial thought out of the way now - this approach is stupid. There, I've said it. It limits and restricts you, it seeks to define you in a way that you shouldn't necessarily be defined, it ruins you and it can in some cases destroy esteem (not the best word, but the only one that I can think of). The best ideas come from people who for some reason have to change their field - they don't know what is possible yet. But people seek to know nothing about anything else. I'll discuss these issues first and then get to the other thing that irritates me later.
Before I begin, you don't have to know everything - just be well rounded in your knowledge.

Seeking to know only a specific area limits you: with the sum of human knowledge doubling every couple of years, it now seems that to be able to learn about everything is a futile effort, and on both hands it is. Let's consider though the three approaches that can be made to learning.
1) It is Futile and therefore I won't bother. I don't think that I need to point out the idiocy of this statement, and so I won't.
2) It is Futile and so I will learn about only one thing. As the sum of knowledge expands, so does the areas in which knowledge is acquired. As an example, 200 years ago, you were called a scientist and you knew about science. Now, you can't be called just a scientist, you must be a Physicist, or a Chemical Biologist or a MetaQuantum NanoTechnologist and all of these fields are continually narrowing. As you seek to know more about your subject, you have to keep narrowing your gaze to be able to keep up. You become blinded to anything else.
3) It is Futile and so I will seek to Specialise. While this may seem the same, there is a difference. A specialist is an expert in one area, but they must also understand the things around their area. It is no point being a Gastrologist if you don't want to know anything about the rest of the anatomy and so you learn about other things. While you might not want your gut surgeon operating on your brain or vice versa, you expect that they will both know something about their counterparts.

It seeks to Define you: This one is fairly simple. An expert is someone who knows everything in a certain field. And so they are defined by their field. I've discussed this before, you shouldn't be defined by what you do. Where their field goes is where they have to go.

It can destroy esteem: This can be a fairly extreme case, but I feel that it's worth mentioning. If expertise defines you, then what happens when you can't quite make expert? You fail. Which means that you aren't good enough any more. Yes, I said it was an extreme case, but still plausible.


The second reason that I don't like it is because despite people not knowing or caring to know about areas outside their ever shrinking interests, they will always have an opinion. And it will be wrong, almost inevitably, but people will never seek to be corrected and will want to correct those who actually know what their doing.
GAH, Idiots.
But anyway, this is just my opinion based on the observations of an occasional lunatic. If I'm wrong, sue me.

Beg, Borrow and don't Ask

This is a quick challenge.

If you frequently listen to illegally obtained music, whether downloaded through torrents or given to you by a friend - If you don't either have the physical CD in your possession or you haven't downloaded your music from the bands website of the iTunes store or something like that, then this challenge applies to you.

What I want you to do is to pick your favourite album from the list of your music, walk into a music distribution place, find it on the shelf, take it and walk out without paying for it.

Have fun

It must be said that I don't actually condone this activity and it is for illustrative purposes only.

Somaticism

Two things disappoint me with the current generation of men as a whole. Some things disappoint me about certain groups of men, but as a whole, there are two things that irritate me.

1. As a group, we are 'somatically incapable' (explanation follows)
2. As a group, we don't desire any change from this.

While we pride ourselves on our knowledge on everything from carpentry to cars, we are often completely unaware of anything besides the buzzwords. Which is where the term (which I made up), Somatically Incapable, comes in.
Somatically Incapable means that while we may know things, we are unable to convert our knowledge to ability. So while we all know the difference between a V6 and a V8 and can probably argue at length about the pros and cons of both we may well not be able to change a tyre, and while we may know the difference between a dovetail joint and a tongue and groove joint (admittedly they are similar) we have no idea how to make them. Don't argue with me on the definition of the phrase, I made it up so I can tell you what it means.

As males we pride ourselves on going down to the shed on the weekend and doing something - or we used to. Now, I'm only 19, but I can still remember being excited after coming back from the garage having forged something from the earth (or gluing a few pieces of wood together to make bookends). The somatic component of our lives has run away with the onset of technology. You may have noticed the effect - tradesmen are becoming less respected and conversely, more needed. We need them to do nigh on everything that goes wrong. As soon as there is anything that needs repairs, we go straight to the yellow pages and then complain that they overcharged us. And yet, we will have a pile of tools rivalling that found in the entirety of the UK - most of which, we won't know how to use (because almost everyone can use a hammer or a screwdriver).

Now we come to the issue of the second problem - we don't want to change this. When you asked someone for help to do something last time, did you have any idea how to do it for the next time? or did you just assume that they will be able to do it again? Most people want to specialise in their chosen field, whether it be criminal law or plumbing, and don't want to know anything outside of that (which I think is a subject for later) in case they become a jack of all trades and a master of none. So the idea is that you know nothing about anything else. An expert is defined as someone who knows more and more about less and less and everyone's ideal is to become an expert. While we can never be pantomaths and its still hard to get to polymath status, we can know other things.

The term man around the house probably originated from the man's ability to be able to do things around the house. Why can't we return to that?

Money and the Proverbial Mouth

At the University of Texas in San Antonio, an Atheist Group on campus has decided to do something about their beliefs. Now before I go into details, I want to make it clear that firstly, I respect that they have made a move, but secondly, I don't respect the particular move that they have made. To clarify, I respect it when people can say what they actually think without beating around the bush or hiding it all in a bunch of rhetoric - which isn't to say that I always respect what they actually say or do, similar to I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.

What they have done, is started an initiative in contrary motion to what religious groups on campus do. When bibles are handed out, they will find a prominent place, and trade bibles or other religious texts for porn. Given that I don't agree that porn should exist let alone be easy to find, you may find it surprising that I can respect this move. I don't - what I respect is that a move was made.

For too many people, the temptation is to stand back and just 'agree to disagree'. This is a stupid move - all that is decided is that I think you're wrong and you think that I'm wrong, which was already decided at the start. It was the reason that a disagreement arose in the first place. While I can understand the sentiment behind it (we don't want to alienate people from us or us from others) and I can see where it can be the right response in some cases (such as when discussing the merits of 1970's jazz vs 1930's blues), most of the time it is just a cop-out. If you can't prove your case over and above the other, then why did you make it?

Which is why I respect that the Atheist group on campus made this move. What they are saying is not, 'let's agree to disagree', they are saying "We are Right and you are Wrong", instead of capitulating they are taking a stand for what they believe. What is telling is that the Christian Group, as far as I've heard, hasn't made a reply or tried to get it changed or stopped they've merely said that they don't agree with it.

Pioneers

This is the age of people that pioneer. We push the boundaries, we have more opportunities, we have more growth in most facets of our lives.
Sorry, but I'm going to call a bluff on this one.
When was the latest 'new thought'. All our our thinking is based on things that were decided years ago. The belief that we actually exist, when was the last time that you questioned that one, was probably proved by Descartes in 1637 (cogito ergo sum) and it hasn't been seriously questioned since then. We don't actually question any of the fundamental things, only the nitpicky little things that probably fall under the topic of Dogma, and then we claim that we are high level thinkers.

I would say that the closest that we get is accepting new innovations. Even then, will we accept things that are developed by people our own age? How many mid-50 year olds do you know that regularly use computers for anything more than sending emails (if that). Bill Gates is currently 54.
All of our thoughts are just re-hashes of what has already been said; the alternative medicine movement? Chinese or tribal herbal medicines, been around roughly since herbs. New age stuff? Celtic or Scandinavian religion with some eastern occultism, been around since roughly Celts, Scandinavians and East Asians.
We can't do anything that hasn't already been done for us.
Look at art; the stuff that people say is the biggest shift is either monkeys throwing paint at a wall, or dead animals. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't a lot of people believe that cave paintings fulfil both of these criteria. And what performance art? Vaudeville acting often with a few less clothes on.
Look at music; modern pop music is just a rehash of last years pop music, which was a rehash of last years pop music, which was a rehash of last years pop music, and so it goes. Styles may change slightly with the addition of a new innovation, but then it's first tried on a rehash of 80's and 90's music and then it spreads to last years music. You only have to listen to a bit of modern metal to realise how much of it was almost written by either Pink Floyd or Metallica 30 or 40 years ago.
In technology, most of the thinking was done by people early last century - Science Fiction writers. We look at that now and think, "Yeah that could be feasible, and so we'll try it out" when the original thought came not so much from an idea of this would be cool, but from an idea of this should work if that can happen. Usually that happened roughly 10 years later and we didn't bother to do anything about it

Look at our moral compass (which as a generation is so screwed up it's given up pointing in any direction let alone north). Even that isn't new. We're just asking for it all to be legal now. Most of it was seen in Ancient Greece nigh on 2500 years ago.

As a generation, we've regressed. It's not so much that we aren't able to do new things, it's more that we don't want to. Without a few clinically insane people blurting out some completely new thing, there will be no paradigm shifts in our thinking because we don't want to have them.

The only new thought that we've had is that sitting on a small dark box that we call a room can give us the same social experience as going out and actually talking to people. And I'll call bluff on that one too.

Procrasti............................................

Ok, firstly, there is a reason that I haven't posted anything recently - Yes, I have been busy with real life commitments like study and doing anything here would have been mostly for the purposes of procrastination. As I do enough of that already, I thought it would be a good idea to not take up half a day writing and re writing a page of something about something. So, my rhetorical question (which I will answer here myself) is How do we procrastinate and secondly, why do we procrastinate. {Editors note: check this one out for how to procrastinate properly. Alphonse has no real idea - he just bludges}

The first question is easy. Procrastination is possibly the easiest thing that we ever do. Procrastination is just not doing what it would be more beneficial or necessary for you to be doing at the particular moment in time that you are in. Whether it's watching a movie, reading a book, playing a game, going for a walk, having a nap, baking a cake. The list goes on almost forever.
This isn't to say that the activity that you are using to procrastinate is a bad thing, for example going for a walk is often a good thing; it gets your cardiopulmonary systems working, clears out your brain, stimulates the appetite, helps you sleep at night, provides you with fresh air, tops up your vitamin D reserves. But if you should be doing something else it isn't a good thing. The actual action isn't wrong, it's the motive or the justification that's wrong.

The second question is also easy (makes you wonder why it is that I even need to be writing this down). We Procrastinate, because we want to, or we don't want to be doing what we should.

Yep, that's actually all I have to say about that, but surprisingly, it's taken me well over two hours - I kept finding other things to do.

Defining an Identity

In the movie Fight Club, there is a scene where a convenience store assistant is asked at gun point "The question, Raymond, is what did you want to be?" In the movie Hitman, Agent 47 tells us he is going off to do "What I do." Both of these approaches to life are interesting, especially when you consider that in both cases, we are finding out about their job. In the case of Raymond K Hessel (Fight Club) his identity was bound up in the job; he was going to be a Veterinarian. In the case of Agent 47 (Hitman) his job was merely a job, an almost all consuming job at the start of the movie, but by the end, just an unwanted job.
The difference is in how it's referred to. In the first case, it was what he was, in the second case, it was what he did. We all understand both of them to be the same and yet there are major differences that go beyond the syntax. One happens when it is your source of identity and the other happens when it impinges upon what your source of identity would rather be; no prizes for guessing which is which. Both can be dangerous.

We all understand 'working for the weekend'. This is a danger that we can fall into all to easily when a job is what we do. It comes with an attitude of TGIF and can lead to almost medical cases of Mondayitis, a serious condition through most of Australia.
However, on the other hand, along with different fingers, it is also true that when a job description is what you is, that's all you are. At this point you lose track of other things that happen - like life.

The Rules

As far as I know, Isaac Asimov has come closer than any author to creating a, for lack of a better term, code of conduct. This code is called the "Three Laws of Robotics". The absolute brilliance of this is implied in the name - the entire code is wrapped up in three small rules that manage to cover almost every circumstance.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Basically, the rules come down to 'people can't be allowed to be hurt', 'orders must be followed' and 'look after yourself', three rules that most people themselves try to live by which makes it even more incredible that Asimov thought of them. He synthesised altruistic human nature into simple rules.