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15 May 2005 @ 11:02, by lemus. Philosophy
SPANNER TO SPIN AN ATOM
With a spanner to spin an atom,
A rocket to reach eternity, the
New millennium voyager
Stares at visions of discovery.
In antique words made long ago
Before there was any techno-science
How can anyone express the vision
Of this revealing knowledge?
The poet needs an alien tongue,
An extraterrestrial language
In which to descibe the revelation
Which far-seeing science has made.
Who can describe in any terrestrial tongue
The incomparable beauty of Orion's Nebula?
In any terrestrial tongue who can describe
The wonders of quasar and super nova?
In what words shall we capture the splendour
Of microscopic molecules, telescopic galaxies,
The strangeness of the quark, the charms of quanta?
Where can a poet find the words to tell
The scales between parsec and particle,
Billions and billionths measured,
Between vast intergalactic spaces
And microscopic nanometers?
Mathematics is the language of science
But equations do not speak to the heart.
Science is a cold objective art
But we are warm-hearted humans.
With the power to split atoms apart
And to send rockets into space,
We need the words to invoke our awe,
Science as true revelation.
Have you seen the double helix?
Have you seen a foetus in the womb?
Have you seen the rings of Jupiter?
Have you seen our Earth from space?
It is not a case of theoretical equations,
Not a matter of complex hypotheses,
Nor a question of expert opinion:
It's the passion of your human heart.
In ancient days prophets prophesied,
Creating scripture's revelation.
The revelation is now written in
A new language of divinity.
The universe is no less divine today
Though not inhabited by the ancient gods.
Life revealed by science is no less sacred
Than it was to Moses or the Buddha.
Machines have revealed new wonders,
But even machines with eyes are blind.
Only in the human heart will be discovered
The new vision revealed by science.
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 14 Apr 2005 @ 23:59, by ming. Philosophy
Antony Judge writes a paper about Liberating Provocations. You know, the "rational" approach, if you want somebody to do something that is good for them, has usually been considered to be to positively promote constructive behavior. I.e. tell them why it is good for them, outline all the advantages, provide useful information, encourage them. It is just that a lot of the time that doesn't work at all. Lots of people do the opposite of what they're supposed to. So, one could go a different way altogether and do the opposite. Promote the negative behaviors. Act surreal and start a campaign for doing all the wrong things. Get the government to support them loudly.This is a two-pronged strategy. By advocating a "negative" approach, those resistant to being told how to behave would reactively consider a "positive" approach. Those scandalised by the "negative" approach, would invest their energy in "positive" campaigns -- where previously they would not have been engaged.
We are all familiar, from earliest childhood, with the response to exhortation from those occupying the moral high ground. We either ignore them or consider interesting ways of doing the opposite. If we are told not to do something, then we consider doing it. If we are encouraged to do something, we consider doing the opposite. The point is made by Zoe Williams (Cannabis Comedown, The Guardian, 29 March 2005):
"Thus, if you tell them things are dangerous, they will do them, and if you shrug and say "actually, it doesn't seem to do too much harm", they will do something else. Whole swaths of aberrant behaviour could be addressed with this in mind. Obesity, smoking, drinking, fighting, snowboarding and joyriding would all become terribly passé if the government were to become their advocates, particularly if prominent members of the government were to lead by example and take up dangerous activities in a high-profile way."
This provocative approach is designed to communicate more effectively with those already acting inappropriately or those who are passive in the face of inappropriate action. Now, I'm not even sure if I want to buy the idea that we collectively want to make people do a certain list of good things and not do a certain list of others. Although a society of course needs some kind of list of things one ought not to do. I'd want it to be very, very small, though.
What I'm more interested in, which Tony also brought up, is the angle of infinite game playing. In a finite game there's a set of rules and you're supposed to follow those rules to win, against some kind of opposition. In an infinite game, however, you play with the boundaries and you change the rules, in order to keep playing. A very different thing.
Fixed rules about what you're supposed to do and not do will create a finite game. Obviously. It constrains people. And for it to be a game, different people will tend to take different sides. If some people make a finite game with the goal of making you not smoke, not use bad words, not watch porn on your computer, or whatever, well, that's a pretty dull game. The only way of making it half interesting is to play the opposing part. I don't know about you, but negative campaigns trying to tell me what to do or not to do gives me an instant compulsion to disobey. I don't always bother to follow it, but such a campaign obviously is doing the exact opposite of what it tries to do.
OK, so a fixed game of compulsion or repression will quite naturally and automatically motivate a lot of people to do their best to do something else. It suddenly becomes important, and somewhat interesting. The opposite-game is limited too, but not quite as limited as doing what you're told.
Limited games tend to make people do things they wouldn't do otherwise. Maybe do what you're supposed to, maybe follow the rules, or maybe what you're not supposed to do, specifically disobeying the rules. Which you might not bother to do that way if those particular rules weren't there.
Unnecessarily limited rules can be harmful. I'd say that anti-smoking campaigns is probably one of the biggest killers is our society, probably responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths and many more millions living miserable neurotic lives. Because they present a very limited game. Either you do what we say or you die. Not much fun in it either way. There's hardly even two factions in it.
Having a choice is fun. And if you feel free to make your own choices, changing the rules as you go along, you're probably playing an infinite game. The playing of infinite games defuse the power of a finite game. Which was an illusion in the first place, but one might not notice before one changes the rules.
Carrying out unexpected paradoxical strategies might work, not just because people will do the opposite of what they're told, but because they give a hint of the joys of freedom of choice. It shows you that you don't have to do what you're told. You're free to not smoke, regardless of whether the government unwittingly spends a lot of effort on compelling you to do so, or not to do so. Which is roughly the same thing.
The thing is that most people are quite capable at choosing the best option that is available, or a new option that previously wasn't available, IF they're not being held stuck in some kind of fixed for or against situation. Not surprisingly, most people will choose what they feel good about, if they have the choice. Or, rather, if they have ALL the choices. Because there are a lot more choices then two in life.
That all seems very paradoxical to people who try to rule other people and condition them to do the right thing. That people are more likely to do the right thing if you don't force them, but rather allow them to move the rules around. And, for that matter, you have no business thinking you know what the right thing is for everybody. What people want is to have fun playing the game of life, and playing it as long and as well as possible, and they probably don't really want your stupid little game of following a rule that's known in advance.
Oh, I probably went off on a tangent. Tony's article is superb and gives lots of good examples of provocative and surreal and perverse strategies and pranks that have worked well. Some very amusing ones, like the Cannibal Flesh Donor program, pornocracy, horses running for public office, etc. Humor is great, because it breaks the rules, at least a little bit. It makes people pause and see things a little differently. And that is what is needed. Not being for or against. Life is too short and too big to only use it for playing two-bit games. We need to keep evolving, in millions of different directions at the same time, if we at all are to have a chance. Good paradoxes have much more generative power than clearly stated goals that are handed to you. More >
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16 Feb 2005 @ 12:05, by beto. Philosophy
How could Jonathan Swift foresee, in his Gulliver's Travels, that planet Mars has two moons which revolve in opposite directions, more than a century before science discovered that? More >
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31 Jan 2005 @ 09:27, by beto. Philosophy
In this beginning of the 21st century, we still live together with the last remains of Sigmund Freud's, Karl Marx's and Charles Darwin's ideas, three typical products of the 19th century. More >
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  27 Jan 2005 @ 19:21, by feecor. Philosophy
Seeds of Change - Matters of Consequences like all seeds, can be full of energy, very unique and much needed, but if they fall on barren land, they will get lost. Or quite the opposite already dead or infertile, but typically they are just like most, "normal" Seeds looking for some "umbrella", or mentor, some glasshouse or incubator. .... More >
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24 Jan 2005 @ 09:54, by beto. Philosophy
The understanding of our planet by extraterrestrials would be rather different according to the level of intelligence of them. Let's see some of these views. More >
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3 Jan 2005 @ 12:51, by beto. Philosophy
This is the view of the universe - or of Wholeness - usually linked to Buddism now put in a clean and clear quantum phisics language. This is both philosophy and science. More >
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16 Dec 2004 @ 19:40, by nednednerb. Philosophy
Hello there, you with eager free minds that some philosophers would tell you that you don't have. I've been busy busy with my second year of university, but I've written lots and would like to share. Here is my final essay for Phil 361 - philosophy of mind!
Enjoy More >
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13 Dec 2004 @ 12:21, by swanny. Philosophy
Livelihood .... the way we make our way in the world.
What are the considerations. Would we do whatever it
takes to provide us and our loved ones the necessities
of life?
What if it were illegal?
What if it were unethical?
What if it damaged the environment?
What if it damaged our health?
Are there any decent jobs that even take such things
into consideration or are they even considerations
or do we do whatever the boss says and whatever pays
the bills?
Never thought ones livelihood was such a messy issue did you?
Yet this is the nature of civilization. Sure there is free yet legal enterprise
and some would argue it should just be the enterprise of the free and brave
but our actions and work has consequences and these consequences effect others and the environment and our world and eventually ourselves. It is truly a small world of sorts. So how do we sort through this mess or does the market or should the market be the sole arbitarator of what is good and right. Yet oft in its glee for profit and gain the market assigns the spoils of its enterprise to no one. Whos going to pick up the trash that the market produces or does the market decide? Well it depends. There are those that see an opportunity and go for it and that has its place but there are perhaps other considerations, holistic considerations. Some say Government is to big and that the market should rule but the market does it have a conscience?
They say that when a society reaches a certain stage of viability then such concerns have a tendancy to surface and this is how we progressed from the farms and homesteads to the cities. Yet it seems a complex system of a lot of mumbo jumbo and red tape at times and is it really better than the market place?
I don't know I don't have the answers and its just another one of those things to consider when deciding upon the sustainability and viability of ones career choice and such. Do we need to think about the future when it seems hard enough worrying about the day or do we just live for the day. Choices and decisions we need to make in the course of our lives. Whether its possible to meet all the crieteria and find that dream job is probably unlikely and you're probably going to be steppin on someones toes or at least at some point.
The market and the system and sadly the church and government all seem to have there fingers in our pockets from time to time, so life and livelihood becomes a matter of becoming a "juggler" of many hats and fancy footwork and sometimes flyin on the seat of ones pants but oh were it that it weren't so. More >
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 19 Oct 2004 @ 22:48, by ming. Philosophy
Since a long time, one of the subjects I'd like to delve more into and write about is the subject of making realities. That could be addressed from many angles. Personal Reality. Shared Reality. Virtual Reality.
Now, that's starting off with an assumption that each of us have a hand in what reality we're experiencing. Some people don't believe that. Even some of those people who're best at constructing realities that they get others to live in. Many people will insist that reality just is some kind of objective finite thing which one can establish and prove and that's it. Ironically, some of those people probably live more in a reality inside their skull than outside it. But that wasn't my point.
The way I use reality here is as that which we can perceive ourselves to be living in, and which we actually can live in. There can be several or many of those. One might live in one without being conscious of it, or one might willingly step in or out of different realities at different times.
You can think about a movie, for example. If it is well-made and you enjoy it and you're watching it in a movie theatre, you can live yourself into it and believe it while it is playing. Oh, you're still aware that you're watching a movie, but if it is made well enough, you'll forget it to a considerable degree and it will be real, and you have some kind of relation or response to the characters and situations in it. Even if what you're watching is really photos of a plastic model and actors pretending to be other people than they are, you might go along with the whole thing.
Good film makers and good actors know a bunch of things about making convincing realities. For example, a method actor would work hard at developing a lot of invisible things that are part of the character they're asked to portray. Like, what is their past history? What are their feelings and actions rooted in? What is really motivating them? What do they feel? What happened to them before? Where are they going afterwards? Even though you see none of those things directly, if the actor has chosen for himself what they are, his character will appear more real to him and to you.
A very simple example: If a character is supposed to say a sentence that gets interrupted in the middle, like "But why do ...", and then something happens. If the actor only practices saying "But why do .." and then stopping, it will look and sound kind of fake. It will work much better if he worked out for himself what the whole sentence should be and why he's saing it, even if he never gets to do so. The fabric of the reality he's presenting is more coherent and complete. And you notice that, even if you only get to see a corner of it.
Realistic realities have a number of perceptions to them, and they have depth. It is not just that the right words are said. They sound right, they look right, they smell right, they feel right. The periphery seems right.
If you say the word toothbrush, it doesn't count for much. But if you can hold it in your hand, and put toothpaste on it, and put it in your mouth, and clean your teeth with it, and your mouth feels nice and fresh, then it is a convincing reality. It doesn't matter if somebody else thinks it is a hairy-nosed wombat. If you can brush your teeth with it every day, and have a minimum of cavities, you're fine.
No, it doesn't quite mean that it is just as good to live in a delusion as to live in a reality. A delusion would be when you exist in a certain reality and you deny it, and maintain the abstract idea that it is different than it is. A functional reality is made of perceptions, not just of a concept. Perceptions are abstractions too, in relation to what the universe REALLY is, but they're much more solid than recooked abstract concepts that are based on denying perceptions. Important difference. If you sit by a table and you tell yourself you're flying a spaceship, you probably won't be doing anything very sensible. If you can actually operate the controls and land on another planet and pick fruits off the trees, then you might actually have something. If you're only thinking: "This is not a table, it is a spaceship", and you convince yourself, then you're probably just a human who'll have difficulties functioning.
Affirmations are a common newagey way of getting something you want to happen. Nothing wrong with that. Prayers are in the same category. It can be quite useful to affirm or ask for that which you want. You might get it. Better than not to ask for it, or to ask for that which you don't want. But it is also very flimsy as far as realities are concerned. Just a concept and some words. To really get something different, you need to feel it, see it, hear it, taste it. You gotta be able to get into it and drive away. If you only have a movie prop facade, like from Universal Studios, you can't live in it. Workable realities have a whole range of dimensions to it. You can't eat a picture of a cheese. It needs to have a certain consistency, it needs to taste right, and it needs to be nutritious. There's a whole bunch of perceptions and details that need to be there. Realities have a lot of detail, and detail that is not just on the surface, but which sticks quite deep.
However, if we don't need to eat it or live in it, we can be persuaded to accept realities that really are rather flimsy, and which aren't much more than props. But they're detailed enough that we'll accept tham as real without actually inspecting them. You'll probably accept the news and the state of politics in that manner. You don't really go and double-check the news for yourself, to see if it is real. You might check some other sources, but you'll probably stop when you feel you have a picture that is sufficiently self-consistent. It is still just a concept, and has the real substance missing. It is pictures and words and opinions. But it is impractical to get the real thing, so you've become used to accepting a prop. And you're just looking for a certain coherence of the picture, rather than whether it really is edible. And most likely you vote for political candidates the same way. You haven't met any of them. You've just seen them on TV.
So, the people who design mass realities for us have a much easier time than what would be required to design livable realities. You don't have time to receive much more than a cardboard cutout, so their job is simply to provide a cardboard cutout that seems to suit you, and which will survive its journey through the news media, and which will fool you sufficiently. It doesn't have to be the truth and it doesn't have to add up.
But the same rules still apply. You just need less of them. For example, if a certain political character is presented as taking a certain stand, you'll want to hear the history that let up to that. I.e. you want to hear about a background that is consistent with what they're presenting. And you want them to sincerely look like they're playing that part. And you want other people to confirm it. Whether it is the truth doesn't matter. It is obvious that you can't add up everything, so you'll settle for accepting things as more real if you've heard them enough time from people who look like they know what they're talking about. And their story makes sense to you.
You'd want to know about how realities are made in order to protect yourself from mass manipulation.
And for your own sanity you'd want to know how to make your reality that which you prefer. Personal realities are on one hand harder to make than mass realities, because they require more detail and self-consistency. On the other hand they're easier, because there's mainly one person involved, and because the things that make the most difference in your life are rather subjective, and don't really need to be validated by anybody else.
Some people accomplish great things and breeze by even the most impossible obstacles. That's not just because they're gifted in that way from the beginning. More importantly it is because they implicitly believe that things work that way. They don't just believe that as a loose and shakey idea. They feel it, see it, hear it, taste it. They have experiences to back it up. They're both coming from somewhere and going to somewhere that is well-defined, self-consistent and in accordance with that which they're accomplishing. And, no, not just because that's what REALLY happened. Mainly because THEIR reality is structured that way.
The reality you're seeing and touching might appear very real, but it is in no way THE reality. It is probably more real than many of the delusions one can have ABOUT the reality. But as far as the universe goes, there's no scarcity of options. The table you're sitting by is probably just one of zillions of possible tables. The sub-atomic particles it is made of could be in any of an unfathomable amount of states, and they probably are, at the same time, depending on who's looking. You could call that parallel dimensions, or the quantum soup, or Reality with a capital R, or whatever. Regardless, any insistence on that table, or your political views, being some kind of only and ultimate reality is laughable on the scale of infinity. Time and space are but somewhat illusory properties of the way you happen to perceive things. The same pieces appear in so many other guises, at the same time, the appearance of which has a whole hell of a lot to do with how you perceive them and interact with them.
Maybe it is a little pretentious to call it "making" or "creating" realities. It is maybe more like choosing. Every possible different perception you might have about anything at any time forms a possible branching point. Nobody forces you to take any one of them. There might be some inertia going on, but you're always free to start branching off in a different direction at any time.
But it helps to know what realities are made of. Detailed perceptions. A coherent and consistent history. Depth. Multiple levels that all work. Systemic synergy. Things fit together. And for us humans: a meta-story, a set of beliefs about how and why it works. And realities have a certain continuity. They don't flicker on and off all the time. They're there even if you look away and look back again.
You could call it a worldview, but, no, I mean it more tangibly and mechanically than that. As well as bigger. Like the structure of the interface between consciousness and an infinite universe. If you don't believe consciousness really exists, half of what I'm saying is probably making no sense. In that case, think of being able to download yourself into a virtual reality. The power will remain plugged in, and you can populate the reality with what you choose, and you can adjust the parameters of the program. I'd bet you'd want as many perceptions as possible, a certain multi-layered systemic coherence, and you want a certain history and consistency, and some good people to hang out with, and a suitable level of surprise and adventure, and the chance to do really well. Just like in real life. More >
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