Archive for the ‘ Philosophy ’ Category

The Human Race is No Longer Interested in Itself

To its strange way of thinking, it has moved on and become something much better – and is no longer interested in that sort of thing – or in thinking about it.

I remember my first summer job, when I was an engineering student, back in the late Fifties. The big thing then was electronics, which had originated in WWII in things like radio communications and radar. This job was my introduction to what became known as Aerospace, the huge boondoggle that typified the Cold War. The Company was Westinghouse and it was in Baltimore.

We didn’t have a damn thing to do all summer – the company was stockpiling us in anticipation of a some big contract. But the pay was excellent. And we had plenty of time to enjoy the Maryland tidewater, where we rented a house on the Severn River – and learned how to catch crabs and eat them (with plenty of beer). As budding young engineers we were popular with the girls.

The big problem was boredom – but underneath that was something much more serious – we were learning that, as people, we were not important – we were only important because we had the title of engineer. Only our surface was important, not what was underneath it. We were only important for how we could be used – in this case, in a make-believe war. The Organization was the only thing that was all-important – and we had to serve it.

And we were not supposed to notice any of this. We were not supposed to act like normal human beings – and wonder what the heck was going on. Something BIG was going on – but what it was, was none of our business.

Looking back it at, I am tempted to say that we were supposed to become stupid – and, very obligingly, we did just that. We knew what orders sounded like – and we obeyed them without question.

This was a process that was world-wide in the Thirties – Fascism – with its eastern counterparts in Japan and China. The American equivalent was more subtle – but longer-lasting. And it is still with us today.

It happened so gradually – during the 19th and 20th Centuries – that we never noticed it was going on. We never noticed that we had lost interest in ourselves. And had transferred our attention to our beloved things and possessions.

We developed a fear of being that was all-consuming. And which we had no defense against – because we were not aware of it – or much of anything else.

We had never thought of being (something any earthworm is completely familiar with) – and could not conceive of such a thing.

And, as a result – we ceased to exist.

2013
05/31
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Killing by Remote Control

Our technologies show us who we really are.

I didn’t intend to write that sentence, it just came out of me once I sat down in front of my computer – after a long night of unconscious mental questioning. But now I have written it, it does make sense.

As I keep saying, over and over, we live in a symbiosis with our technologies. From the Merriam-Webster Unabridged definition of symbiosis:

New Latin, modification (influenced by Greek symbiōsis) of German symbiose, from Greek symbiōsis state of living together, from symbioun to live together, from symbios living together, from syn- + bios life, mode of life

This is one of our most human traits – our ability to recreate ourselves in, with, and through, our technologies. But it is also our most poorly understood one. The results of our merging with our technologies has sometimes been disastrous. And has turned us into strange beings we cannot understand ourselves. And, for that matter – do not want to understand.

This has resulted in our most important recent development – we have turned against ourselves. While being completely ignorant of this.

You have the right to ask me “How come you are the only one to notice this?” My answer is “I have no idea.” And “Lots of people have recognized this in many ways – but putting these together to come up with one simple overall explanation is something we have been expressly forbidden to do – and therefore we do not do it.

If we did, we might say “Holy shit, we got to mend our ways!” But we are determined not to do that. We are determined to take our present trends all the way – even if they kill us. Which they are.

We tell ourselves that saving one crazy, little species (that does not understand itself in the least) is not worth bothering with.

Now that I have finished that rant – let me proceed with my main thesis. That Drones – which we hear a lot about now – are emblematic (or symbolic) of the way our society works.

Yes, you heard me right. As a global culture, we have developed a new method of social control. Each of us, as part of a social atmosphere, can kill everyone else. If this doesn’t sound crazy and far-out – you don’t understand what I am saying.

You should be asking me what the mechanism of this social atmosphere is. But perhaps this is not necessary – you already know intuitively what it is. You know that people have the ability to affect other people just by thinking about them – even though they are far away.

There is even a scientific explanation for this – called Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism – which you can read about in the June issue of the Scientific American (page 46) which it is in the process of reproducing online here. What it claims is truly mind-boggling – at least to my mind. But there it is – in black and white text that anyone can read (but no one will) online or not.

This ability has sometimes been given the name mental telepathy – and all kinds of nonsense have been perpetrated in its name – such as communicating with the dead.

But basically the process is simple – and can be easily felt by anyone who wants to. We absorb our social atmosphere – and are usually (but not always) controlled by it.

And this atmosphere is contagious. Other groups can easily succumb to it – if it is powerful enough. This is what has happened in our world – we have all succumbed to the worship of Progress. While giving no thought to what that is. It just feels so wonderful – it must be obeyed.

Progress (also called Growth) is inevitably accompanied by its opposite – Destruction. And one of our big problems is that we cannot tell them apart – since we see opposites as being part of the same thing. What we are dealing with here is the most powerful combination of opposites there is. And we have not proved adequate to the task.

All of this seems reasonable – at least to me. It is only when it gets all put together – that people balk at it. We can only widen our focus so far – until it get too threatening.

We are now ruled by our fears – which have become too big for us to cope with.

2013
05/29
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What Is Going On?

I am obsessed with this question, in its broadest sense. What is going on in the world? The human world, of course.

Is this some kind of megalomania of mine – that I think I can answer such a huge question? Perhaps, but I am convinced that I (and anyone else, who wants to) can detect some basic trends that are going on everywhere. Even though we cannot be everywhere to check things out on the spot.

We live in a global culture and a global economy. I think most people would agree with that – but they have never thought through just what that implies. In my own feeble way, I want to do that this morning.

One thing about this global culture is the universal command not to recognize what is going on. The exact opposite of what we were told a few hundred years ago – when we told to be informed and intelligent. Because that way we could have some control of our world.

But ever since the Industrial Revolution we have been learning that something else is in control – something we have never defined – and indeed, something we have been forbidden to define, or think about. It is sometimes called Progress – something that must be obeyed.

But what it amounts to, in aggregate, is a return to the Middle Ages – with a different Power Structure. This is what we are forbidden to see. But once he gets the nerve to start looking around – anyone can see it.

This sounds like paranoia, pure and simple – I must admit. Perhaps I am seeing things that do not exist. But paranoia can also be realistic – and can help people to cope with some very disagreeable situations.

For example, I once knew of a Jewish family who got out of Germany, right away, when the Nazis came into power – and spent the war comfortably in South America – then returned to Germany when things cooled down. The other Jewish families told each other that things could not be all that bad – and stayed.

I am even an example myself – although not a very bright one. I discovered I could no longer live in the States – for a variety of reasons – but mainly because I could not live on a Social Security income up there. So I got out. I knew it was possible for an American to live overseas – so that is what I did. My friends back in the States find this incomprehensible – but it seemed like a simple enough thing to do for me.

In their own way, Americans are just as foolish as the Germans were. They cannot see how bad things have become – and on a personal level – how to cope with them. They just assume, if they stay in the center of the crowd, they will be safe. That the crowd itself is doomed – they cannot imagine. But such is the case.

Any large organization – any country or an empire – goes through the same overall rise and fall pattern. A gradual rise, a flat peak, and then a swift decline. There are all kinds of variations, but that is the overall pattern.

And at no time, has any of them (with the exception of an observant few) been aware of its decline. Which always takes them by complete surprise.

When I was traveling in England, back in the Seventies, I noticed this for the survivors of the British Empire. They were in shock. They had gone from the richest country on the earth to one of the poorest – in only thirty years.

The same thing is happening, I believe, to America. We were the most powerful nation in history after WWII – but this power has declined badly. Americans are in shock too – but are not aware of it.

One result of this shock is a greatly reduced intelligence – just when we most need it most.

2013
05/28
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New York City and the U.S. East Coast Must Take Drastic Actions to Prevent Ocean Flooding

Scientific American June 2013 issue.

Scientific American has refrained by making political comments in the past – but it has gradually realized that this is counter-productive – that Science is political also – like everything else. The latest quantum theory (on page 47) says so explicitly.

But this article (on page 59) with its excellent graphics – is something Americans should know about.

Jeroen Aerts is one of the international experts consulted in developing a plan to protect the East Coast from flooding. He is from the Netherlands, the foremost experts on flood control – since it has been doing it for centuries. Aerts was shocked to hear that regional politics would make a centrally executed plan impossible. He quit in disgust.

This is the final paragraph:’

Do leaders of cities and suburbs all along the Coastal US have the political will to do what’s right for the long term. Or will they postpone the tough decisions and let nature force the consequences on residents later, at considerably more expense and suffering?

What Scientific American is saying (but not very loudly) is that Americans have become helpless. And unable to cope with their problems. This is a scientific fact.

2013
05/27
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Philosophy
Political comment
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People Want to be Stupid

We have bought into the Enlightenment idea that people want to develop themselves fully. To live up to their potential. Who can argue with that?

But we can see clearly that just the opposite is true for many people – at least in our time. And since this is the time we are living in – that is the only thing that counts – what is going on right now. Admittedly not the best of times.

A short historical review is in order. We came from the Middle Ages – which resulted from the Fall of the Roman Empire. After a thousand years or so of this – things began to look up. Just what happened next, we have not wanted to think about much – but something did happen, and the Modern World resulted. Part of this development was a renewed interest in the Classical World – Greece and Rome – Humanism.

In short, we began to believe that people were important. That they had rights, and they had to be respected – as individuals.

This belief has never been repudiated formally – but, as a practical matter, it no longer has much credence. What is important now, we are not sure – but it is definitely not people.

In this atmosphere, people have become – as always – what they are supposed to be – nothing worth bothering about. Which meant, among other things – that they had become stupid.

2013
05/26
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The Big Switch from Many Small Organizations to One BIG Organization

This happened after WWII, the big event that changed the world forever. The final trauma that destroyed the world – without the world knowing it at all.

I lived through this – but just barely – and now in my sunset years I can reflect on it. I am not a very bright person – but I do seem to have the special ability to notice what is going on – not that it has done me any good. No one wants this kind of person around – noticing how incompetent they are.

WWII taught us an important lesson – Bigness Matters. America won the war not because it was better – but because it was bigger – much bigger.

The rest of the world took note – and set about doing the same thing. Europe became the EU and China set about being the next big thing. But more importantly – the rich and powerful everywhere set about consolidating themselves across international boundaries. Enabled by the Internet.

They are the new power structure (the de facto world government) – and everybody obeys them instinctively. Without having the slightest idea of what is going on. They aren’t supposed to know – and therefore they do not.

In fact, they have identified with their oppressors, and have joined with them to make sure no one else is different. In what Sheldon S. Wolin calls Inverted Totalitarianism. Otherwise known as Globalization.

2013
05/24
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Perfectionism

Of all the curses that have afflicted the human race, this must be one of the worst. It has produced not only imperfect people (which is perfectly normal) but people who are nothing at all – because they cannot be perfect. And a society that is completely dysfunctional – for the same reason.

Where did we get the idea that perfection is possible? The answer that immediately springs to mind is Christianity – where Christians are told “Be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect!”

The Christian God was the first to be that way. The Hebrew god was clearly an imperfect being, almost a terrible being. The Greek gods were clearly a mixed bunch – very human. But the Christian God was impossible – and should have been seen that way by any sensible people.

But Christians were not sensible, they were desperate – and were quite willing to embrace any idea that promised to make them perfect. Even if that was a ridiculous idea.

The result was a complete social collapse – the fate of any perfectionistic society.

Irregardless, there are still plenty of people who insist that we should try to be perfect anyway. Being imperfect, they feel, would be an admission of total failure.

This shows a complete disregard for reality. In the real world, everything is imperfect – and everything is in constant change – responding to circumstances. Circumstances may get worse or may get better. But perfection is a stupid, even offensive, idea.

And produces nothing but a host of mental illnesses.

2013
05/24
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Philosophy
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Machines Controlled by Their Emotions

This is what a consumer is. He buys what he is supposed to buy, and does what he is supposed to do. His emotions are controlled from the outside – they are how the rest of the world controls him. He has no individual control of himself – and doesn’t want any.

He doesn’t like to think of himself this way – but he is in fact a machine. One with strong emotions – but still a machine that is part of a larger machine.

Medieval man was religious – and saw himself as part of religious universe. Contemporary man sees himself as part of a global economy – which operates as a giant machine, which he does not understand in the least, but which he must obey completely.

It is not clear to me that we are any better off.

We should have been more careful of what happened in the last five hundred years, or so (in what we now call the Modern World). But things got quickly out of control, and our machines took over.

What on earth do I mean by “Our machines took over?” How can machines do anything? This will take a little explaining. But it is nothing very complicated. And goes back to the Industrial Revolution.

Which was part of a bigger revolution we have never named or understood adequately – the one that produced the Developed World. Which, in retrospect, was when we allowed our machines to take over.

We didn’t see it that way, of course. We thought we had just found the path to instant riches – for a few, at least. What developed very quickly – in the next hundred years or so, and mainly in the North – was Industrialization.

Which included a close integration with our machines. Beginning, as I have said, with the Sailing Ship. Which was followed by the Steam Engine. And then an never-ending series of new technologies, such as the automobile, that took over completely.

This created a new class of people – the workers, that had never existed before. They were completely dependent of their jobs – which had never existed before either. And an economy that had never existed before either.

But the most amazing thing was this – almost no one noticed this was happening! For the simple  reason that it had never happened before – and was so amazing no one could believe it was going on.

And didn’t really want to, since it was all so thrilling. They felt they had become new beings – much better than before.

When in fact, they had become machines – much less than what they had been before.

2013
05/22
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The Two Layers of Our Lives

These two layers are the superficial and the profound. Or in Freudian terms, the conscious and the unconscious. The part of us that changes quickly and the part that endures.

When did this split happen? This is one of those questions we steadfastly ignore. We ignore the fact of the split – but wondering why, when, and how it happened we ignore even more. With scant evidence to back me up – I assume its appearance was part of the formation of the Modern world. An event we have also not looked at very carefully either.

The origin of the Modern world is something we should be intensely interested in – but are not. This aversion should tip us off that something important is buried here. That we have worked very had at not knowing something very important about ourselves.

There are a number of ways of looking at this. To begin with, I will consider the difference between the development of individuals and development of groups or societies. The two are obviously related – but they are also different matters entirely.

What we have here is a complex situation (where everything effects everything else all the time) – as contrasted with a complicated situation (where cause-and-effect event-chains happen independently of each other). The discovery of complexity was one of the great discoveries of recent science – that was made possible by the computer – who can handle it without much difficulty.

As contrasted with Newtonian physics, which uses a mathematics that can only handle two variables at a time (such as cause and effect). The Newtonian world-view was built into Calvinistic Protestantism which became the bed-rock of the North (Northern Europe and North America). And was completely denied by the South (Southern Europe and Latin America).

Once again, we are looking at a huge event that has been ignored. And which people want to ignore. Climate Science, for example, develops large models (computer models) that correlate many variables - and then tests them to see how well they work. This makes people furious – they claim this is not real science - and therefore is not just erroneous, but evil – because it contradicts their belief in eternal economic growth. Which the slightest thought can easily debunk.

I am strongly tempted to followup on this train of thought (about complexity) but I will stubbornly return to the subject – the two layers of life – or at least the  two layers of life as we live it.

When a child is born, he immediately begins forming his own life (he actually begins even earlier, but we will overlook that). This process of individual development will include parts of him that will change only little, such as his genetic endowment – and parts of him that he will try on frequently – like new suits of clothing.

If he (or she) is a serious person, she will try to understand her deeper parts also. And will probably use other people (perhaps trained professionals) in this attempt to understand her basic self.  I cannot resist at this point to refer you to a TED talk by Meg Jay about this very problem.

But, as Meg says, for the most part people do not do this, but remain steadfastly superficial. Which is not very bright – but they can easily overlook that.

I will end this posting here – without going into the very big subject of the two layers of society itself. Maybe I will write about that later.

2013
05/19
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The Computer Is Not the Future of the Human Race

People have always assumed that their latest technology would create a better world for them – and a better future. That is why they always made new ones. And then made a new life for themselves – that included the latest one.

We have always merged with any successful technology – this is what made it successful. To look at this another way – we acted as reproductive organs for our technologies.

However, this had always been balanced by a religious passion that also claimed a better life for its followers. And this had always been stronger than the technological one. Until Science introduced us to the Real World – which made religion seem obsolete and quaint.

The Enlightenment was the result – which aimed to liberate man from oppressors of all kinds – including religious ones.

Until the late in 18th Century, when religion and technology merged in the Industrial Revolution – and created the passion to get rich. This was certainly not a new passion – it had been the passion of all empires – and their downfall. But this time around innovation continued to produce technology after technology – creating a belief in infinite progress and unlimited riches.

I must spend more time talking about religion. We like to think of ourselves as thinking beings – but this is hardly the case. We are much more believing beings. And as I just said  - we believed in infinite progress and unlimited riches. And underneath all this – unlimited power. We were beginning to think of ourselves as gods – a strange kind of gods, perhaps, but gods nevertheless.

This included, in the background, our belief in heroic science. One not devoted to the discovery of truth (whatever that might be) but one devoted to making us richer. It might also help us learn about ourselves – but that was a side-issue.

We now consider innovation to be nothing but good – but this was (and is) nothing but a naive innocence we should have given up long ago. Our innovations have always bit us in the ass – one way or the other. And more and more all the time.

The 19th Century was when the Modern world matured – and then collapsed into what we call the Post-modern world (for lack of a better term). The definitive event here was WWI. And this was closely followed by the Great Depression and then WWII.

The amazing thing about all this was that nobody noticed what was going on! That one world had ended and another (if you could call it that) was beginning.

There is only one explanation for this, in my opinion – people (or at least the people who were aware) had been eliminated. And the people who were left were something less than people – the masses. A whole book could easily be written about this – and should be. But it has not been. Why, I leave for you to decide.

In any case, I want to discuss the latest development – the Computer. The device I am using to write this blog. This has taken over – and we have not the slightest idea what it is.

But I think we can say one thing for sure – it is the end of the Human Race. The Final Technology – the parallel to the Final Solution is intentional.

Only a few years ago, I believed Computer skills could transfer somehow into more general human skills. And I have a whole stack of books about learning these programming skills. But I have news for you – they do not.

The Computer world is a subset of the larger world, and skill in any of these smaller worlds (with some exceptions) does not translate back into skills in the larger world. This is perfectly obvious – a good automobile mechanic, for example – may not have any other skills at all – especially human skills.

But somehow we thought the Computer was different! Probably because we thought that the Computer was human. Or because we had developed a clever user-interface for it, and it has become so well-integrated into our lives. With things like the ubiquitous smart-phone with its touch interface.

We assumed – and plenty of people continue to tell us, over and over – that it will lead to better and better things. But anyone can see that the world is not getting better and better – but getting worse and worse – because of the misuse of the Computer (enhanced by the Internet). Largely by the Financial Industry.

Democracy has become a hollow word – and there is nothing we can do about that. Power now rests in other hands – and they are not the best of hands.

2013
05/17
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