This book explores the question of why some regions of the world developed and expanded faster than others.
The continent of Eurasia had a significant advantage relative to others, that being a east-west principal axis. Longitudinaly, lengths of days and general climate vary slightly, allowing for propogation of domesticable plants, which later enabled trade. Continents with north-south axes (Africa, the Americas) saw climate differences and varying lengths of days, making it difficult for abundandant crops to spread
Eurasia had the largest abundance of nutritionally rich cereals (wheat and barley) and pulses (peas, lentils, chickpeas), which have great protein contents and are simple to farm
Eurasia had the most choice in large domesticable animals (cow, sheep, horses), in part due to the abundance of nutritional fauna
Certain criteria have to be met for an animal to be domesticable. For example, in Africa there exist zebras, quite similar to horses. Yet, zebras are assholes and bite humans. Humans also attempted to domesticate gazelles, but in confined areas gazelles start wil’in out to the point of death
Agriculture allowed populations to flourish, due to the sedentary lifestyle one could have children roughly every 2 years. In nomadic hunter gatherer societies one had to wait until the previous child could walk (roughly 4 years) before having another, as the mother could only handle a single child at once while on the move. This was enforced via lactational amenorrhea, abstinence, infanticide, or abortion
Domesticated crops and animals led to farms, farms led to the abundance of food and larger populations, leading to more potential for specialization, followed by technological developments such as writing, transport (the wheel), and guns
Densely populated areas also proved fertile ground for viral development. Over generations, those living in dense regions developed immunity to certain viruses, however when this viruses were exposed to a group for the first time, the group would be decimated. This is how much of the Americas were conquered by the Europeans
In short, advantages arose due to luck of the draw in terms of the environment that people resided in, it had nothing to do with the colour of their skin
A book about psychological truths that we tend to pretend don’t exist but are more or less obvious, much like the saying “the elephant in the room”. Hence the title, the elephant in the brain.
Body Language and Laughter
Body language is inherently more honest than verbal language. Words are somewhat arbitrary, but physical actions carry meaning since they are enacted
Studies have shown that women prefer the scent of males who have complimentary immune systems and more symmetric features. Same with men towards women, although women have slightly better olfactory abilities. Interestingly, homosexual men tend to prefer the scent of homosexual men as opposed to straight men when blind tested with scents from both groups
We change the tone of our voice in the response to the status of our conversation partners. An analysis of 25 Larry King interviews showed that when a guest was of higher status, Larry would match their tone, and when of lower status, the guest would match Larry’s tone
One of the best predictors of dominance is the dominance ratio: eye contact while speaking over eye contact while listening. Making less eye contact while speaking makes one less dominant. In a study, undergraduates talking to someone they thought was a high school senior had a ratio of 0.92, but when talking to college honour accepted into med school it was 0.59
Laughter is used to reinforce that “I’m just playing” attitude when circumstances arise which might, if not for the laughter, be mistaken as too serious or dangerous. This helps explain why an element of danger is often required for getting a laugh
Humour involves inviting people in playfully, carefully dialing the knob towards seriousness, and quickly falling back into play. That formula is normally what is required to open the “laughter safe”, unlocking the laughter locked inside
A danger of laughter and humour is that we don’t all share the same norms to the same degree. When we laugh at norm violations, it often serves to weaken the norms that others may wish to uphold
Two variables important to whether we find the misfortune of another funny: the degree of pain (a pin prick is funnier than death) and psychological distance (something bad happening to me isn’t funny, but to an enemy it can be)
How hard we laugh at such edge cases says a lot about our relationship to the person experiencing pain
Conversation, News, and Gossip
Conversation often contains text and subtext: text contains the literal information, subtext says “Look at me, I know about this information! Aren’t you impressed?”
Speaking is a way in which to advertise your knowledge and strengths to others, such that they can gauge whether you’re an ally/mate worth having
In the 4th century BCE, Demosthenes portrayed his fellow Athenians as preoccupied with the exchange of news, “… remarking on the fierce concern with news that is found in preliterate or semiliterate peoples”
Consumption
When individuals buy green products, part of their motive is to signal to others their pro-social attitude. It signals “I’m willing to forego luxury in order to help the planet.” This is known as conspicuous altruism
One reason the Prius has a distinct shape (being a hatchback, when most popular cars at the time were sedans) is to make it distinct and enhance the advertisement that their drivers are responsible, good-willed citizens
In advertising, lifestyle advertising is the type of advertising that attempts to link a brand or product with a particular set of cultural associations
The third person effect: when Corona runs a “find your beach” ad, you think you’re too savvy to be manipulated by that ad. You would never fall for that! But you, the high and mighty know it all, think everyone else can be manipulated, and that they will like Corona, and this pitiful ad. So next time you’re invited to a backyard party, you bring Corona since it’s a beer that is more for chilling out (like at the beach) and you believe everyone loves it
Art
Art is a fitness signal: it displays technical and creative skill, ingenuity, but also that you have time to waste
Art has intrinsic qualities (how beautiful/captivating it is to the eye), but also extrinsic qualities (technique used, who it was created by, the era in which it was made). We tend to judge art more on its extrinsic properties. Imagine if we were to create a gallery full of replicas. Intrinsically it would look the same, but we care most that the works are original and authentic (an extrinsic quality)
Charity
Effective altruism: ensuring largest ROI on a charitable donation. Most don’t tend to research the charities they donate to, or how effectively their money will be managed by the charity
Scope neglect/insensitivity: when told that a donation will save 100/1000/10000 lives/organisms/habitats, people will not meaningfully change their donation amounts despite the changes in outcomes
Visibility: by helping donors advertise their generosity, charities incentivize more donations (i.e “I just donated blood band aids” from blood donation clinics, or selfie stations at Covid vaccination sites). Conversely, people prefer not to donate when their donation remains anonymous. Charities normally bracket donation amounts, (i.e $500-999 is a friend, $1000-1499 is a patron. Donors almost always donate to the lower bound. in other words, donors rarely give more than what they’ll be recognized for
Mating motives: when primed with mating cues, subjects of a study were found to be more willing to engage in altruistic tasks. However, these were found to be conspicuous tasks (teaching underprivileged kids, volunteering, etc) but for inconspicuous tasks (i.e take shorter showers) they showed no difference to the control group
Charity is a signal of excess wealth (or time in the case of volunteering), and an advertisement of pro-social behaviour. While conspicuous consumption and charity are both signals of excess wealth, consumption is inherently selfish while charity helps the group. This helps to explain why leaders tend to be more charitable, to help the team
Education
School advocates often argue that school teaches students how to think critically, however educational psychologists have discovered that education is narrow, and students only learn material you specifically teach them
Students learn worse when they’re graded, especially on a curve. Homework helps in math, not in English or history. Practice that is spaced out, varied, and interleaved with other learning produces more versatility, longer retention, and better mastery. It feels slower and more challenging, but works better
Teenagers perform better when classes start later
The value in college education lies in giving students a chance to advertise the attractive qualities they already have (i.e that A in biology doesn’t mean that you’ve retained that biology knowledge)
Education is a factor of improvement (traditional view) and certification (signalling model)
Medicine
More medicine doesn’t correlate with better health. For each extra day in the ICU, patients live 40 fewer days. One study showed that an additional $1000 spent on a patient resulted [-20,5] days of life gained
Randomized control study, the RAND experiment: thousands were given either fully subsidized medical visits and treatments, some 75% discounts, some 5%. Health outcomes were found to be the same in each group, despite the fully subsidized group consuming 45% more medical aid than others
Roughly 11% of medical spending goes to patients in their final year of life, yet it’s one of the least effective kinds of medicine. It rarely succeeds in improve quality of life; heroic end of life care is rarely pleasant for the patient. Sadly, few family members are willing to advocate for lesser care, fearing it will be seen as tantamount to abandoning their beloved relative
One study tracked 3600 people over 7.5 years: non-smokers live 3 years longer than smokers, and those who exercised regularly lived 15 years longer than those who exercised a little. Diet and sleep are also likely significant factors. Medicine fails to provide any significant effect
We want the best medicine (especially when others can see it’s the best), and we want to be cared for/want to help people in need (and maximize the credit we get for it). These are the two reasons to consume and provide medicine - health and conspicuous care - and the reason we end up overtreated
Religion
Religious sacrifice sends a signal you’re willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the group and that you can be trusted (sacrificing food, money, time, status and energy)
Used as a trust mechanism. Before contracts, credit scores, and letters of reference, a good way to gauge trustworthy members in a community would be to see if they are willing to sacrifice their time to pray with the group
Orthodox beliefs (i.e exact nature of the trinity, whether cracker turns into gods flesh during communion) serve as a badge to indicate one’s tribe. If the belief happens to be a little weird, stigmatizing to non-believers, it also serves as a sacrifice
Sports teams work the same way. The more you show support for the team, including stigmatizing behaviours like wearing face paint to a game, the more support you’ll gain from fellow fans
Absurdity of religious beliefs = strength of religious community (see strength of the Mormon community, rewards for showing loyalty in the face of common sense)
Celibacy/martyrdom are sacrifices in order to earn status within the religious community. This is called hill-climbing in biology. People will keep trying to go “up” on the social ladder, and in the religious context this eventually leads to celibacy/martyrdom. This is overindulgence to primitive urges, ironically hindering the propagation of genes. This also happens with eating fats and sugars these days, showing bravery in the military, addicts taking drugs until overdose, etc.
Politics
Apparatchik: a very loyal member of an organization who always obeys orders. Example: during Stalin’s rule, a tribute to Stalin was called for at a conference, and everyone was to applaud. Applauding went on for over 10 minutes, until the first person stopped, and some others stopped shortly after the first. These people were then killed/sent to labor camps.
Individual political behaviours are more of a performance. We want to appear loyal to the groups around us, rather than attempting to do what’s right or try to influence outcomes. The audience of the performance are our peers, local community, friends and family, and potential romantic partners
All or nothing with respect to a political organization’s views signals loyalty to that group
The mind can be viewed as an elephant and a rider. The rider (our conscious thought) can direct the elephant (our more primitive neurological systems) to turn, stop, or go. But, when the elephant has a desire of its own, the rider is no match to control it
Limbic system (limbus means border/margin) wraps around rest of the brain, forming a border
Hypothalamus: coordinates basic drives and motivations
Hippocampus: specialized for memory
Amygdala: specialized for emotional learning and responding
The neocortex (meaning new covering in Latin) developed later as the grey matter characteristic of the brain, providing functions such as impulse control, planning ahead, thinking, and decision making
Individuals with a compromised prefrontal cortex normally see increases in sexual aggression, inability to control impulses
The bottom third of the prefrontal cortex is the orbitofrontal cortex, just above the eyes, and is related to emotional responses (i.e feelings of pleasure and pain)
The elephant is like the limbic system (reptilian brain), and the rider is like the neocortex. The rider evolved to serve to the elephant
Stimuli are first passed through the amygdala (part of the limbic system) prior to reaching the neocortex. Amygdala has direct connection to flight or fight response, and detects patterns associated with previous fear episodes. Therefore neural impulses tend to be negative, because we react before we can even process them, and rightfully so, since in some situations we need as immediate a reaction as possible (i.e jump scares in horror movies) • Cognitive triad of depression: I’m no good, my world is bleak, and my future is hopeless
Reciprocity
Other ultra social species (ants, bees) evolved such that all offspring are siblings, due to a single shared queen, with most offspring being sterile. Thus, the group had no problem sacrificing themselves for each other as it optimizes the continuation of genes
Humans in large societies, on the other hand, need a different strategy, as they are not all siblings and live outside the hive. Hence, reciprocity emerges - scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours
Gossip evolved to keep track of bad actors in society, gain trust of others, and gauge allegiances
A common sales tactic is to use reciprocity against you, offer something for free and people will feel an urge to return the favour
Hypocrisy
Moral hypocrisy: many studies have shown people that think they are particularly moral believe they are more likely to “do the right thing”. But, when the coin flip comes up against them (and to the benefit of someone else), they find a way to ignore what is right and follow self interest
Motivated reasoning: a one-sided search for supporting evidence only
When asked relative contributions to housework, couples combined perceived contributions come out to an average of 120%. Same with MBA students, who when asked for their contributions to a group project the total came to be 139%
Pursuit of Happiness
Progress principle: pleasure comes more from making progress towards goals than from achieving them
Adaptation principle: people’s judgements about their present state are based on whether it is better or worse than the state to which they have become accustomed
Nerve property: nerve cells respond vigorously to new stimuli, but eventually “habituate, firing less to stimuli that they have become accustomed to”. Change contains vital information, not steady states
Genetics have a strong level on one’s average level of happiness
A good marriage is one of the life factors most strongly associated with happiness. An inverse correlation is that happiness causes marriage (happier people are more appealing as partners and easier to live with)
Happiness has a weak relationship to environment: as long as someone has basic needs satisfied, attractive people aren’t as happy as less attractive, people in warm places aren’t as happy as cold places, younger people aren’t as happy as older, etc.
Conditions have little effect for the most part (i.e race, sex, disability, wealth, marital status, where you live). The conditions that do matter are:
Noise
Commute (traffic)
Lack of control (providing workers, students, patients with a sense of control increases happiness)
Shame (breast augmentation surgeries on average report increases in quality of life and decreases in depression and anxiety. It helps to alleviate the shame associated with a daily burden of feeling less than others, though I imagine one must be careful such that cosmetic surgeries do not become a primary source of personal well-being
Relationships
Voluntary activities include pleasures (food, sex) and gratifications (challenging tasks that match one’s abilities)
The key to finding your own gratifications is to know your strengths
Why do people spend money on luxuries, to which they adapt completely, rather than on things that would make them lastingly happier?
Conspicuous consumption: things that are visible to others that advertise elevated status (bigger house, nicer watch, better purse)
Inconspicuous consumption: things/activities consumed privately, not bought for the purpose of achieving status (long vacations, short commutes)
Inconspicuous consumption leads to more happiness. But the elephant cares about prestige (what others think of me), not happiness
Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes from without
Love and Attachment
Attachment theory: two basic goals guide a child’s behaviour: safety and exploration. A child who stays safe survives, a child who explores and plays develops the skills and intelligence needed for adult life
Mammal babies play, the larger the frontal cortex the more the need to play
Secure, avoidant, resistant behavioural patterns are developed genetically and from parental/environmental influence
Happier babies (genetic) could make mothers more loving
More loving mothers (behavioural) could make happier babies
These patterns follow us throughout romantic relationships as well, more secure adults enjoy happier, longer relationships with lower rates of divorce
Most other mammalian babies’ brains are mostly developed at birth. Hence, there is less of a long burden for the mother, and the father can go and mate with other females. Human brains continue to develop years after birth. The mother incurs a longer burden, therefore male support is required for longer, helping to explain why pair bonding was required to best pass on genes
Origin of “my other half”: Aristophanes said that people started off with four legs, arms, and 2 faces. But, one day the gods cut them in half. Ever since, people have been looking for their other half. As this was a Greek story, some people originally had 2 males faces, 2 female, male/female, showing the diversity in sexual orientation of that time
Adversity
Coping with trauma:
If you have more pessimistic inclinations, try meditation/cognitive behavioural therapy/medication to help guide the elephant in the right direction
Have a few social attachments you can go to talk to
At some point afterwards, write about what happened. Make sense of it in your mind, it will help you move on. Why did this happen? What good might I derive from it?
For adversity to be maximally beneficial, it should happen at the right time (young adulthood), to the right people (secure attachment, social resources, etc.) and to the right degree (not so severe that it causes PTSD)
Virtues
Trying to make children behave ethically by teaching them to reason (i.e giving scenarios and telling them what the right thing to do is) is like trying to make a dog happy by wagging its tail for him. The child learns how (not what) to think. This teaches the rider, but the elephant learns nothing
You can be morally against factory farming, but unless you are faced with the horrors (see it in action) you will likely still eat meat
Meaning of Life
People gain a sense of meaning when their lives cohere across the three levels of their existence (physical, psychological, and sociocultural)
Happiness comes from between, from coherence between internal experiences (mind and body) and external experiences (work, relationships, community)
There was initial puzzlement on why humans have altruistic tendencies, an initial explanation was that we are guided by group selection as well as individual selection
Bees and ants have no issue with altruism, sacrificing themselves for the pack, as they all share genes. The queen bee is the ovary, the bees are the body
But bees share genes, so why are humans altruistic? Early simulations showed that group selection, when one chooses the good of the group over themselves, was bound to be taken advantage of by selfish players (free rider problem)
These simulations lacked a cultural component though, and it seems like religions developed with culture to reduce the influence of free riders so that group selection could flourish (e.g marriage prevented gigachads from taking all the women)
Liberals and conservatives use the myth of pure evil to demonize the other side and unite their own
Liberals are experts in thinking about issues of victimization, equality, autonomy, and the rights of individuals
Conservatives are experts in thinking about loyalty to the group, respect for authority and tradition, and sacredness
Both are necessary, individual and group motives are needed. A society without liberals would be harsh and oppressive to many individuals. A society without conservatives would lose beneficial social structures and constraints. The Ying and Yang are necessary
A good place to find wisdom is in the minds of your opponents. If you can take off the blinders of the myth of pure evil, you might see some good ideas for the first time
This book touches on the recent developments in some American universities, and try to identify some of the causal mechanisms that give rise to the “… new problems on campus, [which] have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.”
Properties of the Great Untruths:
It contradicts ancient wisdom
It contradicts modern psychological research on well-being
It harms the individuals and communities who embrace it
Coddling: overprotecting, to treat with excessive care or kindness. Coddling is normally well-intended on the surface. Yet, once care is given past the point of necessity it starts to become more about the care giver, and how they wish to be perceived or the momentary praise they receive, than it is the subject receiving the care. For example, a mother who shields her child from social experiences, allowing the child to stay home from school or a sports game, because they express concern about it, does so more for the love of herself (it feels good for my kid to like me now) than love for her child (who’s future self will suffer due to hindered development)
Part 1: The three bad ideas
The untruth of fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker
In the 1990s, schools banned peanut products to protect the (4/1000) students that had peanut allergies, however it was later found that exposure to peanuts reduced the likelihood of developing a peanut allergy
“Regular eating of peanut containing products, when started during infancy, will elicit a protective immune response instead of an allergic immune reaction” from the 2015 LEAP study. In the protected children group, 17% developed a peanut allergy. In the regularly exposed group, only 3% developed an allergy
Hygiene hypothesis: thanks to hygiene, antibiotics, and too little outdoor play, children don’t get exposed to as many microbes as they once did. This may lead them to develop immune systems that overreact to substances that aren’t actually threatening - causing allergies. In the same way by shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren’t risky at all
Antifragility: we require stressors to develop properly – like how muscles need to be used or they atrophy. Rather than being like a candle, and thus fearful of the wind, you want to develop to be a fire and wish for the wind
Safe spaces: in a rape culture debate at Brown university, students advocated against letting a rape survivor speak who was against the idea that America has a rape culture (and argues that places like Afghanistan have a real rape culture). The president stepped in and allowed a competing talk supporting the rape culture side without debate so that students could listen in without being triggered. The university administration also set up a safe space with cookies, colouring books, bubbles, play dough cookies, pillows and blankets, etc.
Trigger warnings are counter therapeutic, they encourage avoidance of reminders of trauma, and avoidance maintains PTSD. Severe emotional reactions triggered by course material are a signal that students need to prioritize their mental health through treatment via therapies. These therapies involve gradual systematic exposure to traumatic memories until their capacity to trigger distress diminishes
Children must be exposed to stressors (within limits and in age-appropriate ways), or they will fail to mature into strong and capable adults who are able to engage productively with people and ideas that challenge their moral convictions and beliefs
The untruth of emotional reasoning: Always trust your feelings
Rider and elephant metaphor: the rider (conscious thought) is extremely skilled at producing post-hoc justifications for whatever the elephant (primordial brain) does or believes (press-secretary/lawyer)
9 most common cognitive distortions that people learn to recognize in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT):
Emotional reasoning: letting feelings guide your interpretation of reality (I feel depressed, therefore my marriage isn’t working out)
Catastrophizing: focusing on the worst possible outcome and seeing it as most likely
Overgeneralizing: perceiving a global pattern based on a single incident
Dichotomous thinking: viewing events or people on all or nothing terms (I get rejected by everyone, it was a complete waste of time)
Mind reading: assuming you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts (he thinks I’m a loser)
Labeling: assigning global negative traits to yourself or others (I suck, he’s a rotten person)
Negative filtering: focusing exclusively on negatives
Discounting positives: claiming that the positive things you or others do are trivial so you can maintain negative judgement (those wins were easy, so they don’t matter)
Blaming: focusing on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, refusing to take responsibility for changing yourself
Catastrophizing (if I fail this quiz, I fail the class, I get kicked out of school, then I’ll never get a job) and negative filtering (only paying attention to negative feedback) are hallmarks of depression and anxiety
We can all be more thoughtful about our own speech, but it is unjust to treat people as if they’re bigots when they harbour no ill will. Doing so can discourage them from being receptive to valuable feedback, it may also make them less interested in engaging across different lines of thinking
What really frightens or dismays us are not the external events themselves, but how we perceive them
By encouraging students to interpret others in the least generous way possible, schools that teach students about micro-aggressions teach may encourage students to engage in emotional reasoning and other distortions, fostering high levels of distrust and conflict
Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think
The untruth of us vs them: Life is a battle between good and evil people
A UofT philosophy professor teaches about the axis of privilege and oppression. They also suggest that women are a colonized population, since despite encompassing the majority of college students, they are being taught in institutions built by white men
Since privilege implies the power to dominate the oppressed, this axis is guided towards moral dimensions - implying that one group is good (the oppressed) and one group is bad (the privileged). This fosters an us versus them mentality
One example of this was at Brown university, where the president (female) and provost (white male) were stormed by students who were outraged that a white woman and a cis white male headed the university. When the provost asked to have a conversation, they denied him because he was a typical heterosexual white man in power. When he explained that he was in fact homosexual, a student stuttered and said it didn’t matter since he was a white male anyways
Virtue signalling: things people do or say to display that they are virtuous. This is done to stay within the good graces of their group
Call out culture rewards those doing the calling out with status. If they were to call them out and handle things in private, they wouldn’t receive status for it, and it could be perceived as colluding with the enemy. Social media amplifies this, as there is always an audience who are eager to shame
Part 2: Bad ideas in action
Intimidation and violence
One argument for words being violent is that “words can lead to stress, prolonged stress can lead to physical harm, thus certain types of speech invoking that stress can be a form of violence.” Here’s the issue, just because words may lead to physical harm doesn’t mean it’s a violent act. When breaking up with someone, it leads to elevated cortisol levels and a horrible experience, but we don’t consider the act of breaking up with someone a violent act
Far left protesters (antifa) justify violent protests, to prevent campus speakers with different ideologies from speaking, as self defence, since allowing those speakers to speak will lead to further violence against the oppressed. These protesters engage in dichotomous thinking, adopting an us versus them attitude, labeling the speakers as evil, and claiming to know what the speaker would say and why it must be prevented at any cost
“I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. Put on some boots and learn to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym.
Witch hunts
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil
Common features of with hunts:
They arise quickly
Crimes are perceived as being committed against the collective
Charges are often trivial or fabricated
There is a fear of defending the accused
Politically homogeneous communities are more susceptible to witch hunts, especially when they feel threatened from the outside. University viewpoint diversity has been decreasing as of late, resulting in an increase in campus protests and ideological groupthink
Part 3: How we got here
The polarization cycle
There has been growing political divide in the US, affective polarization has been increasing, meaning people on one side increasingly hate or fear the other parts and the people in it
As university student and faculty have shifted left, universities have begun to receive less trust and more hostility from the right
Increases in racial and political provocation from the right is an essential part of the story of why behaviour is beginning to change on campuses
Anxiety and depression
Lowering the bar in applying mental health labels may increase the number of people who suffer, as applying labels can lead to changes in behaviour of those being labeled and cause a self-fulfilling prophecy
2 activities correlate strongly with anxiety and depression: social media use and watching TV. 5 activities that have an inverse correlation with anxiety/depression: exercise, religious services, reading books, in-person social interactions, and doing homework
Anxiety tends to cause threats to jump out at the person, even in ambiguous or harmless circumstances. Anxious people are more likely to perceive harm in innocent questions (so they’re more embracing of microaggressions) or in a passage in a novel (hence wanting more trigger warnings) or in a lecture given by a guest speaker (leading them to want them disinvited or wanting a safe space to attend to during)
On average, 18 year olds today have spent less time unsupervised and have hit fewer developmental milestones (first kiss, obtaining driving licence, etc.) in the path to autonomy, compared to previous generations
Anxiety and depression rates are increasing for gen z, for girls more so than boys. This could be due to more sensitivity to social comparison, by signals of being left out, and by relational aggression, which are amplified by social media
Both depression and anxiety increase the tendency to see the world as more dangerous and hostile than it really is, making students in gen z especially attracted to overprotection
Paranoid parenting
Children in GenZ have been deprived of unsupervised time for play and exploration, missing out on many of the challenges, negative experiences, and minor risks that help children develop into strong competent adults
When children are repeatedly led to believe that the world is dangerous and they cannot be left alone, we should not be surprised if many of them believe it
There exist large social class differences in parenting styles, the upper class uses concerted cultivation, precisely structuring the child’s life and providing constant supervision. The lower class uses natural growth parenting, more of a hands-off approach, but children in these households are more prone to toxic stress (e.g broken homes, more desperate behaviour, etc.)
Paranoid parenting teaches the three great untruths, priming children for a culture of safetyism at college
The decline of play
Children deprived of free play are less likely to be physically and socially competent as adults, and are less tolerant of risk and more prone to anxiety disorders
Decline in free play is likely driven by unrealistic fears of strangers, rising competitiveness for admission to top universities, and rising emphasis on testing and homework. Rising availability of smartphones and social media also have an impact
Free play helps children develop skills of cooperation and dispute resolution. When citizens are not skilled at this, they are less able to work out the ordinary conflicts of daily life, and will be more likely to call for authorities to apply coercive force to their opponents - inviting a bureaucracy of safetyism
The bureaucracy of safetyism
As universities expand, so does the need for administrative growth. However, administrative expansion is several times higher than the rate of faculty hiring
As administration has grown, so has the power to play a role in university governance. Administrators are more likely than professors to think that the way to solve a new campus problem is to create a new office to solve the problem
Corporatization has followed, in which admin cater to the students, as they pay a lot of money to attend school, and adopt a “customer is always right” approach
Administrations adopt a “cover your ass” approach, adopting regulations to prevent future lawsuits related to harms of their students - promoting the Untruth of Fragility
Some of the regulations restrict freedom of speech, often with highly subjective definitions of key concepts. This teaches students that speech should be restricted to avoid emotional discomfort, encouraging catastrophizing and mind reading, promoting the Untruth of emotional reasoning
Bias response teams are leading to an erosion of trust in campus communities, as it makes it always to anonymously report one another based on subjective claims
The quest for justice
Intuitive justice is a combination of distributive justice (the perception that people get what they deserve) and procedural justice (the perception that the process by which rules are enforced is fair and trustworthy)
Developmental psychologists concluded that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal ones, and when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality
If institutionalized disconfirmation breaks down, such that professors and students become hesitant to raise alternative explanations for outcome gaps, then theories about those gaps may harden into orthodoxy
Ideas may be accepted not because they are true but because the politically dominant group wants them to be true in order to prompt its preferred narrative and set of remedies
When social justice efforts aim to achieve equality of outcomes by the group, and when they are willing to violate distributive or procedural fairness for some individuals along the way, these efforts violate many peoples’ senses of intuitive justice
The correlation of a demographic trait or identity group membership with an outcome gap is often taken as evidence that discrimination (structural or individual) caused the outcome gap - whether this is true needs to be open for debate so that the community can arrive to an accurate understanding of the problem
Some elderly in Japan are purposefully committing petty crimes to get sent to prison, so that they can socialize with other inmates and be taken care of
Lonely people are 30% more likely to develop heart disease, 64% more likely to develop dementia, and 30% more likely to die prematurely
Being lonely prolongs cortisol production, leading to inflammation and reduced defence against illness
The stress response triggered by loneliness is like driving a car in first gear: at first, it’s the most efficient way to get you moving, but staying in first gear for your entire journey puts your engine through more wear and tear. A car isn’t designed to stay in first gear, and your body isn’t designed to be stay lonely
Chapter 3: The lonely mouse
The longer that lab mice are isolated, the more aggressive they are to newcomers
Lonely people tend to have a harder time empathizing with others. They have less brain activity in the parts of the brain associated with empathy, and more activity in alertness processes. Rather than seeing things from the affected persons point of view, their response operates in self-preservation mode and scans their surroundings for threats
The socially and economically marginalized are turning out in disproportionally high numbers for parties at the political extremes, under promises that they are seen and heard
Neoliberal capitalism and deindustrialization took an asymmetric economic toll, with lower-skilled men among those who felt they were suffering most—the target market for right wing populists
To manage the decaying and less secure importance of their identities (class, employment, religion), those who feel left behind, excluded, or unimportant to will likely gravitate towards nationality, ethnicity, language and gender as attractive sources for meaning and self-esteem
Right wing populists exploit the lonely brain, which has lesser capacity to feel empathy, rev up the anxiety and insecurity of their followers and manipulate ethnic and religious differences to garner support
Lonely people (those socially excluded or ostracized) are more likely to see threats, and their environments as frightening and hostile (“see snakes instead of sticks”), thus they latch on to conspiracy theories—which are commonly promulgated by far-right populists
Those who expressed the most extreme anti-immigrant views are distinguished not by basic demographics (e.g., gender or age) but by financial insecurity, social isolation, and lack of trust in fellow citizens/government
Chapter 4: The solitary city
The rise in paid parasocial relationships, in which you can donate to be recognized (e.g., Mukbangs have been rising in popularity as lonely people watch and eat alongside the mukbangers) requires less effort in order to satisfy social cravings. However, it encourages lack of effort, and we get less practice of skills that are required to build meaningful friendships and community. Humans will gravitate towards paths requiring the least effort, hence the rise in unidirectional, donor relationships
Ironically, large urban centres are lonelier for inhabitants than smaller rural centres. The hustle and bustle and sheer population of the cities makes it difficult for people to connect with each other
Chapter 5: The contactless age
Services have become more contactless, as limiting human labor translates to more profit. Removing human interaction can be convenient, and most people find it so; however, it removes opportunities for social interaction
Cities over the years have been implementing antisocial measures to dissuade loitering, homeless sleeping, etc. via hostile architecture. Examples include uncomfortable benches, mosquitoes (high pitched noises) and pink lights (emphasize blemishes) to dissuade children
Class segregation in cities like London and Vancouver has been seen by way of private playgrounds that are closed off to poorer regions of a district. Division this early on in child development will only exacerbate social division
Chapter 6: Our screens, ourselves
Landmark studies have shown that reducing social media use to 10 minutes per day per major platform results in a significant reduction in loneliness. Those who deleted Facebook didn’t fill that void with another platform but rather spent more time socializing in person. In terms of subjective well-being, deleting Facebook was up to 40% as effective as therapy
There has been a 42% increase in plastic surgeons having at least one patient bringing in a photoshopped selfie and asking them to recreate it, with 55% of plastic surgeons reporting this occurrence
Chapter 7: Alone at the office
Global average of office workers reporting feeling lonely at work is 40%. Over 50% in China, 60% in the UK, 54% of GenZ feel emotionally distant from their colleagues
People who don’t have a friend at work are 7X more likely to disengage with their job emotionally and intellectually
Open office plans have been detrimental in some regards. Noise disruptions reduces efficiency by occupying neural real estate, and the lack of privacy keeps people from being authentic and putting on a charade, which can be exhausting
Head of HR at Google found optimal work from home time to be around 1.5 days a week. Setting up institutionalized regular and structured opportunities for employees to meet up and socialize in person is important as well (in office pizza Thursdays, conferences, etc.). This is where bonds and community are created, and where moments of serendipity arise
Shared lunch times increase team cohesion, from firefighters to call centre employees, those who ate together performed better
Chapter 8: The digital whip
HireVue digital screenings offer companies a means to scale recruiting without the need to hire human interviewers. The HireVue algorithms scan for desirable traits of past successful candidates—vocal patterns (uhms and ahs) and how inviting your face is, among others. The issue with this is that some people have speech impediments, and some cultures smile less; as such, these algorithms impart a bias that could discriminate. Human interviewers aren’t immune to these biases; however, the online screening is generic, impersonal, and offers no natural feedback throughout the process
A high school English teacher in West Virginia had to download a workplace wellness app, Go365, as their employer wanted to reduce their health insurance costs. The app monitored their exercise and health, granting points for good behaviours such as steps and charging fines (up to $500) for failing to accrue enough wellness points
The gig economy rating systems alienate workers (think black mirror episode with public rating systems). In onboarding, workers are told to avoid talking about religion, politics, or sports in case the rider in the back is offended. You surely can’t risk offending someone as it can affect your rating
It’s also reductionist - reducing someone to a number is dehumanizing. It is too coarse a metric, there’s no way of knowing whether a rating is genuine or because someone was having a bad day
People are also prone to anchoring someone’s rating on the published rating already attributed to them. If someone has a low score, a rater will likely provide a low score regardless of outcome
The greater the level of automation exposure in an area, the greater the probability that the people located there would vote for a nationalist or far-right party Chapter 9: Love, sex, and robots
A brief caress triggers a flurry of activity in the vagus nerve, which slows down heart rate, quells anxiety, and releases oxytocin
Japan has the worlds oldest population, 25% of its citizens are older than 65, by 2050 this is expected to increase to 50%. 15% of elderly Japanese men go 2 weeks without speaking to a soul, 33% feel that they have no one to turn to for simple help. The number of elderly people living with one of their children dropped by 50% in the past two decades, even as elderly populations increased
60% of Japanese 18-34 year old’s are not in any sort of romantic relationship, a 20% increase from 2005
Chapter 10: The loneliness economy
Co-living/co-working spaces have risen in popularity over the years, a commercial response to alleviate loneliness. These spaces, however, want to sell the benefits of living or working in close proximity with others, but with none of the social commitment (i.e., hard work) that building a community requires
Domestic tasks are done by staff; therefore, no delegating of tasks among members needs to be done, encouraging the neoliberal “me” stance rather than a “we” stance. If the co-living company organizes everything for you, providing free ale and treats, your obligation to commit to that community is likely weakened
These co-living arrangements that boast private grocery stores, bars, and so on are segregated from the actual local community. Requiring a premium price to get in, only the privileged have access to this loneliness “cure” and it separates them from the actually local community in the process
Chapter 11: Coming together in a world that’s pulling apart
The political approaches to loneliness fall into two camps at the extremes. The right cast blame on the breakdown of the traditional family, with declining church attendance and excessive welfare that avoids personal responsibility and responsibility towards others. The left depicts individuals as victims of circumstance, giving them a free pass, and stress that the state should be responsible for fixing community and healing social ills
There are two mental agents, System 1 (intuitions, impressions, feelings that require little focus and are automatic) and System 2 (systematic thought that requires deliberate attention). Most of what is eventually thought or done originates in System 1, but System 2 gets the final say
This book is about recognizing situations in which System 1 errors are likely and avoid them accordingly. It is easier to recognize the mistakes of other rather than our own, due to the illusion of self and the associated self-serving biases
Chapter 2: Attention and effort
“Law of least effort” asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate towards the least demanding course of action
Task switching and increased temporal/spatial frequency of mental tasks induces strenuous mental effort, engaging System 2, dilating pupils and elevating heart rate
Chapter 3: The lazy controller
Self control and cognitive effort are forms of mental work, and studies have shown that when people are simultaneously challenged by a demanding cognitive task and by a temptation, they are more likely to give in to the temptation. System 1 has more influence on behaviour when System 2 is busy
People who are cognitively busy are more likely to make selfish choices and make superficial judgements in social situations. This too happens to drunk people, or those who are sleep deprived
The nervous system consumes more glucose than most other parts of the body, and when engaged in a challenging cognitive task, blood glucose levels have been found to drop
Studies engaged participants in self control tasks that depleted their ego and provided half with lemonade with glucose and the other with splenda. Those who drank the glucose lemonade performed better on subsequent tasks
Parole judges are more likely to grant parole requests after meals, and more likely to default to rejecting parole a few hours after meals when they are hungry and fatigued
Oreo test: 4 year old children were given the option to ring a bell to receive 1 oreo, or wait 15 minutes to get 2 oreos. Those who resisted the temptation and waited were found, 10-15 years later, to perform better on cognitive tasks, were less likely to take drugs, and were generally more succesful
Chapter 4: The associative machine
Psychological priming: voters voting at polls located in schools are more likely to support pro-education policies. People primed with words associated to money tend to portray more individualistic traits (less likely to help others, less likely to ask for help, more likely to distance themselves from others [literally, people would place chairs further from each other when asked to set up seating arrangements])
“The lady Macbeth effect”: people who think about actions they are ashamed of are more likely to buy soap, disinfectant, or detergent, some would (dramatically) say to cleanse their body due to their stained soul
Chapter 5: Cognitive ease
A happy mood loses control of System 2: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and creative, but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors. A good mood is a signal that the environment is safe, so you can let your guard down, whereas a bad mood indicates things are not going well, there may be a threat, and vigilance is required
Chapter 6: Norns, surprises, and causes
Norms settle due to repeated exposure to things in our environment, even one exposure settles a norm foundation. Norms are just statistical representations of environmental data - when told “the large mouse climbs over the small elephant’s trunk” we can retrieve the expected values (mean) of the respective animal shapes, as well as their variability in size (i.e the first and second moments of their size distributions)
Chapter 7: A machine for jumping to conclusions
When System 2 is engaged elsewhere, or energy is sufficiently depleted as to hinder System 2, we are more susceptible to believe things that are untrue: our System 1 jumps to conclusions. Things like commercials are more effective when watchers are tired and depleted
The halo effect gives preferential weighting to first impressions. When grading, for example, if you grade one person’s test all at once and they give a good answer on the first question, you’ll be more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt on later mistakes. A better way to address this issue is to do one question at a time, as to decorrelate the grading - this way the grading instances are independent, and errors in grading will average out to zero over enough samples if they are indeed independent
Chapter 8: How judgments happen
We evaluate others from the shape of their face, a strong jaw indicates dominance, and a smile indicates friendliness. Political candidates can be meaningfully predicted of success based on their facial features alone
Those who are politically uninformed and that watch lots of TV tend to be more likely to succumb to System 1 judgements about political candidate based on their facial features
When given a task, our mind may perform excess computations. For example, when asked to say when vote and note rhyme, participants answered faster than when given the words vote and goat. Though only the audio of the words were provided, people considered the spelling and it slowed down the response - this is known as the mental shotgun
Chapter 9: Answering an easier question
A heuristic is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions. It comes from the same root as eureka!
An experiment was done where students were asked how happy they were these day, and how many dates they had in the last month. The answers in this order were uncorrelated, however when the order of the questions are swapped the answers are significantly correlated. This is because the emotional state with respect to the date question primes the brain, and the answer related to happiness uses a heuristic based on the happiness with respect to the date answer. The present state of mind looms very large when people evaluate their happiness
Example: Question: how much would you contribute to save an endangered species? Heuristic question: How much emotion do I feel when I think of dying dolphins? Or: Am I happy with my life? -> Am I happy right now?
Part 2: Heuristics and biases
Chapter 10: The law of small numbers
The law of small numbers is when people trust statistical results from small sample sizes, however, small sample sizes result in larger variability and more noise. Transitional researchers in psychology often don’t compute the minimum required sample size to have sufficiently small errors in their studies
A study by the gates and Melinda foundation found that smaller schools tended to perform better in the top 50, so they funded the creation of smaller schools. What they failed to realize is the variability associated with smaller schools made for some exceptionally strong performers, but small schools also populated the bottom of the list. They fell for the law of small numbers
We pay more attention to the content of messages than to information about their reliability, and end up with a view of the world that is simpler and more coherent than the data suggest
Chapter 11: Anchors
The question: is a redwood more or less than 1200 feet tall? Followed by: what is the average height of a redwood? Results in larger estimates of the average height than if we were to ask if an average redwood is more or less than 180 feet. This is because the user anchors to the value in the first question, and this influences the response of the second
Real estate agents given house portfolios with either under-valued or over-valued prices were told to come up with a price based on their analyses: the anchoring of the initial price significantly effected their estimates - even though they were confident that they didn’t consider the initial price
Marketers use the anchoring phenomena. When a sale is labeled, as well as an arbitrary limit to the amount of products you can buy, the average number of purchases of this product will be larger than if the limit was removed (e.g While supplies last!)
Home sellers take advantage of the anchor effect by setting high prices, it provides the upper hand in negotiations. This effect can be countered, however, by deliberate engagement of System 2 *People are confident that anchors do not affect their judgement, however, anchors prime memory and make information related to it easier to retrieve. System 2 pulls data from this space, unaware it has been affected by the anchoring agent
Chapter 12: The science of availability
The availability heuristic is influenced by the following factors:
The salience of events adds more weight of them to your memory making them more easily retrievable (e.g divorce among celebrities may seem more common than it actually is since it is reported on so much)
Dramatic events add a primacy bias, e.g a recent plane crash will make planes seem unsafe
Personal experiences with events will be valued higher on future memory retrieval than had it been, say, reported in the news instead
Asking someone to name 6 things that they’re competent in or 12 things that they’re competent in leads to different judgements in competence: the more cognitive strain required to retrieve (due to available memory) instances yields a weakened measure in self-competence (if I have to work so hard to get this information, I must not be as competent as I thought)
Chapter 13: Availability, emotion, and risk
People with positive views on a subject tend to be able to list more benefits, and those with negative views tend to list more risks. Once they are told the thing that they dislike has more benefits, they perceive it as less risky, if told that the risks are negligible, they develop a more favourable view of the benefits. “The emotional tail wags the rational dog”
The availability cascade is when a salient event, normally of low risk, catches attention of the public, and thus the attention of the media. This creates a feedback loop between the public and the media, which artificially amplifies the risk of the event. This can result in wasted resources and can be detrimental in some cases (e.g the apple chemical case, where a pesticide was labeled as a low-risk carcinogen and people stopped buying apples and actors testified to congress to remove it - public health was likely impacted negatively as fewer good apples were consumed as a result)
The combination of probability neglect (giving more weight to numerator (bad events) than the denominator (good events)) with the social mechanisms of availability cascades inevitably leads to exaggeration of minor threats, sometimes with important consequences Chapter 14: Tom W’s speciality
People tend to neglect base rates when provided specific details about someone. For example, when asking whether it is more likely for someone to be a farmer or librarian, farmers are more common, so we select that as per the base rates. When told whether a timid, organized, quiet loving individual is more likely to be a farmer or librarian, we guess librarian - neglecting the population base rate!
When System 2 is engaged (induced via frowning), people tend to be more analytical and thus account for the base rates more
Keys to disciplined Bayesian reasoning:
Anchor your judgement of the probability of an outcome on a plausible base rate
Question the diagnosticity of your evidence (intuitive impressions tend to exaggerate via the evidence)
Chapter 15: Linda: less is more
Linda is 31, majored in philosophy, has a passion for social justice and is deeply concerned with discrimination. What is more likely: that Linda is a bank teller, or that Linda is a bank teller who is also active in the feminist movement?
The second choice is less probable, since feminist bank tellers are a subset of bank tellers, so the probability of feminist bank teller has to be less, yet our intuition tells us otherwise
Chapter 17: Regression to the mean
Military flight instructors challenged the idea that rewards are more effective in improving behaviour than punishment. A chief challenged this idea: he argued that after he praised someone, they tended to do worse, and when he yelled at someone for doing something bad they tended to do better after. Due to fluctuations around a mean, unusually bad performances tend to be followed by better performances, and unusually good performances tend to be followed by worse performances. The chief just attributed these results to his punishment, rather to general statistical outcomes
A business commentator who correctly announces that “the business did better this year because it had done poorly last year” is likely to have short tenure on air, so they attempt to come up with causal stories to explain the results
Part 3: Overconfidence
Chapter 19: The illusion of understanding
Outcome bias: when the outcomes are bad, clients often blame their agents for not seeing the writing on the wall - forgetting that it was written in invisible ink that became legible only after. Actions that seemed prudent in foresight can look irresponsibly negligent in hindsight
Physicians, financial advisers, and politicians are prone to blame for good decisions that work out badly and are given little credit for successful moves that appear obvious only after the fact
Stories of success and failure, in the context of business, consistently exaggerate the impact of leadership style and management practices in firm outcomes – hence, their messages are rarely useful
These stories offer what the human mind needs: a simple message of triumph and failure that identifies clear causes and ignores the determinative power of luck and the inevitability of regression to the mean
Chapter 20: The illusion of validity
Confidence is a feeling, which reflects coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. Declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in their mind, not necessarily that the story is true
In the paper “Trading is hazardous to your wealth”, it was shown that on average the most active traders had the poorest results, whereas the investors with the least trading actions earned the highest results
In the paper “Boys will be boys”, it was shown that men act on their useless ideas significantly more than women (more risk-taking behaviour in males induced by more testosterone), and as a result women achieve better investment results than men
At an investment advisement firm, the author was provided with investment outcomes over 8 years for the firm’s advisers. What he found was that there was nearly zero correlation on average between year-to-year performance
The illusion of skill is deeply engrained in the culture of the investment industry. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions threaten to devalue peoples’ livelihoods and self-esteem and are thus not absorbed. When met with statistical proof that their results are due to chance, advisers choose to ignore it as it clashes with their personal impressions from experience
Chapter 20: Intuitions vs. formulas
• Statistical models consistently outperform - and are much more consistent - than experts in low validity environments. Example: for medical school admissions, adding interviews at the end and giving interviewers the final say of who’s accepted injects bias and uncertainties into the process, and the quality of candidates generally suffers as a result • Questions in an interview should be as objective as possible. It has been shown that scores accumulated from these more objective results can make useful predictions, whereas results based purely on somewhat unstructured interviews aren’t predictive of future success. Objective questions are also better guides for intuitive judgements - which perform on par with the scoring mechanism
Chapter 22: Expert intuition: when can we trust it?
Intuition cannot be trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment. A chess player’s intuition is valid, due to the predictable environment, whereas a stock picker’s intuition is likely false, due to the high dimensionality and unpredictability of the market
Experts who receive short term feedback are also more likely to develop intuitions, however with long term forecasts the feedback comes further away from the actions, and thus mapping that back to decision making is more difficult
Chapter 23: The outside view
Planning fallacy: when plans and forecasts are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios, and could be improved by consulting the statistics of similar cases
To avoid the planning fallacy in a new project:
First find your reference class to compare against
Obtain the statistics of outcomes from the reference class. Use this as a base rate for success
Slightly adjust the base rate based on your projects circumstances
Chapter 24: The engine of capitalism
From the finance industry to the medical industry, it is a sign of weakness and vulnerability for experts to appear unsure. Confidence is valued over uncertainty.
Clinicians who were completely certain of their diagnoses are wrong 40% of the time. Confidence intervals from CFOs on stock performance are more than 3 times likely for outcomes to lie outside their 80% confidence intervals (i.e surprises)
Part 4: Choices
Chapter 26: Prospect theory
Losses hurt more than gains, and gambles we are willing to take depend on our reference point. Losing 100$ when you have 100$ hurts a lot more than losing 100$ when you have 1000$.
Chapter 27: The endowment effect
People who buy products “for use”, rather than “for exchange”, tend to value losing the product as higher than if they were to buy it, e.g willing to pay $500 for a sold out concert ticket, but willing to sell it only for much more. This is an example of loss aversion, as the product holds sentimental value as well
Chapter 28: Bad events
Emotionally loaded words quickly attract attention, and bad words (war, crime) attract attention faster than happy words (peace, love)
Professional golfers rate of success for putts for par and birdies differs by nearly 4%: golfers perform slightly better on par putts to avoid the loss ensued by a bogey
Chapter 29: The fourfold pattern
The decision weights that people assign to outcomes are not identical to the probabilities of those outcomes: improbable outcomes are overweighted (the possibility effect), and near certain outcomes are underweighted relative to absolute certainty (the certainty effect)
A 0 to 5% chance of winning a million dollars is valued higher than a 5 to 10% chance (possibility effect). Likewise, a 95-100% chance is valued higher than a 65-70% chance of winning - certainty is valued more
Chapter 30: Rare events
Denominator neglect: for low probabilities, people tend to over emphasize the numerator and neglect the denominator. A vaccine that has a 0.001% chance to disable someone feels different than 1 in 100,000 children will be permanently disabled, because now we anchor to the 1 child and overemphasize the likelihood due to the emotional provocation
Researchers have leveraged this fact, one study stated “1000 homicides a year are committed by seriously mentally ill individuals”, which corresponds to a 0.00036% likelihood (1000/273mill). The researchers use the former to elicit a fear response to receive more funding for mental health research and services
Chapter 32: Keeping score
There exists a preference for selling winners rather than losers in the stock market - this is a bias towards feeling pleasure and the avoidance of feeling the pain of a loss. Yet, studies show it is slightly better to hold on to winners and let go of losers, selling winners is pleasurable but there is a cost to that pleasure
The sunk-cost fallacy is investing additional resources into a losing account because you have already committed to the account, when better investments are available elsewhere
In the context of gambling: people expect to be happier if they gamble and win, than if they refrained from gambling and got the same amount
People generally anticipate more regret than they will actually experience. You should not put too much weight on regret; even if you have some, it will hurt less than you now think
Chapter 34: Frames and reality
Individuals were provided a scenario in which they were given $50, and told they could either keep 20$, or lose 30$ - equivalent statements. There was a tendency to choose to keep 20$, as loss aversion makes the keeping frame more attractive
There was more amygdala (associated with emotional arousal) activation in subjects who produced an immediate tendency to approach the sure gain (keep 20) or avoid the sure loss (lose 30)
Those who resisted the keep 20, had more activity in the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict and self-control
Those who showed no preference in outcome, thus being more rational, showed enhanced activity in a frontal area of the brain that is implicated in combining emotion and reasoning to guide decisions
Medical professionals were more likely to suggest a surgery with a 90% survival rate than a surgery with a 10% mortality rate, even though these are equivalent statements
Part 5: Two selves
Chapter 35: Two selves
When rating the subjective pain experienced during an experience, rating done in the present don’t equate to the retrospective rating. Experiences with a prolonged painful duration, yet that gradually decrease in pain over time, are reported to be less painful than a quick experience that ends poorly
We can have a vastly net positive experience, but, if it ends on a poor note we’re quick to say that the experience was ruined, discounting all the positive experiences prior. This is confusing our experiences with the memory of them, and weighting the experience in our memory higher than the actual experience itself
Our memories do not remember based on a collective sum of our experience (i.e where duration of an experience would increase our perceived pain/pleasure), but rather a skewed average of the experience, where the most recent peak of pleasure and pain are over-valued.
Our memory neglects the duration of episodes, and thus does not serve our preferences for long pleasure and short pains
Chapter 36: Life as a story
When on vacation, our remembering self is more engaged, for example by taking pictures to engage with in the future (normally putting too much weight on the future self at the expense of the present self)
When asked how much you would pay for your last vacation if you hadn’t remembered it (i.e you got to experience it in the present but remembering self forgets), people would likely value the vacation less
Now imagine you undergo painful surgery in which you will be in pain and conscious, but you can take an amnesia pill to forget the experience - how does that sound? The preference goes to the remembering self. It’s odd, the present experience self is undervalued and somewhat a stranger, and we are our remembering selves
Chapter 37: Experienced well-being
To get pleasure from eating, you need to notice that you are doing it. It was found that women in France perceive eating as more pleasurable due to eating being twice as focal, despite eating for the same amount of time, than American women do (likely since American women spend time doing other things while eating which dilutes the pleasure)
Chapter 38: Thinking about life
The focusing illusion: nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it. Any aspect of life to which attention is directed will loom large in a global evaluation
Miswanting describes bad choices that arise from errors of affective forecasting. It makes us prone to exaggerate the effect of significant purchases or changed circumstances on our future well-being (e.g moving to this warmer place will make me happier)
This book sees how religion evolved alongside humans, from hunter gatherer tribes to civilizations. More emphasis on the monotheist Abrahamic religions.
The Birth and Growth of Gods
Primordial Faith
Animinism is the attribution of life to the inanimate, which is thought to be inhabited by a soul or spirit. This was primordial religion, where the soul hypothesis handidly answered difficult questions, such as why we dream
Animism is though to have evolved into polytheism, as if one believes that a tree has a soul, trees were to be collectively governed by a forest god
Shamans
Shamans developed as religious experts in hunter gatherer tribes. Credibility was gained through sheer luck or predictable outcomes (i.e saving the sun from an eclipse), and when their interventions failed they would lose support
Similar to how a series of bad bets by a stock market analyst leads to the conclusion that the analyst is out of touch, not that he was lucky in the first place
Shamans were likely to be among the first politicians, serving as counsel on matters of inter-tribal conflict. If something was going wrong within the tribe, the shaman would blame a shaman from a neighbouring tribe, much like a modern politician blames the other party
While more egalitarian than modern society, power imbalances could form where a shaman could amass gifts by instilling irrational fear in others. A common tactic would be to convince women that the way to please gods was to have sex with the shaman.
Religion in Ancient Chiefdoms
Religion in chiefdoms introduced a moral component, discouraging anti-social behaviour. With increasing population came less familiarity with your neighbours and more opportunity for exploitation.
Religion, serving as a means to maintain social cohesion, also made commoners prone to exploiatation by rulers. If rulers abused their power too much, they risked being overthrown internally (i.e a coupe) or from a neighbouring chiefdom due to weakened social moral
There exist early hisorical records of Polynesian specialists predicting wind patterns from star observations due to seasonal paatterns associated with astrological positions. This is an early example of science, where a correlation was found and a causal mechanism was attributed to the gods above
Gods of Ancient States
As chiefdoms grew into states, states that adopted religions gained a comptetive edge over others due to improved social cohesion. Religion provided citizens with a moral compass (i.e Egyptian gods would punish you for urinating in a public well)
Early conquerors were theologically flexible, absorbing the gods of the conquered into their theology to avoid needless squabbles within empires
The earliest hint of monotheism came in roughly 2000BCE in Bablyonia, where the supreme god Marduk essentially engulfed all other gods (i.e the old god of rain became Marduk’s hand). This was a simpler approach and improved theological flexibility
The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism
Polytheism, the Religion of Ancient Israel
In the first millenium BCE, the biblical god Yahweh was not yet omniscient. He planted the garden of Eden and walked around as Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit
Prior to monotheism, Israel went through a phase of granting existence to other gods, but condemning their worship
The book of Joshua recounts a swift defeat of Canaanites and a subsequent widespread adoption of Yahweh. However, archeological evidence shows that there was likely a slow transition from Canaanite to Israelite encouraged by a nomadic to agricultural transition
Different parts of the Bible reference god as El (the Canaanite god), and others as Yahweh, suggesting that there was likely a theological merger to keep both sides (Canaanites and Israelites) happy
The demythologization from mid century BCE bible editors was less to remove mythic tales and more to remove possibility of evidence of polytheism. Later translators removed the mythic narratives, likely because mythic tales fell out of fashion and epic tales were more believable
From Polytheism to Monolatry
The shift from embracing multiple gods to one god seems to be encouraged by foreign policy; Israel once participated in international trade with the powers around it (Egypt and Assyria) with the notion that immersion would make Israel richer. Hosea had a more xenophobic opinion that it was making Israel poorer, and they were being exploited, which encouraged embracing monolatry (worship of one god without denial of existence of others)
Class imbalances likely also fuelled the isolationist perspective, as multiple prophets objected the wealthy and their trade. “All who dress themselves in foreign attire” will be punished by Yahweh. International trade primarily benefited the mega rich, as their goods were the only goods that made long distance trade worthwhile
Domestic policy also encouraged monolatry. Israel has hundreds of prophets, thus supernatural pluralism. To consolidate political power, the Kings had to consolidate supernatural power. By weeding out the domestic pantheon, the king had a chance to expand his domestic power
“Rally round the flag” effect: when a nation faces a crisis, support for a nations leader grows. At the time Yahweh was the Israel’s god of foreign affairs. Israel, a small nation surrounded by great powers, often had to choose between war or peace that many Israelites found humiliating. The resultant hostility towards foreign powers made fertile grounds to reject other gods. Domestically, other indigenous Israelite gods were killed off, and a central area for prayer was established in Jerusalem so that king Josiah could keep a close watch on things
King Josiah used hyper nationalism to fuel the Yahweh only ideology and justify the slaughtering of nearby nations by suggesting that their victims suffered from theological confusion
From Monolatry to Monotheism
The momentous defeat of Israel by the Babylonian conquest, and the depth of the ensuing psychological trauma (being exiled and living in a place where the conquerors gods are worshipped) led to two options: either accept your god has lost or that your god allowed it at his will (which would make him even stronger than realized)
“Israel stands at the bottom of its political power, and it exalts its deity inversely as ruler of the whole universe.”
First Babylonia conquered Israel (7th century BCE), then Persia conquered Babylonia and thus Israel (6-4th century BCE), then the Greeks conquered Persia and thus Israel (mid 3rd century BCE)
The Israelites suffered for their infidelity to Yahweh, and now they try to keep the worlds other people from repeating their mistake. Yet, their methods for preventing other from making those mistakes are gruesome and vengeful, at least for the closer regions that once crossed them (bloodshed, slaughtering, etc. in the name of God)
One way humans cope with extended stress is to anticipate a better time ahead, the more intense the stress and more hopeless the situation, the more fabulous the coming times that are anticipated. The extreme form of this is apocalypticism: revelations of a day of salvation
Fast forwarding slightly, the final book of the New Testament, Revelation, is apocalyptic and looks toward a coming day of salvation. On that day the antichrist is vanquished, bearing the emblem of 666, which cryptically translates to Nero, a Roman emperor who spectacularly persecuted Christians. At this low point, Christians dreamed of vengeance and enshrined that dream in theology
Philo Story
During Philo’s time (~1st century BCE) in Alexandria (Egypt), he was a Jewish minority that lived in a Roman ruled city. In his scriptures, there is a theme of tolerance of other gods Had he been intolerant, the Emperor would have him killed
In the book of Jonah, God forgives the Ninevens (likely because they were too powerful at the time) and pities them for not knowing good from evil (i.e worshipping the wrong god). However, in other scriptures God encouraged and supported the slaughtering of Assyria and that they got what they deserved
The Priestly source has texts that encourage multi-nationalism and affirmation of other nations’ gods. This is likely due to the writers at this time living during the rule of the Persian empire, so to survive and have your texts see the light of day one had to follow the empiric narrative
However, that acceptance falls short when it comes to Egypt, who was an enemy to Persia at the time. Thus, the Priestly source recounts how Yahweh turned Egypt’s water supply into blood, had the frogs from the water swarm the Egyptians, then swarmed them with bugs (lice, gnats, mosquitos), then he inflicts festering boils on the skin of all humans and animals in Egypt. Then he kills every firstborn human and animal in Egypt. Then the Priestly source prescribes the Passover feast so that Israelites forever commemorate that night. The voice of the Persian empire conveniently had a way to ensure hostility towards Egypt by engraining it in the ritual calendar of Judaism
Logos: the Divine Algorithm
Philo interpreted god in terms of a “logos”, which essentially means god had a divine algorithm laid out for life on earth. He believed that the Torah, the Jewish law given to Moses, gave Jews a head start, as some of the rules laid out in the Torah were part of the logos (like dharma in Buddhism; it is the truth about how the universe works and the way we should live our lives)
Proverbs (and other Jewish wisdom books) were part of a large wisdom tradition in the ancient Middle East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia, initially for upper class boys as they approach manhood
Taking the moral advice on faith was a time-saver, advice such as “the rich man’s sleeplessness wastes away his flesh, and his anxiety drives away sleep” and “jealousy and anger shorten life, and worry ages a man prematurely” (these hold up in terms of todays scientific knowledge)
In the Gospel of John (New Testament), the English version (among other European versions) mistranslated “Logos” to “Word”. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” And Logos (peak wisdom, enlightenment) had assumed the form of Jesus Christ
The Invention of Christianity
What did Jesus do?
The bible’s gospel about Jesus’ life and words - the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - were written in 65-100 CE, roughly 35-75 years after his death. As the decades go by, the stories of Jesus get less constrained by historical memory and more impressive and fantastical
In the book of mark (earliest book) Jesus’ last words are “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, as though it was a terrible surprise. But, in the book of Luke he expresses no signs of doubt or surprise (as he knows god’s plan all along)
In the book of Mark, when some Pharisees ask for a sign from heaven from Jesus, he gets in a boat and huffs away, saying “Why does this generation ask for a sing? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” In later books, he gives more elaborate answer (i.e predicting his death and subsequent resurrection)
The latest book of John has Jesus performing spectacular miracles such as resurrecting Lazarus, whereas in the earlier books he was more reserved with them
Jesus’ small town of Nazareth (300 people) rejected him. The bible offers justifications for this of course. This would have been a town where most would have known Jesus personally, peculiar for them to reject him
“Love thy neighbour as yourself” likely referred to fellow Israelites, close neighbours. It is a recipe for Israelite social cohesion, not for interests in bonding. In the book of Mark, a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to exorcise her daughter, he responds with “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. The woman acknowledges her inferior status and only then Jesus performs the service
The Good Samaritan story is in the later book Luke, but in the book of Matthew, Jesus has this to say about Samaritans: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no tower of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. (Samaria has once been part of northern Israel, but successive imperial conquests caused Judaism to fail to take root)
The Apostle of Love
Apostle Paul was responsible for injecting Christianity with the notion of interethnic brotherly love - he was not one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. Quite the opposite, as he used to persecute followers of Jesus until he had a revelation (i.e a change of heart)
There was a lot of uprooted people in the Roman Empire around the 1st century, and a lot of people without kin gravitated towards social organizations that could substitute for the lack of family. This brought in many different people, and encouraged the notion of brotherly love to accrue more followers
The Roman Empire brought with it interconnected cities, and Paul harnessed the opportunity to ride the commercial currents that had been generated. Encouraging brotherly love helped the word spread, and encouraged the upper class to open their homes, enabling preachers to travel as they had a sort of hotel to stay at (with their “brothers”) while they moved around
As Paul traveled to spread the word of god, the churches broke into factionalism around different apostles. Paul wanted to dissuade this. As well, there were individuals who believed they were near spiritual perfection and would disrupt sermons by showing off their gifts (e.g. speaking in tongues) and Paul wanted to mitigate these as it was selfish, disruptive, and intimidated the common follower
How Jesus Became Saviour
The idea of followers following Jesus up to heaven after death came around 50 years after his death. In Mark, Jesus references a “kingdom of god”, where angel come down to earth and weed out bad people. Later in Matthew, this changes to “kingdom of heaven”, in which the souls of the good people ascend to heaven. For Jesus, judgement day was about the living, not the dead
The idea of eternal life after death likely came about to compete with other religions at the time (i.e the Egyptian god Osiris would hand out divine judgement after death). The “kingdom of god promise” on earth lost its magic, as Christians began to see loved ones dying. Christianity needed to provide a plausible explanation of how followers’ faiths would benefit them; what better way than to promise eternal bliss after death if you follow the rules
Some of these moral contingencies were about personal sins, like overindulgence. As society moved from hunter gather to civilization, they moved from outside of the natural habitat that natural selection optimized them for. Food was abundant, and humans are designed to consume calories; so, people would engage in self harming behaviour and religion helped to curve that behaviour
The Triumph of Islam
The Koran
Mecca’s famous shrine, the Kaba, was in pre-Islamic times surrounded by idols of gods of various clans as to lubricate commerce. Apparently, a Christian had been allowed to paint Jesus and Mary on an inner wall in the Kaba. Before Muhammad came along, Christian Arabs made pilgrimage to the Kaba, honouring Allah as their god and saviour
Mecca
Mecca was a trade city, and thus multiethnic, supporting multiple gods of different trade partners. When Muhammad started preaching against polytheism, he was a threat to the Meccan elite and therefore had to lay low
Mohammed was a typical apocalyptic preacher, preaching against the rich (he had come up as a poor orphan) so that he could amass a decent following. It wasn’t until he moved to Medina and amassed a larger following where he could really preach about the punishment of the nonbelievers
Medina
As Mohammed gained a following in Medina, he was eventually able to overpower Mecca and convert the Kaba into a monotheist shrine for the Abrahamic god. This also attempted to persuade Christians and Jews as it remained an Abrahamic shrine
“Break the Jews” story: Jews resisted Muhammad’s messages, noting contradictions between their bible and his teachings. Muhammad gave up on Jewish conversion, leading him to direct Muslims to pray towards the Mecca instead of Jerusalem. One by one he expelled Jewish tribes from Medina with a final bloody execution
Jihad
“Jihad” means strive/struggle, “Islam/Muslim” means surrender (i.e surrender to god)
The commonly referred to Koran verse by western conservatives “kill the infidels wherever you find them” is mistranslated, infidels is supposed to refer to those who join other gods with God (polytheists) . Still horrible, but not as a target to Jews and Christians. In the next (commonly omitted) verse however, polytheists are offered a chance to seek asylum, hear the word of god, and reach a place of safety
The Islamic empire would use religious intolerance to conquer other states, and once conquered would tolerate those of different religions to ensure peace within the empire. Those other than Muslims were to pay taxes and likely had a harder time making it up the social ladder. Over time as Christians converted to Islam to avoid taxation and incur the social benefit, and Christian numbers dwindled, the reduced threat of Christians allowed the Islamic state to be less tolerant of them
The Moral Imagination
Antipathy towards Muslims from the west is not in the interest of westerners, painting a broad offensive brush to all Muslims may tilt some moderate supporters to radical. Hatred blocks compassion, making it difficult to understand others well enough to keep them from joining the radical ranks
Moral imagination was designed by natural selection. We are better able to empathize with allies, as we both have something to gain through doing so. Empathizing with enemies, however, is designed to be difficult, as there could be a zero-sum relationship where resources/status are lost
Religions that have failed to align individual salvation with social salvation have not fared well. Any religion that doesn’t conduce to the salvation of the whole world, due to globalization, is a religion whose time has (hopefully) passed
Today, the negative-sum side (nukes, scale of regions) of the world’s non-zero-sumness is too large to be compatible with social salvation, hence religion as a means to conquer is no longer feasible
Buddhism under the influence of Indian emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE) insisted on respecting other religions in the empire and never demanded conversion. He renounced conquest (after witnessing what one of his had done). The most import conquest was the moral conquest, to find the path of moral truth (Dharma)
While scientific inquiry has brought material and scientific progress, religion has served to provide a moral inquiry that has brought moral progress. While atheists would counter the fact that a God is needed to sustain moral progress, there could be some people who require a higher order moral being - needing to feel that if they behave poorly they’ll be disappointing someone and if they behave well they’ll be pleasing someone
Perhaps God lies in the moral guides that evolved alongside human and cultural evolution, the pursuit to do the right thing for the group (in order to survive), the Logos. The feeling of letting others down and making others feel good could be in a sense God - in the form of the law of natural selection
Three basic principles of design for natural selection to ensure gene proliferation:
Achieving goals should bring pleasure so that they’re pursued
The pleasure shouldn’t last forever—if people had eternal pleasure after one round of sex, genes wouldn’t proliferate as much
The animal’s brain should focus more on (1) than on (2), otherwise they may start asking what the point of fiercely pursuing pleasure is to just see it wane shortly after
The way to make us productive is to make the anticipation of pleasure very strong but the pleasure itself not very long-lasting
Dopamine is involved in the anticipation of a reward. The first time you eat a donut you receive a large dopamine spike; the next time you see a donut, your brain starts firing dopamine and baits you into eating more, however, this time the dopamine drops after eating it again. This is the delusion, or misleading nature, of your brain overpromising a reward
Chapter 2: Paradoxes of meditation
To be a successful meditator you can’t think of meditation in terms of success
The people that meditation has the most potential of helping normally have the traits that make meditation more difficult (attention deficit, hot headedness, etc.)
Chapter 3: When are feeling illusions?
Feelings are designed to encode judgements about things in our environment. Due to evolutionary mismatches between ancient and modern life, feelings that were once optimized for our survival aren’t so
The powdered donut we crave is not good for our health. Road rage, although momentarily satisfying doesn’t serve the same purpose (anger ≡ the arrow with a poisoned root and a honeyed tip). In a hunter gatherer tribe if someone took advantage of you, you would be right to lash back so you don’t get taken advantage of, and so that others don’t see you as exploitable. This is no longer the case with automobiles and large cities
False positives are intentionally illusory, i.e., if a bush rustles next to you in rattlesnake country, you’re best to jump away in fear regardless of whether it’s an actual rattlesnake or not. This is your brain setting up the illusion before you can even process it in order to take care of your genes
A social psychology experiment from the 1980s had people go out and talk to people, but with realistic scars puts on the faces of the subjects. Half the group had their scars removed, unbeknownst to the subjects, yet when they went and spoke to people, they still perceived others as judging them for the scars
Our emotional intuitions were less often illusory in our evolutionary environment—making a fool of ourselves to our tribe that we saw everyday had consequences—but making a fool of ourselves on the bus in front of people we’ll never see again shouldn’t make us groan in despair for the next few days
“Our feelings weren’t designed to depict reality accurately even in our natural environment; the fact that we’re not living in a natural environment makes our feelings even less reliable guides to reality; underlying it all is the happiness delusion”
One thing all feelings have in common is that they were originally designed to convince you to follow them, they feel right and true almost by definition. They actively discourage you from viewing them objectively
Chapter 4: Bliss, ecstasy, and more important reasons to meditate
The “default mode network” is the network in which our mind wanders when it’s wandering, and it normally wanders into the past or future
Retreats help as they deprive the default mode network of fresh fuel, so it’s easier to eat in experiential mode
Enlightenment is ridding yourself of the twin illusions from which people tend to suffer: what’s inside your mind and what’s out in the rest of the world. Mindfulness involves observing the world inside you and outside you with inordinate care
Vipassana is also known as insight meditation, which tries to illuminate the three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering/unsatisfactoriness, and the not-self. To see reality with true clarity is to develop a high enough resolution of insight into these three marks
Chapter 5: The alleged nonexistence of your self
Buddha’s early seminal teaching in the notself involved a systematic search of the self in the five aggregates: the body, basic feelings, perceptions (i.e sights and sounds), mental formations (i.e thoughts), and consciousness (the awareness of the other aggregates)
Buddha mentions that if any of these aggregates were the self, we would be able to control them to avoid affliction, i.e., future suffering. We can’t modify the body, our feelings, and so on to avoid suffering—there is a lack of control which implies we’re more so along for the ride rather than a true CEO of ourselves
One idea is that consciousness holds more self weight than the other aggregates, and letting go of all five aggregates disentangles consciousness from the other four
In this sense, realizing the content of consciousness—thoughts, feelings, etc.—are not-self, then leads to a more contemplative than engaging relationship with the not-self
Side thought: as we have broken away from our evolutionary environment, we must also break away from the feelings that no longer serve us, that had once served us well during those times
The ability to disengage from thoughts and impulses and perceptions provides the power to disown them, to redefine the bounds of yourself in a way that excludes them
Chapter 6: Your CEO is MIA
From natural selection’s POV, it’s good for you to tell a coherent story about yourself; to depict a rational and self-aware character. So, whenever your actual motivations aren’t accessible to the part of your brain that communicates with the world, it would make sense for that part of your brain to generate stories about your motivation
The two misconceptions of the self involve illusions about our selves and about ourselves: we think our conscious is more in control than it is, and we think we are more morally good and capable than we are
The meditation process can be thought of as taking the conscious mind from speaker of the house to president, providing it an increased availing influence on behaviour
Chapter 7: The mental modules that run your life
An experiment was done where some men were shown pictures of beautiful women and some weren’t, and then tested on their willingness to delay gratification. The men whose mate acquisition modules were primed were found to be less willing to delay gratification—evolutionarily, men who saw signs of near-term courtship take advantage of any near-term resource acquisition. Though the men were conscious that it was just a photo and experiment, the underlying modules of the mind still influenced behaviour
Men when placed in the presence of women rather than men, were found to be more inclined to rate accumulation of wealth as an important career goal
Chapter 8: How thoughts think themselves
Zen is for poets, Tibetan is for artists, and Vipassana is for psychologists. Vipassana emphasizes mindfulness, Tibetan often steers the mind toward visual imagery, and Zen sometimes involves pondering those cryptic lines known as koans (a paradoxical anecdote or riddle)
Most of the thoughts that wander during breath work involve mental modules relating to mate-acquisition, status enhancement, taking care of kin, tending to friendships, modules that have been designed by natural selection to encourage survival. Another default module is imagining an escape in the future (i.e., enjoying a cold beer, playing video games, etc.) which are inventions that circumvent evolution’s logic, as they hack in directly to the reward centre
Thoughts arise due to a game being played between different mental modules, where eventually a winner takes hold of the conscious mind and presents the thought to your mind. Because these modules do the work outside of consciousness, the thoughts kind of surface out of nowhere
Thoughts analogy: thoughts are like watching a movie, we get pulled into the story and feel so many emotions—excitement, fear, love—and then we can sit back and see these are just pixels of light projects on a screen. It’s the same with our thoughts, we get caught up in the story and the drama of them, forgetting that they are like a movie: they are not really happening
This analogy can help provide power to choose which thoughts are healthy and productive, and which unhealthy thoughts we can let go of
One speculation is that the mental module that receives the honour of display to consciousness is the thought with the strongest associated feeling—whether it be pleasure, jealousy, regret, and so on. Feelings could be the labels to thoughts, labeled “high priority”, “low priority”, etc., and natural selection will determine that importance. If you’re a day away from an important presentation, preparation related thoughts are high priority, hence the high associated anxiety
Chapter 9: “Self” control
Decision making is less rational than we think, and more so based on feeling. Studies from Stanford/MIT showed that when people were shown products to buy, their brain activity mapped to emotional centre—in the nucleus accumbens for attraction, and the insula for aversion. Information is transformed into feelings before decisions are made
Prior to thoughts, animals were primarily driven by feelings—the brain provided positive feedback for things like eating, and negative feedback for things like being eaten. As animals and societies evolved, thoughts came to provide a way in which to navigate decision making in more complex environments
When practicing self control, we are not necessarily being more rational, but rather fortifying the feelings against the temptation. Natural selection wants us to live a long and healthy life and wants us to eat foods with certain kinds of tastes. Struggling for self control is a clash between these values of natural selection
Since all these deliberations are done subconsciously, why does the conscious participate? One theory is that if anyone challenges you or asks you why you did x, you’ll be able to cite a plausible rationale. It also helps to share reasons with others to get their feedback prior to decision making
Initial battles between mental modules end up disproportionately strengthening the winning module. In the case of self discipline, if we give in to a temptation, and are rewarded, our resistance to that temptation will atrophy over time. This is because in our ancestral environment, when, for example, a questionable sexual advance was rewarded, it would make sense to encourage it more. If it failed and you were ridiculed, it would encourage inaction in the future to avoid becoming a laughingstock
In other words, natural selection designed modules that get stronger with repeated success, and uses gratification as it’s working definition of success
The RAIN technique (Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Nonattachment) is a mindfulness technique used to treat impulses and addiction. When distracted during work, you might think: No, don’t think about that—back to work! The mindful approach is to say: Go ahead, engage in that thought. Close your eyes and imagine how it would feel to open YouTube, examine the feeling of wanting to go to YouTube. Examine it until it loses power, then…back to work!
Weaken impulses by not fighting it; instead, let it form and observe carefully. Hatred is also an impulse; it tempts us to engage in it because historically it was beneficial to undermine our enemies—and that would be rewarded with a good feeling. Treating it mindfully also provides a way to reduce the power of that impulse lever
Chapter 10: Encounters with the formless
Our perceptions are constructions of the world around us. Our perception systems sense light particles to see and sound waves to hear, to infer about our environment from afar. For example, our visual fields have a 2D basis, which combine to construct an inference of our 3D field. Optical illusions find loopholes in this inference to trick the mind into seeing something unusual
A sound by itself is passive, not active, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So, to make it unpleasant, you must attach a judgement or feeling to it
Everything meaningful about the world is something we impose on it. We build our perceptions on stories, and mindfulness meditation is a tool for examining our stories carefully, from the ground up, so that we can separate truth from fabrication
Chapter 11: The upside of emptiness
The Capgras delusion is when someone assumes that a loved one has been replaced with a replica when it’s the real person. The emotions, or essence, normally associated with the perceptual information of that person have suddenly lost their value and the delusional person goes “crazy”
We ascribe value to things based on the emotions they evoke, this is “essentialism”. A tape measured once owned by a famous person is inherently more valuable than an ordinary tape measurer, despite the objects being materialistically identical
An experiment with professional wine tasters showed that when labeling the same wine as premium bordeaux and standard, the premium was thought to taste better. We value things based on the stories behind them, but this in turn masks the truth about what we’re experiencing. Had these wine tasters not been deluded, they would have experienced the truer taste of the wine, i.e., that they were identical
Some describe the emptiness idea as “full emptiness”, where sometimes not seeing the essence, or story, of things allows you to be drawn into the richness of things, their raw beauty
Brain scan studies, where subjects responded to the taste of the same wine labeled as $90 and $10, found that the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) was more active in the $90 drink. This region’s activity correlates with pleasurable experience. However, regions associated with sense tasting were not affected differently. The mOFC seems to be where the story, and hence expectation, mixes in with the raw sensory data to provide the “hedonic” experience of flavour
Chapter 12: A weedless world
Fundamental attribution error is attributing others behaviour to disposition, not situation; we locate the badness in others, not in their environmental factors
It makes sense that in a self-serving way, we attribute behaviours we see to people’s dispositions—seeing them as possessing a good or bad essence that is most in our interest to see them possessing. We neglect that their behaviour could be different around others. Conveniently, our allies have essence-of-good and rivals an essence-of-bad.
We have an essence-preservation mechanism that makes our enemies more readily blameworthy for bad behaviour than our allies. This makes it easy to witness the suffering of our enemies with indifference or even satisfaction, as natural selection has implanted a sense of justice into our brains
Experiencing your feelings with care and clarity allows you to choose which ones to follow—like joy, delight, and love. This selective engagement with feelings, this weakened obedience to them, can include the feelings that shape the essence we see in things and people
The ultimate aim of Buddhism is not to become completely unemotional, i.e., emotionally flat. It rather enriches emotional life, so that one becomes more emotionally sensitive, more happy and joyful. One can respond to things in the world in a freer, more happy, more delightful way
Chapter 13: Everything is one (at most)
In the four noble truths, Buddha lays out that the basic cause of dukkha (suffering) is tanha (thirst, craving, desire) and that tanha is unquenchable and leaves of thirsting for more of the same or for something new
The more tanha one has, the more distinct the bounds between the self and the object of the tanha. Emotions involving tanha seem to point to an unspoken boundary between the self and the desired or undesired scenario; thus, tanha will not only indicate but also create and drive the sense of self-other boundedness
The interior perspective of not-self involves inspecting feelings and detaching from them. The external component of not-self can be thought of as follows: as the grip of desires—tanha—wanes, so does the sense of self that distinguishes you from the rest of your environment, so that the not-self experience extends outwards
A refrain appearing in Buddhist texts is that of the three poisons: greed (general thirst for pleasant experience), hatred (aversion toward anything), and delusion. The two sides of tanha are a craving for pleasant and an aversion to the unpleasant. This in turn emphasizes the sense of self, which in the Buddhist sense is a delusion
Chapter 14: Nirvana in a nutshell
Mindfulness meditation enables the liberation from conditions, i.e., the chains of causation that otherwise shackle you. The things in your environment—the sights, sounds, smells, people, news, videos—push buttons and activate feelings that set in motion trains of thought and reactions that govern your behaviour, sometimes in ways that are unfortunate
Enlightenment in the Buddhist sense has something in common with enlightenment in the western scientific sense: it involves becoming more aware of what causes what. Mindfulness is more introspective, with lessened ability of rigorous proofs, but invokes rational inquiry of the thoughts and feelings arriving to consciousness via external stimuli
Chapter 15: Is enlightenment enlightening?
A rebellion against an oppressive enemy focuses the mind and steels you for the struggle ahead. In the context of Buddhism, this enemy can be seen as natural selection, the engineer of the delusions that control us, it built those delusions into our brains
We have a right to decide, like Neo of the Matrix, that our values differ from the force that controls us, and that we want liberation from it
One element of enlightenment, the exterior version of the not-self experience (in which bounds between internal and external experience dissolve), involves abandoning one of the most basic precepts built into us by natural selection: that I am special by virtue of being me
Working towards enlightenment involves loosening the grip of natural selection over you. In the exterior sense, everyone on the planet thinking that they are more special than everyone else is absurd; it can’t be that everybody is more important than everybody else: rejecting this notion must move us closer to the truth
Identifying with these thoughts and feelings, which are used to proliferate genes, is another way of asserting our specialness. In the interior self case, cease self-identifying with your thoughts and feelings, reject natural selection’s values
The view from nowhere—impartiality (not thinking one’s perspective is as important as anyone else’s)—still involves concern for the well-being of all sentient beings. This concern would be evenly distributed such that no one’s welfare is more important than anyone else’s (equanimity)
The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, 2018
This book touches on the recent developments in some American universities, and tries to identify some of the causal mechanisms that give rise to the “… new problems on campus, [which] have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.”
Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
A book about psychological truths that we tend to pretend don’t exist but are more or less obvious, much like the saying “the elephant in the room”. Hence the title, the elephant in the brain.
This book sees how religion evolved alongside humans, from hunter gatherer tribes to civilizations. More emphasis on the monotheist Abrahamic religions.
Science is delightful; evolution has arranged that we take pleasure in understanding—those who better understand are more likely to survive.
Chapter 1: The shore of the cosmic ocean
Chapter 2: One voice in cosmic fugue
On the plant and animal relationship: “What a marvellous cooperative arrangement—plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet wide mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometres away.”
DNA knows what to do, RNA conveys the instructions of the DNA to the rest of the cell (to make proteins?)
If the mutation rate is too high, we lose the inheritance of four billion years of painstaking evolution. If too low, variation may be too low to adapt to a changing environment. Life requires a precious balance between mutation and selection
In all life, nucleic acid is used for heredity (DNA), proteins are used for the enzymes that control cell chemistry (as per messenger RNA instructions received from DNA).
Nucleic acid information is translated into protein information
Chapter 3: The harmony of worlds
Martin Luther described Copernicus as “an upstart astrologer…[who] wishes to reverse the science of astronomy. But sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth.”
Chapter 4: Heaven and Hell
Planets in our solar system have near circular orbits—not as elliptical as comets, say—because of a sort of planetary selection. Elliptical orbits would have had higher likelihood of collision, stymying the formation of planets. Wider, more circular orbits allowed amalgamation of matter with lower likelihood of collision.
“Science is generated by and devoted to free inquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits.”
“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but is not the path to knowledge.”
Chapter 5: Blues for a red planet
Strong passions fray the tolerance for ambiguity, which is essential for science
“The twin human passions for Euclidean geometry and territoriality.”
Chapter 6: Travelers’ tales
Leuwenhook and Huygens, products of Netherlands explorative and entrepreneurial era, were early discoverers of microscopic organisms (animalcules). Their work grandfathered germ theory and much of modern medicine, but their motives were merely related to tinkering with recently developed technology
The benefits a technology brings need not be realized upon the technology’s discovery. Technology can bring about unforeseen downstream effects, which can be beneficial or harmful.
Jupiter is nearly a star and may as well be considered one if we consider its infrared radiation. Jupiter generates 2x more energy than it receives from the sun.
If there were two stars in our solar system, we could have had no night-time. In this kind of world, would sleep be required? Would sleep-states be rationed throughout “days”? The notion of day would change to whatever salient energy patterns arise due to our planet’s rotation and translation. How would evolution unfurl without night-time?
Chapter 7: The backbone of night
“When…he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon…does he, in fact, do anything more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?” - Paul Heinrich Dietrich
Early Greeks believed the first being was Chaos (corresponding to the phrase in Genesis “without form”). Then, Ionians argued Nature exhibits order: there are regularities in Nature that permit its secrets to be unveiled. This ordered character of the universe was called Cosmos.
“Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.” -Hippocrates, ~500BC
Chapter 8: Travels in space and time
“Space and time are interwoven. We cannot look out into space without looking back into time.”
Chapter 9: The lives of the stars
Supernovae occur at the end of a star’s life, where stellar mass is violently ejected into space. During this ejection, thermonuclear reactions in the stellar interior fuse smaller atoms into larger atoms—this is where hydrogen combines into helium, then carbon, then oxygen, and so on until silicon and iron. We are formed by these atoms as well—we were birthed by the death of a star once located somewhere in our galaxy.
Heavier atoms, like gold and uranium, are formed in the violent explosions of supernova. This high local pressure and temperature can fuse heavier atoms together. Embedded in uranium is the energy of a distant supernova that birthed the matter that forms Earth. Incredible.
Almost all life is solar powered. Even mutation itself is solar powered—cosmic rays create mutations which cause hereditary variation
Normally atoms in kind are repelled by their electron fields and protons. Why don’t the protons in their nucleus repel each other? Neutrons apparently serve to bind the protons together, like a nuclear clamp
When temperatures and pressures are high enough, enough energy is provided to overcome the nuclear aversion between atoms and fuse them together, creating larger atoms
Larger stars (3-5x) than the sun experience higher pressure and temperatures, thus consuming nuclear fuel at a higher rate. The lifetimes of larger stars tend to be much shorter (order of a few million years) until they die, explode, and fraction into smaller solar systems with smaller stars. Our sun is one of those smaller stars, and its long life is one of the reasons life has been able to evolve to a point where we can understand the stars themselves.
When even larger stars (>10x sun) die, their implosion generates a black hole, whose gravity is so immense that even light cannot escape. The gravity causes three-dimensional space time to sink within itself, generating a fourth dimension unbeknownst to us.
Chapter 10: The edge of forever
If the universe is expanding, as observed by prevalent elongated—red—spectra, then why aren’t we the center about which everything is expanding? The answer may lie in a fourth dimension.
Say the three dimensions observable to us are akin to a two-dimensional plane on a sphere, observable to two-dimensional folk. We may occupy a surface of a four-dimensional hypersphere, unaware of the fourth dimension as the 2D folk are unaware of the third. And if our hypersphere is expanding, the surface fabric of space time we occupy would be expanding in all directions.
Chapter 11: The persistence of memory
The brain is a very big place in a very small space. It has the informational equivalent of 10^14 bits, information which could fill some twenty million volumes, as many as the world’s largest libraries
Chapter 12: Encyclopedia galactica
Chapter 13: Who speaks for earth?
Subtle consequences of nuclear war (beyond immediate blast and radiation)
Ozone depletion in high atmosphere due to combustion of nitrogen, increasing solar UV radiation. Skin cancer risk increase, crops decimated, and microorganisms killed—some of which could sit at the base of the ecological pyramid
Dust and ash would reflect sunlight, cooling the planet and disrupting agricultural crops
Birds are more vulnerable to radiation than insects. With less insectivores, plagues would be imminent as insect populations explode
Immunological function is hindered by radiation, making the few survivors more vulnerable to diseases
When our well-being is threatened and our illusions challenge, some of us fly into a murderous rage. Sagan suggests the same thing happens at the nation scale, and that conflict is coerced by a few power/profit hungry entities
Some estimate that roughly half of scientists and high technologists are employed full or part time on military matters. They’re offered power, money, accolades, and secrecy, which obviously attracts
This secrecy is a challenge, however, because not even civilians can monitor the going-ons of their militaries. If we do not know what our militaries do, how can we stop them? “And with the rewards so substantial, with the hostile military establishments beholden to each other in some ghastly mutual embrace, the world finds itself drifting toward the ultimate undoing of the human enterprise.”
Every major power has a justification for its production and stockpiling of weapons. These justifications often presume cultural defects of enemies (as opposed to us fine fellows) or the intentions of others (but never ourselves) to conquer the world.
“Superstition is cowardice in the face of the Divine.” - Theophrastus
To not confuse what things are with how we wish they’d be
Only here, on this planet, do humans likely exist. We are a raw as well as an endangered (due to ourselves) species. In the cosmic perspective, humans are precious. So, if a human disagrees with you, let them live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened to include the entire global human community. Many nations will find this unpleasant, fearing the loss of power. But it is this or extinction.
“It sometimes happens that [the odd man] bears within himself the heart of the whole, while the other people of his epoch have all for some reason been torn away from it for a time by some kind of flooding wind.”
Fyodor’s first wife was well-off, while he was not. Narrator suggests Adelaida was an echo of foreign influence, a mind imprisoned, wanting to assert her feminine independence and go against social conventions, despite the despotism of her relatives. Fyodor latched on for the potential of social status. Neither loved each other, both using each other to satiate their respective desires for anti-conformity (Adelaida) and status (Fyodor)
When Adelaida left him, Fyodor gleefully recounted his woes to all. “One would think you had been promoted, you’re so pleased despite all your woes!”
In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.
Wickedness stems from banal ignorance
Fyodor abandoned his first son, not out of malice, but simply because he totally forgot about him
“Who was apparently not wicked but had become a most insufferable crank from sheer idleness.”
“…that eternally needy and miserable mass of our students of both sexes who…habitually haunt the doorways of various newspapers and magazines…to invent anything better than the eternal repetition of one and the same plea for copying work or translations from the French.”
“The question of atheism…of the Tower of Babel built precisely without God, not to go from earth to heaven but to bring heaven down to earth.”
The issue with bringing heaven to earth, is that it runs counter to the theme of delayed gratification that the concept of heaven attempts to instil in followers. Heaven is like a macro-level delayed gratification mechanism, urging people to forego selfish urges in promise of blissful paradise—yet this paradise realistically lies within the future generations of the social group. When we try to bring blissful paradise to earth with no faith, the future risks crumbling in the wake of hedonic indulgence—hell. Faith is our ability to look ahead, and if we don’t look ahead, we get nowhere.
“Perhaps…this tested and already thousand year old instrument for the moral regeneration of man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfection may turn into a double edged weapon, which may lead a person not to humility and ultimate self-control but, on the contrary, to the most satanic pride—that is, to chains and not freedom.”
Like Buddhas story of self-indulgence to self-mortification
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies…does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.”
“It sometimes feels very good to take offense…he likes feeling offended…and thus he teaches the point of real hostility.”
About a doctor: “the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular.”
“And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie.”
A precondition to fear is uncertainty, and we sometimes fill in that uncertainty with a more certain and fearsome outcome. This is the lie.
Are there honest fear responses? If I see a venomous snake, is being fearful of that signal honest?…the fear is still predicated on a projection into the future, I suppose, that the snake could harm me, but it hasn’t harmed me yet. Even if it bites me, I may become scared of the consequences, but that’s because I don’t know what will happen (uncertainty). Fear depends on a projection, and that projection is always a lie, an abstraction, a fiction.
Ivan proposes against separation of church and state. Suggests that the state should end by being accounted worth of becoming the church, from a lower to higher type.
At the time in Russia, criminals were punished mechanically, cut off like an infected limb for the preservation of society. Ivan suggests the state should strive towards the idea of regeneration of man anew, of their restoration and salvation.
The elder claims the mechanical punishment option is not punishment, it only chafes the heart. The real punishment lies in the acknowledgment of one’s own conscience.
You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy…seek happiness in sorrow.
Mitri to Alyosha: “the terrible thing is that beauty is not only fearful but also mysterious. Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the human heart.”
Selfish urges battling with communal urges — both urges exist, selfish being more rewarding in the present (tangible and familiar), communal being more rewarding in the future (less tangible, feels more godly and ethereal)
Do they truly love? Or do they simply love their own virtue?
“In our great intelligence, we’ve stopped flogging our peasants, but they go on whipping themselves.”
Father Paissy in a remark about growing scientific interest: “…after hard analysis, the learned ones…have absolutely nothing left of what was once holy. But they have examined the parts and missed the whole, and their blindness is even worthy of wonder. Meanwhile the whole [Christianity] stands before their eyes as immovably as ever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Fyodor Pavlovich: “wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this sincerity of mine, the wicked ones all attack me”
“But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride…”
“Schoolchildren are merciless people: separately they’re God’s angels, but together, especially in school, they’re quite often merciless.”
“For the daughter—love, and for the mother—death.” o In reference to Madame Khokhlakov’s greed for her daughter, and unwillingness to let her crippled daughter marry Alyosha. Her daughter depends on her, and once she no longer depends on her mother, for where can the mother find her worth?
“The stupider, the clearer. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while reason hedges and hides. Reason is a scoundrel, stupidity is direct and honest.”
Reason involves nuance, making it complex and elusive. Stupidity takes shortcuts, slashing away at nuance, making things easier to understand but often less true.
“It is precisely the defencelessness of these creatures the tempts the torturers, the angelic trustfulness of the child, who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to.”
“If I wanted to understand something, I would immediately have to betray the fact, but I’ve made up my mind to stick to the fact…”
“For nothing has ever been more insufferable for man than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching dessert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them…”
“No science will give them bread as long as they remain free, but in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: ‘Better that you enslave us, but feed us.’ They will finally understand that freedom and earthly bread in plenty for everyone are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share among themselves.”
There is no more ceaseless or tormenting care for man, as long as he remains free, than to find someone to bow down to as soon as possible. But man seeks to bow down before that which is indisputable [to all of man] …for it must happen all together. And this need for communality of worship is the chief torment of each man individually, of mankind as a whole, from the beginning of the ages. In the cause of universal worship, they have destroyed each other with the sword.”
“Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him.”
“There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either…There are three powers…capable of conquering and holding captive forever these feeble rebels, for their own happiness—these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority.”
“If in the name of heavenly bread thousands follow you, what will become of the millions of creatures not strong enough to forgo earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly?…the weak too are dear to us…depraved and rebels, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will marvel at us…because we…have agreed to suffer freedom and to rule over them [ouch]—so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free!”
“Since man cannot bear to be left without miracles, he will go and create miracles for himself, his own miracles of quacks, or women’s magic, though he be rebellious, heretical, and godless a hundred times over.” o Modern examples are astrology, tarot cards, and politics
“You [Jesus] did not come down [from the cross] because, again, you did not want to enslave man by a miracle and thirsted for faith that is free, not miraculous. You thirsted for a love that is free, and not for the servile raptures of a slave before a power that has left him permanently terrified.”
“Mankind in its entirety has always yearned to arrange things so that they must be universal. There have been many great nations…but the higher these nations stood, the unhappier they were, for they were more strongly aware than others for the need for a universal union of mankind.”
“Freedom, free reason, and science will lead them into such a maze, and confront them with such miracles and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, unruly and ferocious, will exterminate themselves [because they only have the power to bring themselves down]; others, unruly but feeble, will exterminate each other; and the remaining third, feeble and wretched, will crawl to our feet and cry out to us: ‘Yes, you were right…save us from ourselves.’”
“For he is accustomed to relying only on himself, he has separated his unit from the whole, he has accustomed his soul to not believing in people’s help, in people or in mankind, and now only trembles lest his money and acquired privileges perish.”
“Everywhere now the human mind has begun laughably not to understand that a man’s true security lies not in his own solitary effort, but in the general wholeness of humanity.”
“For the world says: ‘You have needs, therefore satisfy them…Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them’—this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of this right to increase one’s needs? For the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder.”
“We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united…by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people. Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves. They live only for mutual envy, for pleasure-seeking and self-display…I ask you: is such a man free?”
“The idea of serving mankind, of the…oneness of people, is fading…for how can one drop one’s habits, where will this slave go now that he is so accustomed to satisfying the innumerable needs he himself has invented?…They have succeeded in amassing more and more things, but have less and less joy.”
“If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more each day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.”
Being present and attentive about life’s intricacies. There lies an eternity in every grain of sand, every bird’s chirp, every gentle smile. If you can’t see the eternity, you aren’t looking deeply enough
“My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.”
“Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, still it would be easier for the birds, and for a child, and for any animal near you, if you yourself were more gracious than you are now, if only by a drop, still it would be easier.”
When those ridicule the practice of non-harm by the Buddhists, who refuse to even harm an insect, this is what I think of. If we can learn to love even pesky insects, reducing our disgust and hatred of them, we reduce the chances of that hatred and disgust being directed toward fellow humans
“By shifting your own laziness and powerlessness into others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against god.”
Radiate selflessness, not selfishness.
“If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all.”
“The righteous man departs, but his light remains…Your work is for the whole, your deed is for the future.”
This light that he leaves behind is heaven—a better place to live.
“What is hell? The suffering of being no longer able to love.”
“But Rakitin, who could be quite sensitive in understanding everything that concerned himself, was quite crude in understanding the feelings and sensations of his neighbours—partly because of his youthful inexperience, and partly because of his great egoism.”
“One should forgive pathetic phrases, one must. Pathetic phrases ease the soul, without them men’s grief would be too heavy.”
When Mitya is being questioned and has to remove his clothes: “If everyone is undressed, it’s not shameful, but when only one is undressed and the others are all looking—it’s a disgrace!”
How I felt on a bus ride in Seattle, near the end of the pandemic, when I forgot a mask (regardless, the mandate had recently lifted) and everyone had still worn a mask, so that I was the only maskless—“undressed”—person on the bus. The social pressure I felt was unbearably crushing. Lol
To suffer and be purified by suffering
“Because what is virtue?—answer me that, Alexei. I have one virtue and a Chinese has another—so it’s a relative thing. Or not?..I just keep wondering how people can live and think nothing about these things.” - Mitya to Alyosha
The same people who naively neglect forces larger than themselves are most prone to being thrust around by those forces. Ivan is a man of science, striving towards objective truth and ridiculing the unknown. But his naive rejection of the unknown leaves him vulnerable to his passions, which ironically makes the journey to truth much more difficult
“You’re too intelligent, sir. You love money…you also love respect, because you’re very proud, you love women’s charms exceedingly, and most of all you love loving in peaceful prosperity, without bowing to anyone.”
“If everything on earth were sensible, nothing would happen.”
“Without suffering, what pleasure would there be in [life]—everything would turn into an endless prayer service: holy, but a bit dull.”
Mentions of a legend in which a philosopher doubtful of the afterlife, who mentions the lights will simply go out at death, is sentenced in the afterlife to walk in the dark for a quadrillion kilometres.
Metaphorically, those who are dismissive about sin, not fearful of consequences beyond their own life, are leaving society in the dark, bound to walk aimlessly for a quadrillion kilometres. Faith in something larger provides the guiding light; lack of faith leaves us aimless. Note that this does not imply that we must believe in a supernatural afterlife, rather we must recognize that life continues after us, and we can provide to that afterlife rather than burden it.
Ivan’s spiritual ambivalence eats away at him. He yearns for the certainty of faith found in the devout, seemingly ignorant, and spiritually blissful followers (like the plump wife of a merchant)
“Out of pride he will understand that he should not murmur against the momentariness of life, and he will love his brother then without any reward. Love will satisfy only the moment of life, but the very awareness of its momentariness will increase its fire.”
Each of our lives may be momentary, but they are part of a larger symphony. Seeing it as momentary—divorced from prior or future generations—is a mistake, an oversimplification. You couldn’t exist without your ancestors, and the future couldn’t exist without you, and if you believe in making the world better, you have a duty to serve the past, present, and future.
“God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit…He will either rise into the light of truth, or…perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in.”
Regarding Dmitri’s trial turnout: “Hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity could be read on [the ladies’] faces.” Dostoevsky does a great job at highlighting the comical yet concerning female urge for gossip and drama.
“The contemptuously curious eyes fixed upon her by our scandal-loving public.”
“For now we are either horrified or pretend that we are horrified, while, on the contrary, relishing the spectacle, like lovers of strong, eccentric sensations that stir our cynical and lazy idleness, or, finally, like little children waving the frightening ghosts away, and hiding our heads under the pillow until the frightening vision is gone, so as to forget it immediately afterwards in games and merriment.”
We were no different in the late 1800s. Gobbling up stories of suffering with relish and a hint of concern and forgetting them shortly after.
“Everything contrary to the idea of a citizen, a complete, even hostile separation from society: ‘Let the whole world burn, so long as I am all right.’”
“There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love, and it will…expand and show how merciful God is, and how beautiful and just people are.”
Science is delightful; evolution has arranged that we take pleasure in understanding—those who better understand are more likely to survive.
Chapter 1: The shore of the cosmic ocean
Chapter 2: One voice in cosmic fugue
On the plant and animal relationship: “What a marvellous cooperative arrangement—plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet wide mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometres away.”
DNA knows what to do, RNA conveys the instructions of the DNA to the rest of the cell (to make proteins?)
If the mutation rate is too high, we lose the inheritance of four billion years of painstaking evolution. If too low, variation may be too low to adapt to a changing environment. Life requires a precious balance between mutation and selection
In all life, nucleic acid is used for heredity (DNA), proteins are used for the enzymes that control cell chemistry (as per messenger RNA instructions received from DNA).
Nucleic acid information is translated into protein information
Chapter 3: The harmony of worlds
Martin Luther described Copernicus as “an upstart astrologer…[who] wishes to reverse the science of astronomy. But sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth.”
Chapter 4: Heaven and Hell
Planets in our solar system have near circular orbits—not as elliptical as comets, say—because of a sort of planetary selection. Elliptical orbits would have had higher likelihood of collision, stymying the formation of planets. Wider, more circular orbits allowed amalgamation of matter with lower likelihood of collision.
“Science is generated by and devoted to free inquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits.”
“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but is not the path to knowledge.”
Chapter 5: Blues for a red planet
Strong passions fray the tolerance for ambiguity, which is essential for science
“The twin human passions for Euclidean geometry and territoriality.”
Chapter 6: Travelers’ tales
Leuwenhook and Huygens, products of Netherlands explorative and entrepreneurial era, were early discoverers of microscopic organisms (animalcules). Their work grandfathered germ theory and much of modern medicine, but their motives were merely related to tinkering with recently developed technology
The benefits a technology brings need not be realized upon the technology’s discovery. Technology can bring about unforeseen downstream effects, which can be beneficial or harmful.
Jupiter is nearly a star and may as well be considered one if we consider its infrared radiation. Jupiter generates 2x more energy than it receives from the sun.
If there were two stars in our solar system, we could have had no night-time. In this kind of world, would sleep be required? Would sleep-states be rationed throughout “days”? The notion of day would change to whatever salient energy patterns arise due to our planet’s rotation and translation. How would evolution unfurl without night-time?
Chapter 7: The backbone of night
“When…he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon…does he, in fact, do anything more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?” - Paul Heinrich Dietrich
Early Greeks believed the first being was Chaos (corresponding to the phrase in Genesis “without form”). Then, Ionians argued Nature exhibits order: there are regularities in Nature that permit its secrets to be unveiled. This ordered character of the universe was called Cosmos.
“Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.” -Hippocrates, ~500BC
Chapter 8: Travels in space and time
“Space and time are interwoven. We cannot look out into space without looking back into time.”
Chapter 9: The lives of the stars
Supernovae occur at the end of a star’s life, where stellar mass is violently ejected into space. During this ejection, thermonuclear reactions in the stellar interior fuse smaller atoms into larger atoms—this is where hydrogen combines into helium, then carbon, then oxygen, and so on until silicon and iron. We are formed by these atoms as well—we were birthed by the death of a star once located somewhere in our galaxy.
Heavier atoms, like gold and uranium, are formed in the violent explosions of supernova. This high local pressure and temperature can fuse heavier atoms together. Embedded in uranium is the energy of a distant supernova that birthed the matter that forms Earth. Incredible.
Almost all life is solar powered. Even mutation itself is solar powered—cosmic rays create mutations which cause hereditary variation
Normally atoms in kind are repelled by their electron fields and protons. Why don’t the protons in their nucleus repel each other? Neutrons apparently serve to bind the protons together, like a nuclear clamp
When temperatures and pressures are high enough, enough energy is provided to overcome the nuclear aversion between atoms and fuse them together, creating larger atoms
Larger stars (3-5x) than the sun experience higher pressure and temperatures, thus consuming nuclear fuel at a higher rate. The lifetimes of larger stars tend to be much shorter (order of a few million years) until they die, explode, and fraction into smaller solar systems with smaller stars. Our sun is one of those smaller stars, and its long life is one of the reasons life has been able to evolve to a point where we can understand the stars themselves.
When even larger stars (>10x sun) die, their implosion generates a black hole, whose gravity is so immense that even light cannot escape. The gravity causes three-dimensional space time to sink within itself, generating a fourth dimension unbeknownst to us.
Chapter 10: The edge of forever
If the universe is expanding, as observed by prevalent elongated—red—spectra, then why aren’t we the center about which everything is expanding? The answer may lie in a fourth dimension.
Say the three dimensions observable to us are akin to a two-dimensional plane on a sphere, observable to two-dimensional folk. We may occupy a surface of a four-dimensional hypersphere, unaware of the fourth dimension as the 2D folk are unaware of the third. And if our hypersphere is expanding, the surface fabric of space time we occupy would be expanding in all directions.
Chapter 11: The persistence of memory
The brain is a very big place in a very small space. It has the informational equivalent of 10^14 bits, information which could fill some twenty million volumes, as many as the world’s largest libraries
Chapter 12: Encyclopedia galactica
Chapter 13: Who speaks for earth?
Subtle consequences of nuclear war (beyond immediate blast and radiation)
Ozone depletion in high atmosphere due to combustion of nitrogen, increasing solar UV radiation. Skin cancer risk increase, crops decimated, and microorganisms killed—some of which could sit at the base of the ecological pyramid
Dust and ash would reflect sunlight, cooling the planet and disrupting agricultural crops
Birds are more vulnerable to radiation than insects. With less insectivores, plagues would be imminent as insect populations explode
Immunological function is hindered by radiation, making the few survivors more vulnerable to diseases
When our well-being is threatened and our illusions challenge, some of us fly into a murderous rage. Sagan suggests the same thing happens at the nation scale, and that conflict is coerced by a few power/profit hungry entities
Some estimate that roughly half of scientists and high technologists are employed full or part time on military matters. They’re offered power, money, accolades, and secrecy, which obviously attracts
This secrecy is a challenge, however, because not even civilians can monitor the going-ons of their militaries. If we do not know what our militaries do, how can we stop them? “And with the rewards so substantial, with the hostile military establishments beholden to each other in some ghastly mutual embrace, the world finds itself drifting toward the ultimate undoing of the human enterprise.”
Every major power has a justification for its production and stockpiling of weapons. These justifications often presume cultural defects of enemies (as opposed to us fine fellows) or the intentions of others (but never ourselves) to conquer the world.
“Superstition is cowardice in the face of the Divine.” - Theophrastus
To not confuse what things are with how we wish they’d be
Only here, on this planet, do humans likely exist. We are a raw as well as an endangered (due to ourselves) species. In the cosmic perspective, humans are precious. So, if a human disagrees with you, let them live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened to include the entire global human community. Many nations will find this unpleasant, fearing the loss of power. But it is this or extinction.
The four horsemen of leveling: mass mobilization warfare, transformative revolution, state failure, and lethal pandemics
Ways in which to measure inequality:
Gini coefficient: measures extent to which the distribution of income or material assets deviate from perfect equality. Perfect equality: Gini=0, one person controls everything: Gini=1
Percentage share of total income or wealth: i.e top 1% share higher incomes or assets than other 99% * Gini computes overall degree of equality, percentage shares describe the shape of the distribution
Income prior to taxes and public transfers is known as “market” income, income after transfers is called “gross” income, and income net of all taxes and transfers is defined as “disposable” income
Most of this book refers to “market” income, taxes and transfers are hard to trace depending on the society
Why does economic inequality matter?
It can hinder economic growth; lower disposable income inequality has been found to lead to faster economic growth and longer growth phases
The credit bubble that helped trigger the 2008 recession was in part due to low income households drawing on readily available credit, from the wealthy at the top, to borrow for the sake of keeping up with consumption patterns of more affluent groups
Under conditions where lending is more restrictive, wealth inequality also disadvantages low income groups as it blocks their access to credit
In developed countries, higher inequality is associated with less economic mobility across generations. Higher income families get access to better education, residential segregation sees public services disproportionally attracted to affluent areas
High levels of inequality are correlated with lower levels of self-reported happiness, but not so much health. This makes sense, as happiness can be hindered by discouraging social comparison
Part 1: A brief history of inequality
Chapter 1: The rise of inequality
Our ancestors, Australopithecus, from 3 to 4 million years ago were more sexually dimorphic, with male body mass advantages of over 50%. Evolution attenuated this sexual inequality both among males and between the sexes
As our brains and physiology changed, physical differences made less of an impact on inequality. As lower status men could form coalitions and make weapons to battle from afar (rocks, spears, bows), which played an equalizing role in the physical sense, but privileging knowledge/skill over size
In a site north of Moscow, dated from about 30000-40000 years go, the remains of a man and two children were found buried with loads of ivory beads and more, with estimates of the time required to make all these objects at 2-5 years. Despite this, social and economic inequality in the paleolithic era likely remained sporadic and transient
The Holocene era brought with it temperate conditions, allowing for the thriving of humans and most life in general. This allowed Homo sapiens to rely on local concentrations of resources, occupational specialization grew, strictly defined asset ownership developed as well as the perimeter defence of territory, and intense competition between groups that led to enslavement of captives (the Chumash of the California coast in year 500-700 were found to do this)—all fostering social hierarchy and inequality
Two crucial determinants of inequality: ownership rights in land and livestock, and the ability to transmit wealth from one generation to the next
The different types of wealth: embodied (genetic), relational (partners in labor), and material. In foragers, embodied wealth is more important; whereas in herders and farmers material wealth is most important
Transmissibility of wealth is about twice as high for farmers and herders than for foragers, and the material possessions available to them were more suitable for transmission
Inequality and its persistence over time is the result of 3 factors:
The relative importance of different classes of assets
How suitable they are for passing on to others
The actual rates of transmission
If wealth is passed on between generations, random shocks related to health, parity, and returns on capital that would typically rebalance resource distribution is instead dampened. Resources accumulate over time rather than redistributing elsewhere
Agricultural development in societies, i.e., ways in which to develop and maintain wealth surplus, foster political inequality in these societies. A historical survey found that 86 percent of Native American societies (out of 258) surveyed found that those lacking significant surplus production also lacked signs of political inequality
80% of hunter gatherer societies had no ruling class, whereas 75% of agrarian societies do. Agrarian societies with wheat, rather than, say, roots, are more conducive to political rule as grain is more suitable for long term storage
In early societies/chiefdoms, state-directed allocation of material resources converted political inequality into income and wealth inequality, as political elite and administrators were allocated more materials (land, labor (slaves), etc.)
Chapter 2: Empires of inequality
The Han dynasty (200BCE-200CE) and Roman Empire (200BCE-200CE) feature historical accounts of inequality.
In the Han dynasty, the elite, aristocrats, government officials, and war officials normally earned status and resources via land ownership. They would regularly employ tactics to evade taxes (e.g., falsifying census records, creating fake names, collect taxes from tenants and pay less than received and pocket and pocket the difference).
Attempts to equalize power from elite to lower class were attempted throughout the dynasty, however, these attempts waned over time and discontinuities in leadership would disrupt them as well
There would sometimes be a change of elite rule, due to warfare or internal politics, but the wealth at the top would mostly be redistributed to those next in line
In the Roman Empire, wealthy elites and retired war senators would accumulate properties—normally at the expense of the middle class, shoving them downwards towards the lower class. Property and material assets would concentrate towards these few over time, serving to increase polarity between the lower and upper rungs of the wealth ladder
Within these examples, imperial income inequality could be hindered only through conquest, state failure, or wholesale systems collapse—all violent upheavals. Despite some attempts, peaceful ways of combatting inequality have not made a meaningful impact in these historical accounts
In premodern societies, very large fortunes regularly owed more to political power than to economic prowess. This could be somewhat managed by the state rulers’ abilities and willingness to engage in tyrannical intervention
Chapter 3: Up and down
After the fall of the Roman rule, state collapse served to redistribute wealth throughout Europe and counter-act inequality
Prior to the Black Death, a millennia later, Europe was more developed and unequal than it had been since the Roman Empire. General stability and development lay fertile ground for increased inequality
This changed when the Black Death struck in 1347, which is estimated to have killed more than 25% of the European population by 1400. As a result, labor became scarce and unskilled labor and farm wages increased 2X. Commoners, from England to Egypt, enjoyed better diets and grew taller bodies
In late medieval-early modern Europe, urban regions suffered from more inequality (compared to rural regions) due to: greater division of labor, differentiation in skills and incomes, spatial concentration of elite households, and the inflow of poorer migrant workers
According to a Florentine census of 1427, wealth inequality correlated with the scale of urbanism—the larger the city the larger the wealth inequality
Part 2: War
Chapter 4: Total war
After defeat in World War Two, Japan underwent significant wealth leveling. Throughout the war the Japanese government directed resources (labor and capital) towards war efforts, impacting the top 1% the most. After the war, hyper-inflation devalued the capital owned by the top 1%, and exterior forces attempted to maintain a wider distribution of wealth
Post war, American occupation enforced the democratization of Japanese economic institutions. They postulated that low distributions of wealth to Japanese industrial workers and farmers hindered domestic consumption and led to overseas economic expansionism. Massive taxes were imposed on the affluent, where the assets themselves were taxed rather than income.
Unionization that was absent pre-war returned post war, providing improved benefits and a general consensus on wage structures for employees
Chapter 5: The great compression
Fiscal leveling constitutes of three main ingredients during war time: military mass mobilization, progressive enhancement of tax rates, and targeting of elite wealth of top income
While mass conscription applied to most, the wealthy normally got off due to age or privilege and stood to profit from commercial involvement in the war industry. Thus, countries like the UK, United States, and Canada imposed significant taxes on the incomes and estates of the rich as a means to keep things fair and ensure national cohesion
More autocratic nations like Germany and Russia opted to borrow or print money to sustain war efforts, this however led to hyperinflation, which eventually ended up compressing inflation by reducing the value of the capital of the elites (?)
Perception: requires that we maintain objectivity of thought—that we see things dispassionately
This involves avoidance of inappropriate value judgements, such as designating things as good or evil. The things aren’t the problem, but the interpretations we place on them are. This is similar to emptiness in Buddhism. We assign an essence to things and thus interpret them as attractive or unattractive
Action: active cooperation with the world, with fate, and above all with other human beings. We were made not for ourselves but for others (agree), and our nature is fundamentally unselfish* (I don’t completely agree with this)
Will: we control our actions and are responsible for them—if we act wrongly, we harm ourselves. Likewise, if someone or something else harms us, they are harming themselves and not us, the victim. Acts of nature such as fire or illness, can only harm us if we see them as harmful
Seeing things for what they are and accepting them, is something Epictetus calls “the art of acquiescence”
Objective judgement, unselfish action, and willing acceptance of all external events. These three points are a recurring theme in Marcus’ writings
“The best revenge is not to be like that”
“To accept without arrogance, and let go with indifference”
“The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it”
This is similar to the dog running alongside the wagon rather than being dragged by it, the wagon being logos. Those who feel helpless about life and settle into this mode get the sense that there’s no point in trying if the cards are stacked against them. There’s more room for growth than what they can see and limits they can reach. Giving up removes the possibility of seeing where those limits can take you
Mentions that wrongdoing done over pleasure is worse than that over anger. The angry wrongdoer is a victim of his anger, but the man doing it for pleasure is motivated by desire
Don’t quite agree with this. Anger is also motivated by desire, an attraction towards an angry state. Both are motivated by desire, and thus both are victims. Buddha once said that anger is like an arrow with a poisoned root with a honeyed tip
Emphasis on being honest and present in one’s thoughts. If the mind is preoccupied with something you wouldn’t be comfortable speaking about, when those ask what you’re thinking about you will answer dishonestly—so be disciplined with your thoughts
Be ready to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. Conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits others. Not because it’s more appealing or more popular
When something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself is no misfortune at all, to endure it and prevail is good fortune
If you resist the temptation to feel victimized—to feel harmed—then harmful things can’t happen to you, only things
Be tolerant of others, but strict with yourself
The best revenge is not to be like that
When asked to write out a name, would you clench your teeth and groan as you write it? When faced with responsibilities, approach them as you would writing a name, methodically and one letter at a time. Don’t get dissuaded by the text itself—complete it one task at a time
We tend not to waste much time concerning ourselves with our height or width, spatial dimensions of our bodies (these days a little more so, with weight issues associated with caloric abundance). So why should we concern ourselves with the temporal dimension of our body, i.e., how long we live? Accept the limits placed on the body.
The importance of detaching from our body’s urges, to resist impulses and sensations. Thoughts seek to be their master, not their subject. Thoughts were created for this use.
Interesting. Frontal lobe development, contributing to logical calculus and delayed gratification, evolved such that our survival wouldn’t be impinged by short term gratification—i.e., indulgence in impulsive behaviour
Actions and perceptions need to aim at:
Accomplishing practical ends
The exercise of thought
Maintaining a confidence found on understanding *in Buddhism action is understood as having three aspects: thinking, speaking, and acting (doing something). Some similarities here
When bothered by those behaving poorly in pursuit of pleasure, money, or status—reflect on when you thought like that. Recognize that they are acting out of compulsion, and attempt to remove the compulsion if you can
Confine aversion only to objects which are contrary to the natural use of your faculties (i.e., to injury, to malnutrition, etc.) and which you have in your control. If you are averse to things outside of your control (i.e., sickness, death, and poverty), you will be wretched.
Suppress desire, for if you desire what is not in your control you must necessarily be disappointed; and if you desire what is in your control, by nature of it being a desire, it is not yet in your possession
Use only the actions of pursuit and avoidance; yet use them gently and with reservation
When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is; e.g., if you go to bathe, keep your mind in a state conformable to nature, then if any hindrance arises during bathing you can say “I not only wanted to bathe, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature, and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen.”
This coincides with Buddhist philosophy, where a large emphasis is placed on being present (similar to this notion of conformance to nature). If you get annoyed when something doesn’t go your way, it is because you are attached to a particular outcome—or in the Greek case you desire what is not in your control, which is destined for disappointment
The uninstructed will lay the fault of their bad condition upon others, the novice instructed will lay the blame on themselves, the perfectly instructed will place the place blame on nobody
When you are prideful, and say “I have a handsome horse”, know that what you are proud of is only the good of the horse. What then, is your own?
The modern equivalent of this is people being prideful of their luxurious possessions, i.e., their cars, their properties, etc. If one exerts meaningful effort into constructing these things, it is laudable and is worth praise; yet if they simply route money earned from elsewhere it seems less worthy of praise…should it be?
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
Don’t think of things as lost (in the context of losing something you love, i.e, a loved one or your youth), think of them instead as returned. You don’t own what you can’t control; be grateful for it while it’s there but accept it when it goes.
When encountered with inevitable “loss” (a loved one, youth, etc.), think of it instead as returned. It was never yours in the first place; you don’t own what you can’t control. Be grateful for it while it’s there; accept it when it goes.
Store consciousness stores and preserves all the seeds of our experiences, where seeds represent everything we have ever done, experienced, or perceived. These are “subjects” of consciousness
The seeds make up store consciousness and can be distinguished from the store, but the store is dependant on the seeds, thus the seeds are also “objects” of consciousness
The ways in which we act plant seeds for how we behave in the future. If you plant wheat, wheat will grow. If you act in a wholesome way, you will be happy. If you act in an unwholesome way, you will water seeds of craving, anger, and violence in yourself and others
When we perceive an object, we see its “sign” (I like signature more). As per Buddhism there are 3 pairs of signs of phenomena:
Universal and particular: universal signatures are generic labels (e.g., a house) and particular signatures are more specific (e.g., the brick, wood, nails, etc. that make up individual houses)
Unity and diversity: all houses are part of the designation “house”, but there are countless variations between the collection of individual houses
Formation and disintegration: a house could be in the process of being built (formation), but is also already in the process of decay, being weathered by its surroundings (disintegration)
Seeing these signatures are the basis of the teachings of interbeing
It is easy to confuse our mental image, our signature of something, with its reality. The way to avoid misperceptions is through mindfulness: deliberate investigation of our perceptions, poking and prodding until we approach the true nature of a perception
When we have a false perception and continue to maintain it, we hurt ourselves and others. In fact, people kill one another over their competing perceptions of the same reality
Individual and collective seeds: the collective consciousness is made up of individual consciousnesses, and an individual conscious is formed by the collective conscious. This is the nature of interbeing
Looking deeply into an atom, we bow our heads in awe. And yet with our friend/significant other sitting next to us we think we already know everything about them
Walking at dusk, we see a long stringy object, and thinking it’s a snake we get scared. Upon shining a light on the object, we realize it was just rope. Our fear was the product of a misperception, not seeing something for what it truly was. We do this in life as well, misperceiving constructed perceptions as truth, avoiding deep deliberation of what we’re assuming
Impermanence and nonself are essentially the same thing, both meaning the absence of a separate, fixed self. Impermanence looks at this temporally, nonself looks at this spatially. The idea of a discrete self is incompatible with a continuous world
The true nature of consciousness is neither individual nor collective. We are simultaneously individual and collective. I am a unique biological pattern, that was formed by the collective consciousness of my family, the earth, and the cosmos. This collective consciousness is produced by many individuals. Interdependence.
Manas provides energy for ignorance, thirst, and craving. It also serves as the “survival instinct”, providing reflexive reactions to stimuli. It operates in the realm of representations, and thus cannot touch the realm of things-in-themselves (truth). The attachment of manas in a self is based on an image it has created.
Chapter 1: The fundamentals: why tiny changes make a big difference
Good, and bad, habits compound. Good habits gain exponentially, though there is a period of ramp up where little improvements can be seen. Persistency is required to reach the larger gradient, i.e., when your marginal habits start to pay off
Systems are more important than goals. Focusing on lifting a specific weight is less important than improving technique and making sure you don’t miss a day at the gym. Use goals for setting a general direction and use systems for making progress
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity
Focus on changing your identity rather than your outcomes, e.g., the goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader
“I’m terrible with directions; I’m not a morning person; I’m always late” are all repeated stories we tell ourselves that act as barriers to positive change. This is identity conflict, where attachment to a particular version of your identity hinders change. Identity is transient, not static.
“Each action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become”
“Are you becoming the person you want to become?”
Chapter 3: Build better habits in 4 steps
Habits proceed in 4 steps: cue, craving, response, and reward
If a behaviour is insufficient in any of these stages, it will not become a habit. No cue means the habit never starts. No craving means no motivation to act. A difficult behaviour means you won’t be able to respond to it. No satisfaction of desire, i.e., reward, then there’s no reason to do it again
How to create a good habit:
Make it obvious (cue)
Make it attractive (craving)
Make it easy (response)
Make it satisfying (reward)
How to break a bad habit:
Make it invisible (cue)
Make it unattractive (craving)
Make it difficult (response)
Make it unsatisfying (reward)
P1. Make it obvious
Chaper 5: The best way to start a new habit
People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. This is known as implementation intention
I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. The most important cues are time and location.
Diderot effect: obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. Diderot was a French philosopher that suddenly became rich due to a generous donation. He bought a elegant robe, but nothing else matched it so he had to spend more and more money upgrading the rest of his belongings
Habit stacking is a positive version of the Diderot effect: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Be specific with your habit stacking directions, e.g., “After I finish my morning tea, I will meditate.”
Chapter 6: Motivation is overrated; environment often matters more
It is easier to build new habits in new environments where you don’t have to fight against old cues
Make good cues obvious in your environment, and hide bad cues
Delegate specific spaces in your home to specific habits. This chair for reading, the kitchen for cooking, the bed for sleeping, etc.
Chapter 7: The secret of self control
Self control is a short term strategy, not a long one. Modify your environment such that you don’t need to exercise self control in the first place
To break bad habits, reduce your exposure to their cues. Remove the cues from your environment
How to create a good habit The 1st Law: Make It Obvious 1.1: Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware of them. 1.2: Use implementation intentions: “I will (BEHAVIOR] at TIME] in [LOCATION].’ 1.3: Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT. 1.4: Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.
The 2nd law: Make it attractive
Chapter 8: How to make a habit irresistible
We have the brains of our ancestors but temptations they never had to face
We are faced with supernormal stimuli that sends us into a frenzy, whether it be processed foods, colourful and over-edited advertisements, and more. Like a goose that rolls a volleyball back to its nest because it is a big round object, we are doing much the same with consumerist products
Temptation bundling: pair a habit you “need” to do with a habit you “want” to do, e.g., only drink hot cocoa when you’re reading
The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is: 1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. 2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
Chapter 9: The role of family and friends in shaping your habits
We tend to initiate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige)
Join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour and you have something in common with the group
We’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves. Studies have found that a chimpanzee with a superior but cracking method resorts to an inferior method used by a new group that he’s joining
Behaviours that get us approval, respect, and praise are attractive
Chapter 10: How to find and fix the causes of your bad habits
Identify the causes of your bad habits (what ancient fundamental desire is this behaviour satisfying?), and highlight the benefits of stopping it. Likewise, with difficult habits, highlight the benefits of them, e.g., instead of “I need to run today” say “I get to improve my speed and endurance today”
The 3rd law: Make it easy
Chapter 11: Walk slowly, but never backward
When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing
The key to start mastering a habit is with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit, you just need to practice it
How long does it take to form a habit? A new habit is more dependent on the frequency of attempts than the time, the brain requires enough repetitions to develop automaticity
Chapter 13: How to stop procrastinating using the two minute rule
When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Standardize before you optimize, you can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist
The 4th law: Make it satisfying
Chapter 15: The cardinal rule of behaviour change
The more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your future goals
Find a way to incorporate a rewarding feeling of immediate success when completing a habit, e.g., allocating the money saved by not eating out to a vacation fund
Chapter 16: How to stick with good habits everyday
Habit tracking:
Creates an obvious visual cue and keeps you honest with yourself by quantifying your progress
Creates a signal that you’re moving forward and motivates you to continue that streak
It’s satisfying to cross off an item on the to do list, and focuses you on the process rather than the result
Advanced tactics
Chapter 18: The truth about talent (when genes matter and when they don’t)
Genes do not determine your destiny, they determine your areas of opportunity. “Genes can predispose, but they don’t predetermine.”
Choose a game that favours your strengths; if you can’t find one, create one
Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work, they clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on
Chapter 19: The goldilocks rule: how to stay motivated in life and work
Maximum motivation occurs when working on tasks that are right at the edge of one’s current abilities; if it’s too easy you get bored, if it’s too hard you get anxious
The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom
Chapter 20: The downside of creating good habits
Take an annual review, tallying up habits for the year by counting achievements, gym frequency, meditation frequency, etc.
Modes of reflection and review for end of year (December): 1. What went well this year? 2. What didn’t go so well this year? 3. What did I learn?
To reflect on core values, identity, and how to work on being the person you wish to become, take an integrity report (June) 1. What are the core values that drive my life and work? 2. How am I living and working with integrity right now? 3. How can I set a higher standard in the future?
Don’t cling to habits and their associated identity. Be adaptable. Be soft and pliable, like a disciple of life; not brittle and inflexible, like a disciple of death.
“Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in the sand, here today and gone tomorrow.”
We are poor judges of when we are learning well or not. When we’re undergoing a challenge it doesn’t feel productive, so we’re drawn to strategies that feel better, unaware that they may be less effective
Rereading text and massed practice are not productive, i.e., rapid fire repetition of something you’re trying to learn or cramming for exams. They give rise to feelings of fluency but are largely a waste of time
Retrieval practice - recalling facts or concepts from memory - is much more effective than review by rereading
Spacing out practice or interleaving it with other subjects makes it feel more challenging to recall, yet produces longer lasting learning and more versatile application of what is learned in later settings
Trying to solve a problem prior to being told the solution leads to better learning
The notion that you learn better according to your learning style, e.g., a visual or auditory learner, is not supported by empirical research. You learn better when you draw on all of your aptitudes and resourcefulness, rather than just the style you find most amenable
Extracting and understanding the underlying principles or rules of problem makes one more successful at picking the right solution in unfamiliar situations
People who learn to extract key ideas from new material, organize them into a mental model, and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery
Chapter 2: To learn, retrieve
The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem
Knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination; as creativity absent of a stable foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house
A 1978 study showed that cramming leads to higher scores on an immediate test but results in faster forgetting compared to practicing retrieval
Testing immediately after exposure enhances knowledge retention, one study found an 11% increase on test scores on a topic learned a week prior between a group that was tested immediately after and one who had not been tested prior
Multiple spaced out tests immediately after content is learned serves as an immunization against forgetting the material, the mental strain induced by testing solidifies a foundation of knowledge
Students who have been quizzed have a dual advantage: a more accurate sense of what they do and don’t know, and the strengthening of accrued learning from retrieval practice
Chapter 3: Mix up your practice
Massed practice is prevalent; whether it be summer language boot camps, colleges teaching a single subject promising fast learning, or continuing education seminars with material condensed to a single weekend. It feels productive, yet the material is forgotten as fast as it is learned. Spacing out practice feels less productive as it’s more effortful, yet it generates fertile ground for knowledge to grow out of and flourish
“The myths of massed practice are hard to exorcise, even when you’re experiencing the evidence yourself.” Massed practice feels better, because as you study you feel as though you’re learning faster and that feels good and more seamless. Yet when compared against the more cognitively challenging varied and interleaved practice, massed practice generally underperforms on later tests.
Providing a quiz at the end of a conference can help the audience retain some of what they learned. Normally they just listen and walk out, forgetting the material shortly after
Reflection is a form of retrieval practice, essential to bridging the gap in the learning practice (“What did I do? What happened? How did it work out? What would I do differently next time?”)
Chapter 5: Avoid illusions of knowing
A good way to engage in self-insight is to ask yourself: is the world giving me positive feedback? Is the world rewarding me in a way that I would expect a competent person to be rewarded? Is there something I can work on to reduce the delta? “Think of the kids lining up to join the softball team—would you be picked?”
Chapter 6: Get beyond learning styles
Fluid intelligence: the ability to reason, see relationships, think abstractly, and hold information in the mind while working on a problem
Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge of the works, the pattern recognition models one has developed from past learning and experience
Chapter 7: Increase your abilities
Myelin coating of axons generally starts at the back of our brain and works it’s way towards our frontal lobes as we grow into adulthood. Myelin coating thickness correlates with ability, and with increased practice, leading to thicker coats that improve the strength and speed of electrical signals
Automatic actions or responses to stimula, i.e., habits, tend to be directed from a region deep in the brain called the basal ganglia
Learning to remember the relationship between unrelated items, such as names and faces, stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus. This neurogenesis starts in anticipation of the learning event, and persists after it has been completed
Some individuals aim for performance goals, working to validate their ability. These individuals unconsciously limit their ability, picking challenges that they are confident they can meet so as to validate their ability
Some individuals strive toward learning goals, working to acquire new knowledge or skills. With a goal to increase ability, they pick ever-increasing challenges, and interpret setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a rare variable they can control, but emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of a child’s control, providing no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. The more breadth within learned content, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to situation they had never seen before—which is in essence creativity
A study found that typical children tend to be raised in families with an average of six household rules, compared to one rule for extremely creative children. After a wrongdoing parents would let the child know, rather than proscribing it beforehand
The “hypercorrection” effect: the more confident a learn is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities
This effect was even reproduced in primates (rhesus macaques)
Teachers who drive overachievement in their current courses (by providing easier content) tend to undermine student performance in the long run (US Air Force study). Those who had more challenging math courses, and thus had lower student satisfaction, saw their students overachieve in future math courses (i.e., short term their grades would suffer, but long term their grades flourished)
Interleaving problems, i.e., mixing them up when practicing, has been found to be more effective than approaching problems in blocks. Shuffle the problems beforehand to improve learning via rules differentiation rather than learning structured patterns
According to a Yale study, more scientifically literate adults are surprisingly more likely to become dogmatic about politically polarizing topics in science. One theory is that they are better equipped to find evidence that confirms their beliefs
A personality feature that fights back against this propensity is scientific curiosity, not scientific knowledge. Roam freely, listen carefully, and consume indiscriminately. Be open-minded.
Scientific work that builds bridges between disparate pieces of knowledge (i.e., atypical citations with respect to the discipline) are less likely to be funded, more likely to be ignored upon publication, but more likely in the long run to gain traction and succeed
Due to reproductive organ asymmetries, it’s in the male’s advantage to pretend to be highly fit, and in the female’s advantage to spot false advertising
Females of most species are coy, somewhat resistant to mating with males, whereas men are more liberal with sexual partners. Coyness is rewarding in the Darwinian sense, because the males that surpass that resistance, either verbally or physically, are more likely to have more fit offspring
Chapter 3: Men and Women
Flowers and other tokens of affection are more prized by women as it signals generosity, trustworthiness, and most importantly an enduring commitment
High male parental investment has made males evolve to compete for scarce female eggs, but females have also evolved to compete for scarce male investment
85% (~900/1100) societies around the world have been polygamous—that is, they have permitted men to have multiple wives. The majority of men, however, were likely monogamous as they couldn’t afford multiple wives, but the high-status males are allowed to if they can provide for the families
Chapter 4: The marriage market
Marriage favours lower class men. Women, who would otherwise marry up the hierarchy and split resources of a high-status male with other women, are forced to stick with a male mate at a similar spot in the hierarchy
Institutionalized marriage thus doesn’t serve women near the bottom of the hierarchy. They may have to stay with a bum rather than obtain resources from a well-off man. Low status males in this case may have more to benefit from marriage
Without institutionalized marriage, many low status males will be alone, upset, and likely become violent. Married men are less likely to commit crime—this could be because men who wouldn’t commit crime in the first place tend to get married, but marriage also settles the man down
Western culture now has a serial monogamous nature, where divorce is prevalent. This leaves children without their natural parents, and step-parents often care little for step-children, hindering development and lowering the quality of guidance for children from broken families
Unstratification of social status could help curb the decrease in monogamy; if resources are allocated more equally, women are less likely to have their eye on men up the echelon, as the echelon will be more balanced. Political and social inequality leads to allocation of multiple women to a high-status man, and more upset, low status males as a result
Chapter 6: The Darwin plan for marital bliss
Male sexual fantasies tend to be mostly visual in nature, whereas females tend to include tender touching, soft murmurs, and other hints of future investment
Some approach divorce with the mindset that they married the “wrong” person and next time they’ll get it right, but divorce statistics say otherwise. “The triumph of hope over experience”
How moral codes arise: people tend to pass moral judgements that help move their genes to the next generation. Thus, a moral code is a compromise among competing spheres of self-interest, each acting to mold the code to its own ends
Part 2: Social cement
Chapter 7: Families
Some parent-offspring conflict arises since children share 50% of genes with siblings, so put simply its in their best interest to favour themselves at 2-to-1 odds than their siblings. Whereas parents share genes equally with all offspring, so it could be in their best interest to treat each child equally. These broad differences in self interest could be the source of some child-parent conflict
Parents may have reasons to prefer some offspring over others, a pretty daughter in a poor family likely has a better chance of moving up socioeconomically than a handsome boy, whereas in an already rich family a man is more likely to maintain the resources and attract an attractive female, converting those resources into genetic proliferation
Studies on rats have shown that mothers starved of resources are more likely to provide milk to daughters, and wean off sons
In the middle-east/Asia as well as medieval Europe, infanticide of females was most common upon upper class families
In a study done in America, it was found that sons of high-class families were more likely to be breast fed, and less likely in low class families, i.e., breast-feeding frequency of boys changed with socio-economic status. Women who had a female child in low-class families were more likely to wait to have another child than if they had first had a male. The opposite trend was found for high class families
Magnitude of grief of a parent from a lost child seems to correlate near perfectly with fertility metrics of hunter-gatherer societies. That is, parents tend to grieve more for a child that is closer to their peak fertility potential. Grievance for an adolescent will be much stronger than that of an infant or older relative
First born siblings tend to be less exceptional. Studies of academics and political greats are found to rarely be first born amongst their siblings. Younger siblings tend to have to compete with older siblings for parental affection or attention, and the older sibling has had more time to develop a relationship with the parent, and likely wins favour through sacrifice of taking care of younger siblings. Thus, the younger sibling seeks another niche, say excellence in school, to gain parental favor
Chapter 9: Friends
In game theory, the TIT FOR TAT strategy wins out. Cooperate on the first go, and match the other player’s move from there on
If everyone at the start doesn’t cooperate, the TIT FOR TAT strategy doesn’t work. It’s likely cooperation started out due to kin-selection and gradually spread out, allowing TIT FOR TAT to dominate, and thus society to grow
Reciprocal altruism thus likely evolved selfishly, since unlike with kin-selection where genes are shared, altruism with outside-kin is likely just an optimal strategy for personal benefit—everybody wins. It also isn’t a surprise that betrayals are common as well, if people can cheat without repercussion, they will. Gossip and punishment deter this behaviour.
Chapter 10: Darwin’s conscience
In the Victorian environment, in which there were small quaint towns, it paid to be good, act with integrity, and be altruistic, as the towns were small, and it was the optimal strategy for small groups
However, in todays large cities, where nobody really knows anybody, it can pay to be dishonest and to be a cheat, hence the societal shift in norms from the Victorian times from having a strong “character” to having a nice “personality”
Those who lack a secure environment when growing up, either without parents to instill values of integrity and kindness, or in a disparate environment where these values aren’t necessary, often grow up to be criminals. They are generally not evil people, just products of their environment
Part 3: Social strife
Chapter 12: Social Status
In the Ache, though skillful hunters share their food with the tribe, they in turn enjoy more extramarital affairs, have more illegitimate children, and their children get special treatment
As more and more societies are re-evaluated in a Darwinian light, it becomes doubtful that any truly egalitarian society has ever existed
In a study, those given artificially low test scores to lower self esteem, were more likely to subsequently cheat in a game of cards. Another study found that people with lower serotonin levels are more likely to commit impulsive crimes
The common stereotype of a wife complaining that a husband can’t bring himself to admit he’s wrong may be because males who too readily sought reconciliation after a fight, or needlessly submitted to others, saw their status drop and thus their inclusive fitness
Women fall prey to this as well, but if folk wisdom can be trusted, the average woman is less reluctant than the average man—which makes sense as the fitness of females depend less on status maintenance than does males
The ultimate aim for politicians is status, and thus they will say things that appeal to the group of voters most likely to get them into power or keep them there
Chapter 13: Deception and self-deception
“The best liar is the one who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.” Lies that are slight, and hard to discredit, are more difficult to get tangled up in, making them easy to hide behind
It may be in the genetic interest of someone at the low rungs of the status hierarchy to display their low status, as to advertise that they aren’t a threat to those above them. This is one possible explanation for individuals with low self-esteem
We could have a built-in tendency to refrain from bestowing status enhancement benefits on people whose status threatens our own. Darwin would often acknowledge minor researchers whose empirical observations aided him, but not those who’s ideas had influenced his thought (i.e., competitors near-above him in the status hierarchy)
When in a negotiation, say when buying a car, the first person to make a voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice is that who governs the negotiation. If a dealer believes you’re walking away for good, he’ll cave. If the dealer says he can’t accept less than X and appears as if his pride wouldn’t let him go lower, then he wins.
Studies show that when shown plausible/implausible arguments to a social issue you care about, people were most likely to remember the plausible arguments that supported their views, and implausible arguments of the opposition. The net effect drives home the correctness of our position, and the silliest of the alternative
Chapter 14: Darwin’s triumph
When dealing with non-kin, natural selection wants us to look like we’re being nice; the perception of altruism, not altruism itself, is what brings reciprocation. One aim of the conscience is to cultivate a reputation of generosity and decency, whatever the underlying motives of those actions are
Part 4: Morals of the story
Chapter 15: Darwinian (and Freudian) cynicism
Freud’s basic insight of the mind: it is a place of conflict between animal impulses and social reality
Chapter 16: Evolutionary ethics
A utilitarian mandate, in which behaviour that increases people’s happiness is considered good and thus encouraged, and behaviour that leads to peoples suffering is bad and thus discouraged, is thought to lead to a better off society (via non-zero sumness)
In essence, considering the welfare of others as importantly as you would your own
Utilitarianism strives for maximum societal happiness: the greatest good for the greatest number
Some underlying reasons as to why we don’t like someone: liking them won’t elevate our social status, aid our acquisition of material or sexual resources, help our kin, or do any of the other things that during evolution had made our genes proliferate
Chapter 17: Blaming the victim
Determinism view: it seems likely that behaviour is determined in part due to genetic factors and environmental factors—our next move is decided by genetic interest and environmental circumstance
Robust moral codes rest not only on norms but on “metanorms”: society disapproves not only of the code’s violators but also on those who tolerate violators by failing to disapprove
Chapter 18: Darwin gets religion
Like how religions preach for brotherly love, politicians self-servingly preach for nationalism, i.e., brotherly love on a national scale Book Notes 2022 P3
Bats evolved with echolocation to locate flying prey, increasing their sampling frequency of clicks as they home in on a target. Moths evolved ears tuned to just the right pitch to hear bat shrieks
Moths may be furry to dampen the acoustics sent out by bats. Likewise, moths have small fork-like scales on their wings that resonate with bath ultrasound in such a way to disappear off the bat radar
Insects move their wings via a hinge-like mechanism on the upstroke, pulling the hinge down so that the wing moves up. To generate the downstroke, a muscle erects the thorax, lifting the thorax up so that the wing pulls down
Within a bat’s webbing are rows of thin thread-like muscles, thought to be derived from the same muscles that all mamas have in their skin for erecting hairs, such as when we get goosebumps. Goosebumps are a remnant feature from when our ancestors had more hair, erecting hairs when we got cold to trap warm air within the layer of hair. Getting goosebumps has also been shown to stimulate more hair growth in mice, acting as a signal to generate thicker coats to protect from the cold
“Convenient idealizations that throw the complex baby out with the merely complicated bathwater” — idealizations approach complex systems by removal of complex features, but the magic and realism of the system is lost in the process
In a biological organism’s life, they learn and adapt to their environment, attempting to maximize fitness (or equivalently minimize losses) given the complex array of components making up that environment. During this learning process, it’s challenging for the player to know whether once a peak is reached, if it is the global optimum for that organism or whether they can maximize further. Much like if I own a stock and it levels out, I don’t know whether it’s peaking or not so I may decide to sell
Generalizing in life involves sampling many outcomes, resulting in a longer training process, more error, improving the possibility of reaching higher peaks. This is a crude process and reaching the absolute peak in any domain is unlikely due to the coarseness of the learning rate. Specializing involves sampling less outcomes and diving deeper into a local optimum and realizing its fullest local potential. Due to the granularity of the learning rate, this is possible, but it’s more likely to leave you at a local optimum of fitness
Specializers: small learning rate, more likely to penetrate deeper towards a local optimum, but also more likely to get stuck at a local optimum
Generalists: large learning rate, less likely to penetrate deep into a optimum, but more likely to escape a local optimum
The optimal strategy likely lies in the middle, where an adaptive learning rate is used
Observations from the natural world are mapped by humans into mathematical formulations. Patterns observed in the real world get encoded into symbols and strings of formal logical structure. Meaning is restricted to the natural world, formal systems have no way of synthesizing meaning, they just represent it symbolically.
Complexity is subjective, a random rock to an observer can be thrown, broken, or moved—that’s about it. But a rock to a geologist can be carbon dated and analyzed materialistically. What was simple to one was complex to another.
Developing a complexity theory requires formalizing intuitive notions about complexity into symbols and syntax. The subjective nature of complexity makes this challenging, thus the search for a general model that connects and equates subjective formulations is needed
Learning how to control complex systems
To solve problems of control and stability, one needs a picture of the qualitative behaviour of the system—control requires insight into the nature of a system’s dynamics
To characterize and control our surroundings, we seek to minimize the total information of a system (info = predictable + unpredictable). Addition of extra rules to describe regularities reduces apparent randomness, which makes arriving at a minimum of total information, i.e., an optimum: expressing the system in the most compact form to describe predictable system features
Beyond extinction: rethinking biodiversity
Biodiversity is valuable because systems develop redundancies, maintaining function when stressed. Not all species/groups are the same and may have varying degrees of importance with respect to system health
Some ecosystems may have a keystone species (e.g., starfish) or a functional group (e.g., rhizobium bacteria). Erasing of this keystone results in the collapse of an ecosystem
This helps explain why gut biodiversity correlates with anti-inflammatory markers and good health metrics in general—more redundancies are introduced to address ecological issues
The evolutionary dynamics of social organization in one self’s societies
In insect colonies, how do specific roles get selected for? Worker ants are born sterile, and thus can’t directly reproduce.
How do social organizations in insect colonies arise? Are specific roles pre-programmed into individuals since birth?
Studies have shown that insects that live solitary lives already have all the necessary behavioural components for organized social living. One insect will have a lower response threshold to a stimulus and assume the role relevant to that stimulus
Some colonies survive and reproduce more than others because they have a social organization that is better adapted to a particular environment. Mutations take place in populations for genes that affect the behaviour of colonial members
Searching for the laws of life
The four billion year history of life on earth can likely be divided into two parts:
For the first 2 million years, life likely got its energy not from the sun but from energy-rich molecules bubbling up from suboceanic volcanoes—as colonies of deep-ocean bacteria have been found to do this
Molecules bubbling up from magma are a limited source, such that photosynthesis. Photosynthesis. Photosynthesis eventually emerged to store and use the sun’s abundant energy. Bacteria stored energy from light in the form of sugars, producing oxygen. Oxygen could later be used by other organisms to burn the same sugars to extract stored energy. Large scale adoption of this process transformed earth’s atmosphere into the oxygen abundant form we know today—powered by eating sugars and metabolizing them with atmospheric oxygen
In other words, photosynthesis enabled primitive volcanic metabolism to expand and fill the world by wrapping it in a chemical spacesuit, that allowed for the generation of food molecules via light
In life there exists a hierarchical structure in which higher regulatory structures sharpen or direct lower level constructive processes. When this direction enhances the processes by which they are created, they are favoured by selection and become stable innovations in evolution.
This emerging hierarchical structure serves to optimize metabolism, the process by which energy is used to source cellular processes, build more biomass (proteins, lipids, nucleic acids…) and the elimination of waste. This emergent optimization is not necessarily a global optimum but depends on the environment and other competing organisms
Metaphors: Ladders of innovation
Essential feature of the metaphor: it intrudes from one domain to another. It borrows language, symbols, logic, and associations from one fields and imposes them upon another in which they do not properly belong. “War on drugs” maps from the military domain to the social domain
Metaphors can be used as a discovery device, allowing one to see something (target) from a different perspective (source), or as a communication tool, allowing one to describe complex phenomena with a well-known analogy
Metaphors can be a kind of de-slipping mechanism to give us grip on a slippery subject
On time and risk
When considering a gamble: would you take a 1/6 chance to 100x your net worth, where if you fail you lose it all? The expected value of this gamble is 1531%, yet one’s intuition would avert them from this gamble
One thing to consider for risks is the time dimension - if given 100 attempts at this gamble, one might expect to come out on top due to the expected value. But the time dimension is irreversible - if you lose it all you can’t continue. A time average isn’t the same as an ensemble average in this case - making the risk especially more risky
What biology can teach us about banking
Systems in which each bank handles a single asset class are more robust to risk as a whole, but individual banks are more risk prone, as failure of an asset means failure of that bank
Systems in which every bank handles a bit of every asset are more risk prone - if one bank fails due to the class distribution, they all fail as they hold the same assets. The individual banks, however, are more robust to risk as the assets are more diverse
Thus exists a push-pull relationship between system diversity and individual diversity, where selfish individual players will want to minimize their risk at the expense of the health of their system
With respect to a biological system, if an ecosystem comprises of many different species with specific niche specializations, some will undoubtedly fail and become extinct, but the system as a whole will thrive. Whereas, in an ecosystem comprised of many different species with similarly broad yet shallow niche specialization, individual species are less at risk individually, but if one species fails - they all fail, and the ecosystem collapses
Imagining complex societies
Emergence of larger, more complex societies lies mostly on greater social cohesion. Larger populations in time have evolved to require fewer resources per person, and produce more per person
More recent, larger populations have smaller traditional timespans, whereas older, smaller populations maintain traditions longer
This lies is the fact that what is good for groups is not always good for the individuals comprising them. Social insect colonies are hierarchically organized and highly effective in maintains and transmitting genetic instructions, because the fate of most insects are disregarded (and the insects comply as they share genetic material)
This is the same for cells within your body, they all share genetic material and are thus willing to sacrifice themselves for the system
Interestingly, the median health of individuals decline as societies grow more complex - suggesting that social complexity emerges from mechanisms that promote coordinated behaviour even if it is not in the best interest of each individual
Life’s information hierarchy
Hierarchical systems in biology, such as RNA—>proteins—>cells have increasing spatial and temporal scales, where each level of the hierarchy represents the summed output of the previous level
Proteins and cells represent some average measure of the noisier activity of their constituents, and are encoded as slow variables
Slow variables provide better predictors of the local future configuration of a system than the fluctuating microscopic components. This order facilitates adaptation: it allows components to fine-tune their behaviour, and it free components to search, at low cost, a larger space of strategies for extracting resources from the environment
For RNA folding, structure is a slow variable relative to the folding sequences, permitting sequences to explore many configurations under selection while the structure stays relatively stable
High degrees of complexity result from regularity in the environment. This regularity comes from hierarchical development, which allows complexity at lower levels to thrive and form new regularities, and thus new hierarchical levels
Complexity: Worlds hidden in plain sight
Society has a tendency to treat challenges as if they emerged from a single factor in a rather straightforward way; hence, we blame war on a single aggressor, starvation on the scarcity of a single product, or poverty on the concentration of wealth
A planet of cities
If you double the size of a city, you only need 80-90 percent more street surfaces, gas stations, etc. This is the concept of economies of scale
The increase in population is nevertheless faster than the increase in land area, hence underground transportation and more congestion/construction in dense cities
Increasing returns to scale is the fact that denser cities tend to be more productive—things cost most but people earn and produce more. Higher wages, faster innovation, more traffic, more crime
Cities form a stable social hierarchy that allows individuals to connect and interact at much faster timescales. Though, while as a whole the social system becomes more productive and efficient, many individuals suffer and are sacrificed, similar to a beehive. Increasing success of the group and cohesion comes at the cost of the individual
Are humans truly unique? How do we know
Energy is the fundamental currency of life, all species use energy to grow, survive, and reproduce
Human’s basic metabolic rate is about 100 watts, yet the average human in the United States consumes about 11000 watts (3000 global average) to do things such as construct infrastructure, fly planes, drive cars, and refrigerate foods
As such, the effective global population from an energetic point of view is closer to 210 billion rather than the current 7 billion
With respect to food networks, hunter-gatherer humans have been found to be super-generalists, eating hundreds of species, whereas a general species eats around 10 others. There are generally only a hand full of super generalists in the food web (i.e., raccoons)
The extreme scope and variability of our diet is unique, though in the industrialized modern world there exists a problem: when we over fish a bluefin tuna, the population of the diminished fish becomes more prized in value, incentivizing more fishing. Whereas, in the pre-modern world tuna would have the opportunity to re-populate ###Why people become terrorists
3 characteristics common to perpetrators of terror in the West:
Young (~early 20s)
Resentment towards mainstream society because of perceived or real injustices they have experienced
Before violence, much time spent in contact with like-minded peers or charismatic leaders
All of us are defined by those around us in 3 ways:
We use our own social milieu to make inferences about how people we don’t know live their lives. Those in richer neighbourhood perceive the income distribution as fairer than it really is and are thus less likely to support policies addressing the wealth gap
Social circles strongly influence our beliefs and behaviours. People will ignore objective facts if everyone else around them opposes them
We feel good when others agree with us and bad when they disagree, motivating us to try to influence disagreeing others, and if that fails to stop communicating with them altogether
A combination of exposure to dangerous ideas, either by the media or social contacts (think excessive nationalism or denigrating entire ethnic groups), belief updating in the form of accepting a dangerous idea if it aligns with personal experiences and is supported by those we value, and network updating in the form of ceasing socialization with those of differing views—lead to the threat of terrorism
What can Mother Nature teach us about managing financial systems?
Life’s remarkable robustness is in large part dependent on variation; systems that suppress or lose their diversity are prone to collapse
Part 1: Intuition comes first, strategic reasoning comes second
Chapter 1: Where does morality come from?
One of Haidt’s early cross-cultural studies on moral judgement found that between rural Brazil, a city in Brazil, and a city in the USA, those in the more disadvantaged areas tended to moralize more
Within each city, lower social status individuals tended to moralize more than those in high status. This effect of status was stronger than the differences in location
Kids tended to moralize more than adults
Those in rural Brazil still tended to deem something morally unacceptable even if they didn’t find anyone was harmed by the proposed scenario, whereas in the USA they would say it violates a social convention—showing that moral intuitions are not solely innate but absorbed via environmental influence
Gut feelings about disgust and disrespect can sometimes drive reasoning, normally fabricated post-hoc. People may have a moral intuition about a certain circumstance, and struggle to come up with a distinct reason as to why they believe it’s bad/good
Chapter 2: The intuitive dog and its rational tail
“Desire and reason pull in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong”-Ovid, Roman poet
There is a difference between personal preference and moral judgements. With personal preferences, it’s perfectly ok to decline a situation because you don’t want to, based on your subjective preference
Moral judgements, however, are not subjective statements; they are claims that somebody did something wrong. I can’t gather support to punish you just because I don’t like what you’re doing. I must point to something outside my personal preferences, that pointing is our moral reasoning
We reason morally not to see how we came to a judgement; but to find the best reasons why others ought to join us in our judgment
Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail; you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments
Empathy is an antidote to righteousness and divisiveness, yet it’s challenging to empathize across a moral divide
The mere exposure effect: An experiment showed that repeated exposure to arbitrary objects made people like them more; the brain tags familiar things as good things. This is a basic principle in advertising
When exposed to a bad smell, subjects of a study were more likely to give harsher moral judgments. When reflecting on a past moral transgression, we are more likely to want to clean ourselves (Lady Macbeth effect). Even when something as simple as a hand-sanitizer is nearby, we become more morally conservative
Animals first evolved to attract and averse to smells and tastes, i.e., biochemical senses. This could be one reason why a bad/good smell effects our moral judgments—if I’m sensing something pleasant, this is probably something that’s good for me
An experiment gave its subjects a moral quandary and provided half of them with a weak justification and half with a strong justification. When asked their stance on the situation directly after reading the justification, most stuck to their intuitions and condemned the situation. When given 2 minutes to reflect afterwards, most who were shown the strong justification were much more likely to change their minds
After ingesting information that provokes an affective response, letting it mellow for a few minutes, such that our initial brain stem response dies down, allows us to judge things with more reason and openness
Chapter 4: Vote for me (here’s why)
People are more likely to engage in exploratory thought (truth seeking) than confirmatory thought (one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point) when:
Prior to forming an opinion, they are told they will be accountable to an audience
The views of the audience are unknown
The audience are well-informed and seek accuracy
One of thought’s central functions is to allow one to justifiably and persuasively describe why one acted in a particular way, and to search for reasons to convince oneself that they have made the “right” choice of action
Schools don’t teach people to reason thoroughly; they select the applicants with higher IQs, and people with higher IQs are able to generate more reasons (normally supporting their side and discounting the opposition)
When we want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Can I believe it?” and search for supporting evidence; when we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Must I believe it?” and search for contrary evidence
Part 2: There’s more to morality than harm and fairness
Chapter 5: Beyond WEIRD morality
When asked to write statements beginning with the words “I am…”, westerners are more likely to reference internal psychological states (I am happy, I am outgoing, etc.) and East Asians are more likely to reference roles and relationships (I am a father, I am a husband, etc.)
The WEIRDer you are, the more you perceive things as separate objects rather than relationships
Other than ethics around harm and fairness, the ethic of autonomy is prevalent in western societies. Not as prominent in WEIRD societies are the ethics of community and divinity, though in more conservative and religious factions of western society these ethics are more prevalent
“We are multiple from the start.” The foundation for each of these moral ethics lies within us, latent, from the start. It is possible to view them all, to improve understanding of why others take moral positions, and to reduce ignorance towards why they feel that type of way
Chapter 6: Taste buds of the righteous mind
Five good candidates for being the “taste receptors” of the righteous mind are care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity
Chapter 7: The moral foundations of politics
The brain of a newborn is one that is best seen as prewired—flexible and subject to change—rather than hardwired, i.e., fixed and immutable
“Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises…built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.”
The moral matrix of liberals falls more heavily on the Care foundation than does that of the conservatives, though conservatives do still have some (e.g., save our troops… respect those who sacrifice for the group). The care foundation for the conservatives is aimed more locally, liberals tend to be a bit more universalist (e.g., human eating practices)
Regarding the foundation of fairness, on the left, fairness often implies equality, whereas on the right it implies proportionality (i.e., get paid in proportion to one’s contributions)
The loyalty foundation comes stronger for conservatives, who lean into loyalty by pledging loyalty their nation (nationalism) and to sports teams. Liberals have a harder time with this one as they tend to be universalists
We are the descendants of individuals who were best able to play the game of authority/subversion—to rise in status while cultivating protection from superiors and the allegiance of subordinates
The omnivore’s dilemma is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. They thus go through life with two competing motives: neophilia and neophobia
Liberals tend to be more neophilic (open to new experiences); conservatives tend to be more neophobic (preferring what’s tried and true)
There is some evidence that liberal and welcoming attitudes to immigrants are more common in times and places where risks of disease are lower (the recent pandemic made this apparent)
Chapter 8: The conservative advantage
The liberty/oppression foundation makes people notice and resent any sign of attempted domination, triggering an urge to band together to resist or overthrow bullies
This manifests as egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism on the left, and “don’t-tread-on-me” and anti-government attitudes on the right
The fairness foundation focuses mostly on proportionality. Most people have a few intuitive concern for the law of karma, we want to see cheaters punished and good citizens rewarded in proportion to their deeds
Part 3: Morality binds and blinds
Chapter 9: Why are we so groupish?
Shared intentionality, i.e., when groups of humans share a common representation of a task they are pursuing, could have been the keystone step in the development in human morality. Once people began sharing a common understanding of how things were supposed to be done, and someone violated it, the group would feel a twinge of negativity towards the violator
Morality is like the matrix, it’s a shared, consensual hallucination within a group
A set of selection pressures operated within groups, e.g., via punishment of nonconformists; and between groups, e.g., via the most cohesive groups surviving and taking resources from less cohesive, smaller groups
The human love of using symbolic markers to demonstrate a group membership likely adapted because it provided a way for our ancestors to develop a sense of “we” beyond kinship. The more permanent the symbol (e.g., piercings and tattoos) the more permanent the membership. We trust and cooperate better with people who look and sound like us, we expect them to share our values and norms
We have a psychology which “expects” the social world to be divided into symbolically marked groups
Humans “self-domesticated” themselves when they began selecting for partners and friends based on their ability to live within the tribe’s moral matrix
Changes in our genes accelerated greatly during the Holocene era, once humans started becoming more social, agriculture development began, and humans expanded across the globe into novel environments. Genes and culture coevolve, and once culture starts picking up the pace, genetic evolution picks up the pace as well
Early population bottlenecks can also contribute to rapid genetic evolution. If we suddenly lose 95% of all food, the humans that survive are going to be the ones that work best together to monopolize the remaining resources. The small number of people that are left and the genes they carry have an immense impact on the generations that follow. Some suspect this happened 70000-140000 years ago during large global temperature fluctuations and volcanic eruptions that disrupted the environment
Groupishness tends to be focused on improving the well-being of the in-group, instead of harming the out-group (although this does happen, e.g., warfare)
Human nature is mostly shaped by individual selection. However, there is certainly a case to be made that group selection has played a role in shaping human nature, particularly in shaping our righteous minds
Chapter 10: The hive switch
There exists a “switch” in us that, when engaged, dissolves selfish interests and prioritizes the collective. The peak of this is collective effervescence, a state achieved when a large group acts in synchrony, generating a sort of electricity that reverberates throughout the group
We are homo-duplex, we live most of our lives in our individual, ordinary worlds, but achieve some of our greatest joys in brief moments of connection to the “sacred” world, where the self dissolves and we become part of the whole
Oxytocin bonds people to their groups. It increases intra-group love, but not love towards all humans as a whole
Mirror neurons enable empathy, but studies show that they activate more for those that share their moral matrix (i.e., for those on their good side)
Ch11. Religion is a team sport
Often our beliefs are post hoc constructions designed to justify what we’ve just done, or to support the groups we belong to
New atheists dismiss religion as costly, ineffective, and irrational—a product of cognitive misfirings (e.g., agent-detection module). However, it turns out religion is a solution to one of the hardest challenges humanity faces: cooperation without kinship
Communes (i.e., groups of people who reject the moral matrix of general society) in the United States tend to persist longer when they adopt a religion. More within group demands for sacrifice also correlated with group longevity. The longevity of secular communes was much shorter, though this doesn’t necessarily mean the people in these communes were more or less happy. It just means religious communes may be more effective groups
In the human population as a whole, genes that promoted religious behaviour were likely to become more common in each generation as the less cohesive societies perished and the more united ones thrived
If human minds and human religions coevolved, shaping one another, we can not expect people to abandon religion so easily. Of course, one can still reject organized religion, a more recent cultural phenomena. But someone who rejects all religion will have a hard time shaking off their religious psychology
Particular religious beliefs and practices don’t correlate much with how altruistic a religious person is. How enmeshed with their co-religious community is the strongest correlate to how generous and charitable they are in general. Friendship and group activities carried out in a shared moral matrix enhance selflessness.
“It is religious belongingness that supports neighbourliness, not particular religious beliefs.”
Chapter 12: Can’t we all disagree more constructively?
Genes collectively give some people brains that are more (or less) reactive to threats, and that produce less (or more) pleasure when exposed to novelty, change, and new experiences. Genetics play a role in one’s tendency to be conservative or liberal
A study which asked thousands of American to fill out a moral foundation questionnaire, where a third answered as themselves, a third pretended to be a typical conservative, and a third pretended to be a typical liberal, found that moderates and conservatives were able to most accurately predict what the other sides would answer in the questionnaire. Liberals were the least accurate, with those who were “very liberal” having abysmal ability to predict the morals of conservatives
This is likely due in part to the emphasis on two moral pillars (care/harm and fairness) that liberals stand on, and the six pillars that conservatives stand on (even though, ironically, conservatives tend to be a bit less empathetic)
Can you convince yourself that the following statements hold merit?
People are inherently imperfect and prone to act poorly when all constraints of accountability are removed
Our reasoning is flawed and prone to overconfidence, making it dangerous to construct theories based on pure reason (i.e., rationality), unconstrained by intuition and historical experience
Institutions gradually emerge, shaped by society, which we then respect and sometimes even sacralise; if we strip institutions of authority and treat them as arbitrary and artificial, we render them less effective, exposing ourselves to social disorder and potentially a lack of meaning (anomie)
“Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for traditions, and dissolution/subjection to foreign conquest through the growth of individualism and personal independence that makes cooperation impossible.”
Liberal programs with good intentions can sometimes have unintended consequences, e.g., the urge to help Hispanic immigrants in 1989 led to multicultural education programs that emphasizes the differences among Americans, rather than their shared values and identity
“Emphasizing differences between one another makes many people more racist, not less.”
“We think the other side is blind to the truth, science, reason, and common sense, yet everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects (i.e., beliefs).”
We live in a civilization of borrowing. When we want something we can’t yet afford, we count on the bodies and labor in the future to pay back the debt. We have treated the global ecological environment similarly—exploiting the planet for its resources, burdening future generations with the debts we currently incur in order to maintain superfluous and ostentatious lifestyles
The four notions of the diamond suttra
The illusion of self: I am composed of cells shared with my ancestors, of flourishing and diverse microbiomes lining the inside of my gut, of non-me elements that come together to make me. Thus, the notion of me being separate from the rest of the world is false, and a construct developed by natural selection to prioritize the survival of my genes. Yet, in reality, my system cannot function without the rest of the world… Interconnectedness. I am all.
The notion of “human being”: we depend on other beings in order to survive, whether it be plants, fish, or water. Yet we preference our species at the expense of others. Due to interbeing, by harming others we are harming ourselves. Our life requires cohesion with the rest of the world, and since we are interdependent with the planet and its constituents, this notion of “human-being” preference at the expense of others serves to eventually harm us
The notion of “living being”: we are composed and dependent on inanimate matter as well—minerals, molecules, atoms. Life is contingent on these things, thus the preference for living over non-living can be unhelpful
The notion of “life span”: when we die, we don’t really die, we just transform into something else. Likewise, within us live the genes of ancestors dating back to the creation of life billions of years ago.
Three basic needs: peace, understanding, and love. To cultivate in any situation a feeling of peace, understanding, and compassion allows for disillusioned and positive action
When suffering, get in touch with it. Do not cover it up with media, games, or alcohol. Ask why you are suffering, and where it has come from. Recognize it and hold it inside—look deeply into it and say “hello and say “hello my fear, anger, and despair. I will take good care of you.”
The mechanics of compassion: when suffering, look deeply into its nature and develop an understanding of it, and follow with a compassion towards the suffering
Chapter 1: The fundamentals: why tiny changes make a big difference
Good, and bad, habits compound. Good habits gain exponentially, though there is a period of ramp up where little improvements can be seen. Persistency is required to reach the larger gradient, i.e., when your marginal habits start to pay off
Systems are more important than goals. Focusing on lifting a specific weight is less important than improving technique and making sure you don’t miss a day at the gym. Use goals for setting a general direction and use systems for making progress
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity
Focus on changing your identity rather than your outcomes, e.g., the goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader
“I’m terrible with directions; I’m not a morning person; I’m always late” are all repeated stories we tell ourselves that act as barriers to positive change. This is identity conflict, where attachment to a particular version of your identity hinders change. Identity is transient, not static.
“Each action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become”
“Are you becoming the person you want to become?”
Chapter 3: Build better habits in 4 steps
Habits proceed in 4 steps: cue, craving, response, and reward
If a behaviour is insufficient in any of these stages, it will not become a habit. No cue means the habit never starts. No craving means no motivation to act. A difficult behaviour means you won’t be able to respond to it. No satisfaction of desire, i.e., reward, then there’s no reason to do it again
How to create a good habit:
Make it obvious (cue)
Make it attractive (craving)
Make it easy (response)
Make it satisfying (reward)
How to break a bad habit:
Make it invisible (cue)
Make it unattractive (craving)
Make it difficult (response)
Make it unsatisfying (reward)
The 1st law: Make it obvious
Chaper 5: The best way to start a new habit
People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. This is known as implementation intention
I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. The most important cues are time and location.
Diderot effect: obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. Diderot was a French philosopher that suddenly became rich due to a generous donation. He bought a elegant robe, but nothing else matched it so he had to spend more and more money upgrading the rest of his belongings
Habit stacking is a positive version of the Diderot effect: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Be specific with your habit stacking directions, e.g., “After I finish my morning tea, I will meditate.”
Chapter 6: Motivation is overrated; environment often matters more
It is easier to build new habits in new environments where you don’t have to fight against old cues
Make good cues obvious in your environment, and hide bad cues
Delegate specific spaces in your home to specific habits. This chair for reading, the kitchen for cooking, the bed for sleeping, etc.
Chapter 7: The secret of self control
Self control is a short term strategy, not a long one. Modify your environment such that you don’t need to exercise self control in the first place
To break bad habits, reduce your exposure to their cues. Remove the cues from your environment
Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: Complexity Theory, David Krakauer
“Convenient idealizations that throw the complex baby out with the merely complicated bathwater” — idealizations approach complex systems by removal of complex features, but the magic and realism of the system is lost in the process
In a biological organism’s life, they learn and adapt to their environment, attempting to maximize fitness (or equivalently minimize losses) given the complex array of components making up that environment. During this learning process, it’s challenging for the player to know whether once a peak is reached, if it is the global optimum for that organism or whether they can maximize further. Much like if I own a stock and it levels out, I don’t know whether it’s peaking or not so I may decide to sell
Generalizing in life involves sampling many outcomes; resulting in a longer training process, more exposure to error, yet improving the possibility of reaching higher peaks. This is a crude process and reaching the absolute peak in any domain is unlikely due to the coarseness of the learning rate. Specializing involves sampling less outcomes and trudging higher towards a local optimum and realizing its fullest local potential. Reaching the peak is made possible due to the granularity of the learning rate; but it’s also more likely to leave you at a local, rather than global, optimum of fitness.
Specializers: small learning rate, more likely to penetrate deeper towards a local optimum, but also more likely to get stuck at a local optimum
Generalists: large learning rate, less likely to penetrate deep into a optimum, but more likely to escape a local optimum
The optimal strategy likely lies in the middle, where an adaptive learning rate is used
Observations from the natural world are mapped by humans into mathematical formulations. Patterns observed in the real world get encoded into symbols and strings of formal logical structure. Meaning is restricted to the natural world, formal systems have no way of synthesizing meaning, they just represent it symbolically.
Complexity is subjective, a random rock to your typical observer can be thrown, broken, or moved—that’s about it. But a rock to a geologist can be carbon dated and analyzed materialistically. What was simple to one was complex to another.
Developing a complexity theory requires formalizing intuitive notions about complexity into symbols and syntax. The subjective nature of complexity makes this challenging, thus the search for a general model that connects and equates subjective formulations is needed
Confine aversion only to objects which are contrary to the natural use of your faculties (i.e., to injury, to malnutrition, etc.) and which you have in your control. If you are averse to things outside of your control (i.e., sickness, death, and poverty), you will be wretched.
Suppress desire, for if you desire what is not in your control you must necessarily be disappointed; and if you desire what is in your control, by nature of it being a desire, it is not yet in your possession
Use only the actions of pursuit and avoidance; yet use them gently and with reservation
When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is; e.g., if you go to bathe, keep your mind in a state conformable to nature, then if any hindrance arises during bathing you can say “I not only wanted to bathe, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature, and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen.”
This coincides with Buddhist philosophy, where a large emphasis is placed on being present (similar to this notion of conformance to nature). If you get annoyed when something doesn’t go your way, it is because you are attached to a particular outcome—or in the Greek case you desire what is not in your control, which is destined for disappointment
The uninstructed will lay the fault of their bad condition upon others, the novice instructed will lay the blame on themselves, the perfectly instructed will place the place blame on nobody
When you are prideful, and say “I have a handsome horse”, know that what you are proud of is only the good of the horse. What then, is your own?
The modern equivalent of this is people being prideful of their luxurious possessions, i.e., their cars, their properties, etc. If one exerts meaningful effort into constructing these things, it is laudable and is worth praise; yet if they simply route money earned from elsewhere it seems less worthy of praise…should it be?
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
Don’t think of things as lost (in the context of losing something you love, i.e, a loved one or your youth), think of them instead as returned. You don’t own what you can’t control, be grateful for it while it’s there but accept it when it goes.
Bats evolved with echolocation to locate flying prey, increasing their sampling frequency of clicks as they home in on a target. Moths evolved ears tuned to just the right pitch to hear bat shrieks
Moths may be furry to dampen the acoustics sent out by bats. Likewise, moths have small fork-like scales on their wings that resonate with bath ultrasound in such a way to disappear off the bat radar
Insects move their wings via a hinge-like mechanism on the upstroke, pulling the hinge down so that the wing moves up. To generate the downstroke, a muscle erects the thorax, lifting the thorax up so that the wing pulls down
Within a bat’s webbing are rows of thin thread-like muscles, thought to be derived from the same muscles that all mamas have in their skin for erecting hairs, such as when we get goosebumps. Goosebumps are a remnant feature from when our ancestors had more hair, erecting hairs when we got cold to trap warm air within the layer of hair. Getting goosebumps has also been shown to stimulate more hair growth in mice, acting as a signal to generate thicker coats to protect from the cold
The four horsemen of leveling: mass mobilization warfare, transformative revolution, state failure, and lethal pandemics
Ways in which to measure inequality:
Gini coefficient: measures extent to which the distribution of income or material assets deviate from perfect equality. Perfect equality: Gini=0, one person controls everything: Gini=1
Percentage share of total income or wealth: i.e top 1% share higher incomes or assets than other 99% * Gini computes overall degree of equality, percentage shares describe the shape of the distribution
Income prior to taxes and public transfers is known as “market” income, income after transfers is called “gross” income, and income net of all taxes and transfers is defined as “disposable” income
Most of this book refers to “market” income, taxes and transfers are hard to trace depending on the society
Why does economic inequality matter?
It can hinder economic growth; lower disposable income inequality has been found to lead to faster economic growth and longer growth phases
The credit bubble that helped trigger the 2008 recession was in part due to low income households drawing on readily available credit, from the wealthy at the top, to borrow for the sake of keeping up with consumption patterns of more affluent groups
Under conditions where lending is more restrictive, wealth inequality also disadvantages low income groups as it blocks their access to credit
In developed countries, higher inequality is associated with less economic mobility across generations. Higher income families get access to better education, residential segregation sees public services disproportionally attracted to affluent areas
High levels of inequality are correlated with lower levels of self-reported happiness, but not so much health. This makes sense, as happiness can be hindered by discouraging social comparison
Part 1: A brief history of inequality
Chapter 1: The rise of inequality
Our ancestors, Australopithecus, from 3 to 4 million years ago were more sexually dimorphic, with male body mass advantages of over 50%. Evolution attenuated this sexual inequality both among males and between the sexes
As our brains and physiology changed, physical differences made less of an impact on inequality. As lower status men could form coalitions and make weapons to battle from afar (rocks, spears, bows), which played an equalizing role in the physical sense, but privileging knowledge/skill over size
In a site north of Moscow, dated from about 30000-40000 years go, the remains of a man and two children were found buried with loads of ivory beads and more, with estimates of the time required to make all these objects at 2-5 years. Despite this, social and economic inequality in the paleolithic era likely remained sporadic and transient
The Holocene era brought with it temperate conditions, allowing for the thriving of humans and most life in general. This allowed Homo sapiens to rely on local concentrations of resources, occupational specialization grew, strictly defined asset ownership developed as well as the perimeter defence of territory, and intense competition between groups that led to enslavement of captives (the Chumash of the California coast in year 500-700 were found to do this)—all fostering social hierarchy and inequality
Two crucial determinants of inequality: ownership rights in land and livestock, and the ability to transmit wealth from one generation to the next
The different types of wealth: embodied (genetic), relational (partners in labor), and material. In foragers, embodied wealth is more important; whereas in herders and farmers material wealth is most important
Transmissibility of wealth is about twice as high for farmers and herders than for foragers, and the material possessions available to them were more suitable for transmission
Inequality and its persistence over time is the result of 3 factors:
The relative importance of different classes of assets
How suitable they are for passing on to others
The actual rates of transmission
If wealth is passed on between generations, random shocks related to health, parity, and returns on capital that would typically rebalance resource distribution is instead dampened. Resources accumulate over time rather than redistributing elsewhere
Agricultural development in societies, i.e., ways in which to develop and maintain wealth surplus, foster political inequality in these societies. A historical survey found that 86 percent of Native American societies (out of 258) surveyed found that those lacking significant surplus production also lacked signs of political inequality
80% of hunter gatherer societies had no ruling class, whereas 75% of agrarian societies do. Agrarian societies with wheat, rather than, say, roots, are more conducive to political rule as grain is more suitable for long term storage
In early societies/chiefdoms, state-directed allocation of material resources converted political inequality into income and wealth inequality, as political elite and administrators were allocated more materials (land, labor (slaves), etc.)
Chapter 2: Empires of inequality
The Han dynasty (200BCE-200CE) and Roman Empire (200BCE-200CE) feature historical accounts of inequality.
In the Han dynasty, the elite, aristocrats, government officials, and war officials normally earned status and resources via land ownership. They would regularly employ tactics to evade taxes (e.g., falsifying census records, creating fake names, collect taxes from tenants and pay less than received and pocket and pocket the difference).
Attempts to equalize power from elite to lower class were attempted throughout the dynasty, however, these attempts waned over time and discontinuities in leadership would disrupt them as well
There would sometimes be a change of elite rule, due to warfare or internal politics, but the wealth at the top would mostly be redistributed to those next in line
In the Roman Empire, wealthy elites and retired war senators would accumulate properties—normally at the expense of the middle class, shoving them downwards towards the lower class. Property and material assets would concentrate towards these few over time, serving to increase polarity between the lower and upper rungs of the wealth ladder
Within these examples, imperial income inequality could be hindered only through conquest, state failure, or wholesale systems collapse—all violent upheavals. Despite some attempts, peaceful ways of combatting inequality have not made a meaningful impact in these historical accounts
In premodern societies, very large fortunes regularly owed more to political power than to economic prowess. This could be somewhat managed by the state rulers’ abilities and willingness to engage in tyrannical intervention
Chapter 3: Up and down
After the fall of the Roman rule, state collapse served to redistribute wealth throughout Europe and counter-act inequality
Prior to the Black Death, a millennia later, Europe was more developed and unequal than it had been since the Roman Empire. General stability and development lay fertile ground for increased inequality
This changed when the Black Death struck in 1347, which is estimated to have killed more than 25% of the European population by 1400. As a result, labor became scarce and unskilled labor and farm wages increased 2X. Commoners, from England to Egypt, enjoyed better diets and grew taller bodies
In late medieval-early modern Europe, urban regions suffered from more inequality (compared to rural regions) due to: greater division of labor, differentiation in skills and incomes, spatial concentration of elite households, and the inflow of poorer migrant workers
According to a Florentine census of 1427, wealth inequality correlated with the scale of urbanism—the larger the city the larger the wealth inequality
Part 2: War
Chapter 4: Total war
After defeat in World War Two, Japan underwent significant wealth leveling. Throughout the war the Japanese government directed resources (labor and capital) towards war efforts, impacting the top 1% the most. After the war, hyper-inflation devalued the capital owned by the top 1%, and exterior forces attempted to maintain a wider distribution of wealth
Post war, American occupation enforced the democratization of Japanese economic institutions. They postulated that low distributions of wealth to Japanese industrial workers and farmers hindered domestic consumption and led to overseas economic expansionism. Massive taxes were imposed on the affluent, where the assets themselves were taxed rather than income.
Unionization that was absent pre-war returned post war, providing improved benefits and a general consensus on wage structures for employees
Chapter 5: The great compression
Fiscal leveling constitutes of three main ingredients during war time: military mass mobilization, progressive enhancement of tax rates, and targeting of elite wealth of top income
While mass conscription applied to most, the wealthy normally got off due to age or privilege and stood to profit from commercial involvement in the war industry. Thus, countries like the UK, United States, and Canada imposed significant taxes on the incomes and estates of the rich as a means to keep things fair and ensure national cohesion
More autocratic nations like Germany and Russia opted to borrow or print money to sustain war efforts, this however led to hyperinflation, which eventually ended up compressing inflation by reducing the value of the capital of the elites (?)
Perception: requires that we maintain objectivity of thought—that we see things dispassionately
This involves avoidance of inappropriate value judgements, such as designating things as good or evil. The things aren’t the problem, but the interpretations we place on them are. This is similar to emptiness in Buddhism. We assign an essence to things and thus interpret them as attractive or unattractive
Action: active cooperation with the world, with fate, and above all with other human beings. We were made not for ourselves but for others (agree), and our nature is fundamentally unselfish* (I don’t completely agree with this)
Will: we control our actions and are responsible for them—if we act wrongly, we harm ourselves. Likewise, if someone or something else harms us, they are harming themselves and not us, the victim. Acts of nature such as fire or illness, can only harm us if we see them as harmful
Seeing things for what they are and accepting them, is something Epictetus calls “the art of acquiescence”
Objective judgement, unselfish action, and willing acceptance of all external events. These three points are a recurring theme in Marcus’ writings
“The best revenge is not to be like that”
“To accept without arrogance, and let go with indifference”
“The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it”
This is similar to the dog running alongside the wagon rather than being dragged by it, the wagon being logos. Those who feel helpless about life and settle into this mode get the sense that there’s no point in trying if the cards are stacked against them. There’s more room for growth than what they can see and limits they can reach. Giving up removes the possibility of seeing where those limits can take you
Mentions that wrongdoing done over pleasure is worse than that over anger. The angry wrongdoer is a victim of his anger, but the man doing it for pleasure is motivated by desire
Don’t quite agree with this. Anger is also motivated by desire, an attraction towards an angry state. Both are motivated by desire, and thus both are victims. Buddha once said that anger is like an arrow with a poisoned root with a honeyed tip
Emphasis on being honest and present in one’s thoughts. If the mind is preoccupied with something you wouldn’t be comfortable speaking about, when those ask what you’re thinking about you will answer dishonestly—so be disciplined with your thoughts
Be ready to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. Conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits others. Not because it’s more appealing or more popular
When something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself is no misfortune at all, to endure it and prevail is good fortune
If you resist the temptation to feel victimized—to feel harmed—then harmful things can’t happen to you, only things
Be tolerant of others, but strict with yourself
The best revenge is not to be like that
When asked to write out a name, would you clench your teeth and groan as you write it? When faced with responsibilities, approach them as you would writing a name, methodically and one letter at a time. Don’t get dissuaded by the text itself—complete it one task at a time
We tend not to waste much time concerning ourselves with our height or width, spatial dimensions of our bodies (these days a little more so, with weight issues associated with caloric abundance). So why should we concern ourselves with the temporal dimension of our body, i.e., how long we live? Accept the limits placed on the body.
The importance of detaching from our body’s urges, to resist impulses and sensations. Thoughts seek to be their master, not their subject. Thoughts were created for this use.
Interesting. Frontal lobe development, contributing to logical calculus and delayed gratification, evolved such that our survival wouldn’t be impinged by short term gratification—i.e., indulgence in impulsive behaviour
Actions and perceptions need to aim at:
Accomplishing practical ends
The exercise of thought
Maintaining a confidence found on understanding
in Buddhism action is understood as having three aspects: thinking, speaking, and acting (doing something). Some similarities here
When bothered by those behaving poorly in pursuit of pleasure, money, or status—reflect on when you thought like that. Recognize that they are acting out of compulsion, and attempt to remove the compulsion if you can
Store consciousness stores and preserves all the seeds of our experiences, where seeds represent everything we have ever done, experienced, or perceived. These are “subjects” of consciousness
The seeds make up store consciousness and can be distinguished from the store, but the store is dependant on the seeds, thus the seeds are also “objects” of consciousness
The ways in which we act plant seeds for how we behave in the future. If you plant wheat, wheat will grow. If you act in a wholesome way, you will be happy. If you act in an unwholesome way, you will water seeds of craving, anger, and violence in yourself and others
When we perceive an object, we see its “sign” (I like signature more). As per Buddhism there are 3 pairs of signs of phenomena:
Universal and particular: universal signatures are generic labels (e.g., a house) and particular signatures are more specific (e.g., the brick, wood, nails, etc. that make up individual houses)
Unity and diversity: all houses are part of the designation “house”, but there are countless variations between the collection of individual houses
Formation and disintegration: a house could be in the process of being built (formation), but is also already in the process of decay, being weathered by its surroundings (disintegration)
Seeing these signatures are the basis of the teachings of interbeing
It is easy to confuse our mental image, our signature of something, with its reality. The way to avoid misperceptions is through mindfulness: deliberate investigation of our perceptions, poking and prodding until we approach the true nature of a perception
When we have a false perception and continue to maintain it, we hurt ourselves and others. In fact, people kill one another over their competing perceptions of the same reality
Individual and collective seeds: the collective consciousness is made up of individual consciousnesses, and an individual conscious is formed by the collective conscious. This is the nature of interbeing
Looking deeply into an atom, we bow our heads in awe. And yet with our friend/significant other sitting next to us we think we already know everything about them
Walking at dusk, we see a long stringy object, and thinking it’s a snake we get scared. Upon shining a light on the object, we realize it was just rope. Our fear was the product of a misperception, not seeing something for what it truly was. We do this in life as well, misperceiving constructed perceptions as truth, avoiding deep deliberation of what we’re assuming
Impermanence and nonself are essentially the same thing, both meaning the absence of a separate, fixed self. Impermanence looks at this temporally, nonself looks at this spatially. The idea of a discrete self is incompatible with a continuous world
The true nature of consciousness is neither individual nor collective. We are simultaneously individual and collective. I am a unique biological pattern, that was formed by the collective consciousness of my family, the earth, and the cosmos. This collective consciousness is produced by many individuals. Interdependence.
Manas provides energy for ignorance, thirst, and craving. It also serves as the “survival instinct”, providing reflexive reactions to stimuli. It operates in the realm of representations, and thus cannot touch the realm of things-in-themselves (truth). The attachment of manas in a self is based on an image it has created.
Due to reproductive organ asymmetries, it’s in the male’s advantage to pretend to be highly fit, and in the female’s advantage to spot false advertising
Females of most species are coy, somewhat resistant to mating with males, whereas men are more liberal with sexual partners. Coyness is rewarding in the Darwinian sense, because the males that surpass that resistance, either verbally or physically, are more likely to have more fit offspring
Chapter 3: Men and Women
Flowers and other tokens of affection are more prized by women as it signals generosity, trustworthiness, and most importantly an enduring commitment
High male parental investment has made males evolve to compete for scarce female eggs, but females have also evolved to compete for scarce male investment
85% (~900/1100) societies around the world have been polygamous—that is, they have permitted men to have multiple wives. The majority of men, however, were likely monogamous as they couldn’t afford multiple wives, but the high-status males are allowed to if they can provide for the families
Chapter 4: The marriage market
Marriage favours lower class men. Women, who would otherwise marry up the hierarchy and split resources of a high-status male with other women, are forced to stick with a male mate at a similar spot in the hierarchy
Institutionalized marriage thus doesn’t serve women near the bottom of the hierarchy. They may have to stay with a bum rather than obtain resources from a well-off man. Low status males in this case may have more to benefit from marriage
Without institutionalized marriage, many low status males will be alone, upset, and likely become violent. Married men are less likely to commit crime—this could be because men who wouldn’t commit crime in the first place tend to get married, but marriage also settles the man down
Western culture now has a serial monogamous nature, where divorce is prevalent. This leaves children without their natural parents, and step-parents often care little for step-children, hindering development and lowering the quality of guidance for children from broken families
Unstratification of social status could help curb the decrease in monogamy; if resources are allocated more equally, women are less likely to have their eye on men up the echelon, as the echelon will be more balanced. Political and social inequality leads to allocation of multiple women to a high-status man, and more upset, low status males as a result
Chapter 6: The Darwin plan for marital bliss
Male sexual fantasies tend to be mostly visual in nature, whereas females tend to include tender touching, soft murmurs, and other hints of future investment
Some approach divorce with the mindset that they married the “wrong” person and next time they’ll get it right, but divorce statistics say otherwise. “The triumph of hope over experience”
How moral codes arise: people tend to pass moral judgements that help move their genes to the next generation. Thus, a moral code is a compromise among competing spheres of self-interest, each acting to mold the code to its own ends
Part 2: Social cement
Chapter 7: Families
Some parent-offspring conflict arises since children share 50% of genes with siblings, so put simply its in their best interest to favour themselves at 2-to-1 odds than their siblings. Whereas parents share genes equally with all offspring, so it could be in their best interest to treat each child equally. These broad differences in self interest could be the source of some child-parent conflict
Parents may have reasons to prefer some offspring over others, a pretty daughter in a poor family likely has a better chance of moving up socioeconomically than a handsome boy, whereas in an already rich family a man is more likely to maintain the resources and attract an attractive female, converting those resources into genetic proliferation
Studies on rats have shown that mothers starved of resources are more likely to provide milk to daughters, and wean off sons
In the middle-east/Asia as well as medieval Europe, infanticide of females was most common upon upper class families
In a study done in America, it was found that sons of high-class families were more likely to be breast fed, and less likely in low class families, i.e., breast-feeding frequency of boys changed with socio-economic status. Women who had a female child in low-class families were more likely to wait to have another child than if they had first had a male. The opposite trend was found for high class families
Magnitude of grief of a parent from a lost child seems to correlate near perfectly with fertility metrics of hunter-gatherer societies. That is, parents tend to grieve more for a child that is closer to their peak fertility potential. Grievance for an adolescent will be much stronger than that of an infant or older relative
First born siblings tend to be less exceptional. Studies of academics and political greats are found to rarely be first born amongst their siblings. Younger siblings tend to have to compete with older siblings for parental affection or attention, and the older sibling has had more time to develop a relationship with the parent, and likely wins favour through sacrifice of taking care of younger siblings. Thus, the younger sibling seeks another niche, say excellence in school, to gain parental favor
Chapter 9: Friends
In game theory, the TIT FOR TAT strategy wins out. Cooperate on the first go, and match the other player’s move from there on
If everyone at the start doesn’t cooperate, the TIT FOR TAT strategy doesn’t work. It’s likely cooperation started out due to kin-selection and gradually spread out, allowing TIT FOR TAT to dominate, and thus society to grow
Reciprocal altruism thus likely evolved selfishly, since unlike with kin-selection where genes are shared, altruism with outside-kin is likely just an optimal strategy for personal benefit—everybody wins. It also isn’t a surprise that betrayals are common as well, if people can cheat without repercussion, they will. Gossip and punishment deter this behaviour.
Chapter 10: Darwin’s conscience
In the Victorian environment, in which there were small quaint towns, it paid to be good, act with integrity, and be altruistic, as the towns were small, and it was the optimal strategy for small groups
However, in todays large cities, where nobody really knows anybody, it can pay to be dishonest and to be a cheat, hence the societal shift in norms from the Victorian times from having a strong “character” to having a nice “personality”
Those who lack a secure environment when growing up, either without parents to instill values of integrity and kindness, or in a disparate environment where these values aren’t necessary, often grow up to be criminals. They are generally not evil people, just products of their environment
Part 3: Social strife
Chapter 12: Social Status
In the Ache, though skillful hunters share their food with the tribe, they in turn enjoy more extramarital affairs, have more illegitimate children, and their children get special treatment
As more and more societies are re-evaluated in a Darwinian light, it becomes doubtful that any truly egalitarian society has ever existed
In a study, those given artificially low test scores to lower self esteem, were more likely to subsequently cheat in a game of cards. Another study found that people with lower serotonin levels are more likely to commit impulsive crimes
The common stereotype of a wife complaining that a husband can’t bring himself to admit he’s wrong may be because males who too readily sought reconciliation after a fight, or needlessly submitted to others, saw their status drop and thus their inclusive fitness
Women fall prey to this as well, but if folk wisdom can be trusted, the average woman is less reluctant than the average man—which makes sense as the fitness of females depend less on status maintenance than does males
The ultimate aim for politicians is status, and thus they will say things that appeal to the group of voters most likely to get them into power or keep them there
Chapter 13: Deception and self-deception
“The best liar is the one who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.” Lies that are slight, and hard to discredit, are more difficult to get tangled up in, making them easy to hide behind
It may be in the genetic interest of someone at the low rungs of the status hierarchy to display their low status, as to advertise that they aren’t a threat to those above them. This is one possible explanation for individuals with low self-esteem
We could have a built-in tendency to refrain from bestowing status enhancement benefits on people whose status threatens our own. Darwin would often acknowledge minor researchers whose empirical observations aided him, but not those who’s ideas had influenced his thought (i.e., competitors near-above him in the status hierarchy)
When in a negotiation, say when buying a car, the first person to make a voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice is that who governs the negotiation. If a dealer believes you’re walking away for good, he’ll cave. If the dealer says he can’t accept less than X and appears as if his pride wouldn’t let him go lower, then he wins.
Studies show that when shown plausible/implausible arguments to a social issue you care about, people were most likely to remember the plausible arguments that supported their views, and implausible arguments of the opposition. The net effect drives home the correctness of our position, and the silliest of the alternative
Chapter 14: Darwin’s triumph
When dealing with non-kin, natural selection wants us to look like we’re being nice; the perception of altruism, not altruism itself, is what brings reciprocation. One aim of the conscience is to cultivate a reputation of generosity and decency, whatever the underlying motives of those actions are
Part 4: Morals of the story
Chapter 15: Darwinian (and Freudian) cynicism
Freud’s basic insight of the mind: it is a place of conflict between animal impulses and social reality
Chapter 16: Evolutionary ethics
A utilitarian mandate, in which behaviour that increases people’s happiness is considered good and thus encouraged, and behaviour that leads to peoples suffering is bad and thus discouraged, is thought to lead to a better off society (via non-zero sumness)
In essence, considering the welfare of others as importantly as you would your own
Utilitarianism strives for maximum societal happiness: the greatest good for the greatest number
Some underlying reasons as to why we don’t like someone: liking them won’t elevate our social status, aid our acquisition of material or sexual resources, help our kin, or do any of the other things that during evolution had made our genes proliferate
Chapter 17: Blaming the victim
Determinism view: it seems likely that behaviour is determined in part due to genetic factors and environmental factors—our next move is decided by genetic interest and environmental circumstance
Robust moral codes rest not only on norms but on “metanorms”: society disapproves not only of the code’s violators but also on those who tolerate violators by failing to disapprove
Chapter 18: Darwin gets religion
Like how religions preach for brotherly love, politicians self-servingly preach for nationalism, i.e., brotherly love on a national scale
Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. The more breadth within learned content, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to situation they had never seen before—which is in essence creativity
A study found that typical children tend to be raised in families with an average of six household rules, compared to one rule for extremely creative children. After a wrongdoing parents would let the child know, rather than proscribing it beforehand
The “hypercorrection” effect: the more confident a learn is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities
This effect was even reproduced in primates (rhesus macaques)
Teachers who drive overachievement in their current courses (by providing easier content) tend to undermine student performance in the long run (US Air Force study). Those who had more challenging math courses, and thus had lower student satisfaction, saw their students overachieve in future math courses (i.e., short term their grades would suffer, but long term their grades flourished)
Interleaving problems, i.e., mixing them up when practicing, has been found to be more effective than approaching problems in blocks. Shuffle the problems beforehand to improve learning via rules differentiation rather than learning structured patterns
According to a Yale study, more scientifically literate adults are surprisingly more likely to become dogmatic about politically polarizing topics in science. One theory is that they are better equipped to find evidence that confirms their beliefs
A personality feature that fights back against this propensity is scientific curiosity, not scientific knowledge. Roam freely, listen carefully, and consume indiscriminately. Be open-minded.
Scientific work that builds bridges between disparate pieces of knowledge (i.e., atypical citations with respect to the discipline) are less likely to be funded, more likely to be ignored upon publication, but more likely in the long run to gain traction and succeed
Make it Stick - The Science of Successful Learning, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C Brown
Chapter 1: Learning is misunderstood
“Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in the sand, here today and gone tomorrow.”
We are poor judges of when we are learning well or not. When we’re undergoing a challenge it doesn’t feel productive, so we’re drawn to strategies that feel better, unaware that they may be less effective
Rereading text and massed practice are not productive, i.e., rapid fire repetition of something you’re trying to learn or cramming for exams. They give rise to feelings of fluency but are largely a waste of time
Retrieval practice - recalling facts or concepts from memory - is much more effective than review by rereading
Spacing out practice or interleaving it with other subjects makes it feel more challenging to recall, yet produces longer lasting learning and more versatile application of what is learned in later settings
Trying to solve a problem prior to being told the solution leads to better learning
The notion that you learn better according to your learning style, e.g., a visual or auditory learner, is not supported by empirical research. You learn better when you draw on all of your aptitudes and resourcefulness, rather than just the style you find most amenable
Extracting and understanding the underlying principles or rules of problem makes one more successful at picking the right solution in unfamiliar situations
People who learn to extract key ideas from new material, organize them into a mental model, and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery
Chapter 2: To learn, retrieve
The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem
Knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination; as creativity absent of a stable foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house
A 1978 study showed that cramming leads to higher scores on an immediate test but results in faster forgetting compared to practicing retrieval
Testing immediately after exposure enhances knowledge retention, one study found an 11% increase on test scores on a topic learned a week prior between a group that was tested immediately after and one who had not been tested prior
Multiple spaced out tests immediately after content is learned serves as an immunization against forgetting the material, the mental strain induced by testing solidifies a foundation of knowledge
Students who have been quizzed have a dual advantage: a more accurate sense of what they do and don’t know, and the strengthening of accrued learning from retrieval practice
Chapter 3: Mix up your practice
Massed practice is prevalent; whether it be summer language boot camps, colleges teaching a single subject promising fast learning, or continuing education seminars with material condensed to a single weekend. It feels productive, yet the material is forgotten as fast as it is learned. Spacing out practice feels less productive as it’s more effortful, yet it generates fertile ground for knowledge to grow out of and flourish
“The myths of massed practice are hard to exorcise, even when you’re experiencing the evidence yourself.” Massed practice feels better, because as you study you feel as though you’re learning faster and that feels good and more seamless. Yet when compared against the more cognitively challenging varied and interleaved practice, massed practice generally underperforms on later tests.
Providing a quiz at the end of a conference can help the audience retain some of what they learned. Normally they just listen and walk out, forgetting the material shortly after
Reflection is a form of retrieval practice, essential to bridging the gap in the learning practice (“What did I do? What happened? How did it work out? What would I do differently next time?”)
Chapter 5: Avoid illusions of knowing
A good way to engage in self-insight is to ask yourself: is the world giving me positive feedback? Is the world rewarding me in a way that I would expect a competent person to be rewarded? Is there something I can work on to reduce the delta? “Think of the kids lining up to join the softball team—would you be picked?”
Chapter 6: Get beyond learning styles
Fluid intelligence: the ability to reason, see relationships, think abstractly, and hold information in the mind while working on a problem
Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge of the works, the pattern recognition models one has developed from past learning and experience
Chapter 7: Increase your abilities
Myelin coating of axons generally starts at the back of our brain and works it’s way towards our frontal lobes as we grow into adulthood. Myelin coating thickness correlates with ability, and with increased practice, leading to thicker coats that improve the strength and speed of electrical signals
Automatic actions or responses to stimula, i.e., habits, tend to be directed from a region deep in the brain called the basal ganglia
Learning to remember the relationship between unrelated items, such as names and faces, stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus. This neurogenesis starts in anticipation of the learning event, and persists after it has been completed
Some individuals aim for performance goals, working to validate their ability. These individuals unconsciously limit their ability, picking challenges that they are confident they can meet so as to validate their ability
Some individuals strive toward learning goals, working to acquire new knowledge or skills. With a goal to increase ability, they pick ever-increasing challenges, and interpret setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a rare variable they can control, but emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of a child’s control, providing no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, Thich Nhat Hanh
We live in a civilization of borrowing. When we want something we can’t yet afford, we count on the bodies and labor in the future to pay back the debt. We have treated the global ecological environment similarly—exploiting the planet for its resources, burdening future generations with the debts we currently incur in order to maintain superfluous and ostentatious lifestyles
The four notions of the diamond suttra
The illusion of self: I am composed of cells shared with my ancestors, of flourishing and diverse microbiomes lining the inside of my gut, of non-me elements that come together to make me. Thus, the notion of me being separate from the rest of the world is false, and a construct developed by natural selection to prioritize the survival of my genes. Yet, in reality, my system cannot function without the rest of the world… Interconnectedness. I am all.
The notion of “human being”: we depend on other beings in order to survive, whether it be plants, fish, or water. Yet we preference our species at the expense of others. Due to interbeing, by harming others we are harming ourselves. Our life requires cohesion with the rest of the world, and since we are interdependent with the planet and its constituents, this notion of “human-being” preference at the expense of others serves to eventually harm us
The notion of “living being”: we are composed and dependent on inanimate matter as well—minerals, molecules, atoms. Life is contingent on these things, thus the preference for living over non-living can be unhelpful
The notion of “life span”: when we die, we don’t really die, we just transform into something else. Likewise, within us live the genes of ancestors dating back to the creation of life billions of years ago.
Three basic needs: peace, understanding, and love. To cultivate in any situation a feeling of peace, understanding, and compassion allows for disillusioned and positive action
When suffering, get in touch with it. Do not cover it up with media, games, or alcohol. Ask why you are suffering, and where it has come from. Recognize it and hold it inside—look deeply into it and say “hello my fear, anger, and despair. I will take good care of you.”
The mechanics of compassion: when suffering, look deeply into its nature and develop an understanding of it, and follow with a compassion towards the suffering
Part 1: Intuition comes first, strategic reasoning comes second
Chapter 1: Where does morality come from?
One of Haidt’s early cross-cultural studies on moral judgement found that between rural Brazil, a city in Brazil, and a city in the USA, those in the more disadvantaged areas tended to moralize more
Within each city, lower social status individuals tended to moralize more than those in high status. This effect of status was stronger than the differences in location
Kids tended to moralize more than adults
Those in rural Brazil still tended to deem something morally unacceptable even if they didn’t find anyone was harmed by the proposed scenario, whereas in the USA they would say it violates a social convention—showing that moral intuitions are not solely innate but absorbed via environmental influence
Gut feelings about disgust and disrespect can sometimes drive reasoning, normally fabricated post-hoc. People may have a moral intuition about a certain circumstance, and struggle to come up with a distinct reason as to why they believe it’s bad/good
Chapter 2: The intuitive dog and its rational tail
“Desire and reason pull in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong”-Ovid, Roman poet
There is a difference between personal preference and moral judgements. With personal preferences, it’s perfectly ok to decline a situation because you don’t want to, based on your subjective preference
Moral judgements, however, are not subjective statements; they are claims that somebody did something wrong. I can’t gather support to punish you just because I don’t like what you’re doing. I must point to something outside my personal preferences, that pointing is our moral reasoning
We reason morally not to see how we came to a judgement; but to find the best reasons why others ought to join us in our judgment
Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail; you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments
Empathy is an antidote to righteousness and divisiveness, yet it’s challenging to empathize across a moral divide
The mere exposure effect: An experiment showed that repeated exposure to arbitrary objects made people like them more; the brain tags familiar things as good things. This is a basic principle in advertising
When exposed to a bad smell, subjects of a study were more likely to give harsher moral judgments. When reflecting on a past moral transgression, we are more likely to want to clean ourselves (Lady Macbeth effect). Even when something as simple as a hand-sanitizer is nearby, we become more morally conservative
Animals first evolved to attract and averse to smells and tastes, i.e., biochemical senses. This could be one reason why a bad/good smell effects our moral judgments—if I’m sensing something pleasant, this is probably something that’s good for me
An experiment gave its subjects a moral quandary and provided half of them with a weak justification and half with a strong justification. When asked their stance on the situation directly after reading the justification, most stuck to their intuitions and condemned the situation. When given 2 minutes to reflect afterwards, most who were shown the strong justification were much more likely to change their minds
After ingesting information that provokes an affective response, letting it mellow for a few minutes, such that our initial brain stem response dies down, allows us to judge things with more reason and openness
Chapter 4: Vote for me (here’s why)
People are more likely to engage in exploratory thought (truth seeking) than confirmatory thought (one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point) when:
Prior to forming an opinion, they are told they will be accountable to an audience
The views of the audience are unknown
The audience are well-informed and seek accuracy
One of thought’s central functions is to allow one to justifiably and persuasively describe why one acted in a particular way, and to search for reasons to convince oneself that they have made the “right” choice of action
Schools don’t teach people to reason thoroughly; they select the applicants with higher IQs, and people with higher IQs are able to generate more reasons (normally supporting their side and discounting the opposition)
When we want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Can I believe it?” and search for supporting evidence; when we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Must I believe it?” and search for contrary evidence
Part 2: There’s more to morality than harm and fairness
Chapter 5: Beyond WEIRD morality
When asked to write statements beginning with the words “I am…”, westerners are more likely to reference internal psychological states (I am happy, I am outgoing, etc.) and East Asians are more likely to reference roles and relationships (I am a father, I am a husband, etc.)
The WEIRDer you are, the more you perceive things as separate objects rather than relationships
Other than ethics around harm and fairness, the ethic of autonomy is prevalent in western societies. Not as prominent in WEIRD societies are the ethics of community and divinity, though in more conservative and religious factions of western society these ethics are more prevalent
“We are multiple from the start.” The foundation for each of these moral ethics lies within us, latent, from the start. It is possible to view them all, to improve understanding of why others take moral positions, and to reduce ignorance towards why they feel that type of way
Chapter 6: Taste buds of the righteous mind
Five good candidates for being the “taste receptors” of the righteous mind are care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity
Chapter 7: The moral foundations of politics
The brain of a newborn is one that is best seen as prewired—flexible and subject to change—rather than hardwired, i.e., fixed and immutable
“Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises…built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.”
The moral matrix of liberals falls more heavily on the Care foundation than does that of the conservatives, though conservatives do still have some (e.g., save our troops… respect those who sacrifice for the group). The care foundation for the conservatives is aimed more locally, liberals tend to be a bit more universalist (e.g., human eating practices)
Regarding the foundation of fairness, on the left, fairness often implies equality, whereas on the right it implies proportionality (i.e., get paid in proportion to one’s contributions)
The loyalty foundation comes stronger for conservatives, who lean into loyalty by pledging loyalty their nation (nationalism) and to sports teams. Liberals have a harder time with this one as they tend to be universalists
We are the descendants of individuals who were best able to play the game of authority/subversion—to rise in status while cultivating protection from superiors and the allegiance of subordinates
The omnivore’s dilemma is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. They thus go through life with two competing motives: neophilia and neophobia
Liberals tend to be more neophilic (open to new experiences); conservatives tend to be more neophobic (preferring what’s tried and true)
There is some evidence that liberal and welcoming attitudes to immigrants are more common in times and places where risks of disease are lower (the recent pandemic made this apparent)
Chapter 8: The conservative advantage
The liberty/oppression foundation makes people notice and resent any sign of attempted domination, triggering an urge to band together to resist or overthrow bullies
This manifests as egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism on the left, and “don’t-tread-on-me” and anti-government attitudes on the right
The fairness foundation focuses mostly on proportionality. Most people have a few intuitive concern for the law of karma, we want to see cheaters punished and good citizens rewarded in proportion to their deeds
Part 3: Morality binds and blinds
Chapter 9: Why are we so groupish?
Shared intentionality, i.e., when groups of humans share a common representation of a task they are pursuing, could have been the keystone step in the development in human morality. Once people began sharing a common understanding of how things were supposed to be done, and someone violated it, the group would feel a twinge of negativity towards the violator
Morality is like the matrix, it’s a shared, consensual hallucination within a group
A set of selection pressures operated within groups, e.g., via punishment of nonconformists; and between groups, e.g., via the most cohesive groups surviving and taking resources from less cohesive, smaller groups
The human love of using symbolic markers to demonstrate a group membership likely adapted because it provided a way for our ancestors to develop a sense of “we” beyond kinship. The more permanent the symbol (e.g., piercings and tattoos) the more permanent the membership. We trust and cooperate better with people who look and sound like us, we expect them to share our values and norms
We have a psychology which “expects” the social world to be divided into symbolically marked groups
Humans “self-domesticated” themselves when they began selecting for partners and friends based on their ability to live within the tribe’s moral matrix
Changes in our genes accelerated greatly during the Holocene era, once humans started becoming more social, agriculture development began, and humans expanded across the globe into novel environments. Genes and culture coevolve, and once culture starts picking up the pace, genetic evolution picks up the pace as well
Early population bottlenecks can also contribute to rapid genetic evolution. If we suddenly lose 95% of all food, the humans that survive are going to be the ones that work best together to monopolize the remaining resources. The small number of people that are left and the genes they carry have an immense impact on the generations that follow. Some suspect this happened 70000-140000 years ago during large global temperature fluctuations and volcanic eruptions that disrupted the environment
Groupishness tends to be focused on improving the well-being of the in-group, instead of harming the out-group (although this does happen, e.g., warfare)
Human nature is mostly shaped by individual selection. However, there is certainly a case to be made that group selection has played a role in shaping human nature, particularly in shaping our righteous minds
Chapter 10: The hive switch
There exists a “switch” in us that, when engaged, dissolves selfish interests and prioritizes the collective. The peak of this is collective effervescence, a state achieved when a large group acts in synchrony, generating a sort of electricity that reverberates throughout the group
We are homo-duplex, we live most of our lives in our individual, ordinary worlds, but achieve some of our greatest joys in brief moments of connection to the “sacred” world, where the self dissolves and we become part of the whole
Oxytocin bonds people to their groups. It increases intra-group love, but not love towards all humans as a whole
Mirror neurons enable empathy, but studies show that they activate more for those that share their moral matrix (i.e., for those on their good side)
Ch11. Religion is a team sport
Often our beliefs are post hoc constructions designed to justify what we’ve just done, or to support the groups we belong to
New atheists dismiss religion as costly, ineffective, and irrational—a product of cognitive misfirings (e.g., agent-detection module). However, it turns out religion is a solution to one of the hardest challenges humanity faces: cooperation without kinship
Communes (i.e., groups of people who reject the moral matrix of general society) in the United States tend to persist longer when they adopt a religion. More within group demands for sacrifice also correlated with group longevity. The longevity of secular communes was much shorter, though this doesn’t necessarily mean the people in these communes were more or less happy. It just means religious communes may be more effective groups
In the human population as a whole, genes that promoted religious behaviour were likely to become more common in each generation as the less cohesive societies perished and the more united ones thrived
If human minds and human religions coevolved, shaping one another, we can not expect people to abandon religion so easily. Of course, one can still reject organized religion, a more recent cultural phenomena. But someone who rejects all religion will have a hard time shaking off their religious psychology
Particular religious beliefs and practices don’t correlate much with how altruistic a religious person is. How enmeshed with their co-religious community is the strongest correlate to how generous and charitable they are in general. Friendship and group activities carried out in a shared moral matrix enhance selflessness.
“It is religious belongingness that supports neighbourliness, not particular religious beliefs.”
Chapter 12: Can’t we all disagree more constructively?
Genes collectively give some people brains that are more (or less) reactive to threats, and that produce less (or more) pleasure when exposed to novelty, change, and new experiences. Genetics play a role in one’s tendency to be conservative or liberal
A study which asked thousands of American to fill out a moral foundation questionnaire, where a third answered as themselves, a third pretended to be a typical conservative, and a third pretended to be a typical liberal, found that moderates and conservatives were able to most accurately predict what the other sides would answer in the questionnaire. Liberals were the least accurate, with those who were “very liberal” having abysmal ability to predict the morals of conservatives
This is likely due in part to the emphasis on two moral pillars (care/harm and fairness) that liberals stand on, and the six pillars that conservatives stand on (even though, ironically, conservatives tend to be a bit less empathetic)
Can you convince yourself that the following statements hold merit?
People are inherently imperfect and prone to act poorly when all constraints of accountability are removed
Our reasoning is flawed and prone to overconfidence, making it dangerous to construct theories based on pure reason (i.e., rationality), unconstrained by intuition and historical experience
Institutions gradually emerge, shaped by society, which we then respect and sometimes even sacralise; if we strip institutions of authority and treat them as arbitrary and artificial, we render them less effective, exposing ourselves to social disorder and potentially a lack of meaning (anomie)
“Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for traditions, and dissolution/subjection to foreign conquest through the growth of individualism and personal independence that makes cooperation impossible.”
Liberal programs with good intentions can sometimes have unintended consequences, e.g., the urge to help Hispanic immigrants in 1989 led to multicultural education programs that emphasizes the differences among Americans, rather than their shared values and identity
“Emphasizing differences between one another makes many people more racist, not less.”
“We think the other side is blind to the truth, science, reason, and common sense, yet everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects (i.e., beliefs).”
Chapter 1: The worst breather in the animal kingdom
Around 40% of today’s population (western?) suffers from chronic nasal obstruction, around 50% of us are habitual mouth breathers (females and children suffer from this the most (why?))
Chapter 2: Mouthbreathing
How the body generates energy via food and/or air: anaerobic and aerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration metabolizes glucose to generate energy, and is much less (16x less) efficient than aerobic respiration, a process in which the cells in our body have fine-tuned over the past 2.5 billion years
Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing; nosebreathing begets more nosebreathing. Breathing through the mouth reduces air pressure against the back of the throat, causing the airways to sink and relax at the back of the throat, leading to restricted airways. Nose breathing increases air pressure, forcing the muscles at the back of the throat to open up, leading to opened airways
Chapter 3: Nose
The interior of the nose is lined with erectile tissue. When the right nostril is breathed through it tends to be associated with a more sympathetic response: increased heart rate and cortisol and feeds more blood (?) to the left frontal cortex which is associated with impulse response and logical decision making. The left nostril is associated with a more parasympathetic response, calming the body down and feeding blood to brain regions more associated with creativity and mental abstractions
Nasal breathing induces a release of nitric oxide by the sinuses, a molecule that plays an essential role in increasing circulation and oxygen delivery to cells. We can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen through nose breathing than by mouthbreathing
Chapter 4: Exhale
Chapter 5: Slow
Breathing slowly improves oxygen usage, allowing carbon dioxide to settle a bit longer which eases transport of oxygen within hemoglobin to needy tissues
Many meditative/prayer practices, e.g., Buddhist/Hindu chants and the Christian rosary, involve chants or rhythmic breathing of a rate of ~5.5 breaths per minute. These practices may have evolved as they synchronized with cardiovascular rhythms, and gave a feeling of well-being and alertness while practicing
Chapter 6: Less
Slower breathing holds in slightly more carbon dioxide, which lowers the pH in blood to make it more acidic. The sweet spot pH in blood is about 7.4, and the body attempts to maintain that pH
One way the body does this aside from breathing is through buffering, in which the kidneys release bicarbonate from blood into urine, lowering the pH in response to high pH levels (brought about by low carbon dioxide from too-rapid breathing)
When bicarbonate leaves the body, it takes magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium with it. This is why asthmatics and others are prescribed these supplements to stave off future attacks
Bones get weakened as well, as mineral stores within the bones are dissolved to compensate for the lost minerals
Chapter 7: Chew
Chewing helps maintain a strong jaw and keeps the jaw and teeth structurally sound. The historical records find that around the time softer foods were developed, a corresponding significant decrease in teeth quality (straightness) came along with it.
I like to think of this like trying to plant a fence post in eroded and granular soil: your fence post is going to wiggle around. Whereas, with a strong, dense soil, the fence post stays straight and upright.
Chapter 8: More, on occasion
The parasympathetic system is part of the autonomic nervous system that stimulates relaxation and restoration. It eases digestion, relaxes bowels for waste elimination, and stimulates genitals before sex (“feed and breed” system). Many nerves in the lungs that connect to the parasympathetic system are located deep down in the lungs, so deeper, relaxed breaths tend to engage a parasympathetic response
The sympathetic system stimulates the fight or flight response. Nerves for this system tend to be located in the upper lungs. Short, rapid breaths engage the sympathetic system, routing blood from less-vital organs (like stomach and bladder) to more important organs (like muscles and brain)
Tummo breathing is a technique used by Buddhist monks in the Himalayas to stay warm with limited insulation. This heavy breathing practice coupled with cold exposure releases adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol on demand. Immune function is enhanced by adrenaline, inflammatory immune response in downgraded by cortisol, and norepinephrine redirects blood from the skin, stomach, and reproductive organs to muscles, the brain, and other vital organs
Tummo breathing and cold exposure expands the bounds on what the body is used to, and what it can handle, such that it can adapt and become flexible with respect to unseen stressful physiological responses
Tummo breathing procedure:
Lay flat on your back with a pillow beneath your head
Take a very deep breath into the pit of the stomach, through the nose if possible. Inhaling should first inflate the stomach, then the chest. Exhale out just as quickly as the inhale. Repeat 30 times
Exhale to leave about a quarter of the air in the lungs and hold that air for as long as possible
Take a huge inhale and hold it for another 15 seconds. Move the fresh air around the chest and shoulders.
Repeat steps 2-4 for three or four rounds
Chapter 9: Hold it
We have a cluster of neurons at the base of the brain stem called central chemoreceptors, that measure CO2 levels in the bloodstream (?) to regulate how fast and deeply we should be breathing. Low CO2 -> breathe slower, high CO2 -> breathe faster
These chemoreceptors have the ability to trigger a panic/fear response outside the amygdalae, which is generally responsible for translating external stimuli into aversive behaviour. The roots of the chemoreceptors are more ancient than that of the amygdalae, used by the first aerobic life forms around 2.5B years ago
Chapter 10: Fast, slow, and not at all
Epilogue: A last gasp
“…our body is much more nearly perfect than the endless list of ailments suggest. Its shortcomings are due less to its inborn imperfections than to our abusing it.” - Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi
Nine out of ten of the top human killers, i.e., diabetes, heart disease, stroke, are cause by the food we eat, water we drink, the houses and offices we work in. Humanity/civilizations created these diseases
Consilience: a “jumping together” of knowledge by linking facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation
Chapter 3: The Enlightenment
Francis Bacon (1561), a founder of the Enlightenment, believed that we must understand nature, both around us and within ourselves, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement
Bacon emphasized to beware of the idols of the mind:
Idol of the tribe is assuming that more order exists in chaotic nature (i.e., being allured to simple answers that seemingly describe complex issues)
The imprisoning cave is getting caught in the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion
The marketplace is where the power of mere words are used to induce belief in nonexistent things
The theatre is an unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstrations
Bacon urged to observe the world around you as it truly is and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it—approaching and transmitting truth is Nature’s calling
Chinese scholarship focused on holistic properties and on the harmonious, hierarchical relationships of entities, from stars down to mountains to flowers and to sand. The entities of Nature, in this view, are inseparable and perpetually changing, not discrete and constant as perceived by Enlightenment thinkers (who adopted a more reductionist approach)
Our species and its way of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution
The “Anthropic principle”: the laws of nature, in our universe at the least, had to be set a certain way so as to allow the creation of beings able to ask about the laws of nature
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world” - Einstein
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
Questions that can’t be answered are generally better than answers that can’t be questioned
Wilson suggests that there are two kinds of original thinkers: those who upon viewing disorder try to create order, and those who upon encountering order try to protest it by creating disorder. The tension between the two is what drives learning forward. (Ying and Yang)
Chapter 4: The Natural Sciences
Reductionism is the search strategy employed to find points of entry into otherwise impenetrably complex systems
“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”
Optimum intelligence for normal sciences: bright enough to see what needs to be done, but not so bright as to suffer boredom doing it
Natural selection built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to understand it at a depth greater than or equal to what is needed to survive
The goal of a scientist should be to diagnose and correct the misalignment between human subjective experience and free-standing reality
Chapter 5: Ariadne’s Thread
The activation-synthesis hypothesis suggests that dreaming may be a side effect of the reorganization and editing of the brain’s memory banks
During sleep, with most sensory input lacking, the conscious brain is still activated internally by impulses originating from the brain stem. Lacking instantaneous sensory information, yet attempting to perform its usual function (?), the brain does its best to create images that move through coherent narratives—creating fantasy
Chapter 6: The Mind
The thalamus, comprising of two egg-shaped masses of nerve cells near the centre of the brain, functions as a relay center through which all sensory information (other than smell) is transmitted to the cerebral cortex (i.e., the conscious mind). Even dreams are triggered by impulses passing through the thalamus
Neurotransmitter: a chemical that either excites an electric discharge in a receiving nerve cell or prevents one from occurring (acts within the synapse, the points of connection and microscopic space between nerve cells, at the ends of their axons)
Aggregates of neuron circuits gather in flat assemblages (layers) and rounded assemblages (nuclei), mostly placed at or near the surface of the brain. This is why the gray matter of the brain is gray, with the white colour coming from the myelin sheaths that insulate axons. These aggregates include sensory relay stations, memory modules, and emotional control centres.
Three primitive divisions of the brain are found throughout vertebrates, from fishes to mammals: hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
Hindbrain regulates breathing, heartbeat, and coordination of body movements
Midbrain controls sleep and arousal, also parts regulating auditory reflexes and perception
A major part of the forebrain is composed of the limbic system, comprised of the amygdala (emotion), hippocampus (memory, especially short-term), hypothalamus (memory, temperature control, sex drive, hunger, and thirst) and thalamus (awareness of all senses other than smell, be it temperature or pain)
Forebrain also includes the cerebral cortex, covering the rest of the brain. The primary seat of consciousness, storing and collating information from the senses. It directs voluntary motor activity, speech, and motivation
The self is the main character in the winning dramas taken from the litany scenarios generated by the subconscious mind. The hidden preparation of these scenarios gives the illusion of free will. We make decisions for reasons we often sense only vaguely, and seldom understand fully
Can AI generate a human mind equivalent? Seems unlikely, as the mind’s emotions are driven by the senses (touch, sight, smell, taste, sound) and a computational neural network is unlikely to have access to these senses, especially at the resolution of a biological system that has fine-tuned its sensory organs over hundreds of millions of years. The AI may be able to mimic what a human mind is capable of, but without human senses and thus human emotion, it doesn’t seem like it would be conscious in the human sense; though, it could gain consciousness in the computational sense
Chapter 7: From genes to culture
Culture is created by the communal mind, and each mind is the product of the genetically structured human brain; genes and culture are thus inseverably linked
As a part of gene-culture coevolution, culture is collectively reconstructed each generation in the minds of its individuals. Writing and art allows culture to grow indefinitely large and even skip generation, as opposed to solely oral tradition. However, the fundamental biasing influences of epigenetic rules, being genetic and ineradicable, stay constant
Some individuals inherit epigenetic rules that enable survival and reproduction between in their environment and culture than individuals who lack those rules. As such, the human species has evolved genetically by natural selection in behaviour, just as it has anatomically and neurologically
Some cultural norms also survive and reproduce better than competing norms, causing culture to evolve on a track parallel to (and much faster than) genetic evolution. Culture allows rapid adjustments to changes in the environment through cultural adaptations without correspondingly precise genetic prescriptions. This is one reason why humans differ fundamentally from all other animal species
On epigenetic rules, i.e., innate genetic predispositions: o By four months old, infants prefer harmonious tones, and sometimes react to out-of-tune notes with a disgusted facial expression (the same as elicited by a drop of lemon juice on the tongue) o The startle response from a loud noise closes the eyes, opens the mouth, drops the head, sags the arms and shoulders, and buckles the knees, preparing the body as though to absorb a coming blow o Newborns prefer sugar solutions over plain water in the following order: sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose o Within ten minutes after birth, infants fixate more on normally drawn facial designs than on abnormal designs o Two days after birth, infants prefer to gaze at their mother rather than unknown, other women o Smiling, used primarily to signal friendliness and approval and indicate a general sense of pleasure, appears cross culturally; environment has little influence in the maturation of smiling
Reification, i.e., the aggregation of ideas and complex phenomena into simpler concepts, is a quick and easy mental algorithm that creates order in a world otherwise overwhelming in flux and detail
The dyadic instinct, a manifestation of reification, is the proneness to divide classifications into two parts: in-group vs out-group, child vs adult, kin vs non-kin, married vs single, sacred vs profane, good vs evil. The boundaries of each division are fortified with taboo and ritual (initiation ceremonies, weddings, blessings, rites of passage)
Chapter 8: The fitness of human nature
The significant acceleration of cultural evolution in historical times may seem to imply that humanity has transcended its genetic instructions or found a way to suppress them. That is an illusion. The ancient genes and the epigenetic rules of behaviour they ordain remain comfortably in place
Through homo habilis, homo erectus, homo ergaster, and homo sapiens, cultural evolution was slow enough to remain tightly coupled to genetic evolution, until around 40000 to 10000 years ago, where Neolithic agricultural advances upped the tempo of cultural evolution
There is no evidence that our paleolithic genes simply disappeared during the “creative revolution” ensued by agricultural development. They remained in place and continued to prescribe the foundational rules of human nature
Chapter 9: The social sciences
The social sciences—anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science—strive to provide the power to predict what will happen if society selects one course of action over another
The social sciences lack consilience because they aren’t built upon, and don’t share, a solid foundation like the natural sciences do (e.g., medical sciences can build off molecular and cell biology)
As such, the social sciences are built into independent cadres with limited common ground, stressing the precision in words within their specialty yet seldom speaking the same technical language in another speciality. They mistake the overall atmosphere of chaos for creative ferment
The paradox of the social sciences is that it seems easier because we can talk with other humans but not with photons and atoms, yet this familiarity bestows a comfort that in turn breeds carelessness and error. People believe they know how they themselves think, and how others think, and how institutions evolve; they are wrong.
James S. Coleman, a distinguished sociologist from the University of Chicago, stated that the study of societies require “that the explanatory focus be on the system as a unit, not in the individuals or other components that make it up.” (i.e., holism)
Imagine if the same were done in biology, “the essential requirement is that the explanatory focus be on the organism as a unit, not in the cell or molecules that make it up.” Biology would have remained stagnant around 1850 with that perspective. Biology is instead a science that traces causation across many levels of organization, from ecosystem to atom
Epigenetic rules are innate rules of thumb that direct the individual towards quick and accurate responses most likely to ensure survival and reproduction. Sometimes, especially in complex societies, they no long contribute to health and well-being; the behaviour they direct can militate against the best interests of the individual and its society
The practical role of evolutionary theory is to point to the most likely location of epigenetic rules within a culture
Chapter 10: the arts and their interpretation
Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs. In this sense, the arts are the antithesis of science
A potential formula for the driving pulse of the arts: imitate (generally something in nature), make it geometrical, intensify
The dominating influence that spawned the arts was the need to impose order on the confusion caused by intelligence
In a study on physical attractiveness of female faces, the features though most attractive were relatively high cheek bones, a thin jaw, large eyes relative to the size of the face, and a slightly shorter than longer distance between mouth and chin and between nose and chin
Though, these qualities are rare in the general population. Why, then, hasn’t natural selection directed facial features to this optimum? It’s possible that attraction to these features is an attraction to a super-normal stimulus—-much like how male butterflies can be tricked into trying to mate with a mechanical butterfly who’s wings are larger and flap faster, while ignoring the real female butterflies that surround it. Perhaps we follow a similar epigenetic rule as do other animals, i.e., “take the largest, or brightest, or most conspicuously moving individual you can find.”
The author suggests that women with large eyes and delicate features may have less robust health (?), especially during childbearing; but they present physical cues of youth, virginity, and the prospect of a long reproductive period. This is why the beauty industry thrives: they manufacture super-normal stimuli by imitating the natural physiological signs of youth and fecundity
Chapter 11: Ethics and religion
The dangerous Christian devotion of ”I was not born to be of this world” can encourage the notion that with a second life waiting, suffering can be endured—especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised
Ethical and religious beliefs are created from the bottom up, from people to their culture. They do not come from the top down, from God or other no material source to the people by way of culture
Tribes cooperate with one another through carefully defined treaties and other conventions, quick to imagine themselves as victims of conspiracies by competing groups, and prone to dehumanizing and murdering their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement group loyalty by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies
There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose, as such our brains were shaped by evolution to be groupish and primed for religious adoption
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods; it did not evolve to believe in biology. Religiosity conveyed genetic advantages throughout prehistory, and biology is a modern product and thus not reflected in our genetic algorithms. The two are not factually compatible, therefore those who hunt for both intellectual and religious truth will struggle to acquire both in full measure
Wilson believes that the competition between science and religion will lead towards the secularization of the human epic and religion itself. Science will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition, and in time uncover the foundation of moral and religious sentiments
Chapter 12: To what end?
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely
The Ratchet of Progress: the more knowledge people acquire, the more they can increase their numbers and alter the environment, whereupon the more they need new knowledge just to stay alive. In a human-dominated world, the natural environment steadily shrinks, offering less and less per capita energy and resources
A principal principle of organic evolution is that of habitat selection, that all species prefer and gravitate to the environment in which their genes were assembled. This is likely why so many people gravitate towards nature and the outdoors
The colonisation of space will be impossible without massive supply lines. The Biosphere experiment in the early 1990s, costing $200M, attempted to create a synthetic environment isolated from the real world (except for electricity and communication). Only 8 individuals participated in the experiment. The concentration of oxygen depleted five months into the experiment, and oxygen from the outside had to be pumped in to continue the experiment. Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide increases to dangerous levels. 19/25 vertebrates and all animal pollinators vanished, and cockroaches and ants multiplied explosively. The conclusion of the experiment was that “No one yet knows how to engineer systems that can sustain human life like the natural ecosystems that produce it for free.”
The wall toward humanity is evidently rushing toward a shortage of not only minerals and energy, but of food and water. Humankind is like a household living giddily off vanishing capital. The idea that “Life is good and getting better, we’re still expanding and spending faster…don’t worry, we’re a smart bunch, something will turn up; it always has.”
It’s helpful to imagine the lily pad arithmetic riddle in this situation. A lily pad doubles itself each day after being placed in the pond. On the thirtieth day, the lily pads cover the pond entirely, unable to grow more. On which day was the pond half full and half empty? The twenty-ninth day.
Humanity will attempt to invoke every techno local fix for an over-populated planet that genius can devise. They will be driven by venture capital and government subsidy in the free market economy, and reduce the risk of short term economic calamity. Though, these man-made procedures will enlarge the carrying capacity of the planet, and as human beings are typical organisms, their reproductive response will be to expand to fill the added capacity, and the spiral will continue
The more biodiverse an ecosystem, the higher it’s productivity and the greater it’s resilience to environmental stress. Since we depend on functioning ecosystems to cleanse our water, enrich our soil, and generate the air we breathe, biodiversity is something we shouldn’t discard carelessly
Cloud 9 originates from when cloud taxonomy was documented by a Scottish meteorologist in 1896. The greatest cloud of them all, the cumulonimbus, landed at the highest spot—-number 9. The most divine cloud of them all, the term cloud nine appropriately refers to a state of divine bliss
Science denial happens on both sides of the spectrum: on the right, climate change and Darwinian evolution (for Christian fundamentalists); on the left, crystal healing, magnetic therapy, homeopathy, astrology, anti-GMO
The creation myth is a Darwinian device for survival. Tribal conflict was a principal driving force that shaped biological human nature. By itself, mythmaking could never discover the origin and meaning of humanity (as it attempts to do); however, the discovery of the origin and meaning of humanity may explain the origin and meaning of myths, the core of organized religion
Part 2: Where do we come from?
Chapter 2: The two paths to conquest
Human groups are formed of highly flexible alliance, in which strategies for navigating these groups were written as a complicated mix of altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection, and deceit
This array of strategies required higher degrees of intelligence and intense socialization. The brain had to measure emotions of friend and enemy, plan strategies for social interaction, build mental scenarios of short and long-term relationships, and retrieve memories far into the past and long into the future to imagine the consequences of every relationship
Chapter 3: The approach
Chapter 4: The arrival
One critical point in our evolutionary past was when our ancestors developed an omnivore diet. Hunting game requires a high amount of teamwork and cohesion, and it’s worth it: meat is pound for pound more energetically efficient than vegetable food
Another critical point was the ability to control fire, which then led to camps (i.e., nests) which served as the nucleus for social groups. Now in close proximity to one another on a regular basis, intellectual development that enhanced one’s cohesion with the group (e.g., social intelligence, empathy, deceitfulness, etc.) was selected for, propelling our intellectual development further
I also remember reading that cooked food also requires less energy to consume (chewing), which may have allowed resources to be directed away from the jaw to the brain region. It seems like these factors (this one and the previous point) arose in tandem, with cooked food enabling more brain capacity and social complexities driving the cerebral growth
Chapter 5: Threading the evolutionary maze
The following preadaptations enabled human eusociality:
Living on land: without land dwelling there exists no possibility for the use of fire—a critical prerequisite to social flourishing in mammals * Being large: to house a brain with enough processing power to compute the complexities of social organization requires a large enough animal to house that brain. While ants are hypersocial and design intricate architecture with custom air conditioning, they are purely instinctual. And again, insects are too small to control fire * Grasping hands tipped with spatulate finger tips * Having those grasping hands free from walking, i.e., being bipedal * A shift from vegetarianism to an omnivore diet. Meat yields more energy per gram than vegetation. The social cooperation required to hunt meat also led to select for groups who could cooperate effectively * The controlled use of fire followed, facilitating the consumption of meats; mastication and digestion of cooked meats requires less energy * Persistent fire provided a refuge for early Homo species. As such, nests were formed—a precursor to the attainment of eusociality of all other known animals * With fireside campsites came division of labor, where subgroups formed and bands organized into dominance hierarchies
Chapter 6: Creative forces
The outcome of between-group competition for humans was determined largely by the size and tightness of the group, and the quality of their communication and division of labor
The genetic fitness of a human being is the consequence of both individual and group selection. These two forces tend to pull in opposite directions—I could deceive and cheat in pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the group, or I could be heroic and altruistic for the benefit of the group, but at the expense of my resources
If the benefit from group membership falls below that which would be had from a solitary life, evolution would favour cheating or departure from the group. If personal benefit from group membership rises high enough, the members will be prone to altruism and conformity
Group composition is unstable because of advantageous group size increases from immigration, ideological proselytization, and conquest, pitted against the advantages by usurpation within the group and fission to create new groups
Much of culture (i.e., the content of the creative arts) has risen from the inevitable clash between individual and group selection
Chapter 7: Tribalism is a fundamental human trait
People must have a tribe. It gives them their own and social meaning in a chaotic world, making the environment seem less disorienting and dangerous. Each human has a system of interlocking tribes, savouring the company of like-minded friends, and yearning to be in one of the best tribes
Groups, regardless of how they are formed, have always been observed to rank out-group below in-group—even in experiments when they were told the in-groups and out-groups were chosen arbitrarily
The tendency to form groups and favour the in-group members has the earmarks of instinct. Children can have an inborn propensity to learn some things swiftly and decisively, known as prepared learning. Evidence suggests that in-group preference is prepared early in development, with infants being most sensitive to the sounds of their native language, regardless of whether the meaning of the speech is fully comprehended. Later, these infants look preferentially at person who spoke their native language within their hearing
The elementary drive to form and take deep pleasure from in-group membership translates at a higher level into tribalism. We are prone to ethnocentrism, preferring the company of others of the same race, nation, clan, and religion (or anything that can be symbolically represented—as long as I can tell who belongs to my group and who doesn’t)
Different parts of the brain have evolved by group selection to create groupishness. Studies have observed that the amygdala (fear & anger) fires when subjects are presented an image of someone of a different race
Chapter 8: War as humanity’s hereditary curse
Once a group has been split off and sufficiently dehumanized, justifications can be made for horrible acts towards that group, no matter how gruesome
As a biological reproducing species, our population approaches limits set by available food and water. We are still fundamentally the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, just with more food and larger territories. Yet, we blindly obey the instincts that we’ve inherited from our Palaeolithic predecessors, which in our case lead to an overindulgence of energy and material resources
Chapter 9: Breakout
A loose rule of island biogeography is that animals smaller than 20kg tend to evolve into relative giants (e.g., the immense tortoises of the Galapagos), and animals larger than 20kg tend to evolve towards dwarfism (e.g., the dwarf deer of the Florida Keys)
A cousin of Homo Sapiens, branching from Homo Erectus, are the Homo floresiensis of the island Flores, who were less than 1 meter tall and with brains of comparable size to australopithecines. This evolutionary product supports the above stated loose rules
“We should learn to promote human biological diversity for its own sake instead of using it to justify prejudice and conflict.”
Chapter 10: The creative explosion
Bands and communities of bands with better combinations of cultural innovations became more productive and better equipped for competition and war. Rivals either copied them or else were conquered. Thus, group selection drove the evolution of culture
Chapter 11: The sprint to civilization
The chiefs of chiefdoms typically micromanaged the affairs of their domain, delegating as little authority as possible to reduce the chance of insurrection. Common tactics include the suppression of underlings and fermenting a fear of rival chiefdoms
Part 3: How social insects conquered the invertebrate world
Chapter 12: The invention of eusociality
Chapter 13: Inventions that advanced the social insects
A significant change that allowed for the flourishing of ants, and other social insects in general, was the shift in arboreal flora from mostly conifers to leafy and flowered trees. Flowered trees are more diverse and thus leave a more diverse landscape in the soil below (as the portions of the trees eventually fall to the forest floor). They also coevolved with insects, encouraging pollination, and rewarding with sugar
This change in the tree landscape also led to a symbiosis between ants and sap sucking insects (i.e., aphids). These aphids would suck sap from trees and excrete their waste below. Ants eventually learned to consume this sugary waste, and in return the aphids wouldn’t get stuck in a pile of their sticky waste
Now, some species of ants have intricate nests with pastures laid out for their fleet of sapsuckers, much like how humans do for domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, and so on.
Some species of ants in more earthen regions (i.e., not so foresty) have granaries to store seeds of nearby plants
Social complexity seems to involve at some point a species developing an ability to sustain larger energy reserves. Ants develop intricate, complex nests with a caste of workers with specialized skills, as do humans in the forms of civilizations with farmers, engineers, and medics
“The more elaborate and expensive a nest is in energy and time, the greater the fierceness of the ants that protect it.”
Part 4: The forces of social evolution
Chapter 14: The scientific dilemma of rarity
Chapter 15: Insect altruism and eusociality explained
Chapter 16: Insects take the giant leap
One explanation as to the rarity of eusociality is that it requires specific pre-adaptations, notably the construction of a nest in which offspring are reared. Then, there comes a point where cooperation with another member of the species, e.g., one bee produces larvae while the other defends the nest. This would require an allele change (based on external environmental cues) in the bees that suppress certain behaviours, i.e., foraging for food or producing offspring
An allele flip of this sort happened with ants as the working caste lost their wings. The idea is that this gene switch would cause offspring that would otherwise disperse to instead stay and contribute to the nest. This would occur when cooperation of the group favours survival more than if the insect lived a solitary life
Eusociality seems to become irreversible once an anatomically distinct worker caste is developed
In a eusocial insect group, there must be a balance in cooperation. If too many queens, there are not enough workers to maintain the colony; if too many workers, food around the nest will fall short; if not enough soldiers, predators will overwhelm the nest; and if not enough foragers, the colony will starve
Chapter 17: How natural selection creates social instincts
Overarching principles crucial for understanding the genetic basis of instinct and social behaviour:
The distinction between the unit of heredity and the target of selection. The unit is a gene/arrangement of genes that form part of the hereditary code. The target of selection is the trait/combination of traits encoded by the units of heredity and favoured/disfavoured by the environment
Natural selection is usually multilevel: it acts on genes that prescribe targets at multiple levels of biological organization, such as cell and organism, or organism and colony. Selection occurring at one level (e.g., the cell) can work in the opposite direction from that of the adjacent level (e.g., the organism). A runaway cancer cell causes the organism of which it is a member to sicken and die. Conversely, the community of cells stays healthy when the growth of cancer cells is controlled
In colonies composed of authentically cooperating individuals (i.e., humans), selection among genetically diverse individual members promotes selfish behaviour; while selection between groups of humans typically promotes altruism among members of the colony. Colonies of cheaters lose to colonies of cooperators. The degree of cohesiveness of a colony depends on the number of cooperators and cheaters, which depends on the relative intensities of individual selection versus group selection
Traits (targets) that group selection acts upon emerge from interactions among members of the group (e.g., communication, division of labor, cooperation, etc.). If these interactions favour the colony over another colony who uses lesser interactions, the genes prescribing the improved group performance spreads through the population of colonies
Individual vs. Group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness (virtue and sin) among society members. If a colony member devoted their life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though they do not have personal offspring. If a colony member is a layabout our coward who saves their energy passes the resulting social cost onto others
Phenotypic plasticity describes how traits prescribed by genes (phenotypes) may sometimes be rigid (in the case of the number of fingers on the hand or colour of eyes) but may also be flexible based on environmental cues. There is a species of plant, the water crowfoot, who’s leaves will adopt a different style depending on the surrounding, brushed below water and broad above
Proximate cause: how a process or structure works
Ultimate cause: why the process or structure occurs in the first place
Chapter 18: The forces of social evolution
In this chapter E.O Wilson attempts to challenge the dogma of inclusive fitness theory, i.e., the notion that degrees of altruism are proportional to the degree of genetic relatedness when trying to explain the emergence of eusociality
While there are a few examples in which kin selection holds to explain social phenomena, group selection also offers convincing arguments as well
One example is that of an ant colony which invests more energy into virgin females than males. This was initially though to be because this particular ant species was diploidhaploid, i.e., sisters share 3/4 of their genes with one another compared to 1/2 with their mother. Female workers investing more in the virgin females compared to males seemingly confirmed inclusive fitness theory; they invested more in the females since they’re more related. However, an alternative explanation is that males are proportionally smaller and less energy intensive to produce than females, who have fatty deposits to support reproduction. If offspring were invested in based on energy equivalency, many more males would be supported than females, which would result in wasted resources (as many males would be left without a partner). As such, more investment in females is optimal for the colony in terms of resource allocation, making it a more efficient relative to colonies that do not follow this strategy (i.e., selection at the group level)
Chapter 19: The emergence of a new theory of eusociality
Part 5: What are we?
Chapter 20: What is human nature?
Human nature is the inherited regularities of mental development common to our species
Examples of this include:
Incest avoidance: most social species are exogamous, i.e., their young go off to another tribe, humans are no different. Likewise, humans follow a simple rule of thumb known as the Westermarck effect: Have no sexual interest in those whom you knew intimately during the earliest years of your life. Note, this effect occurs regardless of the degree of relatedness between two individuals
Colour perception: when modulating the intensity of light, we can correctly perceive the continuous nature of the intensity change. However, if we do the same with wavelength, i.e., changing colours, we bin the changes into their major colour groups (red, to orange, to yellow, to green and so on). We discretize colours, even though the wavelength spectrum is continuous, likely because it was evolutionary advantageous to do so
Cross culturally, the language used to describe colour follows a hierarchy (known as the Berlin-Kay progression): black and white -> red -> green/yellow -> blue -> brown -> the rest. This sequence is not random, indicating some human predisposition in describing more/less important colours
Chapter 21: How culture evolved
Culture is the combination of traits that distinguishes one group from another
A cultural trait is a behaviour either first invented in a group or learned from another group, and then transmitted among group members
The driving force leading to the threshold of complex cultures appears to be group section. A group whose members could read intentions and cooperate among one another, and predict the actions of competing groups, had an enormous advantage over competing groups. Individual selection surely still played a role in intra-group competition, yet group selection acted on inter-group competition
Morality, conformity, religious fervour, and fighting ability were keystone to generating a united, cooperative, and effective group
Chapter 22: The origins of language
Three particular attributes enabled our species to approach the highest level of social intelligence: shared attention; high level of awareness required to act together in achieving a common goal; and the “theory of mind”, i.e., the recognition that their mental states are shared by others
Language is a set of coordination devices that serve to direct the attention of others
When the conversational gaps (the pauses between one person’s speaking and the other’s answering) of ten languages were measured, all were shown to avoid overlap, and the length of turnover gaps were found to be almost the same
In warmer climates, languages around the world have evolved to use more vowels and fewer consonants, creating more sonorous combinations of sounds; sonorous sounds carry further, in accord with the tendency of people in warm climates to spend more time outdoors and keep greater distances apart
The genetic basis of human language acquisition did not coevolve with language but predates the emergence of language. Language has evolved to fit the human brain, rather than the reverse
Chapter 23: The evolution of cultural variation
In the castes of any colonies, there exist major workers (giant soldiers that perform tasks outside of the nest) and minor workers (timid workers that perform tasks in the best such as nursing majors). Majors have a higher death rate, and are thus produced at a higher per capital rate than minors, maintaining an optimum balance in numbers between the two castes
Cultural variation is determined mostly by two properties of social behaviour: the degree of bias in the epigenetic rule (e.g., low in dress fashion or high in incest avoidance) and the sensitivity to the usage pattern (i.e., the likelihood that group members with imitate others who’ve adapted a particular trait)
Chapter 24: The origins of morality and honour
The conflict between the poorer and better angels of our nature stem from the conflicts arising between individual and group selection
Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin; group selection is responsible for much of what we call virtue
Group selection shapes instincts that tend to make individuals altruistic toward one another (but now towards members of other groups); individual selection shapes instincts in each member that are fundamentally selfish with reference to other members
Iron rule of genetic social evolution: selfish individuals best altruistic individuals, and groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals
The countries with highest quality of life (in terms of education, health, crime, collective self-interests) also have the smallest divide in wealth between the wealthiest and poorest citizens
A naturalistic understanding of morality doesn’t lead to absolute precepts and sure judgement but warns against basing them blindly on religious and ideological dogmas. When such precepts are misguided (as they often are), it usually stems from ignorance—i.e., important factors are unintentionally omitted during formulation
Examples of these ideological dogmas include:
Opposition to artificial conception (sex without the intention of conception) with the (well-intended) reasoning being that sex is made to make babies. While this is true in most species, primates included, humans are slightly different in that women have concealed genitalia as to mask their fertility. This is to encourage sexual intercourse as a bonding mechanism without the intent to necessarily conceive a child. This strengthens the partners’ bonds, which is important since raising a human child requires long term support (due their relative helpless in early years) and thus additional investment from the father
Homophobia: under the same guise, condemning homosexuality since sex doesn’t produce offspring is misguided. Homosexuality is heritable and occurs too frequently to be the result of mutations alone. Thus, natural selection must be acting to select for homosexuality in populations. Homosexuals occupy niches and roles that support groups more than had they been absent—hence homosexuality is natural and healthy within societies
Chapter 25: The origins of religion
The illogic of religions is not a weakness, but their essential strength. Acceptance of their bizarre creation myths is what binds followers together
The core of traditional organized religions are their creation myths. Creation myths come about in part from folk memories of momentous events, like mass emigration, wars, and natural disasters; stories of devils and angels likely spawn from hallucinations invoked by sleep paralysis, mental illnesses (schizophrenia), or hallucinogenic drugs (mushrooms, fungi, hemp, etc., which were commonly consumed in the Middle East when Abrahamic religions were being crafted)
Around the late palaeolithic era humans started to reflect on their mortality, as suggested by ritual burial sites aged around ~95000 years ago
Thus humans would have asked where dead people go, and having still seen the dead in their dreams or hallucinations, they concluded the dead must be in some spirit realm, the same inhabited by dreams or hallucinations
Religious faith offers the psychological security that uniquely comes from belonging to a group
Chapter 26: The origins of the creative arts
“Art is the lie that helps us to see the truth” - Picasso
Part 6: Where are we going?
Chapter 28: A new enlightenment
On free will: we are free as independent beings, but our decisions are not free of all the organic processes that created our personal brains and minds
The opposition of the two levels of natural selection, individual and group level, has resulted in a chimeric genotype in each person, rendering each of us part saint and part sinner
Every person feels the pull of conscience, of heroism against cowardice, altruism against greed, truth against deception, and commitment against withdrawal. These dilemmas stem from the conflicting objectives of multilevel selection
To question the sacred myths of a religion is to question the identity and worth of its followers, which is why skeptics (including those from other tribes with equally absurd myths) are so righteously disliked
*Why We Get Sick, The new science of Darwinian medicine, Nesse & Williams
Chapter 1: The mystery of disease
Proximate explanations answer “what?” and “how?” questions about structure and mechanism; evolutionary explanations answer “why?” questions about origins and functions
Most medical research seeks the proximate explanations about how a body part works or how a disease disrupts function. The other half of biology, that tries to explain what things are for and how they got there, has been neglected in medicine
One may worry that evolutionary explanations are mere speculation, however studies are showing that evolutionary hypotheses can predict what to expect in proximate mechanisms (e.g., morning sickness evolved to protect the developing fetus from toxins during its most vulnerable state)
6 categories of evolutionary explanations of disease:
Defenses: while not actually an explanation of disease, this is listed because it is so often confused with other manifestations of disease. An example provided is that of a pneumonia patient who has blue-ish skin and a cough. The blue skin comes from a lack of oxygen in the hemoglobin which leads to darker blood. This is a problem that should be addressed, lack of oxygen is no bueno. The cough, however, is a defense, evolved to expel foreign material from the respiratory tract. Coughing is not a problem, and suppressing this defense puts the body at more risk
Infection: we evolved defenses to counter viral and bacterial threats, viruses and bacteria have evolve ways to overcome our defenses and even use them to their own benefit. This evolutionary arms race explains why eradication of all infections is futile
Novel environments (i.e., evolutionary mismatch)
Genes: some of our genes are perpetuated even though they cause disease, as some of their effects were “quirks” that were harmless in our evolutionary environment
Design compromises: walking upright gives us the ability to carry food, tools, and babies while walking, but predisposes us to back problems. To better understand diseases, we need to understand the hidden benefits of apparent mistakes in design
Evolutionary legacies: evolution is an incremental process and cannot make huge jumps. As such, some designs at this point can be sub-optimal, e.g., our food passes over our windpipe. Once a system is in place, it is costly to re-engineer the evolutionary history
Chapter 2: Evolution by natural selection
If tendencies towards anxiety, heart failure, nearsightedness, and cancer are somehow associated with reproductive success, they will be selected for and we will suffer even as we “succeed” in the purely evolutionary sense
When Henry Ford asked, while in a junkyard of Model T’s, what particular systems never fail on those cars, he was answered with “the steering column never fails”. He instructed his chief engineer to redesign it, as if it never breaks, they must be spending too much on it
In a similar way, natural selection avoids overdesign
Some genes that cause aging are not necessarily maladaptive. They may confer benefits during the early years of life, when reproduction (and thus selection) is at its highest potential. These benefits are more important to fitness than the later costs of aging and inevitable death
When we ask these “why” questions about adaptive reasoning, we must guard against too readily believing fanciful stories. A bogus hypothesis to why our noses protrude would be that they evolved that way to hold up glasses. May seem plausible at first, but upon critical review it doesn’t hold up
Hypotheses about evolutionary origins require testing, and due to the impossibility of rewinding time and re-running evolution, testing of evolutionary hypotheses are especially challenging. This is no reason not to pursue them, the work just becomes more challenging and interesting
Chapter 3: Signs and symptoms of infectious disease
Numerous studies have found that animals consistently seek to warm their body temperature to combat disease, and when this is suppressed, by a fever-lowering drug for example, they are more likely to die
Studies have found that children with chicken pox take an average of 1 day longer to recover when fever was suppressed, similarly results were observed with colds
Fever has its costs; it depletes energy reserves 20 percent faster and causes temporary male sterility. High fevers can cause delirium and seizures
Iron deficiencies were found to be associated with infection, so physicians have in the past attempted to supplement iron. However, the body is actually trying to rid itself of iron such that it can’t be used by pathogens - supplementing iron enhances the pathogens and results in worsened infection. Care should be taken to respect the evolved wisdom of the body.
The female reproductive system normally finds fluids flowing outwards, hence protecting the system from infection. The only exception to this is during sex, when sperm flow inwards, and have the potential to carry bacteria along with them
This is a reason why mammals are thought to have menstrual cycles, and why humans have particularly profuse menstruation. Since human sexual activity is more constant, i.e., not constrained to a brief fertile window, females are presented with more opportunity of infection. Hence, the menstrual flush can help remove unwanted bacteria from the system
A functional classification of the signs and symptoms of disease is important and useful. To choose an appropriate treatment, we need to know if the symptom benefits the host or the pathogen. We need to analyze the strategies taken by the pathogen and attempt to oppose each of them, rather than just relieving symptoms and trying ineffectively to kill the pathogen
Chapter 4: An arms race without end
Bacteria have two substantial advantages over humans:
High reproductive frequency: bacteria can evolve as much in a day as we can in a thousand years. Thus, we cannot evolve fast enough to escape from microorganisms
High numbers: due to their small size, bacteria’s enormous numbers in our body means that improbable mutations occur more frequently
Some of the most effective antibiotics come from molds. Antibiotics are chemical warfare agents that evolved in fungi and bacteria to protect them from pathogens and other biological competitors
Early in their discovery, antibiotics were extremely effective. However, over time the bacteria that antibiotics fended off evolved to evade their defence, and since the antibiotics are removed from their natural environment and thus less capable of adapting, they saw they their effectiveness dwindle.
New antibiotics are churned out, and bacteria evolve resistance to those antibiotics, and the cycle continues
Long term exposure to antibiotics, and increasing the dosage of antibiotics when they aren’t sufficiently effective, puts a selective pressure on bacteria to develop resistance to the antibiotics, enhancing them and decreasing the effectiveness of the antibiotics
The use of antibiotics in farm animals can also end up harming the animals and the humans that eat them, this problem needs to be carefully measured against the economic gains that may be claimed from their use
It is critical that the pharmaceutical not promote inappropriate use of antibiotics for animals and humans, as the selective pressure that ensues enhances the bacteria that they fight. It is unlikely this advice be heeded, as moral exhortations for the good of the group are often welcomed but rarely acted upon. This would require costly government intervention and a sacrifice in profits
Within-host selection favours increased virulence (i.e., increases the diverting of resources from the host to the pathogen), while between-host selection acts to decrease it
Pathogens compete with one another for resources within the host, but will not be able to proliferate if their host dies before transmitting them to another host
Diseases from vector borne pathogens (e.g., insects) tend to be more severe than those spread by personal contact. This is likely because between-host selection of person to person transmission would favour a less virulent pathogen that allows its host to go infect others; whereas, if for example a mosquito is the vector of transmission, the hosts health is of little interest to the pathogen as it will be transmitted by the insect anyways—the more vulnerable it makes the human, the easier it is for more mosquitos to suck their blood. In this case, it is in the viruses’ interest to have a mild effect on the mosquito, whilst feasting on the subsequently infected humans
Increased transmission can lead to increased virulence, if the pathogen doesn’t have to worry much about between-host transmission, it can afford to be greedy as it is likely to be transmitted in a shorter amount of time. AIDS was thought to be particularly virulent because of high sexual activity frequency and frequent use of drug users’ unsanitized needles. Safe sex and the use of clean needles can thus cause the evolution of lowered virulence
Chapter 5: Injury
Risk of melanoma is related more closely to number of sunburns than to total amount of time spent in the sun. People who are outdoors often adapt to their amount of usual exposure and are unlikely to get sunburnt; people who go out infrequently do not adapt and are at increased risk of sunburn
Sunglasses without UV protection reduce the total amount of visible light, leading pupils to dilate and admit more UV light that then damages the eye more than had the user not worn the glasses
Why don’t our fingers regenerate when cut off? The repair machinery would have to conform to an optimal trade-off between the advantages of rapid and reliable repair, the costs of the needed machinery, and the dangers of cancer (associated with mechanisms of cell replication)
Chapter 6: Toxins: New, old, and everywhere
Tall fescue grass is popular because it grows fast and resists pests. A symbiosis between a fungus and the grass exists, where the fungus creates toxins that are transported to the tips of the blades of grass to discourage hungry herbivores
If a fruit is eaten before the seeds are ready for dispersal, the whole investment of the plant is wasted. Ripeness of a fruit corresponds to the peak fertility of the seeds within
A diverse diet helps to minimize the damage caused by dietary toxins (the evolved defenses of plants), whereas a non diverse diet may lead to a toxin overload
Concerns over pesticides have led to attempts to breed plants that are naturally resistant to insects. This involves increasing the level of natural toxins, which tend to make humans sick as well. We are re-introducing the same natural toxins that farmers first bred out of plants generations ago. Natural toxins and artificial pesticides need be treated with the same amount of caution
In the context of alleviating morning sickness during pregnancy: “Unfortunately, making people feel better does not always improve their health or secure other long-term interests.”
Children avoidance of vegetables could also be adaptive. Strong-tasting vegetables contain more toxins, and during their development they would best stick to low-toxin vegetables. As such, certain vegetables repulse children, and this repulsion tends to fade as they age
Chapter 7: Genes and disease: defects, quirks, and compromises
Many genetic conditions that ail us now may have caused no trouble in our ancestral environment (and may have conferred some benefits), and only become a problem due to an evolutionary mismatch. For example, a craving and motivation for fatty foods might have been adaptive when foods were scarce
“We should rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” - Dawkins
Chapter 8: Aging as the fountain of youth
Over the past few hundred years, the average length of life in modern societies has steadily increased, the maximum duration of life has not.
Senescence: the process of bodily deterioration that occurs at older ages. Increased susceptibility to disease and decreased ability to repair damage
Those with a genetic predisposition to get peptic ulcers, and die from these ulcers at old age, may benefit the individual by providing more protection throughout life from gastrointestinal infection via higher levels of stomach acid
The whole immune system is age biased, releasing damaging chemicals that protect from infection, but also lead to accumulated tissue damage
Genes with benefits in early age tend to contribute to senescence (trade off between effectiveness during fertile years at the expense of deteriorated function in infertile years)
Studies showed that beetles better able to reproduce early in life reproduced more and generate more offspring, but age and die earlier. Genes will generally select for whatever maximizes reproduction.
Any genes whose deleterious effects occur earlier than that of other genes will be selected against most strongly, thus selection acts on genes to delay deleterious effects until they are all in synchrony - hence the effect of the body’s functions decaying in seeming unison
Postulates of impotence - pessimistic assessments of what science can accomplish can have utility (investigate this further)
The preoccupation of living forever is likely to be supplanted by a desire to live as fully as possible, while it’s possible
Chapter 9: Legacies of evolutionary history
We have inherited systems that were not optimized for our bodies, they are historical legacies from our ancestors
Examples include:
our air and food passages intersecting (making us vulnerable to choking),
a retina in front of the interior of the eyeball instead of behind (causing optic nerves and vessels to obstruct the view),
the appendix (used to help process low nutritional value food, rabbits still use it for example)
Our spine was originally designed to withstand loads from back to belly, not head to bum. Same with the joints in our leg
Chapter 10: Diseases of civilization
“What are the long-term consequences of such meager challenge to our body’s built-in temperature controls?”
In reference to our environments being constantly temperature controlled for maximum comfort (A/C, heating)
Diseases brought about by civilization include obesity (energy excess, sedentariness), cavities (sugar excess), crooked teeth (lack of jaw development due to soft foods in diet), substance abuse/addiction (concentrations/availability of alcohol, opium, etc. would have been lower pre-agriculture, specialization led to increased potency of substances)
Rickets was a frequent malady due to vitamin D deficiencies. When humans started occupying regions with more cloud cover, forest cover, and cold areas requiring cave dwelling and clothing, they received less sun exposure. Heavily pigmented skins admit less light for vitamin D synthesis and yield more malady in sun-starved skin, thus less pigmented skins were gradually selected for
When faced with a problem of medical importance ask: What is its evolutionary significance?
If it’s an adaptive mechanism, it generally means it was adaptive in the Stone Age. Some aren’t adaptive, but represent costs to other adaptations (e.g., senescence)
Chapter 11: Allergy
Chapter 12: Cancer
A common man marvels at uncommon things; a wise man marvels at the commonplace
Multicellular organisms arose from some group of protozoa, in which each cell was a functionally independent individual. Most reproduction was asexual, with one cell dividing into two new ones.
In some modern protozoan species, the two new individuals do not break completely apart but stick together in pairs, or the offspring of pairs stick together in filaments or sheets called colonies.
In some colonies, cells may have differentiated into germ cells and somatic cells, meaning that some previously independent cells gave up reproduction to become genealogical dead ends. They would supply nutrients and protection to the few germ cells that sexually reproduce
All cells within these colonies had the same genes, so if sacrificing reproduction improved the genetic progress of the colony the cells would do so
For large colonies of cells, we may expect a mutant cell to appear that behaves in ways other than what maximally benefits the colony. Such large colonies thus need adaptations for maintaining discipline among the many component cells
In the human body, among our ten trillion cells there exists a small chance (say, 0.01%) that a cell reproduces when it shouldn’t. This leaves a billion of such faulty cells. Given the amount of defence mechanisms to detect these cells, however, they rarely get to proliferate. There exists a web of defences, though eventually a cancerous cell can fall through the cracks—especially as we age, and senescence causes cell regulatory capability deterioration
A cancer’s success can never be more than short term, because it has no way to disperse to other hosts, and its host’s death means its death too
The more menstrual cycles a woman has, the more likely she is to develop reproductive-system cancer. This could be because historically women would have a later menarche (harsher living conditions), then would be pregnant or lactating, which both inhibit menstruation. Perhaps the reduced frequency of these processes lead to reduced cellular processes in the mammary glands and gonads that protect against cancers
Oral contraceptives may reduce ovarian and uterine cancer risk, though they have their own side effects
Chapter 13: Sex and reproduction
The reason sexes exist at all, and that asexual reproduction isn’t as prevalent, is that:
It introduces more genetic variation;
It can prevent the accumulation of deleterious mutations; and
It decreases vulnerability to pathogens. If a pathogen finds the key to exploiting a genetically identical colony it will be able to wipe out all of them. If they are more genetically diverse, this is more difficult to accomplish. This idea is support by the fact that asexual reproduction occurs in areas with fewer parasites
Large gametes have abundant energy stores, but are expensive to make; small gametes are inexpensive and can be produced in enormous numbers, but can’t survive for long
Trees are hermaphrodites, carrying both eggs and sperm(?) cells, can do so because reproduction can be done by vector transport by air currents or insects. This is not possible with mammals, thus there are no mammal hermaphrodites
Extra nutrients in sperm are more likely to retard its swimming, so low nutrient, fast sperm have been selected for
There exists a battle between fetus and mother, as both share only 50% of genes with each other. As such, fetuses have strategies to increase nutritional consumption from the mother, and the mother’s system has methods to counter act these exploitative tactics
Fetuses secrete a hormone that increases and retrieves glucose from the blood, which increases the mother’s insulin production. This can produce pregnancy onset diabetes
Fetuses also secrete substances that increase blood flow to the placenta by constricting blood vessels throughout the body and increase blood pressure. Moderate increases in maternal blood pressure are associated with lower infant mortality
Fetuses produce human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which blocks menstruation so that the fetus stays implanted. The mother’s body likely measures levels of hCG as means of detecting whether a fetus is viable or not. High hCG levels are the fetuses way of screaming “wait, don’t abort me!”
Chapter 14: Are mental disorders diseases?
Definitions of mental disorders were formed so research findings across different studies could be compared, however this emphasized sharp boundaries around symptoms instead of a continuous emotional process influenced by psychological factors, past events, and life situations
Sleep tends to be dominated by visual sense. We’re hard pressed to reimagine sounds, smells, taste, and touch from our dreams. This could be because sight is rather useless as night, so dreams can fully employ sight, whereas sound, smell, and touch may have been necessary to stay online in the background to detect threats during sleep
Chapter 15: The evolution of medicine
Genetic instructions are assembled in preparation for the future, but are caused by the past
Chapter 1: The worst breather in the animal kingdom
Around 40% of today’s population (western?) suffers from chronic nasal obstruction, around 50% of us are habitual mouth breathers (females and children suffer from this the most (why?))
Chapter 2: Mouthbreathing
How the body generates energy via food and/or air: anaerobic and aerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration metabolizes glucose to generate energy, and is much less (16x less) efficient than aerobic respiration, a process in which the cells in our body have fine-tuned over the past 2.5 billion years
Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing; nosebreathing begets more nosebreathing. Breathing through the mouth reduces air pressure against the back of the throat, causing the airways to sink and relax at the back of the throat, leading to restricted airways. Nose breathing increases air pressure, forcing the muscles at the back of the throat to open up, leading to opened airways
Chapter 3: Nose
The interior of the nose is lined with erectile tissue. When the right nostril is breathed through it tends to be associated with a more sympathetic response: increased heart rate and cortisol and feeds more blood (?) to the left frontal cortex which is associated with impulse response and logical decision making. The left nostril is associated with a more parasympathetic response, calming the body down and feeding blood to brain regions more associated with creativity and mental abstractions
Nasal breathing induces a release of nitric oxide by the sinuses, a molecule that plays an essential role in increasing circulation and oxygen delivery to cells. We can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen through nose breathing than by mouthbreathing
Chapter 4: Exhale
Chapter 5: Slow
Breathing slowly improves oxygen usage, allowing carbon dioxide to settle a bit longer which eases transport of oxygen within hemoglobin to needy tissues
Many meditative/prayer practices, e.g., Buddhist/Hindu chants and the Christian rosary, involve chants or rhythmic breathing of a rate of ~5.5 breaths per minute. These practices may have evolved as they synchronized with cardiovascular rhythms, and gave a feeling of well-being and alertness while practicing
Chapter 6: Less
Slower breathing holds in slightly more carbon dioxide, which lowers the pH in blood to make it more acidic. The sweet spot pH in blood is about 7.4, and the body attempts to maintain that pH
One way the body does this aside from breathing is through buffering, in which the kidneys release bicarbonate from blood into urine, lowering the pH in response to high pH levels (brought about by low carbon dioxide from too-rapid breathing)
When bicarbonate leaves the body, it takes magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium with it. This is why asthmatics and others are prescribed these supplements to stave off future attacks
Bones get weakened as well, as mineral stores within the bones are dissolved to compensate for the lost minerals
Chapter 7: Chew
Chewing helps maintain a strong jaw and keeps the jaw and teeth structurally sound. The historical records find that around the time softer foods were developed, a corresponding significant decrease in teeth quality (straightness) came along with it.
I like to think of this like trying to plant a fence post in eroded and granular soil: your fence post is going to wiggle around. Whereas, with a strong, dense soil, the fence post stays straight and upright.
Chapter 8: More, on occasion
The parasympathetic system is part of the autonomic nervous system that stimulates relaxation and restoration. It eases digestion, relaxes bowels for waste elimination, and stimulates genitals before sex (“feed and breed” system). Many nerves in the lungs that connect to the parasympathetic system are located deep down in the lungs, so deeper, relaxed breaths tend to engage a parasympathetic response
The sympathetic system stimulates the fight or flight response. Nerves for this system tend to be located in the upper lungs. Short, rapid breaths engage the sympathetic system, routing blood from less-vital organs (like stomach and bladder) to more important organs (like muscles and brain)
Tummo breathing is a technique used by Buddhist monks in the Himalayas to stay warm with limited insulation. This heavy breathing practice coupled with cold exposure releases adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol on demand. Immune function is enhanced by adrenaline, inflammatory immune response in downgraded by cortisol, and norepinephrine redirects blood from the skin, stomach, and reproductive organs to muscles, the brain, and other vital organs
Tummo breathing and cold exposure expands the bounds on what the body is used to, and what it can handle, such that it can adapt and become flexible with respect to unseen stressful physiological responses
Tummo breathing procedure:
Lay flat on your back with a pillow beneath your head
Take a very deep breath into the pit of the stomach, through the nose if possible. Inhaling should first inflate the stomach, then the chest. Exhale out just as quickly as the inhale. Repeat 30 times
Exhale to leave about a quarter of the air in the lungs and hold that air for as long as possible
Take a huge inhale and hold it for another 15 seconds. Move the fresh air around the chest and shoulders.
Repeat steps 2-4 for three or four rounds
Chapter 9: Hold it
We have a cluster of neurons at the base of the brain stem called central chemoreceptors, that measure CO2 levels in the bloodstream (?) to regulate how fast and deeply we should be breathing. Low CO2 -> breathe slower, high CO2 -> breathe faster
These chemoreceptors have the ability to trigger a panic/fear response outside the amygdalae, which is generally responsible for translating external stimuli into aversive behaviour. The roots of the chemoreceptors are more ancient than that of the amygdalae, used by the first aerobic life forms around 2.5B years ago
Chapter 10: Fast, slow, and not at all
Epilogue: A last gasp
“…our body is much more nearly perfect than the endless list of ailments suggest. Its shortcomings are due less to its inborn imperfections than to our abusing it.” - Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi
Nine out of ten of the top human killers, i.e., diabetes, heart disease, stroke, are cause by the food we eat, water we drink, the houses and offices we work in. Humanity/civilizations created these diseases
The creation myth is a Darwinian device for survival. Tribal conflict was a principal driving force that shaped biological human nature. By itself, mythmaking could never discover the origin and meaning of humanity (as it attempts to do); however, the discovery of the origin and meaning of humanity may explain the origin and meaning of myths, the core of organized religion
Part 2: Where do we come from?
Chapter 2: The two paths to conquest
Human groups are formed of highly flexible alliance, in which strategies for navigating these groups were written as a complicated mix of altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection, and deceit
This array of strategies required higher degrees of intelligence and intense socialization. The brain had to measure emotions of friend and enemy, plan strategies for social interaction, build mental scenarios of short and long-term relationships, and retrieve memories far into the past and long into the future to imagine the consequences of every relationship
Chapter 3: The approach
Chapter 4: The arrival
One critical point in our evolutionary past was when our ancestors developed an omnivore diet. Hunting game requires a high amount of teamwork and cohesion, and it’s worth it: meat is pound for pound more energetically efficient than vegetable food
Another critical point was the ability to control fire, which then led to camps (i.e., nests) which served as the nucleus for social groups. Now in close proximity to one another on a regular basis, intellectual development that enhanced one’s cohesion with the group (e.g., social intelligence, empathy, deceitfulness, etc.) was selected for, propelling our intellectual development further
I also remember reading that cooked food also requires less energy to consume (chewing), which may have allowed resources to be directed away from the jaw to the brain region. It seems like these factors (this one and the previous point) arose in tandem, with cooked food enabling more brain capacity and social complexities driving the cerebral growth
Chapter 5: Threading the evolutionary maze
The following preadaptations enabled human eusociality:
Living on land: without land dwelling there exists no possibility for the use of fire—a critical prerequisite to social flourishing in mammals * Being large: to house a brain with enough processing power to compute the complexities of social organization requires a large enough animal to house that brain. While ants are hypersocial and design intricate architecture with custom air conditioning, they are purely instinctual. And again, insects are too small to control fire * Grasping hands tipped with spatulate finger tips * Having those grasping hands free from walking, i.e., being bipedal * A shift from vegetarianism to an omnivore diet. Meat yields more energy per gram than vegetation. The social cooperation required to hunt meat also led to select for groups who could cooperate effectively * The controlled use of fire followed, facilitating the consumption of meats; mastication and digestion of cooked meats requires less energy * Persistent fire provided a refuge for early Homo species. As such, nests were formed—a precursor to the attainment of eusociality of all other known animals * With fireside campsites came division of labor, where subgroups formed and bands organized into dominance hierarchies
Chapter 6: Creative forces
The outcome of between-group competition for humans was determined largely by the size and tightness of the group, and the quality of their communication and division of labor
The genetic fitness of a human being is the consequence of both individual and group selection. These two forces tend to pull in opposite directions—I could deceive and cheat in pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the group, or I could be heroic and altruistic for the benefit of the group, but at the expense of my resources
If the benefit from group membership falls below that which would be had from a solitary life, evolution would favour cheating or departure from the group. If personal benefit from group membership rises high enough, the members will be prone to altruism and conformity
Group composition is unstable because of advantageous group size increases from immigration, ideological proselytization, and conquest, pitted against the advantages by usurpation within the group and fission to create new groups
Much of culture (i.e., the content of the creative arts) has risen from the inevitable clash between individual and group selection
Chapter 7: Tribalism is a fundamental human trait
People must have a tribe. It gives them their own and social meaning in a chaotic world, making the environment seem less disorienting and dangerous. Each human has a system of interlocking tribes, savouring the company of like-minded friends, and yearning to be in one of the best tribes
Groups, regardless of how they are formed, have always been observed to rank out-group below in-group—even in experiments when they were told the in-groups and out-groups were chosen arbitrarily
The tendency to form groups and favour the in-group members has the earmarks of instinct. Children can have an inborn propensity to learn some things swiftly and decisively, known as prepared learning. Evidence suggests that in-group preference is prepared early in development, with infants being most sensitive to the sounds of their native language, regardless of whether the meaning of the speech is fully comprehended. Later, these infants look preferentially at person who spoke their native language within their hearing
The elementary drive to form and take deep pleasure from in-group membership translates at a higher level into tribalism. We are prone to ethnocentrism, preferring the company of others of the same race, nation, clan, and religion (or anything that can be symbolically represented—as long as I can tell who belongs to my group and who doesn’t)
Different parts of the brain have evolved by group selection to create groupishness. Studies have observed that the amygdala (fear & anger) fires when subjects are presented an image of someone of a different race
Chapter 8: War as humanity’s hereditary curse
Once a group has been split off and sufficiently dehumanized, justifications can be made for horrible acts towards that group, no matter how gruesome
As a biological reproducing species, our population approaches limits set by available food and water. We are still fundamentally the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, just with more food and larger territories. Yet, we blindly obey the instincts that we’ve inherited from our Palaeolithic predecessors, which in our case lead to an overindulgence of energy and material resources
Chapter 9: Breakout
A loose rule of island biogeography is that animals smaller than 20kg tend to evolve into relative giants (e.g., the immense tortoises of the Galapagos), and animals larger than 20kg tend to evolve towards dwarfism (e.g., the dwarf deer of the Florida Keys)
A cousin of Homo Sapiens, branching from Homo Erectus, are the Homo floresiensis of the island Flores, who were less than 1 meter tall and with brains of comparable size to australopithecines. This evolutionary product supports the above stated loose rules
“We should learn to promote human biological diversity for its own sake instead of using it to justify prejudice and conflict.”
Chapter 10: The creative explosion
Bands and communities of bands with better combinations of cultural innovations became more productive and better equipped for competition and war. Rivals either copied them or else were conquered. Thus, group selection drove the evolution of culture
Chapter 11: The sprint to civilization
The chiefs of chiefdoms typically micromanaged the affairs of their domain, delegating as little authority as possible to reduce the chance of insurrection. Common tactics include the suppression of underlings and fermenting a fear of rival chiefdoms
Part 3: How social insects conquered the invertebrate world
Chapter 12: The invention of eusociality
Chapter 13: Inventions that advanced the social insects
A significant change that allowed for the flourishing of ants, and other social insects in general, was the shift in arboreal flora from mostly conifers to leafy and flowered trees. Flowered trees are more diverse and thus leave a more diverse landscape in the soil below (as the portions of the trees eventually fall to the forest floor). They also coevolved with insects, encouraging pollination, and rewarding with sugar
This change in the tree landscape also led to a symbiosis between ants and sap sucking insects (i.e., aphids). These aphids would suck sap from trees and excrete their waste below. Ants eventually learned to consume this sugary waste, and in return the aphids wouldn’t get stuck in a pile of their sticky waste
Now, some species of ants have intricate nests with pastures laid out for their fleet of sapsuckers, much like how humans do for domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, and so on.
Some species of ants in more earthen regions (i.e., not so foresty) have granaries to store seeds of nearby plants
Social complexity seems to involve at some point a species developing an ability to sustain larger energy reserves. Ants develop intricate, complex nests with a caste of workers with specialized skills, as do humans in the forms of civilizations with farmers, engineers, and medics
“The more elaborate and expensive a nest is in energy and time, the greater the fierceness of the ants that protect it.”
Part 4: The forces of social evolution
Chapter 14: The scientific dilemma of rarity
Chapter 15: Insect altruism and eusociality explained
Chapter 16: Insects take the giant leap
One explanation as to the rarity of eusociality is that it requires specific pre-adaptations, notably the construction of a nest in which offspring are reared. Then, there comes a point where cooperation with another member of the species, e.g., one bee produces larvae while the other defends the nest. This would require an allele change (based on external environmental cues) in the bees that suppress certain behaviours, i.e., foraging for food or producing offspring
An allele flip of this sort happened with ants as the working caste lost their wings. The idea is that this gene switch would cause offspring that would otherwise disperse to instead stay and contribute to the nest. This would occur when cooperation of the group favours survival more than if the insect lived a solitary life
Eusociality seems to become irreversible once an anatomically distinct worker caste is developed
In a eusocial insect group, there must be a balance in cooperation. If too many queens, there are not enough workers to maintain the colony; if too many workers, food around the nest will fall short; if not enough soldiers, predators will overwhelm the nest; and if not enough foragers, the colony will starve
Chapter 17: How natural selection creates social instincts
Overarching principles crucial for understanding the genetic basis of instinct and social behaviour:
The distinction between the unit of heredity and the target of selection. The unit is a gene/arrangement of genes that form part of the hereditary code. The target of selection is the trait/combination of traits encoded by the units of heredity and favoured/disfavoured by the environment
Natural selection is usually multilevel: it acts on genes that prescribe targets at multiple levels of biological organization, such as cell and organism, or organism and colony. Selection occurring at one level (e.g., the cell) can work in the opposite direction from that of the adjacent level (e.g., the organism). A runaway cancer cell causes the organism of which it is a member to sicken and die. Conversely, the community of cells stays healthy when the growth of cancer cells is controlled
In colonies composed of authentically cooperating individuals (i.e., humans), selection among genetically diverse individual members promotes selfish behaviour; while selection between groups of humans typically promotes altruism among members of the colony. Colonies of cheaters lose to colonies of cooperators. The degree of cohesiveness of a colony depends on the number of cooperators and cheaters, which depends on the relative intensities of individual selection versus group selection
Traits (targets) that group selection acts upon emerge from interactions among members of the group (e.g., communication, division of labor, cooperation, etc.). If these interactions favour the colony over another colony who uses lesser interactions, the genes prescribing the improved group performance spreads through the population of colonies
Individual vs. Group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness (virtue and sin) among society members. If a colony member devoted their life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though they do not have personal offspring. If a colony member is a layabout our coward who saves their energy passes the resulting social cost onto others
Phenotypic plasticity describes how traits prescribed by genes (phenotypes) may sometimes be rigid (in the case of the number of fingers on the hand or colour of eyes) but may also be flexible based on environmental cues. There is a species of plant, the water crowfoot, who’s leaves will adopt a different style depending on the surrounding, brushed below water and broad above
Proximate cause: how a process or structure works
Ultimate cause: why the process or structure occurs in the first place
Chapter 18: The forces of social evolution
In this chapter E.O Wilson attempts to challenge the dogma of inclusive fitness theory, i.e., the notion that degrees of altruism are proportional to the degree of genetic relatedness when trying to explain the emergence of eusociality
While there are a few examples in which kin selection holds to explain social phenomena, group selection also offers convincing arguments as well
One example is that of an ant colony which invests more energy into virgin females than males. This was initially though to be because this particular ant species was diploidhaploid, i.e., sisters share 3/4 of their genes with one another compared to 1/2 with their mother. Female workers investing more in the virgin females compared to males seemingly confirmed inclusive fitness theory; they invested more in the females since they’re more related. However, an alternative explanation is that males are proportionally smaller and less energy intensive to produce than females, who have fatty deposits to support reproduction. If offspring were invested in based on energy equivalency, many more males would be supported than females, which would result in wasted resources (as many males would be left without a partner). As such, more investment in females is optimal for the colony in terms of resource allocation, making it a more efficient relative to colonies that do not follow this strategy (i.e., selection at the group level)
Chapter 19: The emergence of a new theory of eusociality
Part 5: What are we?
Chapter 20: What is human nature?
Human nature is the inherited regularities of mental development common to our species
Examples of this include:
Incest avoidance: most social species are exogamous, i.e., their young go off to another tribe, humans are no different. Likewise, humans follow a simple rule of thumb known as the Westermarck effect: Have no sexual interest in those whom you knew intimately during the earliest years of your life. Note, this effect occurs regardless of the degree of relatedness between two individuals
Colour perception: when modulating the intensity of light, we can correctly perceive the continuous nature of the intensity change. However, if we do the same with wavelength, i.e., changing colours, we bin the changes into their major colour groups (red, to orange, to yellow, to green and so on). We discretize colours, even though the wavelength spectrum is continuous, likely because it was evolutionary advantageous to do so
Cross culturally, the language used to describe colour follows a hierarchy (known as the Berlin-Kay progression): black and white -> red -> green/yellow -> blue -> brown -> the rest. This sequence is not random, indicating some human predisposition in describing more/less important colours
Chapter 21: How culture evolved
Culture is the combination of traits that distinguishes one group from another
A cultural trait is a behaviour either first invented in a group or learned from another group, and then transmitted among group members
The driving force leading to the threshold of complex cultures appears to be group section. A group whose members could read intentions and cooperate among one another, and predict the actions of competing groups, had an enormous advantage over competing groups. Individual selection surely still played a role in intra-group competition, yet group selection acted on inter-group competition
Morality, conformity, religious fervour, and fighting ability were keystone to generating a united, cooperative, and effective group
Chapter 22: The origins of language
Three particular attributes enabled our species to approach the highest level of social intelligence: shared attention; high level of awareness required to act together in achieving a common goal; and the “theory of mind”, i.e., the recognition that their mental states are shared by others
Language is a set of coordination devices that serve to direct the attention of others
When the conversational gaps (the pauses between one person’s speaking and the other’s answering) of ten languages were measured, all were shown to avoid overlap, and the length of turnover gaps were found to be almost the same
In warmer climates, languages around the world have evolved to use more vowels and fewer consonants, creating more sonorous combinations of sounds; sonorous sounds carry further, in accord with the tendency of people in warm climates to spend more time outdoors and keep greater distances apart
The genetic basis of human language acquisition did not coevolve with language but predates the emergence of language. Language has evolved to fit the human brain, rather than the reverse
Chapter 23: The evolution of cultural variation
In the castes of any colonies, there exist major workers (giant soldiers that perform tasks outside of the nest) and minor workers (timid workers that perform tasks in the best such as nursing majors). Majors have a higher death rate, and are thus produced at a higher per capital rate than minors, maintaining an optimum balance in numbers between the two castes
Cultural variation is determined mostly by two properties of social behaviour: the degree of bias in the epigenetic rule (e.g., low in dress fashion or high in incest avoidance) and the sensitivity to the usage pattern (i.e., the likelihood that group members with imitate others who’ve adapted a particular trait)
Chapter 24: The origins of morality and honour
The conflict between the poorer and better angels of our nature stem from the conflicts arising between individual and group selection
Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin; group selection is responsible for much of what we call virtue
Group selection shapes instincts that tend to make individuals altruistic toward one another (but now towards members of other groups); individual selection shapes instincts in each member that are fundamentally selfish with reference to other members
Iron rule of genetic social evolution: selfish individuals best altruistic individuals, and groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals
The countries with highest quality of life (in terms of education, health, crime, collective self-interests) also have the smallest divide in wealth between the wealthiest and poorest citizens
A naturalistic understanding of morality doesn’t lead to absolute precepts and sure judgement but warns against basing them blindly on religious and ideological dogmas. When such precepts are misguided (as they often are), it usually stems from ignorance—i.e., important factors are unintentionally omitted during formulation
Examples of these ideological dogmas include:
Opposition to artificial conception (sex without the intention of conception) with the (well-intended) reasoning being that sex is made to make babies. While this is true in most species, primates included, humans are slightly different in that women have concealed genitalia as to mask their fertility. This is to encourage sexual intercourse as a bonding mechanism without the intent to necessarily conceive a child. This strengthens the partners’ bonds, which is important since raising a human child requires long term support (due their relative helpless in early years) and thus additional investment from the father
Homophobia: under the same guise, condemning homosexuality since sex doesn’t produce offspring is misguided. Homosexuality is heritable and occurs too frequently to be the result of mutations alone. Thus, natural selection must be acting to select for homosexuality in populations. Homosexuals occupy niches and roles that support groups more than had they been absent—hence homosexuality is natural and healthy within societies
Chapter 25: The origins of religion
The illogic of religions is not a weakness, but their essential strength. Acceptance of their bizarre creation myths is what binds followers together
The core of traditional organized religions are their creation myths. Creation myths come about in part from folk memories of momentous events, like mass emigration, wars, and natural disasters; stories of devils and angels likely spawn from hallucinations invoked by sleep paralysis, mental illnesses (schizophrenia), or hallucinogenic drugs (mushrooms, fungi, hemp, etc., which were commonly consumed in the Middle East when Abrahamic religions were being crafted)
Around the late palaeolithic era humans started to reflect on their mortality, as suggested by ritual burial sites aged around ~95000 years ago
Thus humans would have asked where dead people go, and having still seen the dead in their dreams or hallucinations, they concluded the dead must be in some spirit realm, the same inhabited by dreams or hallucinations
Religious faith offers the psychological security that uniquely comes from belonging to a group
Chapter 26: The origins of the creative arts
“Art is the lie that helps us to see the truth” - Picasso
Part 6: Where are we going?
Chapter 28: A new enlightenment
On free will: we are free as independent beings, but our decisions are not free of all the organic processes that created our personal brains and minds
The opposition of the two levels of natural selection, individual and group level, has resulted in a chimeric genotype in each person, rendering each of us part saint and part sinner
Every person feels the pull of conscience, of heroism against cowardice, altruism against greed, truth against deception, and commitment against withdrawal. These dilemmas stem from the conflicting objectives of multilevel selection
To question the sacred myths of a religion is to question the identity and worth of its followers, which is why skeptics (including those from other tribes with equally absurd myths) are so righteously disliked
Consilience: a “jumping together” of knowledge by linking facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation
Chapter 3: The Enlightenment
Francis Bacon (1561), a founder of the Enlightenment, believed that we must understand nature, both around us and within ourselves, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement
Bacon emphasized to beware of the idols of the mind:
Idol of the tribe is assuming that more order exists in chaotic nature (i.e., being allured to simple answers that seemingly describe complex issues)
The imprisoning cave is getting caught in the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion
The marketplace is where the power of mere words are used to induce belief in nonexistent things
The theatre is an unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstrations
Bacon urged to observe the world around you as it truly is and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it—approaching and transmitting truth is Nature’s calling
Chinese scholarship focused on holistic properties and on the harmonious, hierarchical relationships of entities, from stars down to mountains to flowers and to sand. The entities of Nature, in this view, are inseparable and perpetually changing, not discrete and constant as perceived by Enlightenment thinkers (who adopted a more reductionist approach)
Our species and its way of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution
The “Anthropic principle”: the laws of nature, in our universe at the least, had to be set a certain way so as to allow the creation of beings able to ask about the laws of nature
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world” - Einstein
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
Questions that can’t be answered are generally better than answers that can’t be questioned
Wilson suggests that there are two kinds of original thinkers: those who upon viewing disorder try to create order, and those who upon encountering order try to protest it by creating disorder. The tension between the two is what drives learning forward. (Ying and Yang)
Chapter 4: The Natural Sciences
Reductionism is the search strategy employed to find points of entry into otherwise impenetrably complex systems
“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”
Optimum intelligence for normal sciences: bright enough to see what needs to be done, but not so bright as to suffer boredom doing it
Natural selection built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to understand it at a depth greater than or equal to what is needed to survive
The goal of a scientist should be to diagnose and correct the misalignment between human subjective experience and free-standing reality
Chapter 5: Ariadne’s Thread
The activation-synthesis hypothesis suggests that dreaming may be a side effect of the reorganization and editing of the brain’s memory banks
During sleep, with most sensory input lacking, the conscious brain is still activated internally by impulses originating from the brain stem. Lacking instantaneous sensory information, yet attempting to perform its usual function (?), the brain does its best to create images that move through coherent narratives—creating fantasy
Chapter 6: The Mind
The thalamus, comprising of two egg-shaped masses of nerve cells near the centre of the brain, functions as a relay center through which all sensory information (other than smell) is transmitted to the cerebral cortex (i.e., the conscious mind). Even dreams are triggered by impulses passing through the thalamus
Neurotransmitter: a chemical that either excites an electric discharge in a receiving nerve cell or prevents one from occurring (acts within the synapse, the points of connection and microscopic space between nerve cells, at the ends of their axons)
Aggregates of neuron circuits gather in flat assemblages (layers) and rounded assemblages (nuclei), mostly placed at or near the surface of the brain. This is why the gray matter of the brain is gray, with the white colour coming from the myelin sheaths that insulate axons. These aggregates include sensory relay stations, memory modules, and emotional control centres.
Three primitive divisions of the brain are found throughout vertebrates, from fishes to mammals: hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
Hindbrain regulates breathing, heartbeat, and coordination of body movements
Midbrain controls sleep and arousal, also parts regulating auditory reflexes and perception
A major part of the forebrain is composed of the limbic system, comprised of the amygdala (emotion), hippocampus (memory, especially short-term), hypothalamus (memory, temperature control, sex drive, hunger, and thirst) and thalamus (awareness of all senses other than smell, be it temperature or pain)
Forebrain also includes the cerebral cortex, covering the rest of the brain. The primary seat of consciousness, storing and collating information from the senses. It directs voluntary motor activity, speech, and motivation
The self is the main character in the winning dramas taken from the litany scenarios generated by the subconscious mind. The hidden preparation of these scenarios gives the illusion of free will. We make decisions for reasons we often sense only vaguely, and seldom understand fully
Can AI generate a human mind equivalent? Seems unlikely, as the mind’s emotions are driven by the senses (touch, sight, smell, taste, sound) and a computational neural network is unlikely to have access to these senses, especially at the resolution of a biological system that has fine-tuned its sensory organs over hundreds of millions of years. The AI may be able to mimic what a human mind is capable of, but without human senses and thus human emotion, it doesn’t seem like it would be conscious in the human sense; though, it could gain consciousness in the computational sense
Chapter 7: From genes to culture
Culture is created by the communal mind, and each mind is the product of the genetically structured human brain; genes and culture are thus inseverably linked
As a part of gene-culture coevolution, culture is collectively reconstructed each generation in the minds of its individuals. Writing and art allows culture to grow indefinitely large and even skip generation, as opposed to solely oral tradition. However, the fundamental biasing influences of epigenetic rules, being genetic and ineradicable, stay constant
Some individuals inherit epigenetic rules that enable survival and reproduction between in their environment and culture than individuals who lack those rules. As such, the human species has evolved genetically by natural selection in behaviour, just as it has anatomically and neurologically
Some cultural norms also survive and reproduce better than competing norms, causing culture to evolve on a track parallel to (and much faster than) genetic evolution. Culture allows rapid adjustments to changes in the environment through cultural adaptations without correspondingly precise genetic prescriptions. This is one reason why humans differ fundamentally from all other animal species
On epigenetic rules, i.e., innate genetic predispositions: o By four months old, infants prefer harmonious tones, and sometimes react to out-of-tune notes with a disgusted facial expression (the same as elicited by a drop of lemon juice on the tongue) o The startle response from a loud noise closes the eyes, opens the mouth, drops the head, sags the arms and shoulders, and buckles the knees, preparing the body as though to absorb a coming blow o Newborns prefer sugar solutions over plain water in the following order: sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose o Within ten minutes after birth, infants fixate more on normally drawn facial designs than on abnormal designs o Two days after birth, infants prefer to gaze at their mother rather than unknown, other women o Smiling, used primarily to signal friendliness and approval and indicate a general sense of pleasure, appears cross culturally; environment has little influence in the maturation of smiling
Reification, i.e., the aggregation of ideas and complex phenomena into simpler concepts, is a quick and easy mental algorithm that creates order in a world otherwise overwhelming in flux and detail
The dyadic instinct, a manifestation of reification, is the proneness to divide classifications into two parts: in-group vs out-group, child vs adult, kin vs non-kin, married vs single, sacred vs profane, good vs evil. The boundaries of each division are fortified with taboo and ritual (initiation ceremonies, weddings, blessings, rites of passage)
Chapter 8: The fitness of human nature
The significant acceleration of cultural evolution in historical times may seem to imply that humanity has transcended its genetic instructions or found a way to suppress them. That is an illusion. The ancient genes and the epigenetic rules of behaviour they ordain remain comfortably in place
Through homo habilis, homo erectus, homo ergaster, and homo sapiens, cultural evolution was slow enough to remain tightly coupled to genetic evolution, until around 40000 to 10000 years ago, where Neolithic agricultural advances upped the tempo of cultural evolution
There is no evidence that our paleolithic genes simply disappeared during the “creative revolution” ensued by agricultural development. They remained in place and continued to prescribe the foundational rules of human nature
Chapter 9: The social sciences
The social sciences—anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science—strive to provide the power to predict what will happen if society selects one course of action over another
The social sciences lack consilience because they aren’t built upon, and don’t share, a solid foundation like the natural sciences do (e.g., medical sciences can build off molecular and cell biology)
As such, the social sciences are built into independent cadres with limited common ground, stressing the precision in words within their specialty yet seldom speaking the same technical language in another speciality. They mistake the overall atmosphere of chaos for creative ferment
The paradox of the social sciences is that it seems easier because we can talk with other humans but not with photons and atoms, yet this familiarity bestows a comfort that in turn breeds carelessness and error. People believe they know how they themselves think, and how others think, and how institutions evolve; they are wrong.
James S. Coleman, a distinguished sociologist from the University of Chicago, stated that the study of societies require “that the explanatory focus be on the system as a unit, not in the individuals or other components that make it up.” (i.e., holism)
Imagine if the same were done in biology, “the essential requirement is that the explanatory focus be on the organism as a unit, not in the cell or molecules that make it up.” Biology would have remained stagnant around 1850 with that perspective. Biology is instead a science that traces causation across many levels of organization, from ecosystem to atom
Epigenetic rules are innate rules of thumb that direct the individual towards quick and accurate responses most likely to ensure survival and reproduction. Sometimes, especially in complex societies, they no long contribute to health and well-being; the behaviour they direct can militate against the best interests of the individual and its society
The practical role of evolutionary theory is to point to the most likely location of epigenetic rules within a culture
Chapter 10: the arts and their interpretation
Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs. In this sense, the arts are the antithesis of science
A potential formula for the driving pulse of the arts: imitate (generally something in nature), make it geometrical, intensify
The dominating influence that spawned the arts was the need to impose order on the confusion caused by intelligence
In a study on physical attractiveness of female faces, the features though most attractive were relatively high cheek bones, a thin jaw, large eyes relative to the size of the face, and a slightly shorter than longer distance between mouth and chin and between nose and chin
Though, these qualities are rare in the general population. Why, then, hasn’t natural selection directed facial features to this optimum? It’s possible that attraction to these features is an attraction to a super-normal stimulus—-much like how male butterflies can be tricked into trying to mate with a mechanical butterfly who’s wings are larger and flap faster, while ignoring the real female butterflies that surround it. Perhaps we follow a similar epigenetic rule as do other animals, i.e., “take the largest, or brightest, or most conspicuously moving individual you can find.”
The author suggests that women with large eyes and delicate features may have less robust health (?), especially during childbearing; but they present physical cues of youth, virginity, and the prospect of a long reproductive period. This is why the beauty industry thrives: they manufacture super-normal stimuli by imitating the natural physiological signs of youth and fecundity
Chapter 11: Ethics and religion
The dangerous Christian devotion of ”I was not born to be of this world” can encourage the notion that with a second life waiting, suffering can be endured—especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised
Ethical and religious beliefs are created from the bottom up, from people to their culture. They do not come from the top down, from God or other no material source to the people by way of culture
Tribes cooperate with one another through carefully defined treaties and other conventions, quick to imagine themselves as victims of conspiracies by competing groups, and prone to dehumanizing and murdering their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement group loyalty by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies
There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose, as such our brains were shaped by evolution to be groupish and primed for religious adoption
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods; it did not evolve to believe in biology. Religiosity conveyed genetic advantages throughout prehistory, and biology is a modern product and thus not reflected in our genetic algorithms. The two are not factually compatible, therefore those who hunt for both intellectual and religious truth will struggle to acquire both in full measure
Wilson believes that the competition between science and religion will lead towards the secularization of the human epic and religion itself. Science will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition, and in time uncover the foundation of moral and religious sentiments
Chapter 12: To what end?
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely
The Ratchet of Progress: the more knowledge people acquire, the more they can increase their numbers and alter the environment, whereupon the more they need new knowledge just to stay alive. In a human-dominated world, the natural environment steadily shrinks, offering less and less per capita energy and resources
A principal principle of organic evolution is that of habitat selection, that all species prefer and gravitate to the environment in which their genes were assembled. This is likely why so many people gravitate towards nature and the outdoors
The colonisation of space will be impossible without massive supply lines. The Biosphere experiment in the early 1990s, costing $200M, attempted to create a synthetic environment isolated from the real world (except for electricity and communication). Only 8 individuals participated in the experiment. The concentration of oxygen depleted five months into the experiment, and oxygen from the outside had to be pumped in to continue the experiment. Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide increases to dangerous levels. 19/25 vertebrates and all animal pollinators vanished, and cockroaches and ants multiplied explosively. The conclusion of the experiment was that “No one yet knows how to engineer systems that can sustain human life like the natural ecosystems that produce it for free.”
The wall toward humanity is evidently rushing toward a shortage of not only minerals and energy, but of food and water. Humankind is like a household living giddily off vanishing capital. The idea that “Life is good and getting better, we’re still expanding and spending faster…don’t worry, we’re a smart bunch, something will turn up; it always has.”
It’s helpful to imagine the lily pad arithmetic riddle in this situation. A lily pad doubles itself each day after being placed in the pond. On the thirtieth day, the lily pads cover the pond entirely, unable to grow more. On which day was the pond half full and half empty? The twenty-ninth day.
Humanity will attempt to invoke every techno local fix for an over-populated planet that genius can devise. They will be driven by venture capital and government subsidy in the free market economy, and reduce the risk of short term economic calamity. Though, these man-made procedures will enlarge the carrying capacity of the planet, and as human beings are typical organisms, their reproductive response will be to expand to fill the added capacity, and the spiral will continue
The more biodiverse an ecosystem, the higher it’s productivity and the greater it’s resilience to environmental stress. Since we depend on functioning ecosystems to cleanse our water, enrich our soil, and generate the air we breathe, biodiversity is something we shouldn’t discard carelessly
Cloud 9 originates from when cloud taxonomy was documented by a Scottish meteorologist in 1896. The greatest cloud of them all, the cumulonimbus, landed at the highest spot—-number 9. The most divine cloud of them all, the term cloud nine appropriately refers to a state of divine bliss
Science denial happens on both sides of the spectrum: on the right, climate change and Darwinian evolution (for Christian fundamentalists); on the left, crystal healing, magnetic therapy, homeopathy, astrology, anti-GMO
Confucius was likely a private person who trained the sons of gentlemen in the virtues appropriate to a member of the ruling class. Though, it is clear that he longed for a more public position to disseminate his teachings
Chün-tzu, or gentleman, are recognized by freeness from violence or brusqueness, open and sincere expression, and speech free from vulgarity (careful and considerate speech)
Those who behave as a chün-tzu should find themselves welcomed everywhere. The alliances of ‘small people’ are directed against others, hostile and destructive in intent; but those of the gentlemen exist only for mutual satisfaction
Chün-tzu have no politics, but side with the Right wherever they find it
Softness, the unwillingness to inflict pain or take life, carried to its logical conclusion involves extinction, as does hardness, the indifference to the infliction of death and suffering
The downfall of liberalism (a rational meeting in the middle) has been due to the failure to associate it with any strong emotion. Extremes, not compromises, evoke the strongest emotional impulses
“If the distant do not submit, cultivate the power of wên (culture, the arts of peace) to bring them to you.” XVI
When one sees people who are better than oneself, one should instead turn their attention towards equalling them
If one learns but does not think, one is lost; if one thinks but does not learn, one is in danger
Keep order among them by chastisement and they will flee from you; keep order among them by ritual and they will come to you of their own accord.
Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good
Be cautious in giving promises and punctual in keeping them
A gentleman who doesn’t continue eating after he is full, does not demand comfort in his home, is diligent in business and cautious in speech, and associates with the Good thereby correcting his own faults
Do not grieve that other people do not recognize your merits, the real tragedy would be to not recognize theirs
He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher
A gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias, the small man is biased and can see a question from only one side
To recognize what you know, and what you don’t know, is knowledge
Do not mind failing to get recognition, be too busy doing the things that entitle one to recognition
Rotten wood cannot be carved
The Middle Way: to exceed is as bad as to fall short, moderation is key
Lavishness leads easily to presumption, as does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption
Does frugality lead to meanness?
Be affable yet firm, commanding but not too harsh, polite but easy
If the Way prevails in your land, count it a disgrace to be needy and obscure; when the Way does not, then count it a disgrace to be rich and honoured
The gentleman brings attention to the good qualities in others, not the bad
When asked how to avoid burglary, build up qualities that cannot be stolen, rather than ostentatious material goods that can be.
In vain have I looked for one whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire
This will generally be the case. Individual selection has a first order effect on our behaviour, group selection (which forms morals) has a second order effect (we abide to social rules because we must, otherwise our genes would perish)
Demand much for oneself and little from others to banish discontent
The demands that a gentleman makes are upon himself; those that a small man makes are upon others
A gentleman is proud but not quarrelsome, and aligns himself with individuals but not parties
3 profitable pleasures: pleasure from ritual and music, pleasure from discussing the good points in the conduct of others, and pleasure from having many wise friends
3 harmful pleasures: pleasure from profligate enjoyments, pleasure from idle gadding about, and pleasure from comfort and ease
3 mistakes that can be made in the context of speech: forwardness (speaking before being called to do so), secretiveness (not speaking when called to do so), and blindness (speaking before noting others’ facial expression)
Love of uprightness without love of learning degenerates into harshness
Love of courage without love of learning degenerates into turbulence
Even minor walks of knowledge (specialized knowledge) have an importance of their own, but if pursued too far they tend to prove a hindrance; for which reason a gentleman does not cultivate them
This same idea prevailed until the 19th century in England, where specialized knowledge was deemed incompatible with true gentility
One who studies widely and with purpose, who questions earnestly, and thinks for himself about what he has heard
When the small man goes wrong, it is on the side of over-elaboration
A gentleman seen from afar looks severe, when approached is found to be mild, and when heard speaking is found to be incisive
If we consider that a system causes its own behaviour, we need to consider that politicians don’t cause recessions or booms; oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil prices—consumers are as well; and pathogens do not solely attack you, but you set up conditions for them to flourish within you
A diverse system with multiple pathways and redundancies is more stable and less vulnerable to external shock than a uniform system with little diversity
The least obvious part of the system, it’s function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behaviour
To understand life, we need to identify the ultimate cause—life’s purpose: to survive and reproduce!
Someone trying to fix a system is intuitively attracted to a policy lever that has a strong effect on the system, and well-intentioned fixers often pull the lever in the wrong direction! Think, over-reactions to stock fluctuations. We are often surprised by the counterintuitive behaviour of systems when we start trying to change them
Economies are full of balancing feedback loops and delays, companies react in lieu of delayed responses, and those reactions produce oscillations of system outputs. This is why economies are cyclical—not because of this president or this company, but because the interconnected system is full of signal delays.
No physical system can grow forever in a finite environment
The real choice in the management of a non-renewable resource is whether to get rich very fast or to get less rich but stay that way longer
When competing with other systems, the most likely choice made is getting rich very fast, because the competitors who make this choice will confer immediate advantages over those who do not.
Resilience provides a large plateau upon which a system can play, performing its normal functions in safety and surrounding the system with gentle, elastic walls, that bounce it back if it wanders too close to a dangerous edge
A system that loses resilience sees its plateau shrink, and whose protective walls become lower and more rigid, restricting the freedom of the system
When a subsystem’s goals dominate at the expense of the total system’s goals, the resulting behaviour is called suboptimization
Too much control can also harm a system. If a cell is not free to perform self-maintenance it will die; if stringent rules prevent students or faculty from exploring fields of knowledge freely, education will falter; over-control by governments has led to some of the greatest catastrophes of history
A highly functioning system requires enough central control to achieve coordination toward the large system goal, and enough autonomy to keep all subsystems flourishing, functioning, and self-organizing
Hierarchies form so that their originating subsystems can perform their jobs better
Hierarchies evolve bottom up. The top layers evolve to serve the purposes of the lower layers
Long term behaviour provides clues to the underlying system structure, and structure is the key to understanding not just what is happening, but why
We are too fascinated by the events systems generate, and insufficiently skilled at prospecting their history to find the structures from which behaviour and events flow
If we’re to understand anything, we must simplify. We must invent boundaries for clarity and sanity; but boundaries can produce problems when we forget that we’ve artificially created them. When you draw boundaries too narrowly, the system surprises you
National boundaries mean nothing when it comes to ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, or ocean dumping
Think of how many arguments have to do with boundaries—national boundaries, trade boundaries, ethnic boundaries, public vs. private
Boundaries are of our own making, and they can and should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose
If a company offers a perfect product or service at an affordable price, it will be swamped with orders until it grows to the point where some limit decreases the perfection of the product or raises its price
If a city meets the needs of all inhabitants better than other cities, people will flock there until some limit brings down the city’s ability to satisfy peoples’ needs
Bounded rationality is the idea that we act rationally with the limited data we have available to us, but that our acts can be irrational when considering the decision at a broader scope
The US and Soviet Union for years exaggerated their reports of each other’s armaments to justify more armaments of their own. Each side was escalating itself to the detriment of their local economies and to the entire globe with the evolution of unimaginably destructive weapons
Addiction can appear in large systems, such as:
The dependence of industry on government subsidy
The reliance of farmers on fertilizers
The addiction of western economies to cheap oil
The addiction of weapons manufacturers to government contracts
Modern medicine in general has shifted the responsibility of health away from the practices and lifestyle of each individual and onto intervening doctors and medicines
Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem (not the root cause), which prevents or distracts one from the longer and harder task of solving the real problem. Addictive policies are insidious, because they are so easy to sell, and so simple to fall for.
Like a drunk ransacking the house in hopes of unearthing just one more bottle, we will pollute our beaches and invade the last wilderness areas, searching for just one more big deposit of oil
Seeking the wrong goal is a system trap. For example, attempting to maximize GDP is harmful because it is a poor indicator of overall social well-being. More car accidents, and thus more spending on medical and repair bills, increase GDP. More parents hiring help to bring their children up increases GDP. An expensive second home for a rich family is better for GDP than an inexpensive basic home for a poor family. An efficient light bulb that both reduce electricity cost and lasts a long time makes the GDP go down.
GDP measures effort rather than achievement, regardless of whether that effort was put to good use or wasted, and regardless of whether the achievement is helpful or harmful; gross production and consumption rather than net/efficiency
System delays cause oscillations. When I receive delayed information about the state of the system stock, I overshoot or undershoot my goal. A system can’t respond to short-term changes when it has long term delays. This is why massive central-planning systems, such as the Soviet Union or General Motors, necessarily function poorly
Insistence on a single culture shuts down learning and cuts back resilience, leading to failure over the long term in highly variable environments
This means encouraging variability and experimentation and diversity, which is scary because it means “losing control”. This is why it’s so hard for people to adopt this highly effective leverage point
Collect as many explanations as possible and consider them all to be plausible until you find evidence that rules them out. That way you will be emotionally available to see evidence as it truly is, not clouded by entanglement with your own identity
Honouring information means above all avoiding language pollution—making the cleanest possible use out of language
What Wendell Berry calls “tyrannese”
My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps a hundred and fifty years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning. And I believe that this increasing unreliability of language parallels the increasing disintegration, over the same period, of persons and communities…
He goes on to say:
In this degenerative accounting, language is almost without the power of designation, because it is used conscientiously to refer to nothing in particular. Attention rests upon percentages, categories, abstract functions. . . . It is not language that the user will very likely be required to stand by or to act on, for it does not define any personal ground for standing or acting. Its only practical utility is to support with “expert opinion” a vast, impersonal technological action already begun. … It is a tyrannical language: tyrannese.
The first step in respecting language is keeping it as concrete, meaningful, and truthful as possible; part of the job of keeping information streams clear. The second step is to enlarge language to make it consistent with our enlarged understanding of systems
Our culture is obsessed with numbers, giving us the idea that what we can measure is more important than what we can’t measure. If we motivate, rate, and reward ourselves on our ability to produce quantity, then quantity will be the result. Quantity is not necessarily as important as quality, however (e.g., when we maximize GDP and sacrifice quality of life).
Be interdisciplinary. Penetrate the jargons of other disciplines, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their respective lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses—they won’t make it easy for you Book notes 2023 p3
Confucius was likely a private person who trained the sons of gentlemen in the virtues appropriate to a member of the ruling class. Though, it is clear that he longed for a more public position to disseminate his teachings
Chün-tzu, or gentleman, are recognized by freeness from violence or brusqueness, open and sincere expression, and speech free from vulgarity (careful and considerate speech)
Those who behave as a chün-tzu should find themselves welcomed everywhere. The alliances of ‘small people’ are directed against others, hostile and destructive in intent; but those of the gentlemen exist only for mutual satisfaction
Chün-tzu have no politics, but side with the Right wherever they find it
Softness, the unwillingness to inflict pain or take life, carried to its logical conclusion involves extinction, as does hardness, the indifference to the infliction of death and suffering
The downfall of liberalism (a rational meeting in the middle) has been due to the failure to associate it with any strong emotion. Extremes, not compromises, evoke the strongest emotional impulses
“If the distant do not submit, cultivate the power of wên (culture, the arts of peace) to bring them to you.” XVI
When one sees people who are better than oneself, one should instead turn their attention towards equalling them
If one learns but does not think, one is lost; if one thinks but does not learn, one is in danger
Keep order among them by chastisement and they will flee from you; keep order among them by ritual and they will come to you of their own accord.
Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good
Be cautious in giving promises and punctual in keeping them
A gentleman who doesn’t continue eating after he is full, does not demand comfort in his home, is diligent in business and cautious in speech, and associates with the Good thereby correcting his own faults
Do not grieve that other people do not recognize your merits, the real tragedy would be to not recognize theirs
He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher
A gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias, the small man is biased and can see a question from only one side
To recognize what you know, and what you don’t know, is knowledge
Do not mind failing to get recognition, be too busy doing the things that entitle one to recognition
Rotten wood cannot be carved
The Middle Way: to exceed is as bad as to fall short, moderation is key
Lavishness leads easily to presumption, as does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption
Does frugality lead to meanness?
Be affable yet firm, commanding but not too harsh, polite but easy
If the Way prevails in your land, count it a disgrace to be needy and obscure; when the Way does not, then count it a disgrace to be rich and honoured
The gentleman brings attention to the good qualities in others, not the bad
When asked how to avoid burglary, build up qualities that cannot be stolen, rather than ostentatious material goods that can be.
In vain have I looked for one whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire
This will generally be the case. Individual selection has a first order effect on our behaviour, group selection (which forms morals) has a second order effect (we abide to social rules because we must, otherwise our genes would perish)
Demand much for oneself and little from others to banish discontent
The demands that a gentleman makes are upon himself; those that a small man makes are upon others
A gentleman is proud but not quarrelsome, and aligns himself with individuals but not parties
3 profitable pleasures: pleasure from ritual and music, pleasure from discussing the good points in the conduct of others, and pleasure from having many wise friends
3 harmful pleasures: pleasure from profligate enjoyments, pleasure from idle gadding about, and pleasure from comfort and ease
3 mistakes that can be made in the context of speech: forwardness (speaking before being called to do so), secretiveness (not speaking when called to do so), and blindness (speaking before noting others’ facial expression)
Love of uprightness without love of learning degenerates into harshness
Love of courage without love of learning degenerates into turbulence
Even minor walks of knowledge (specialized knowledge) have an importance of their own, but if pursued too far they tend to prove a hindrance; for which reason a gentleman does not cultivate them
This same idea prevailed until the 19th century in England, where specialized knowledge was deemed incompatible with true gentility
One who studies widely and with purpose, who questions earnestly, and thinks for himself about what he has heard
When the small man goes wrong, it is on the side of over-elaboration
A gentleman seen from afar looks severe, when approached is found to be mild, and when heard speaking is found to be incisive
Why We Get Sick, The new science of Darwinian medicine (1996), Nesse & Williams
Chapter 1: The mystery of disease
Proximate explanations answer “what?” and “how?” questions about structure and mechanism; evolutionary explanations answer “why?” questions about origins and functions
Most medical research seeks the proximate explanations about how a body part works or how a disease disrupts function. The other half of biology, that tries to explain what things are for and how they got there, has been neglected in medicine
One may worry that evolutionary explanations are mere speculation, however studies are showing that evolutionary hypotheses can predict what to expect in proximate mechanisms (e.g., morning sickness evolved to protect the developing fetus from toxins during its most vulnerable state)
6 categories of evolutionary explanations of disease:
Defenses: while not actually an explanation of disease, this is listed because it is so often confused with other manifestations of disease. An example provided is that of a pneumonia patient who has blue-ish skin and a cough. The blue skin comes from a lack of oxygen in the hemoglobin which leads to darker blood. This is a problem that should be addressed, lack of oxygen is no bueno. The cough, however, is a defense, evolved to expel foreign material from the respiratory tract. Coughing is not a problem, and suppressing this defense puts the body at more risk
Infection: we evolved defenses to counter viral and bacterial threats, viruses and bacteria have evolve ways to overcome our defenses and even use them to their own benefit. This evolutionary arms race explains why eradication of all infections is futile
Novel environments (i.e., evolutionary mismatch)
Genes: some of our genes are perpetuated even though they cause disease, as some of their effects were “quirks” that were harmless in our evolutionary environment
Design compromises: walking upright gives us the ability to carry food, tools, and babies while walking, but predisposes us to back problems. To better understand diseases, we need to understand the hidden benefits of apparent mistakes in design
Evolutionary legacies: evolution is an incremental process and cannot make huge jumps. As such, some designs at this point can be sub-optimal, e.g., our food passes over our windpipe. Once a system is in place, it is costly to re-engineer the evolutionary history
If we consider that a system causes its own behaviour, we need to consider that politicians don’t cause recessions or booms; oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil prices—consumers are as well; and pathogens do not solely attack you, but you set up conditions for them to flourish within you
A diverse system with multiple pathways and redundancies is more stable and less vulnerable to external shock than a uniform system with little diversity
The least obvious part of the system, it’s function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behaviour
To understand life, we need to identify the ultimate cause—life’s purpose: to survive and reproduce!
Someone trying to fix a system is intuitively attracted to a policy lever that has a strong effect on the system, and well-intentioned fixers often pull the lever in the wrong direction! Think, over-reactions to stock fluctuations. We are often surprised by the counterintuitive behaviour of systems when we start trying to change them
Economies are full of balancing feedback loops and delays, companies react in lieu of delayed responses, and those reactions produce oscillations of system outputs. This is why economies are cyclical—not because of this president or this company, but because the interconnected system is full of signal delays.
No physical system can grow forever in a finite environment
The real choice in the management of a non-renewable resource is whether to get rich very fast or to get less rich but stay that way longer
When competing with other systems, the most likely choice made is getting rich very fast, because the competitors who make this choice will confer immediate advantages over those who do not.
Resilience provides a large plateau upon which a system can play, performing its normal functions in safety and surrounding the system with gentle, elastic walls, that bounce it back if it wanders too close to a dangerous edge
A system that loses resilience sees its plateau shrink, and whose protective walls become lower and more rigid, restricting the freedom of the system
When a subsystem’s goals dominate at the expense of the total system’s goals, the resulting behaviour is called suboptimization
Too much control can also harm a system. If a cell is not free to perform self-maintenance it will die; if stringent rules prevent students or faculty from exploring fields of knowledge freely, education will falter; over-control by governments has led to some of the greatest catastrophes of history
A highly functioning system requires enough central control to achieve coordination toward the large system goal, and enough autonomy to keep all subsystems flourishing, functioning, and self-organizing
Hierarchies form so that their originating subsystems can perform their jobs better
Hierarchies evolve bottom up. The top layers evolve to serve the purposes of the lower layers
Long term behaviour provides clues to the underlying system structure, and structure is the key to understanding not just what is happening, but why
We are too fascinated by the events systems generate, and insufficiently skilled at prospecting their history to find the structures from which behaviour and events flow
If we’re to understand anything, we must simplify. We must invent boundaries for clarity and sanity; but boundaries can produce problems when we forget that we’ve artificially created them. When you draw boundaries too narrowly, the system surprises you
National boundaries mean nothing when it comes to ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, or ocean dumping
Think of how many arguments have to do with boundaries—national boundaries, trade boundaries, ethnic boundaries, public vs. private
Boundaries are of our own making, and they can and should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose
If a company offers a perfect product or service at an affordable price, it will be swamped with orders until it grows to the point where some limit decreases the perfection of the product or raises its price
If a city meets the needs of all inhabitants better than other cities, people will flock there until some limit brings down the city’s ability to satisfy peoples’ needs
Bounded rationality is the idea that we act rationally with the limited data we have available to us, but that our acts can be irrational when considering the decision at a broader scope
The US and Soviet Union for years exaggerated their reports of each other’s armaments to justify more armaments of their own. Each side was escalating itself to the detriment of their local economies and to the entire globe with the evolution of unimaginably destructive weapons
Addiction can appear in large systems, such as:
The dependence of industry on government subsidy
The reliance of farmers on fertilizers
The addiction of western economies to cheap oil
The addiction of weapons manufacturers to government contracts
Modern medicine in general has shifted the responsibility of health away from the practices and lifestyle of each individual and onto intervening doctors and medicines
Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem (not the root cause), which prevents or distracts one from the longer and harder task of solving the real problem. Addictive policies are insidious, because they are so easy to sell, and so simple to fall for.
Like a drunk ransacking the house in hopes of unearthing just one more bottle, we will pollute our beaches and invade the last wilderness areas, searching for just one more big deposit of oil
Seeking the wrong goal is a system trap. For example, attempting to maximize GDP is harmful because it is a poor indicator of overall social well-being. More car accidents, and thus more spending on medical and repair bills, increase GDP. More parents hiring help to bring their children up increases GDP. An expensive second home for a rich family is better for GDP than an inexpensive basic home for a poor family. An efficient light bulb that both reduce electricity cost and lasts a long time makes the GDP go down.
GDP measures effort rather than achievement, regardless of whether that effort was put to good use or wasted, and regardless of whether the achievement is helpful or harmful; gross production and consumption rather than net/efficiency
System delays cause oscillations. When I receive delayed information about the state of the system stock, I overshoot or undershoot my goal. A system can’t respond to short-term changes when it has long term delays. This is why massive central-planning systems, such as the Soviet Union or General Motors, necessarily function poorly
Insistence on a single culture shuts down learning and cuts back resilience, leading to failure over the long term in highly variable environments
This means encouraging variability and experimentation and diversity, which is scary because it means “losing control”. This is why it’s so hard for people to adopt this highly effective leverage point
Collect as many explanations as possible and consider them all to be plausible until you find evidence that rules them out. That way you will be emotionally available to see evidence as it truly is, not clouded by entanglement with your own identity
Honouring information means above all avoiding language pollution—making the cleanest possible use out of language
What Wendell Berry calls “tyrannese”
My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps a hundred and fifty years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning. And I believe that this increasing unreliability of language parallels the increasing disintegration, over the same period, of persons and communities…
He goes on to say:
In this degenerative accounting, language is almost without the power of designation, because it is used conscientiously to refer to nothing in particular. Attention rests upon percentages, categories, abstract functions. . . . It is not language that the user will very likely be required to stand by or to act on, for it does not define any personal ground for standing or acting. Its only practical utility is to support with “expert opinion” a vast, impersonal technological action already begun. … It is a tyrannical language: tyrannese.
The first step in respecting language is keeping it as concrete, meaningful, and truthful as possible; part of the job of keeping information streams clear. The second step is to enlarge language to make it consistent with our enlarged understanding of systems
Our culture is obsessed with numbers, giving us the idea that what we can measure is more important than what we can’t measure. If we motivate, rate, and reward ourselves on our ability to produce quantity, then quantity will be the result. Quantity is not necessarily as important as quality, however (e.g., when we maximize GDP and sacrifice quality of life).
Be interdisciplinary. Penetrate the jargons of other disciplines, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their respective lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses—they won’t make it easy for you
An interesting thing to keep in mind when studying history is that many years ago people didn’t typically live as long and were more exposed to death and morbid suffering. This smaller lifespan likely produced more urgency and populated positions with people who had more risk-taking tendencies, whereas in modernity we may be a bit more docile.
Chapter 1: Competition
“It may just have been easier for marauding mongols to access China; Europe was less penetrable by abhors on horseback—and therefore has less need of unity.”
The forbidden city in Beijing is immense, with a theme of Gates and Halls of Supreme/Central/Preserving Harmony. Harmony in this sense was bound with the Chinese idea of undivided imperial authority
Chapter 2: Science
Scientific progress (i.e., technological evolution) was critical for the West’s advantage over the once dominant Ottoman Empire. Part of the reason the West pulled away in the scientific respect was because their governments were more supportive (or tolerant) of the pursuit of science, and valued it (especially in its promise to enhance wellbeing and to improve militaristic outcomes)
The Ottomans had a lingering superiority complex from their previous reign of dominance, and struggled to admit that they were falling behind, and that their governmental regime hindered progress. They thus resisted adopting technologies (such as the printing press, and modern scientific findings)
Israel is like a sandbox surrounded by foes, and thus needs better science to ensure its strategic survival. Israel has more scientist and engineers per capita than any other country and produces more scientific papers per capita.
Could this be a testament to why Judaism seems to produce more Nobel prize winners? Judaism was an adaptive technology developed to help Israelites endure the constant ragdolling that they were constantly subject to by competing imperial powerhouses (Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians). Perhaps the behaviour preached by the tradition of Judaism produces more robust and resilient subjects, which enables more subjects to achieve greatness
Chapter 3: Property
British America had upwards mobility in its infancy. There was a surplus of land, and a shortage of labour. So, to incentivize labour, the Brits allowed labourers the right to property after a few years of service. This was quite a steal for the labourers (serfs), who, if they had stayed in Britain, had little to no chance of acquiring property
This upward mobility stimulated economic growth, and once anyone owned property they earned the right to vote.
In South America, the Spaniards opted for a different approach. There wasn’t a labour shortage in the Americas, so the Spaniards simply exploited the native populations for their labour, and the riches were granted to a tiny elite. The crown owned the land, and only a small fraction was entitled to some of it. This meant there was little upwards mobility, even for Spaniards.
“In South America the Indians worked the land. In North America, they lost it.”
Between 1500 and 1769, 2/3 of migrants were slaves, peaking at 3/4 between 1700 and 1760
The Portuguese had sophisticated slave markets, such that by 1825, 56% of Brazil’s population were of African origin, compared with 22% in Spanish America and 17% in North America
Average life expectancy for a Brazilian slave was 23 as late as the 1850s; a slave had to last only 5 years to double a slave owner’s investment
South America was more tolerant of racial interbreeding. Most of the Spanish and Portuguese men who crossed the Atlantic came alone, thus yearning for partners when they arrived. British men generally came with their wives upon migration; hence interbreeding was less common and became taboo.
Chapter 4: Medicine
On War (1832), one of the best books on war, described war as a paradoxical trinity composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity; plays of chance and probability; and subordination as an instrument of policy
Defence is always a stronger form of fighting than attack, as the force of an attack gradually diminishes more rapidly than that of a defence
Commander must remember four things: assess probabilities, act with utmost concentration, act with utmost speed, and requires the subordination of the means of warfare to the ends of foreign policy (i.e., warfare acts must correspond with the interest of the general group, and control must be maintained to ensure this is satisfied and things don’t degrade into anarchy)
Europe brought medicine to Africa, drastically improving health outcomes. The underlying motive was likely so that economic expansion could progress. Railroads increased infection rates and spread, so countermeasures (vaccines) needed to be developed
Meanwhile, Africans were subject to substantial prejudice, based on eugenic pseudoscience
Chapter 5: Consumption
The great paradox of consumerism: the economic system designed to offer infinite choice to the individual has ended up homogenizing humanity
The Industrial Revolution flourished first in Britain. One convincing theory is that Britain had a limited supply of labourers, which made them expensive, and a surplus of coal, which motivated innovations to replace expensive manpower with cheap coal powered machines
Words from Greek poet Rigas Feraios: “It’s better to have an hour as a free man than forty years of slavery and prison.”
Metaphysical interpretation emphasizes the importance of meditation and mindfulness, freeing yourself from the proclivity to perpetually wander (slaving to cravings)
The Second World War was between four distinct western social organizations: national socialism, Soviet communism, European imperialism (which Japan had adopted), and American capitalism
All major combatants evolved highly centralized state apparatuses to support war efforts, personal freedom was sacrificed for military benefit, regardless of the social orientation of the nation
The war against Germany was won by a combination of British intelligence (who cracked German codes), Soviet manpower (who slaughtered German soldiers), and American capital (which flattened German cities)
Centralized planning works well for organizing the production of a military weapon, but not for organizing the demands of consumers (which are steeped in complexity and in constant flux). Centralized planning is rigid and constrained, but consumer demands are in constant flux and evolution. Post-war, the communist soviet consumer market just couldn’t keep up with capitalist America.
The Soviet party knew what clothing everyone needed and placed orders with state-owned factories accordingly. For this reason, they had to vilify and demonize outsider products, such as jeans, because freedom of expression (through clothing) meant a free market, which would threaten the foundations of the centralized market
Industrial evolution and the consumer society were propelled in large part due to clothing, first producing clothing efficiently, and then making clothing sexier and more expressive
Chapter 6: Work
Max Weber argued that Protestantism shifted individuals’ relationships to work, changing working to live to living to work. Protestants valued industry and thrift that encapsulated hard-working godliness
Acquisition of wealth was liberated from the inhibitions of traditionalist ethics (where motivation for acquiring wealth was taboo)
Luther’s emphasis on individual reading of the bible encouraged literacy and printing, which both encouraged economic development and scientific study
Religious belief tends to be associated with economic growth, as ideas of heaven and hell encourage good behaviour. Hard work, mutual trust, thrift, honesty, and openness to strangers are improved—all economically beneficial traits
The separation of church and state in America allowed for a free religious market, which encouraged innovations to make the church and worship experience more vibrant and fulfilling. In Europe, religions were/are (?) still state monopolies, which are less efficient than free market counterparts
American evangelicals put surprisingly few demands on believers, instead believers serve out demands to God, asking Him to solve their personal problems. The only demands are for money, which are funneled into the pockets of charismatic leaders
Religious communities double as both credit networks and supply chains of creditworthy, trustworthy fellow believers. This is one reason Christianity is taking off in Wenzhou, as the social transition from communism to capitalism breeds conditions rife with exploitation and corruption. People need people they can trust
Three requirements for sustainable economic growth, as per a report given to the CCP: property rights as a foundation (resources), the law as a safeguard (resource security), and morality as a support (community)
This idea that we are doomed is deeply connect with our sense of mortality…we are bound to disintegrate…vainglorious monuments end up as ruins
Conclusion: The Rivals
Civilizations are complex, thus exhibiting many of the characteristics of complex systems in the natural world—including the tendency to move quite suddenly from stability to instability
similar to intermittent turbulence in fluid flows
Book summary: six applications enabled the West to dominate the rest:
Competition: political fragmentation allowed competition amongst corporate entities
Science: the scientific revolution flourished in the west, breeding advances in math, astronomy, chemistry, and biology
Rule of law and representative government followed private property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures
Modern medicine: healthcare breakthroughs, including control of tropical diseases, were made by westerners
Consumerism: Industrial Revolution took place where productivity enhancing tech was supplied, and demands for better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments
Work ethic: westerners combined more extensive and intensive labour with higher savings rates, which permitted sustained capital accumulation
The biggest threat to civilization is not other civilizations, but cowardice and the historical ignorance that feeds it
“You know what irks me…Not that they’re lying; lying can always be forgiven; lying is a fine thing, because it leads to the truth. No, what irks me is when they lie and then worship their own lies.”
“There are all sorts of traffickers hanging onto this common cause who in their own interest have so distorted everything that they have decidedly befouled the whole cause.”
“He’s an intelligent man, but it takes more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
What exactly does it require? Honesty? Compassion? Rightness?
Mention of socialists, who believe that everyone is a “victim of the environment”, and that if only society is properly set up then all crimes and protest will cease to exist.
General disregard for history and a belief that some social system will at once organize the whole of mankind, making it righteous and sinless
Reductionist ideology that posits an easy solution to a complex problem, so that there’s no reason to think.
Dostoevsky is a disillusioned socialist, this is likely his way of taking a dig at his younger self.
Like a moth to a flame.
Modern addictions like processed foods, social media
Hatred and anger (honey-tipped arrow with a poison root)
Raskolnikov, upon recounting the thesis of his paper on crime, states that people can be divided into two classes. An ordinary material class, in which people play their roles, submit to authority, and preserve tradition. And the extraordinary, who transgress law to progress towards greater pastures, and are thus “criminals” in a way, disturbing the existing system. The first preserves the world and increases it via reproduction, the second leads the world towards a goal.
Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad conscience and a deep heart
“The cleverer the man, the less he suspects that he can be thrown off with the simplest thing.”
“Reason is the slave of passion”
System 1 (passion) serves system 2 (reason) [Daniel Kahneman] or the elephant (passion) and the rider (reason) [Jon Haidt]
In reference to progressivists, nihilists, and exposers, Pyotr Petrovich (the insecure pompous asshole) had “like many others…exaggerated and distorted the meaning and significance of these names to the point of absurdity”
This is precisely what happens these days, when people reference with disdain and fear the alt-right or the woke-left
“She was naturally of an easily amused, cheerful, and peaceable character, but continual misfortunes and failures had made her wish and demand so fiercely that everyone live in peace and joy, and not dare to live otherwise, that the slightest dissonance in life, the [smallest] failure, would at once set her almost into a frenzy, and in the space of an instant, after the brightest hopes and fantasies, she would begin cursing her fate, ranting and raving, throwing things around, and beating her head against the wall.”
Showcase of the rotting nature of resentment, how it eats away at people and provokes vicious defensive tactics to protect the rotten foundation that remains. Also showcases the consequence of an untrained mind. A spark causes the mind to come ablaze like it’s a pool of gasoline.
“There’s nothing in the world more difficult than candor (frankness, honesty), and nothing easier than flattery. If there is only the hundredth part a false note in candor, there is immediately a dissonance…but with flattery, even if everything is false down to the last little note, it is still agreeable and is listened to [with] pleasure; crude though the pleasure may be, it is still a pleasure.”
“The people are drinking, the educated youth are burning themselves up in idleness, in unrealizable dreams and fancies, crippling themselves with theories.”
When we don’t use our hands and interact with the common, we lose sight of the physical and get lost in the metaphysical—the realm of ideas and theories.
“They were resurrected by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.”
In reference to the delegates and their clauses within the Paris Climate Agreement: “Words are gossamer (delicate) in a world of granite. There weren’t even any mechanisms for enforcement of these so carefully worded injunctions; they were notional only, the international order of governance being a matter of nations volunteering to do things. And when they didn’t do them…there were no sanctions at all.”
Those involved in these agreements who carefully craft their sentences are doing their best to use words to avoid the inevitability of physical conflict. They are the gossamer net that holds the granite.
People work for incentives. In the case of the navy, when the maximum wage is bounded at 8 times (200,000) that of the starting wage (25,000), those at the top are still normal, still at a level where they can see eye to eye with their subordinates, and somewhere their subordinates can see themselves attaining
The typical wage ratio in the business world is over 1:100. 1:1500 isn’t uncommon. What are those making 1500 times more incentivized to do? Hide. Hide the fact they don’t do 1500x more work than each of their labourers.
To best approach living requires understanding the nature of the world (metaphysics), how it works (natural science), and how (imperfectly) we come to understand it (epistemology, i.e., a theory of knowledge)
Chapter 2: A road map for the journey
Stoic framework: living a gold life requires understanding the nature of the world and the nature of human reasoning (physics and logic)
Good character arises from a nurturing of understanding of the natural world, nurturing our garden so that knowledge can flourish; but also, understanding our thought, acting as a fence to protect our garden so that it can grow unimpeded of bad reasoning
Part 1, The discipline of desire: what it is proper to want or not to want
Chapter 3: Some things are in our power, others are not
Some parallels between lines of different traditions of ancient thought are from direct/indirect reciprocal influence, some from independent convergence of wise minds reflecting deeply on the human condition
These common ideas are those that have withstood the test of time, so we would be wise to draw from them in our own lives
We have a strange tendency to worry about, or concentrate energy on, things we cannot control
Focus instead your attention and efforts where you have the most power to influence it, and otherwise let the universe run as it does. Save yourself the energy and worry.
Chapter 4: Living according to nature
Nature in this sense refers to human nature. In the stoic sense this means being reasonable and sociable. Being unreasonable and antisocial runs counter to our nature
To be sociable is to recognize that the closer you bring relationships with others, the closer you bring them to the degrees of importance you rate yourself and related kin. Refer to others as brother/sister, elders as aunt/uncle. When someone asks where you’re from, say the universe—don’t fall prey to separation via fictional boundaries.
Chapter 5: Playing ball with Socrates
Preferred indifferents: things like health, wealth, education, and good looks are preferred indifferents. We’d prefer to have them rather than not have them, and we can pursue them, but really matters is our values and whether we act in accordance with them. The preferred indifferents should never come at the expense of virtue: your values (e.g., accepting a job you feel ethically uncomfortable with because it pays more). ###Chapter 6: God or atoms
Part 2: The discipline of action: how to behave in the world
Chapter 7: It’s all about character (and virtue)
Socrates believed that all virtues are different aspects of the same underlying feature: wisdom
Six “core” virtues found across all major religions (the four Stoic virtues are bolded):
Courage: exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition (external or internal), e.g., bravery, perseverance, and honesty
Justice: fairness, leadership, citizenship
Humanity: “tending and befriending”, e.g., love and kindness
Temperance: strengths that protect against excess, e.g., forgiveness, humility, self-control
Wisdom: acquisition and use of knowledge, e.g., creativity, curiosity, perspective, judgment
Transcendence: forging connections to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning, e.g., gratitude, hope, and spirituality
The true value of a person lies in their core, not in the clothes they don or the role they happen to occupy in society
Chapter 8: A very crucial word
When a man agrees with what is false, know that he had no wish to agree with the false: “for no soul is robbed of the truth with its own consent,” as said by Plato, but the false seemed true to him
People don’t do “evil” on purpose, they do it out of ignorance
Story told about a Nazi, and his complete disregard for Russian prisoners of war. “There’s…nothing demonic [about the Nazi] …simply a reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing.”
Intelligent stupidity (amathia) is not an inability to understand but a refusal to understand, and any healing or reversal of it will not occur through rational argumentation, greater accumulation of data or knowledge, or through experiencing new and different feelings. Intelligent stupidity is a spiritual sickness in need of a spiritual cure
Show pity for the intelligently stupid, as we pity the blind and lame, as one who is unreasonable is blinded and lamed in their sovereign faculties. Remember this and be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile none, blame none, hate none, offend none.
Chapter 9: The role of role models
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” - James Stockdale
Aristotle thought that we have what is called moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Moral virtue consists of that obtained by natural endowment and habit (especially in early development) and intellectual virtue can be acquired intellectually
Chapter 10: Disability and mental illness
“Stand by a stone and slander it: what effect will it produce? If a man then listens like a stone, what advantage has the slanderer?”
Part 3: The discipline of assent: how to react to situations?
Chapter 11: On death and suicide
In reference to suicide, one of Epictetus’ friends provided his reason for suicide as ‘A man must abide by his decisions.’ “What are you doing, man?” Responded Epictetus, “Not all decisions, but right decisions. Stay where you are and depart not without reason.”
Chapter 12: How to deal with anger, anxiety, and loneliness
Not every problem has a solution. Don’t focus on finding a solution, but on how to handle the situation, including the possibility of failing in the endeavour
The difference between loneliness and being alone, is that the latter is a factual description, while the former is a judgment imposed on the description of being alone, which makes us feel worse about it
Chapter 13: Love and friendship
There is a difference between what is natural and what is right, and we ought to use sound judgment to override what is natural in favour of what is right
Simply recognizing the truth of something is not enough: you need to practice it enough until you develop a habit
A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier o Next year: Energy and materials, where we’re heading as a species
Gratitude unlocks all other virtues (transcendence) o Keep this in mind in virtues posts
Cause One: The increase in speed, switching, and filtering
It’s when you set aside your distractions that you begin to see what you’re distracting yourself from
Studies on speed reading have consistently found that retention degrades the faster we read, even with professional speed readers
Evidence shows that there is no alternative to focusing carefully on one thing at a time if you desire quality outcomes. Multitasking unequivocally degrades performance on each task involved
Cause Two: The crippling of our flow states
To find flow, choose a simple goal (monotask, do NOT multitask); ensure your goal is meaningful to you; and push yourself to the edge of your abilities
Fragmentation makes us smaller, shallower, angrier. Flow makes us whole, deeper, and calmer. Do you want to atrophy your attention, dancing for meaningless rewards? Or to be able to find and concentrate on the meaningful?
Cause Three: The rise of physical and mental exhaustion
Lack of sleep encourages a sympathetic physiological response. Ancestrally, when we were sleep deprived, it usually meant we were in a high stakes environment, like raising a newborn or fighting through a natural disaster. Thus, lack of sleep raises our blood pressure, has us craving more energy rich foods (e.g., fast food), and making us more paranoid/anxious
Dreaming may allow for emotional adaptation without real world costs. Exposure to stressful moments in dreams may help prepare one for stressful moments in real life
Longest REM cycles, those cycles filled with more dreams, occur seven to eight hours into sleep. A good portion of sleep-deprived society is dreamless—what effects could a dream-depraved society have
Sleep is an active process, so when we take sleep aid prescriptions, we dampen the active processes as well and lose their benefits. They produce an empty sleep
Cause 4: The collapse of sustained reading
Reading fiction forces you to simulate a social situation, and imagine others experiences in a complex way. Perhaps fiction is like a gym for training empathy
Experiments have shown that readers of fiction tend to empathize better than those who don’t read fiction—non-readers and non-fiction readers included
Though it could be that empathetic people are more drawn to fiction. However, one study in early childhood showed that kids who are read story books are better at reading others’ emotions, suggesting story-reading experiences expand empathy
Chapter 5: The disruption of mind wandering
Mind wandering allows us to make sense of the world, as sensory inputs are associated with past experiences. Connections are made between concepts, allowing unresolved issues to resolve themselves via creative melding. Our scope retracts, allowing us to tie together past and present to get a better sense of the future.
Attention is commonly thought of as a spotlight, but mind wandering is an important and more diffuse form of attention. Instead of a spotlight, this attention is like a warm all-encompassing glow
Focus is required to feed us knowledge, mind-wandering is required to digest it
In low-stress and safe situations, mind wandering is a gift; in high stress and dangerous situations, it becomes tormenting rumination
Cause 6: The rise of technology that can track and manipulate you
Engagement is the fuel for tech companies. Competition between these companies fragments our attention as it is pulled between engagement hungry apps
Ironically, there are popular workshops at google and Facebook about mindfulness, and the companies themselves are some of the biggest perpetrators of mindlessness in the world
Enragement generates engagement
Cause 7: The rise of cruel optimism
Cruel optimism: to take a complex problem with deep cultural causes, and offer an upbeat, simplistic, individualistic solution to that problem. Examples include obesity, depression, and addiction.
Those who design phones and apps add features to help limit phone use (do not disturb, time limits, etc.). Yet, they still produce apps and tech intentionally designed to be addictive, whose forces tower above the individual and their ability to restrain themselves. This is not a fair fight: tech companies have a lightsaber; users have a butter knife.
Cause 8: The surge of stress and how it’s triggering vigilance
Narrowing focus is a great strategy in a safe environment, which allows for learning and development. But, in a dangerous environment, narrow focus is a dumb strategy. The better option would be to spread your vigilant view to scan for cues for danger. To dissolve your attention.
This could be why some children have a hard time focusing; they’re stressed (for reasons expounded upon in later chapters), and their attention is thus diffuse
Causes 9 & 10: Deteriorating diets and rising pollution
The fuel we give to our brains, food, has lowered in quality as profit motives have transformed food. Preserved, high refined sugars and fats, nutrition-less foods are pervasive, and are degrading attention. It’s like putting corn syrup in an engine, it’s bound to putter out
A return to whole foods is the answer to our attention—and overall health—qualms, as supported by a litany of research. We need to feed our engines petrol, not syrup.
A study in Canada found those living within 50 meters of a busy road were 15% more likely to develop dementia than those who didn’t. Is this due to air pollution? Noise pollution affecting rest?
Cause 11: The rise of ADHD and our response to it
The medication approach to alleviating ADHD symptoms only addresses the proximate causes of the illness. It should be treated as a Band-Aid fix, allowing for normal functioning as the ultimate cause is investigated and addressed
The ultimate cause for ADHD is, according to a Minnesota study that tracked 200 participants across their lives, the circumstances in which the child is brought up in. A stressful environment makes it more difficult to tend to a child’s needs, and children develop coping mechanisms accordingly. “The strongest predictor of positive change [to ADHD symptoms] was an increase in social support available to the parents during the intervening years.”
“…people who snort a line of stimulants then become very boring and go off on long monologues—they become very focused on their own train of thought and filter out the bored-to-tears look on your face.”
Twin studies had inflated the genetic influence on ADHD. While twin studies are great, it’s challenging to disentangle the environmental influence with the genetic. Even if identical twins have the same genetics, their dispositions also influence how the environment responds to them.
Cause 12: The confinement of our children, both physically and psychologically
The major impacts that free play has on child development: creativity and imagination, social bonding and socializing, and aliveness (joy and pleasure) from engaging with biologically congruent activities
In free play, children must negotiate with one another, and police rules to games themselves. Increased reliance on adult supervision is troubling, because it reinforces dependence on authority to sort things out rather than working things out among themselves.
The young adult consequence of this may be increased reliance of university students on administrators to address their qualms (microagressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings)
The adult consequence of this may be increased reliance on governmental authority, police intervention to punish those who make them uncomfortable (this is probably what ended up justifying the historical prevalence of racial prejudices such as antisemitism). The decrease of play can cause fragmentation long term
Expecting authority figures to solve your problems may work when you’re a child, but when you’re an adult your submission to authority occurs in lieu of complex issues, and the authority (whether it be campus administrators or the government) consists of fallible humans. We need to learn to talk to one another, to solve and negotiate issues together
We’re more focused when our actions are intrinsically motivated, rather than extrinsically. Kids with their schedules set out by parents are robbed of doing what they find important, they instead do what their parents find important. They’re not given any time to find meaning.
“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” - Neale Walsch
The No Child Left Behind Act, introduced in 2002, massively increased standardized testing across the United States. In the four years that followed, severe attention problems in children rose by 22%.
While standardized testing offers disadvantaged, yet intelligent, kids some class mobility, it also introduces constraints that counteract freedom and creativity. The constraints from college admission informed standardized testing reverberate to early childhood education.
Conclusion
Three forms of attention: spotlight (what’s in our immediate focus), starlight (what we’re working towards), and daylight (what allows us to find our longer-term goals in the first place—requires reflection, mindwandering, and deep thought)
The author’s three big bold goals to fight against attention decline: ban surveillance capitalism (companies financially incentivized to exploit attention), introduce a four-day work week (needlessly exhausting people dwindles ability to focus), and encourage free play for children
The root of many issues is that the quality of a country tends to be based upon economic growth: GDP. Politicians stay in power if the economy grows, CEOs are celebrated if the companies see increased profits.
Much of current economic growth depends on attention exploitation. If we were to somehow regain control over our attention, and sleep a few more hours each night, the economic system would be hit with a substantial shockwave. There will be subtle yet significant forces that resist our deep desire to regain control of our lives, because economic growth depends on controlling our behaviour
The history of life is non-ergodic. Meaning, there are an astronomically large amount of potential amino acid sequences, such that the universe simply has no time to create a sample every single possible sequence. Life occupies a sub space of potential, and is thus ripe for instability, spontaneity, and creativity
Chapter 2: The function of function
The burgeoning complex biosphere is surely based on physics, but it flowers to a realm beyond
A rock is matter that has no matter, the flowing river has no standalone function. However, a heart has a function and an auto catalytic perpetual reaction has a function. How can these functions be described by physics?
Chapter 3: Propagating organization
All living systems are open thermodynamic systems, and thus locally evade the second law of thermodynamics that states that disorder increases over time (entropy). Instead, living beings propagate ordered organization.
“Work is the constrained release of energy into a few degrees of freedom.” - Peter Atkins
Expanding gas between a piston and cylinder. Gas is constrained, released along the cylinder, thrusting the piston. If there was no constraint on the gas, it would just expand in all directions and no work would be done
The piston-cylinder constrains the gas expansions, limiting its expansion to limited degrees of freedom. This constraint channels the release of energy into work, not just entropy increase. Entropy still increases, just more slowly
Constraints on the release of energy generate work, and work done can construct more constraints. This is how order self propagates. This is life.
Chapter 4: Demystifying life
Chapter outlines same idea, with the addition of auto catalytic sets of molecules/peptides catalyzing their own growth in a cyclical, interdependent, holistic manner. ###Chapter 5: How to make a metabolism
Darwin considered this book as “one long argument” for his view of life
The fiercest struggle for existence is among members of the same species, as they occupy the same areas, require the same foods, and are exposed to the same dangers
Chapter 1: Selection by man
Darwin has this to say about breeders who doubt that distinct breeds could have come from a common ancestor: “from long-continued study they are strongly impressed with the differences between the several races; and though they well know that each race varies slightly, for they win their prizes by selecting such slight differences, yet they ignore all general arguments, and refuse to sum up in their minds the slight differences accumulated during many successive generations”
In domesticated races we see in them adaptation, not to the animal’s or plant’s own good, but to man’s use or fancy
Man can hardly select any deviation of structure except what is externally visible; and rarely cares for what is internal
A fancier perceives extremely small differences, and it is in human nature to value any novelty, however slight, in one’s own possession
Chapter 2: Variation under nature
B.D Walsh, an entomologist, suggested that forms that could freely intercross were varieties, and those who lost this power were species — earliest distinction of species vs. variety?
The term species used to be considered as a useless abstraction, uniting and assuming a separate act of creation
Distinguishing between species and variety is a struggle, since organisms adapt via a continuous process, thus species/varieties occupy a continuum. Distinguishing between a separate species/variety thus requires some abstract threshold
Chapter 3: Struggle for existence
Natural selection comes by analogy of breeders “selecting” for optimal plants/animals, and nature doing the equivalent thing unconsciously
Species develop adaptations as they struggle for life against other species. The fiercest competition tends to occur between close varieties or subspecies, as they occupy the same areas, eat the same food, etc.
Chapter 4: Natural Selection; or Survival of the Fittest
“…I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us.”
P112, good quote about how selection by man pales in comparison to natural selection
Intercrossing seems to be conducive to genetic success. Hermaphrodite plants and animals, despite having both sex cells, still require intercrossing to breed, and rarely reproduce successfully with themselves despite close spatial proximity of their sex organs
Hermaphrodites tend to profit off insects or fluid currents (wind or water) to transport their sex cells to other organisms
Animals with separate sexes need to do the sexual delivery themselves, so are fitted with behaviours that bring them together in space and time (since the currents or insects can’t do it for them), a sexual magnet of sorts
Organisms occupying larger areas are exposed to more competition, and thus have greater ability to adapt into new varieties and species. They will be better adapted than species from smaller isolated areas, by virtue of having more competition to train from. These organisms thus play a more important part in changing the history of the organic world
Smaller confined areas produce organisms that are less varied and experience less severe competition. When organisms from a larger region come in (e.g., from Asia to Australia), they tend to dominate due to their better generalizability
Rare species are less quickly modified or improved within any given period, consequently being beating in the race for life by modified and improved descendants of commoner species
The more diversified in habits and structure the descendants of organisms become, the more places they can occupy
Natural selection leads to the improvement of each creature in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life, and what may be regards as an advance in organization
The Tree of Life fills the crust of the earth with its dead and broken branches, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications
Chapter 5: Laws of variation
Disuse leads to natural selection removing unnecessary organs. Subterranean creatures tend to be blind, beetles near a coastline develop either no wings or stronger wings to avoid/overcome coastline breezes. o Disuse reduces investment in that feature. This goes with behaviour. A bad habit fades away if one manages to place themselves in an environment where it can’t be of use (like the eyes of a mole)
Sexual selection is less rigid in its action than ordinary selection, as it does not entail death, but only gives fewer offspring to the less favoured individuals
“I would almost as soon believe that the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells living on the seashore.”
Chapter 6: Difficulties of the theory
One objection to the theory is how it can account for the “perfection” of specialized organs, for example, the eye. Darwin goes on to explain that gradual changes could very well lead to eyes over long time periods, early light sensing via a convex sense organ is seen in starfish
Then goes to point that the closer you look, the less perfect things become. Our respiratory tract and digestive tract intersect each other, which is terrible design! This is an artifact from our ancestors that evolution didn’t overwrite, as it didn’t pose enough of a threat to survival
Chapter 7: Miscellaneous objections to the theory of natural selection
Chapter 8: Instinct
Habit is behaviour obtained through repetitive experience; instinct is more innate (the repetitive experience in this case is amassed and ingrained over innumerable generations)
Part one: discovering ancient wisdom in a modern world
Chapter 1: We are all buddhas
“I knew that I wanted to learn more, not earn more.”
The concept of fighting for peace, a contradiction in terms
Chapter 2: A Tibetan prophecy
Dharma: that which supports or upholds
The Buddha told people not to follow anything blindly, for Buddhism is not based on belief so much as rational experiment
“I do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; I seek what they sought.” Basho
To spiritually transform, you don’t need to see different things, but see things differently
How can there be peace in the world if we are not at peace with ourselves?
Chapter 3: Deconstructing the house that ego built
Poison one: ignorance of truth
Poison two: attachment
We trade success for real lives; we crave beauty so much that we only see the imperfections in what we have; we become attached to others, so we attempt to control them
Two subsets of attachments are pride and jealousy.
Pride causes us to define ourselves by our attachments, maintaining a rigid persona, deadening the flow of authenticity and spirit
Poison three: aversion (or dislike)
Because we are ignorant, we think we can be made happy by fulfilling attachments. Inevitably we end up disappointed, and become aversive to that disappointment, escalating to anger, hate, and enmity
The author mentions resistance to change as another poison, i.e., attachment to negative habits, or aversion to the discomfort of the stress that accompanies growth
Part 2: Walking the eightfold path to enlightenment
Chapter 4: The four noble truths
We don’t need to dispel what we desire; we must dispel our attachment and identification with what we crave to reduce our suffering
Wisdom is how we transform the hedonic treadmill into a lovely garden walk
The enlightened still have preferences, but they are not attached to them. This is similar to the notion of “preferred indifferents” of stoic philosophy
Buddha realized that one seeking truth had to move away from the extremes of self-indulgent passion (extreme indulgence) and self-inflicted mortification (extreme sacrifice), and instead pursue the Middle Way, i.e., moderation
Buddha grew up as royalty (indulgence), left royalty and spent 6 years eating a grain of rice a day (impossible) but more realistically undernourished himself while meditating all day
A perfectly realized spiritual life is not a carnival ride of exhilarating ups and frightening lows
Happiness cannot be found in a life devoted to sensual pleasure (more money, sex, vacations, status, pride, materials) [excessive selfish motives], nor in a life devoted to self-denial, self-deprecation, blame, and guilt [excessive sacrificial motives].
The eightfold path includes:
Wisdom training
Step 1: Right view
Step 2: Right intentions
Ethics training
Step 3: Right speech
Step 4: Right action
Step 5: Right livelihood
Meditation training
Step 6: Right effort
Step 7: Right mindfulness
Step 8: Right concentration
These steps form more of an interconnected circle. The three main values of Buddhism are wisdom, ethics, and meditative awareness
Very similar to stoicism’s three disciplines of acceptance (physics), philanthropy (ethics), and mindfulness (logic)
Part 3: Wisdom training: seeing things are they are
Step 1: Right view, the wisdom of clear vision
Samsara: perpetual wandering
The enlightened mind is free flowing. Like Teflon, nothing sticks or clings. The unawakened mind is like sticky flypaper, holding onto thoughts and worries. Fixed positions and entrenched opinions
Trying to grasp emotions and things is like trying to grasp water between your hands. It is bound for disappointment
“Each of us is unique, but we are not especially special; we are all interconnected notes in the same cosmic symphony.”
Meditating on death can make life more meaningful, shifting things into perspective of what is and what isn’t worth pursuing
When asked whether God existed or not, or whether the universe had a beginning or end, the Buddha remained silent. He felt that speculating about such questions did not facilitate progress towards freedom and peace
It is better to know nothing (and recognize that you know nothing), than know what isn’t so
The self is a process, not some independent and concrete entity
Often the greatest doubts occur just before a big breakthrough. Doubt is the great teacher.
Four transforming thoughts that redirect the mind, a daily meditation
Precious human existence: be grateful for this lifetime, life is rare to obtain and easily lost. Use this precious time to develop yourself with diligence
Death, mortality, and impermanence: all things are impermanent, the time of our death is uncertain, and we depart alone from this world. The duration of our lives is like a flash of lightning
The ineluctable law of karma: wholesome and unwholesome words, thoughts, and deeds procreate in kind, following us like a shadow follows the body
The defects and shortcomings of samsara:
birth, growing up, and illness are difficult.
Aging and death are painful.
Losing what we care for hurts.
We are blown about by circumstance and conditions beyond our understanding, making us feel lost, anxious, and powerless.
Being unaware and half-asleep in our own lives is wasteful and meaningless
We are continually tormented by fear of the unknown and ignorance and doubt about where we will go and why
Step 2: Right intentions (right thought)
Thoughts manifest as the word; which manifest as the deed; which develops into habit; which hardens into character.
As the shadow follows the body; as we think, so we become
The jewel in the lotus = wisdom and compassion are in us all. What we seek, we are
“Wisdom tells me I am nothing; love tells me I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.”
Wisdom without love is not wisdom. Love without wisdom is not love.
Part 4: ethics training, living a sacred life
Sanskrit word for virtue/morality is sila (shee-la)
Outwards: being straightforward, honest, healing, nonviolent, unselfish, caring
Inwards: being honest to yourself, free from self-deception, selfish bias, ill-will, prejudice. Straightening out things when they are bent.
Step 3: right speech, speaking the truth
There will always be sparks that have the potential to generate an angry reaction. A trained mind is like a pool of water that causes sparks to fizzle out, whereas the untrained mind is like a pool of gasoline that cause a reactive explosion
The less full of ourselves we are, the more room there is for others
Downsizing and simplifying frees you from attachment to material goods. The same can be said about your mental real estate. The less thoughts you’re attached to, the more free and clear your headspace
Step 4: Right action, the art of living
“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
The author says to give now, use your wealth, talent, and energy for the greater good, and it will follow you in the afterlife.
I agree with the point, giving is virtuous. I’m not a fan of using it as a reason to profit in the afterlife. This makes the deed about you, which seems besides the point.
This also speaks to why the afterlife/rebirth themes worry me, they seem to suffer from an attachment to my life, with enlightenment providing one a (likely false) hope to cling to it for another lifetime
I think rebirth is fine as a metaphor, but it seems regressive if taken seriously. Good deeds do carry on after you pass, because they urge others towards goodness, creating a positive chain of cause and effect
“We are being foolish when we congratulate ourselves on our compassionate behaviour when in reality we are simply giving in or giving up too easily. In all likelihood we are being lazy, fearful, frightened, or even codependent. This idiotic pseudo-compassion is counterproductive, and can enable others to hurt themselves further. Sometimes to say no is far more affirming and supportive than to just say yes without reflection…Sometimes we give in because we are trying to manipulate a situation—perhaps we are afraid of rejection or we want to get something in return. We all need to be really clear about what it means to give with a pure and unselfish heart.”
At the end of each day, tally up positive and negative actions to help you stay on the right path
Step 5: Right livelihood, work is love made visible
As per Buddha to a layman, there are four things conducive to happiness in this world:
To be skillful and knowledgeable in whatever profession one has
To conscientiously protect one’s income and family’s means of support
To have virtuous, trustworthy, and faithful friends
To be content (glass half full) and to live within one’s means
The eight worldly winds blow us about like leaves in the wind when we become too attached to them. They are:
Pleasure and pain
Gain and loss
Praise and blame
Fame and shame
“Don’t be best friends with Pride and Vanity”
Pride arises from a person, or a group of persons, tendency to attribute their successes to themselves alone. “I did that” or “We did that” despite the challenges I/we faced. This is delusional and neglects the interdependent nature of the natural world. The innumerable causes and effects of the world allowed for your success, not you. Be grateful for success, but don’t attribute a false sense of ownership—pride—to it. It never belonged to you.
Money is helpful or harmful depending on whether we use it or abuse it, whether we possess it, or it possesses us
The happiness quotient: if we want more than what we have, we become dissatisfied. Becoming happy is about balancing the amounts of what we want and what we have. The middle way in Buddhism is all about striking balance between self-indulgence and self-denial
Guided by wisdom, find a personally satisfying balance between need and greed
Success is not found through the gratification of desire, but in the end of desire—which is contentment. True wealth is when one enjoys what they have.
Finding the right job is about finding work that genuinely develops us as we develop it.
Part 5: Meditation Training; awareness, attention, and focus
Thought and intellect are great servants, but poor masters
When our mind becomes more centered, clear, caring, and open, we have much more room for both others and ourselves. This requires mental discipline, a training of the mind
Step 6: Right effort, a passion for enlightenment
When we cling to narrow-minded opinions, we smother them and our mind becomes fragile. Instead, dance with opinions and give your mind the room it needs to flourish.
There is no way to happiness and peace, happiness and peace is the way
Rejoice in the good fortune of all. Do not wish ill-will on others, regardless of who they are. Avoid jealousy and covetousness
Four great efforts involve: avoiding unwholesomeness, tending to and reducing the unwholesomeness within you, tending to and promoting wholesomeness into your practice, and maintaining that wholesomeness once it’s there
Step 7: Right mindfulness, keeping your eyes open
You may feel you have no time to meditate, however meditation actually adds back time to your day through additional mental clarity and spaciousness
Step 8: Right concentration, the joy of meditation
Remindfulness, the recentering of attention to the object of meditation
Investigate your restlessness when you meditate. If you get bored, ask “why do I get bored? Why aren’t I satisfied?”
Daily meditation is like a mental floss that protects against truth decay
Metaphysical fitness is as important as physical fitness
Epilogue: Toward a western Buddhism and contemporary dharma
Make the effort to contribute to others rather than convert others
Western Buddhism will tend to emphasize personal growth and individual interests more than institutional preservation and growth (democratic vs collectivist)
The history of life is non-ergodic. Meaning, there are an astronomically large amount of potential amino acid sequences, such that the universe simply has no time to create a sample every single possible sequence. Life occupies a sub space of potential, and is thus ripe for instability, spontaneity, and creativity
Chapter 2: The function of function
The burgeoning complex biosphere is surely based on physics, but it flowers to a realm beyond
A rock is matter that has no matter, the flowing river has no standalone function. However, a heart has a function and an auto catalytic perpetual reaction has a function. How can these functions be described by physics?
Chapter 3: Propagating organization
All living systems are open thermodynamic systems, and thus locally evade the second law of thermodynamics that states that disorder increases over time (entropy). Instead, living beings propagate ordered organization.
“Work is the constrained release of energy into a few degrees of freedom.” - Peter Atkins
Expanding gas between a piston and cylinder. Gas is constrained, released along the cylinder, thrusting the piston. If there was no constraint on the gas, it would just expand in all directions and no work would be done
The piston-cylinder constrains the gas expansions, limiting its expansion to limited degrees of freedom. This constraint channels the release of energy into work, not just entropy increase. Entropy still increases, just more slowly
Constraints on the release of energy generate work, and work done can construct more constraints. This is how order self propagates. This is life.
Chapter 4: Demystifying life
Chapter outlines same idea, with the addition of auto catalytic sets of molecules/peptides catalyzing their own growth in a cyclical, interdependent, holistic manner. ###Chapter 5: How to make a metabolism
“You know what irks me…Not that they’re lying; lying can always be forgiven; lying is a fine thing, because it leads to the truth. No, what irks me is when they lie and then worship their own lies.”
“There are all sorts of traffickers hanging onto this common cause who in their own interest have so distorted everything that they have decidedly befouled the whole cause.”
“He’s an intelligent man, but it takes more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
What exactly does it require? Honesty? Compassion? Rightness?
Mention of socialists, who believe that everyone is a “victim of the environment”, and that if only society is properly set up then all crimes and protest will cease to exist.
General disregard for history and a belief that some social system will at once organize the whole of mankind, making it righteous and sinless
Reductionist ideology that posits an easy solution to a complex problem, so that there’s no reason to think.
Dostoevsky is a disillusioned socialist, this is likely his way of taking a dig at his younger self.
Like a moth to a flame.
Modern addictions like processed foods, social media
Hatred and anger (honey-tipped arrow with a poison root)
Raskolnikov, upon recounting the thesis of his paper on crime, states that people can be divided into two classes. An ordinary material class, in which people play their roles, submit to authority, and preserve tradition. And the extraordinary, who transgress law to progress towards greater pastures, and are thus “criminals” in a way, disturbing the existing system. The first preserves the world and increases it via reproduction, the second leads the world towards a goal.
Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad conscience and a deep heart
“The cleverer the man, the less he suspects that he can be thrown off with the simplest thing.”
“Reason is the slave of passion”
System 1 (passion) serves system 2 (reason) [Daniel Kahneman] or the elephant (passion) and the rider (reason) [Jon Haidt]
In reference to progressivists, nihilists, and exposers, Pyotr Petrovich (the insecure pompous asshole) had “like many others…exaggerated and distorted the meaning and significance of these names to the point of absurdity”
This is precisely what happens these days, when people reference with disdain and fear the alt-right or the woke-left
“She was naturally of an easily amused, cheerful, and peaceable character, but continual misfortunes and failures had made her wish and demand so fiercely that everyone live in peace and joy, and not dare to live otherwise, that the slightest dissonance in life, the [smallest] failure, would at once set her almost into a frenzy, and in the space of an instant, after the brightest hopes and fantasies, she would begin cursing her fate, ranting and raving, throwing things around, and beating her head against the wall.”
Showcase of the rotting nature of resentment, how it eats away at people and provokes vicious defensive tactics to protect the rotten foundation that remains. Also showcases the consequence of an untrained mind. A spark causes the mind to come ablaze like it’s a pool of gasoline.
“There’s nothing in the world more difficult than candor (frankness, honesty), and nothing easier than flattery. If there is only the hundredth part a false note in candor, there is immediately a dissonance…but with flattery, even if everything is false down to the last little note, it is still agreeable and is listened to [with] pleasure; crude though the pleasure may be, it is still a pleasure.”
“The people are drinking, the educated youth are burning themselves up in idleness, in unrealizable dreams and fancies, crippling themselves with theories.”
When we don’t use our hands and interact with the common, we lose sight of the physical and get lost in the metaphysical—the realm of ideas and theories.
“They were resurrected by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.”
An interesting thing to keep in mind when studying history is that many years ago people didn’t typically live as long and were more exposed to death and morbid suffering. This smaller lifespan likely produced more urgency and populated positions with people who had more risk-taking tendencies, whereas in modernity we may be a bit more docile.
Chapter 1: Competition
“It may just have been easier for marauding mongols to access China; Europe was less penetrable by abhors on horseback—and therefore has less need of unity.”
The forbidden city in Beijing is immense, with a theme of Gates and Halls of Supreme/Central/Preserving Harmony. Harmony in this sense was bound with the Chinese idea of undivided imperial authority
Chapter 2: Science
Scientific progress (i.e., technological evolution) was critical for the West’s advantage over the once dominant Ottoman Empire. Part of the reason the West pulled away in the scientific respect was because their governments were more supportive (or tolerant) of the pursuit of science, and valued it (especially in its promise to enhance wellbeing and to improve militaristic outcomes)
The Ottomans had a lingering superiority complex from their previous reign of dominance, and struggled to admit that they were falling behind, and that their governmental regime hindered progress. They thus resisted adopting technologies (such as the printing press, and modern scientific findings)
Israel is like a sandbox surrounded by foes, and thus needs better science to ensure its strategic survival. Israel has more scientist and engineers per capita than any other country and produces more scientific papers per capita.
Could this be a testament to why Judaism seems to produce more Nobel prize winners? Judaism was an adaptive technology developed to help Israelites endure the constant ragdolling that they were constantly subject to by competing imperial powerhouses (Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians). Perhaps the behaviour preached by the tradition of Judaism produces more robust and resilient subjects, which enables more subjects to achieve greatness
Chapter 3: Property
British America had upwards mobility in its infancy. There was a surplus of land, and a shortage of labour. So, to incentivize labour, the Brits allowed labourers the right to property after a few years of service. This was quite a steal for the labourers (serfs), who, if they had stayed in Britain, had little to no chance of acquiring property
This upward mobility stimulated economic growth, and once anyone owned property they earned the right to vote.
In South America, the Spaniards opted for a different approach. There wasn’t a labour shortage in the Americas, so the Spaniards simply exploited the native populations for their labour, and the riches were granted to a tiny elite. The crown owned the land, and only a small fraction was entitled to some of it. This meant there was little upwards mobility, even for Spaniards.
“In South America the Indians worked the land. In North America, they lost it.”
Between 1500 and 1769, 2/3 of migrants were slaves, peaking at 3/4 between 1700 and 1760
The Portuguese had sophisticated slave markets, such that by 1825, 56% of Brazil’s population were of African origin, compared with 22% in Spanish America and 17% in North America
Average life expectancy for a Brazilian slave was 23 as late as the 1850s; a slave had to last only 5 years to double a slave owner’s investment
South America was more tolerant of racial interbreeding. Most of the Spanish and Portuguese men who crossed the Atlantic came alone, thus yearning for partners when they arrived. British men generally came with their wives upon migration; hence interbreeding was less common and became taboo.
Chapter 4: Medicine
On War (1832), one of the best books on war, described war as a paradoxical trinity composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity; plays of chance and probability; and subordination as an instrument of policy
Defence is always a stronger form of fighting than attack, as the force of an attack gradually diminishes more rapidly than that of a defence
Commander must remember four things: assess probabilities, act with utmost concentration, act with utmost speed, and requires the subordination of the means of warfare to the ends of foreign policy (i.e., warfare acts must correspond with the interest of the general group, and control must be maintained to ensure this is satisfied and things don’t degrade into anarchy)
Europe brought medicine to Africa, drastically improving health outcomes. The underlying motive was likely so that economic expansion could progress. Railroads increased infection rates and spread, so countermeasures (vaccines) needed to be developed
Meanwhile, Africans were subject to substantial prejudice, based on eugenic pseudoscience
Chapter 5: Consumption
The great paradox of consumerism: the economic system designed to offer infinite choice to the individual has ended up homogenizing humanity
The Industrial Revolution flourished first in Britain. One convincing theory is that Britain had a limited supply of labourers, which made them expensive, and a surplus of coal, which motivated innovations to replace expensive manpower with cheap coal powered machines
Words from Greek poet Rigas Feraios: “It’s better to have an hour as a free man than forty years of slavery and prison.”
Metaphysical interpretation emphasizes the importance of meditation and mindfulness, freeing yourself from the proclivity to perpetually wander (slaving to cravings)
The Second World War was between four distinct western social organizations: national socialism, Soviet communism, European imperialism (which Japan had adopted), and American capitalism
All major combatants evolved highly centralized state apparatuses to support war efforts, personal freedom was sacrificed for military benefit, regardless of the social orientation of the nation
The war against Germany was won by a combination of British intelligence (who cracked German codes), Soviet manpower (who slaughtered German soldiers), and American capital (which flattened German cities)
Centralized planning works well for organizing the production of a military weapon, but not for organizing the demands of consumers (which are steeped in complexity and in constant flux). Centralized planning is rigid and constrained, but consumer demands are in constant flux and evolution. Post-war, the communist soviet consumer market just couldn’t keep up with capitalist America.
The Soviet party knew what clothing everyone needed and placed orders with state-owned factories accordingly. For this reason, they had to vilify and demonize outsider products, such as jeans, because freedom of expression (through clothing) meant a free market, which would threaten the foundations of the centralized market
Industrial evolution and the consumer society were propelled in large part due to clothing, first producing clothing efficiently, and then making clothing sexier and more expressive
Chapter 6: Work
Max Weber argued that Protestantism shifted individuals’ relationships to work, changing working to live to living to work. Protestants valued industry and thrift that encapsulated hard-working godliness
Acquisition of wealth was liberated from the inhibitions of traditionalist ethics (where motivation for acquiring wealth was taboo)
Luther’s emphasis on individual reading of the bible encouraged literacy and printing, which both encouraged economic development and scientific study
Religious belief tends to be associated with economic growth, as ideas of heaven and hell encourage good behaviour. Hard work, mutual trust, thrift, honesty, and openness to strangers are improved—all economically beneficial traits
The separation of church and state in America allowed for a free religious market, which encouraged innovations to make the church and worship experience more vibrant and fulfilling. In Europe, religions were/are (?) still state monopolies, which are less efficient than free market counterparts
American evangelicals put surprisingly few demands on believers, instead believers serve out demands to God, asking Him to solve their personal problems. The only demands are for money, which are funneled into the pockets of charismatic leaders
Religious communities double as both credit networks and supply chains of creditworthy, trustworthy fellow believers. This is one reason Christianity is taking off in Wenzhou, as the social transition from communism to capitalism breeds conditions rife with exploitation and corruption. People need people they can trust
Three requirements for sustainable economic growth, as per a report given to the CCP: property rights as a foundation (resources), the law as a safeguard (resource security), and morality as a support (community)
This idea that we are doomed is deeply connect with our sense of mortality…we are bound to disintegrate…vainglorious monuments end up as ruins
Conclusion: The Rivals
Civilizations are complex, thus exhibiting many of the characteristics of complex systems in the natural world—including the tendency to move quite suddenly from stability to instability
similar to intermittent turbulence in fluid flows
Book summary: six applications enabled the West to dominate the rest:
Competition: political fragmentation allowed competition amongst corporate entities
Science: the scientific revolution flourished in the west, breeding advances in math, astronomy, chemistry, and biology
Rule of law and representative government followed private property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures
Modern medicine: healthcare breakthroughs, including control of tropical diseases, were made by westerners
Consumerism: Industrial Revolution took place where productivity enhancing tech was supplied, and demands for better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments
Work ethic: westerners combined more extensive and intensive labour with higher savings rates, which permitted sustained capital accumulation
The biggest threat to civilization is not other civilizations, but cowardice and the historical ignorance that feeds it
To best approach living requires understanding the nature of the world (metaphysics), how it works (natural science), and how (imperfectly) we come to understand it (epistemology, i.e., a theory of knowledge)
Chapter 2: A road map for the journey
Stoic framework: living a gold life requires understanding the nature of the world and the nature of human reasoning (physics and logic)
Good character arises from a nurturing of understanding of the natural world, nurturing our garden so that knowledge can flourish; but also, understanding our thought, acting as a fence to protect our garden so that it can grow unimpeded of bad reasoning
Part 1, The discipline of desire: what it is proper to want or not to want
Chapter 3: Some things are in our power, others are not
Some parallels between lines of different traditions of ancient thought are from direct/indirect reciprocal influence, some from independent convergence of wise minds reflecting deeply on the human condition
These common ideas are those that have withstood the test of time, so we would be wise to draw from them in our own lives
We have a strange tendency to worry about, or concentrate energy on, things we cannot control
Focus instead your attention and efforts where you have the most power to influence it, and otherwise let the universe run as it does. Save yourself the energy and worry.
Chapter 4: Living according to nature
Nature in this sense refers to human nature. In the stoic sense this means being reasonable and sociable. Being unreasonable and antisocial runs counter to our nature
To be sociable is to recognize that the closer you bring relationships with others, the closer you bring them to the degrees of importance you rate yourself and related kin. Refer to others as brother/sister, elders as aunt/uncle. When someone asks where you’re from, say the universe—don’t fall prey to separation via fictional boundaries.
Chapter 5: Playing ball with Socrates
Preferred indifferents: things like health, wealth, education, and good looks are preferred indifferents. We’d prefer to have them rather than not have them, and we can pursue them, but really matters is our values and whether we act in accordance with them. The preferred indifferents should never come at the expense of virtue: your values (e.g., accepting a job you feel ethically uncomfortable with because it pays more). ###Chapter 6: God or atoms
Part 2: The discipline of action: how to behave in the world
Chapter 7: It’s all about character (and virtue)
Socrates believed that all virtues are different aspects of the same underlying feature: wisdom
Six “core” virtues found across all major religions (the four Stoic virtues are bolded):
Courage: exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition (external or internal), e.g., bravery, perseverance, and honesty
Justice: fairness, leadership, citizenship
Humanity: “tending and befriending”, e.g., love and kindness
Temperance: strengths that protect against excess, e.g., forgiveness, humility, self-control
Wisdom: acquisition and use of knowledge, e.g., creativity, curiosity, perspective, judgment
Transcendence: forging connections to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning, e.g., gratitude, hope, and spirituality
The true value of a person lies in their core, not in the clothes they don or the role they happen to occupy in society
Chapter 8: A very crucial word
When a man agrees with what is false, know that he had no wish to agree with the false: “for no soul is robbed of the truth with its own consent,” as said by Plato, but the false seemed true to him
People don’t do “evil” on purpose, they do it out of ignorance
Story told about a Nazi, and his complete disregard for Russian prisoners of war. “There’s…nothing demonic [about the Nazi] …simply a reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing.”
Intelligent stupidity (amathia) is not an inability to understand but a refusal to understand, and any healing or reversal of it will not occur through rational argumentation, greater accumulation of data or knowledge, or through experiencing new and different feelings. Intelligent stupidity is a spiritual sickness in need of a spiritual cure
Show pity for the intelligently stupid, as we pity the blind and lame, as one who is unreasonable is blinded and lamed in their sovereign faculties. Remember this and be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile none, blame none, hate none, offend none.
Chapter 9: The role of role models
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” - James Stockdale
Aristotle thought that we have what is called moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Moral virtue consists of that obtained by natural endowment and habit (especially in early development) and intellectual virtue can be acquired intellectually
Chapter 10: Disability and mental illness
“Stand by a stone and slander it: what effect will it produce? If a man then listens like a stone, what advantage has the slanderer?”
Part 3: The discipline of assent: how to react to situations?
Chapter 11: On death and suicide
In reference to suicide, one of Epictetus’ friends provided his reason for suicide as ‘A man must abide by his decisions.’ “What are you doing, man?” Responded Epictetus, “Not all decisions, but right decisions. Stay where you are and depart not without reason.”
Chapter 12: How to deal with anger, anxiety, and loneliness
Not every problem has a solution. Don’t focus on finding a solution, but on how to handle the situation, including the possibility of failing in the endeavour
The difference between loneliness and being alone, is that the latter is a factual description, while the former is a judgment imposed on the description of being alone, which makes us feel worse about it
Chapter 13: Love and friendship
There is a difference between what is natural and what is right, and we ought to use sound judgment to override what is natural in favour of what is right
Simply recognizing the truth of something is not enough: you need to practice it enough until you develop a habit
In reference to the delegates and their clauses within the Paris Climate Agreement: “Words are gossamer (delicate) in a world of granite. There weren’t even any mechanisms for enforcement of these so carefully worded injunctions; they were notional only, the international order of governance being a matter of nations volunteering to do things. And when they didn’t do them…there were no sanctions at all.”
Those involved in these agreements who carefully craft their sentences are doing their best to use words to avoid the inevitability of physical conflict. They are the gossamer net that holds the granite.
People work for incentives. In the case of the navy, when the maximum wage is bounded at 8 times (200,000) that of the starting wage (25,000), those at the top are still normal, still at a level where they can see eye to eye with their subordinates, and somewhere their subordinates can see themselves attaining
The typical wage ratio in the business world is over 1:100. 1:1500 isn’t uncommon. What are those making 1500 times more incentivized to do? Hide. Hide the fact they don’t do 1500x more work than each of their labourers.
Darwin considered this book as “one long argument” for his view of life
The fiercest struggle for existence is among members of the same species, as they occupy the same areas, require the same foods, and are exposed to the same dangers
Chapter 1: Selection by man
Darwin has this to say about breeders who doubt that distinct breeds could have come from a common ancestor: “from long-continued study they are strongly impressed with the differences between the several races; and though they well know that each race varies slightly, for they win their prizes by selecting such slight differences, yet they ignore all general arguments, and refuse to sum up in their minds the slight differences accumulated during many successive generations”
In domesticated races we see in them adaptation, not to the animal’s or plant’s own good, but to man’s use or fancy
Man can hardly select any deviation of structure except what is externally visible; and rarely cares for what is internal
A fancier perceives extremely small differences, and it is in human nature to value any novelty, however slight, in one’s own possession
Chapter 2: Variation under nature
B.D Walsh, an entomologist, suggested that forms that could freely intercross were varieties, and those who lost this power were species — earliest distinction of species vs. variety?
The term species used to be considered as a useless abstraction, uniting and assuming a separate act of creation
Distinguishing between species and variety is a struggle, since organisms adapt via a continuous process, thus species/varieties occupy a continuum. Distinguishing between a separate species/variety thus requires some abstract threshold
Chapter 3: Struggle for existence
Natural selection comes by analogy of breeders “selecting” for optimal plants/animals, and nature doing the equivalent thing unconsciously
Species develop adaptations as they struggle for life against other species. The fiercest competition tends to occur between close varieties or subspecies, as they occupy the same areas, eat the same food, etc.
Chapter 4: Natural Selection; or Survival of the Fittest
“…I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us.”
P112, good quote about how selection by man pales in comparison to natural selection
Intercrossing seems to be conducive to genetic success. Hermaphrodite plants and animals, despite having both sex cells, still require intercrossing to breed, and rarely reproduce successfully with themselves despite close spatial proximity of their sex organs
Hermaphrodites tend to profit off insects or fluid currents (wind or water) to transport their sex cells to other organisms
Animals with separate sexes need to do the sexual delivery themselves, so are fitted with behaviours that bring them together in space and time (since the currents or insects can’t do it for them), a sexual magnet of sorts
Organisms occupying larger areas are exposed to more competition, and thus have greater ability to adapt into new varieties and species. They will be better adapted than species from smaller isolated areas, by virtue of having more competition to train from. These organisms thus play a more important part in changing the history of the organic world
Smaller confined areas produce organisms that are less varied and experience less severe competition. When organisms from a larger region come in (e.g., from Asia to Australia), they tend to dominate due to their better generalizability
Rare species are less quickly modified or improved within any given period, consequently being beating in the race for life by modified and improved descendants of commoner species
The more diversified in habits and structure the descendants of organisms become, the more places they can occupy
Natural selection leads to the improvement of each creature in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life, and what may be regards as an advance in organization
The Tree of Life fills the crust of the earth with its dead and broken branches, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications
Chapter 5: Laws of variation
Disuse leads to natural selection removing unnecessary organs. Subterranean creatures tend to be blind, beetles near a coastline develop either no wings or stronger wings to avoid/overcome coastline breezes. o Disuse reduces investment in that feature. This goes with behaviour. A bad habit fades away if one manages to place themselves in an environment where it can’t be of use (like the eyes of a mole)
Sexual selection is less rigid in its action than ordinary selection, as it does not entail death, but only gives fewer offspring to the less favoured individuals
“I would almost as soon believe that the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells living on the seashore.”
Chapter 6: Difficulties of the theory
One objection to the theory is how it can account for the “perfection” of specialized organs, for example, the eye. Darwin goes on to explain that gradual changes could very well lead to eyes over long time periods, early light sensing via a convex sense organ is seen in starfish
Then goes to point that the closer you look, the less perfect things become. Our respiratory tract and digestive tract intersect each other, which is terrible design! This is an artifact from our ancestors that evolution didn’t overwrite, as it didn’t pose enough of a threat to survival
Chapter 7: Miscellaneous objections to the theory of natural selection
Chapter 8: Instinct
Habit is behaviour obtained through repetitive experience; instinct is more innate (the repetitive experience in this case is amassed and ingrained over innumerable generations)
Cause One: The increase in speed, switching, and filtering
It’s when you set aside your distractions that you begin to see what you’re distracting yourself from
Studies on speed reading have consistently found that retention degrades the faster we read, even with professional speed readers
Evidence shows that there is no alternative to focusing carefully on one thing at a time if you desire quality outcomes. Multitasking unequivocally degrades performance on each task involved
Cause Two: The crippling of our flow states
To find flow, choose a simple goal (monotask, do NOT multitask); ensure your goal is meaningful to you; and push yourself to the edge of your abilities
Fragmentation makes us smaller, shallower, angrier. Flow makes us whole, deeper, and calmer. Do you want to atrophy your attention, dancing for meaningless rewards? Or to be able to find and concentrate on the meaningful?
Cause Three: The rise of physical and mental exhaustion
Lack of sleep encourages a sympathetic physiological response. Ancestrally, when we were sleep deprived, it usually meant we were in a high stakes environment, like raising a newborn or fighting through a natural disaster. Thus, lack of sleep raises our blood pressure, has us craving more energy rich foods (e.g., fast food), and making us more paranoid/anxious
Dreaming may allow for emotional adaptation without real world costs. Exposure to stressful moments in dreams may help prepare one for stressful moments in real life
Longest REM cycles, those cycles filled with more dreams, occur seven to eight hours into sleep. A good portion of sleep-deprived society is dreamless—what effects could a dream-depraved society have
Sleep is an active process, so when we take sleep aid prescriptions, we dampen the active processes as well and lose their benefits. They produce an empty sleep
Cause 4: The collapse of sustained reading
Reading fiction forces you to simulate a social situation, and imagine others experiences in a complex way. Perhaps fiction is like a gym for training empathy
Experiments have shown that readers of fiction tend to empathize better than those who don’t read fiction—non-readers and non-fiction readers included
Though it could be that empathetic people are more drawn to fiction. However, one study in early childhood showed that kids who are read story books are better at reading others’ emotions, suggesting story-reading experiences expand empathy
Chapter 5: The disruption of mind wandering
Mind wandering allows us to make sense of the world, as sensory inputs are associated with past experiences. Connections are made between concepts, allowing unresolved issues to resolve themselves via creative melding. Our scope retracts, allowing us to tie together past and present to get a better sense of the future.
Attention is commonly thought of as a spotlight, but mind wandering is an important and more diffuse form of attention. Instead of a spotlight, this attention is like a warm all-encompassing glow
Focus is required to feed us knowledge, mind-wandering is required to digest it
In low-stress and safe situations, mind wandering is a gift; in high stress and dangerous situations, it becomes tormenting rumination
Cause 6: The rise of technology that can track and manipulate you
Engagement is the fuel for tech companies. Competition between these companies fragments our attention as it is pulled between engagement hungry apps
Ironically, there are popular workshops at google and Facebook about mindfulness, and the companies themselves are some of the biggest perpetrators of mindlessness in the world
Enragement generates engagement
Cause 7: The rise of cruel optimism
Cruel optimism: to take a complex problem with deep cultural causes, and offer an upbeat, simplistic, individualistic solution to that problem. Examples include obesity, depression, and addiction.
Those who design phones and apps add features to help limit phone use (do not disturb, time limits, etc.). Yet, they still produce apps and tech intentionally designed to be addictive, whose forces tower above the individual and their ability to restrain themselves. This is not a fair fight: tech companies have a lightsaber; users have a butter knife.
Cause 8: The surge of stress and how it’s triggering vigilance
Narrowing focus is a great strategy in a safe environment, which allows for learning and development. But, in a dangerous environment, narrow focus is a dumb strategy. The better option would be to spread your vigilant view to scan for cues for danger. To dissolve your attention.
This could be why some children have a hard time focusing; they’re stressed (for reasons expounded upon in later chapters), and their attention is thus diffuse
Causes 9 & 10: Deteriorating diets and rising pollution
The fuel we give to our brains, food, has lowered in quality as profit motives have transformed food. Preserved, high refined sugars and fats, nutrition-less foods are pervasive, and are degrading attention. It’s like putting corn syrup in an engine, it’s bound to putter out
A return to whole foods is the answer to our attention—and overall health—qualms, as supported by a litany of research. We need to feed our engines petrol, not syrup.
A study in Canada found those living within 50 meters of a busy road were 15% more likely to develop dementia than those who didn’t. Is this due to air pollution? Noise pollution affecting rest?
Cause 11: The rise of ADHD and our response to it
The medication approach to alleviating ADHD symptoms only addresses the proximate causes of the illness. It should be treated as a Band-Aid fix, allowing for normal functioning as the ultimate cause is investigated and addressed
The ultimate cause for ADHD is, according to a Minnesota study that tracked 200 participants across their lives, the circumstances in which the child is brought up in. A stressful environment makes it more difficult to tend to a child’s needs, and children develop coping mechanisms accordingly. “The strongest predictor of positive change [to ADHD symptoms] was an increase in social support available to the parents during the intervening years.”
“…people who snort a line of stimulants then become very boring and go off on long monologues—they become very focused on their own train of thought and filter out the bored-to-tears look on your face.”
Twin studies had inflated the genetic influence on ADHD. While twin studies are great, it’s challenging to disentangle the environmental influence with the genetic. Even if identical twins have the same genetics, their dispositions also influence how the environment responds to them.
Cause 12: The confinement of our children, both physically and psychologically
The major impacts that free play has on child development: creativity and imagination, social bonding and socializing, and aliveness (joy and pleasure) from engaging with biologically congruent activities
In free play, children must negotiate with one another, and police rules to games themselves. Increased reliance on adult supervision is troubling, because it reinforces dependence on authority to sort things out rather than working things out among themselves.
The young adult consequence of this may be increased reliance of university students on administrators to address their qualms (microagressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings)
The adult consequence of this may be increased reliance on governmental authority, police intervention to punish those who make them uncomfortable (this is probably what ended up justifying the historical prevalence of racial prejudices such as antisemitism). The decrease of play can cause fragmentation long term
Expecting authority figures to solve your problems may work when you’re a child, but when you’re an adult your submission to authority occurs in lieu of complex issues, and the authority (whether it be campus administrators or the government) consists of fallible humans. We need to learn to talk to one another, to solve and negotiate issues together
We’re more focused when our actions are intrinsically motivated, rather than extrinsically. Kids with their schedules set out by parents are robbed of doing what they find important, they instead do what their parents find important. They’re not given any time to find meaning.
“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” - Neale Walsch
The No Child Left Behind Act, introduced in 2002, massively increased standardized testing across the United States. In the four years that followed, severe attention problems in children rose by 22%.
While standardized testing offers disadvantaged, yet intelligent, kids some class mobility, it also introduces constraints that counteract freedom and creativity. The constraints from college admission informed standardized testing reverberate to early childhood education.
Conclusion
Three forms of attention: spotlight (what’s in our immediate focus), starlight (what we’re working towards), and daylight (what allows us to find our longer-term goals in the first place—requires reflection, mindwandering, and deep thought)
The author’s three big bold goals to fight against attention decline: ban surveillance capitalism (companies financially incentivized to exploit attention), introduce a four-day work week (needlessly exhausting people dwindles ability to focus), and encourage free play for children
The root of many issues is that the quality of a country tends to be based upon economic growth: GDP. Politicians stay in power if the economy grows, CEOs are celebrated if the companies see increased profits.
Much of current economic growth depends on attention exploitation. If we were to somehow regain control over our attention, and sleep a few more hours each night, the economic system would be hit with a substantial shockwave. There will be subtle yet significant forces that resist our deep desire to regain control of our lives, because economic growth depends on controlling our behaviour
Part one: discovering ancient wisdom in a modern world
Chapter 1: We are all buddhas
“I knew that I wanted to learn more, not earn more.”
The concept of fighting for peace, a contradiction in terms
Chapter 2: A Tibetan prophecy
Dharma: that which supports or upholds
The Buddha told people not to follow anything blindly, for Buddhism is not based on belief so much as rational experiment
“I do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; I seek what they sought.” Basho
To spiritually transform, you don’t need to see different things, but see things differently
How can there be peace in the world if we are not at peace with ourselves?
Chapter 3: Deconstructing the house that ego built
Poison one: ignorance of truth
Poison two: attachment
We trade success for real lives; we crave beauty so much that we only see the imperfections in what we have; we become attached to others, so we attempt to control them
Two subsets of attachments are pride and jealousy.
Pride causes us to define ourselves by our attachments, maintaining a rigid persona, deadening the flow of authenticity and spirit
Poison three: aversion (or dislike)
Because we are ignorant, we think we can be made happy by fulfilling attachments. Inevitably we end up disappointed, and become aversive to that disappointment, escalating to anger, hate, and enmity
The author mentions resistance to change as another poison, i.e., attachment to negative habits, or aversion to the discomfort of the stress that accompanies growth
Part 2: Walking the eightfold path to enlightenment
Chapter 4: The four noble truths
We don’t need to dispel what we desire; we must dispel our attachment and identification with what we crave to reduce our suffering
Wisdom is how we transform the hedonic treadmill into a lovely garden walk
The enlightened still have preferences, but they are not attached to them. This is similar to the notion of “preferred indifferents” of stoic philosophy
Buddha realized that one seeking truth had to move away from the extremes of self-indulgent passion (extreme indulgence) and self-inflicted mortification (extreme sacrifice), and instead pursue the Middle Way, i.e., moderation
Buddha grew up as royalty (indulgence), left royalty and spent 6 years eating a grain of rice a day (impossible) but more realistically undernourished himself while meditating all day
A perfectly realized spiritual life is not a carnival ride of exhilarating ups and frightening lows
Happiness cannot be found in a life devoted to sensual pleasure (more money, sex, vacations, status, pride, materials) [excessive selfish motives], nor in a life devoted to self-denial, self-deprecation, blame, and guilt [excessive sacrificial motives].
The eightfold path includes:
Wisdom training
Step 1: Right view
Step 2: Right intentions
Ethics training
Step 3: Right speech
Step 4: Right action
Step 5: Right livelihood
Meditation training
Step 6: Right effort
Step 7: Right mindfulness
Step 8: Right concentration
These steps form more of an interconnected circle. The three main values of Buddhism are wisdom, ethics, and meditative awareness
Very similar to stoicism’s three disciplines of acceptance (physics), philanthropy (ethics), and mindfulness (logic)
Part 3: Wisdom training: seeing things are they are
Step 1: Right view, the wisdom of clear vision
Samsara: perpetual wandering
The enlightened mind is free flowing. Like Teflon, nothing sticks or clings. The unawakened mind is like sticky flypaper, holding onto thoughts and worries. Fixed positions and entrenched opinions
Trying to grasp emotions and things is like trying to grasp water between your hands. It is bound for disappointment
“Each of us is unique, but we are not especially special; we are all interconnected notes in the same cosmic symphony.”
Meditating on death can make life more meaningful, shifting things into perspective of what is and what isn’t worth pursuing
When asked whether God existed or not, or whether the universe had a beginning or end, the Buddha remained silent. He felt that speculating about such questions did not facilitate progress towards freedom and peace
It is better to know nothing (and recognize that you know nothing), than know what isn’t so
The self is a process, not some independent and concrete entity
Often the greatest doubts occur just before a big breakthrough. Doubt is the great teacher.
Four transforming thoughts that redirect the mind, a daily meditation
Precious human existence: be grateful for this lifetime, life is rare to obtain and easily lost. Use this precious time to develop yourself with diligence
Death, mortality, and impermanence: all things are impermanent, the time of our death is uncertain, and we depart alone from this world. The duration of our lives is like a flash of lightning
The ineluctable law of karma: wholesome and unwholesome words, thoughts, and deeds procreate in kind, following us like a shadow follows the body
The defects and shortcomings of samsara:
birth, growing up, and illness are difficult.
Aging and death are painful.
Losing what we care for hurts.
We are blown about by circumstance and conditions beyond our understanding, making us feel lost, anxious, and powerless.
Being unaware and half-asleep in our own lives is wasteful and meaningless
We are continually tormented by fear of the unknown and ignorance and doubt about where we will go and why
Step 2: Right intentions (right thought)
Thoughts manifest as the word; which manifest as the deed; which develops into habit; which hardens into character.
As the shadow follows the body; as we think, so we become
The jewel in the lotus = wisdom and compassion are in us all. What we seek, we are
“Wisdom tells me I am nothing; love tells me I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.”
Wisdom without love is not wisdom. Love without wisdom is not love.
Part 4: ethics training, living a sacred life
Sanskrit word for virtue/morality is sila (shee-la)
Outwards: being straightforward, honest, healing, nonviolent, unselfish, caring
Inwards: being honest to yourself, free from self-deception, selfish bias, ill-will, prejudice. Straightening out things when they are bent.
Step 3: right speech, speaking the truth
There will always be sparks that have the potential to generate an angry reaction. A trained mind is like a pool of water that causes sparks to fizzle out, whereas the untrained mind is like a pool of gasoline that cause a reactive explosion
The less full of ourselves we are, the more room there is for others
Downsizing and simplifying frees you from attachment to material goods. The same can be said about your mental real estate. The less thoughts you’re attached to, the more free and clear your headspace
Step 4: Right action, the art of living
“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
The author says to give now, use your wealth, talent, and energy for the greater good, and it will follow you in the afterlife.
I agree with the point, giving is virtuous. I’m not a fan of using it as a reason to profit in the afterlife. This makes the deed about you, which seems besides the point.
This also speaks to why the afterlife/rebirth themes worry me, they seem to suffer from an attachment to my life, with enlightenment providing one a (likely false) hope to cling to it for another lifetime
I think rebirth is fine as a metaphor, but it seems regressive if taken seriously. Good deeds do carry on after you pass, because they urge others towards goodness, creating a positive chain of cause and effect
“We are being foolish when we congratulate ourselves on our compassionate behaviour when in reality we are simply giving in or giving up too easily. In all likelihood we are being lazy, fearful, frightened, or even codependent. This idiotic pseudo-compassion is counterproductive, and can enable others to hurt themselves further. Sometimes to say no is far more affirming and supportive than to just say yes without reflection…Sometimes we give in because we are trying to manipulate a situation—perhaps we are afraid of rejection or we want to get something in return. We all need to be really clear about what it means to give with a pure and unselfish heart.”
At the end of each day, tally up positive and negative actions to help you stay on the right path
Step 5: Right livelihood, work is love made visible
As per Buddha to a layman, there are four things conducive to happiness in this world:
To be skillful and knowledgeable in whatever profession one has
To conscientiously protect one’s income and family’s means of support
To have virtuous, trustworthy, and faithful friends
To be content (glass half full) and to live within one’s means
The eight worldly winds blow us about like leaves in the wind when we become too attached to them. They are:
Pleasure and pain
Gain and loss
Praise and blame
Fame and shame
“Don’t be best friends with Pride and Vanity”
Pride arises from a person, or a group of persons, tendency to attribute their successes to themselves alone. “I did that” or “We did that” despite the challenges I/we faced. This is delusional and neglects the interdependent nature of the natural world. The innumerable causes and effects of the world allowed for your success, not you. Be grateful for success, but don’t attribute a false sense of ownership—pride—to it. It never belonged to you.
Money is helpful or harmful depending on whether we use it or abuse it, whether we possess it, or it possesses us
The happiness quotient: if we want more than what we have, we become dissatisfied. Becoming happy is about balancing the amounts of what we want and what we have. The middle way in Buddhism is all about striking balance between self-indulgence and self-denial
Guided by wisdom, find a personally satisfying balance between need and greed
Success is not found through the gratification of desire, but in the end of desire—which is contentment. True wealth is when one enjoys what they have.
Finding the right job is about finding work that genuinely develops us as we develop it.
Part 5: Meditation Training; awareness, attention, and focus
Thought and intellect are great servants, but poor masters
When our mind becomes more centered, clear, caring, and open, we have much more room for both others and ourselves. This requires mental discipline, a training of the mind
Step 6: Right effort, a passion for enlightenment
When we cling to narrow-minded opinions, we smother them and our mind becomes fragile. Instead, dance with opinions and give your mind the room it needs to flourish.
There is no way to happiness and peace, happiness and peace is the way
Rejoice in the good fortune of all. Do not wish ill-will on others, regardless of who they are. Avoid jealousy and covetousness
Four great efforts involve: avoiding unwholesomeness, tending to and reducing the unwholesomeness within you, tending to and promoting wholesomeness into your practice, and maintaining that wholesomeness once it’s there
Step 7: Right mindfulness, keeping your eyes open
You may feel you have no time to meditate, however meditation actually adds back time to your day through additional mental clarity and spaciousness
Step 8: Right concentration, the joy of meditation
Remindfulness, the recentering of attention to the object of meditation
Investigate your restlessness when you meditate. If you get bored, ask “why do I get bored? Why aren’t I satisfied?”
Daily meditation is like a mental floss that protects against truth decay
Metaphysical fitness is as important as physical fitness
Epilogue: Toward a western Buddhism and contemporary dharma
Make the effort to contribute to others rather than convert others
Western Buddhism will tend to emphasize personal growth and individual interests more than institutional preservation and growth (democratic vs collectivist)
“It sometimes happens that [the odd man] bears within himself the heart of the whole, while the other people of his epoch have all for some reason been torn away from it for a time by some kind of flooding wind.”
Fyodor’s first wife was well-off, while he was not. Narrator suggests Adelaida was an echo of foreign influence, a mind imprisoned, wanting to assert her feminine independence and go against social conventions, despite the despotism of her relatives. Fyodor latched on for the potential of social status. Neither loved each other, both using each other to satiate their respective desires for anti-conformity (Adelaida) and status (Fyodor)
When Adelaida left him, Fyodor gleefully recounted his woes to all. “One would think you had been promoted, you’re so pleased despite all your woes!”
In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.
Wickedness stems from banal ignorance
Fyodor abandoned his first son, not out of malice, but simply because he totally forgot about him
“Who was apparently not wicked but had become a most insufferable crank from sheer idleness.”
“…that eternally needy and miserable mass of our students of both sexes who…habitually haunt the doorways of various newspapers and magazines…to invent anything better than the eternal repetition of one and the same plea for copying work or translations from the French.”
“The question of atheism…of the Tower of Babel built precisely without God, not to go from earth to heaven but to bring heaven down to earth.”
The issue with bringing heaven to earth, is that it runs counter to the theme of delayed gratification that the concept of heaven attempts to instil in followers. Heaven is like a macro-level delayed gratification mechanism, urging people to forego selfish urges in promise of blissful paradise—yet this paradise realistically lies within the future generations of the social group. When we try to bring blissful paradise to earth with no faith, the future risks crumbling in the wake of hedonic indulgence—hell. Faith is our ability to look ahead, and if we don’t look ahead, we get nowhere.
“Perhaps…this tested and already thousand year old instrument for the moral regeneration of man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfection may turn into a double edged weapon, which may lead a person not to humility and ultimate self-control but, on the contrary, to the most satanic pride—that is, to chains and not freedom.”
Like Buddhas story of self-indulgence to self-mortification
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies…does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.”
“It sometimes feels very good to take offense…he likes feeling offended…and thus he teaches the point of real hostility.”
About a doctor: “the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular.”
“And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie.”
A precondition to fear is uncertainty, and we sometimes fill in that uncertainty with a more certain and fearsome outcome. This is the lie.
Are there honest fear responses? If I see a venomous snake, is being fearful of that signal honest?…the fear is still predicated on a projection into the future, I suppose, that the snake could harm me, but it hasn’t harmed me yet. Even if it bites me, I may become scared of the consequences, but that’s because I don’t know what will happen (uncertainty). Fear depends on a projection, and that projection is always a lie, an abstraction, a fiction.
Ivan proposes against separation of church and state. Suggests that the state should end by being accounted worth of becoming the church, from a lower to higher type.
At the time in Russia, criminals were punished mechanically, cut off like an infected limb for the preservation of society. Ivan suggests the state should strive towards the idea of regeneration of man anew, of their restoration and salvation.
The elder claims the mechanical punishment option is not punishment, it only chafes the heart. The real punishment lies in the acknowledgment of one’s own conscience.
You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy…seek happiness in sorrow.
Mitri to Alyosha: “the terrible thing is that beauty is not only fearful but also mysterious. Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the human heart.”
Selfish urges battling with communal urges — both urges exist, selfish being more rewarding in the present (tangible and familiar), communal being more rewarding in the future (less tangible, feels more godly and ethereal)
Do they truly love? Or do they simply love their own virtue?
“In our great intelligence, we’ve stopped flogging our peasants, but they go on whipping themselves.”
Father Paissy in a remark about growing scientific interest: “…after hard analysis, the learned ones…have absolutely nothing left of what was once holy. But they have examined the parts and missed the whole, and their blindness is even worthy of wonder. Meanwhile the whole [Christianity] stands before their eyes as immovably as ever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Fyodor Pavlovich: “wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this sincerity of mine, the wicked ones all attack me”
“But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride…”
“Schoolchildren are merciless people: separately they’re God’s angels, but together, especially in school, they’re quite often merciless.”
“For the daughter—love, and for the mother—death.” o In reference to Madame Khokhlakov’s greed for her daughter, and unwillingness to let her crippled daughter marry Alyosha. Her daughter depends on her, and once she no longer depends on her mother, where can the mother find her worth?
“The stupider, the clearer. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while reason hedges and hides. Reason is a scoundrel, stupidity is direct and honest.”
Reason involves nuance, making it complex and elusive. Stupidity takes shortcuts, slashing away at nuance, making things easier to understand but often less true.
“It is precisely the defencelessness of these creatures the tempts the torturers, the angelic trustfulness of the child, who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to.”
“If I wanted to understand something, I would immediately have to betray the fact, but I’ve made up my mind to stick to the fact…”
“For nothing has ever been more insufferable for man than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching dessert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them…”
“No science will give them bread as long as they remain free, but in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: ‘Better that you enslave us, but feed us.’ They will finally understand that freedom and earthly bread in plenty for everyone are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share among themselves.”
There is no more ceaseless or tormenting care for man, as long as he remains free, than to find someone to bow down to as soon as possible. But man seeks to bow down before that which is indisputable [to all of man] …for it must happen all together. And this need for communality of worship is the chief torment of each man individually, of mankind as a whole, from the beginning of the ages. In the cause of universal worship, they have destroyed each other with the sword.”
“Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him.”
“There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either…There are three powers…capable of conquering and holding captive forever these feeble rebels, for their own happiness—these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority.”
“If in the name of heavenly bread thousands follow you, what will become of the millions of creatures not strong enough to forgo earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly?…the weak too are dear to us…depraved and rebels, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will marvel at us…because we…have agreed to suffer freedom and to rule over them [ouch]—so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free!”
“Since man cannot bear to be left without miracles, he will go and create miracles for himself, his own miracles of quacks, or women’s magic, though he be rebellious, heretical, and godless a hundred times over.” o Modern examples are astrology, tarot cards, and politics
“You [Jesus] did not come down [from the cross] because, again, you did not want to enslave man by a miracle and thirsted for faith that is free, not miraculous. You thirsted for a love that is free, and not for the servile raptures of a slave before a power that has left him permanently terrified.”
“Mankind in its entirety has always yearned to arrange things so that they must be universal. There have been many great nations…but the higher these nations stood, the unhappier they were, for they were more strongly aware than others for the need for a universal union of mankind.”
“Freedom, free reason, and science will lead them into such a maze, and confront them with such miracles and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, unruly and ferocious, will exterminate themselves [because they only have the power to bring themselves down]; others, unruly but feeble, will exterminate each other; and the remaining third, feeble and wretched, will crawl to our feet and cry out to us: ‘Yes, you were right…save us from ourselves.’”
“For he is accustomed to relying only on himself, he has separated his unit from the whole, he has accustomed his soul to not believing in people’s help, in people or in mankind, and now only trembles lest his money and acquired privileges perish.”
“Everywhere now the human mind has begun laughably not to understand that a man’s true security lies not in his own solitary effort, but in the general wholeness of humanity.”
“For the world says: ‘You have needs, therefore satisfy them…Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them’—this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of this right to increase one’s needs? For the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder.”
“We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united…by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people. Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves. They live only for mutual envy, for pleasure-seeking and self-display…I ask you: is such a man free?”
“The idea of serving mankind, of the…oneness of people, is fading…for how can one drop one’s habits, where will this slave go now that he is so accustomed to satisfying the innumerable needs he himself has invented?…They have succeeded in amassing more and more things, but have less and less joy.”
“If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more each day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.”
Being present and attentive about life’s intricacies. There lies an eternity in every grain of sand, every bird’s chirp, every gentle smile. If you can’t see the eternity, you aren’t looking deeply enough
“My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.”
“Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, still it would be easier for the birds, and for a child, and for any animal near you, if you yourself were more gracious than you are now, if only by a drop, still it would be easier.”
When those ridicule the practice of non-harm by the Buddhists, who refuse to even harm an insect, this is what I think of. If we can learn to love even pesky insects, reducing our disgust and hatred of them, we reduce the chances of that hatred and disgust being directed toward fellow humans
“By shifting your own laziness and powerlessness into others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against god.”
Radiate selflessness, not selfishness.
“If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all.”
“The righteous man departs, but his light remains…Your work is for the whole, your deed is for the future.”
This light that he leaves behind is heaven—a better place to live.
“What is hell? The suffering of being no longer able to love.”
“But Rakitin, who could be quite sensitive in understanding everything that concerned himself, was quite crude in understanding the feelings and sensations of his neighbours—partly because of his youthful inexperience, and partly because of his great egoism.”
“One should forgive pathetic phrases, one must. Pathetic phrases ease the soul, without them men’s grief would be too heavy.”
When Mitya is being questioned and has to remove his clothes: “If everyone is undressed, it’s not shameful, but when only one is undressed and the others are all looking—it’s a disgrace!”
How I felt on a bus ride in Seattle, near the end of the pandemic, when I forgot a mask (regardless, the mandate had recently lifted) and everyone had still worn a mask, so that I was the only maskless—“undressed”—person on the bus. The social pressure I felt was unbearably crushing. Lol
To suffer and be purified by suffering
“Because what is virtue?—answer me that, Alexei. I have one virtue and a Chinese has another—so it’s a relative thing. Or not?..I just keep wondering how people can live and think nothing about these things.” - Mitya to Alyosha
The same people who naively neglect forces larger than themselves are most prone to being thrust around by those forces. Ivan is a man of science, striving towards objective truth and ridiculing the unknown. But his naive rejection of the unknown leaves him vulnerable to his passions, which ironically makes the journey to truth much more difficult
“You’re too intelligent, sir. You love money…you also love respect, because you’re very proud, you love women’s charms exceedingly, and most of all you love loving in peaceful prosperity, without bowing to anyone.”
“If everything on earth were sensible, nothing would happen.”
“Without suffering, what pleasure would there be in [life]—everything would turn into an endless prayer service: holy, but a bit dull.”
Mentions of a legend in which a philosopher doubtful of the afterlife, who mentions the lights will simply go out at death, is sentenced in the afterlife to walk in the dark for a quadrillion kilometres.
Metaphorically, those who are dismissive about sin, not fearful of consequences beyond their own life, are leaving society in the dark, bound to walk aimlessly for a quadrillion kilometres. Faith in something larger provides the guiding light; lack of faith leaves us aimless. Note that this does not imply that we must believe in a supernatural afterlife, rather we must recognize that life continues after us, and we can provide to that afterlife rather than burden it.
Ivan’s spiritual ambivalence eats away at him. He yearns for the certainty of faith found in the devout, seemingly ignorant, and spiritually blissful followers (like the plump wife of a merchant)
“Out of pride he will understand that he should not murmur against the momentariness of life, and he will love his brother then without any reward. Love will satisfy only the moment of life, but the very awareness of its momentariness will increase its fire.”
Each of our lives may be momentary, but they are part of a larger symphony. Seeing it as momentary—divorced from prior or future generations—is a mistake, an oversimplification. You couldn’t exist without your ancestors, and the future couldn’t exist without you, and if you believe in making the world better, you have a duty to serve the past, present, and future.
“God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit…He will either rise into the light of truth, or…perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in.”
Regarding Dmitri’s trial turnout: “Hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity could be read on [the ladies’] faces.” Dostoevsky does a great job at highlighting the comical yet concerning female urge for gossip and drama.
“The contemptuously curious eyes fixed upon her by our scandal-loving public.”
“For now we are either horrified or pretend that we are horrified, while, on the contrary, relishing the spectacle, like lovers of strong, eccentric sensations that stir our cynical and lazy idleness, or, finally, like little children waving the frightening ghosts away, and hiding our heads under the pillow until the frightening vision is gone, so as to forget it immediately afterwards in games and merriment.”
We were no different in the late 1800s. Gobbling up stories of suffering with relish and a hint of concern and forgetting them shortly after.
“Everything contrary to the idea of a citizen, a complete, even hostile separation from society: ‘Let the whole world burn, so long as I am all right.’”
“There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love, and it will…expand and show how merciful God is, and how beautiful and just people are.”
“All mass movements breed fanaticism, fervent hope, hatred, and intolerance;…all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.”
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing
The author will attempt to show that any mass movement deliberately fosters in its adherents a frustrated state of mind, and advances its interest by seconding the propensities of the frustrated
“Regardless of belief in God, the true believer (of a mass movement), by converting and antagonizing, is shaping the world in his own image.”
Part 1: the appeal of mass movements
Chapter 1: The desire for change
We tend to attribute success and failure to the state of things around us. “The unfortunate blame their failures on the world, the fortunate see the outside world as a precariously balanced mechanism that should not be trifled with. Thus, there are those with an ardent desire to change the world, and those with a similar conviction to maintain it.”
The privileged and destitute both fear change. Discontent does not necessarily create desire for change. Vast change requires one to feel like they hold some insurmountable power, a certainty that supersedes the uncertainty that they fear. See: religious gods, the omnipotency of man’s reason in the French Revolution, Lenin’s blind faith in the Marxist doctrine.
Power isn’t enough. If power is not joined with extravagant hope, it is mostly used to preserve the status quo. Kindling a fervent faith in the future is a necessity for mass movements.
“For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented but not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader, or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.” They must also be radically hopeful, and wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their undertaking.
Chapter 2: The desire for substitutes
Mass movements appeal not to those intent on advancing a cherished self, but those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. Mass movements attract followings not to satisfy in its followers self-advancement, but to satisfy the passion of self-renunciation
The disadvantaged see self interest as something tainted and evil, and mass movements satisfy their craving for a rebirth that promises new elements of pride, confidence, hope, purpose, and worth by identification to a holy cause.
The frustrated value mass movements as they provide elements that make life bearable that they could not evoke on their own.
“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”
Can you place faith in something larger than yourself without losing faith in yourself? I think so…though, I suppose submitting yourself to something larger than yourself means embracing it with humility and claiming you aren’t everything. (The author isn’t implying anything negative with this statement; it seems to ring true).
“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”
Chapter 3: The interchangeability of mass movements
Most movements are some combination of religious, nationalist, and revolutionary nature.
In pre-war Italy and Germany, businessmen logically encouraged fascist movements to stop communism, but in doing so they promoted their own liquidation.
Part 2: The potential converts
Chapter 4: The role of the undesirables in human affairs
There is a tendency to judge a race, nation, or any distinct group by its least worthy membership. The inferior elements exert the most influence on a group’s course as they are wholly without reverence toward the present. They see their lives and the present as ruined beyond remedy, ready to wreck both. They crave dissolving their meaningless selves in a spectacular communal undertaking and are among the earliest recruits of mass movements.
Chapter 5: The new poor
“The newly poor throb most with the ferment of frustration, as their recent disenfranchisement leaves notes of what could have been lodged in their seething skulls,”
Intensified struggles for existence have more of a static rather than dynamic influence. The abjectly poor are chiefly preoccupied with sustenance. Those who can afford to let their mind wander are those who are poor but not driven to the brink
Before the French Revolution, prosperity had augmented more rapidly in the twenty years preceding the event. This leads to the observation that grievances are most poignant when “just about” redressed. As De Tocqueville noted: “the French found their position the more intolerable the better it became.”
“It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.”
Notes of Buddhist insight here. Craving is the root of suffering, not suffering itself.
“Intensity of discontent seems to be in inverse proportion to the distance from the object fervently desired.”
Wonderful.
“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”
Movements shift from immediate hope to distant hope. Immediate hope is the hope around the corner that is used to promote action and urgency. Once a mass movement has “arrived”, we shift to distant hope, prizing obedience and patience as the movement attempts to preserve the present.
Freedom aggravates, freedom of choice places whole blame of failure on the individual; freedom alleviates, making available action, movement, and protest
We join a mass movement to be free of personal responsibility. Nazis considered themselves cheated when made to shoulder the responsibility for following orders. “Had they not joined the Nazi movement to be free from responsibility?”
Mass movements demanding for personal liberty inevitably see their followers denouncing personal liberties on behalf of group cohesion.
“The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity…no one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.”
“Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.”
Cohesive and synced versus competitive and messy
Mass movements do all they can to disrupt the family and discredit national, racial, and religious ties. This is because individuals without a group and greater sense of meaning are much easier to harvest and manipulate
Almost all contemporary movements attempt to undermine the family, by “undermining parental authority; facilitating divorce; taking over responsibility for feeding, educating, and entertaining the children; and by encouraging illegitimacy.”
There exists a trade-off, the family unit is sacrificed for the collective success of a nation. Children gain economic independence earlier and leave the home, women gain more freedom which facilitates divorce, the rural are drawn to becoming isolated urbanites, loosening family ties.
“All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of a communal existence.”
“The policy of an exploiting colonial power should be to encourage communal cohesion among the natives…the process which transmutes misery into frustration and revolt is checked at the source.”
Individual bonuses are a great way to break apart a group. Group wide incentives are much more likely to maintain group satisfaction and harmony.
Rising mass movements attract and hold following not by doctrine and promises, but by the refuge it offers from the anxious and meaningless individual existence. By absorbing followers into a close-knit whole, followers are freed for their ineffectual selves.
Christianity was exceptional at this. In the Graeco-Roman world, the church offered an unmatched ability to absorb followers into a tight knit community.
Hitler knew the chief passion of the frustrated is “to belong”, that this passion is satisfied by extreme cementing and binding
Uprooted from ancestral soil and local allegiance, urbanization created a fleet of individuals prone to demagogic propaganda, socialist or nationalist or both. The villagers outside of Rome were less likely to have a communal pattern that kept them from Christianity, whereas many of the city dwellers were once separated from their hereditary milieu by the Roman Empire.
“When people revolt on a totalitarian society, they rise not against the wickedness of the regime but its weakness.”
The man just out of the army, feeling lost in the free-for-all of civilian life and surrounded by incertitude, is an ideal potential convert for a mass movement. He longs for the certitude and camaraderie and freedom from individual responsibility for which he was brought up in.
Chapter 6: Misfits
The passage of war to peace is more critical than the inverse, as when veterans return to normality, they find the slow and painful adjustment difficult relative to their previously orderly lives.
The author suggests the most vehement of misfits are those with unfulfilled cravings for creative work—their creative flow being dried up–as they are in the grips of the most desperate of passions (see Hitler)
Chapter 7: The inordinately selfish
Author suggests that the selfish attach themselves to groups, making the subject of their selfishness their group (i.e., becoming groupish). They claim they have faith of love and humility, but can neither be loving or humble (see religious pride)
Chapter 8: the ambitious feeling unlimited opportunities
When opportunities abound, there is an inevitable depreciation of the present. What could be outweighs what is. This disorder attracts the unquenchable thirst of get rich quick enthusiasts to orderly mass movements that promise them everything
Chapter 9: Minorities
The least and most successful in assimilated minorities are most attracted to mass movements. Failures see themselves as outsiders unable to blend. The successful find themselves unable to gain access to exclusive circles of the majority, and with evidence of their individual superiority they resent the inferiority implied by the assimilation.
Chapter 10: The bored
The bored are the most ready and numerous to convert. Those living autonomous lives, living not badly off but lacking abilities to engage in creative work and useful action, lack meaning in their lives, so the meaning inherent in a mass movement is incredibly attractive to them.
This explains the invariable presence of middle-aged women (Karens who are unsatisfied with their marriage or unable to find a partner) at the birth of all mass movements. (See Madame Khoklakhov in Brothers Karamazov)
Chapter 11: Sinners
“A mass movement attempts to infect people with a malady and offer the movement as a cure.”
The disorder present in the conscience of a sinner attracts him to the order of a collective movement, and an opportunity to wash away his sin—a chance of salvation
Part 3: United action and self-sacrifice
Chapter 12: Preface
Mass movements are characterized by an emphasis on collective unity and self-sacrifice.
Every unifying agent is a promoter of self-sacrifice and vice versa.
Chapter 13: Factors promoting self-sacrifice
Identification with a collective whole
Those ready to self-sacrifice identify with a whole rather than themselves. When asked “who are you they” answer Canadian, Christian, member of so and so tribe. When they die, their self lives on through the tribe.
Life itself is all that matters to those without a sense of belonging, the only tangible feeling in an abyss devoid of meaning (see Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment)
Discouraging emigration is just as important in maintaining a collective whole. The iron curtain is perhaps more to prevent Russians from escaping rather than stopping others from entering. It is a psychological boundary, bolstered by propaganda, to prevent losing valuable members to competing groups.
Make believe
Leaders of mass movements mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in followers the illusion that they are participating in a dramatic performance. Think of the costumes and symbols and parades and music present in army marches so common in mass movements.
The desire to escape into spectacle may come easier to the frustrated than the self-sufficient, as the fiction allows them to escape their unsatisfactory selves
Deprecation of the present
A mass movement starts out by reviling the past, insisting that the past taints the pure present. But as the movement gets going, detest shifts onto the present (despite the original aim of salvaging the present) in hopes for a better future.
Impracticability is a mark of mass movements, because to distance oneself from the present means to distance oneself from the real, the feasible, the tangible. Mass movements thus gravitate towards miracles and mysticism, as these technologies spit in the face of the present
All mass movements criticize the present by depicting it as a necessary scourge to reach a glorious future (see religious movements and heaven, social revolutions and utopia, nationalist movements and triumph)
“Those without hope are divided and driven to desperate self-seeking.” The slaves in Hebrew were resentful, but it wasn’t until Moses brought them hope of a promise land that they broke their chains of emancipation.
“Those who are at war with the present have an eye for the seeds of change and the potentialities of small beginnings.”
The frustrated are more likely to prophesize, to search for greener pastures amidst the barren present
Conservatives want to preserve the present and cherish the past; liberals see the present as an offspring of the past developing towards an improved future. Both see the present favourably.
Radicals loathe the present, ready to proceed recklessly with the present towards a better tomorrow. Radicals believe in the ability for humans to perfect their nature, being solely a product of their environment, and by changing the environment they can mold humans perfectly. Reactionaries also revile the present but see the past as important and worthy of glorious restoration.
Those who fail in everyday affairs tend to reach for the impossible, because it is less humiliating to fail in attempting something impossible than the possible. Their ineptitude is dwarfed by the grandiosity of the movement.
“Things which are not”
We are more ready to die for that which don’t yet have, than that which have already. “Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.”
Even when defending ourselves, our motivation is tied not necessarily to the maintenance of life, but to the maintenance of hope. The hopeless either run away or accept defeat.
Mass movements thus furnish hope in followers and attempt to drain hope from opponents. See Nazi Germany, where Hitler drained the Jews of all hope. However, in Palestine, those same Jews, fuelled by hope, fought recklessly
Doctrine
Mass movements strive to interpose a fact-proof screen between faithful followers and the realities of the world. “It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”
The certainty made explicit in doctrines renders followers impervious to the uncertainties present in the world around them.
To be effective, a doctrine has to be believed in—not understood. Absolute certainty only occurs in things we don’t understand.
Followers are thus asked not to try and understand a doctrine with their heads, but with their hearts. “It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason.” Or, “Do not seek Adolph Hitler with your brains; all of you will find him with the strength of your hearts.”
“When some part of a doctrine is relatively simple, there is a tendency among the faithful to complicate and obscure it. Simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer.”
Fanaticism
The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure, leading him to passionately grasp for a doctrine of certainty. The resulting sense of security is not from the excellence of the cause, but the intoxicating stability provided by having something to hold on to.
The fanatic can thus not be persuaded by an appeal to reason or morals. The quality of his cause is not what he clings to, but his passionate attachment. We thus find that fanatics are easily converted (not convinced), as they cling to any doctrine that offers refuge in a sea of uncertainty
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not.”
Mass movements and Armies
Armies differ from mass movements on the sense that they attempt to preserve or expand an established order. Armies attempt to protect the present; mass movements arise to destroy it.
Chapter 14: Unifying agents
Hatred
“Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without belief in a devil.”
Strengths of mass movements are typically proportional to the tangibility and atrocities attributed to the enemy. When asked if he went too far with the Jew hatred, Hitler responded “No, no, no!… It is impossible to exaggerate the formidable quality of the Jew as an enemy.”
Hatred often stems from insufficiency, a desperate effort to “suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt, and other shortcomings of the self.” Self-hatred is transmuted into hatred of others.
When wronged, we don’t always direct our hatred at those who wronged us. We are not necessarily mad at them, but at the evidence of our inadequacy, helplessness, and cowardice.
To silence a guilty conscience, we convince ourselves that those we sin against are deserving of it, unworthy of love. To admit otherwise would open the door to self-contempt, which is precisely what we attempt to escape with our venomous hatred
Hating those who have it worse comes harder because hate shifts into pity. It is much easier to hate those who are advantaged. A nation beginning to hate foreigners wholeheartedly is evidence that they have lost confidence in themselves.
For this reason, the oppressed invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors, because they admire them, and that admiration fuels their hatred.
Surrendering and humbling the self to a larger cause can breed pride and arrogance, the believer seeing himself as chosen and those outside of his faith as evil and perishable
We relinquish responsibility when absorbed by a collective whole. This offers freedom to hate, bully, lie, and torture without shame or remorse.
“The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.” o Groupishness>selfishness
Imitation
Lack of self-worth generates a proclivity to imitate. The more we mistrust our judgment, the more we are ready to follow the example of others.
Persuasion and coercion
Propaganda penetrates only minds already open, and rather than inserting new opinions it justifies and reinforces existing ones
Coercion when insurmountable has an unequaled persuasiveness and breeds fanatics to similar degrees as those persuaded. “It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.”
Christian historian K.S.Latourette notes “However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be…the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.”
To exercise coercion requires the stability provided by ardent faith. As Hitler put it “Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.”
Proselytizing comes not from an expression of having all of the answers but lacking in them. For we only strive for expansion when we feel we’re lacking something.
Passion for proselytizing is centred around some deficiency, be it an irrational dogma or some distance between what is preached and what is practiced (i.e., guilt)
Leadership
Leadership in the context of mass movements requires fertile ground of unsatisfaction and frustration, for without this a movement cannot commence
The thrust of mass movements, though, requires an exceptional leader at the helm. What makes a leader exceptional in this case is audacity, fanatical faith in a single truth, an awareness of the importance of close-knit cohesion, and, “above all, the ability to evoke fervent devotion in a group of able lieutenants.”
All mass movements rank blind obedience as the highest virtues. “Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism.”
The frustrated are attracted to freedom from responsibility more than freedom from restraint, as when they are burdened with responsibility it has led to failure, evidence of their ineptitude.
Action
Successful action can bring premature end to mass movements, as it can feed in the true believer a sense of self-confidence and reconciliation with the present. He can find salvation not in the one and only truth, but in action by proving his worth and individual superiority.
The taste of continuous action kills the collective spirit. And when the ability to act is stifled, say after a defeat in war, fertile ground is laid for mass movements (see Germany after WW1, a population well-equipped to act but forced to be inactive—Hitler gave them an opportunity to act, and they praised him for it)
Suspicion
“We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Thus when the frustrated congregate in a mass movement, the air is heavy-laden with suspicion.”
Abraham sacrificed his only son to prove devotion to Jehovah, and the fanatical Nazis and Communists are ready to sacrifice relatives. Family serves to undermine the collective cohesion of a mass movement, so sacrifice of family is often encouraged. Devotion to family drains devotion to the holy cause.
The effects of unification
Once unified, the true believers source of frustration that led them to the group diminishes. But they become dependent on the group for their sense of self worth, dependent on this group that delivered them from meaninglessness autonomous existence to an anonymous whole.
“The true believer is eternally incomplete, eternally insecure.”
Part 4: Beginning and End
Chapter 15: Men of Words
Excellence in spoken or written word gets mass movements rolling; fanaticism hatches the actual movement; and a practical man of action thrusts the movement forth.
“There is apparently an irremediable insecurity at the core of every intellectual, be he noncreative or creative.”
The grievance which animates in the protesting man of words is often really directed at some personal and private insufficiency, not a public one.
All mass movements are conceived by impractical fault-finding intellectuals, not men of action. German intellectuals generated German nationalism; Jewish intellectuals generated Zionism
Deep-seated cravings of approval make the man of words hypersensitive to any humiliation imposed on their tribe.
“The genuine man of words…can get along without faith in absolutes. He values the search for truth as much as truth itself…His vanity, it is true, often prompts him to defend his speculations with savagery and even venom; but his appeal is usually to reason and not to faith.
“The intellectual’s precursors to mass movements rise against the established order, announcing its incompetence and calling for freedom of expression and self realization.” This is tragic for the intellectuals, because followers too want to see the old order crumble, not to realize their potential but to hide into the whole and relinquish responsibility. The intellectual tragically finds himself swallowed by said whole. The intellectual values the individual, but the masses despise it, and he must then conform or perish.
Chapter 16: The Fanatics
“The dissolution of cursed individuality in the majesty and grandeur of a mighty whole.”
The noncreative men of words are apparently most potent at becoming fanatics. Unable to write a great book, paint a great picture, or become a great scientist, they see themselves as irredeemably spoiled in the current social order. Most Nazi bigwigs were failed artists.
The creative man of words can find satisfaction from the creative flow within, so isn’t as drawn to the collective source of meaning from a mass movement.
Chapter 17: The practical men of action
For they (FDR, Churchill, Ghandi) “are not tempted to use the slime of frustrated souls as mortar in the building of a new world. The self-confidence of these rare leaders is derived from…their faith in humanity, for they know no one can be honorable unless he honours mankind.”
The chief preoccupation of men of action is to maintain unity and willingness to self-sacrifice. This is normally accomplished through strict law and order.
While the man of action reveres the early days of the movement, he acts not on faith but on law. He realizes the value of faith and therefore maintain the incessant flow of propaganda and symbolism, but he persuades not by faith but by force.
Once in charge the men of action, now nearing the end of the dynamic phase and establishing order, need to keep the frustrated from reconciling with the present. They thus dangle the promises of distant hope, a vision, in front of the crawling frustrated to keep them motivated
Chapter 18: Good and bad mass movements
When a mass movement dies, it can be followed by a burst of creative energy from the individuals who were once embalmed in the stifling atmosphere of blind faith and disgust of the present.
Much to the dismay of Hitler or Napoleon, the creative output during their “heroic” age was pathetic. The high tension of their periods leaves little room for the contemplation required to produce art.
“The fanatic’s disdain for the present blinds him to the complexity and uniqueness of life.” Example given of Rabbi Jacob condemning the appreciation of beauty in sources (trees, fields, etc.) other than the Torah.
This blindness is a strength, allowing the fanatic to see no obstacles, but causes “intellectual sterility and emotional monotony.”
The measure of a nation’s strength is as the reservoir of its longing. The more lofty and infinite the goal, the longer it can keep the desires of the masses continually fulfilled. This could be a desire of ever improving standards of living (like in democracies) or holy authority and world domination (like in autocracies)
“It would not be better for mankind if they were given their desires.” - Heraclitus
Yeast produces alcohol to protect against bacteria, as the yeast and bacteria compete over a fruit’s nutrients
Alcohol allowed for some preservation of resources that would otherwise be lost in a world without fridges. In Tanzania, banana and pineapple-based crops are preserved into a tasty brew that would otherwise rot
Though most crops can be preserved in other non-alcoholic ways, like fermenting wheat and oats into porridges that are more nutritionally rich
Alcohol also acts as a disinfectant, and would have acted to rid dirty water of pathogens, and can also provide medicinal properties
Though you can just boil water to rid it of pathogens, and fire has been around for a while. In China, tea drinking is common and cultural norms have made drinking unboiled water taboo, claiming it harms the qi
Many recent studies are concluding that the individual health costs of drinking are overwhelmingly negative. But this is only analyzed at the level of the individual—not the level of the group. Too reductionist.
Path dependence: when a prior path constrains future outcomes (e.g., our spines were designed for four-legged ambulation, not upright bipedalism, hence we get back problems. Evolution can’t see ahead around adaptive corners)
Asian flush may have adapted to protect against fungus that appears in rice stores in damp environments. Normally when alcohol is processed by the body, ethanol is broken down into acetaldehyde, and then acetic acid, which is the broken into oxygen and carbon. Acetaldehyde protects against fungal infections. This breakdown of acetaldehyde is thus suppressed in some Asians, so when they drink a surplus of acetaldehyde is produced which inebriates them faster.
Islamic prohibition of alcohol apparently arose due to companions of Mohamed becoming too drunk at a dinner to say their prayers
Prohibitions of alcohol have been attempted throughout the world to no avail—societies keep drinking nevertheless
The Mormon prohibition from alcohol (and coffee and Coca-Cola) may in part be a strategy to emphasize differences between other existing religious groups, as well as displaying a costly loyalty-inspiring display.
Chapter 2: Leaving the door open for Dionysus
In human mythology there exists a universality of high-stakes riddles. This is a symbolic representation of humanity’s (and life’s) main challenges: we need to be creative to survive
Manioc is a toxic tuber that requires an elaborate process to detoxify. Portugal naively exported manioc from South America to Africa for its impressive and efficient yields. They neglected the cultural process required to detoxify it, however, and to this day contemporary Africans continue to suffer health problems by low-level cyanide poisoning. “Cultural evolution is often much smarter than we are.”
Underdeveloped PFC in youth is a design feature, relaxing constraints and instead allowing the brain to encounter larger swaths of information to facilitate learning and knowledge accumulation
Social emotions allow us to override selfish decisions, but only because we can’t consciously control them. “Love and honor that I can switch on or off when convenient is not true love or honor.”
Social emotions bind us to longer term emotional commitments, restraining us from betraying others when selfish temptations call. Analogous to the siren myth, where Odysseus ties himself to the ship before swimming past the irresistible sirens.
In the Daodejing, the Daoists compare the perfect sage to an infant: perfectly open and receptive to the world.
Children are great at the three Cs that make us human: creativity, culture openness, communal bonding. As we age, we get a little less creative, a little less trusting, a little more ossified. Alcohol relaxes these inclinations, making us more child-like
The default mode network is suppressed when taking LSD and psilocybin. The DMN seems to provide a basic sense of self, and when suppressed yields more cognitive fluidity, a fuzzier boundary between self and others, and reduced sensory discrimination and filtering
“Dionysus (God of wine, fertility, emotionality, chaos), like a hapless toddler, may have trouble getting his shoes on, but he sometimes manages to stumble on novel solutions that Apollo (the sun God of reason, order, and self-control) would never see.”
The chaos/creativity introduced by alcohol can jump us out of local optimums that narrow-minded rationality can’t see beyond. Dionysus allowed selfish apes to stumble and dance their way into civilization
Chapter 3: Intoxication, ecstasy, and the origins of civilization
From Billy Wilder’s the Lost Weekend: “What does [alcohol] do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar.”
We are typically good at sensing implicit emotional cues to gauge the trustworthiness of others. Nudging people to think more about judging trust in others stifles the moral reliability of our spontaneous intuitions.
We have also evolved to deceive, and suppressing emotional leakage requires prefrontal horsepower. Alcohol suppresses this ability, allowing groups of intoxicated individuals to better suss out cheaters. This was especially important when potentially hostile groups gathered (to reconcile, matrimonially unify, or select a new chief which would otherwise be contentious), so these unions were typically accompanied by copious amount of booze
The word bridal comes from “bride ale”, which bride and groom would exchange to seal the marriage, and crucially the new bond between families
In addition to testing trustworthiness, many ancient cultures would ritualize getting drunk together to test the self-restraint and virtue of participants under challenging circumstances
Robin Osborne: “Intoxication…both revealed the true individual, and bonded the group…those who would fight, and die, together established their trust in each other by daring to let wine reveal who they were and what they valued.”
On talking of early American society: “Beyond the obvious usefulness of staid maize and potatoes, then, Emerson discerned a more subtle function for beauty (via Apple blossoms) and intoxication (via cider and applejack), equally important as bread and potatoes for us social apes.”
Maize and potatoes are extrinsically valuable, helping us survive. Apples (in this context) are intrinsically valuable, helping societies reproduce and grow
Ecstasy (Greek ek-stasis) means “standing outside oneself.”
“By enhancing creativity, dampening stress, facilitating social contact, enhancing trust and bonding, forging group identity, and reinforcing social roles and hierarchy, intoxicants have played a crucial role in allowing hunting and gathering humans to enter agricultural villages, towns, and cities.”
Chapter 4: Intoxication in the modern world
The obvious physiological and psychological costs of alcohol must be weighted against their benefits to creativity, contentment, and social solidarity
The 70s and 80s industrial boom in Japan must have been in part facilitated by the “water trade.” This was the culture of Japanese salarymen binge drinking after work, which relaxed status differences and allowed juniors to bring more ideas to the table. Overall creativity must have been enhanced as well.
Prohibition turned off social drinking by killing the saloon, and forced drinkers into isolation and small private gatherings, neutralizing the collaborative advantage of alcohol
Michael Pollin: “Entropy in the brain is like variation in evolution: It supplies the diversity in raw materials on which selection can operate to solve problems and bring novelty into the word.”
The prohibition stifled innovation, as supported by patent data from that time. Given the isolating nature of covid (reliance on impersonal teleconferencing, closure of cafes and bars), we might expect to see a similar drop in innovation
Dunbar and colleagues note that what sets alcohol apart from cannabis and psychedelics are its use in social contexts rather than for quasi-religious experiences and solitary hedonic pleasure. “It opens the social pores.”
Despite the physiological impacts on health from alcohol, one of the principal impacts on longevity is social connectedness, and alcohol helps us connect. Moderate alcohol use, if it encourages more meaningful social encounters, could have beneficial long-term effects on health
“Subjects given alcohol rather than a placebo rate photos with sexual content as more appealing and choose to gaze at them longer. Interestingly, the effect is more pronounced in women, which may reflect greater inhibitions created by cultural norms that alcohol downregulates.”
Our self critical color commentator—the self—so often gets in the way of just being in the world and enjoying it. Escape from selfhood is typically done spiritually (prayer, meditation, yoga) or through use of chemical intoxicants (getting drunk or high)
Religious life has over the past few centuries seen collective active bonding being replaced by passive isolated individualism. Encouragement to combine takes context more and more in the passive sense—to passively observe some entertaining spectacle, whereas intoxication had them interacting in a dynamic and collective sense.
Most of our leisure time is spend drooling in front of TV screens, video games, or our phones.
When it comes to drinking, claiming there is no “safe level” does not seem like a good enough reason to abstain. There’s no safe level of driving, yet governments do not recommend we avoid driving. This is because there are obvious benefits to driving; it’s deemed worth the risk. The benefits of alcohol are not so obvious, they lie not only in the individual, but the messy culture, so we have to find a better way of communicating these benefits.
Thinking that one method over another gives us special access to the divine is suspect. Everything we experience is chemically conditioned, whether it be meditation, prayer, a fast, or a chemical intoxicant. In all cases, we are simply modifying the body’s chemistry to modify how we experience the world.
Chapter 5: The dark side of Dionysus
“The NIH estimates that alcohol is the third highest preventable cause of death after smoking and lack of exercise.”
Southern drinking culture (e.g., in Italy, where children are exposed to alcohol at a young age, drinks are only had at meals/social gatherings and are drank to complement the occasion, drinks are non-distilled) protects genetically alcoholic-susceptible individuals, whereas northern drinking culture (e.g., in United States, where children are strictly forbidden alcohol, drinking as a primary activity is common, distilled spirits are more common) have ineffective safeguards against distillation and isolation—the two innovations that produce alcoholics
Distillation is a novel invention (arriving as early as the 1300s-1500s in China) that our evolutionary precedent did not prepare us for. Distilled liquors, being 10x as volatile as wines or beers, provide the quickest and surest routes to alcoholic dependence. Individualized, on-demand delivery of strong booze is unnatural.
Cultural drinking norms and rituals allow groups of people to regulate consumption before the points of excess are reached.
Prior to the advent of distilled liquor and unregulated private drinking, the dangers of alcoholism may have been outweighed by the social benefits. But as the world becomes more fractionated (i.e., the isolating nature of suburbs) and awash with distilled spirits, alcohol may be more dangerous than it is helpful.
Dissatisfied couples tend to see an increase in relationship quality when under the influence (~0.08BAC). However, those already satisfied with their relationships see no change with alcohol, suggesting that the dissatisfied may be more drawn to alcohol as a crutch for those in unsatisfying relationships
Religious songs, mantras, and chants increase CO2 levels in the lungs and bloodstream, changing the body’s chemistry and likely reducing oxygenation to the prefrontal cortex, bestowing practitioners with similar self-dissolving experiences as one might with alcohol (drunk on the spirit, not wine)
In Ancient Greece, wine cups were deliberately shallow, spilling easily, to regulate consumption. In general, smaller glasses also help regulate consumption
Yeast produces alcohol to protect against bacteria, as the yeast and bacteria compete over a fruit’s nutrients
Alcohol allowed for some preservation of resources that would otherwise be lost in a world without fridges. In Tanzania, banana and pineapple-based crops are preserved into a tasty brew that would otherwise rot
Though most crops can be preserved in other non-alcoholic ways, like fermenting wheat and oats into porridges that are more nutritionally rich
Alcohol also acts as a disinfectant, and would have acted to rid dirty water of pathogens, and can also provide medicinal properties
Though you can just boil water to rid it of pathogens, and fire has been around for a while. In China, tea drinking is common and cultural norms have made drinking unboiled water taboo, claiming it harms the qi
Many recent studies are concluding that the individual health costs of drinking are overwhelmingly negative. But this is only analyzed at the level of the individual—not the level of the group. Too reductionist.
Path dependence: when a prior path constrains future outcomes (e.g., our spines were designed for four-legged ambulation, not upright bipedalism, hence we get back problems. Evolution can’t see ahead around adaptive corners)
Asian flush may have adapted to protect against fungus that appears in rice stores in damp environments. Normally when alcohol is processed by the body, ethanol is broken down into acetaldehyde, and then acetic acid, which is the broken into oxygen and carbon. Acetaldehyde protects against fungal infections. This breakdown of acetaldehyde is thus suppressed in some Asians, so when they drink a surplus of acetaldehyde is produced which inebriates them faster.
Islamic prohibition of alcohol apparently arose due to companions of Mohamed becoming too drunk at a dinner to say their prayers
Prohibitions of alcohol have been attempted throughout the world to no avail—societies keep drinking nevertheless
The Mormon prohibition from alcohol (and coffee and Coca-Cola) may in part be a strategy to emphasize differences between other existing religious groups, as well as displaying a costly loyalty-inspiring display.
Chapter 2: Leaving the door open for Dionysus
In human mythology there exists a universality of high-stakes riddles. This is a symbolic representation of humanity’s (and life’s) main challenges: we need to be creative to survive
Manioc is a toxic tuber that requires an elaborate process to detoxify. Portugal naively exported manioc from South America to Africa for its impressive and efficient yields. They neglected the cultural process required to detoxify it, however, and to this day contemporary Africans continue to suffer health problems by low-level cyanide poisoning. “Cultural evolution is often much smarter than we are.”
Underdeveloped PFC in youth is a design feature, relaxing constraints and instead allowing the brain to encounter larger swaths of information to facilitate learning and knowledge accumulation
Social emotions allow us to override selfish decisions, but only because we can’t consciously control them. “Love and honor that I can switch on or off when convenient is not true love or honor.”
Social emotions bind us to longer term emotional commitments, restraining us from betraying others when selfish temptations call. Analogous to the siren myth, where Odysseus’s ties himself to the ship before swimming past the irresistible sirens.
In the Daodejing, the Daoists compare the perfect sage to an infant: perfectly open and receptive to the world.
Children are great at the three Cs that make us human: creativity, culture openness, communal bonding. As we age, we get a little less creative, a little less trusting, a little more ossified. Alcohol relaxes these inclinations, making us more child-like
The default mode network is suppressed when taking LSD and psilocybin. The DMN seems to provide a basic sense of self, and when suppressed yields more cognitive fluidity, a fuzzier boundary between self and others, and reduced sensory discrimination and filtering
“Dionysus (God of wine, fertility, emotionality, chaos), like a hapless toddler, may have trouble getting his shoes on, but he sometimes manages to stumble on novel solutions that Apollo (the sun God of reason, order, and self-control) would never see.”
The chaos/creativity introduced by alcohol can jump us out of local optimums that narrow-minded rationality can’t see beyond. Dionysus allowed selfish apes to stumble and dance their way into civilization
Chapter 3: Intoxication, ecstasy, and the origins of civilization
From Billy Wilder’s the Lost Weekend: “What does [alcohol] do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar.”
We are typically good at sensing implicit emotional cues to gauge the trustworthiness of others. Nudging people to think more about judging trust in others stifles the moral reliability of our spontaneous intuitions.
We have also evolved to deceive, and suppressing emotional leakage requires prefrontal horsepower. Alcohol suppresses this ability, allowing groups of intoxicated individuals to better suss out cheaters. This was especially important when potentially hostile groups gathered (to reconcile, matrimonially unify, or select a new chief which would otherwise be contentious), so these unions were typically accompanied by copious amount of booze
The word bridal comes from “bride ale”, which bride and groom would exchange to seal the marriage, and crucially the new bond between families
In addition to testing trustworthiness, many ancient cultures would ritualize getting drunk together to test the self-restraint and virtue of participants under challenging circumstances
Robin Osborne: “Intoxication…both revealed the true individual, and bonded the group…those who would fight, and die, together established their trust in each other by daring to let wine reveal who they were and what they valued.”
On talking of early American society: “Beyond the obvious usefulness of staid maize and potatoes, then, Emerson discerned a more subtle function for beauty (via Apple blossoms) and intoxication (via cider and applejack), equally important as bread and potatoes for us social apes.”
Maize and potatoes are extrinsically valuable, helping us survive. Apples (in this context) are intrinsically valuable, helping societies reproduce and grow
Ecstasy (Greek ek-stasis) means “standing outside oneself.”
“By enhancing creativity, dampening stress, facilitating social contact, enhancing trust and bonding, forging group identity, and reinforcing social roles and hierarchy, intoxicants have played a crucial role in allowing hunting and gathering humans to enter agricultural villages, towns, and cities.”
Chapter 4: Intoxication in the modern world
The obvious physiological and psychological costs of alcohol must be weighted against their benefits to creativity, contentment, and social solidarity
The 70s and 80s industrial boom in Japan must have been in part facilitated by the “water trade.” This was the culture of Japanese salarymen binge drinking after work, which relaxed status differences and allowed juniors to bring more ideas to the table. Overall creativity must have been enhanced as well.
Prohibition turned off social drinking by killing the saloon, and forced drinkers into isolation and small private gatherings, neutralizing the collaborative advantage of alcohol
Michael Pollin: “Entropy in the brain is like variation in evolution: It supplies the diversity in raw materials on which selection can operate to solve problems and bring novelty into the word.”
The prohibition stifled innovation, as supported by patent data from that time. Given the isolating nature of covid (reliance on impersonal teleconferencing, closure of cafes and bars), we might expect to see a similar drop in innovation
Dunbar and colleagues note that what sets alcohol apart from cannabis and psychedelics are its use in social contexts rather than for quasi-religious experiences and solitary hedonic pleasure. “It opens the social pores.”
Despite the physiological impacts on health from alcohol, one of the principal impacts on longevity is social connectedness, and alcohol helps us connect. Moderate alcohol use, if it encourages more meaningful social encounters, could have beneficial long-term effects on health
“Subjects given alcohol rather than a placebo rate photos with sexual content as more appealing and choose to gaze at them longer. Interestingly, the effect is more pronounced in women, which may reflect greater inhibitions created by cultural norms that alcohol downregulates.”
Our self critical color commentator—the self—so often gets in the way of just being in the world and enjoying it. Escape from selfhood is typically done spiritually (prayer, meditation, yoga) or through use of chemical intoxicants (getting drunk or high)
Religious life has over the past few centuries has seen collective active bonding being replace by passive isolated individualism. Encouragement to combine takes context more and more in the passive sense—to passively observe some entertaining spectacle, whereas intoxication had them interacting in a dynamic and collective sense.
Most of our leisure time is spend drooling in front of TV screens, video games, or our phones.
When it comes to drinking, claiming that there is no “safe level” does not seem like a good enough reason to abstention; there’s no safe level of driving, yet governments do not recommend we avoid driving. This is because there are obvious benefits to driving, that it’s deemed worth the risk. The benefits of alcohol are not so obvious, they lie not only in the individual but the messy culture, so we have to find a better way of communicating these benefits
Thinking that one method over another gives us special access to the divine is suspect. Everything we experience is chemically conditioned, whether it be meditation, prayer, a fast, or a chemical intoxicant. In all cases, we are simply modifying the body’s chemistry to modify how we experience the world.
Chapter 5: The dark side of Dionysus
“The NIH estimates that alcohol is the third highest preventable cause of death after smoking and lack of exercise.”
Southern drinking culture (e.g., in Italy, where children are exposed to alcohol at a young age, drinks are only had at meals/social gatherings and are drank to complement the occasion, drinks are non-distilled) protects genetically alcoholic-susceptible individuals, whereas northern drinking culture (e.g., in United States, where children are strictly forbidden alcohol, drinking as a primary activity is common, distilled spirits are more common) have ineffective safeguards against distillation and isolation—the two innovations that produce alcoholics
Distillation is a novel invention (arriving as early as the 1300s-1500s in China) that our evolutionary precedent did not prepare us for. Distilled liquors, being 10x as volatile as wines or beers, provide the quickest and surest routes to alcoholic dependence. Individualized, on-demand delivery of strong booze is unnatural.
Cultural drinking norms and rituals allow groups of people to regulate consumption before the points of excess are reached.
Prior to the advent of distilled liquor and unregulated private drinking, the dangers of alcoholism may have been outweighed by the social benefits. But as the world becomes more fractionated (i.e., the isolating nature of suburbs) and awash with distilled spirits, alcohol may be more dangerous than it is helpful.
Dissatisfied couples tend to see an increase in relationship quality when under the influence (~0.08BAC). However, those already satisfied with their relationships see no change with alcohol, suggesting that the dissatisfied may be more drawn to alcohol as a crutch for those in unsatisfying relationships
Religious songs, mantras, and chants increase CO2 levels in the lungs and bloodstream, changing the body’s chemistry and likely reducing oxygenation to the prefrontal cortex, bestowing practitioners with similar self-dissolving experiences as one might with alcohol (drunk on the spirit, not wine)
In Ancient Greece, wine cups were deliberately shallow, spilling easily, to regulate consumption. In general, smaller glasses also help regulate consumption
The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer
“All mass movements breed fanaticism, fervent hope, hatred, and intolerance;…all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.”
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing
The author will attempt to show that any mass movement deliberately fosters in its adherents a frustrated state of mind, and advances its interest by seconding the propensities of the frustrated
“Regardless of belief in God, the true believer (of a mass movement), by converting and antagonizing, is shaping the world in his own image.”
Part 1: the appeal of mass movements
Chapter 1: The desire for change
We tend to attribute success and failure to the state of things around us. “The unfortunate blame their failures on the world, the fortunate see the outside world as a precariously balanced mechanism that should not be trifled with. Thus, there are those with an ardent desire to change the world, and those with a similar conviction to maintain it.”
The privileged and destitute both fear change. Discontent does not necessarily create desire for change. Vast change requires one to feel like they hold some insurmountable power, a certainty that supersedes the uncertainty that they fear. See: religious gods, the omnipotency of man’s reason in the French Revolution, Lenin’s blind faith in the Marxist doctrine.
Power isn’t enough. If power is not joined with extravagant hope, it is mostly used to preserve the status quo. Kindling a fervent faith in the future is a necessity for mass movements.
“For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented but not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader, or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.” They must also be radically hopeful, and wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their undertaking.
Chapter 2: The desire for substitutes
Mass movements appeal not to those intent on advancing a cherished self, but those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. Mass movements attract followings not to satisfy in its followers self-advancement, but to satisfy the passion of self-renunciation
The disadvantaged see self interest as something tainted and evil, and mass movements satisfy their craving for a rebirth that promises new elements of pride, confidence, hope, purpose, and worth by identification to a holy cause.
The frustrated value mass movements as they provide elements that make life bearable that they could not evoke on their own.
“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”
Can you place faith in something larger than yourself without losing faith in yourself? I think so…though, I suppose submitting yourself to something larger than yourself means embracing it with humility and claiming you aren’t everything. (The author isn’t implying anything negative with this statement; it seems to ring true).
“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”
Chapter 3: The interchangeability of mass movements
Most movements are some combination of religious, nationalist, and revolutionary nature.
In pre-war Italy and Germany, businessmen logically encouraged fascist movements to stop communism, but in doing so they promoted their own liquidation.
Part 2: The potential converts
Chapter 4: The role of the undesirables in human affairs
There is a tendency to judge a race, nation, or any distinct group by its least worthy membership. The inferior elements exert the most influence on a group’s course as they are wholly without reverence toward the present. They see their lives and the present as ruined beyond remedy, ready to wreck both. They crave dissolving their meaningless selves in a spectacular communal undertaking and are among the earliest recruits of mass movements.
Chapter 5: The new poor
“The newly poor throb most with the ferment of frustration, as their recent disenfranchisement leaves notes of what could have been lodged in their seething skulls,”
Intensified struggles for existence have more of a static rather than dynamic influence. The abjectly poor are chiefly preoccupied with sustenance. Those who can afford to let their mind wander are those who are poor but not driven to the brink
Before the French Revolution, prosperity had augmented more rapidly in the twenty years preceding the event. This leads to the observation that grievances are most poignant when “just about” redressed. As De Tocqueville noted: “the French found their position the more intolerable the better it became.”
“It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.”
Notes of Buddhist insight here. Craving is the root of suffering, not suffering itself.
“Intensity of discontent seems to be in inverse proportion to the distance from the object fervently desired.”
Wonderful.
“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”
Movements shift from immediate hope to distant hope. Immediate hope is the hope around the corner that is used to promote action and urgency. Once a mass movement has “arrived”, we shift to distant hope, prizing obedience and patience as the movement attempts to preserve the present.
Freedom aggravates, freedom of choice places whole blame of failure on the individual; freedom alleviates, making available action, movement, and protest
We join a mass movement to be free of personal responsibility. Nazis considered themselves cheated when made to shoulder the responsibility for following orders. “Had they not joined the Nazi movement to be free from responsibility?”
Mass movements demanding for personal liberty inevitably see their followers denouncing personal liberties on behalf of group cohesion.
“The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity…no one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.”
“Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.”
Cohesive and synced versus competitive and messy
Mass movements do all they can to disrupt the family and discredit national, racial, and religious ties. This is because individuals without a group and greater sense of meaning are much easier to harvest and manipulate
Almost all contemporary movements attempt to undermine the family, by “undermining parental authority; facilitating divorce; taking over responsibility for feeding, educating, and entertaining the children; and by encouraging illegitimacy.”
There exists a trade-off, the family unit is sacrificed for the collective success of a nation. Children gain economic independence earlier and leave the home, women gain more freedom which facilitates divorce, the rural are drawn to becoming isolated urbanites, loosening family ties.
“All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of a communal existence.”
“The policy of an exploiting colonial power should be to encourage communal cohesion among the natives…the process which transmutes misery into frustration and revolt is checked at the source.”
Individual bonuses are a great way to break apart a group. Group wide incentives are much more likely to maintain group satisfaction and harmony.
Rising mass movements attract and hold following not by doctrine and promises, but by the refuge it offers from the anxious and meaningless individual existence. By absorbing followers into a close-knit whole, followers are freed for their ineffectual selves.
Christianity was exceptional at this. In the Graeco-Roman world, the church offered an unmatched ability to absorb followers into a tight knit community.
Hitler knew the chief passion of the frustrated is “to belong”, that this passion is satisfied by extreme cementing and binding
Uprooted from ancestral soil and local allegiance, urbanization created a fleet of individuals prone to demagogic propaganda, socialist or nationalist or both. The villagers outside of Rome were less likely to have a communal pattern that kept them from Christianity, whereas many of the city dwellers were once separated from their hereditary milieu by the Roman Empire.
“When people revolt on a totalitarian society, they rise not against the wickedness of the regime but its weakness.”
The man just out of the army, feeling lost in the free-for-all of civilian life and surrounded by incertitude, is an ideal potential convert for a mass movement. He longs for the certitude and camaraderie and freedom from individual responsibility for which he was brought up in.
Chapter 6: Misfits
The passage of war to peace is more critical than the inverse, as when veterans return to normality, they find the slow and painful adjustment difficult relative to their previously orderly lives.
The author suggests the most vehement of misfits are those with unfulfilled cravings for creative work—their creative flow being dried up–as they are in the grips of the most desperate of passions (see Hitler)
Chapter 7: The inordinately selfish
Author suggests that the selfish attach themselves to groups, making the subject of their selfishness their group (i.e., becoming groupish). They claim they have faith of love and humility, but can neither be loving or humble (see religious pride)
Chapter 8: the ambitious feeling unlimited opportunities
When opportunities abound, there is an inevitable depreciation of the present. What could be outweighs what is. This disorder attracts the unquenchable thirst of get rich quick enthusiasts to orderly mass movements that promise them everything
Chapter 9: Minorities
The least and most successful in assimilated minorities are most attracted to mass movements. Failures see themselves as outsiders unable to blend. The successful find themselves unable to gain access to exclusive circles of the majority, and with evidence of their individual superiority they resent the inferiority implied by the assimilation.
Chapter 10: The bored
The bored are the most ready and numerous to convert. Those living autonomous lives, living not badly off but lacking abilities to engage in creative work and useful action, lack meaning in their lives, so the meaning inherent in a mass movement is incredibly attractive to them.
This explains the invariable presence of middle-aged women (Karens who are unsatisfied with their marriage or unable to find a partner) at the birth of all mass movements. (See Madame Khoklakhov in Brothers Karamazov)
Chapter 11: Sinners
“A mass movement attempts to infect people with a malady and offer the movement as a cure.”
The disorder present in the conscience of a sinner attracts him to the order of a collective movement, and an opportunity to wash away his sin—a chance of salvation
Part 3: United action and self-sacrifice
Chapter 12: Preface
Mass movements are characterized by an emphasis on collective unity and self-sacrifice.
Every unifying agent is a promoter of self-sacrifice and vice versa.
Chapter 13: Factors promoting self-sacrifice
Identification with a collective whole
Those ready to self-sacrifice identify with a whole rather than themselves. When asked “who are you they” answer Canadian, Christian, member of so and so tribe. When they die, their self lives on through the tribe.
Life itself is all that matters to those without a sense of belonging, the only tangible feeling in an abyss devoid of meaning (see Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment)
Discouraging emigration is just as important in maintaining a collective whole. The iron curtain is perhaps more to prevent Russians from escaping rather than stopping others from entering. It is a psychological boundary, bolstered by propaganda, to prevent losing valuable members to competing groups.
Make believe
Leaders of mass movements mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in followers the illusion that they are participating in a dramatic performance. Think of the costumes and symbols and parades and music present in army marches so common in mass movements.
The desire to escape into spectacle may come easier to the frustrated than the self-sufficient, as the fiction allows them to escape their unsatisfactory selves
Deprecation of the present
A mass movement starts out by reviling the past, insisting that the past taints the pure present. But as the movement gets going, detest shifts onto the present (despite the original aim of salvaging the present) in hopes for a better future.
Impracticability is a mark of mass movements, because to distance oneself from the present means to distance oneself from the real, the feasible, the tangible. Mass movements thus gravitate towards miracles and mysticism, as these technologies spit in the face of the present
All mass movements criticize the present by depicting it as a necessary scourge to reach a glorious future (see religious movements and heaven, social revolutions and utopia, nationalist movements and triumph)
“Those without hope are divided and driven to desperate self-seeking.” The slaves in Hebrew were resentful, but it wasn’t until Moses brought them hope of a promise land that they broke their chains of emancipation.
“Those who are at war with the present have an eye for the seeds of change and the potentialities of small beginnings.”
The frustrated are more likely to prophesize, to search for greener pastures amidst the barren present
Conservatives want to preserve the present and cherish the past; liberals see the present as an offspring of the past developing towards an improved future. Both see the present favourably.
Radicals loathe the present, ready to proceed recklessly with the present towards a better tomorrow. Radicals believe in the ability for humans to perfect their nature, being solely a product of their environment, and by changing the environment they can mold humans perfectly. Reactionaries also revile the present but see the past as important and worthy of glorious restoration.
Those who fail in everyday affairs tend to reach for the impossible, because it is less humiliating to fail in attempting something impossible than the possible. Their ineptitude is dwarfed by the grandiosity of the movement.
“Things which are not”
We are more ready to die for that which don’t yet have, than that which have already. “Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.”
Even when defending ourselves, our motivation is tied not necessarily to the maintenance of life, but to the maintenance of hope. The hopeless either run away or accept defeat.
Mass movements thus furnish hope in followers and attempt to drain hope from opponents. See Nazi Germany, where Hitler drained the Jews of all hope. However, in Palestine, those same Jews, fuelled by hope, fought recklessly
Doctrine
Mass movements strive to interpose a fact-proof screen between faithful followers and the realities of the world. “It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”
The certainty made explicit in doctrines renders followers impervious to the uncertainties present in the world around them.
To be effective, a doctrine has to be believed in—not understood. Absolute certainty only occurs in things we don’t understand.
Followers are thus asked not to try and understand a doctrine with their heads, but with their hearts. “It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason.” Or, “Do not seek Adolph Hitler with your brains; all of you will find him with the strength of your hearts.”
“When some part of a doctrine is relatively simple, there is a tendency among the faithful to complicate and obscure it. Simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer.”
Fanaticism
The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure, leading him to passionately grasp for a doctrine of certainty. The resulting sense of security is not from the excellence of the cause, but the intoxicating stability provided by having something to hold on to.
The fanatic can thus not be persuaded by an appeal to reason or morals. The quality of his cause is not what he clings to, but his passionate attachment. We thus find that fanatics are easily converted (not convinced), as they cling to any doctrine that offers refuge in a sea of uncertainty
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not.”
Mass movements and Armies
Armies differ from mass movements on the sense that they attempt to preserve or expand an established order. Armies attempt to protect the present; mass movements arise to destroy it.
Chapter 14: Unifying agents
Hatred
“Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without belief in a devil.”
Strengths of mass movements are typically proportional to the tangibility and atrocities attributed to the enemy. When asked if he went too far with the Jew hatred, Hitler responded “No, no, no!… It is impossible to exaggerate the formidable quality of the Jew as an enemy.”
Hatred often stems from insufficiency, a desperate effort to “suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt, and other shortcomings of the self.” Self-hatred is transmuted into hatred of others.
When wronged, we don’t always direct our hatred at those who wronged us. We are not necessarily mad at them, but at the evidence of our inadequacy, helplessness, and cowardice.
To silence a guilty conscience, we convince ourselves that those we sin against are deserving of it, unworthy of love. To admit otherwise would open the door to self-contempt, which is precisely what we attempt to escape with our venomous hatred
Hating those who have it worse comes harder because hate shifts into pity. It is much easier to hate those who are advantaged. A nation beginning to hate foreigners wholeheartedly is evidence that they have lost confidence in themselves.
For this reason, the oppressed invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors, because they admire them, and that admiration fuels their hatred.
Surrendering and humbling the self to a larger cause can breed pride and arrogance, the believer seeing himself as chosen and those outside of his faith as evil and perishable
We relinquish responsibility when absorbed by a collective whole. This offers freedom to hate, bully, lie, and torture without shame or remorse.
“The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.” o Groupishness>selfishness
Imitation
Lack of self-worth generates a proclivity to imitate. The more we mistrust our judgment, the more we are ready to follow the example of others.
Persuasion and coercion
Propaganda penetrates only minds already open, and rather than inserting new opinions it justifies and reinforces existing ones
Coercion when insurmountable has an unequaled persuasiveness and breeds fanatics to similar degrees as those persuaded. “It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.”
Christian historian K.S.Latourette notes “However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be…the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.”
To exercise coercion requires the stability provided by ardent faith. As Hitler put it “Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.”
Proselytizing comes not from an expression of having all of the answers but lacking in them. For we only strive for expansion when we feel we’re lacking something.
Passion for proselytizing is centred around some deficiency, be it an irrational dogma or some distance between what is preached and what is practiced (i.e., guilt)
Leadership
Leadership in the context of mass movements requires fertile ground of unsatisfaction and frustration, for without this a movement cannot commence
The thrust of mass movements, though, requires an exceptional leader at the helm. What makes a leader exceptional in this case is audacity, fanatical faith in a single truth, an awareness of the importance of close-knit cohesion, and, “above all, the ability to evoke fervent devotion in a group of able lieutenants.”
All mass movements rank blind obedience as the highest virtues. “Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism.”
The frustrated are attracted to freedom from responsibility more than freedom from restraint, as when they are burdened with responsibility it has led to failure, evidence of their ineptitude.
Action
Successful action can bring premature end to mass movements, as it can feed in the true believer a sense of self-confidence and reconciliation with the present. He can find salvation not in the one and only truth, but in action by proving his worth and individual superiority.
The taste of continuous action kills the collective spirit. And when the ability to act is stifled, say after a defeat in war, fertile ground is laid for mass movements (see Germany after WW1, a population well-equipped to act but forced to be inactive—Hitler gave them an opportunity to act, and they praised him for it)
Suspicion
“We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Thus when the frustrated congregate in a mass movement, the air is heavy-laden with suspicion.”
Abraham sacrificed his only son to prove devotion to Jehovah, and the fanatical Nazis and Communists are ready to sacrifice relatives. Family serves to undermine the collective cohesion of a mass movement, so sacrifice of family is often encouraged. Devotion to family drains devotion to the holy cause.
The effects of unification
Once unified, the true believers source of frustration that led them to the group diminishes. But they become dependent on the group for their sense of self worth, dependent on this group that delivered them from meaninglessness autonomous existence to an anonymous whole.
“The true believer is eternally incomplete, eternally insecure.”
Part 4: Beginning and End
Chapter 15: Men of Words
Excellence in spoken or written word gets mass movements rolling; fanaticism hatches the actual movement; and a practical man of action thrusts the movement forth.
“There is apparently an irremediable insecurity at the core of every intellectual, be he noncreative or creative.”
The grievance which animates in the protesting man of words is often really directed at some personal and private insufficiency, not a public one.
All mass movements are conceived by impractical fault-finding intellectuals, not men of action. German intellectuals generated German nationalism; Jewish intellectuals generated Zionism
Deep-seated cravings of approval make the man of words hypersensitive to any humiliation imposed on their tribe.
“The genuine man of words…can get along without faith in absolutes. He values the search for truth as much as truth itself…His vanity, it is true, often prompts him to defend his speculations with savagery and even venom; but his appeal is usually to reason and not to faith.
“The intellectual’s precursors to mass movements rise against the established order, announcing its incompetence and calling for freedom of expression and self realization.” This is tragic for the intellectuals, because followers too want to see the old order crumble, not to realize their potential but to hide into the whole and relinquish responsibility. The intellectual tragically finds himself swallowed by said whole. The intellectual values the individual, but the masses despise it, and he must then conform or perish.
Chapter 16: The Fanatics
“The dissolution of cursed individuality in the majesty and grandeur of a mighty whole.”
The noncreative men of words are apparently most potent at becoming fanatics. Unable to write a great book, paint a great picture, or become a great scientist, they see themselves as irredeemably spoiled in the current social order. Most Nazi bigwigs were failed artists.
The creative man of words can find satisfaction from the creative flow within, so isn’t as drawn to the collective source of meaning from a mass movement.
Chapter 17: The practical men of action
For they (FDR, Churchill, Ghandi) “are not tempted to use the slime of frustrated souls as mortar in the building of a new world. The self-confidence of these rare leaders is derived from…their faith in humanity, for they know no one can be honorable unless he honours mankind.”
The chief preoccupation of men of action is to maintain unity and willingness to self-sacrifice. This is normally accomplished through strict law and order.
While the man of action reveres the early days of the movement, he acts not on faith but on law. He realizes the value of faith and therefore maintain the incessant flow of propaganda and symbolism, but he persuades not by faith but by force.
Once in charge the men of action, now nearing the end of the dynamic phase and establishing order, need to keep the frustrated from reconciling with the present. They thus dangle the promises of distant hope, a vision, in front of the crawling frustrated to keep them motivated
Chapter 18: Good and bad mass movements
When a mass movement dies, it can be followed by a burst of creative energy from the individuals who were once embalmed in the stifling atmosphere of blind faith and disgust of the present.
Much to the dismay of Hitler or Napoleon, the creative output during their “heroic” age was pathetic. The high tension of their periods leaves little room for the contemplation required to produce art.
“The fanatic’s disdain for the present blinds him to the complexity and uniqueness of life.” Example given of Rabbi Jacob condemning the appreciation of beauty in sources (trees, fields, etc.) other than the Torah.
This blindness is a strength, allowing the fanatic to see no obstacles, but causes “intellectual sterility and emotional monotony.”
The measure of a nation’s strength is as the reservoir of its longing. The more lofty and infinite the goal, the longer it can keep the desires of the masses continually fulfilled. This could be a desire of ever improving standards of living (like in democracies) or holy authority and world domination (like in autocracies)
“It would not be better for mankind if they were given their desires.” - Heraclitus
“‘I know’ often means: I have the proper grounds for my statement. So if the other person is acquainted with the language-game, he would admit that I know. The other, if he is acquainted with the language-game, must be able to imagine how one may know something of the kind.”
To be confident that someone else knows things requires both of you having common know-ledge. You have to be able to imagine how he might have acquired that knowing.
“When someone has made sure of something, he says: ‘Yes, the calculation is right,’ but he did not infer that from his condition of certainty. One does not infer how things are from one’s own certainty.”
Certainty flows through the closure between subjective (psyche) and objective (observed object). Certainty is not generated by the psyche.
“Certainty is as it were a tone of voice in which one declares how things are, but one does not infer from the tone of voice that one is justified.”
“The truth of my statements is the test of my understanding of these statements. That is to say: if I make certain [untrue] statements, it becomes uncertain whether I understand them.”
“Suppose I replaced Moore’s ‘I know’ by ‘I am of the unshakeable conviction’?”
‘I know’ is supposed to express a relation between me and a fact, so that the fact is absorbed into my consciousness. If this fact is seen, we in fact know the perception of the outer event through light that projects it onto the sense organ and eventually to conscious awareness. “Only then the question at once arises whether one can be certain of this projection. And this picture does indeed show how our imagination presents knowledge, but not what lies at the bottom of the presentation.”
We are certain about the projection, the imaginative reconstruction, not the fact that lays beneath it.
“Remember that one is sometimes convinced of the correctness of a view by its simplicity or symmetry, i.e., these are what induce one to go over to this point of view. One then simply says something like: ‘That’s how it must be.’”
“If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words, either. If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.”
To doubt implies something certain against which the doubt is measured.
Why is it possible to doubt that I have never been on the moon? “First and foremost, the supposition that perhaps I have been there would strike me as idle. Nothing would follow from it, nothing be explained by it. It would not tie in with anything in my life.”
Low relevance.
When someone says they know something, no matter how trustworthy they are, we can only be certain that they believe they know.
“When we first begin to believe anything, what we believe is not a single proposition, it is a whole system of propositions. It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and premises gives one another mutual support.”
Beliefs within a belief system are maintained not because they are intrinsically obvious or convincing, they are rather held by what lies around them. Like a fence post and its soil.
We do not know what we assert we know, but it can stand fast for us and many others. “I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.”
“In order to make a mistake, a man must already judge in conformity with mankind.”
Deviation from conformity is the mistake. Otherwise it’s a competing belief system? Insanity?
“The child learns by believing the adult. Doubt comes after belief.”
To doubt, one must have a belief which they doubt.
“I believe that there is a chair over there. Can’t I be wrong? But, can I believe that I am wrong?”
Can I believe that my belief is wrong…that would threaten the ground upon which the belief is based, and cause everything to topple over.
“I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.”
“It would be correct to say: ‘I believe…’ has subjective truth; but ‘I know…’ not. Or again ‘I believe…’ is an ‘expression’, but not ‘I know…’”
In the paper, opinion sections and legitimate (?) section are actually all opinions to varying degrees…just the degree of consensus varies
The word ‘certain’ expresses complete conviction and absence of doubt, and we thereby seek to convince others. This is subjective certainty. For something to be objectively certain, we’d need for a mistake to be logically excluded from the claim.
“‘We could doubt every single one of these facts, but we could not doubt them all.’ Wouldn’t it be more correct to say: ‘we do not doubt them all.’ Our not doubting them all is simply our manner of judging, and therefore acting.
Here, he is saying that the idea that we couldn’t doubt everything is a judgement, not a fact. And it is a judgment we act out, and by acting out that judgement we are certain of ourselves in that action—it is that certainty which brought about the act!
The rock-bottom of complete convictions are when we are unable to imagine a system in which doubts might exist. Can I imagine what it is like to not have two hands, while I in fact do (I think)? No. And so I am completely convinced.
“But it isn’t just that I believe in this way that I have two hands, but that every reasonable person does. At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.”
I think the belief that is not founded is the claim that reasonable people believe this…validating those beliefs of the reasonable plenty requires validating each of their beliefs—which are founded on the belief of the reasonable plenty. Unfounded.
Do I have knowledge? Do I know? I believe it. The body of knowledge has been handed to me and I have no grounds for doubting it. But why shouldn’t I say I know all this? “But not only know, or believe, all that, but the others do to. Or rather, I believe that they believe it.
“Here the sentence ‘I know…’ expresses the readiness to believe certain things.”
“If we ever do act with certainty in the strength of belief, should we wonder that there is much we cannot doubt?”
But isn’t the situation like this: “We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.”
If a chair were in front of me, it would be wrong for me to say ‘I believe that it’s a chair’ because that would express my readiness for my statement to be tested. While ‘I know that it…’ implies bewilderment if what I said was not confirmed.
Ah…beliefs express a readiness for statements to be tested. Knowing expresses a shutting of doors on the possibility it could be otherwise. Knowing strives to end the conversation, belief keeps the conversation open…finite vs infinite.
Isn’t construing a word like “know” analogously to “believe” so that we can attach shame to the statement “I know” of it turns out to be wrong? As a result, a mistake becomes something forbidden.
“Here I am inclined to fight windmills, because I cannot yet say the thing I really want to say.”
Knowing something is not an unconditional truth—it is the truth only inasmuch as it is an unmoving foundation of his language-games.
Perfect certainty is only a matter of attitude.
“A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt.”
Why… because a doubt requires belief, but doubting everything implies no belief. Or, it implies an absolute belief in one thing—doubt, and one with conviction cannot doubt.
“It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something.”
“A language-game is only possible if one trusts something.” Judgment requires an authority against which to judge it. A norm. An expected value.
“Doubt itself rests only in what is beyond doubt.”
“Pretentious [claims] are a mortgage which burden’s a philosopher’s capacity to think.”
“What is odd is that I always feel like saying (although it is wrong): ‘I know that—so far as one can know such a thing.’ That is incorrect, but something right is hidden behind it.”
It is wrong because knowing implies the impossibility of mistake, but this implies I could be mistaken, which would make it a belief. Does this mean we merely believe everything? But then does that mean we have no solid ground on which to stand?
“The propositions of mathematics might be said to be fossilized.—The proposition ‘I am called…’ is not. But it too is regarded as incontrovertible by those who, like myself, have overwhelming evidence for it. And this not out of thoughtlessness. For, the evidence’s being overwhelming consists precisely in the fact that we do not need to give way before any contrary evidence. And so we have here a buttress similar to the one that makes the propositions of mathematics incontrovertible.”
Mathematics has an objective fossilization, whereas knowing one’s name has a subjective fossilization that has been buried beneath sediments of experience: repetitive references to one’s name. In some sense, since everybody has this subjective fossilization, it approaches the fossilization akin to mathematical propositions, and hence we say we ‘know’ our names and believe others when they say it.
“In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.”
“So bad and so accursed in her kind that never sated is her ravenous will, still after food more craving than before.”
“He will not life support by earth nor its base metals, but by love, wisdom, and virtue.”
Material goods make for meaninglessness; they do not nurture a life worth living.
Dante follows Virgil (one of Rome’s greatest poets), who inhabits the form of a lion, towards the depths of hell. Virgil gives Dante courage.
As the day departs, Dante gets cold feet again. But the love of Beatrice reinvigorates him, a guiding light in the gloom of night. Still fearful, he presses forward, cherishing the pity and supporting love that Beatrice offers him.
“Supremest wisdom and primeval love.”
Between the gates of hell and hell itself laid a sea of weeping souls. These were the apathetic, worthy not of praise nor blame, driven out of Heaven and not accepted into Hell. They were true not to God, but to themselves only. “Their blind life so meanly passes, that all other lots they envy.”
Being apathetic, dull, and indifferent, their lives weren’t even lively enough to warrant entry into hell.
First circle of Hell: Limbo
This is where the virtuous mingle yet merit not the bliss of Paradise due to lack of baptism
Sees Homer and Socrates and Plato and Seneca and Euclid and Caesar and so forth. Him and his guide speak with them pleasantly.
Second circle (attachment?)
The stormy blasts of hell sweep around souls like Achilles and Cleopatra, and they cling to the winds despite their anguish
Why? “No greater grief than to remember days of joy, when misery is at hand.”
These are people who had great lives but are unable to let them go, and thus cling to the tormenting winds of misery
Third circle (gluttony)
The gluttonous are showered with rain and hail (doomed to eternal empty consumption) and fed to Cerberus who gobbles them up.
Fourth circle (avarice, greed)
In this circle, the greedy are attached to their hoards of money, doomed to endlessly roll their hoards up the inclined circle
“Not all the gold that is beneath the moon, or even hath been, or these toil-worn souls, much purchase rest for one.” o No amount of money will satiate their avarice
Fifth circle (wrath and anger)
“A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks betokening rage. They with their hands alone struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet, cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs.” o The relentless, self-inflicting nature of anger
“The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs into these bubbles make the surface heave […] fixed in the slime, they say, ‘Sad once were we, in the sweet air made gladsome by the sun. Carrying a foul and lazy mist within: Now in these murky settings are we sad.’” o Meditate on this.
Sixth circle (Dis)
Upon arrival to the gates of Dis, Dante is denied entry for he hath not yet died. “Who is this that, without death first felt, goes through the regions of the dead?”
Virgil is allowed in, and leaves Dante behind, though assuring him that he will return and by divine authority he will be let through. Dante, meanwhile, relishes the thought of being able to turn back and escape
Virgil’s plea to let Dante in is refused
Dante and Virgil observe Erynnis, the goddesses of vengeance and fury, clawing at each other.
An angel comes down and opens the gate for them. Upon entry is a path laden with the open tombs of arch-heretics (leaders of movements at odds with the status quo) and every sect of their following
When talking with one of the tombs: “We view, as one who hath an evil sight, plainly, objects far remote; so much of his large splendour yet imparts the Almighty Ruler: but when they approach, or actually exist, our intellect then wholly fails.”
The “evil” has a blinding reverence for the future that produces an ignorance for the present, such that when faced with the present they know not how to cherish it.
This is somewhat similar to the second circle of hell, where people are attached to the past. In this circle, they are attached to the future. Too far-sighted, they can’t see the good that sits before them in the present.
“Our knowledge in that instant shall expire, when on futurist the portals close.”
Before the 3 lower circles
Dante asks why the glutinous, avaricious, wrathful, and envious (of past and future) are spared from the lower rungs of hell. Virgil mentions how incontinence (lack of self-restraint) the least offends and is least incurring of guilt
With gluttony, greed, anger, and envy, we’re seemingly thrown around by these feelings as if puppets. Ignorance is shallow in these cases, and requires less intensive cleansing
Those lying in the lower circles are the fraudulent. There is a difference in the degree of intentionality, or equivalently, depth of ignorance and thus malice.
“He is indeed alive, and solitary so must needs by me be shown the gloomy vale, thereto induced by strict necessity, not by delight.”
7th Circle (Violence against God, Nature, and Art)
In the first portion of the 7th circle lie the merciless tyrants (those who committed violence into their neighbours), who are mercilessly shot by patrolling centaurs if they try to escape.
In the second portion are those who commit violence on themselves; those who commit suicide. They give their bodies away to hell, so their souls are turned into seeds and thrown into the woods where they grow into gnarled trees that harpies feed upon.
The static, rooted nature of their being may reflect the seemingly rooted and immutable despair we feel when suicidal.
“For what a man takes from himself it is not just he have.”
We can never take our “own” life. We are a social species, and thus our life invariably touches and belongs to a larger whole. In the selfish act of taking one’s life, we rob from the network in which we are interconnected. We rob our future and the potential relationships therein, which may not be as bad as the present may seem. We commit this robbery when we are lost without faith, rooted in the despair of our harrowing thoughts.
In the third portion are those who committed violence against God, Nature, and Art. Example of Capaenus is given, burned from hot sands below and rained by flakes of fire above. “As still he seems to hold, God in disdain, and sets high omnipotence at nought.”
“Thou by either party shalt be craved with hunger keen: but be the fresh herb far from the goat’s tooth.”
Cultivate goodness within yourself but be wary not to be used by those who crave it for personal benefit.
Dante sees his old teacher among those who have done violence to Nature, notably, sodomites (homosexuality or beastiality). They talk for a while, and his teacher sees him off to go tend to the group he was leading. Dante describes him as “of them he seemed not he who loses but who gains the prize.”
Dante briefly encounters those who committed violence against Art. He sees a few usurers (loan sharks), implying that excessive interest rates harm Art… (why?)
Geryon, or Fraud, takes them down to the 8th circle. Geryon is a winged beast with a wise inviting face in his upper half, but a serpent lower half. Misleadingly inviting and venomous
Eighth circle
In the first chasm are sexual deceivers (e.g., unfaithful, rapists, prostitutes). They are lashed and whipped endlessly by devils.
In the second chasm are flatterers (verbal deceivers), doomed to sink eternally in a stinking swamp. “Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk, wherewith I never enough could glut my tongue.”
In the third are those who practiced simony, i.e., using religion for monetary gain (i.e., paying for religious status or selling sacred objects for cash). They are doomed to stay face down in the soil with only their feet exposed to air, being burned by flames
In the fourth are clairvoyants/seers/astrologers. Their necks are turned 180 degrees, doomed to only see and walk backwards with horrifyingly painful gait.
In the fifth are barterers and those who misuse entrusted sums of money. They are doomed to be boiled in tar by demons.
The demons swarm Virgil, but Virgil claims he has divine will to cross through hell. Upon hearing this the head demon “fell his pride, that he let drop the instrument of torture at his feet.”
The pride-extinguishing nature of submitting to God and demanding humility.
In the sixth chasm are the hypocrites, who wear hoods and gowns “overlaid with gold, dazzling to view, but leaden all within, and of such weight, that Frederick’s compares to these were straw. Oh, everlasting wearisome attire!”
Caiaphas, who gave the Pharisees counsel that it was fitting for one man to suffer for the people (i.e., to nail Jesus to the cross), is himself nailed to the ground in a cross position.
Is he the archetypal hypocrite? Perhaps because he made Jesus to suffer but was a coward who was unable to suffer/sacrifice himself or his pride for his people. According to John 11:51-52 it states that “being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”
As they journey to the seventh chasm, Dante becomes exhausted. Virgil assures him that “for not…under shade of canopy reposing, fame is won; without which whosoe’er consumes his days, leaves to such vestige of himself on earth, as smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.” He then encourages him to “therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness by the mind’s effort, in each struggle form’d to vanquish…a longer ladder yet remains to scale.”
Be courageous. Cowards are forgotten.
In the seventh chasm are robbers, doomed to endless torment by venomous snakes. They meet Vanni Fucci, a robber who stole from a church and set up an innocent man who was then executed.
A thieving sinner undergoes a transformation, where a monster steals the body of the sinner, and the sinner transforms into the monster.
In the eighth chasm are evil counsellors, those who cowardly hid behind the pride of tyrants, enabling and enhancing the atrocities tyrants committed. They are each doomed to isolated pits deep below that bellow with flames
“Then, yielding to the forceful arguments, of silence as more perilous I deem’d, and answer’d: ‘Father, since this washest me clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall, large promise with performance scant, be sure, shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.”
Cowardly caving
An irony of hell seems to be that deeper self-interest leads to higher-status positions on earth, but lower status positions in hell. Balance. The further the depths of self interest, the deeper cleansing required to absolve us of our ignorance.
In the ninth chasm are those who seed scandal and schism. They are doomed to being maimed and chopped up, divided like how their counsel encouraged war and division
In the tenth chasm are alchemists and forgers, doomed to torment by pestilence, scratching their skin till their nails fall off and laying in repugnant filth.
False claims to transform riches from nothing are punished by transforming the richness of life into decay (pestilence)
Alchemists were frauds, using chemistry (magic at the time) to turn worthless iron into priceless gold. “I am Cappachio’s ghost, who forged transmuted metals by the power of alchemy; and if I can thee right, though needs must well remember how I aped creative nature by my subtle art.”
Ninth circle
The ninth circle has giants monitoring the perimeter. When speaking of the giants, “Nature, with her last hand left framing of these monsters…repent her not of the elephant and whale, who ponders well confesses her therein wiser and more discreet; for when brute force and evil will are back’d with subtlety, resistance none avails.”
The grand and imposing nature of giants makes their threat honest, what’s much more threatening are those who are small but deceptively cunning and harmful. An elephant provides an honest signal to avoid, but a parasite is more crafty and deceptive
Nimrod is doomed to blow a deafening horn that shackles him. He was the first lord, and ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel, that which caused inhabitants to stop understanding one another. “Nimrod is this, through whose ill counsel in the world no more one tongue prevails. But pass we on, nor waste our words; for so each language is to him, as his to others, understood by none.”
In the first round is a frozen lake inhabited by doomed souls, “Blue pinch’d and shrined in ice the spirits stood, moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.”
The ninth circle is about treachery against those we are close with. The first round has those who betray family and loved ones, second who betray politically or nationally, third who betray their guests (they are punished more harshly because of the belief that having guests means entering a voluntary relationship, and betraying a relationship willingly entered is more despicable than betraying a relationship born into), and the fourth is for betrayal against benefactors appointed by God.
In the first and second (betrayal of kin and country) is the tragic story of Ugolino locked in the tower of Pisa with his sons and forced into famine for political treachery. His sons die of hunger, after which he eats their bodies. “Fasting got the mastery of grief.” This man gnaws on the skull of his betrayer Ruggieri while in the frozen pools of Cocytus, compelled to devour even that which hath no substance.
In the third was friar Alberigo, who had his brother and nephew killed at a banquet in his home.
In the final are those who betrayed their benefactors and Lucifer himself, a giant, winged, three-headed beast who had two of Julius Caesar’s betrayers (Brutus and Cassius) in the mouths on the side, and the body of Judas (betrayer of Christ) in the middle.
Virgil and Dante escape and ascend the cave to reveal a starry sky, for night has passed and a new dawn arrives. They find their way out “discover’d not by sight, but by the sounds of brooklet, that descends this way along the hollow of a rock, which, as it winds with no precipitous course, the wave hath eaten. By that hidden way my guide and I did enter, to return to the fair world: and heedless of repose we climb’d, he first, I following his steps, till on our view the beautiful lights of heaven dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave; thence issuing we again beheld the stars.”
The path towards Good isn’t immediately obvious. It’s hard to see. We must listen closely. But if we follow that feeling, foregoing what is immediate and obvious, we are awarded with unfathomable beauty. This is faith.
Brahma, the God of Gods, humbly admits “What can I do? I can never lie, and I do not know every answer.”
Narayana, or Lord Vishnu, is the Soul of the Universe.
So, Indra the lord of earthly gods (fire, wind, earth, etc.) gets destroyed by the demon king Ravana, who can’t be killed by gods. He complains to Brahma, Brahma says go talk to Vishnu, and Vishnu splits into four and is reincarnated into a king’s four sons. The first son is Rama, second Bharata, and two twins
When the architect of heaven, Viswskarma, is asked whether he needs helpers to make a temple on Lanka for some Rakshasas, he replied “when the master carpenter no longer goes out into the forests to choose his own tree, when he no longer cuts it down himself and saws his own boards then say farewell to the arts!”
Risks of using technology to do all your doing and thinking for you
“Greet the days like new friends”
The Rakshasas, who were made a temple of Lanka by Viswakarman, eventually overflow the island, and spill out to the mainland and start eating humans. Narayana (Vishnu) comes down and destroys them, so they flee to underneath the ocean floor.
The God of treasure gets placed on Lanka now. Envious Rakshasas see this from below, and out of envy a daughter is sent to get pregnant with the Treasure God’s father. The daughter has Ravana, and three others, as children
Ravana the demon, has ten heads. He sacrifices one head every thousand years while in deep contemplation. At the ten thousandth year Brahma stops him from cutting off his last head, saying, “your will is dreadful, too strong to be neglected; like a bad disease I must treat it. Your pains make me hurt. Ask!” Ravana is then granted to be unslayable by gods or demons
Ravana and the Rakshasas take back the island. Ravana weds the Daughter of Illusion, and has a son Meghanada who burns like fire and changes form and appearance at will.
“In ignorance he drinks poison, in confusion he refuses the antidote.”
Ravana visits the luxurious Naga underworlds, filled with gems and minerals that shine brighter than heaven. Perhaps a symbolic representation of the distance that materialism has from a higher and more meaningful way of being. Our shiny toys seem heavenly on the surface, but they’re located in depths lacking in meaning
The king of Naga is Vasuki, the king of serpents. When confronting Ravana he is human waist up, and snake waist down. Similar to the monster Fraud in Dante’s Inferno who has a bearded human face that appears wise but with a serpentine lower half. Trustworthy on the surface, conniving below.
When Ravana comes knocking on the door of the Kingdom of Heaven to conquer it, Indra says, “I don’t care what anybody says, never will I take orders from that overbearing monster Ravana!” Pride was Indra’s downfall.
Ravana’s son captures Indra. Brahma comes to set Indra free, names the son Indrajit (conqueror of Indra), and grants him a wish. Indrajit first asks for immortality, but Brahma declines, claiming he is unable to provide that gift. Brahma is saving naive Indrajit from an eternal curse.
“Brahmana keep your temper; King, keep your word. Observe the defects of this world and do not add to them.”
“Desire and Wrath whom the gods cannot tame come bowing to me and gladly rub my feet.”
Describing Ahalya, the most beautiful woman: “Like the sun she could not be looked at too closely or for too long.”
Use Dharma as your shield, and Truth as your sword
“The opinions of disinterested men are different from the beliefs of a father, and the Truth may sometimes come out like Fire from friction between the two.”
“Dasaratha, you follow the Dharma-path walked by your ancestors, and thoughtless of your own happiness you protect us.”
Prudence. This is how we should treat our future selves, our future families, our future nations, the future of mankind, and the future of life on earth
The council states that the one reason they support Rama becoming king “is that if Rama says something to me I can believe it.”
Again, honesty reigning supreme.
When Kaikeyi, Bharata’s mother, asks Rama to leave and whether she has done right, Rama responds, “If you say you have, you have; I will believe you.”
Rama is very much like Alyosha in Brothers Karamazov here
“A wrong thrown at Rama seems to bring out no anger in him; it is like a seed thrown on stone.”
“Men must have laws, sometimes hard to follow, but harder to find once lost.”
“Many men are all talk and no deeds, all words and no wisdom, and what they don’t know of they think does not exist.”
Guha, king of the forest, recounts a story where a Shiva statue was gifted to him. He prayed to the tree god, and therefore kicked the statue everyday without fail, while Brahmanas from the city would come every so often to lay flowers. On the brink of death, Shiva saves him from Yama due to this devotion. Good or bad, his resilient faith still had him coming back to the statue, and outshined the more mildly devoted Brahmanas
Actions over words
“As a man’s deeds are good or evil so are the events which follow them, and which the man must face in their time. …Excited, mindlessly lured by pretty flowers on the branches, I came to expect a good yield. I looked forward to happiness but all the while I coveted delusion.”
Part 2: Sita’s rescue
“Behold Man, ignorant of his own ways in the world—now merrily drinking and dance, now blindly weeping all in tears.”
“Dharma leads to happiness, but happiness cannot lead to Dharma.”
The Valakhilyas were benign little deities that floated around the air like motes of dust. Despite their small size, they hold great power. They spawned the King of Birds Garuda, who is the mount of Narayana (Vishnu, the soul of the universe). He carries Lord Narayana on his back and never tires.
The sum of the small gives rise to the large.
Garuda’s father to him, “My boy, eat a little something before you try to fly to heaven and steal Amrita (nectar of immortality) from Indra. But never eat a man. Remember that.”
Strive for greatness, especially for those you love (he’s stealing amitra to free his mother). But do not tear down others down along the way.
“A real deer made of precious stones and gold Never yet lived in this world. Such a things cannot be; But Rama followed a golden deer And lost Sita.”
We lose those we love when we recklessly pursue illusions and idols (like jealous fantasies or social media ideals)
Hanuman the monkey is born from a woman and the god of Wind, Vayu. The mother leaves Hanuman, and he sits hungry and alone. When the sun rises, glowing orange like a mango, he flies up to eat it. Despite warning, he endures the fire of the sun and keeps trying to eat it. Finally, he’s thrown back down to earth by Indra, and breaks his jaw (why the jaw?).
Vayu is upset that his son is hurt, and the wind ceases to blow. All life stops, for without air life cannot flow. “Wind, you are breath. Having no heavy body you pass through all beings,” Brahma says to him. Brahma thus grants Hanuman a gift: “Hanuman…you will live as long as you wish to live; you cannot be killed.”
While Sugriva and Vali are fighting, despite Vali thinking Rama be fair and would not interfere, Rama hides and sends an arrow through Vali’s heart. His rationale is “when a weakling has been abused and has at last the chance to get even, he is allowed to leave the True.”
“The Truth upholds the fragrant Earth and makes the living water wet. Truth makes fire burn and the air move, makes the sun shine and all life grow. A hidden truth supports everything. Find it and win.”
When Rama ruminates about his loss of Sita, Lakshmana reminds him, “Better to act than wonder and dream,” and gets to work.
On their way to save Sita, Hanuman and the monkey and bear armies exhaustingly find themselves falling into a cave. It is a glorious cave filled with wine and wonders. “Once anyone enters this cave of illusions, especially by mistake, he can never return alive to Earth by his own power.”
They’re thankfully sent out, but upon exiting they realize much time has been lost, “through ignorance we entered Maya’s treeful cave underground and lost all the time…”
An example of hedonic pleasure being illusory and meaningless, and how it devours time without us even being aware of it.
“Oh, gold and silver found in the wild Are better than coins tamely won; Treasures found on a hunt are as good As the pleasures of fancy in heaven.”
“Like a storm Hanuman drove away low spirits, like a light he brought courage.”
Mainaka, the son of the Mountain King and brother to the River Goddess Ganga, recounts a story of how all mountains once had wings. They would fly around recklessly, causing much damage, so Indra cut off all their wings, and their wings became clouds.
Hanuman arrives to Lanka, and at midnight creeps around in search of Sita. What would normally be quiet time for human couples begins “the night-life of every enjoyment” for the Rakshasas.
Hanuman heard the “sounds of every enjoyment,” saw some who were “unbelievably handsome, others were maimed and deformed, repulsive and frightful even in their splendid clothes.”
He saw “demons who looked wise and powerful even when drunk and asleep with wine, with women, or with their arms round their beloved bags of gold.”
Hanuman follows his nose to find the Demon King. “Find the pleasures of the sense, and there find the Demon King.”
He must pass through the Demon King’s bedroom, whose bed is littered with thousands of the most beautiful women and whose tables are covered with the most delicious foods and lays dormant the fearsome Demon King himself. Hanuman must resist fear and temptation to continue his search for Sita.
The demonesses who console Sita become agitated and urge her to give in to Ravana. “Their eyes could see no more there than a prisoner unarmed, alone and powerless.” Sita refuses, and they retort with “We’ve put up with you so far just to help you! Our words to you are always well-meant, it’s for your own good, face reality…be happy! OR ELSE!”
A metaphor of well-meaning people who prioritize the happiness of others rather than the well-being of others. Seeing the strong as weak victims in need of saving. Weak, selfish, and cowardly. When someone shows them strength, as Sita does, it reminds them of their weakness, and they become enraged.
“Before true Love, the maces of Death are frail stage-weapons, fragile and useless for combat. Death gives way to Love and has never dared to way with him.”
“Her sadness had come and gone, as clouds will draw across the clear night sky, and cover the moonlight, and go again.”
Hanuman is captured, and Ravana claims Hanuman has “lost [his] weak wits from seeing the beauties of my city.” Hanuman replies, “I am the son of the Wind, fast or slow, irresistible in my course…what you call beauty won’t turn my head. I crossed the ocean, as a person without attachment to worldly desires easily crosses the ocean of existence.”
“Lanka is a celestial fortress, a joyful city of heavenly beauty taken by demons. She is artificial but looks natural…she is the jewel mirror of arts and inventions and the home of happiness in comfort.”
Hedonic illusion
Ravana’s brother, Vibhishana, urges him to give back Sita, but Ravana fueled by pride is unable to do so. Vibhishana leaves and works with Rama. King Sugriva doesn’t trust Vibhishana, but Hanuman urges him that “withdrawing from Lanka proves his wisdom.”
Those who manage to part ways from a life of indulgence and towards the truth may be considered wise.
“One must blame the blameworthy and favor the good wherever they appear. Lowly people who know everything may follow their suspicions, but when someone seeks my refuge he cannot be slain, he will be saved though it will cost my life.”
Ravana first summons shapeshifting spies to gather information about the incoming army, and then directs his magicians, “by spells of deception and illusion make for me by magic the severed head of Rama.” He proceeds to lie to Sita about the defeat of the army.
Again, deception, illusion, and dishonesty being a commonly used sin of the cardinal sinner
“Weapons are a sign of fear made visible, and we are afraid.”
“The waking world of impermanence, of suffering, and unreality.”
“The happiness of others is light for the spirit but you have darkened the worlds.”
“You grew strong by following Dharma and by sacrifice…yet once on the throne of power you slighted Dharma, you had no courtesy towards life…Now your wrongs devour us.”
Ravana to Time: “Be careful, turn and go, back away from Ravana who will fight and die for love—for Good Love never dies…” Time: “How’d you find that out!?”
Rama kills Ravana, and Ravana’s messenger delivers Ravana’s final letter to Rama. Ravana claims that this was his final offering, “I offered you my life and you accepted it.” He also claims that Rama is all these things, “You are Narayana who moves on the waters and flows through us all…and Hanuman like the wind…And born as a man you forget this, you lose the memory, and take on man’s ignorance, as you will, every time.”
“I don’t respect the floating borders of Earth, I travel where I will, I love everyone. My friend the Moon has known this for long lifetimes, I am the Sun, All the same. Ancient stories. Ancient Sunpoems.”
Sun, “You reveal all things to me; you show me what they truly are…You feed us all; every garden grow by your light. All our energy is yours…If there are clouds you are always behind them…How can I be sad? Am I blind? The Sun shines on me. This very I stand have I won brilliance for my wealth.”
“It is Truth, we think, that moves the Sun across the sky.”
Valmiki’s song: “*Trust and be True: Serve Right as I serve You” —says the Sun
“What can one count on, except that whatever one has, it will soon be gone? Better to do right.”
“Rama, from the portion of gentleness in you, people call you a part of the Moon.”
Gods keep referring to Rama as Narayana, but Rama questions why. They are all bewildered that he’s forgotten he’s Vishnu. They also reveal that Sita is Lakshmi, the God of good fortune (Vishnu’s wife)
“Please yourself. Tell the truth and be tranquil.”
Vibhishana to Hanuman: “You are faithful and very wise, when you stop to think. You put your whole heart into what you do; and you don’t think twice when you’ve made up your mind, nor seek for any gain, so I call you my friend.”
Book 7
After ten thousand year of rule, Rama asks his ministers what his kingdom thinks of him, for “people tread in their king’s footsteps, so I must avoid even the report of any wrong.” The ministers urge him to not “seek wisdom from coarse common people, but forget their talk; pity them their ignorance and trust in things to turn out right.”
Rama replies with “Those who live uneventfully at home with their wives and families may alone really know life.”
The people doubt Sita’s faithfulness, and this tarnishes the reputation of the king, which tarnishes the quality of the kingdom. Rama cannot ignore this, despite him knowing that Sita was faithful.
“Where there is growth there is decay; where there is prosperity there is ruin; and where there is birth there is death.”
Rama orders Lakshmana to abandon Sita at river Ganga.
Sumantea the charioteer tells the story of how Kaikeyi earned her two wishes. She rode the chariot for the King in their way against the Asuras of drought. Kaikeyi could “feel an enemy’s shortcoming; she felt when to draw near, when to stay and when to turn away.” She saves the King at some point and is granted the two wishes.
Did she sense deep down Ravana’s weakness and that Rama was capable of defeating him if he were to be banished?
To finish of the Asura demons of draught, Narayana is called in. He demolishes them, and they run to cover in Ayodhya, in the house of a brahmana. The wife of the brahmana lets them in, and they surrender. Narayana flies by enraged, kills the innocent wife, and slices the heads off the demons.
Vasistha the priest, enraged, curses Narayana “to be born on earth, in a royal family rich and wise, a family most honoured and kind, and once born to be parted from his wife as he had broken that brahmana’s marriage.”
Brahmanas follow the rule to make things right in other worlds
Those other worlds are the past, to ensure our actions honour our ancestors, and the future, to ensure our actions build and do not break our offspring
“He warred in the loss of love through unkindness and the fetters of wrong desire; he fought for freedom by blasting the chains of attachment; he killed deceptions with words that released the spirit.”
“I give up owning the world’s gear. I give up thirst for things to find true love, that never fades.”
“‘What are the limits of your realm?’ ‘Well, my kingdom is not these fields, it might be the city.’ ‘Where?’ ‘No, I see nothing of mine there. Surely then, my own body must be my kingdom, and I will look.’ ‘What do you find?’ …’Even this body is not mine, this I am not. It is no part of me. Or else—I rule all space, for I do not hold onto the sounds that enter these ears; I rule all land, for I desire no scents but let them come and go; I rule the waters for I do not grasp at any taste; my eye does not cling to light and colors and so I rule all fire; I care not for any touch, nor do I avoid it, and so I rule the air and winds…’”
When we cling we become slaves, bound in chains of attachment. Claiming special control over a kingdom, or your own body, is always false, for these boundaries blend with everything else. These boundaries are symptoms of attachment; we erect them as illusions and get frustrated when they topple over.
“Dissolution is the end of all things compounded out of the elements and each man fares according to his deeds.”
“You are forever older than I, and so I call you Father.”
Time to Rama. Implying the soul of the universe preceded time itself. Time was borne out of this ever-flowing energy
Rama, before he passes, gifts Hanuman an invaluable and rare bracelet. Hanuman breaks it to bits and claims, “Lord, though this bracelet looked expensive it was really worthless, for nowhere on it did it bear your name.”
Metaphor for the emptiness of material wealth
“Everything counts, and so be kind. Do not dare lie politely with casual unmeant promises, for Indrajit always believes that you will mean what you say to him.”
Santiago receives two stones, indicating yes and no, that would provide him an answer to any truly objective question. He asks, “Am I going to find my treasure?” And the stones fall in a whole through his pocket so he cannot grab one.
This question is not objective (is any?). But, perhaps more importantly, we’re more motivated to fight for something when we don’t know the outcome, win or lose.
“‘Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?’ asked the boy. ‘Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive…I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.’”
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.”
You will never be able to escape suffering. So it’s better to suffer. That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.
“Fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself.”
“Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.”
On the Sun and the Earth: “So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living.”
But if the Sun drifted any closer to the earth, it would burn that which it loved. When we love ourselves or others too much and drown ourselves/our loved ones in indulgence, we/they get burnt.
“That’s what alchemists do, they show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
“But now in July…everything is at its alivest and every foot of these sloughs is humming and cricking and buzzing and chirping, a whole community of millions of living things living out their lives in a kind of benign continuum.”
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’”
On the topic of the new faster-paced radio, tv, and movies, “Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep.”
“‘What’s new?’ is a broadening and eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow…’What is best?’…cuts deep rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream.”
“Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose…and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfilment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.”
“What you see in the NO TRESPASSING, KEEP OUT signs is not anything serving people but little people, like ants, serving these strange, incomprehensible shapes. And you think, even if I were a part of this, even if I were not a stranger, I would be just another ant serving the shapes.”
“I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then the physical discomfort doesn’t mean much.”
When we’re unsatisfied with where we find ourselves, we blame our pain for the dissatisfaction so we can escape. We don’t blame the dissatisfaction itself, or where we find ourselves. If you can foster a healthy relationship with the here and now—where you find yourself—you’ll tolerate the pain.
Talking about his old crusty riding gloves, “[They are] impractical, but practicality isn’t the whole things with gloves or with anything else.”
Utility isn’t everything.
“He isn’t so interested in what things mean as in what they are.”
Human understanding can be divided into two kinds: classical and romantic. Classical sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. Romantic sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.
A romantic may see a blueprint as dull, just a list of names and lines and numbers. A classical may be fascinated, seeing that the lines and shapes and symbols represent a tremendous richness of underlying form
Romantic is inspirational, imaginative, creative, and intuitive, not governed by immediate reason or intelligible laws; classical (economic, unemotional, straightforward) proceeds by reason and laws, dominated by fields of medicine, law, and science. Motorcycle riding is romantic; motorcycle maintenance is classic.
Classical understanding’s purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known
Classical understanding is what births the industrial death force. Overbearing and oppressive. Romantic, however, seems frivolous, pleasure-seeking, shallow, no substance. “Often a parasite who cannot or will not carry his own weight. A real drag on society.”
Apollo versus Dionysus
With a classical approach you can break down the motorcycle into parts and functions, describing “what” a motorcycle is, and the “how”, that is, how the “whats” come together and produce “it.”
This classical breakdown reveals the following: 1) these understandings are subject-less. We care only about objects which are independent of any observer. 2) With no observer, these objects are value-free. Notions of “good” and “bad” are absent. 3) Objects depend on a knife, how we divide them up. “You get the illusion that all those parts are just there and are being named as they exist. But they can be named quite differently and organized quite differently depending on how the knife moves.”
“From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it.”
Then the mutated world of which we are conscious is further discriminated with the knife, dividing into this and that.
We hold a pile of sand that looks uniform but can find differences and endlessly sort each grain by feature similarities. “Classical understanding is concerned with the piles and the basis for sorting and interrelating them. Romantic is directed toward the handful of sand before the sorting begins. Both are valid ways of looking at the world although irreconcilable with each other.”
Reductionist versus holistic thought
Talks of the necessity to unite these two modes of understanding without diminishing either, rejecting neither sand-sorting nor contemplation of unsorted sand. Instead, attention must be directed to the endless landscape from which the handful of sand is scooped.
“When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.”
Every revelation is the hiding of something else
When something is killed, something else is created. This process of death-birth continuity is neither good nor bad, it just is.
“This is the ghost of normal everyday assumption which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer.”
“They must have been thinking about how bad all this is. That’s what’s really wearing them down. The thought.”
Part 2
“A study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.”
“If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.”
Finding one’s way through systemic hierarchies and understanding them is through logic
Logic can be inductive or deductive. Induction starts top down, observing some pattern and implying causality due to that pattern. Deduction is bottom up, looking at the hierarchy of facts and asking what they produce in a given situation. The scientific method is the interweaving of induction and deduction to further understanding of a system
“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t led you into thinking you know something that you don’t actually know.”
If a man conducts an elaborate gee-whiz science experiment but knows beforehand what the outcome will be, it is not science. It is an artistic rendition of what gives rise to scientific discovery, however without discovery—without learning—it is not science.
The paradox of scientific truth: the lifespan of a scientific truth is inversely proportional to the amount of scientific activity surrounding that truth. More activity reveals a new truth, which reveals more ignorance, which reveals more truths, which brings us further from an unchanging, universal Truth—to instead a dynamic, chaotic series of perishable truths.
“The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths…Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories, and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones…Science produces antiscience—chaos.”
When raising this question to peers, he was met with dismissive disinterest, “the scientific method is valid, why question it?” And because he wasn’t a student of science for personal or utilitarian reasons, this just stopped him completely.
“He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for control of individuals in the service of these functions.”
Like the individual cells composing a multicellular organism
“There’s no real profit to be made from wandering through [the high country of the mind], yet like the high country of the material world all around us, it has its own austere beauty that to some people make the hardships of travelling through it seem worthwhile.”
“In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty, and to the enormous magnitude of the questions asked and the proposed answers.”
All knowledge comes from sensory impressions, not the raw sensory data itself.
“A priori concepts have their origins in human nature so that they’re neither caused by the sensed object nor bring it into being, but provide a kind of screening function for what sense data we will accept.” When we blink, our sense data momentarily tells us the world disappeared, but a priori experience tells us the world is continuous and filters the data.
Embedded in our biological organisation is the memory of past spatial and temporal experience. Patterns of space and time are conserved by our body, and those conserved, perpetuated patterns (intuitions) paint how we come to understand the world
When I look at a motorcycle from one angle, the sensory information of components and material tell me it’s a motorcycle, but if I look at it from another angle, the sensory data tells me they’re a motorcycle, but not necessarily the same motorcycle. What unifies these two views? What maintains this continuity? Intuition. History. Time and space.
“…the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.”
He calls the university the Church of Reason. Citizens who build a religious church and pay for it probably have in mind that they’re doing this for the community. However, a priest’s primary goal is to serve God, not his community. Normally there’s no conflict, but occasionally one creeps in when trustees oppose the minister’s sermons and threaten reduction of funds. Like the priest, a professor’s primary goal is to serve, through reason, the goal of truth—not his community. Normally this goal does not diminish local citizenry, but occasionally conflict arises (as in the case of Socrates), where trustees and legislators who’ve contributed to the university take points of view in opposition to the professor’s lectures. They can then lean on administrators by threatening to cut off funds if the professors don’t say what they want to hear.
Despite his lack in faith in scientific reason, he had a fanatic faith towards it. “You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one fanatically shouts that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow.” When we’re fanatically dedicated to religious or political faiths or dogmas or goals, it’s because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
In doubt by whom? He’s in doubt, so he chases certainty. But some people seem so certain of their faith. Their fanaticism seems to be brought by the doubt of outsiders, not their own. It feels like a fanatical reaction to preserve a dogma, rather than a reaction that their dogma may not be true. Perhaps threats open a realization of doubt that we frantically want to close. But do we want to close the hole of doubt in others (their lack in faith), or ourselves (our lack in faith)?
“It’s not technology that’s scary. It’s what it does to the relations between people, like callers and operators, that’s scary.”
An expanding interconnection that brings nodes farther apart. Work from home technology expands, reaches out. But it creates distance between coworkers. Scary. Bizarre. Isolating.
“The beer and sun begin to toast my head like a marshmallow. Very nice.”
“The glow of fire is matched by an inner glow from the wine and fish…”
“Science works with chunks and bits and pieces of things with the continuity presumed, and [Art] works only with the continuities of things with the chunks and bit and pieces presumed.”
Science breaks things up, emphasizing the parts, and assumes they connect. Further analysis need not be done on the continuity, because of course there’s continuity. Art emphasizes the connections, the continuity, and assumes the parts need no further analysis, because they’re just parts! The whole deserves the attention!
“If you don’t have [serenity] when you start and maintain [your material object, e.g., bicycle] while you’re working, you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself…the material object…can’t be right or wrong…they don’t have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you.”
“Technology presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is…but if you have to choose among an infinite number of ways to put it together then the relation of the machine to you, and the relation of the machine and you to the rest of the world, has to be considered, because the selection from among many choices, the art of the work is just as dependent upon your own mind and spirit as it is upon the material of the machine. That’s why you need peace of mind.”
Art manifests in the bringing to order an infinitude of possibilities. Subject bleeds into object in this ordering. Object bleeds into subject. The subject has feelings that can distort the object, but the object can’t reciprocate…there’s an imbalance there.
“Prints are of art and not art themselves.”
AI art will follow suit
What is quality? What makes something better? Where does this sense of betterness come from?
Part 3
“Most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.”
College demands imitation and stifles originality. This imitation is sophisticated—the safest bet is to imitate the professor while trying to convince them you’re not imitating, carrying the essence of the instruction on your own. That got you A’s. Originality is less incentivized; carrying your own essence is risky and can get you an A or F
Universities have a tendency to imitate education, “glossed over and concealed by grades and degrees that give the appearance of something happening when, in fact, almost nothing is going on.”
“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow…But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides. It’s the top that defines the sides.”
The man who climbs the mountain for ego fulfillment is never in the here and now, and thus missteps, stumbles. His mind is forever elsewhere, distant. He rejects the here and now, and wants to be farther up trail, but when he arrives he will be just as unhappy because it (his goal) will be here.
“When an ego-climber has an image of himself to protect he naturally lies to protect this image.”
Does Quality lie in the object? Or is it subjective? Quality (goodness) isn’t measurable by scientific instruments, so if it rests in the object it can’t be detected. If it’s subjective, it can be whatever the subject wants it to be, yet most people can agree and point to Quality.
The author argues that Quality doesn’t rest in relationship with solely object or subject. It can be found only in the relationship of the two with each other. Quality is not a thing, it is an event. Subject cannot exist without object since objects create a subject’s relationship with himself. Quality is the event where awareness of both subject and object is made possible.
The Quality event causes both subject and object, a gravity that interlinks them and sparks awareness. Quality is not an effect of subject or object. It is the cause.
“The silence allows you to do each thing right.”
Romantic quality correlates with instantaneous impressions; classic quality with multiple considerations over time. Romantic quality is about the here and now; classic quality about the relation of the present thing to its past and future. A romantic might say, if your motorcycle is working, why worry about it? A classic would consider the neglect of past or future as bad Quality; the bike may be working now, but how’s its oil level?
“A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality.”
Technological hopelessness is caused by the lack of care—the absence of the perception of quality, both from technologists and anti technologists.
“By returning our attention to Quality it is hoped that we can get technological work out of the noncaring subject-object dualism and back into craftsmanlike self-involved reality again”
“Our structured reality is preselected in the basis of value, and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding of the value source from which it’s derived.”
“And when you really understand dynamic reality you never get stuck. It has forms but the forms are capable of change.”
Quality leads us from what things are to what they do and why they do it, a melting of static division into continuous process.
“Nature has a non-Euclidean geometry of her own that seems to soften the deliberate objectivity of these buildings with a kind of random spontaneity that architects would do well to study.”
The sagging of straight lines, the soft weathering of once uniform paint, the sprouts of greenery from cracks in concrete.
Technology is the making of things, which can’t be ugly in itself because the making of things can produce beautiful art. Actually, the Greek root of technology, techno, means art. In Ancient Greece, art and the making of things (manufacture) were inseparable
“It’s the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has even told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.”
“When one isn’t dominated by feelings of separateness from what he’s working on, then one can be said to ‘care’ about what he’s doing. That is what caring really is, a feeling of identification with what one’s doing.”
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
Political programs are end products of social quality, built from social values that are built from individual values. We need to get the individual values right to make meaningful change in the right direction. “Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think what I have to say has more lasting value.”
The Greek word enthousiasmos means filled with theos, or God, or Quality.
“To run a cycle with parts in it you’ve made yourself gives you a special feeling you can’t possibly get from strictly store-bought parts.”
When you can function clear-headed without the help of store-bought supplements. Or when you’ve cultivated a unique way of thought by studying material you’re drawn to, not that someone programs to you. When you’ve created and cared for the raw material that supports you, you feel more at home with yourself.
“Of the value traps, the most widespread and pernicious is value rigidity. This is an inability to revalue what one sees because of commitment to precious values…You must rediscover what you do as you go. Rigid values makes this impossible…If your values are rigid you can’t really learn new facts.”
“Watch it the way you watch a line when fishing and before long, as sure as you love, you’ll get a little nibble, a little fact asking in a timid, humble way if you’re interested in it.”
The South Indian monkey trap: a coconut filled with rice is chained to a stake. The coconut has an opening large enough for a hand but small enough to stop a fist. When a monkey tries to take a handful of rice, his fisted hand gets stuck, and villagers swarm him. He rigidly values the rice over his freedom, and this rigidity masks the facts made available to him. We hold on to certain facts, and in certain contexts we’d be wise to reevaluate and open ourselves to more perspectives.
“If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened. Your ego isolates you from the Quality reality.”
When we inflate the self, what we’re working on doesn’t see that inflation, it sees the real self. This leads to the inevitable reflection of our underwhelming self in our product, leading to discouragement and disappointment
Science grows by “maybe” more than yes or no answers. Yes or no confirms hypotheses, maybe says the answer is beyond the hypotheses. “Maybe” inspires scientific enquiry in the first place!
“You want to know how to make the perfect painting? It’s easy. Just make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.”
The drivers of cars, driving the maximum they can get away with, are trapped into thinking about where they want to be rather than where they are. With this mindset, they never arrive.
Part 4
“The metal of these wrenches is so cold it hurts the hands. But it’s a good hurt. It’s real, not imaginary, and it’s here, absolutely, in my hand.”
“Quality isn’t method. It’s the goal toward which method is aimed.”
“I have no resentment at [tourist attractions], just a feeling that it’s all unreal and the quality of the [attraction] is smothered by the fact that it’s so pointed to. You point to something having Quality and the Quality tends to go away.”
“Religion isn’t invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent responses to quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they themselves are.”
Sure, men create myths and stories and rituals. But why do they create them? Quality guides our creations, sourcing our creative energy.
“People who can’t stand Aristotle’s endless specificity of detail are natural lovers of Plato’s soaring generalities. People who can’t stand the eternal loft idealism of Plato welcome the down-to-earth facts of Aristotle.”
“…Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians (those who try to persuade others towards something better) was a part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the dialecticians (those who logically decompose things via analysis), were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man. Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why we have so little difficulty accepting the reality of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than in the other.”
Nous in Greek or Latin means “mind”, or “intelligence.”
“Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealist and materialists would say…He is a participant in the creation of all things.”
‘Virtue’, at least in modern English, is almost entirely a moral word; aretê, on the other hand, is used indifferently in all the categories, and simply means excellence…Aretê implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialization. It implies a contempt for efficiency—or rather a much higher idea of efficiency, an efficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself. - quote by Kitto
We divide things into categories to understand them, but categories can distort our perception of reality. Shown two colours on a spectrum, depending on how the culture defines their colours the observer may see the colours as more similar or different
To describe behaviour, the thrust of this book is to invoke the various timescales that precede that behaviour, to connect the scientific disciplines (neurobiology, biochemistry, endocrinology, evolutionary biology, etc.) into a consilient whole to explain why we do things
“We use the same muscles as does a male chimp when attacking a sexual competitor, but we use them to harm someone because of their ideology.”
This is also sexual competition, in a weird way, but in the context of group competition. An ideology is partly an attractant devised to lure individuals who long for a coherent explanation of life’s complexity. The more that are lured, the greater group’s reproductive fitness (but not necessarily survival fitness)
Chapter 2: One second before
The hypothalamus is the limbic pathway to autonomic regulation, where emotions inform autonomic responses (blood flow, heart-rate, temperature regulation)—the limbic to lizard bridge
The frontal cortex is the brain region most interconnecting the limbic system and cortex
The amygdala, responsible for fear, uncertainty management, and aggression, adapts with exposure to fears. This adaptation does not occur passively, the neural inputs to the basolateral amygdala require active exposure to objects of fear
Insert “trigger warnings and avoidance strategies are harmful” here
The extreme sensitivity of the amygdala’s neural connections to sensory neurons allows us to sense fleeting and faint information that the cortex (conscious awareness) misses
The insular cortex and amygdala form a connection that concerns disgust. This disgust pathway is triggered by rotten food and moral transgression. We literally express disgust with people we find socially reprehensible. Dangerous.
Autonomic arousal doesn’t influence what you feel, but the intensity of what is felt. Whether you have a sympathetic or parasympathetic response will colour your perceptions differently.
“The front cortex makes you do the harder thing when it’s the right thing to do.”
Willpower and self-control are finite resources, and frontal cortex neurons are metabolically expensive cells
Increased cognitive load leads to less prosocial decision making (less charitable, more likely to lie)
The dorsolateral PFC is the chief cognitive region for forgoing short-term pleasure for long term achievement.
The ventromedial PFC is where the PFC interfaces with the limbic system. vmPFC damage silences gut feelings; this lack of emotional thrust makes decision-making more challenging. Decisions aren’t felt and become more utilitarian.
Suppressing thought or emotion is near impossible. But thinking/feeling differently is achievable. Antecedent rather than response strategies can protect us from distress, and when done right activate the dlPFC and suppress the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system.
We are most prosocial to in-group when our emotions and intuitions hold sway; we are most prosocial concerning out-group when cognition holds sway.
You can predict whether someone will buy something by looking at brain imaging. If it’s cheaper than expected, their vmPFC surges and their emotions goad them to buy it; if it’s more expensive, their disgust-oriented insular cortex throbs as they snarkily refuse
“What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.”
Anticipatory dopamine release peaks when uncertainty is maximal as to whether a reward will occur
Low serotonin predicts cognitive impulsivity and impulsive aggression, meaning it inhibits PFC projections in some way and amplifies amygdala projections
Chapter 3: Seconds to minutes before
Discussed subliminal stimuli. Interoception (e.g., autonomic arousal can make us less trusting), psychological priming (e.g., being told pleasant words makes us more trusting), inherent biases (gender, race)
Chapter 4: Hours to days before
Supraphysiological levels of androgens (i.e., from PEDs) cause steroid abusers to be more paranoid and anxious, and aggression may follow
Testosterone quiets the PFC and increases coupling with the amygdala. Thus, more influence by split-second, low-resolution inputs and less let’s-stop-and-think-about-this.
Testosterone causes us to be fearless, overconfident, and delusionally optimistic
Testosterone makes us more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status.
Oxytocin and vasopressin aren’t necessarily the prosocial love hormones. They’re social hormones. For instance, these hormone increases make women improve at detecting kinship relationships, and men improve at detecting dominance relationships
Oxytocin makes us more prosocial to Us and worse to everyone else. As well as the love hormone, it is the ethnocentric, xenophobic hormone.
Chronic stress dampens PFC activation and amplifies amygdala responses, facilitating the learning of fear associations but impairing the learning of fear extinction. This creates a feedback loop, where more fears are learned and less are extinguished.
Sustained stress makes us more selfish and less capable of empathizing with others
Chapter 5: Days to months before
Experience alters the number and strength of synapses, the extent of dendritic arbor, and the projection targets of axons.
Hippocampal neurogenisis is enhanced by learning, exercise, environmental enrichment, estrogen, and antidepressants
Chapter 6: Adolescence; or, dude, where’s my frontal cortex?
Frontal cortex maturation in adolescence is about a more efficient brain, not a larger one. Synapses are actually pruned in adolescence, equivalent tasks require less effort in well-pruned brains (i.e., in adults)
When looking at highly expressive faces, an adult sees amygdaloid activation and a tempering of emotion via the vmPFC, but an adolescent can rely less on the inhibitory vmPFC and gets a bigger, sustained amygdala activation (more distress-provoking)
Adolescents have 2 to 4 times the rates of pathological gambling as do adults (underdeveloped PFC hinders judgment of risk)
Adolescence is about risk taking and novelty seeking
Depression radiates young women like a viral contagion, as their tendency to co-ruminate reinforces their negative affect
Rejection hurts adolescents more (due to reduced vmPFC hushing and increased amygdala screaming), producing a stronger need to fit in
Those who feel most strongly about other’s pain, with the most pronounced arousal and anxiety, are actually less likely to act prosocially. Instead, the personal distress prompts avoidance, because as empathetic pain increases, one’s own pain becomes of primary concern
“Because it is the last to mature, by definition the front cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience…Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.”
Chapter 7: Back to the crib, back to the womb
Mothers with children in the hospital were once asked to leave their child and let the hospital take care of everything. Infants began dying of “hospitalism”, devoid of social contact and embalmed in a suprasanatized environment, died of illnesses unrelated to their initial illness. The poorest hospitals performed better, as they couldn’t afford incubation chambers and had to use hands on, intimate methods
Infants may suppress glucocorticoid release as it stunts brain development. This is why, when abused (even by their mother), they may grip to their mother tighter, entrusting her so that they don’t have a brain-damaging aversive response. This would have made evolutionary sense for vulnerable children.
Pathway to addiction from adverse childhood: 1) effected developing dopamine system, 2) excessive exposure to glucocorticoids (stress) that increase drug craving, 3) poorly developed frontal cortex
“Cultures (starting with parents) raise children to become adults who behave in the ways valued by that culture.”
Play teaches social competence; provides a chance to roleplay and improve motor function; provides exposure to transient and moderate stress; and as a tool decides which excess synapses to prune
One reason dogs may wag their tails is for pheromone distribution to indicate a willingness/desire to play
Chapter 8: Back to when you were just a fertilized egg
“Genes don’t make sense outside the context of environment.” Genetic evolution occurred in relationship with environment. You can’t make sense of genes without the environment, they are shaped by their surroundings
Your genes aren’t carbon copies of your parents. Shuffling sometimes occurs in genes, where a stretch of DNA is copied and transposed into another stretch (these are called transposons). This process occurs in the neurons in our brains, and transposon events have been shown to produce new memories in fruit flies, freeing them from strict genetic inheritance
Inheritance and heritability are different. Inheritance describes an average genetic trait; heritability describes the genetic variability around that average. Inheritance tells us how different we are from a wildebeest; heritability tells us how different we are from our neighbour
Heritability measures are always inflated. When we control an environment in an experiment to make things easier to interpret, we restrict gene regulation to a single environment, neglecting how other environments may influence genes. One example is in twin studies, the effects of birth order are by definition neglected. Without influence of birth order, genetic influence receives more attention (inflated heritability)
Heritability scores tell us how much variation in a trait is explained by genes in the environment in which it was studied.
It’s not meaningful to ask what a gene does, only what a gene does in a particular environment.
The challenge with gene candidate approaches (singling out a gene and seeing how it affects behaviour) is that there are still tens of thousands more genes that we lose sight of, and gazillions more environments to consider due to gene/environment interactions
The other approach is to examine large swaths of genes at once and see how they explain the variance in some phenotypic trait. In a Nature study on height with nearly 200,000 participants, the top gene explained 0.4% of height variance. Similar for BMI and educational attainment. Surprise, networks of genes influence behaviour, not just one.
“Ask not what a gene does. Ask what it does in a particular environment and when expressed in a particular network of other genes.”
“Genes aren’t about inevitability. Instead, they’re about context-dependent tendencies.”
Chapter 9: Centuries to millennia before
A gene associated with impulsivity and novelty seeking occurs in 10-20% of Africans and Europeans, 0% in collectivist East Asians, and 30-60% in American/South American indigenous. Having most recently expanded, those who crossed the Bering strait ages ago possessed an inclination to explore. Those in long established societies (East Asians) with collectivist norms would have damped impulsivity and emigration
Southern Americans have larger stress and testosterone responses to slights of honour. Southerners are mostly of Scottish, northern Irish, and northern English descent, which are herding cultures. Given the problems which pastoralist cultures deal with (i.e., the potentially catastrophic consequences of losing a herd to thieves), monotheism and duty tends to run deep in pastoralists
“As income inequality grows, the percentage of people who bother voting generally declines.”
As economic stratification increases, investment in public goods (public transit, public schools, universal healthcare) decreases, and as a result public health decreases. The rich don’t benefit from these public expenditures, instead relying on private equivalents, and thus avoid taxation for and mount political opposition to services that don’t apply to them.
Incidence in air rage has been increasing. Incidence increases further when passengers are forced to walk past first-class passengers. Being reminded of lower status provokes frustration that then gets displaced onto flight attendants. First class passengers are also, unsurprisingly, more likely to provoke air rage incidents related to senses of entitlement
Clarity of borders can reduce intergroup conflict, say separation by mountain range or river. As concluded by a study at the New England complex systems institute, “Peace does not depend on integrated coexistence, but rather on well-defined topographical and political boundaries separating groups, allowing for partial autonomy within a single country.”
Chapter 10: The evolution of behaviour
Divorce rates are skewed by serial divorces. Keep in mind when seeing “half of marriages end in divorce.” If one person divorces 3 times, 3 other marriages could be fine and produce the 50% number (in this case 1/4 of individuals marriages end in divorce)
Pseudokinship: seeing nonkin as kin, being charitable to strangers, adopting them, empathizing with them. Pseudospeciation: seen nonkin as non-species. Seeing opposing human tribes as pests and vermin, akin to another species, that are deserving of extermination.
Chapter 11: Us versus Them
“We feel positive associations with people who share the most meaningless traits with us.”
Arbitrary markers allow us to differentiate (symbols, dress, accent). The markers themselves are often meaningless, but they are linked to meaningful differences in values and beliefs
Symbols then, when associated with reward, become imbued with meaning themselves, leading people to literally live and die for patterned colors on cloth (national flags)
Those with stronger negative attitudes towards outgroup (immigrants, foreigners, etc.) are more prone to interpersonal levels of disgust (resistant to wearing clothes of others or sitting on a warm seat just vacated)
High warmth/high competence: pride; low warmth/high competence: envy; high warm/low competence: pity; low warmth/low competence: disgust
“The need for justification fuels those on top to pour the stereotypes of, at best, high warmth/low competence or, worse, low warmth/low competence on the heads of those struggling at the bottom, and those on the bottom reciprocate with the simmering time bomb that is the perception of the ruling class as low warmth/high competence.”
“Distrust essentialism. Keep in mind that what seems like rationality is often just rationalization, playing catch-up with subterranean forces that we never suspect.”
Chapter 12: Hierarchy, obedience, and resistance
“Countries with more brutal socioeconomic hierarchies produce children who enforce their own hierarchies more brutally.” (More bullying)
Highest ranking primates don’t necessarily have the highest levels of testosterone. If their group is unstable, they will, and they’ll be fighting for their spot. But during stability, the pressure to maintain rank is less demanding, requiring less testosterone to maintain that rank. Adolescents near the bottom of the hierarchy are most testosterone fueled, as they are most motivated to climb
“The worst stress-related health typically occurs in middle management, with its killer combo of high work demands but little autonomy—responsibility without control.”
Right wing authoritarianism is associated with lower IQ and higher intergroup prejudice. RWA provides simple answers that are ideal for those with low abstract reasoning skills
“When people’s insulae activate (disgust activation) at the thought of Thems, you can check one thing off your genocide to-do list.”
The descent into savagery is incremental, and despite our love and emphasis of arbitrary boundaries, the boundaries to degeneracy are subtle. Treat them 10% worse, then 15%, then 30%, and so on. When do we stop? The jumps can be so incremental that we don’t notice them.
Diffusion of responsibility can justify atrocity. Death penalty executers are numbered and some are given blanks so that they can live with themselves (I may not have even shot him, phew)
Warriors from cultures that transform and standardize their appearance before battle are more likely to torture and mutilate their enemies. Anonymity diffuses responsibility, justifying atrocity because it “wasn’t just me” or “it was the character I was playing”
To understand whether someone is likely to be conservative, “understand how they feel about novelty, ambiguity, empathy, hygiene, disease and dis-ease, and whether things used to be better and the future is a scary place.”
Chapter 13: Morality and doing the right thing, once you’ve figured out what that is
People with obsessive compulsive disorder see wildly active dlPFCs when making everyday decisions and moral decisions
“When we confront a moral choice, the dlPFC doesn’t adjudicate in contemplative silence. The waters roil below.”
“When facing a moral quandary, activation in the amygdala, vmPFC, and insula typically precede dlPFC activation.”
A study conducted in a Swiss bank found that when psychologically primed to think as bankers, banking employees were more likely to cheat in an experiment than before they had been primed. This shows an at-least dualism in identity, normal personal identity and get-ahead banker identity
In a game where subjects could pool tokens for collective gain and punish for misbehaviour, it was found that if the subject came from a region with lower social capital, they were more likely to punish overly generous subjects, as much as punishing free-riders. Interesting…in regions with more distrust and less self-efficacy, over-generosity can be seen as a threat
Collectivist cultures discourage moral transgressions with shame, and individualist cultures with guilt. Shame comes from external judgment; guilt comes from internal judgment. Shame requires an audience, is about honour. Guilt appears in cultures that treasure privacy and conscience. Shame is applied to the individual as a whole, guilt is applied to the action, making it possible to hate the sin but love the sinner.
Deontologism is about moral intuitions, recruiting more emotional vmPFC, amygdala, and insula; whereas consequentialism is about cold cognitive calculation, recruiting more dlPFC. Automatic and intuitive judgements tend to be nonutilitarian, since our brains evolved to help spread genes, not maximize collective happiness (although this can coincide with gene spreading)
Moral reasoning thrives when both subjective feelings and objective judgements harmonize. Long-term, pragmatic consequentialism that explores how decisions change the landscape coupled with deontological emotional intuitions about how inhabiting the landscape will make people feel.
“Most intergroup conflicts on our planet ultimately are cultural disagreements about whose “right” is righter.”
In Me vs. Them scenarios, be intuitive, your “gut” evolved to benefit the group. In Us vs. Them scenarios, be pragmatic, your “gut” also evolved to prefer Us at the detriment of Them.
Dogs drop their tail between their legs when scared, partly to mask the scent of their anal scent glands that secrete fear pheromones
Classic polygraph lie detectors measures sympathetic arousal. This doesn’t work well for interviewees who are nervous, sociopathic, or take measures to reduce sympathetic responses. Modern polygraphs instead measure anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation instead, which activates when conflicting information needs to be sorted out (e.g., fictional lie vs. true reality)
Chapter 14: Feeling, understanding, and alleviating someone’s pain
The ACC is involved in interoception (monitoring internal stimuli) and is an “all purpose alarm that signals when ongoing behaviour has hit a snag.”
The ACC lights up when we observe others pain and is mediated by oxytocin release. However, the ACC seems to be brain region associated with more selfish motives, indicating that the ACC activates, and we feel the pain of others so as not to repeat their mistakes
The ACC is crucial for learned fear and conditioned avoidance by observing misfortune of others. Feeling someone else’s pain is more useful to the self than merely knowing someone else’s pain
Later in maturation the insula and amygdala get involved in empathy. This is when we start becoming disgusted and angry with injustice inflicted on the vulnerable.
Even when the source of pain is from a benign source, we search for something to blame, a target for our hatred and disgust. “The more the purity of empathy is clouded with anger, disgust, and indignation of blame, the harder it is to actually help.”
The larger the distance between you and others (physically or socially), the more cognitive work required to empathize
Mirror neurons have yet to demonstrate unequivocal causality towards empathy
The adolescent frenzied feeling of feeling others’ pains tends to lead to frenzied self-absorption. Young people tend to imagine how injustice would feel if it happened to them (self-oriented) rather than imagining how victims are feeling (other-oriented). Self-oriented individuals report more distress and anxiety, and are thus more likely to focus on lessening their own distress
We can hear the sound of someone else’s need when we are calm and our hearts aren’t pounding in our chests
The point is not whose pain pains us the most but who most needs our help
Empathy is optimal when it’s automatic and ingrained by culture. If we have to think about it, we’re vulnerable to thinking into why we shouldn’t bother. Yet too much heart (limbic) can lead to feeling the pain too deeply and tending to ourselves instead. Detachment is necessary to mitigate this.
Chapter 15: Metaphors we kill by
Feelings of disgust produced by the insular cortex activate for moral transgressions. Being primed into moral disgust also makes things seem more disgusting (things seem dirtier, we want to sanitize more, a neutral drink tastes worse)
We become more socially conservative when disgusted, and the socially conservative are more disgust prone. Disgust is meant to protect from threat; for instance, conservative opposed to gay marriage see it as a threat to family values and the sanctity of marriage
Sensations paint unrelated judgements. Sit in a hard chair and we judge others as hard-assed. Place a resume on a heavier clipboard and our achievements carry more weight. Hold someone’s iced coffee and we perceive them as having a colder personality.
Recall the judge example: empty stomach, harsher judgment. When we’re hungry, we show more future discounting (foregoing long-term gain for short term pleasure). The more we crave, the more we discount our future.
The most unique neurons, the recently evolved and slow-developing von Economo neurons, are predominantly housed in the ACC and insula. The adaptive advantages of (mostly self-interested) empathy and moral disgust have seemed to attract recent evolutionary brain development.
One cannot truly end conflict, make peace, without acknowledging and respecting the sacred values of Them
Chapter 16: Biology, the criminal justice system, and (oh, why not?) free will
Neuroscientist Gazzaniga fully accepts the material nature of the brain but nonetheless sees room for responsibility. “Responsibility exists at a different level of organisation: the social level, not in our determined brains.” Except the social level is just as much a product of evolutionary biology as are our brains, there are just further layers of intimidating complexity.
The deepest line in the sand drawn by mitigated free will believers is the notion that aptitude and impulsion are biological and perseverance and resisting impulse are willful.
Traditional rationales around punishment are to protect the public, rehabilitate, punish, and to use the threat of punishment to deter others. This last one is tricky; increased strictness of punishment does indeed deter others. But we have to be careful not to invoke stricter punishments because it’s pleasurable, because it satiates some sadistic desire
“The hope is that when it comes to dealing with humans whose behaviours are among our worst and most damaging, words like ‘evil’ and ‘soul’ will be as irrelevant as when considering a car with faulty brakes.” When we take a car to the mechanic and he can’t find what’s wrong, he doesn’t conclude that the car is evil.
“Many who are viscerally opposed to this view charge that it is dehumanizing to frame damaged humans as broken machines…doing that is a lot more humane than demonizing and sermonizing them as sinners.”
“I can’t really imagine how to live your life as if there is no free will. It may never be possible…Perhaps we’ll have to settle for making sure our homuncular myths are benign, and save the heavy lifting of truly thinking rationally for where it matters—when we judge others harshly.”
Chapter 17: War and Peace
In a study which polled “Indian Hindus, Russian Orthodox, Israeli Jews, Indonesian Muslims, British Protestants, and Mexican Catholics as to whether they’d die for their religion and whether people of other religions caused the world’s troubles,” it was found that in all cases frequent attendance of religious services, but not frequent prayer, predicted those views. Religiosity doesn’t stoke intergroup hostility, being surrounded by coreligionists who affirm in-group identity, commitment, and shared loves and hatreds does.
“It’s useless to call for religion to broaden the extent of their Us-ness…Religions range from “only those who look, act, talk, and pray like Us” to “all of life”. It will be…tough to shift religions from the former to the latter.”
“Hatred is exhausting; forgiveness, or even just indifference, is freeing.”
“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” - Booker T. Washington
“We decide someone is guilty based on reasoning but then decide their punishment based on emotion.”
Santiago receives two stones, indicating yes and no, that would provide him an answer to any truly objective question. He asks, “Am I going to find my treasure?” And the stones fall in a whole through his pocket so he cannot grab one.
This question is not objective (is any?). But, perhaps more importantly, we’re more motivated to fight for something when we don’t know the outcome, win or lose.
“‘Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?’ asked the boy. ‘Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive…I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.’”
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.”
You will never be able to escape suffering. So it’s better to suffer. That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.
“Fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself.”
“Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.”
On the Sun and the Earth: “So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living.”
But if the Sun drifted any closer to the earth, it would burn that which it loved. When we love ourselves or others too much and drown ourselves/our loved ones in indulgence, we/they get burnt.
“That’s what alchemists do, they show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
We divide things into categories to understand them, but categories can distort our perception of reality. Shown two colours on a spectrum, depending on how the culture defines their colours the observer may see the colours as more similar or different
To describe behaviour, the thrust of this book is to invoke the various timescales that precede that behaviour, to connect the scientific disciplines (neurobiology, biochemistry, endocrinology, evolutionary biology, etc.) into a consilient whole to explain why we do things
“We use the same muscles as does a male chimp when attacking a sexual competitor, but we use them to harm someone because of their ideology.”
This is also sexual competition, in a weird way, but in the context of group competition. An ideology is partly an attractant devised to lure individuals who long for a coherent explanation of life’s complexity. The more that are lured, the greater group’s reproductive fitness (but not necessarily survival fitness)
Chapter 2: One second before
The hypothalamus is the limbic pathway to autonomic regulation, where emotions inform autonomic responses (blood flow, heart-rate, temperature regulation)—the limbic to lizard bridge
The frontal cortex is the brain region most interconnecting the limbic system and cortex
The amygdala, responsible for fear, uncertainty management, and aggression, adapts with exposure to fears. This adaptation does not occur passively, the neural inputs to the basolateral amygdala require active exposure to objects of fear
Insert “trigger warnings and avoidance strategies are harmful” here
The extreme sensitivity of the amygdala’s neural connections to sensory neurons allows us to sense fleeting and faint information that the cortex (conscious awareness) misses
The insular cortex and amygdala form a connection that concerns disgust. This disgust pathway is triggered by rotten food and moral transgression. We literally express disgust with people we find socially reprehensible. Dangerous.
Autonomic arousal doesn’t influence what you feel, but the intensity of what is felt. Whether you have a sympathetic or parasympathetic response will colour your perceptions differently.
“The front cortex makes you do the harder thing when it’s the right thing to do.”
Willpower and self-control are finite resources, and frontal cortex neurons are metabolically expensive cells
Increased cognitive load leads to less prosocial decision making (less charitable, more likely to lie)
The dorsolateral PFC is the chief cognitive region for forgoing short-term pleasure for long term achievement.
The ventromedial PFC is where the PFC interfaces with the limbic system. vmPFC damage silences gut feelings; this lack of emotional thrust makes decision-making more challenging. Decisions aren’t felt and become more utilitarian.
Suppressing thought or emotion is near impossible. But thinking/feeling differently is achievable. Antecedent rather than response strategies can protect us from distress, and when done right activate the dlPFC and suppress the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system.
We are most prosocial to in-group when our emotions and intuitions hold sway; we are most prosocial concerning out-group when cognition holds sway.
You can predict whether someone will buy something by looking at brain imaging. If it’s cheaper than expected, their vmPFC surges and their emotions goad them to buy it; if it’s more expensive, their disgust-oriented insular cortex throbs as they snarkily refuse
“What was an unexpected please yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.”
Anticipatory dopamine release peaks when uncertainty is maximal as to whether a reward will occur
Low serotonin predicts cognitive impulsivity and impulsive aggression, meaning it inhibits PFC projections in some way and amplifies amygdala projections
Chapter 3: Seconds to minutes before
Discussed subliminal stimuli. Interoception (e.g., autonomic arousal can make us less trusting), psychological priming (e.g., being told pleasant words makes us more trusting), inherent biases (gender, race)
Chapter 4: Hours to days before
Supraphysiological levels of androgens (i.e., from PEDs) cause steroid abusers to be more paranoid and anxious, and aggression may follow
Testosterone quiets the PFC and increases coupling with the amygdala. Thus, more influence by split-second, low-resolution inputs and less let’s-stop-and-think-about-this.
Testosterone causes us to be fearless, overconfident, and delusionally optimistic
Testosterone makes us more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status.
Oxytocin and vasopressin aren’t necessarily the prosocial love hormones. They’re social hormones. For instance, these hormone increases make women improve at detecting kinship relationships, and men improve at detecting dominance relationships
Oxytocin makes us more prosocial to Us and worse to everyone else. As well as the love hormone, it is the ethnocentric, xenophobic hormone.
Chronic stress dampens PFC activation and amplifies amygdala responses, facilitating the learning of fear associations but impairing the learning of fear extinction. This creates a feedback loop, where more fears are learned and less are extinguished.
Sustained stress makes us more selfish and less capable of empathizing with others
Chapter 5: Days to months before
Experience alters the number and strength of synapses, the extent of dendritic arbor, and the projection targets of axons.
Hippocampal neurogenisis is enhanced by learning, exercise, environmental enrichment, estrogen, and antidepressants
Chapter 6: Adolescence; or, dude, where’s my frontal cortex?
Frontal cortex maturation in adolescence is about a more efficient brain, not a larger one. Synapses are actually pruned in adolescence, equivalent tasks require less effort in well-pruned brains (i.e., in adults)
When looking at highly expressive faces, an adult sees amygdaloid activation and a tempering of emotion via the vmPFC, but an adolescent can rely less on the inhibitory vmPFC and gets a bigger, sustained amygdala activation (more distress-provoking)
Adolescents have 2 to 4 times the rates of pathological gambling as do adults (underdeveloped PFC hinders judgment of risk)
Adolescence is about risk taking and novelty seeking
Depression radiates young women like a viral contagion, as their tendency to co-ruminate reinforces their negative affect
Rejection hurts adolescents more (due to reduced vmPFC hushing and increased amygdala screaming), producing a stronger need to fit in
Those who feel most strongly about other’s pain, with the most pronounced arousal and anxiety, are actually less likely to act prosocially. Instead, the personal distress prompts avoidance, because as empathetic pain increases, one’s own pain becomes of primary concern
“Because it is the last to mature, by definition the front cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience…Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.”
Chapter 7: Back to the crib, back to the womb
Mothers with children in the hospital were once asked to leave their child and let the hospital take care of everything. Infants began dying of “hospitalism”, devoid of social contact and embalmed in a suprasanatized environment, died of illnesses unrelated to their initial illness. The poorest hospitals performed better, as they couldn’t afford incubation chambers and had to use hands on, intimate methods
Infants may suppress glucocorticoid release as it stunts brain development. This is why, when abused (even by their mother), they may grip to their mother tighter, entrusting her so that they don’t have a brain-damaging aversive response. This would have made evolutionary sense for vulnerable children.
Pathway to addiction from adverse childhood: 1) effected developing dopamine system, 2) excessive exposure to glucocorticoids (stress) that increase drug craving, 3) poorly developed frontal cortex
“Cultures (starting with parents) raise children to become adults who behave in the ways valued by that culture.”
Play teaches social competence; provides a chance to roleplay and improve motor function; provides exposure to transient and moderate stress; and as a tool decides which excess synapses to prune
One reason dogs may wag their tails is for pheromone distribution to indicate a willingness/desire to play
Chapter 8: Back to when you were just a fertilized egg
“Genes don’t make sense outside the context of environment.” Genetic evolution occurred in relationship with environment. You can’t make sense of genes without the environment, they are shaped by their surroundings
Your genes aren’t carbon copies of your parents. Shuffling sometimes occurs in genes, where a stretch of DNA is copied and transposed into another stretch (these are called transposons). This process occurs in the neurons in our brains, and transposon events have been shown to produce new memories in fruit flies, freeing them from strict genetic inheritance
Inheritance and heritability are different. Inheritance describes an average genetic trait; heritability describes the genetic variability around that average. Inheritance tells us how different we are from a wildebeest; heritability tells us how different we are from our neighbour
Heritability measures are always inflated. When we control an environment in an experiment to make things easier to interpret, we restrict gene regulation to a single environment, neglecting how other environments may influence genes. One example is in twin studies, the effects of birth order are by definition neglected. Without influence of birth order, genetic influence receives more attention (inflated heritability)
Heritability scores tell us how much variation in a trait is explained by genes in the environment in which it was studied.
It’s not meaningful to ask what a gene does, only what a gene does in a particular environment.
The challenge with gene candidate approaches (singling out a gene and seeing how it affects behaviour) is that there are still tens of thousands more genes that we lose sight of, and gazillions more environments to consider due to gene/environment interactions
The other approach is to examine large swaths of genes at once and see how they explain the variance in some phenotypic trait. In a Nature study on height with nearly 200,000 participants, the top gene explained 0.4% of height variance. Similar for BMI and educational attainment. Surprise, networks of genes influence behaviour, not just one.
“Ask not what a gene does. Ask what it does in a particular environment and when expressed in a particular network of other genes.”
“Genes aren’t about inevitability. Instead, they’re about context-dependent tendencies.”
Chapter 9: Centuries to millennia before
A gene associated with impulsivity and novelty seeking occurs in 10-20% of Africans and Europeans, 0% in collectivist East Asians, and 30-60% in American/South American indigenous. Having most recently expanded, those who crossed the Bering strait ages ago possessed an inclination to explore. Those in long established societies (East Asians) with collectivist norms would have damped impulsivity and emigration
Southern Americans have larger stress and testosterone responses to slights of honour. Southerners are mostly of Scottish, northern Irish, and northern English descent, which are herding cultures. Given the problems which pastoralist cultures deal with (i.e., the potentially catastrophic consequences of losing a herd to thieves), monotheism and duty tends to run deep in pastoralists
“As income inequality grows, the percentage of people who bother voting generally declines.”
As economic stratification increases, investment in public goods (public transit, public schools, universal healthcare) decreases, and as a result public health decreases. The rich don’t benefit from these public expenditures, instead relying on private equivalents, and thus avoid taxation for and mount political opposition to services that don’t apply to them.
Incidence in air rage has been increasing. Incidence increases further when passengers are forced to walk past first-class passengers. Being reminded of lower status provokes frustration that then gets displaced onto flight attendants. First class passengers are also, unsurprisingly, more likely to provoke air rage incidents related to senses of entitlement
Clarity of borders can reduce intergroup conflict, say separation by mountain range or river. As concluded by a study at the New England complex systems institute, “Peace does not depend on integrated coexistence, but rather on well-defined topographical and political boundaries separating groups, allowing for partial autonomy within a single country.”
Chapter 10: The evolution of behaviour
Divorce rates are skewed by serial divorces. Keep in mind when seeing “half of marriages end in divorce.” If one person divorces 3 times, 3 other marriages could be fine and produce the 50% number (in this case 1/4 of individuals marriages end in divorce)
Pseudokinship: seeing nonkin as kin, being charitable to strangers, adopting them, empathizing with them. Pseudospeciation: seen nonkin as non-species. Seeing opposing human tribes as pests and vermin, akin to another species, that are deserving of extermination.
Chapter 11: Us versus Them
“We feel positive associations with people who share the most meaningless traits with us.”
Arbitrary markers allow us to differentiate (symbols, dress, accent). The markers themselves are often meaningless, but they are linked to meaningful differences in values and beliefs
Symbols then, when associated with reward, become imbued with meaning themselves, leading people to literally live and die for patterned colors on cloth (national flags)
Those with stronger negative attitudes towards outgroup (immigrants, foreigners, etc.) are more prone to interpersonal levels of disgust (resistant to wearing clothes of others or sitting on a warm seat just vacated)
High warmth/high competence: pride; low warmth/high competence: envy; high warm/low competence: pity; low warmth/low competence: disgust
“The need for justification fuels those on top to pour the stereotypes of, at best, high warmth/low competence or, worse, low warmth/low competence on the heads of those struggling at the bottom, and those on the bottom reciprocate with the simmering time bomb that is the perception of the ruling class as low warmth/high competence.”
“Distrust essentialism. Keep in mind that what seems like rationality is often just rationalization, playing catch-up with subterranean forces that we never suspect.”
Chapter 12: Hierarchy, obedience, and resistance
“Countries with more brutal socioeconomic hierarchies produce children who enforce their own hierarchies more brutally.” (More bullying)
Highest ranking primates don’t necessarily have the highest levels of testosterone. If their group is unstable, they will, and they’ll be fighting for their spot. But during stability, the pressure to maintain rank is less demanding, requiring less testosterone to maintain that rank. Adolescents near the bottom of the hierarchy are most testosterone fueled, as they are most motivated to climb
“The worst stress-related health typically occurs in middle management, with its killer combo of high work demands but little autonomy—responsibility without control.”
Right wing authoritarianism is associated with lower IQ and higher intergroup prejudice. RWA provides simple answers that are ideal for those with low abstract reasoning skills
“When people’s insulae activate (disgust activation) at the thought of Thems, you can check one thing off your genocide to-do list.”
The descent into savagery is incremental, and despite our love and emphasis of arbitrary boundaries, the boundaries to degeneracy are subtle. Treat them 10% worse, then 15%, then 30%, and so on. When do we stop? The jumps can be so incremental that we don’t notice them.
Diffusion of responsibility can justify atrocity. Death penalty executers are numbered and some are given blanks so that they can live with themselves (I may not have even shot him, phew)
Warriors from cultures that transform and standardize their appearance before battle are more likely to torture and mutilate their enemies. Anonymity diffuses responsibility, justifying atrocity because it “wasn’t just me” or “it was the character I was playing”
To understand whether someone is likely to be conservative, “understand how they feel about novelty, ambiguity, empathy, hygiene, disease and dis-ease, and whether things used to be better and the future is a scary place.”
Chapter 13: Morality and doing the right thing, once you’ve figured out what that is
People with obsessive compulsive disorder see wildly active dlPFCs when making everyday decisions and moral decisions
“When we confront a moral choice, the dlPFC doesn’t adjudicate in contemplative silence. The waters roil below.”
“When facing a moral quandary, activation in the amygdala, vmPFC, and insula typically precede dlPFC activation.”
A study conducted in a Swiss bank found that when psychologically primed to think as bankers, banking employees were more likely to cheat in an experiment than before they had been primed. This shows an at-least dualism in identity, normal personal identity and get-ahead banker identity
In a game where subjects could pool tokens for collective gain and punish for misbehaviour, it was found that if the subject came from a region with lower social capital, they were more likely to punish overly generous subjects, as much as punishing free-riders. Interesting…in regions with more distrust and less self-efficacy, over-generosity can be seen as a threat
Collectivist cultures discourage moral transgressions with shame, and individualist cultures with guilt. Shame comes from external judgment; guilt comes from internal judgment. Shame requires an audience, is about honour. Guilt appears in cultures that treasure privacy and conscience. Shame is applied to the individual as a whole, guilt is applied to the action, making it possible to hate the sin but love the sinner.
Deontologism is about moral intuitions, recruiting more emotional vmPFC, amygdala, and insula; whereas consequentialism is about cold cognitive calculation, recruiting more dlPFC. Automatic and intuitive judgements tend to be nonutilitarian, since our brains evolved to help spread genes, not maximize collective happiness (although this can coincide with gene spreading)
Moral reasoning thrives when both subjective feelings and objective judgements harmonize. Long-term, pragmatic consequentialism that explores how decisions change the landscape coupled with deontological emotional intuitions about how inhabiting the landscape will make people feel.
“Most intergroup conflicts on our planet ultimately are cultural disagreements about whose “right” is righter.”
In Me vs. Them scenarios, be intuitive, your “gut” evolved to benefit the group. In Us vs. Them scenarios, be pragmatic, your “gut” also evolved to prefer Us at the detriment of Them.
Dogs drop their tail between their legs when scared, partly to mask the scent of their anal scent glands that secrete fear pheromones
Classic polygraph lie detectors measures sympathetic arousal. This doesn’t work well for interviewees who are nervous, sociopathic, or take measures to reduce sympathetic responses. Modern polygraphs instead measure anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation instead, which activates when conflicting information needs to be sorted out (e.g., fictional lie vs. true reality)
Chapter 14: Feeling, understanding, and alleviating someone’s pain
The ACC is involved in interoception (monitoring internal stimuli) and is an “all purpose alarm that signals when ongoing behaviour has hit a snag.”
The ACC lights up when we observe others pain and is mediated by oxytocin release. However, the ACC seems to be brain region associated with more selfish motives, indicating that the ACC activates, and we feel the pain of others so as not to repeat their mistakes
The ACC is crucial for learned fear and conditioned avoidance by observing misfortune of others. Feeling someone else’s pain is more useful to the self than merely knowing someone else’s pain
Later in maturation the insula and amygdala get involved in empathy. This is when we start becoming disgusted and angry with injustice inflicted on the vulnerable.
Even when the source of pain is from a benign source, we search for something to blame, a target for our hatred and disgust. “The more the purity of empathy is clouded with anger, disgust, and indignation of blame, the harder it is to actually help.”
The larger the distance between you and others (physically or socially), the more cognitive work required to empathize
Mirror neurons have yet to demonstrate unequivocal causality towards empathy
The adolescent frenzied feeling of feeling others’ pains tends to lead to frenzied self-absorption. Young people tend to imagine how injustice would feel if it happened to them (self-oriented) rather than imagining how victims are feeling (other-oriented). Self-oriented individuals report more distress and anxiety, and are thus more likely to focus on lessening their own distress
We can hear the sound of someone else’s need when we are calm and our hearts aren’t pounding in our chests
The point is not whose pain pains us the most but who most needs our help
Empathy is optimal when it’s automatic and ingrained by culture. If we have to think about it, we’re vulnerable to thinking into why we shouldn’t bother. Yet too much heart (limbic) can lead to feeling the pain too deeply and tending to ourselves instead. Detachment is necessary to mitigate this.
Chapter 15: Metaphors we kill by
Feelings of disgust produced by the insular cortex activate for moral transgressions. Being primed into moral disgust also makes things seem more disgusting (things seem dirtier, we want to sanitize more, a neutral drink tastes worse)
We become more socially conservative when disgusted, and the socially conservative are more disgust prone. Disgust is meant to protect from threat; for instance, conservative opposed to gay marriage see it as a threat to family values and the sanctity of marriage
Sensations paint unrelated judgements. Sit in a hard chair and we judge others as hard-assed. Place a resume on a heavier clipboard and our achievements carry more weight. Hold someone’s iced coffee and we perceive them as having a colder personality.
Recall the judge example: empty stomach, harsher judgment. When we’re hungry, we show more future discounting (foregoing long-term gain for short term pleasure). The more we crave, the more we discount our future.
The most unique neurons, the recently evolved and slow-developing von Economo neurons, are predominantly housed in the ACC and insula. The adaptive advantages of (mostly self-interested) empathy and moral disgust have seemed to attract recent evolutionary brain development.
One cannot truly end conflict, make peace, without acknowledging and respecting the sacred values of Them
Chapter 16: Biology, the criminal justice system, and (oh, why not?) free will
Neuroscientist Gazzaniga fully accepts the material nature of the brain but nonetheless sees room for responsibility. “Responsibility exists at a different level of organisation: the social level, not in our determined brains.” Except the social level is just as much a product of evolutionary biology as are our brains, there are just further layers of intimidating complexity.
The deepest line in the sand drawn by mitigated free will believers is the notion that aptitude and impulsion are biological and perseverance and resisting impulse are willful.
Traditional rationales around punishment are to protect the public, rehabilitate, punish, and to use the threat of punishment to deter others. This last one is tricky; increased strictness of punishment does indeed deter others. But we have to be careful not to invoke stricter punishments because it’s pleasurable, because it satiates some sadistic desire
“The hope is that when it comes to dealing with humans whose behaviours are among our worst and most damaging, words like ‘evil’ and ‘soul’ will be as irrelevant as when considering a car with faulty brakes.” When we take a car to the mechanic and he can’t find what’s wrong, he doesn’t conclude that the car is evil.
“Many who are viscerally opposed to this view charge that it is dehumanizing to frame damaged humans as broken machines…doing that is a lot more humane than demonizing and sermonizing them as sinners.”
“I can’t really imagine how to live your life as if there is no free will. It may never be possible…Perhaps we’ll have to settle for making sure our homuncular myths are benign, and save the heavy lifting of trucking thinking rationally for where it matters—when we judge others harshly.”
Chapter 17: War and Peace
In a study which polled “Indian Hindus, Russian Orthodox, Israeli Jews, Indonesian Muslims, British Protestants, and Mexican Catholics as to whether they’d die for their religion and whether people of other religions caused the world’s troubles,” it was found that in all cases frequent attendance of religious services, but not frequent prayer, predicted those views. Religiosity doesn’t stoke intergroup hostility, being surrounded by coreligionists who affirm in-group identity, commitment, and shared loves and hatreds does.
“It’s useless to call for religion to broaden the extent of their Us-ness…Religions range from “only those who look, act, talk, and pray like Us” to “all of life”. It will be…tough to shift religions from the former to the latter.”
“Hatred is exhausting; forgiveness, or even just indifference, is freeing.”
“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” - Booker T. Washington
“We decide someone is guilty based on reasoning but then decide their punishment based on emotion.”
Dante’s Inferno, Dante Alighieri (13/14th century BCE) (1901 translation)
“In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.”
“So bad and so accursed in her kind that never sated is her ravenous will, still after food more craving than before.”
“He will not life support by earth nor its base metals, but by love, wisdom, and virtue.”
Material goods make for meaninglessness; they do not nurture a life worth living.
Dante follows Virgil (one of Rome’s greatest poets), who inhabits the form of a lion, towards the depths of hell. Virgil gives Dante courage.
As the day departs, Dante gets cold feet again. But the love of Beatrice reinvigorates him, a guiding light in the gloom of night. Still fearful, he presses forward, cherishing the pity and supporting love that Beatrice offers him.
“Supremest wisdom and primeval love.”
Between the gates of hell and hell itself laid a sea of weeping souls. These were the apathetic, worthy not of praise nor blame, driven out of Heaven and not accepted into Hell. They were true not to God, but to themselves only. “Their blind life so meanly passes, that all other lots they envy.”
Being apathetic, dull, and indifferent, their lives weren’t even lively enough to warrant entry into hell.
First circle of Hell: Limbo
This is where the virtuous mingle yet merit not the bliss of Paradise due to lack of baptism
Sees Homer and Socrates and Plato and Seneca and Euclid and Caesar and so forth. Him and his guide speak with them pleasantly.
Second circle (attachment?)
The stormy blasts of hell sweep around souls like Achilles and Cleopatra, and they cling to the winds despite their anguish
Why? “No greater grief than to remember days of joy, when misery is at hand.”
These are people who had great lives but are unable to let them go, and thus cling to the tormenting winds of misery
Third circle (gluttony)
The gluttonous are showered with rain and hail (doomed to eternal empty consumption) and fed to Cerberus who gobbles them up.
Fourth circle (avarice, greed)
In this circle, the greedy are attached to their hoards of money, doomed to endlessly roll their hoards up the inclined circle
“Not all the gold that is beneath the moon, or even hath been, or these toil-worn souls, much purchase rest for one.” o No amount of money will satiate their avarice
Fifth circle (wrath and anger)
“A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks betokening rage. They with their hands alone struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet, cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs.” o The relentless, self-inflicting nature of anger
“The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs into these bubbles make the surface heave […] fixed in the slime, they say, ‘Sad once were we, in the sweet air made gladsome by the sun. Carrying a foul and lazy mist within: Now in these murky settings are we sad.’” o Meditate on this.
Sixth circle (Dis)
Upon arrival to the gates of Dis, Dante is denied entry for he hath not yet died. “Who is this that, without death first felt, goes through the regions of the dead?”
Virgil is allowed in, and leaves Dante behind, though assuring him that he will return and by divine authority he will be let through. Dante, meanwhile, relishes the thought of being able to turn back and escape
Virgil’s plea to let Dante in is refused
Dante and Virgil observe Erynnis, the goddesses of vengeance and fury, clawing at each other.
An angel comes down and opens the gate for them. Upon entry is a path laden with the open tombs of arch-heretics (leaders of movements at odds with the status quo) and every sect of their following
When talking with one of the tombs: “We view, as one who hath an evil sight, plainly, objects far remote; so much of his large splendour yet imparts the Almighty Ruler: but when they approach, or actually exist, our intellect then wholly fails.”
The “evil” has a blinding reverence for the future that produces an ignorance for the present, such that when faced with the present they know not how to cherish it.
This is somewhat similar to the second circle of hell, where people are attached to the past. In this circle, they are attached to the future. Too far-sighted, they can’t see the good that sits before them in the present.
“Our knowledge in that instant shall expire, when on futurist the portals close.”
Before the 3 lower circles
Dante asks why the glutinous, avaricious, wrathful, and envious (of past and future) are spared from the lower rungs of hell. Virgil mentions how incontinence (lack of self-restraint) the least offends and is least incurring of guilt
With gluttony, greed, anger, and envy, we’re seemingly thrown around by these feelings as if puppets. Ignorance is shallow in these cases, and requires less intensive cleansing
Those lying in the lower circles are the fraudulent. There is a difference in the degree of intentionality, or equivalently, depth of ignorance and thus malice.
“He is indeed alive, and solitary so must needs by me be shown the gloomy vale, thereto induced by strict necessity, not by delight.”
7th Circle (Violence against God, Nature, and Art)
In the first portion of the 7th circle lie the merciless tyrants (those who committed violence into their neighbours), who are mercilessly shot by patrolling centaurs if they try to escape.
In the second portion are those who commit violence on themselves; those who commit suicide. They give their bodies away to hell, so their souls are turned into seeds and thrown into the woods where they grow into gnarled trees that harpies feed upon.
The static, rooted nature of their being may reflect the seemingly rooted and immutable despair we feel when suicidal.
“For what a man takes from himself it is not just he have.”
We can never take our “own” life. We are a social species, and thus our life invariably touches and belongs to a larger whole. In the selfish act of taking one’s life, we rob from the network in which we are interconnected. We rob our future and the potential relationships therein, which may not be as bad as the present may seem. We commit this robbery when we are lost without faith, rooted in the despair of our harrowing thoughts.
In the third portion are those who committed violence against God, Nature, and Art. Example of Capaenus is given, burned from hot sands below and rained by flakes of fire above. “As still he seems to hold, God in disdain, and sets high omnipotence at nought.”
“Thou by either party shalt be craved with hunger keen: but be the fresh herb far from the goat’s tooth.”
Cultivate goodness within yourself but be wary not to be used by those who crave it for personal benefit.
Dante sees his old teacher among those who have done violence to Nature, notably, sodomites (homosexuality or beastiality). They talk for a while, and his teacher sees him off to go tend to the group he was leading. Dante describes him as “of them he seemed not he who loses but who gains the prize.”
Dante briefly encounters those who committed violence against Art. He sees a few usurers (loan sharks), implying that excessive interest rates harm Art… (why?)
Geryon, or Fraud, takes them down to the 8th circle. Geryon is a winged beast with a wise inviting face in his upper half, but a serpent lower half. Misleadingly inviting and venomous
Eighth circle
In the first chasm are sexual deceivers (e.g., unfaithful, rapists, prostitutes). They are lashed and whipped endlessly by devils.
In the second chasm are flatterers (verbal deceivers), doomed to sink eternally in a stinking swamp. “Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk, wherewith I never enough could glut my tongue.”
In the third are those who practiced simony, i.e., using religion for monetary gain (i.e., paying for religious status or selling sacred objects for cash). They are doomed to stay face down in the soil with only their feet exposed to air, being burned by flames
In the fourth are clairvoyants/seers/astrologers. Their necks are turned 180 degrees, doomed to only see and walk backwards with horrifyingly painful gait.
In the fifth are barterers and those who misuse entrusted sums of money. They are doomed to be boiled in tar by demons.
The demons swarm Virgil, but Virgil claims he has divine will to cross through hell. Upon hearing this the head demon “fell his pride, that he let drop the instrument of torture at his feet.”
The pride-extinguishing nature of submitting to God and demanding humility.
In the sixth chasm are the hypocrites, who wear hoods and gowns “overlaid with gold, dazzling to view, but leaden all within, and of such weight, that Frederick’s compares to these were straw. Oh, everlasting wearisome attire!”
Caiaphas, who gave the Pharisees counsel that it was fitting for one man to suffer for the people (i.e., to nail Jesus to the cross), is himself nailed to the ground in a cross position.
Is he the archetypal hypocrite? Perhaps because he made Jesus to suffer but was a coward who was unable to suffer/sacrifice himself or his pride for his people. According to John 11:51-52 it states that “being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”
As they journey to the seventh chasm, Dante becomes exhausted. Virgil assures him that “for not…under shade of canopy reposing, fame is won; without which whosoe’er consumes his days, leaves to such vestige of himself on earth, as smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.” He then encourages him to “therefore rise: vanquish thy weariness by the mind’s effort, in each struggle form’d to vanquish…a longer ladder yet remains to scale.”
Be courageous. Cowards are forgotten.
In the seventh chasm are robbers, doomed to endless torment by venomous snakes. They meet Vanni Fucci, a robber who stole from a church and set up an innocent man who was then executed.
A thieving sinner undergoes a transformation, where a monster steals the body of the sinner, and the sinner transforms into the monster.
In the eighth chasm are evil counsellors, those who cowardly hid behind the pride of tyrants, enabling and enhancing the atrocities tyrants committed. They are each doomed to isolated pits deep below that bellow with flames
“Then, yielding to the forceful arguments, of silence as more perilous I deem’d, and answer’d: ‘Father, since this washest me clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall, large promise with performance scant, be sure, shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.”
Cowardly caving
An irony of hell seems to be that deeper self-interest leads to higher-status positions on earth, but lower status positions in hell. Balance. The further the depths of self interest, the deeper cleansing required to absolve us of our ignorance.
In the ninth chasm are those who seed scandal and schism. They are doomed to being maimed and chopped up, divided like how their counsel encouraged war and division
In the tenth chasm are alchemists and forgers, doomed to torment by pestilence, scratching their skin till their nails fall off and laying in repugnant filth.
False claims to transform riches from nothing are punished by transforming the richness of live into decay (pestilence)
Alchemists were frauds, using chemistry (magic at the time) to turn worthless iron into priceless gold. “I am Cappachio’s ghost, who forged transmuted metals by the power of alchemy; and if I can thee right, though needs must well remember how I aped creative nature by my subtle art.”
Ninth circle
The ninth circle has giants monitoring the perimeter. When speaking of the giants, “Nature, with her last hand left framing of these monsters…repent her not of the elephant and whale, who ponders well confesses her therein wiser and more discreet; for when brute force and evil will are back’d with subtlety, resistance none avails.”
The grand and imposing nature of giants makes their threat honest, what’s much more threatening are those who are small but deceptively cunning and harmful. An elephant provides an honest signal to avoid, but a parasite is more crafty and deceptive
Nimrod is doomed to blow a deafening horn that shackles him. He was the first lord, and ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel, that which caused inhabitants to stop understanding one another. “Nimrod is this, through whose ill counsel in the world no more one tongue prevails. But pass we on, nor waste our words; for so each language is to him, as his to others, understood by none.”
In the first round is a frozen lake inhabited by doomed souls, “Blue pinch’d and shrined in ice the spirits stood, moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.”
The ninth circle is about treachery against those we are close with. The first round has those who betray family and loved ones, second who betray politically or nationally, third who betray their guests (they are punished more harshly because of the belief that having guests means entering a voluntary relationship, and betraying a relationship willingly entered is more despicable than betraying a relationship born into), and the fourth is for betrayal against benefactors appointed by God.
In the first and second (betrayal of kin and country) is the tragic story of Ugolino locked in the tower of Pisa with his sons and forced into famine for political treachery. His sons die of hunger, after which he eats their bodies. “Fasting got the mastery of grief.” This man gnaws on the skull of his betrayer Ruggieri while in the frozen pools of Cocytus, compelled to devour even that which hath no substance.
In the third was friar Alberigo, who had his brother and nephew killed at a banquet in his home.
In the final are those who betrayed their benefactors and Lucifer himself, a giant, winged, three-headed beast who had two of Julius Caesar’s betrayers (Brutus and Cassius) in the mouths on the side, and the body of Judas (betrayer of Christ) in the middle.
Virgil and Dante escape and ascend the cave to reveal a starry sky, for night has passed and a new dawn arrives. They find their way out “discover’d not by sight, but by the sounds of brooklet, that descends this way along the hollow of a rock, which, as it winds with no precipitous course, the wave hath eaten. By that hidden way my guide and I did enter, to return to the fair world: and heedless of repose we climb’d, he first, I following his steps, till on our view the beautiful lights of heaven dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave; thence issuing we again beheld the stars.”
The path towards Good isn’t immediately obvious. It’s hard to see. We must listen closely. But if we follow that feeling, foregoing what is immediate and obvious, we are awarded with unfathomable beauty. This is faith.
Brahma, the God of Gods, humbly admits “What can I do? I can never lie, and I do not know every answer.”
Narayana, or Lord Vishnu, is the Soul of the Universe.
So, Indra the lord of earthly gods (fire, wind, earth, etc.) gets destroyed by the demon king Ravana, who can’t be killed by gods. He complains to Brahma, Brahma says go talk to Vishnu, and Vishnu splits into four and is reincarnated into a king’s four sons. The first son is Rama, second Bharata, and two twins
When the architect of heaven, Viswskarma, is asked whether he needs helpers to make a temple on Lanka for some Rakshasas, he replied “when the master carpenter no longer goes out into the forests to choose his own tree, when he no longer cuts it down himself and saws his own boards then say farewell to the arts!”
Risks of using technology to do all your doing and thinking for you
“Greet the days like new friends”
The Rakshasas, who were made a temple of Lanka by Viswakarman, eventually overflow the island, and spill out to the mainland and start eating humans. Narayana (Vishnu) comes down and destroys them, so they flee to underneath the ocean floor.
The God of treasure gets placed on Lanka now. Envious Rakshasas see this from below, and out of envy a daughter is sent to get pregnant with the Treasure God’s father. The daughter has Ravana, and three others, as children
Ravana the demon, has ten heads. He sacrifices one head every thousand years while in deep contemplation. At the ten thousandth year Brahma stops him from cutting off his last head, saying, “your will is dreadful, too strong to be neglected; like a bad disease I must treat it. Your pains make me hurt. Ask!” Ravana is then granted to be unslayable by gods or demons
Ravana and the Rakshasas take back the island. Ravana weds the Daughter of Illusion, and has a son Meghanada who burns like fire and changes form and appearance at will.
“In ignorance he drinks poison, in confusion he refuses the antidote.”
Ravana visits the luxurious Naga underworlds, filled with gems and minerals that shine brighter than heaven. Perhaps a symbolic representation of the distance that materialism has from a higher and more meaningful way of being. Our shiny toys seem heavenly on the surface, but they’re located in depths lacking in meaning
The king of Naga is Vasuki, the king of serpents. When confronting Ravana he is human waist up, and snake waist down. Similar to the monster Fraud in Dante’s Inferno who has a bearded human face that appears wise but with a serpentine lower half. Trustworthy on the surface, conniving below.
When Ravana comes knocking on the door of the Kingdom of Heaven to conquer it, Indra says, “I don’t care what anybody says, never will I take orders from that overbearing monster Ravana!” Pride was Indra’s downfall.
Ravana’s son captures Indra. Brahma comes to set Indra free, names the son Indrajit (conqueror of Indra), and grants him a wish. Indrajit first asks for immortality, but Brahma declines, claiming he is unable to provide that gift. Brahma is saving naive Indrajit from an eternal curse.
“Brahmana keep your temper; King, keep your word. Observe the defects of this world and do not add to them.”
“Desire and Wrath whom the gods cannot tame come bowing to me and gladly rub my feet.”
Describing Ahalya, the most beautiful woman: “Like the sun she could not be looked at too closely or for too long.”
Use Dharma as your shield, and Truth as your sword
“The opinions of disinterested men are different from the beliefs of a father, and the Truth may sometimes come out like Fire from friction between the two.”
“Dasaratha, you follow the Dharma-path walked by your ancestors, and thoughtless of your own happiness you protect us.”
Prudence. This is how we should treat our future selves, our future families, our future nations, the future of mankind, and the future of life on earth
The council states that the one reason they support Rama becoming king “is that if Rama says something to me I can believe it.”
Again, honesty reigning supreme.
When Kaikeyi, Bharata’s mother, asks Rama to leave and whether she has done right, Rama responds, “If you say you have, you have; I will believe you.”
Rama is very much like Alyosha in Brothers Karamazov here
“A wrong thrown at Rama seems to bring out no anger in him; it is like a seed thrown on stone.”
“Men must have laws, sometimes hard to follow, but harder to find once lost.”
“Many men are all talk and no deeds, all words and no wisdom, and what they don’t know of they think does not exist.”
Guha, king of the forest, recounts a story where a Shiva statue was gifted to him. He prayed to the tree god, and therefore kicked the statue everyday without fail, while Brahmanas from the city would come every so often to lay flowers. On the brink of death, Shiva saves him from Yama due to this devotion. Good or bad, his resilient faith still had him coming back to the statue, and outshined the more mildly devoted Brahmanas
Actions over words
“As a man’s deeds are good or evil so are the events which follow them, and which the man must face in their time. …Excited, mindlessly lured by pretty flowers on the branches, I came to expect a good yield. I looked forward to happiness but all the while I coveted delusion.”
Part 2: Sita’s rescue
“Behold Man, ignorant of his own ways in the world—now merrily drinking and dance, now blindly weeping all in tears.”
“Dharma leads to happiness, but happiness cannot lead to Dharma.”
The Valakhilyas were benign little deities that floated around the air like motes of dust. Despite their small size, they hold great power. They spawned the King of Birds Garuda, who is the mount of Narayana (Vishnu, the soul of the universe). He carries Lord Narayana on his back and never tires.
The sum of the small gives rise to the large.
Garuda’s father to him, “My boy, eat a little something before you try to fly to heaven and steal Amrita (nectar of immortality) from Indra. But never eat a man. Remember that.”
Strive for greatness, especially for those you love (he’s stealing amitra to free his mother). But do not tear down others down along the way.
“A real deer made of precious stones and gold Never yet lived in this world. Such a things cannot be; But Rama followed a golden deer And lost Sita.”
We lose those we love when we recklessly pursue illusions and idols (like jealous fantasies or social media ideals)
Hanuman the monkey is born from a woman and the god of Wind, Vayu. The mother leaves Hanuman, and he sits hungry and alone. When the sun rises, glowing orange like a mango, he flies up to eat it. Despite warning, he endures the fire of the sun and keeps trying to eat it. Finally, he’s thrown back down to earth by Indra, and breaks his jaw (why the jaw?).
Vayu is upset that his son is hurt, and the wind ceases to blow. All life stops, for without air life cannot flow. “Wind, you are breath. Having no heavy body you pass through all beings,” Brahma says to him. Brahma thus grants Hanuman a gift: “Hanuman…you will live as long as you wish to live; you cannot be killed.”
While Sugriva and Vali are fighting, despite Vali thinking Rama be fair and would not interfere, Rama hides and sends an arrow through Vali’s heart. His rationale is “when a weakling has been abused and has at last the chance to get even, he is allowed to leave the True.”
“The Truth upholds the fragrant Earth and makes the living water wet. Truth makes fire burn and the air move, makes the sun shine and all life grow. A hidden truth supports everything. Find it and win.”
When Rama ruminates about his loss of Sita, Lakshmana reminds him, “Better to act than wonder and dream,” and gets to work.
On their way to save Sita, Hanuman and the monkey and bear armies exhaustingly find themselves falling into a cave. It is a glorious cave filled with wine and wonders. “Once anyone enters this cave of illusions, especially by mistake, he can never return alive to Earth by his own power.”
They’re thankfully sent out, but upon exiting they realize much time has been lost, “through ignorance we entered Maya’s treeful cave underground and lost all the time…”
An example of hedonic pleasure being illusory and meaningless, and how it devours time without us even being aware of it.
“Oh, gold and silver found in the wild Are better than coins tamely won; Treasures found on a hunt are as good As the pleasures of fancy in heaven.”
“Like a storm Hanuman drove away low spirits, like a light he brought courage.”
Mainaka, the son of the Mountain King and brother to the River Goddess Ganga, recounts a story of how all mountains once had wings. They would fly around recklessly, causing much damage, so Indra cut off all their wings, and their wings became clouds.
Hanuman arrives to Lanka, and at midnight creeps around in search of Sita. What would normally be quiet time for human couples begins “the night-life of every enjoyment” for the Rakshasas.
Hanuman heard the “sounds of every enjoyment,” saw some who were “unbelievably handsome, others were maimed and deformed, repulsive and frightful even in their splendid clothes.”
He saw “demons who looked wise and powerful even when drunk and asleep with wine, with women, or with their arms round their beloved bags of gold.”
Hanuman follows his nose to find the Demon King. “Find the pleasures of the sense, and there find the Demon King.”
He must pass through the Demon King’s bedroom, whose bed is littered with thousands of the most beautiful women and whose tables are covered with the most delicious foods and lays dormant the fearsome Demon King himself. Hanuman must resist fear and temptation to continue his search for Sita.
The demonesses who console Sita become agitated and urge her to give in to Ravana. “Their eyes could see no more there than a prisoner unarmed, alone and powerless.” Sita refuses, and they retort with “We’ve put up with you so far just to help you! Our words to you are always well-meant, it’s for your own good, face reality…be happy! OR ELSE!”
A metaphor of well-meaning people who prioritize the happiness of others rather than the well-being of others. Seeing the strong as weak victims in need of saving. Weak, selfish, and cowardly. When someone shows them strength, as Sita does, it reminds them of their weakness, and they become enraged.
“Before true Love, the maces of Death are frail stage-weapons, fragile and useless for combat. Death gives way to Love and has never dared to way with him.”
“Her sadness had come and gone, as clouds will draw across the clear night sky, and cover the moonlight, and go again.”
Hanuman is captured, and Ravana claims Hanuman has “lost [his] weak wits from seeing the beauties of my city.” Hanuman replies, “I am the son of the Wind, fast or slow, irresistible in my course…what you call beauty won’t turn my head. I crossed the ocean, as a person without attachment to worldly desires easily crosses the ocean of existence.”
“Lanka is a celestial fortress, a joyful city of heavenly beauty taken by demons. She is artificial but looks natural…she is the jewel mirror of arts and inventions and the home of happiness in comfort.”
Hedonic illusion
Ravana’s brother, Vibhishana, urges him to give back Sita, but Ravana fueled by pride is unable to do so. Vibhishana leaves and works with Rama. King Sugriva doesn’t trust Vibhishana, but Hanuman urges him that “withdrawing from Lanka proves his wisdom.”
Those who manage to part ways from a life of indulgence and towards the truth may be considered wise.
“One must blame the blameworthy and favor the good wherever they appear. Lowly people who know everything may follow their suspicions, but when someone seeks my refuge he cannot be slain, he will be saved though it will cost my life.”
Ravana first summons shapeshifting spies to gather information about the incoming army, and then directs his magicians, “by spells of deception and illusion make for me by magic the severed head of Rama.” He proceeds to lie to Sita about the defeat of the army.
Again, deception, illusion, and dishonesty being a commonly used sin of the cardinal sinner
“Weapons are a sign of fear made visible, and we are afraid.”
“The waking world of impermanence, of suffering, and unreality.”
“The happiness of others is light for the spirit but you have darkened the worlds.”
“You grew strong by following Dharma and by sacrifice…yet once on the throne of power you slighted Dharma, you had no courtesy towards life…Now your wrongs devour us.”
Ravana to Time: “Be careful, turn and go, back away from Ravana who will fight and die for love—for Good Love never dies…” Time: “How’d you find that out!?”
Rama kills Ravana, and Ravana’s messenger delivers Ravana’s final letter to Rama. Ravana claims that this was his final offering, “I offered you my life and you accepted it.” He also claims that Rama is all these things, “You are Narayana who moves on the waters and flows through us all…and Hanuman like the wind…And born as a man you forget this, you lose the memory, and take on man’s ignorance, as you will, every time.”
“I don’t respect the floating borders of Earth, I travel where I will, I love everyone. My friend the Moon has known this for long lifetimes, I am the Sun, All the same. Ancient stories. Ancient Sunpoems.”
Sun, “You reveal all things to me; you show me what they truly are…You feed us all; every garden grow by your light. All our energy is yours…If there are clouds you are always behind them…How can I be sad? Am I blind? The Sun shines on me. This very I stand have I won brilliance for my wealth.”
“It is Truth, we think, that moves the Sun across the sky.”
Valmiki’s song: “*Trust and be True: Serve Right as I serve You” —says the Sun
“What can one count on, except that whatever one has, it will soon be gone? Better to do right.”
“Rama, from the portion of gentleness in you, people call you a part of the Moon.”
Gods keep referring to Rama as Narayana, but Rama questions why. They are all bewildered that he’s forgotten he’s Vishnu. They also reveal that Sita is Lakshmi, the God of good fortune (Vishnu’s wife)
“Please yourself. Tell the truth and be tranquil.”
Vibhishana to Hanuman: “You are faithful and very wise, when you stop to think. You put your whole heart into what you do; and you don’t think twice when you’ve made up your mind, nor seek for any gain, so I call you my friend.”
Book 7
After ten thousand year of rule, Rama asks his ministers what his kingdom thinks of him, for “people tread in their king’s footsteps, so I must avoid even the report of any wrong.” The ministers urge him to not “seek wisdom from coarse common people, but forget their talk; pity them their ignorance and trust in things to turn out right.”
Rama replies with “Those who live uneventfully at home with their wives and families may along really know life.”
The people doubt Sita’s faithfulness, and this tarnishes the reputation of the king, which tarnishes the quality of the kingdom. Rama cannot ignore this, despite him knowing that Sita was faithful.
“Where there is growth there is decay; where there is prosperity there is ruin; and where there is birth there is death.”
Rama orders Lakshmana to abandon Sita at river Ganga.
Sumantea the charioteer tells the story of how Kaikeyi earned her two wishes. She rode the chariot for the King in their way against the Asuras of drought. Kaikeyi could “feel an enemy’s shortcoming; she felt when to draw near, when to stay and when to turn away.” She saves the King at some point and is granted the two wishes.
Did she sense deep down Ravana’s weakness and that Rama was capable of defeating him if he were to be banished?
To finish of the Asura demons of draught, Narayana is called in. He demolishes them, and they run to cover in Ayodhya, in the house of a brahmana. The wife of the brahmana lets them in, and they surrender. Narayana flies by enraged, kills the innocent wife, and slices the heads off the demons.
Vasistha the priest, enraged, curses Narayana “to be born on earth, in a royal family rich and wise, a family most honoured and kind, and once born to be parted from his wife as he had broken that brahmana’s marriage.”
Brahmanas follow the rule to make things right in other worlds
Those other worlds are the past, to ensure our actions honour our ancestors, and the future, to ensure our actions build and do not break our offspring
“He warred in the loss of love through unkindness and the fetters of wrong desire; he fought for freedom by blasting the chains of attachment; he killed deceptions with words that released the spirit.”
“I give up owning the world’s gear. I give up thirst for things to find true love, that never fades.”
“‘What are the limits of your realm?’ ‘Well, my kingdom is not these fields, it might be the city.’ ‘Where?’ ‘No, I see nothing of mine there. Surely then, my own body must be my kingdom, and I will look.’ ‘What do you find?’ …’Even this body is not mine, this I am not. It is no part of me. Or else—I rule all space, for I do not hold onto the sounds that enter these ears; I rule all land, for I desire no scents but let them come and go; I rule the waters for I do not grasp at any taste; my eye does not cling to light and colors and so I rule all fire; I care not for any touch, nor do I avoid it, and so I rule the air and winds…’”
When we cling we become slaves, bound in chains of attachment. Claiming special control over a kingdom, or your own body, is always false, for these boundaries blend with everything else. These boundaries are symptoms of attachment; we erect them as illusions and get frustrated when they topple over.
“Dissolution is the end of all things compounded out of the elements and each man fares according to his deeds.”
“You are forever older than I, and so I call you Father.”
Time to Rama. Implying the soul of the universe preceded time itself. Time was borne out of this ever-flowing energy
Rama, before he passes, gifts Hanuman an invaluable and rare bracelet. Hanuman breaks it to bits and claims, “Lord, though this bracelet looked expensive it was really worthless, for nowhere on it did it bear your name.”
Metaphor for the emptiness of material wealth
“Everything counts, and so be kind. Do not dare lie politely with casual unmeant promises, for Indrajit always believes that you will mean what you say to him.”
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
Part 1
“But now in July…everything is at its alivest and every foot of these sloughs is humming and cricking and buzzing and chirping, a whole community of millions of living things living out their lives in a kind of benign continuum.”
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’”
On the topic of the new faster-paced radio, tv, and movies, “Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep.”
“‘What’s new?’ is a broadening and eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow…’What is best?’…cuts deep rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream.”
“Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose…and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfilment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.”
“What you see in the NO TRESPASSING, KEEP OUT signs is not anything serving people but little people, like ants, serving these strange, incomprehensible shapes. And you think, even if I were a part of this, even if I were not a stranger, I would be just another ant serving the shapes.”
“I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then the physical discomfort doesn’t mean much.”
When we’re unsatisfied with where we find ourselves, we blame our pain for the dissatisfaction so we can escape. We don’t blame the dissatisfaction itself, or where we find ourselves. If you can foster a healthy relationship with the here and now—where you find yourself—you’ll tolerate the pain.
Talking about his old crusty riding gloves, “[They are] impractical, but practicality isn’t the whole things with gloves or with anything else.”
Utility isn’t everything.
“He isn’t so interested in what things mean as in what they are.”
Human understanding can be divided into two kinds: classical and romantic. Classical sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. Romantic sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.
A romantic may see a blueprint as dull, just a list of names and lines and numbers. A classical may be fascinated, seeing that the lines and shapes and symbols represent a tremendous richness of underlying form
Romantic is inspirational, imaginative, creative, and intuitive, not governed by immediate reason or intelligible laws; classical (economic, unemotional, straightforward) proceeds by reason and laws, dominated by fields of medicine, law, and science. Motorcycle riding is romantic; motorcycle maintenance is classic.
Classical understanding’s purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known
Classical understanding is what births the industrial death force. Overbearing and oppressive. Romantic, however, seems frivolous, pleasure-seeking, shallow, no substance. “Often a parasite who cannot or will not carry his own weight. A real drag on society.”
Apollo versus Dionysus
With a classical approach you can break down the motorcycle into parts and functions, describing “what” a motorcycle is, and the “how”, that is, how the “whats” come together and produce “it.”
This classical breakdown reveals the following: 1) these understandings are subject-less. We care only about objects which are independent of any observer. 2) With no observer, these objects are value-free. Notions of “good” and “bad” are absent. 3) Objects depend on a knife, how we divide them up. “You get the illusion that all those parts are just there and are being named as they exist. But they can be named quite differently and organized quite differently depending on how the knife moves.”
“From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it.”
Then the mutated world of which we are conscious is further discriminated with the knife, dividing into this and that.
We hold a pile of sand that looks uniform but can find differences and endlessly sort each grain by feature similarities. “Classical understanding is concerned with the piles and the basis for sorting and interrelating them. Romantic is directed toward the handful of sand before the sorting begins. Both are valid ways of looking at the world although irreconcilable with each other.”
Reductionist versus holistic thought
Talks of the necessity to unite these two modes of understanding without diminishing either, rejecting neither sand-sorting nor contemplation of unsorted sand. Instead, attention must be directed to the endless landscape from which the handful of sand is scooped.
“When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.”
Every revelation is the hiding of something else
When something is killed, something else is created. This process of death-birth continuity is neither good nor bad, it just is.
“This is the ghost of normal everyday assumption which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer.”
“They must have been thinking about how bad all this is. That’s what’s really wearing them down. The thought.”
Part 2
“A study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.”
“If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.”
Finding one’s way through systemic hierarchies and understanding them is through logic
Logic can be inductive or deductive. Induction starts top down, observing some pattern and implying causality due to that pattern. Deduction is bottom up, looking at the hierarchy of facts and asking what they produce in a given situation. The scientific method is the interweaving of induction and deduction to further understanding of a system
“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t led you into thinking you know something that you don’t actually know.”
If a man conducts an elaborate gee-whiz science experiment but knows beforehand what the outcome will be, it is not science. It is an artistic rendition of what gives rise to scientific discovery, however without discovery—without learning—it is not science.
The paradox of scientific truth: the lifespan of a scientific truth is inversely proportional to the amount of scientific activity surrounding that truth. More activity reveals a new truth, which reveals more ignorance, which reveals more truths, which brings us further from an unchanging, universal Truth—to instead a dynamic, chaotic series of perishable truths.
“The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths…Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories, and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones…Science produces antiscience—chaos.”
When raising this question to peers, he was met with dismissive disinterest, “the scientific method is valid, why question it?” And because he wasn’t a student of science for personal or utilitarian reasons, this just stopped him completely.
“He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for control of individuals in the service of these functions.”
Like the individual cells composing a multicellular organism
“There’s no real profit to be made from wandering through [the high country of the mind], yet like the high country of the material world all around us, it has its own austere beauty that to some people make the hardships of travelling through it seem worthwhile.”
“In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty, and to the enormous magnitude of the questions asked and the proposed answers.”
All knowledge comes from sensory impressions, not the raw sensory data itself.
“A priori concepts have their origins in human nature so that they’re neither caused by the sensed object nor bring it into being, but provide a kind of screening function for what sense data we will accept.” When we blink, our sense data momentarily tells us the world disappeared, but a priori experience tells us the world is continuous and filters the data.
Embedded in our biological organisation is the memory of past spatial and temporal experience. Patterns of space and time are conserved by our body, and those conserved, perpetuated patterns (intuitions) paint how we come to understand the world
When I look at a motorcycle from one angle, the sensory information of components and material tell me it’s a motorcycle, but if I look at it from another angle, the sensory data tells me they’re a motorcycle, but not necessarily the same motorcycle. What unifies these two views? What maintains this continuity? Intuition. History. Time and space.
“…the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.”
He calls the university the Church of Reason. Citizens who build a religious church and pay for it probably have in mind that they’re doing this for the community. However, a priest’s primary goal is to serve God, not his community. Normally there’s no conflict, but occasionally one creeps in when trustees oppose the minister’s sermons and threaten reduction of funds. Like the priest, a professor’s primary goal is to serve, through reason, the goal of truth—not his community. Normally this goal does not diminish local citizenry, but occasionally conflict arises (as in the case of Socrates), where trustees and legislators who’ve contributed to the university take points of view in opposition to the professor’s lectures. They can then lean on administrators by threatening to cut off funds if the professors don’t say what they want to hear.
Despite his lack in faith in scientific reason, he had a fanatic faith towards it. “You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one fanatically shouts that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow.” When we’re fanatically dedicated to religious or political faiths or dogmas or goals, it’s because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
In doubt by whom? He’s in doubt, so he chases certainty. But some people seem so certain of their faith. Their fanaticism seems to be brought by the doubt of outsiders, not their own. It feels like a fanatical reaction to preserve a dogma, rather than a reaction that their dogma may not be true. Perhaps threats open a realization of doubt that we frantically want to close. But do we want to close the hole of doubt in others (their lack in faith), or ourselves (our lack in faith)?
“It’s not technology that’s scary. It’s what it does to the relations between people, like callers and operators, that’s scary.”
An expanding interconnection that brings nodes farther apart. Work from home technology expands, reaches out. But it creates distance between coworkers. Scary. Bizarre. Isolating.
“The beer and sun begin to toast my head like a marshmallow. Very nice.”
“The glow of fire is matched by an inner glow from the wine and fish…”
“Science works with chunks and bits and pieces of things with the continuity presumed, and [Art] works only with the continuities of things with the chunks and bit and pieces presumed.”
Science breaks things up, emphasizing the parts, and assumes they connect. Further analysis need not be done on the continuity, because of course there’s continuity. Art emphasizes the connections, the continuity, and assumes the parts need no further analysis, because they’re just parts! The whole deserves the attention!
“If you don’t have [serenity] when you start and maintain [your material object, e.g., bicycle] while you’re working, you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself…the material object…can’t be right or wrong…they don’t have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you.”
“Technology presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is…but if you have to choose among an infinite number of ways to put it together then the relation of the machine to you, and the relation of the machine and you to the rest of the world, has to be considered, because the selection from among many choices, the art of the work is just as dependent upon your own mind and spirit as it is upon the material of the machine. That’s why you need peace of mind.”
Art manifests in the bringing to order an infinitude of possibilities. Subject bleeds into object in this ordering. Object bleeds into subject. The subject has feelings that can distort the object, but the object can’t reciprocate…there’s an imbalance there.
“Prints are of art and not art themselves.”
AI art will follow suit
What is quality? What makes something better? Where does this sense of betterness come from?
Part 3
“Most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.”
College demands imitation and stifles originality. This imitation is sophisticated—the safest bet is to imitate the professor while trying to convince them you’re not imitating, carrying the essence of the instruction on your own. That got you A’s. Originality is less incentivized; carrying your own essence is risky and can get you an A or F
Universities have a tendency to imitate education, “glossed over and concealed by grades and degrees that give the appearance of something happening when, in fact, almost nothing is going on.”
“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow…But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides. It’s the top that defines the sides.”
The man who climbs the mountain for ego fulfillment is never in the here and now, and thus missteps, stumbles. His mind is forever elsewhere, distant. He rejects the here and now, and wants to be farther up trail, but when he arrives he will be just as unhappy because it (his goal) will be here.
“When an ego-climber has an image of himself to protect he naturally lies to protect this image.”
Does Quality lie in the object? Or is it subjective? Quality (goodness) isn’t measurable by scientific instruments, so if it rests in the object it can’t be detected. If it’s subjective, it can be whatever the subject wants it to be, yet most people can agree and point to Quality.
The author argues that Quality doesn’t rest in relationship with solely object or subject. It can be found only in the relationship of the two with each other. Quality is not a thing, it is an event. Subject cannot exist without object since objects create a subject’s relationship with himself. Quality is the event where awareness of both subject and object is made possible.
The Quality event causes both subject and object, a gravity that interlinks them and sparks awareness. Quality is not an effect of subject or object. It is the cause.
“The silence allows you to do each thing right.”
Romantic quality correlates with instantaneous impressions; classic quality with multiple considerations over time. Romantic quality is about the here and now; classic quality about the relation of the present thing to its past and future. A romantic might say, if your motorcycle is working, why worry about it? A classic would consider the neglect of past or future as bad Quality; the bike may be working now, but how’s its oil level?
“A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality.”
Technological hopelessness is caused by the lack of care—the absence of the perception of quality, both from technologists and anti technologists.
“By returning our attention to Quality it is hoped that we can get technological work out of the noncaring subject-object dualism and back into craftsmanlike self-involved reality again”
“Our structured reality is preselected in the basis of value, and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding of the value source from which it’s derived.”
“And when you really understand dynamic reality you never get stuck. It has forms but the forms are capable of change.”
Quality leads us from what things are to what they do and why they do it, a melting of static division into continuous process.
“Nature has a non-Euclidean geometry of her own that seems to soften the deliberate objectivity of these buildings with a kind of random spontaneity that architects would do well to study.”
The sagging of straight lines, the soft weathering of once uniform paint, the sprouts of greenery from cracks in concrete.
Technology is the making of things, which can’t be ugly in itself because the making of things can produce beautiful art. Actually, the Greek root of technology, techno, means art. In Ancient Greece, art and the making of things (manufacture) were inseparable
“It’s the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has even told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.”
“When one isn’t dominated by feelings of separateness from what he’s working one, then one can be said to ‘care’ about what he’s doing. That is what caring really is, a feeling of identification with what one’s doing.”
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
Political programs are end products of social quality, built from social values that are built from individual values. We need to get the individual values right to make meaningful change in the right direction. “Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think what I have to say has more lasting value.”
The Greek word enthousiasmos means filled with theos, or God, or Quality.
“To run a cycle with parts in it you’ve made yourself gives you a special feeling you can’t possibly get from strictly store-bought parts.”
When you can function clear-headed without the help of store-bought supplements. Or when you’ve cultivated a unique way of thought by studying material you’re drawn to, not that someone programs to you. When you’ve created and cared for the raw material that supports you, you feel more at home with yourself.
“Of the value traps, the most widespread and pernicious is value rigidity. This is an inability to revalue what one sees because of commitment to precious values…You must rediscover what you do as you go. Rigid values makes this impossible…If your values are rigid you can’t really learn new facts.”
“Watch it the way you watch a line when fishing and before long, as sure as you love, you’ll get a little nibble, a little fact asking in a timid, humble way if you’re interested in it.”
The South Indian monkey trap: a coconut filled with rice is chained to a stake. The coconut has an opening large enough for a hand but small enough to stop a fist. When a monkey tries to take a handful of rice, his fisted hand gets stuck, and villagers swarm him. He rigidly values the rice over his freedom, and this rigidity masks the facts made available to him. We hold on to certain facts, and in certain contexts we’d be wise to reevaluate and open ourselves to more perspectives.
“If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened. Your ego isolates you from the Quality reality.”
When we inflate the self, what we’re working on doesn’t see that inflation, it sees the real self. This leads to the inevitable reflection of our underwhelming self in our product, leading to discouragement and disappointment
Science grows by “maybe” more than yes or no answers. Yes or no confirms hypotheses, maybe says the answer is beyond the hypotheses. “Maybe” inspires scientific enquiry in the first place!
“You want to know how to make the perfect painting? It’s easy. Just make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.”
The drivers of cars, driving the maximum they can get away with, are trapped into thinking about where they want to be rather than where they are. With this mindset, they never arrive.
Part 4
“The metal of these wrenches is so cold it hurts the hands. But it’s a good hurt. It’s real, not imaginary, and it’s here, absolutely, in my hand.”
“Quality isn’t method. It’s the goal toward which method is aimed.”
“I have no resentment at [tourist attractions], just a feeling that it’s all unreal and the quality of the [attraction] is smothered by the fact that it’s so pointed to. You point to something having Quality and the Quality tends to go away.”
“Religion isn’t invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent responses to quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they themselves are.”
Sure, men create myths and stories and rituals. But why do they create them? Quality guides our creations, sourcing our creative energy.
“People who can’t stand Aristotle’s endless specificity of detail are natural lovers of Plato’s soaring generalities. People who can’t stand the eternal loft idealism of Plato welcome the down-to-earth facts of Aristotle.”
“…Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians (those who try to persuade others towards something better) was a part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the dialecticians (those who logically decompose things via analysis), were engage in a huge struggle for the future mind of man. Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why we have so little difficulty accepting the reality of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than in the other.”
Nous in Greek or Latin means “mind”, or “intelligence.”
“Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealist and materialists would say…He is a participant in the creation of all things.”
‘Virtue’, at least in modern English, is almost entirely a moral word; aretê, on the other hand, is used indifferently in all the categories, and simply means excellence…Aretê implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialization. It implies a contempt for efficiency—or rather a much higher idea of efficiency, an efficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself. - quote by Kitto
A fundamental postulate of sociology is that a human institution cannot rest upon error and falsehood; if it did, it could not endure. If it had not been grounded in the nature of things, those very things would hinder its perpetuation.
Disagree. Institutions can rest in falsehood, so long as that falsehood provides an adaptive benefit. In the short term, this can work; it’s true, however, that long term those falsehoods will clash with reality. The human condition itself—the biological condition even—is rested on falsehood: each biological agent acts under the inherent assumption that they—or their offspring—are the most important biological agent there is. Otherwise, they would cease to exist.
“But we must know how to reach beneath the symbol to grasp the reality it represents and that gives the symbol its true meaning.”
Durkheim calls religions true insofar as they all fulfill a human need
“Religious representation are collective representations that express collective realities; rites are ways of acting that are born only in the midst of assembled groups and whose purpose it’s to evoke, maintain, or recreate certain mental states of those groups.”
“A calendar expresses the rhythm of collective activity while ensuring its regularity.”
How has reason gained the power to outperform empirical cognition? Note some mysterious virtue, “but simply to the fact that…man is double. In him are two beings: an individual being that has its basis in the body and whose sphere of action is strictly limited by this fact, and a social being that represents within us the highest reality in the intellectual and the moral realm that is knowable through observation.
Societies/religions “appear as ingenious instruments of thought, which human groups have painstakingly forged over centuries, and in which they have amassed the best of their intellectual capital. A whole aspect of human history, in a way, is summed up in them.”
Book One: Preliminary questions
Chapter 1: Definition of religious phenomena and of religion
“Religious conceptions aim above all to express and explain not what is exceptional and abnormal but what is constant and regular.”
This reminds of an analogy Tolstoy made, where what is remembered by history is that which grabs the most attention (the exceptional and abnormal). History is like a forest, and the attention grabbing stuff is what we see on the horizon of the forest’s surface (the leaves and trunks), and to characterize a forest by its leaves is to miss the dense activity that occurs beneath.
“Any notions that equates religion with the unexpected [the supernatural] is wide of the mark.”
Religions do not require belief in spiritual beings. Consider Buddhism, with its four noble truths: 1) the existence of suffering is tied to the perpetual change of things; 2) suffering is caused by desire; 3) the only way to end suffering is to suppress desire; and 4) uprightness, meditation, and wisdom (full knowledge of the doctrine) must be followed to approach nirvana.
Desire implies that there is a time (that is not the present) at which you will be more happy, which means you must be less happy with the present.
There are rites without gods, and the belief with these rites is that they produce the desired result. These rites would have sustained themselves owing to their efficacy. If they proved non-efficacious and did not generate the desired results, the movements executed would either be deemed poorly performed or the rite would be dropped.
Religions involve beliefs and rites—action motivated by those beliefs.
A fundamental religious belief is the duality of the sacred and profane. Man creates a chasm between these two, for if they mingle the water is muddied and confusion is introduced in what to strive for or avoid, but they both also need each other, for without the profane there would be no need for the sacred, and the worship of the sacred is what defines religions.
Yin and yang
“Religious beliefs are those representations that express the nature of sacred things and the relations they have with other sacred things or with profane things. Finally, rites are rules of conduct that prescribe how man must conduct himself with sacred things.”
“When a number of sacred things have relations of coordination and subordination with one another, so to form a system that has coherence and does not belong to any other system of the same sort, then the beliefs and rite, taken together, constitute a religion.”
Religious beliefs proper are always shared across the group and practiced together. “The individuals comprising the group feel joined to one another by the fact of common faith.”
A Church is not just a brotherhood—a college of priests cloistered from a community is no different than a private cult, it is a moral community composed of all that are faithful, priests and commoners alike.
Durkheim’s definition of religion: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and oracles which unit into one single moral community called a Church.”
Chapter 2: The leading conceptions of the elementary religion
Animism
One theory for animism involves the idea of souls (that can posses us or others) arising due dreaming. Used as a way to explain dreaming, the theory goes that the soul roams around while the dreamer sleeps. Durkheim refutes this. Our dreams involve others, but if we were to ask others whether their souls saw ours in the dream, the dreams wouldn’t coincide. Also, just because we don’t understand something, doesn’t mean we feel the need to explain it. The Sun was thought to be only several feet in diameter for much of humanity’s history. If the unknown about something does nothing to hinder us, the unknown can remain hidden for all we care.
“Man is in relationship not only with a physical milieu, but also with a social milieu that is infinitely more extensive, stable, and powerful than those to whose influence animals are subject. In order to live, then, he must adapt to it.”
“Once anger is aroused by the pain, it seeks something on which to discharge itself; the anger naturally goes to the very same thing that provoked it, even though that thing can do nothing.”
Australian and North American native cultures suggest that the religious man likely started out not by seeing the image of man in things, but seeing himself in the image of things (like other plants and animals)
The elementary words in ancient societies have tended to be verbs, particularly those relevant to human action: striking, pushing, lifting, climbing, etc. “Man generalized and named his principal modes of action before generalizing and naming the phenomena of nature.”
In order to maintain itself for a considerable amount of time, an idea or practice must be practically true, that is, an idea that is theoretically incorrect but that still confers benefits that sustain the believer.
“Let us therefore guard against differentiating among religious beliefs, keeping some because they seem just and wholesome, to us, and rejecting others as unworthy of being called religious because they offend and unsettle us. All myths, even those we find most unreasonable, have been objects of faith. Man believed in them no less than in his own sensations; he regulated his conduct in accordance with them. Despite appearances, therefore, they cannot be with objective foundation.”
Durkheim claims awe probably wouldn’t have stimulated early religious growth. Primitive humans had not developed science to the extent we had, and thus did not have access to its modesty enhancing nature. They thought they had dominion over the natural world: unchain the wind, force rain to fall, etc.
Deified natural phenomena in earliest religions were not related to the sun, the moon, the sky (this came about more recently), but to humble plants and animals that the humans were in constant relationship with and on equal footing with.
Chapter 4: Totemism as elementary religion
Book 2: the elementary beliefs
Chapter 1: the principal totemic beliefs
“While the Australian has quite a strong inclination to represent his totem, he does not do so in order to have a portrait before his eyes that perpetually renews the sensation of it; he does so simply because he feels the need to represent the idea he has by means of an outward physical sign, no matter what that sign may be.”
Early totems were and symboles derived from it were not precise for some Australians like they were in America. Symbols could even change, but the clan members’ attitudes towards it would remain constant.
Images of totemic beings are more sacred than the totemic being itself. If the being is a kangaroo, the religious paraphernalia symbolizing the kangaroo is more sacred. Women and uninitiated children (belonging to the profane) may touch a kangaroo, but are under no circumstances allowed to touch the paraphernalia or partake in religious ceremony
In primitive australian clans, “There is no religious ceremony in which blood does not have some role to play.” Blood is seen as sacred, elders may spread their sacred blood on the initiated, or the penis blood from a subincision may be collected and buried somewhere. Women are forbidden from coming anywhere near these rituals.
The early Australian indigenous considered “the universe as a large tribe to one of whose divisions he belongs; and all things that are classified in the same group as he, both animate and inanimate, are parts of the body of which he himself is a part.” The divisions are drawn based on different human social organizations, i.e., tribes. The crow clan may belong to a division with rain and thunder, while the pelican clan with fire and frost.
Durkheim claims that “society furnished the canvas on which logical thought has worked.” An example is that to categorize inanimate and animate into hierarchies requires some notion of hierarchy itself, which doesn’t really exist in benign nature. Hierarchy is more constrained to human society, where superiors, subordinates, and equals exist. He claims that the notion of hierarchical classification could not exist without society
Totemic tribes were not separated and completely autonomous, worshipping their own totem while ignoring the rest. Instead, all totems implied the others, being “only one part of the same whole, an element of the same religion. The men of a clan in no way regard the beliefs of the neighbouring clans with indifference, skepticism, or hostility that is ordinarily inspired by a religion to which one is a stranger; they themselves share the beliefs.”
Among the sexes of tribes in Australia, there is a tendency for each sex to have their own totem, each descended from a legendary couple. “Each sex not only honors its totem but also forces the members of the other sex to do so as well. Any violation of this prohibition gives rise to a real and bloody battles between men and women.”
Chapter 5: Origins of these beliefs
North American aboriginals conceptualized “god” as mana, wakan, or one of many other names. This was a sort of force that flowed through all things, causing active movement and passive resistance. If man was thriving, it was because he had much mana. If a prey evaded a predator, it was because the prey was rich in mana
Two key ideas to aboriginal faith: all things are imbued with a common life-principle, and life is continuous. “This common life-principle is wakan. The totem is the means by which the individual is put in touch with that source of energy.” If the totem has powers, it is only because wakan flows through it
The Australian conception of manas/wakan was more narrow, applying to all things. But, their conception of all things was more constrained and local.
In early Australian totemism, “cults are juxtaposed but not interpenetrating. The totem of a clan is fully sacred only for that clan…Each of them is imagined as being irreducible to similar groups that are radically discontinuous with it and constitutions what amounts to a distinct realm. Under these conditions, it would occur to no one that these heterogeneous worlds were only different manifestations of one and the same fundamental force.”
Much like the religious landscape of today.
While manas, the life force, is heterogeneous and coloured by tribal boundaries, magical death forces are homogenous and float above the divisions and subdivisions of social organization.
“The totemic cult proper is addressed neither to such and such definite animals nor to such and such definite plants but to a sort of diffuse power that permeates things.”
The totem expresses two things: a visible symbolic expression of the totemic principle or god, and a visible mark of distinctiveness that distinguishes one society from another. “Thus, if the totem is the symbol of both for and the society, is this not because the god and the society are one and the same?…Thus the god of the clan, the totemic principle, can be none other than the clan itself, but the clan transfigured and imagined in the physical form of the plant or animal that serves as totem.”
“A society is to its members what a god is to its faithful.”
A god is a being that “man conceives as superior to himself and one on whom he believes he depends…Society also fosters in us the sense of perpetual dependence.”
“Precisely because society has its own specific nature that is different from our nature as individuals, it pursues ends that are also specifically its own; but because it can achieve those ends only by working through us, it categorically demands our cooperation. Society requires us to make ourselves its servants, forgetful of our own interests. And it subjects us to all sorts of restraints, privations, and sacrifices without which social like would be impossible. And so, at every instant, we must submit to rules of action and thought that we have neither made nor wanted and that sometimes are contrary to our inclinations and to our most basic instincts.”
These sacrif may be physically imposed, but in society they tend to be psychologically imposed. Rather than physical coercion, society works through our consciousness, guiding our actions via a sort of moral influence. This feels right, this feels wrong. God generates those feelings; the hands of god mould us into what interest the society
“It is society that speaks through the mouths of those who affirm [moral opinions] in our presence; it is society that we hear when we hear them; and the voice of all itself has a tone that an individual voice cannot have.”
“Some will object that science is often the antagonist of opinion, the errors of which it combats and corrects. But science can succeed in this task only if it has sufficient authority, and it can gain such authority only from opinion itself. All the scientific demonstrations in the world would have no influence if a people had no faith in science. Even today, if it should happen that science resisted a very powerful current of public opinion, it would run the risk of seeing its credibility eroded.”
“Because social pressure makes itself felt through mental channels, it was bound to give man the idea that outside him there are one or several powers, moral yet mighty, to which he is subject. Since they speak to him in a tone of command, and sometimes even tell him to violate his most natural inclinations, man was bound to imagine them as being external to him. […] the ordinary observer cannot see where the influence of society comes from. It moves along channels that are too obscure and circuitous, and uses psychic mechanisms that are too complex, to be easily traced to the source.”
Speaks of collective effervescence, but also of those who speak to and on behalf of large groups. Durkheim claims they tend to become “impatient of limits and slip easily into every kind of extreme.” And how couldn’t they; the thrust of a massive group flows through them as they speak. “It is then no longer a mere individual who speak but a group incarnated and personified.”
“We cannot help but feel that this [moral thrust generated by society that we feel within ourselves] has an external cause, though we do not see where that cause it or what it is. So we readily conceive of it in the form of a moral power that, while immanent in us, also represents something in us that is other than ourselves.”
Durkheim explains how we speak languages we did not create, inherit knowledge we did not amass ourselves, and so on. With this inheritance we feel a sense of majesty and awe for the large forces of society. “Because we feel the weight of them, we have no choice but to locate them outside ourselves, as we do for the objective causes of our sensations.” But, simple physical sensations do not bear this immense weight, and so are not considered sacred as are the forces of society.
“If society should happen to become infatuated with a man, believing it has found in him its deepest aspiration as well as the means of fulfilling them, then that man will be put in a class by himself and virtually deified. Opinion will confer on him a grandeur that is similar in every way to the grandeur that protects the gods.”
In a similar way to men, ideas become subject to society’s infatuation. “When a belief is shared unanimously by a people, to touch it—that is, to deny or question it—is forbidden.”
The life of the Australian Aboriginal divides into two phases: 1) monotonous, somewhat solitary economic activity to sustain one’s family; 2) religious congregations. In stark contrast to the monotony of the economic phase, religious congregations are met with incredible excitement that overwhelm tribe members, causing them to howl and bite and throw dust in excitement. During the ceremonies, they howl and sing in unison, and strike shields as drums in hopes to represent their awesome psychic feelings.
During these congregations, participants often get carried away. Typical taboos , like the intermingling of the sexes (which during normal times remain separate), trading of wives, and the odd engagement in incestuous relations (which are normally strictly forbidden)
Sounds like the typical rave
“It is not difficult to imagine that a man in such a state of exaltation should no longer know himself. Feeling possessed and led on by some sort of external power that makes him think and act differently than he normally does, he naturally feels he is no longer himself. It seems to him that he has become a new being. The decorations with which he is decked out, and the masklike decorations that cover his face, represent this inward transformation even more than they help bring it about. And because his companions feel transformed in the same way at the same moment, and express this feeling by their shouts, movements, and bearing, it is as if he was in reality transported into a special world entirely different from the one in which he ordinarily lives, a special world inhabited by exceptionally intense forces that invade and transform him… In one world he languidly carries on his daily life; the other is one that he cannot enter without abruptly entering into relations with extraordinary powers that excite him to the point of frenzy.”
“Religion was able to be the womb in which the principal seeds of human civilization has developed.” Early religion described the forces that move both bodies (manas) and minds (manas as well, but with a larger moral/sacred weight). And it is religious practices that ensured the “continuity of moral life (law, morals, fine arts) and those that are useful to material life (natural sciences, technology).”
“As [the primitive] imagines it, the power to which the cult is addressed does not loom far above, crushing him with its superiority; instead, it is very near and bestows upon him useful abilities that he is not born with…In sum, joyful confidence, rather than terror or constraint, is at the root of totemism.”
When religions ascribe moral power to symbols, rites, and stories, they are not duped by illusion. “The main object of religion is not to give man a representation of the natural universe…But religion is first and foremost a system of ideas by means of which individuals imagines the society of which they are members and the obscure yet intimate relations they have with it…And although this representation is symbolic and metaphorical, it is not unfaithful. It fully translates the essence of the relations to be accounted for. It is true with a truth that is eternal that there exists outside us something greater than we and with which we commune.”
“A very intense social life always does a sort of violence to the individual’s body and mind and disrupts their normal functioning.”
“And although the moral force that sustains the worshipper does not come from the idol he worships or the emblem he venerates, still it is external to him; and he feels this. The objectivity of the symbol is but an expression of that externality.”
Tribes could not be identified by a leader, since leadership shifted and was unstable, nor based on location since tribes were nomadic. A symbolic representation in the form of the totem formed a stable entity onto which society could latch
Durkheim proposes that religion is what bridged the gap between the discrete. The senses alone divide to understand, the collective sense endowed upon man by religion connected the divided, connecting man to the animal or plant that his totem represented, and seeing them as belonging to the same nature.
“Nowhere can a collective feeling become conscious of itself without fixing upon a tangible object.”
“The great service that religions have rendered to thought is to have constructed a first representation of what the relations of kinship between things might be…As soon as man became aware that internal connections exist between things, science and philosophy became possible.”
Ch 8: The notion of soul
The notion of soul appears in pretty much every Australian tribe. Their conceptions are vague, but the soul generally finds its home in the body and once death occurs, the soul escape, or is encouraged by ritual to escape, where it then travels to a world beyond. Concepts similar to heaven and hell existed, although more local and less mythological. More respected individuals see their souls benefitting from higher status in the afterlife as well.
Most tribes conceptualized the soul as coming from a finite bank of souls, the originated from the uncreated beings that always were. The uncreated beings used to roam the earth, but when that period ended they became one with the earth and their souls dispersed. Since then, their souls have been recycled, first passing through ancestors (which started as demigods, half man half totem animal/plant) until eventually reaching the people of the present. This is the totemic principle incarnated in each individual, an individualization of the invisible social phenomena that compels man to act with the best interest of the group in mind
“In short, just as society exists only through individuals, the totemic principle lives only in and through the individual consciousnesses whose coming together forms the clan. If they did not feel the totemic principle within them, it would not be; it is they who put it into things. And so it must subdivide and fragment among individuals. Each of these fragments is a soul.”
Reincarnation isn’t much of a thing in these tribes. It happens only rarely that a soul reemerges in a new life, generally the soul leaves off to the land of the dead, returning only briefly to encourage development of the lineage. It’s more incarnation; the highest totemic ancestor gives a part of itself each time a new member is conceived and born. The totem—the society—flows into this new member, establishing that they are connected to the societal construct that holds the society together.
“When the civilizing hero Mangakunjerkunja gave a personal churinga to each member of the Kangaroo clan, he spoke these words: ‘Here is the body of a kangaroo.’ In this way, the churinga is the body of the ancestor, the actual individual, and the totemic animal, all at once.”
Similar to Christianity, where participants are given the body of Christ. Also similar to the holy trinity, where the ancestor is like the father, the individual the son, and the totemic animal the Holy Spirit. The force connecting the three is God, or, equivalently, the society
“Although our moral conscience is part of our consciousness, we do not feel on an equal footing with it. We cannot recognize our own voice in that voice that makes itself heard only to order us to do some things and not to do others. The very tone in which it speaks announces that it is expressing something in us that is other than us. This is what is objective about the idea of the soul. […] It is true that our nature is double; there truly is a parcel of divinity in us, because there is in us a parcel of the grand ideals that are the soul of collectivity.”
“A thing is sacred because, in some way, it inspires a collective feeling of respect that removes it from profane contact.”
What makes something sacred are the feelings it evokes. “This is why the Arunta could be led to see the churinga as the body common to the individual, the ancestor, and even the totemic being. It is a way of saying to himself that the feelings which those different things evoke are identical.”
Durkheim argues that the immortality of the soul naturally follows from man’s recognition that while individuals die, the clan survives, “so the forces that constitute his life must have the same perpetuity. These forces are the souls that animate individual bodies, because it is in and by them that the group realizes itself. For that reason, they must endure.” And “since it is always the same clan with the same totemic principle, it must also be the same souls” that are merely fragments of the same totemic principle
A conception of continuity/immortality of the soul is useful in making the continuity/immortality of the longer-lasting collective intelligible.
“The determinism that reigns in that world of representations is thus far more supple than the determinism that is roots in our flesh-and-blood constitution, and it leaves the agent with a justified impression of greater liberty.”
Thinking of religious myths and modern sociological absurdities.
Chapter 9: The notion of spirits and gods
“Time itself increases and reinforces the sacredness of things. A very old churinga elicits far greater respect than a modern one and is thought to have more virtues.”
The soul of a man is in his religion, and the soul of his religion is in him. In essence, “it is one soul in two bodies.”
Most forces back then were thought of in religious form. “A religious principle is regarded as the source of life; hence it was logical for all the events that disturb or destroy life to be brought back to a principle of the same kind.”
The purpose of initiation is to create men, so the god of which the initiation is centred must be a creative god.
Book 3: The principal modes of ritual conduct
Chapter 1: The negative cult and its functions (The ascetic rites)
Religious days of rest break man from the profane self-serving of secular needs (gathering material resources), which are incompatible with the sacred. Man cannot approach god (the representation of the group) intimately while serving himself. Ritual cessation of work divides the sacred from profane.
Religious and profane life do not cohere. To establish authority, the sacred must be established in space—temples or sanctuaries—and in time—holy days. These delineations in space and time make the sacred more tangible; separating the greatness of the group from the feebleness of the individuals. Utility for the group versus utility for individuals.
The delineations can blend into each other. One can perform personal religious rites at home or daily. But these will always be second tier to rites performed in temples or on holy days.
In quite a few Australian tribes, the word for initiation is “that which is of the forest.” Young men will go to the forest for months with some godfathers, marked with the occasional rite throughout. Rigorous fasting occurs, some can’t bathe, some can’t speak, some must beg for food, some must remain immobile. The young man must bring himself to his lowest point to acknowledge his limited nature and gain access to the unlimited, highest good (the good of the group)
“The grandeur of man is made manifest by the way he braves pain. Never does he rise above himself more spectacularly than when he subdues his nature to the point of making it follow a path contrary to the one it would take on its own. […] By the very act of renouncing things, he has risen above things. Because he has silenced his nature, he is stronger than nature.”
Religious interests are just societal and moral interests in symbolic form.
“Religious forces are in fact only transfigured collective forces, […] they are made of ideas and feeling that the spectacle of society awakens in us, not of sensations that come to us from the physical world.”
Religious forces flow to and from objects like energy. The objects themselves are impartial to the force, and any object can be chosen to embody the spirit. The spirit lies within the consciousness, not within the object.
Religious/sacred contagion served to connect things that sensation leaves separate from one another. It is the source of bringing together and mixing that lays the pathway towards later scientific understanding.
Chapter 2: The Positive Cult
“At the beginning, sacrifice is instituted not to create a bond of artificial kinship between man and his gods but to maintain and renew the natural kinship that at the beginning of time united men.”
Sacrifice isn’t necessarily only an act of renunciation, but one of alimentary communion (what is alimentary? — nourishing, sustenant).
Australian clans often have rituals that encourage the fertility of their totem plant/animal, where dust or blood is spread to distribute seeds of growth. “It is man who makes his gods endure; but at the same time, it is through them that he himself endures. […] He gives to sacred beings a little of what he receives from them and he receives from them, all that he gives them.”
Sacredness symbols exist only in the minds that think of them. Sacred energy achieves greatest intensity when individuals assemble and relate directly with each other, and that energy dissolves when individuals return to everyday life. Rituals are needed to revitalize sacred energy, to bring back shared attention to the sacred and remind individuals in its value to the whole.
“The only way to renew the collective representations that refer to sacred beings is to plunge them again into the very source of religious life: assembled groups.” - Rebirth and reinforcement of the sacred occurs in assembly
Men could not live without gods, but gods do not live if not worshipped. The purpose of cult is not only to put the profane in communion with the sacred, but to also keep the sacred beings alive through perpetual reawakening and regeneration.
Material offerings do not regenerate gods in themselves, but the act of offering reawakens the idea of the sacred in those who offer, which nourishes their shared conception of god.
The raison d’être of religions is not to be found in the specific actions prescribed, but in the moral renewal that the actions bring about.
Material offerings are not about the material itself. The quantity and quality of the offering are but proportional reflections of the strength of the offerer’s thought.
“What the worshipper in reality gives his god is not the food he places on the altar or the blood that he causes to flow from his veins: It is his thought.”
Individuals get the best parts of themselves from society: language, sciences, arts, moral beliefs. Society only lives through individuals; if the idea of society was extinguished in individual minds—beliefs, traditions, and collective aspirations—the society would die. Individuals cannot do without society (god) no more than society (god) can do without individuals.
Chapter 3: Mimetic Rites and the Principle of Causality
Aboriginal mimetic rites, where the totemic animal or plant is mimicked, are performed by the clan member to bring about more of that being. The kangaroo clan jump around to bring about more kangaroos. But the actual motivation of mimetic rites is to reinforce and regenerate the kinship and collective belief of the clan.
The power of religious rites over minds, which is real, makes participants believe in its power over things, which is imaginary.
“The faithful are in general left indifferent by the facile criticisms that a simplistic rationalism has sometimes leveled against ritual prescriptions. The true justification of religious practices is not in the apparent ends they pursue but in their invisible influence over consciousnesses and in their manner of affecting our states of mind.”
A preacher focuses less on establishing with systematic proof the truth of some practice or proposition, than upon awakening the sense of moral support that regular religious celebration invokes. In this way, a predisposition towards believing in advance of proof—a leap towards believing—is nourished, which forms the basis of faith.
“Cause is force before it has manifested the power that is in it. Effect is the same power, but actualized.”
Potential energy versus kinetic.
When something that influences us is located beyond consciousness, say a stubbed toe, the force that stubbed the toe isn’t felt, the sensations it caused are. Yet, moral conscience is a force that acts within us, can be felt intimately, yet it is impersonal. It speaks against us at times. That impersonality yet intimacy yields notions of gods (impersonal and powerful) and souls (personal and intimate).
Chapter 4: Representative and commemorative rites
The physical efficacy of religious practices ascribed by the faithful is an interpretation that masks their true function: “to remake individually and groups morally.” That is, to sustain and proliferate the identity of the group.
Think religious wears: hijabs or turbans; circumcision; baptism; fasts: ramadan, lent.
Group mythology revitalizes the collective spirit and maintains collective beliefs, generally by recounting stories of past. The further back the story goes and the more formidable the feats, the more inspired one’s faith.
Chapter 5: Mourning rites
When someone passes, the clan beat, slash, and burn themselves in agony. This self-mutilation is socially obligatory; if relatives do not engage, they risk being cursed. This is another instance of the group reinforcing their bond through heightened emotion. The clan suffers a loss, so heightened negative emotions—greater than the loss may deserve—are expressed to bring the group even closer together. The loss, in a way, makes them stronger. Heightened emotions ensure this. Collective effervescence applies for negative emotions, too.
Whether positive or negative, beneficent or horrific gods are just collective expressions made manifest. When a group is at risk of drought, for example, the group feels bad and presses this feeling into individuals. Positive or negative emotions gave rise to gods and demons, it is not the other way around.
“However complex the outward manifestations of religious life may be, its inner essence is simple […] Everywhere it fulfills the same need and derives from the same state of mind. In all its form; its object is to lift man above himself and to make him live a higher life than he would if he obeyed only his individual impulses. The beliefs express this life in terms of representations; the rites organize and regulate its functioning.
Tolstoy was a determinist. He still believed firmly in the ability to influence others toward good by example, that is, changing oneself to change others. But he also saw man’s life as having two forms, an individual life where there is relative freedom, and a social life swarmed by a pressure to conform. “Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal aims of humanity.”
Tolstoy believed that the grander the immersion in a group, the smaller the scope of freedom of choice. He also makes the distinction between reason and consciousness and how reason can only take one so far, being overwhelmed by unknowables and unpredictability. Consciousness, on the other hand, sources from the whole and thus empowers the characters from war and peace.
Tolstoy demonstrates in his fiction how people’s thoughts are far more complex than their actions, and being absorbed in this complexity places a gloss upon our active awareness. This causes us to blurt out words irrelevant to conversation, and to wear the truth of what we feel elsewhere, such as in a facial expression
In War and Peace, War acts as a metaphor for false values by which the characters live, and Peace represents true values and spiritual harmony.
“The focus of War and Peace is the contrast between two opposite states: on the one hand selfishness, self-indulgence, self-importance, and the attendant evils of careerism, nepotism, vanity, affectation, and the pursuit of purely private pleasures; on the other hand, a turning outwards from the self, a groping towards something larger, an endeavour to surmount individualism, a recognition that the cult of the self is an unworthy alternative to the service of one’s neighbours, one’s family, the community and the country at large.” - R.F Christian
“[War and Peace] reveals a profound understanding of human psychology—but no more so than…Stendhal. Turgenev and Jane Austen wrote more economically and with greater wit. Smollet, Fielding, or Sterne had more humour, more entertainment value. Balzac had more historical colouring, more period detail. Dickens had a greater creative imagination; George Eliot no less moral earnestness.” But Tolstoy encapsulates a golden mean of across these qualities, provoking profound thought and emotion in readers.
Book one
“But the princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced unnatural expression as son as she looked in the glass.”
“His son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion.” - Prince Andrew and his father while discussing matters of war
‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.’ - Sterne
“He was evidently pleased at his own display of anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for wrath.”
“You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such excitedly-animated and healthy men.”
“Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter,” but never thought out his plans before hand. His subconscious would assemble plans unbeknownst to him, and nudge him in a certain direction. This allowed Vasili to remain authentic and natural in pursuing selfish desires while his schemes remained hidden.
This happens to us more often than we think.
“She was so plain that neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress can make a face pretty.”
“Rostov was a truthful young man and would in no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and inevitably he lapsed into falsehood.”
When discussing his war story
“He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.”
During a fated battle, the French outsmart the Russians and demolish them. Prince Andrew starts the battle with a hunger for fame, glory, and recognition, hoping to valiantly lead a regimen to victory. In reality, he ends up charging forward with an unprepared and chaotic group, and gets knocked off his horse almost instantly. He lays on his back, looking at the calm, infinite sky while wounded. All the glory he seeked now seemed unimportant. Napoleon, his hero, later happens upon him and takes him as prisoner. The importance Prince Andrew once gave to Napoleon is extinguished by his brush with mortality
Meanwhile, Rostov gallops across the losing battle hoping to send a message to the Emperor. As the loss becomes apparent to him, he cares not for the fallen soldiers but hastens to learn whether the emperor is okay. While the world around him burns, the real war he experiences is within, that is, in his infatuation with the emperor. He eventually finds the emperor alone, but doesn’t dare approach, like a boy that’s afraid to approach his crush. Then, someone else rides up to the emperor and consoles him, and Rostov is filled with despair while thinking that could have been me!
Book two
“The faces of these young people, especially those who were military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which seems to say to the older generation, ‘We are prepared to respect and honour you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us.’”
“Bagration on seeing the [gift, an engraved tray] glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who had presented it to him.”
A rugged military man being brought to submission by high society
“Three hundred person took their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important nearer to the honoured guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.”
“I know your outlook,” said the mason, “and the view of life you mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts, is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a regrettable delusion.”
A mason addressing Pierre
“Can I receive that pure liquid [the highest wisdom and truth] into an impure vessel and judge its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I retain some degree of purity the liquid I receive.”
“And especially obedience—which did not even seem to [Pierre] as a virtue but a joy. (He now felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will to those who knew the indubitable truth.”
Recognize no other distinctions but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making distinctions that could infringe equality. “Fly to a brother’s aid whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, and never bear malice or enmity towards thy brother. Be kindly or courteous. Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy neighbours, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good.”
“…growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers, and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and consolation?”
“We often think that removing all the difficulties in our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but…it is only in the midst of world cares that we can attain our three chief aims: 1) self-knowledge — for man can only know himself by comparison. 2) self-perfecting, which can only be attained by conflict and 3) The attainment of the chief virtue — love of death. Only the vicissitudes (unfortunate changes) of life can show us its vanity, and develop our innate love of death or rebirth to a new life.”
“[He] was … a diligent newsmonger — one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes, according to the fashion.”
“The chief reason [for his urge to weep] was a sudden, vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable within him, and that limited and material something he…was.”
Pierre notices Vera, being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, talking to Prince Andrew. She references girls ‘these days’, mentioning ‘these days’ as “people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of ‘these days’ and that human characteristics change with times.”
Pierre was gloomy, bothered by Prince Andrew’s love story while his love story was nonexistent. “[Pierre] pointed to his manuscript-book with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at their work.”
“The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own.”
“…there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of duty that now bound him to her for ever. The present feeling, though not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.”
“[Prince Andrew] seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after such a laugh [Natasha] always felt nearer to him.”
“That latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a daughter’s futures married happiness.”
“He was only quite at ease when, having poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth, he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability towards all his fellows, and a readiness to respond superficially to every ideal without probing it deeply.”
“And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves caused.”
“He did not know that Natasha’s soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity and severity.”
“All seemed so pitiful, poor, in comparison with these feeling of tenderness and love he experienced…Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.”
Book three
“To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried away by the process of research, and can therefore regard the event with unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present themselves. The deeper we delve in search of the causes the more of them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance compare to the magnitude of the events [war].”
Tolstoy gives a number of counterfactuals that if they had occurred the war wouldn’t be. Yet, “all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east to west slaying their fellows.”
“Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but predestined significance.”
“There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life which is the more free the more abstract in its interests, and his elemental swarm-life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.”
“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity…The higher a man stand on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action…A king is history’s slave.”
“When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur.”
“In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like the labels they have but the smallest connexion with the event itself.”
“One of those men who purposely put themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a hurry.”
“To talk with the sort of eloquence and unrestrained irritability to which spoilt people are so prone.”
“It was evident that he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he did it.”
“He was now concerned only with the nearest practical matters unrelated to his past interests…It was as if that loft infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him had suddenly turned into a low solid vault that weighed him down, in which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.”
Narrow intellect provides the illusion that all is known, but what is known is finite. Submitting to and pursuing the infinite leads to more fulfillment and wonder.
“Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of those who disputing honestly.”
Tolstoy on the group of men who used war and conflict for political and personal gain, wearing opinions like fashions and wearing only what will get the favour with those higher in rank than them.
“He was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom…because he was self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge only an absolute truth.”
“His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failure, for failures resulting from deviations in practice from the theory, only proved to him the accuracy of the theory.”
We build theories in our minds of how things should be. When things in the real world inevitably deviate from the theories in our minds, we claim the real world is the problem.
We make a plan of how things should be. When the plan fails, we don’t blame the plan, we blame the fact that the plan wasn’t properly executed. The world should fit to our plan, we shouldn’t have to remodel our plan to fit the world!
“Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he’s doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader.”
“Formerly, when going in to action, Rostov had felt afraid, now he had not the least feeling of fear. He was fearless not because he had grown used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger.”
Tolstoy describes doctors as useful not because they cure people, but because they were “indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and those who loved her—and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homoeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering.”
“At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant.” In solitude, man listens to the former voice; in society, the latter.
“‘We were just talking of you,’ she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman.”
Pierre acts kindly to the eldest unmarried princess, to whom he is benefactor, when she makes a reproachful demand of him. “The princess was apparently vexed at not having any one to be angry with.”
Pierre experienced a new and joyful feeling he had not experienced before: a “sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing something. […] He was not occupied with the question of what to sacrifice for, the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and joyous sensation.”
“But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder, the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country’s inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The military life is characterized by absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone.”
“So the way in which these people killed one another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took place by his will.”
“The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem very bad, and every learned miniaturist criticizes them with looks of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a battle that has been won.”
This also shows that no matter how profound and excellent a plan might be, if the hive executing the plan are weak willed it cannot succeed. But then we blame the plan and not the innumerable decisions made by the hive.
“The forest at the farthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green colour…”
“As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and rapidly from an approaching thunder-cloud, so, as if in opposition to what was taking place [the battle], the lightning of hidden fire growing more and more intense glowed in the faces of these men.”
“As soon as [soldiers] left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them under discipline, and under the influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear and death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng.”
“Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines.”
“To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It could not be.”
“Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind. Laws of motion of any kind only become comprehensible to man when he examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements.”
“In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens. The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous.”
“The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though there is and can be no beginning to any events, for one event always flows uninterruptedly from another.”
“The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a king or a commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas the sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a single historic personage.”
“Only by taking an infinitesimally small unit for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.”
“‘But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been great men,’ says history[…]Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude that the whistling and turning of wheels are the cause of the movement of the engine.”
“In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going…but as soon as a storm arises…suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man.”
“As happens with passionate people he was mastered by anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it.”
“To a man unswayed by passion, what’s best for the crowd is never certain, but those mastered by passion think they know exactly where that welfare lies.”
Rostopchin, to direct the frustration of the mob to someone other than himself, found a French prisoner, blamed all their woes on the Frenchman, and commanded the crowd to beat him. The Frenchman was beaten to death, and Rostopchin’s cowardly psyche did everything it could to deflect responsibility for, or justify, the death. “The crowd needed a vent for their anger and I obeyed their calls,” he thought. Who can be sure what the crowd needed at that moment?
“Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they carried their loot with them,” unable to let go.
“When water is spilt on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and mud results; and in the same way the entry of the faminished army into the rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction of both the army and the wealthy city.”
The army had been destroyed because the once orderly soldiers transformed into lawless men in the rich and deserted city of Moscow
“When living with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul.”
Book four
“Those who try to understand the general course of events, and to take part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism, were the most useless members of society […] and all they did for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish.”
“In historic events the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless.”
Those who move the dials of history are those who act authentically and naturally
The maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies first.
“Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life brought him in contact with, particularly with man—not any particular man, but those with whom he happened to be.”
“Platon Karaetev knew nothing by heart, except his prayers. When he began to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.”
Platon radiates authenticity, creativity, and simplicity. To plan his speech would pervert the authenticity and creativity; part of his speech would service the plan rather than the relationship between speaker and spoken to, and thus hinder that harmony between them.
“But his life, as he regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance of any word or deed taken separately.”
“During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to have been the leader of all those movements—as the figure-head of a ship may seem to a savage to guide the vessel—acted like a child who, holding a couple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.”
Talks of a dog “basking in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance.” Perfect.
“A sweating hand’s an open hand, a dry hand’s close.”
“It was terrible, but he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent of it.”
“There was within him a deep unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one’s own work. And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.”
“With his sixty years’ experience he knew what value to attach to rumours, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary.”
Confirmation bias.
Near the end of the campaign, “all Kutuzov’s activity was directed towards restraining his troops, by authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers, or encounters with the perishing enemy.”
“One must have a prospect of a promised land to have the strength to move.”
“Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity. In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its men and some unknown x. […] That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army […] Men who want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.”
“And the escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in, if giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners, and so rendering their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness and severity.”
“That happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. […] He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in the bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping in the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming.”
“Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man, and the saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.”
“To love life is to love god. Harder and more blessed than all is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent sufferings.”
“When actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness’. ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong; there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”
“All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his army were like the plan of a market-gardener who, when driving out of his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should run to the gate and hit the cow on the head.”
“The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should do what was impossible.”
“A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may heal and its edges join, yet physical and spiritual wounds alike can heal completely only as the result of a vital force within. Natasha’s wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke, and so did life.”
“She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which, taking root, would so cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal from within.”
“Such is the fate, not of great men whom the Russian mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals who discerning the will of Providence submit their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punishes such men for discerning the higher laws.”
“…who by experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts, and the words serving their expression, are not what move people.”
“In his captivity he had learnt that in Karataev [a good-natured peasant] God was greater, more infinite, more unfathomable, than in the Architect of the Universe the Freemasons acknowledged.”
“Yet Pierre’s cunning consisted simply in finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered, hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.”
“Though he considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment was of value to suffering humanity…”
“By being ruined I have become much richer.”
“Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a pathetic, kindly old man, much to be pitied.”
“Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to discover personal attributes, which he termed ‘good qualities’, in people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discover indubitable causes for loving them.”
First Epilogue
“Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I flow from the same sources: the circumstances of his birth, education, and life, that made his personality what it was and from which the actions for which they blame him also flowed?”
“‘Chance created the situation; genius utilized it,’ says history. But what is chance? What is genius? The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I think I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of genius.”
By delving into the essence of extraordinary movements, we have no need to see the extraordinary abilities and genius of extraordinary people, “but we shall be unable to consider them to be anything but men like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small events were inevitable.”
“The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The waves of the great movement abate, and in the calm surface eddies are formed in which float the diplomatists who imagine that they have caused the floods to abate.”
“It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty.”
“‘Always the same thing,’ said Pierre […] ‘Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to counteract it as far as they can.’”
“…and promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all her neighbours, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary’s soul always strove towards the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace.”
Second Epilogue
The only conception that can explain the movement of a locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement observed. That force does not lie in the devil, although this can’t be refuted. It doesn’t lie in the wheels, for the comes the question of what causes the wheels to turn. And so with movements of people. “Some people see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting from several forces, like the movement of the wheels.”
“As gold is gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use, so universal historians will only be valuable when they can reply to history’s essential questions: What is power? The universal historians give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters of imitation gold can only be used among a group of people who agree to accept them as gold or among those who do not know the nature of gold, so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering humanity’s essential question, only serve as currency for some purposes of their own in universities and among the mass of readers who have a taste for what they call serious reading.”
“No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.”
Taking a jab at free will. We act as though we spontaneously make commands of ourself, that is, we will our own decisions. This is a product of hubris, a neglecting of the continuity. Our decisions don’t spontaneously arise within us, they are provoked by a collection other sources. Our assumption that the individual’s power to spontaneously choose their path is a result of a lack of understanding of what caused that choice (ignorance), and also reflects of our self-serving, hubristic desire to be the sole author of our decisions
Justifying atrocities generally serve the purpose of allowing those who produce the atrocities from moral responsibility. The French kill and drown one another, and say it necessary for the welfare of France, liberty, and equality of man. Hamas kill and mutilate Israelis, call it a necessary cost to bring justice for years of power imbalance. These justifications merely enable horrendous behaviour that serves selfish aims.
“Is there any collective action which cannot find its justification in political unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization?”
Organizations of humans arrange themselves into a hierarchical cone. The plentiful at the bottom tend to participate most but command least, and thus have the least responsibility; whereas those at the top participate least but command most, thus having the most responsibility.
What is power? “Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less his participation in that action.
What force produces the movement of nations? Not power, nor intellectual activity, or a combination of the two as historians suppose, “but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least responsibility and vice versa.”
“Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event, physically it is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other, but in the union of the two.”
Struggling to understand the second sentence.
Without a conception of free will, it seems man would be unable to understand life and unable to live for a single moment, for freedom (seemingly) is life. “All man’s efforts, all his impulses into life, are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom. A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life.”
Our conception of freedom and necessity is increased or decreased by the following:
How we perceive the spatial relationship of the actor. * A man alone seems more free in his actions than a man in society. Societal conditions seem to bind us more. Yet, if we look deeper, we can find that the man in solitude is just as influenced by his environment: in the food he hunts, the books he reads, and the air he breathes.
The temporal relationship between us and the actor. * Our actions performed a moment ago feel more in our control than those taken in the past. The longer the duration, the more inevitable they seem. ‘Of course I picked up the cup! But that traumatic event in my past, well, that happened because I was naive and couldn’t have known otherwise.’ This is because time provides perspective, and increased perspective always increases inevitability, because it unveils more that hubris hides from us.
The degree to which we apprehend the endless chain of causation that led to a decision to act. * The more we learn, the more we reveal the reason that an event turned out the way it did. This is interesting; the scientific pursuit of Truth (the real truth—the one unrestricted to merely one group or one species) will necessarily decrease perceived freedom and increase perceived necessity. * The less we understand something, the more freedom we ascribe to it. For a crime we don’t understand, we attribute more blame to the actor; for a virtuous act we don’t understand, we attribute more merit to the actor.
“Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes or increases according to the greater or lesser connexion with the external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes, under which we contemplate a man’s life.”
Spatial and temporal continuity (interconnectedness) and interdependence. An understanding of the causal links in that interconnected chain, that is, the chain of dependencies.
The action of a man absent of free will assumes infinite knowledge of space relations, an infinitely long period of time, and an infinite series of causes.
The action of man perfectly free assumes man is all alone, beyond space, beyond time, and free from dependence on cause.
Reason says: space is infinite, time is infinite motion without a moment of rest, and the connection between cause and effect has no beginning or end.
Consciousness says: I am all there is, I measure flowing time by a fixed moment of the present, and I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.
“Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.”
“In history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability, what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an expression for the unknown remained of what we know about the laws of human life.”
“But as in astronomy the new view said: ‘It is true that we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting motion (which we do not feel) we arrive at laws,’ so also in history the new view says: ‘It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.’”
As in astronomy, which revealed to humanity a motion we do not feel, so with free will we must recognize dependencies of which we are not conscious.
“A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing to play.”
Finite or infinite, for play to be play, whoever plays must play freely. “Whoever must play, cannot play.”
“The rules of a finite game may not change in the course of play…The rules of an infinite game must change in the course of play.” They change so that participants are prevented from winning and continue playing
“Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.”
“…seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.”
“A finite player is trained not only to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past. …Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised. If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases.”
“Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue.”
“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
“Death in life is a mode of existence in which one has ceased to play…All competitive engagement with others has been abandoned.”
“Life in death concerns those who are titled and whose titles, since they are timeless, may not be extinguished by death. Immortality, in this case, is not a reward but the condition necessary to the possession of rewards.”
A contradiction common to all finite play is that all finite play is played to end itself.
Infinite players do not play for themselves, since they play to continue the play, and they are mortal, so for play to continue they must cease.
Infinite play is paradoxical, and finite play is contradictory. “The contradiction of finite play is that the players desire to bring play to an end for themselves. The paradox of infinite play is that the players desire to continue the play in others.”
“The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.”
“The exercise of power always presupposes resistance. Power is never evident until two or more elements are in opposition. Whichever elements can move another is the more powerful.”
“Power is always measured in units of comparison [spatial and temporal]. In fact, it is a term of competition: How much resistance can I overcome relative to others?”
Power is determined by the outcome of a game, therefore one does not win by being powerful but to be powerful. If one had sufficient power to win before the game started, what follows is not a game.
A contradiction of finite play: I can be powerful only by not playing, by showing that the game is over. I can only have what powers others bestow to me after the play is concluded.
“We are not defeated by floods or genetic disease or the rate of inflation. It is true that these are real, but we do not play against reality; we play according to reality.” We can’t eliminate these things, rather we accept them as limits within which we are to play.
“If I accept death as inevitable, I do not struggle against mortality. I struggle as a mortal.”
I am not strong (strong being the infinite equivalent to powerful) because I can force others to do what I wish, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them.
“Though infinite players are strong, they are not powerful and do not attempt to become powerful.”
“Evil is not the acquisition of power, but the expression of power. It is the forced recognition of a title…The Nazis did not compete with the Jews for a title, but demanded recognition of a title without competition. This could be achieved, however, only by silencing the Jews…They were to die in silence, along with their culture, without anyone noticing, not even those who managed the institutions and instruments of death.”
“Evil is never intended as evil…[evil] originates in the desire to eliminate evil.”
“It is evil to act as though the past is bringing us to a specifiable end…to think history is to end with a return to Zion, or with the classless society, or with the Islamicitization of all living infidels.”
“Your history does not belong to me. We live with each other in a common history.”
Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil, and therefore “attempt to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.”
“Evil is not the inclusion of finite games in an infinite game, but the restriction of all play to one or another finite game.”
Part 2: No one can play a game alone
“We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others.”
Many playful breaks from being serious, such as vacations or sports time outs, are used as tools to refresh one’s seriousness for higher levels of competitions. Organized play in children is itself a means of preparing the young for serious adult competition.
An infinite player is political without having a politics. “To have a politics is to have a set of rules by which one attempts to reach a desired end; to be political—in the sense meant here—is to recast rules in the attempt…to maintain the essential fluidity of human association.”
Society is a collaboration under rules and constraints, culture is a collaboration by undirected choice. “It is often a strategy of a society to initiate and embrace a culture as exclusively its own. Culture so bounded may even be so lavishly subsidized and encouraged by its society that it has the appearance of an open-ended activity, but in fact it is designed to serve societal interests in every case.”
“The prizes won by [a society’s] citizens can be protected only if the society as a whole remains powerful in relation to other societies. Those who desire permanence of their prizes will work to sustain the permanence of the whole.”
“It is in the interest of a society to encourage competition within itself, to establish the largest possible number of prizes, for the holders of prizes will be those most likely to defend the society as a whole against its competitors.”
“The purpose of property is to make our titles visible. Property is emblematic. It recalls to others those areas in which our victories are beyond challenge.”
The more powerful we consider someone to be, the less we expect them to do, since their power comes only from that which they have done. And thus we hoist the athlete after a victory as if he were helpless, and carry celebrities around in carriages and limousines.
“We display the success of what we have done by not having to do anything. The more we use up, therefore, the more we show ourselves to be winners of past contests.”
Ensuring the performance of wealth stays orderly cannot be done by forceful restraint of competitors, this would descend into chaos. Nor can it be done by guaranteeing everyone, even thieves, a certain amount of property—feeding the thief will hardly convince him that he is no longer a contender for something larger. The more effective policy to maintain social order and wealth is to persuade the thieves to “abandon their roles as competitors for property for the sake of becoming audience to the theatre of wealth. It is for this reason that societies fall back on the skill of those [artists] who can theatricalize…all the inner structure of each society.”
The deepest struggle for each society is with the culture that exists within itself, the culture that is itself. The fluidity of culture threatens the rigidity of the society. Thus societies find ways to suppress the creators within. “Alexander and Napoleon took their poets and their scholars into battle with them, saving themselves the nuisance of repression and along the way drawing ever larger audiences to their triumph.”
“Art that is used against a society or its policies gives up its character as infinite play, and aims for an end. Such art is no less propaganda than that which praises its heroes with high seriousness.”
“Poets do not ‘fit’ in to society…because they do not take their ‘places’ seriously. They openly see its roles as theatrical, its styles as poses, its clothing costumes, its rules conventional, its crises arranged, its conflicts performed, and its metaphysics ideological.”
“Where a society is defined by its boundaries, a culture is defined by its horizon.”
“A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. It is the meeting place of hostile forces. Where nothing opposes there can be no boundary. One cannot move beyond a boundary without being resisted.”
“Patriots must create enemies before we can require protection from them. Patriots can flourish only where boundaries are well-defined, hostile, and dangerous.”
“[A horizon] is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field…to move toward a horizon is simply to have a new horizon.”
“Just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, so also corruption in nations would be the product of prolonged, let alone ‘perpetual peace’.” (Hegel)
“Finite players go to war against states because they endanger boundaries; infinite plays oppose states because they engender boundaries.”
“Metaphysics is about the real but is abstract. Poetry is the making of the real and is concrete. Whenever what is made is separated from the maker, it becomes metaphysical.”
When we separate the thoughts from the thinker, we’re left with a deathless metaphysical shadow of a once living act.
Part 3: I am the genius of myself
“What you say originally I can hear only originally. As you surrender the sound on your lips, I surrender the sound in my ears.”
“To speak, or act, or think originally is to erase the boundary of the self. It is to leave behind the territorial personality.”
“Things do not have their own limitations. Nothing limits itself. The sea gulls circling in the invisible currents…are not somehow distinct from the environment; they are the environment.”
“Speaking in purely causal terms, I cannot say I was born; I should say rather that I have emerged as a phase in the process of reproduction. A reproduction is a repetition, a recurrence of that which has been. Birth, on the other hand, in causal terms, is all discontinuity.”
“Unless we believe we actually are the losers the audience sees us to be, we will not have the necessary desire to win.”
“The more negatively we assess ourselves, the more we strive to reverse the negative judgment of others.”
This brings out a clinical contradiction: “by proving the audience they were wrong, we prove to ourselves the audience was right.”
“No one conceives a child; a child is conceived in the conjunction of sperm and ovum. The mother does not give birth to a child; the mother is where the birth occurs.”
“While society does serve a regulatory function [toward sexuality], it is probably more correctly understood as sexuality making use of society to regulate itself.”
“Society is where we prove to parents qua audience that we are not what we thought they thought we were.”
“The most serious struggles are those for sexual property. For this wars are fought, lives are generously risked, great schemes are initiated. However, who wins empire, fortune, and fame but loses in love has lost in everything.”
Finite sexuality is veiled, a performance that attempts to end in victory by acquiring the vanquished. Sexual desires are thus concealed under a series of feints, styles, and showy behaviours. Seductions are staged and costumed, certain responses are sought. Skillful seductions employ delays and special circumstances.
“Seductions are designed to come to an end. Time runs out. The play is finished. All that remains is recollection, the memory of a moment, and perhaps a longing for its repetition…Lovers often sustain vivid reminders of extraordinary moments, but they are reminded at the same time of their impotence in recreating them. The appetite for novelty in lovemaking—new positions, the use of drugs, exotic surroundings, additional partners—is only a search for new moments that can live on only in recollection.”
The appetite for novelty—period—is only a search for new moments that can live on only in recollection. We can perform a novel act twice, thus they remain locked away in memory never to be lived again.
“Sexual desire is exposed as sexual desire and is never therefore serious. Its satisfaction is never an achievement, but an act in a continuing relationship, and therefore joyous. Its lack of satisfaction is never a failure, but only a matter to be taken on into further play.”
Part 4: A finite game occurs within a world
“Just as…the absence or death of parents has no effect on the child’s determination to prove them wrong, finite players become their own hostile observers in the very act of competing.”
“Early in a game time seems abundant, and there appears a greater freedom to develop further strategies. Late in a game, time is rapidly being consumed…For the finite player in us freedom is a function of time. We must have time to be free.”
“Whoever plays toward a certain outcome desires a particular past. By competing for a future prize, finite players compete for a prized past.”
If observers see the creativity in work they cease at being observers, and find themselves in its time and aware it remains unfinished, “aware that their reading of the poetry is itself poetry.”
Part 5: Nature is the realm of the unspeakable
“We experience the unspeakability of nature as its utter indifference to human culture.”
“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” (Heisenberg)
Since nature is unspeakable, when we speak of it we speak in metaphor. We call things by names, but to address things themselves and not their names would be to “presume…that we know precisely what it is we have, that we can see it in its entirety, and that we can speak nature as itself.”
“Matters do not end as they must but as they do. Explanation sets the need for further inquiry aside; narrative invites us to rethink what we thought we knew.”
“Explanation is an antagonistic encounter that succeeds by defeating an opponent…I will press my explanations on you because I need to show that I do not live in the error that I think others think I do.”
“The silence of nature is the possibility of language. By subduing nature the gods give it their own voice, but in making nature an opponent they make all their listeners opponents. By refusing the silence of nature they demand the silence of obedience. The unspeakability of nature is therefore transformed into the unspeakability of language itself.”
“One is speechless before a god, or silent before a winner, because it no longer matters what one has to say. To lose a contest is to become obedient…The silence of obedience is an unheard silence…For this reason the demand for obedience is inherently evil.”
“A god can create a world only by listening.”
Because if it speaks, and the speakable is that which has already happened in the past, nothing is created by its speech. To create requires an intercourse of speech
“Were the gods to address us it would not be to bring us to silence through their speech, but to bring us to speech through their silence.”
Author speaks to the importance of silence in bringing out a response. Without the ability to pause and listen as a speaker, conversations will die and remain finite.
Part 6: We control nature for societal reasons
“To garden is not to engage in a hobby or amusement; it is to design a culture capable of adjusting to the widest possible range of surprise in nature. Gardeners are acutely attentive to the deep patterns of natural order, but are also aware that there will always be much lying beyond their vision.”
Nature is neither chaotic nor ordered. Chaos and order describe our subjective experience of nature, “the degree to which nature’s indifferent spontaneity seems to agree with our current manner of cultural self-control.”
A hurricane or plague will seem chaotic to those who don’t expect them, and orderly to those who expect them.
“Machines do not make us into machines when we operate them; we make ourselves into machinery in order to operate them. Machinery does not steal our spontaneity from us; we set it aside ourselves, we deny our originality. There is no style in operating a machine. The more efficient the machine, the more it either limits or absorbs our uniqueness into its operation.”
“Because we make use of machinery in the belief we can increase the range of our freedom, and instead decrease it, we use machines against ourselves.”
“When machinery functions perfectly it ceases to be there—but so do we. …Automobiles do not make travel possible, but make it possible for us to move locations without traveling. Thus, the theatricality of machinery. Such movement is but a change in scenes.”
“True parents do not see to it that their children grow in a particular way, according to a preferred pattern or scripted stages, but they see to it that they grow with their children.”
“It is in the garden that we discover what travel truly is. We do not journey to a garden but by way of it.”
“Genuine travel has no destination. Travelers do not go somewhere, but constantly discover they are somewhere else.”
“The only true voyage would be not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pairs of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes.” (Proust)
Machines require power, and power is gathered and consumed from the materials of nature. Nature is not consumed however, just transformed into waste: material unusable by civilization. “The trash and garbage of a civilization do not befoul nature; they are nature—but in a form society no longer is able to exploit for its own ends.”
Waste is like anti property: no one owns it, or wants to. Treating nature as though it belongs to us leads to treating nature as if it belongs to nobody, as finite productivity produces waste. Waste then becomes the anti property of the losers.
“Waste is unveiling, because it persists in showing itself as waste, and as our waste…Looking about at the wasteland into which we have converted our habitation, we can plainly see that nature is not whatever we want it to be.”
“The more waste a society produces, the more unveiling that waste is, and thus the more vigorously must a society deny that it produces any waste at all; the more it must dispose, or hide, or ignore, its waste.”
Part 7: Myth provokes explanation but accepts none of it
Explanations establish islands of order and predictability, which were first charted by adventurers who found them by mythic journey into the wayless open. Less adventurous settlers then arrive to work out the details, and lose the sense that all the “firm knowledge does not expunge myth, but floats in it.”
“The very liveliness of a culture is determined not by how frequently these thinkers discover new continents of knowledge but by how frequently they depart to seek them. A culture can be no stronger than its strongest myths.”
“A story attains the status of myth when it is retold, and persistently retold, solely for its own sake.”
Story tellers become metaphysicians or ideologists when they believe they know the entire story of a people, theatricalizing history and presuming to know the beginning and end.
“A psychoanalyst who looks for the Freudian myth in patients imposes a filter that lets through nothing the psychoanalyst was not prepared to find.”
“Myths are significantly unresolved—but unresolved in the way of an infinite game…that allow any number of participants at any time to enter the drama without fixing its plot or bringing it to closure in a final scene…much will be said about closure, or death, but their telling will always disclose the way death comes in the course of play and not at its end.”
Amplification, as opposed to resonance, silences speech. A bell resonates, a cannon amplifies. An amplified voice seeks obedient action from hearers and an end to their speech.
“Ideology is the amplification of myth. It is the assumption that since the beginning and end of history are known there is nothing more to say.”
Needless variability occurs between identical cases judged by different people, in the criminal justice system (even based on time of day or whether the local sports team won or lost), and in the insurance industry for making insurance claims. This is noise that causes needless injustice and financial costs
Part 2: Your mind is a measuring instrument
“Judgment is measurement in which the instrument is a human mind. Implicit in measurement is the goal of accuracy—to approach truth and minimize error.”
Measurement is the assigning of a value produced by an instrument to some object or process.
When predicting the likelihood of some event, there is variability produced by what we decide to attend to, the informality of the judgment process (e.g., not having a plan of what to attend to), and the conversion of the overall judgment to a number (the likelihood)
If the noise (standard deviation) or bias (average) of an error are reduced by equal amounts, they have equal effect in reducing error. But our intuition tells us that centering our error distribution closer to zero is better (i.e., reducing bias). This is not true, reducing the spread of the distribution is just as effective.
Level noise measures variability in the average level of judgments by different judges (between judge variability)
Pattern noise is variability in judges’ responses to particular cases (within judge + between case variability)
Occasion noise is variability due to randomness (within judge variability)
Wisdom of crowds effect: the average answer of a large number of people is likely to be close to the truth (if the questions are relatively simple and don’t require expertise)
The wisdom of crowds effect tends to increase accuracy because the average smears out the noise inherent in the individual judgments
This also works with the crowd within. When we ask ourselves the same question multiple times, we tend to come a little closer to the truth. The larger the time that passes between judgments, the better the effect (the two members from the crowd within are further apart)
You are not the same person at all times. When our mood varies, our cognitive machinery changes along with it.
A study of nearly seven hundred thousand primary care visits showed that doctors become more likely to prescribe opioids as the end of the day nears. Under time-pressure, we lean towards quick-fix solutions.
Wisdom of the crowds has a necessary precondition: independence. If judgements are not independent, they risk being swayed by other judgments.
“If group members are listening to one another, they will shift in the direction of the dominant tendency, rendering the group more unified, more confident, and more extreme. And if people care about their reputation within the group, they will shift in the direction of the dominant tendency, producing polarization.”
Part 3: Noise in predictive judgments
Why do decision makers neglect objective ignorance (how much information they lack)? “When they listen to their gut, decision makers hear the internal signal and feel the emotional reward it brings. This internal signal that a good judgment has been reached is the voice of confidence, of ‘knowing without knowing why.’”
Decision makers value internal coherence and satisfaction of reaching closure on a judgment more than actually getting the judgment correct.
Causal thinking lures us into a false certainty about why things turned out the way they do. When a situation unfurls, and every step is plausible, we tell ourselves “of course it turned out this way” and model our future predictions accordingly. What we fail to realize is how differently things could have turned out if another plausible explanation occurred at an intermediate stage.
Part 4: How Noise Happens
“We think we base our opinions on evidence, but the evidence we consider and our interpretation of it are likely to be distorted, at least to some extent, to our initial snap judgment. As a result, we maintain the coherence of the overall story that has emerged in our mind.”
Judgment is an operation that assigns a value on a scale to a subjective impression
Subjective impression…when we sense something, our conscious awareness of it is an impression—an impression created by sense organs transforming one form of energy into electrical energy sent to the neurons in our brains, leaving impressions in our minds. Like a handprint left in a memory foam mattress, we confuse the handprint for the hand.
The anchor effect influences sequences of judgments. When predicting something quantitative, like a dollar penalty for a crime, dollar estimates of the first case presented will influence downstream estimates, since it will serve as a reference value. If different people receive different cases first, this creates noise.
To reduce this, asking instead for a ranking and then establishing a cost to be applied based on the relative ranking reduces this level noise (the noise between judges due to different anchors)
“Subjective confidence in one’s judgment by no means guarantees accuracy. Moreover, the suppression of alternative interpretations…could induce the….illusion of agreement. If people cannot imagine possible alternatives to their conclusions, they will naturally assume that other observers must reach the same conclusions, too.”
Bias is a compelling figure that demands our attention, noise is the background which we pay no attention to
Part 5: Improving judgments
“Noise is an invisible enemy, and preventing the assault of an invisible enemy can yield only an invisible victory.”
Tolstoy was a determinist. He still believed firmly in the ability to influence others toward good by example, that is, changing oneself to change others. But he also saw man’s life as having two forms, an individual life where there is relative freedom, and a social life swarmed by a pressure to conform. “Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal aims of humanity.”
Tolstoy believed that the grander the immersion in a group, the smaller the scope of freedom of choice. He also makes the distinction between reason and consciousness and how reason can only take one so far, being overwhelmed by unknowables and unpredictability. Consciousness, on the other hand, sources from the whole and thus empowers the characters from war and peace.
Tolstoy demonstrates in his fiction how people’s thoughts are far more complex than their actions, and being absorbed in this complexity places a gloss upon our active awareness. This causes us to blurt out words irrelevant to conversation, and to wear the truth of what we feel elsewhere, such as in a facial expression
In War and Peace, War acts as a metaphor for false values by which the characters live, and Peace represents true values and spiritual harmony.
“The focus of War and Peace is the contrast between two opposite states: on the one hand selfishness, self-indulgence, self-importance, and the attendant evils of careerism, nepotism, vanity, affectation, and the pursuit of purely private pleasures; on the other hand, a turning outwards from the self, a groping towards something larger, an endeavour to surmount individualism, a recognition that the cult of the self is an unworthy alternative to the service of one’s neighbours, one’s family, the community and the country at large.” - R.F Christian
“[War and Peace] reveals a profound understanding of human psychology—but no more so than…Stendhal. Turgenev and Jane Austen wrote more economically and with greater wit. Smollet, Fielding, or Sterne had more humour, more entertainment value. Balzac had more historical colouring, more period detail. Dickens had a greater creative imagination; George Eliot no less moral earnestness.” But Tolstoy encapsulates a golden mean of across these qualities, provoking profound thought and emotion in readers.
Book one
“But the princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced unnatural expression as son as she looked in the glass.”
“His son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion.” - Prince Andrew and his father while discussing matters of war
‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.’ - Sterne
“He was evidently pleased at his own display of anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for wrath.”
“You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such excitedly-animated and healthy men.”
“Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter,” but never thought out his plans before hand. His subconscious would assemble plans unbeknownst to him, and nudge him in a certain direction. This allowed Vasili to remain authentic and natural in pursuing selfish desires while his schemes remained hidden.
This happens to us more often than we think.
“She was so plain that neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress can make a face pretty.”
“Rostov was a truthful young man and would in no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and inevitably he lapsed into falsehood.”
When discussing his war story
“He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.”
During a fated battle, the French outsmart the Russians and demolish them. Prince Andrew starts the battle with a hunger for fame, glory, and recognition, hoping to valiantly lead a regimen to victory. In reality, he ends up charging forward with an unprepared and chaotic group, and gets knocked off his horse almost instantly. He lays on his back, looking at the calm, infinite sky while wounded. All the glory he seeked now seemed unimportant. Napoleon, his hero, later happens upon him and takes him as prisoner. The importance Prince Andrew once gave to Napoleon is extinguished by his brush with mortality
Meanwhile, Rostov gallops across the losing battle hoping to send a message to the Emperor. As the loss becomes apparent to him, he cares not for the fallen soldiers but hastens to learn whether the emperor is okay. While the world around him burns, the real war he experiences is within, that is, in his infatuation with the emperor. He eventually finds the emperor alone, but doesn’t dare approach, like a boy that’s afraid to approach his crush. Then, someone else rides up to the emperor and consoles him, and Rostov is filled with despair while thinking that could have been me!
Book two
“The faces of these young people, especially those who were military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which seems to say to the older generation, ‘We are prepared to respect and honour you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us.’”
“Bagration on seeing the [gift, an engraved tray] glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who had presented it to him.”
A rugged military man being brought to submission by high society
“Three hundred person took their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important nearer to the honoured guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.”
“I know your outlook,” said the mason, “and the view of life you mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts, is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a regrettable delusion.”
A mason addressing Pierre
“Can I receive that pure liquid [the highest wisdom and truth] into an impure vessel and judge its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I retain some degree of purity the liquid I receive.”
“And especially obedience—which did not even seem to [Pierre] as a virtue but a joy. (He now felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will to those who knew the indubitable truth.”
Recognize no other distinctions but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making distinctions that could infringe equality. “Fly to a brother’s aid whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, and never bear malice or enmity towards thy brother. Be kindly or courteous. Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy neighbours, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good.”
“…growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers, and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and consolation?”
“We often think that removing all the difficulties in our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but…it is only in the midst of world cares that we can attain our three chief aims: 1) self-knowledge — for man can only know himself by comparison. 2) self-perfecting, which can only be attained by conflict and 3) The attainment of the chief virtue — love of death. Only the vicissitudes (unfortunate changes) of life can show us its vanity, and develop our innate love of death or rebirth to a new life.”
“[He] was … a diligent newsmonger — one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes, according to the fashion.”
“The chief reason [for his urge to weep] was a sudden, vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable within him, and that limited and material something he…was.”
Pierre notices Vera, being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, talking to Prince Andrew. She references girls ‘these days’, mentioning ‘these days’ as “people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of ‘these days’ and that human characteristics change with times.”
Pierre was gloomy, bothered by Prince Andrew’s love story while his love story was nonexistent. “[Pierre] pointed to his manuscript-book with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at their work.”
“The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own.”
“…there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of duty that now bound him to her for ever. The present feeling, though not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.”
“[Prince Andrew] seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after such a laugh [Natasha] always felt nearer to him.”
“That latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a daughter’s futures married happiness.”
“He was only quite at ease when, having poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth, he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability towards all his fellows, and a readiness to respond superficially to every ideal without probing it deeply.”
“And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves caused.”
“He did not know that Natasha’s soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity and severity.”
“All seemed so pitiful, poor, in comparison with these feeling of tenderness and love he experienced…Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.”
Book three
“To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried away by the process of research, and can therefore regard the event with unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present themselves. The deeper we delve in search of the causes the more of them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance compare to the magnitude of the events [war].”
Tolstoy gives a number of counterfactuals that if they had occurred the war wouldn’t be. Yet, “all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east to west slaying their fellows.”
“Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but predestined significance.”
“There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life which is the more free the more abstract in its interests, and his elemental swarm-life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.”
“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity…The higher a man stand on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action…A king is history’s slave.”
“When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur.”
“In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like the labels they have but the smallest connexion with the event itself.”
“One of those men who purposely put themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a hurry.”
“To talk with the sort of eloquence and unrestrained irritability to which spoilt people are so prone.”
“It was evident that he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he did it.”
“He was now concerned only with the nearest practical matters unrelated to his past interests…It was as if that loft infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him had suddenly turned into a low solid vault that weighed him down, in which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.”
Narrow intellect provides the illusion that all is known, but what is known is finite. Submitting to and pursuing the infinite leads to more fulfillment and wonder.
“Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of those who disputing honestly.”
Tolstoy on the group of men who used war and conflict for political and personal gain, wearing opinions like fashions and wearing only what will get the favour with those higher in rank than them.
“He was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom…because he was self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge only an absolute truth.”
“His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failure, for failures resulting from deviations in practice from the theory, only proved to him the accuracy of the theory.”
We build theories in our minds of how things should be. When things in the real world inevitably deviate from the theories in our minds, we claim the real world is the problem.
We make a plan of how things should be. When the plan fails, we don’t blame the plan, we blame the fact that the plan wasn’t properly executed. The world should fit to our plan, we shouldn’t have to remodel our plan to fit the world!
“Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he’s doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader.”
“Formerly, when going in to action, Rostov had felt afraid, now he had not the least feeling of fear. He was fearless not because he had grown used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger.”
Tolstoy describes doctors as useful not because they cure people, but because they were “indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and those who loved her—and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homoeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering.”
“At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant.” In solitude, man listens to the former voice; in society, the latter.
“‘We were just talking of you,’ she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman.”
Pierre acts kindly to the eldest unmarried princess, to whom he is benefactor, when she makes a reproachful demand of him. “The princess was apparently vexed at not having any one to be angry with.”
Pierre experienced a new and joyful feeling he had not experienced before: a “sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing something. […] He was not occupied with the question of what to sacrifice for, the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and joyous sensation.”
“But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder, the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country’s inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The military life is characterized by absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone.”
“So the way in which these people killed one another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took place by his will.”
“The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem very bad, and every learned miniaturist criticizes them with looks of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a battle that has been won.”
This also shows that no matter how profound and excellent a plan might be, if the hive executing the plan are weak willed it cannot succeed. But then we blame the plan and not the innumerable decisions made by the hive.
“The forest at the farthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green colour…”
“As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and rapidly from an approaching thunder-cloud, so, as if in opposition to what was taking place [the battle], the lightning of hidden fire growing more and more intense glowed in the faces of these men.”
“As soon as [soldiers] left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them under discipline, and under the influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear and death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng.”
“Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines.”
“To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It could not be.”
“Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind. Laws of motion of any kind only become comprehensible to man when he examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements.”
“In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens. The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous.”
“The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though there is and can be no beginning to any events, for one event always flows uninterruptedly from another.”
“The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a king or a commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas the sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a single historic personage.”
“Only by taking an infinitesimally small unit for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.”
“‘But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been great men,’ says history[…]Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude that the whistling and turning of wheels are the cause of the movement of the engine.”
“In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going…but as soon as a storm arises…suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man.”
“As happens with passionate people he was mastered by anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it.”
“To a man unswayed by passion, what’s best for the crowd is never certain, but those mastered by passion think they know exactly where that welfare lies.”
Rostopchin, to direct the frustration of the mob to someone other than himself, found a French prisoner, blamed all their woes on the Frenchman, and commanded the crowd to beat him. The Frenchman was beaten to death, and Rostopchin’s cowardly psyche did everything it could to deflect responsibility for, or justify, the death. “The crowd needed a vent for their anger and I obeyed their calls,” he thought. Who can be sure what the crowd needed at that moment?
“Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they carried their loot with them,” unable to let go.
“When water is spilt on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and mud results; and in the same way the entry of the faminished army into the rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction of both the army and the wealthy city.”
The army had been destroyed because the once orderly soldiers transformed into lawless men in the rich and deserted city of Moscow
“When living with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul.”
Book four
“Those who try to understand the general course of events, and to take part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism, were the most useless members of society […] and all they did for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish.”
“In historic events the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless.”
Those who move the dials of history are those who act authentically and naturally
The maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies first.
“Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life brought him in contact with, particularly with man—not any particular man, but those with whom he happened to be.”
“Platon Karaetev knew nothing by heart, except his prayers. When he began to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.”
Platon radiates authenticity, creativity, and simplicity. To plan his speech would pervert the authenticity and creativity; part of his speech would service the plan rather than the relationship between speaker and spoken to, and thus hinder that harmony between them.
“But his life, as he regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance of any word or deed taken separately.”
“During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to have been the leader of all those movements—as the figure-head of a ship may seem to a savage to guide the vessel—acted like a child who, holding a couple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.”
Talks of a dog “basking in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance.” Perfect.
“A sweating hand’s an open hand, a dry hand’s close.”
“It was terrible, but he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent of it.”
“There was within him a deep unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one’s own work. And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.”
“With his sixty years’ experience he knew what value to attach to rumours, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary.”
Confirmation bias.
Near the end of the campaign, “all Kutuzov’s activity was directed towards restraining his troops, by authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers, or encounters with the perishing enemy.”
“One must have a prospect of a promised land to have the strength to move.”
“Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity. In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its men and some unknown x. […] That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army […] Men who want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.”
“And the escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in, if giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners, and so rendering their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness and severity.”
“That happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. […] He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in the bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping in the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming.”
“Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man, and the saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.”
“To love life is to love god. Harder and more blessed than all is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent sufferings.”
“When actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness’. ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong; there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”
“All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his army were like the plan of a market-gardener who, when driving out of his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should run to the gate and hit the cow on the head.”
“The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should do what was impossible.”
“A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may heal and its edges join, yet physical and spiritual wounds alike can heal completely only as the result of a vital force within. Natasha’s wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke, and so did life.”
“She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which, taking root, would so cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal from within.”
“Such is the fate, not of great men whom the Russian mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals who discerning the will of Providence submit their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punishes such men for discerning the higher laws.”
“…who by experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts, and the words serving their expression, are not what move people.”
“In his captivity he had learnt that in Karataev [a good-natured peasant] God was greater, more infinite, more unfathomable, than in the Architect of the Universe the Freemasons acknowledged.”
“Yet Pierre’s cunning consisted simply in finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered, hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.”
“Though he considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment was of value to suffering humanity…”
“By being ruined I have become much richer.”
“Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a pathetic, kindly old man, much to be pitied.”
“Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to discover personal attributes, which he termed ‘good qualities’, in people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discover indubitable causes for loving them.”
First Epilogue
“Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I flow from the same sources: the circumstances of his birth, education, and life, that made his personality what it was and from which the actions for which they blame him also flowed?”
“‘Chance created the situation; genius utilized it,’ says history. But what is chance? What is genius? The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I think I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of genius.”
By delving into the essence of extraordinary movements, we have no need to see the extraordinary abilities and genius of extraordinary people, “but we shall be unable to consider them to be anything but men like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small events were inevitable.”
“The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The waves of the great movement abate, and in the calm surface eddies are formed in which float the diplomatists who imagine that they have caused the floods to abate.”
“It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty.”
“‘Always the same thing,’ said Pierre […] ‘Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to counteract it as far as they can.’”
“…and promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all her neighbours, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary’s soul always strove towards the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace.”
Second Epilogue
The only conception that can explain the movement of a locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement observed. That force does not lie in the devil, although this can’t be refuted. It doesn’t lie in the wheels, for the comes the question of what causes the wheels to turn. And so with movements of people. “Some people see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting from several forces, like the movement of the wheels.”
“As gold is gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use, so universal historians will only be valuable when they can reply to history’s essential questions: What is power? The universal historians give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters of imitation gold can only be used among a group of people who agree to accept them as gold or among those who do not know the nature of gold, so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering humanity’s essential question, only serve as currency for some purposes of their own in universities and among the mass of readers who have a taste for what they call serious reading.”
“No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.”
Taking a jab at free will. We act as though we spontaneously make commands of ourself, that is, we will our own decisions. This is a product of hubris, a neglecting of the continuity. Our decisions don’t spontaneously arise within us, they are provoked by a collection other sources. Our assumption that the individual’s power to spontaneously choose their path is a result of a lack of understanding of what caused that choice (ignorance), and also reflects of our self-serving, hubristic desire to be the sole author of our decisions
Justifying atrocities generally serve the purpose of allowing those who produce the atrocities from moral responsibility. The French kill and drown one another, and say it necessary for the welfare of France, liberty, and equality of man. Hamas kill and mutilate Israelis, call it a necessary cost to bring justice for years of power imbalance. These justifications merely enable horrendous behaviour that serves selfish aims.
“Is there any collective action which cannot find its justification in political unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization?”
Organizations of humans arrange themselves into a hierarchical cone. The plentiful at the bottom tend to participate most but command least, and thus have the least responsibility; whereas those at the top participate least but command most, thus having the most responsibility.
What is power? “Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less his participation in that action.
What force produces the movement of nations? Not power, nor intellectual activity, or a combination of the two as historians suppose, “but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least responsibility and vice versa.”
“Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event, physically it is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other, but in the union of the two.”
Struggling to understand the second sentence.
Without a conception of free will, it seems man would be unable to understand life and unable to live for a single moment, for freedom (seemingly) is life. “All man’s efforts, all his impulses into life, are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom. A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life.”
Our conception of freedom and necessity is increased or decreased by the following:
How we perceive the spatial relationship of the actor. * A man alone seems more free in his actions than a man in society. Societal conditions seem to bind us more. Yet, if we look deeper, we can find that the man in solitude is just as influenced by his environment: in the food he hunts, the books he reads, and the air he breathes.
The temporal relationship between us and the actor. * Our actions performed a moment ago feel more in our control than those taken in the past. The longer the duration, the more inevitable they seem. ‘Of course I picked up the cup! But that traumatic event in my past, well, that happened because I was naive and couldn’t have known otherwise.’ This is because time provides perspective, and increased perspective always increases inevitability, because it unveils more that hubris hides from us.
The degree to which we apprehend the endless chain of causation that led to a decision to act. * The more we learn, the more we reveal the reason that an event turned out the way it did. This is interesting; the scientific pursuit of Truth (the real truth—the one unrestricted to merely one group or one species) will necessarily decrease perceived freedom and increase perceived necessity. * The less we understand something, the more freedom we ascribe to it. For a crime we don’t understand, we attribute more blame to the actor; for a virtuous act we don’t understand, we attribute more merit to the actor.
“Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes or increases according to the greater or lesser connexion with the external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes, under which we contemplate a man’s life.”
Spatial and temporal continuity (interconnectedness) and interdependence. An understanding of the causal links in that interconnected chain, that is, the chain of dependencies.
The action of a man absent of free will assumes infinite knowledge of space relations, an infinitely long period of time, and an infinite series of causes.
The action of man perfectly free assumes man is all alone, beyond space, beyond time, and free from dependence on cause.
Reason says: space is infinite, time is infinite motion without a moment of rest, and the connection between cause and effect has no beginning or end.
Consciousness says: I am all there is, I measure flowing time by a fixed moment of the present, and I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.
“Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.”
“In history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability, what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an expression for the unknown remained of what we know about the laws of human life.”
“But as in astronomy the new view said: ‘It is true that we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting motion (which we do not feel) we arrive at laws,’ so also in history the new view says: ‘It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.’”
As in astronomy, which revealed to humanity a motion we do not feel, so with free will we must recognize dependencies of which we are not conscious.
Arnold Wilson, a British lieutenant dispatched to Persia to oversee oil drilling, said he “had spent a fortnight upon Oil Company business, mediating between Englishmen who cannot always say what they mean and Persians who do not always mean what they say.”
He’s a good teapot though he may be a bad pourer!
Part 1 talks about:
Oil discovery in America. Starts in Pennsylvania. Drilling is done after some evidence of oil (oily rocks, oily films on top of water reservoirs) is found. Oil spurts out of ground—oil rush ensues
Standard Oil, led by Rockefeller, capitalizes most on new oil discoveries in America. They use shady tactics to maintain dominance of the market; Rockefeller maintains a cash reserve to withstands the ebbs and flows of supply and demands. This cash reserve allowed them to aggressively price cut to dry out competitors, after which they’d acquire them.
Talks about the monumental discovers, the hoard of people that would accumulate, the rise in land prices around them, and then the rapid exhaustion of resource and ghost towns left when the wells would run dry.
There were no gasoline run engines yet, so kerosene was the major product, used for lighting. Before, people would use candles (wax and whale fat was expensive) or poorer families would use rags dipped in animal fat/vegetable oil.
Standard oil eventually gets ordered by the government (led by Roosevelt) to disassemble. They break up into what is today Chevron, Exxon, and others.
Meanwhile, in the East, Royal Dutch gets running in southeastern Asia with some oil discoveries. Shell, then a transport company led by Marcus Samuel, transports Oil from Russia/Baku (from a company led by one of the Nobel brothers) to the rest of Eurasia, and then eventually Royal Dutch’s oil.
Shell was named after Marcus Samuel’s fathers occupation: he was a sea shell merchant (among other trinkets and doodads)
Shell and Royal Dutch eventually merged. The Russian oil company was volatile, subject to strikes from communist uprises in Baku.
Gasoline vehicles started gaining traction in the early 1900s, leading to the use of a once useless fraction from the refining process
Reserves were found in Persia, and a British investor and Persian diplomat teamed up to start drilling there. Britain had geopolitical interests in controlling this area to maintain access to India. Russia wanted access to reach the Persian gulf; a warm water port.
Navy ships were starting to transition from coal to fuel oil. In Britain, it was realized to maintain an advantage they needed to expedite their transition. Coal required more manpower to shovel and tend to and generated less power, speed, and maneuverability.
The Persian drilling/refining project then received substantial government investment to keep it afloat (it had been struggling to get going with lack of expertise, tribal tensions in rural Persia, harsh living conditions and lack of infrastructure). This provided the British Navy with a source of fuel oil.
This British investment in Persian oil was probably the first instance of oil becoming a national instrument of policy and of warfare.
Part 2: The World Struggle
In world war 1, the oil powered engine simplified the problems of mobility and supply (before movement was restricted to railroads or horseback, and horses ate 10x more food than men). However, these engines multiplied devastation. A solution that created more problems.
Ganesha (god of thieves and writing) got his elephant head because, on the day he was born, he was asked by his mother Devi to guard the door, and to not let anyone enter. Then his father, Shiva, came. He demanded to be let in, but Ganesha didn’t recognize him and refused. Shiva cut off his son’s head. Devi got upset with Shiva, so Shiva picked up an elephants head and placed it in lieu of Ganesha’s original head.
“The very day I was born I made my first mistake, and by that path I have sought wisdom ever since.” - Ganesha
“Dhritarashtra lost his sorrow in Gandhari’s love, as a river is lost in the sea.”
“He kept no guard against the five flower-tipped arrows of Karna the love god, who holds the most powerful bow in the world, though it is made but of sugarcane and strung with only a line of bees as a bowstring.”
Lust
“They are blind and cannot see where he is rich; and their children take after them because they know no better.”
“Brahmanas are forgiving. Their hearts are made of butter, not of stone, and their happy memories are long.”
When Drona is training the Kuru princes, he asks them to take aim at a bird target’s neck. He asks the princes what they see, and they all fail to give the right answer (they say the bird, their arm, Drona himself). It is only Arjuna who answers correctly, that he can only see the neck, and can see no bird. Arjuna became a master bowman.
“At sunrise I face the east and sit quietly until there is no shadow behind me and my back is warmed by the sun; and so I have learned many things without your approval.” - Karna (the greatest warrior on Earth) to Bhima (a Pandava, one of the Kuru brothers)
“All sharp weapons are not made of steel. But what dries the dew will not disturb the wild dogs, whose homes have many secret doors underground. The blind one sees not his way; the blind has no knowledge where he goes. By wandering, one may know paths; by the stars he may know direction; by taking care, none shall oppress him.”
First part: The light of truth does not disturb wild dogs, who hide in deception. Deception is one of those weapons not made of steel. Those who deceive see not where they go, they are blind; underground.
Second part: wandering takes courage; looking toward the stars is to follow the enlightened; to take care is to be mindful and aware.
“Well, I shall now tell you something more. With even a thousand (explanations), one that has a bad understanding succeeds not in acquiring knowledge. One, however, that is endued with intelligence succeeds in attaining happiness, through only a fourth share (of explanations).” - Brahma
“Arjuna said, ‘I asked Kuntj if I had ever seen [Krishna] before, as a child. He is familiar—but a stranger. She said we never met.’
“‘That’s a strange feeling,’ answered Yudhishthira. ‘I feel that way about Karna.’”
Arjuna’s first wife (Draupadi) upon seeing him bring his second (Subhadra, Krishna’s sister): “Go somewhere away with her, for the second tie round a bundle always loosens the first!”
“You are like the tiny bird that picks meat from the lion’s mouth, and tells other: do not gamble!”
“I am the King; My wealth and my treasure Are too great to be counted. Yet I have nothing. If all my city burns to ashes, Nothing of mine will be harmed.”
Part 2: In the middle
“I arranged the Veda in my spare time, and it says the deceitful may be slain by deceit, and the slayer’s honor is not blackened.” - Vyasa
Tricky. Leaning towards disagree. Fighting deception with more deception just perpetuates deception. I understand that if one loses something to deceit, you may seemingly doom yourself to being exploited if you don’t fight fire with fire. But lying yields instability, for it destabilizes the common bonds that unite relationships. It’s difficult to have unity if people think they can righteously lie.
“As Lord Brahma sleeps, he hears something lost mentioned in his dream life, and he remembers, and it appears again here among us as it was long ago.”
Like the avataras concept, where a god reincarnates as a human yet forgets who he is. We all flow through life, and gradually remember the whole—the god, so to speak—that gave rise to us. And we remember our part in it, we raise children as we were raised. A re-remembering.
“I must walk, lest comfort destroy all men.” - Vibhandaka, when offered a ride back to his home far away
“A monkey chases everything, but never catches it because he is instantly distracted by another thing. Always the joy of running and leaping, and never the awful clutter of possessions no longer desired.” - Hanuman
Good and bad. The chase implies a clinging that causes suffering. But the endless pursuit of things that can’t be captured, well, that’s the infinite game. It depends what you chase. If your chasing things that bring about clutter, you’re chasing the wrong things.
“All the things you have are overlooked by the birds and dismissed by the animals,” said Bhima. “I came for some flowers of fragrance.” - Bhima to Vaishravana, the God of (earthly) Treasure
Animals care not for material wealth. Why should we? Or do they… I suppose birds are attracted to vibrant plumage, which is a genetic form of a conspicuous good.
“I have no real friends in all the Worlds.” - Vaishravana (God of material wealth)
Material wealth attracts fake friends
“The [autumn] air was as clear as the new necklace of rolls and rivers worn by the mountain, and white birds flew past day after day on their way to the brimful lakes of the south.”
When Virata, the king of Matsya, asks one of the disguised Pandava brothers, who is disguised as a cow herdsman, whether he can talk to his cattle, he replies “Majesty, they say nothing of interest. But someone who understands them ought to be with them to put the right ideas into their minds, so that they may know when they are happy.”
Brilliant. The role of religion to the passive majority.
“‘Kindness, profit, and desire are each hostile to the others. How may they be brought together?’ ‘When a wife is kind, then all three are in one.’”
“‘What is heavier than earth?’ ‘A mother.’ ‘What is higher than heaven?’ ‘A father.’”
“‘Who then is the friend given by the gods?’ ‘It is the wife who is that friend and safe refuge.’”
“‘Who is the guest that all life is host to?’ ‘Fire.’”
“‘What makes one wealthy if it is cast away?’ ‘Greed.’ ‘And what is greed?’ ‘It is poison.’”
“‘What is honesty?’ ‘That is to look, and to see every living creature as yourself, bearing your own will to live, and your own fear of death.’”
“‘Who is truly happy?’ ‘The man without any debts.’”
“‘What is true wealth?’ ‘Love and kindness are better than gold; honor is more valuable than rooms full of jewels.’”
“Like a wild deer driven into a village, a liar mistrusts everyone, thinking that they are all like himself.”
When asked whether they’d rather unarmed Krishna or ten thousand soldiers, Arjuna chooses Krishna and Duryodhana is happy with the soldiers. Arjuna mentions he chose Krishna because he could still drive his chariot.
Quality, not quantity. The truth, the vitality of life and consciousness, is of much more value and everlasting than an unconscious mob that fights for the wrong reasons
“No man has ever defeated Duryodhana,” says his father Dhrit. Krishna replies, “A clay pot cannot be twice broken. You have the strength to make peace, but not the will, so I am helpless.”
Dhrit will not stop his son, despite knowing that his son’s pride will lead to their destruction. He is a formidably strong man, despite being blind, but he lacks the moral strength to reprimand his first born.
“The man who will speak to [Kali, the goddess of Time, Death, and Destruction] at dawn can have no enemies; and snakes and all animals that have fangs and teeth, from them he has no fear, as also from kings. If bound, he is freed. Victory and wealth are certain for him. He is sure to overcome all difficulties. With health and strength he lives for one hundred years.”
Those who accept death, the finitude of their time, or who embrace destruction (or difficulty) at dawn (early in life) are bound to prosper without fear.
“Then Night, the mother of the world, gently covered her child with darkness, as before, when she had not yet been first born.”
Part 3: In the end
It is harder by ten million times to call back a weapon once released.
“Stop your sadness, kill revenge himself. Find that cunning ugly man who holds you tight as iron chains, aim true at him where he is hidden.”
A man holds a burning coal in his robes, and it bursts into flames against his skin, burning him. When asked how it happened, he replies “I fanned it to put it out.” His name was Grief.
Vyasa tells King Dhrit a story about a brahmana who is stuck in a jungle, endlessly pursued by tigers and leopards. The edge of the jungle is enclosed by venomous snakes. The Brahmana ends up falling into a pit covered by vines, his heel being caught on the edge. Inside the pit is a serpent, walking around it is a huge elephant with six heads and twelve feet. A tree leaned above him that housed a bee hive that dripped honey into his mouth. No matter how much he swallowed, it was never enough and he could free himself.
The world is a jungle. We all inhabit our own inaccessible parts (pits) of the inescapable jungle of life, driven by fear of death. The pursuit never ends (tigers), it cannot be escaped (snakes at edge). We swallow the nectar of life (honey); when death approaches we still want more life. The honey could be a metaphor for hedonic indulgences as well. What does the elephant represent…?
“We take leave of our senses and deceive each other. And watching this all is the witness, one’s own self, so that he becomes our enemy who might be our best friend. This monotonous deceit wearies our soul. Without that, we would not have to rest so often.”
“You are all Pandavas. While creation lasts, again and again you shall live in the world of men.”
The pandavas live in each of us.
“There is truth where [Krishna is]; and there is victory where truth is.”
“You are the sheath of the Universe; And you hold it with love in your hands…”
Bhishma to Krishna before Bhishma’s death
“This victory seems to me like a great defeat! There is only one for and not another, and he is ignorance.” - Yudhishthira after the Pandavas win the war
“Holding dear what you do not have.”
“Those who are not common do not save up the wrongs done against them, but remember only the benefits they receive.”
“There are three concerns above all—injure no creature; tell the truth as much as it may be told; be free from anger when you are not in danger.” Dhrit to Yudhishthira
“By the lamp of history is the whole mansion of nature’s womb illumined.”
‘Sauti said, “By Narayana’s widespreading tree whose leaves are songs, on the grass plateau high on the sacred and eternal breast of Kailasa [mountain where Shiva lives], the Players met under the colored shadows and asked: “What shall we play next?”’
Infinite game. Players.
“Time is the root and the seed, it gives and it takes away. I bow to God, who lives in this world within us; whoever calls Him by any name, by that name does He come.”
The Gospel according to John
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Flourishing of the whole depends on individual sacrifice.
“Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”
‘One sows and another reaps.’ It takes selflessness to labour for those you do not know. It takes selflessness to recognize the labour, of which you profit from, from those you do not know.
Dante emerges from Hell with his guide, Virgil. They approach, guided by four stars, and are faced with the custodian of the Mountain of Purgatory, a solitary island surrounded by sea.
Dante and his guide are instructed to enter elsewhere, somewhere that will be revealed to them by the sun. They turn back and made their “way across the lonely plain, like one returning to a lost pathway, who, till he finds it, seems to move in vain.”
They reach a point where “dew contends with sun and, seconded by soft sea-winds, wins out because it won’t evaporate.” Virgil then brushes his hand against the dew and uses his hand to mwash Dante’s face, which reveals “the color that Inferno had concealed.”
Virgil wraps a rush around Dante, that he plucks from the shore. The moment he plucked the plant, an identical one sprung up in its place.
The eternal braid.
Canto 2
A group is brought to the shores of the Mountain of Purgatory by an angel, its wings pointing to the heavens, travelling so fast that it barely sinks, gliding on water’s surface. The angel is so bright that Dante cannot look at it directly.
The angel leaves and the group ask Dante and Virgil where to go, and Virgil replies “we are strangers here, just as you are; we came but now, a little while before you, though by another path, so difficult and dense that this ascent seems sport to us.”
Dante tries to embrace one of the members. “O shade—in all except appearance—empty! Three times I clasped my hands behind him and as often brought them back against my chest.”
Like an idea: tangible in appearance and thought, intangible physically.
“To return again to where I am, I journey thus”
One shade is an old friend of his, and the shade sings him a song of love. The shades all gather and listen, before they are lambasted by the custodian for lagging. The shades disperse, and Dante describes it as a flock of pigeons dispersing at a greater threat and leaving food behind.
“They left the song behind, turned toward the slope, like those who go and yet do not know where.”
A common theme: following a path but not knowing where it leads.
Canto 3
“Foolish is he who hopes our intellect can reach the end of that unending road only on Substance in three Persons follows. […] had [humans] been able to see all, there would be no need for Mary to give birth.”
“For he who best discerns the worth of time is most distressed whenever time is lost.”
“There is no one so lost that the eternal love cannot return—as long as hope shows something green.”
A man who had repented prior to his death, Manfred, tells Dante that those who had stubbornly disobeyed divine authority but who had repented must wait along the shores of mount purgatory for thirty times the span they had spent in presumptuousness. They can shorten this time by praying appropriately.
“Those here—through those beyond—advance more quickly.”
Canto 4
First spur are those who were late to repent by negligence.
“When something seen or heard secures the soul in stringent grip, time moves and we do not notice it.”
Good: getting lost in a wonderful story or song.
Not so good: getting lost in ourselves, in shortsighted passions that cause us to neglect the future.
“The power that perceives the course of time is not the power that captures all the mind; the former has no force—the latter binds.”
Discerning time seems logical…discretizing time into chunks and measuring the series. Whereas consciousness as a whole involves love, which binds those chunks together and makes it immeasurable…infinite continuum.
The bottom of Mount Purgatorio is most steep, practically vertical. Symbolic of how it’s most difficult to get started on a positive habit after shedding a negative habit. To find their way up to an opening, Dante and Virgil needed the help of a group—starting a positive habit requires communal support.
To rise this steep beginning, Dante must “fly” with wings and pinions of immense desire, “behind the guide who gave me hope and was my light.”
Ascension requires faith. Faith inspirits us, turns climbing into flying.
“The slope climbs higher than my eyes can follow.”
“This mountain’s of such sort that climbing it is hardest at the start; but as we rise, the slope grows less unkind. Therefore, when this slope seems to you so gentle that climbing farther seems to you so gentle as travelling downstream by boat, you will be where this pathways ends, and there you can expect to out your weariness to rest.”
On his way up, Dante rests on spurs. On the first spur, curled in a ball with his head beneath his knees in the shade of a boulder, sits Dante’s friend. His friend laments that he must stay on purgatory for as many days as he had lived before being accepted, “since [he] delayed good sighs until the end.”
“Always the man in whom thought thrusts ahead of thought allows the goal he’s set to move far off—the force of one thought saps the other’s force.”
Canto 5
The second spur are the late-repentant who died deaths due to violence.
Canto 6
“But those who are alive within you now can’t live without their warring—even those whom one same wall and one same moat enclose gnaw at each other. Squalid Italy, search round your shores and then look inland—see if any part of you delight in peace.”
“See how this beast turns fierce because there are no spurs that would correct it.”
In speaking of the degeneration of Italy, despite being offered a worthy saddle by ancestors. Lack of diligence, courage, care, and neglecting wisdom left by predecessors creates an untameable beast.
Dante questions God at the chaos, baseness, and tyrantry of Italy: “Have You turned elsewhere Your just eyes? Or are You, in Your judgment’s depth, devising a good that we cannot foresee, completely dissevered from our understanding?”
“You will see yourself like that sick woman who finds no rest upon her feather-bed, but, turning, tossing, tries to ease her pain.”
Pains of privilege. Manufactured pain.
Canto 7
“There [Virgil is] with the infant innocents, those whom the teeth of death had seized before they were set free from human sinfulness; there I am with those souls who were not clothed in the three holy virtues—but who knew and followed after all the other virtues.”
It seems wrong to me to see infants as impure and needing of cleansing, and their lack of baptism leading them to reside in hell (although at the most shallow rung)
Three holy virtues are faith, hope, and charity.
The second spur is followed by a valley in which live 13th century rulers. The valley is brimming with floral colour and sweet fragrance. Interesting that the path has been upwards since now, and to see these kings they must travel down into a valley.
Canto 8
“Oh by way of the sad regions, I came this morning; I am still within the first life—although, by this journeying, I earn the other.”
Dante in response to where he’s come from. By journeying through the afterlife (a sort of forecasting that sheds light on how living in a particular way may lead you), he approaches everlasting life.
Canto 9
“At those hours close to morning when the swallow begins her melancholy songs, perhaps in memory of her ancient sufferings, when, free to wander farther from the flesh and less held fast by cares, our intellect’s envisionings become almost divine.”
How we dream just before we wake. REM sleep.
After encountering the angelic gatekeeper in Canto IX of Purgatorio, the Pilgrim must ascend three steps to finally enter Purgatory.
Each step is different. The first step is polished white marble. The second step is dark purple and crumbling. And the third step is a vibrant red, like fire or blood.
Commentators tend to associate the three steps with the three stages of repentance. The polished, mirror-like first step represents self-examination. The black and crumbling second step represents grief and sorrow for sin. And the final, flame-red step represents penance and purgation (confessing one’s sins and the purification that follows)
Canto 10
They rise from a crack to the First Terrace, where three symbols of humility are shown in marble: Mary, David (from David & Goliath) dancing before the Ark, and Emperor Trajan (who was apparently one of the 5 good emperors of Rome. Apparently he was quite philanthropic and improved social welfare)
“O Christians, arrogant, exhausted, wretched, whose intellects are sick and cannot see, who place your confidence in backward steps, do you not know that we are worms and born to form the angelic butterfly that soars, without defenses, to confront His judgment? Why does your mind presume to flight when you are still like the imperfect grub, the worm before it has attained its final form?”
The proud think they can fly while still burdened with ego. They must lighten their load first, via humility.
The penalty for the proud is to bear a boulder on their backs, its weight commensurate to the height of their pride.
Canto 11
The prideful, bearing their burdens, are forced to look at the ground under their heavy load. They once saw highly of themselves, and are now forced to see lowly of themselves.
Forced to bow before something larger, for they had not bowed when they had lived.
“Until God has been satisfied, I bear this burden here among the dead because I did not bear this load among the living.”
Canto 12
Dante walks by a bunch of effigies symbolic of pride: Satan, some giants, Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, Troy, etc.
“Remember—today will never know another dawn.”
“O humankind, born for the upward flight, why are you driven back by wind so slight?”
“How different were these entryways from those of Hell! For here it is with song one enters; down there, it is with savage lamentations.”
Dante feels lighter ascending from the first terrace. He has shed his pride. One of the seven P’s have been erased from his forehead (which were inscribed upon him by the angel at Purgatory’s entrance). First of the seven sins, down.
Virgil says that once the seven P’s (penances for sins) are erased, “your feet will be so mastered by good will that they not only will not feel travail but will delight when they are urged uphill.”
Canto 13
The Second Terrace, are the envious. They have their eyes sewn shut.
One of the envious: “I rejoiced far more at others’ hurts than at my own good fortune.”
Canto 14
“My blood was so afire with envy that, when I had seen a man becoming happy, the lividness was plain to see.”
“O humankind, why do you set your hearts there where our sharing cannot have a part?”
Dante happens upon Cain, the epitome of envy and jealousy.
Canto 15
“For when your longings center on things such that sharing them apportions less to each, then envy stirs the bellows of your sighs. But if the love within the Highest Sphere should turn your longing heavenward, the fear inhabiting your breast would disappear; for there, the more there are who say ‘ours,’ so much the greater is the good possessed by each—so much more love burns in that cloister.”
Third terrace is the wrathful
“‘What shall we do to one who’d injure us if one who loves us earns our condemnation?’”
If you see what we do to people we love, wait till you see what we do to people we hate
“I asked [What’s wrong with you?] so that your feet might find more force: so must one urge the indolent, too slow to use their waking time when it returns.”
Canto 16
The sin of wrath is punished by dark smoke.
Within the smoke the wrathful sing in unison, “that fullest concord seemed to be among them.” What once sowed discordance (their wrath) is being brought together by love. “As they [sing] they loose the knot of anger.”
“At first, [the soul] savors trivial goods; these would beguile the soul, and it runs after them, unless there’s guide or rein to rule its love.”
To protect people from their greed, laws are set in place to curb it, and sage rulers. But those sage rulers are no more, “and thus the people, who can see their guide snatch only that good for which they feel some greed, would feed on that and seek no further.”
When good rule is lost and laws are no longer applied, people support rulers that can promise them those trivial goods, that do them harm, for which they greedily desire. Applicable to today’s politicians (the president of the USA is Trump, a businessman, and Musk, the richest man in the world, is increasingly involved in government)—the swinging of politics to prioritize economic gain as the ultimate good.
Rome had made the world good through two suns, illuminating two paths: the world’s path and God’s. “[The world’s] path has eclipsed the other; now the sword has joined the shepherd’s crook; the two together must of necessity result in evil, because, so joined, one need not fear the other.”
The risk of worldly pleasures corrupting government. The sword—representative of worldly economic gain (which was gained via warfare)—and rule combine to form evil.
Virgil speaks of two types of love: natural and mental. All creatures have natural love, and it is always without error. Mental love, however, may choose an evil object or err through too much or too little vigour.
“As long as [mental love] is directed towards the First Good and tends toward secondary goods with measure, it cannot be the cause of evil pleasure.”
The highest virtues above all. Moderate pursuit of earthly goods.
“Love is the seed in you of every virtue and of all acts deserving punishment.”
Evil is born out of love.
Virgil talks of perverted love (a sort of ill will toward one’s neighbour) giving rise to pride, envy, and wrath, defective or lax love giving rise to sloth, and hints as worldly love giving rise to avarice, gluttony, and lust.
Canto 18
“Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from scrutinists who would insist that every love is, in itself, praiseworthy; and they are led to error by the matter of love, because it may seem—always—good; but not each seal is fine, although the wax is.”
Like this metaphor. How it is applied is what matters. The product itself is pure, but if it is applied clumsily or carelessly, what good is it? Like paint and a painting, fibre and clothing, etc.
Man’s tending toward desire’s primal objects are in us “just as in bees there is the honey making urge, such primal will deserves no praise, and it deserves no blame.”
“Now, that all other longs may conform to this first will [primal urges], there is in you, inborn, the power that counsels, keeper of the threshold of your assent: this is the principle of which your merit may be judged, for it garners and winnows good and evil longings.”
That counsel is conscience, a product of natural selection of a higher degree, in a rung above the individual in the hierarchy. Will I act on behalf of the good of the group?, it asks.
The slothful are made to run without rest, “driven on, as [Dante] made out, by righteous will as well as by just love.”
“Quick, quick, lest time be lost through insufficient love; where urge for good is keen, grace finds new green.”
Canto 19
Dante has a dream of a siren, who approaches him ugly and sickly but, when he sets his eyes on her, becomes beautifully irresistible. Beatrice protects Dante from her, setting her into confusion. Virgil comes and rips off her disguise, exposing her belly which released a wicked stench.
Symbolic of the allure of earthly goods…attractive, yet they decay, unlike everlasting lofty goods.
The avaricious are tied to the ground face down, and chant “my soul clings to the ground.” Represents how attachment to earthly goods hinders our ability to look to something higher.
“As avarice annulled in us the love of any other good, and thus we lost our chance for righteous works, so justice here fetters our hands and feet and holds us captive.”
Canto 20
“I was the root of the obnoxious plant that overshadows all the Christian lands, so that fine fruit can rarely rise from them.”
Lovely metaphor for greed. The large plant that towers above the rest and hoards all the light. How may new plants grow if that tree allows no light to pass?
The mountain trembles and Dante doesn’t understand why. Virgil assures him to not “be afraid, as long as I’m your guide.” Dante doesn’t figure out what caused it. Perhaps a lesson on “bad shit happens, but have faith in me and things will work out. You won’t always understand why the bad shit happens, you’re only mortal after all.”
Canto 21
“For tears and smiles are both so faithful to the feelings that have prompted them that true feeling escapes the will that would subdue.”
Tears and (authentic) smiles are honest signals
Canto 22
“Love that is kindled by virtue, will, in another, find reply, as long as that love’s flame appears without.”
Love flourishes when service is done for others, done for the without
Virgil talks of the first circle of hell from which he resides, referring to it as a “blind prison.” Reminiscent of Plato’s cave.
Canto 23
The gluttonous are the sixth terrace. They are eternally famished and thirsty, and must pass by a tree that sprays water they cannot drink and puffs perfumes of sweet fruit they cannot eat.
Canto 24
“Ladies who have intelligence of love.”
“Blessed are those whom grace illumines so, that, in their breasts, the love of taste does not awake too much desire—whose hungering is always in just measure.”
Canto 25
“Potentially, [the soul] bears with it the human and divine; but with the human powers mute, the rest—intelligence and memory and will—are more acute in action than they were.”
Canto 26
“As ants, in their dark company, will touch their muzzles, each to each, perhaps to seek news of their fortunes and their journeyings.”
The lustful’s punishment is being blasted by fire for purification
Canto 27
Dante dreams about Leah (Jacob’s first wife) and her sister Rachel. Leah represents the active life on earth, where one must work to adorn itself with virtue, and Rachel the contemplative life, the study of heavenly truths that allow one to see God’s beauty.
Virgil to Dante, upon nearing paradise: “My son, you’ve seen the temporary fire [purgatory] and the eternal fire [hell]; you have reach the place past which my powers cannot see. I’ve brought you here through intellect and art; from now on, let your pleasure be your guide; you’re past the steep and past the narrow paths.”
Intellect and art can only go so far…faith reaches beyond.
Canto 28
Dante reaches earthly paradise, the divine forest. Interesting how he began in a forest, lost, and now he walks through a forest, guided by Good.
“Man’s fault made him exchange frank laughter and sweet sport for lamentation and for anxiousness.”
Near term desire over long term pleasure.
There is an eternal stream that splits in two. Drinking from one cleanses one’s memory of sin, the other restores memories of virtue.
Canto 29
In reference to a description he couldn’t elaborate on: “since I must spend elsewhere, I can’t be lavish here.”
Canto 30
“But where the soul has finer vigor, there precisely—when untitled or badly seeded—will that terrain grow wilder and more noxious.”
“He turned his footsteps toward an untrue path; he followed counterfeits of goodness, which will never pay in full what they have promised.”
“He fell so far there were no other means to lead him to salvation, except this: to let him see the people who were lost.”
The purpose of this journey made explicit.
Canto 31
Four dancing nymphs, symbolizing the four cardinal virtues (wisdom/prudence, courage, justice, temperance) lead Dante, but mention that they will pass him off to the three theological virtues (charity, hope, and faith) to take him further: “we’ll be your guides unto her eyes; but it will be the three beyond, who see more deeply, who’ll help you penetrate her joyous light.”
Indicates that charity, hope, and faith are more profound. In some sense, they are. Charity reaches the self outwards in space, to increase one’s sense of kinship. Hope and faith extend one’s concept of self forth in time. One could argue that a true sense of justice encapsulates these three.
Canto 32
Beatrice asks Dante to watch the chariot as an eagle (symbolizing Rome and their persecution of Christians), a fox (heresies), and a dragon (Islam, who at the time reconquered the holy land) destroyed the chariot.
Then, the chariot turned into a seven headed beast, three of the heads of which were double horned and three single horned (3 worst sins-pride, envy, wrath, and 4 earthly sins of sloth, greed, glut, and lust)
A whore and a giant appear, symbolizing the whore of Babylon (sign of the Anti Christ) and her allies (i.e., those rulers that propagate her evil)
Canto 33
Talks of the forbidden tree of knowledge, and Dante’s inability to understand it signalling his departure from earthly thought that tries to intellectualize it, a proof of his spiritual progress
“From that most holy wave I now returned to Beatrice; remade, as new trees are renewed when they bring forth new boughs, I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars.”
As at the end of inferno, he is following a metaphorical stream (the holy wave) and climbing towards the stars
“Those who are the greatest winners can be damaged most by any loss. Privilege entails terrible vulnerability.”
Those with highest status in the Trojan war would hurl the most insults as they attempt to defend their social standing, for they have the most to lose.
“The collective desire to see a lone warrior act with glorious courage puts everyone at risk.” It leads the warrior to unnecessarily risk his life for personal gain (glory) which consequently puts his group at risk, ironically estranging the warrior from the group.
“Even the wisest people are roused to rage, which trickles into you sweeter than honey, and inside your body it swells like smoke…” (18.135-139)
Very similar to the Buddha quote: Anger is like a honey-tipped arrow with a poison root.
“Anger turn pain outward, against others; grief turns it inward, to the self. […] The enraged want to humiliate, hurt, or kill; the grief-stricken want to be dead and inhabit the perspective of the dead.”
But grief is different from anger. “Anger drives community apart; grief brings them together, over a shared acknowledgement of irredeemable loss.”
Disagree. Collective outward expressions of hatred and bitterness is a powerful uniting force for groups. As Eric Hoffer put it: mass movements can be formed without belief of a god, but never without belief of a devil.
Aphrodite (goddess of lust) and Ares (god of war) cause the Trojan war: Aphrodite starts it by causing one dude to abduct the wife of another dude, and Ares fuels the conflict that ensues. Interestingly, both are wounded in battle and respond with ridiculous self-pity at their trivial injuries. But their laments are treated with appropriate disinterest, as they lack honor by associating themselves with the basest and most simplistic human motivations.
In Greek mythology, “the destruction of human lives and human cities is the price paid for the divine world order.” The costs of divine quarrels are always shouldered by mortals. Why? Because society, of whom the gods represent, demands its constituents to bear the burdens of the group so that the group, and thus the gods, can flourish and remain eternal. Perpetuity of a larger whole demands the sacrifice and suffering of its parts.
White blood cells destroy themselves to leave behind an acidic cloud that kills parasites. The white blood cell suffers with dignity. On the other hand, a cell that doesn’t suffer, and furthers itself at the expense of the whole, is called cancer. What happens when we leave it be? The God that rules over it, i.e., the body, dies.
The Poem
Lilaea: to long for
“All these men were now too old for war, but good in council, just as cicadas settle in the trees and fill the woods with sound as sweet as lilies.”
“She brushed [the arrow] from his skin—as light a gesture as when a mother strokes away a fly to keep it from her baby, sweetly sleeping.”
Waves disgorging briny foam
When shot, a man hung his head in heavy helmet like a garden poppy “weighted with seed and springtime showers of rain.”
Heaven high above: effort (takes effort to rise) + light + perspective = far-sightedness. Hell deep below: idleness (it’s easy to roll downhill) + dark + narrowness = near-sightedness.
“Delusion has great strength and sturdy feet, and runs out ahead of [the Prayers of Atonement, daughters of Zeus], and sprints across the world, and trips us humans. The Prayers come after [Delusion] and heal the damage.”
Delusion causes humans to make mistakes. Prayers of atonement heal the wounds caused by those mistakes.
Like a tall oak tree, “which, day after day, withstand the wind and rain because their roots are thick and planted deeply in the earth.”
“These two gods tugged the rope of cruel conflict, pulling it tight to one side and the other. This rope, which could not be untied or broken, untied the limbs of many living men.”
Cronus had three sons, of whom the three were given dominion of three domains: Zeus the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld. But they were all to share the earth and Mount Olympus
“A mind that can be changed is always best.”
The winds “clash in mountain glens and batter forest trees—the oak, the ash, the smooth-barked cornel tree strike one another with their slim, sharp branches and snap with creaks and otherworldly groans, so did the Greeks and Trojans sweep together and kill each other.”
“Deadly Delusion ruins and deludes all men. She is the eldest child of Zeus. Her feet are soft—she never walks the earth. She passes through the minds of human beings and damages them all, and puts in shackles one man in two.”
The first child of Zeus, the almighty god, is delusion. Interesting. Also similar to Ravana’s eldest son, Indrajit, who is characterized by delusion.
Pride, or excessive self-love, is delusion, the fruit of ignorance. The firstborn child of the god was delusion, and we are delusional (proud) by nature. Something profound here.
“Using the lamentation for Patroclus, each of the women wept for their own troubles.”
Rings true.
Eddying streams of a river bringing water down to the sea’s broad lap
“But this is an ancient, eternal story: what formerly happened with the Stoics still happens today, too, as soon as any philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise. Philosophy is the this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power, to the “creation of the world,” to the cause prima.”
“Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is a will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.”
“…and also the Darwinist’s and anti-teleologists among the workers in physiology, with their principle of the ‘smallest possible force’ and the greatest possible stupidity.”
In response to Schopenhauer’s insistence on free will: “Schopenhauer only did what philosophers are in the habit of doing—he adopted a popular prejudice and exaggerated it. Willing seems to me to be above all something complicated, something that is a unit only as a word—and it is precisely in this one word that the popular prejudice lurks, which has defeated the always inadequate caution of philosophers.”
“That which is termed ‘freedom of the will’ is essentially the affect of superiority in relation to him who must obey: ‘I am free, ‘he’ must obey’—this consciousness is inherent in every will.”
The desire for will is the desire to control, to exert control over the body, to render obedience from himself—or some subordinate part of himself
“He who wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation of power which accompanies all success.”
Stems from the lust to indulge in self-praise, in pride, in a yearning to have an effect, to exert control.
“The person exercising volition adds the feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful ‘under wills’ or under-souls—indeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many souls—to his feelings of delight as commander.”
“Under an invisible spell, [philosophies] always revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their criticism and systematic wills, something within them leads them, something impels them in a definite order, on after the other—to wit, the innate systematic structure and relationship of their concepts.”
“The desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society…”
People who misunderstand the unfreedom of will do so in two opposite yet profoundly personal ways: a) they do not give up responsibility, self belief, a personal right to their merits; b) others do not want to be answerable to anything or blamed for anything, and due to their self-contempt, seek to lay the blame for themselves somewhere else.
Part 2: The free spirit
Talks of pre-morality in prehistory being focused on consequences rather than origins (e.g., disgrace of a family still affects children generations later—the consequence stains them)
Reminds me of race politics in the States
Talks of the morality of today being focused on intention, i.e., the origin rather than the consequence. If i meant well, who cares if people suffered because of it. Argues that intentions aren’t the whole story, and generally lurking below conscious intentions are unconscious ones that deceive us into believing we meant well when really we wanted whatever was best for ourselves.
Ah…I’m a big proponent that intentions matter…thinking of things like micro-aggressions and the like. But intentions aren’t the whole story, even though they can seem like it
“In all seriousness: the innocence of our thinkers is somehow touching and evokes reverence, when today they still step before consciousness with the request that it should please give them honest answers.”
Brilliant.
“Why should the world that concerns us—be a fiction? And if somebody asked, ‘but to a fiction there surely belongs an author?’—couldn’t one answer simply: why? Doesn’t this ‘belongs’ perhaps belong to the fiction, too?”
Nietzsche believes that the reducible will of all organic matter is the will to power, the desire to affect the world. “Suppose all organic functions could be traced back to the will to power and ones could also find in it the solution of the problem of procreation and nourishment—it is one problem—then ones would have gained the right to determine all efficient force univocally as—will to power.”
If “truth” is hard to swallow, “the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the ‘truth’ one could still barely endure—or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.”
“And how should there be a ‘common good’! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value.”
Perhaps locally, the average value of the good decreases, being blended down by sheer numbers. But the sum of those less formidable common goods can far exceed the more formidable individual goods. Nietzsche seems to value the individual as utmost, at least so far.
“What [those preoccupied with ‘modern ideas’] would like to strive for with all their powers is the universal green-pasture happiness of the herd, with security, lack of danger, comfort, and an easier life for everyone…—and suffering itself they take for something that must be abolished.”
Sounds familiar. Devouring mother.
Part 3: What is religious
Why do the most powerful human beings still bow worshipfully before the saint? In him, “they sensed the superior force that sought tkt test itself in such a conquest, the strength of the will in which they recognized and honoured their own strength and delight in dominion: they honoured something in themselves when they honoured the saint…In short, the powerful of the world learned a new fear before him; they sensed a new power, a strange, as yet conquered enemy—it was the ‘will to power’ that made them stop before the saint.”
4: Epigrams and interludes
“Not the intensity but the duration of high feelings makes high men.”
“Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes—and calls that his pride.”
“Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.”
Still thinking about yourself. Bad publicity is still publicity.
“A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at the bottom comes up.”
“A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.— What was on the mind of that god who counseled: ‘Know thyself!’ Did he mean: ‘Cease to concern yourself! Become objective!’”
We know the sun will rise again tomorrow, we don’t need to concern ourselves with that.
“Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.”
“A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.”
“There are no moral phenomena at all, it only a moral interpretation of phenomena.”
The subject always wedges themselves in; this is when the moral is injected
“The will to overcome and affect is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, affects.”
Where’d that will come from? Other wills? And those?
“There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.”
We admire because we’d like to be admired.
“When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconvenience he causes us very much against him.”
“The more abstract the truth is that you would teach, the more you have to seduce the senses to it.”
Art.
“In true love it is the soul that envelops the body.”
Quoted from elsewhere. Source?
“What a time experiences as evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good—the atavism of a more ancient ideal.”
“Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.”
Hmmmm…
“Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.”
A la Eric Hoffer
“Poets treat their experiences shamelessly: they exploit them.”
Oof. So true. What a poet.
“‘Our neighbour is not our neighbour but his neighbour’—thus thinks every nation.”
“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.”
Much doesn’t mean true. You can pile on lies and hide behind them.
“You utilitarians, you, too, love everything useful only as a vehicle for your inclinations; you, too, really find the noise of its wheels insufferable?”
“In the end one loves one’s desire and not what is desired.”
Brilliant. Reminds me of the Gita. ‘Lust cannot be satisfied by any amount of sense enjoyment, just as fire is never extinguished by a constant supply of fuel.’
Part 5: Natural history of morals
“This type of inference [that people only behave badly out of stupidity] smells of the rabble that sees nothing in bad actions but the unpleasant consequences and really judges, ‘it is stupid to do what is bad,’ while ‘good’ is taken without further ado to be identical with ‘useful and agreeable.’”
Ah…I currently believe in this—that people don’t behave poorly on purpose. Nietzsche sees it as another utilitarianism—the bad are just not doing what is useful! The will to power of the individual is jeopardizing the will to power of the whole! Well, isn’t that just it? Good and bad must be subjective, mustn’t they?
“Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience and can scarcely be forced not to contemplate some event as its ‘inventors’. All this means: basically and from time immemorial we are—accustomed to lying. Or, to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows.”
Nietzsche sees “love thy neighbor” as something closer to “fear thy neighbor”, a normalization of mediocrity to lower the threat of your neighbour exploiting you. Brings up a good point that the same qualities that threaten neighbors can also serve as defences against outside threats, and in this way emphasizing mediocrity can put everyone at risk. Overall I think he places too much emphasis on great individuals rather than great collectives (or herds, as he’d call them) (just struck me he’s like the opposite of Tolstoy), but brings up good points
“Everything that elevates the individual above the herd and intimidates the neighbour is henceforth called evil; and the fair, modest, submissive, conforming mentality, the mediocrity of desires attains moral designations and honors.”
Talks about how this cultivates complacency and fear, and the society caught in this vortex abolishes anything approaching a sense of superiority—which eventually leads to leaving criminals unpunished. Really, he argues, danger and fear are the enemy of this morality, but if danger and fear were abolished this morality would no longer be needed, and thus it generates fear and danger to remain relevant
“They are at one, the lot of them, in the cry and the impatience of pity, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine inability to remain spectators, to let someone suffer.”
Part 6: We scholars
“He would even determine value and rank in accordance with how much and how many things one could bear and take upon himself, how far one could extend his responsibility.”
Part 7: Our virtues
“There are higher problems than all problems of pleasure, pain, and pity; and every philosophy that stops with them is a naïveté.”
Speaking of hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, and eudaemonism
“But she does not want truth: what is truth to woman? From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth— her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty. Let us men confess it: we honor and love precisely this art and this instinct in woman—we who have a hard time and for our relief like to associate with beings under whose hands, eyes, and tender follies our seriousness, our gravity and profundity almost appear to us like folly.”
Interesting perspective.
“And is it not true that on the whole ‘woman’ has so far been despised most by woman herself—and by no means by us?”
Part 8: People and fatherlands
Part 9: What is noble
“‘Exploitation’ does not belong to a corrupt or imperfect or primitive society: it belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which after all is the will of life.”
“Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations. To understand one another, it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have one’s experience in common.”
Brilliantly concise.
During times of stress, the need for commonality in language increases, as misunderstandings put relationships at risk against the stress. Any leak of energy must be plugged by a swathe of common understanding (regardless of whether true or false)
Makes an interesting point that people might praise undesirable qualities in others so that it doesn’t look like they’re praising themselves—if they praised people with similar, beneficial qualities it could seen as vain and prideful.
“Almost everywhere in Europe today we find a pathological sensitivity and receptivity to pain; also a repulsive incontinence in lamentation, and increase in tenderness that would use religion and philosophical bric-a-brag to deck itself out as something higher—there is a veritable cult of suffering.”
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Similar over-sensitivity is prevalent today, though it is not as associated with traditional religions but more progressive movements (e.g., safetyism), though to be fair they are themselves sorts of pseudo-religions.
“This book is [an] invitation to recognize oneself as a biologist and to deepen one’s biological practice—that is, to learn about biology as it is produced through the practices of professional sciences, yes, but also to observe life and living beings carefully oneself and to be willing to be touched and changed by what one finds there.”
1: It Depends, Contingent Existence
“‘Inherent existence’ means that a phenomenon has some kind of essence—something that makes it what it is, independent of anything else. What is essential is therefore what is fundamental.”
Examples of essential categories: objects, matter, fundamental particles, energy, spacetime, physical laws, moral laws, logical statements, God, selves, subjects, soul, mind, and consciousness.
“Essential categories are independent, unitary, and continuous. They exist without any dependence on anything other than themselves for existence. This includes their lack of dependence on perceptions or thoughts, which is why essentialism must entail a metaphysical (i.e., nonempirical) claim.”
The essence of something cannot be confirmed by perceptions, it exists independent of them.
We are all folk essentialists. Essentialism comes easy—we instinctively perceive flowers, dogs, or dollar bills as being unitary, continuous, and independent of other objects. Folk essentialism is a way of being for all of us that precedes the formal intellectual theory, in fact our folk instinct towards essentialism are the fertilizer from which grow intellectual theories
“I would consider myself a folk essentialist who is curious about why I am such and whether I could be otherwise.”
“The object-subject divide, when reified, gives rise to all kind of logical problems, and several practical problems besides. To remove it is to remove potentially unnecessary (and sometimes unhelpful) conceptual baggage. In other words, contingentism invites us to live without certain familiar but dubious assumptions, thus potentially enriching our lives as well as our views of the lives of other beings.”
I agree that removing these dualistic assumptions seems to approach truth, but what kinds of problems will arise from their removal? Could it create more problems than it solves?
“Critical thinking at its best, then, is actually reflexive thinking: the capacity to take into account one’s own habits of thinking and feeling in the course of engaging ideas.”
Gives an example of coming in from the cold and touching a child’s face, and not inferring that the child has a fever. This is because we take into account our coldness in relation to the child’s warmth. Reflexive thinking takes into account our own state and habits to better equip ourselves to engage with ideas about reality.
Signal transduction: “The [ORGANISM] [SENSES AND RESPONDS] to the [ENVIRONMENT].”
Fundamental. The offerer, the offered to, the offering. The water source (cup), the water drinker, the act of pouring. Father, son, spirit.
2: What Do Objects Depend On? Physical substance, matter, and the external world
We assume that coordinated sense perceptions means objects are inherently unified. A cookie has our senses singing in unison: ‘This is a cookie! It can be seen, felt, smelled, and tasted.’ Moreover, other people refer to these objects in the same way we do, reinforcing their vividness, clarity, and our conviction. “But the unity and vividness of objects depends upon these forms of coordination between one’s own senses and upon the coordinated actions of social members—unity and vividness are not in objects.”
“It is the observer who perceives a collection of things as a single thing, or, conversely, who perceives a single thing as a collection of things.” Depending on preferences/goals, one could call a book “one book” or “millions of paper fibres”.
“We accept that objects change, but to do so, we need to see them as the same thing changing. It is the observer with some concept of time who calls the past book and the present book the same book. There is nothing in the book that makes it the same book from one moment to the next.”
“For objects to appear as if they existed intrinsically, they have to be aggregated as single things, distinguished from background space, posited to be continuous in time, and radically separated from the perceiving subject. This is a lot of cognitive work that is often taken for granted.”
“The search for fundamental particles—conceived of as the ‘building block of atoms’—can be a search for something indivisible. Space-occupying particles can always be decomposed—if not empirically, then rationally—into even smaller parts.”
Atom meant ‘uncuttable’. Yet it is made of electrons, protons, neutrons, which are made of quarks, and so on.
As per Einstein, matter itself (i.e., some aggregation of mass) is really energy in a more concentrated form.
Just as two magnets of same pole are brought together, and there is a repellent field holding them apart, we could consider their boundaries to actually extend beyond their visible surfaces to include a ‘field’, which is just air. “This is in a crude sense how we might imagine atoms, bounding them as spheres, thought the sphere has no surface but is simply a way of describing how close two nuclei might be able to come to one another. In that sense, the space-filling property of atoms does not describe its own ‘actual volume’ calculated from some bounded surface; rather, volume is relative, in that it is the relation between nuclei.”
The volume of some ‘fundamental’ particle depends on its relation with other particles, which makes it non-fundamental
“There cannot be such a thing as an indivisible particle if it has a dimension in space.”
Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? This is the intuitive view of emergence, where something appears where it had not been present before. When parts come together, it seems like some novel whole emerges—hence its greatness relative to its parts. “Whatever is happening in this shift from an assemblage of parts to a greater whole, it is not necessarily a shift within the thing.” The emergent phenomena could be a reflection of something emerging within us rather than in the object itself; from our subjective relationship with a whole that we relate with/has some relevance to us.
Properties, such as electrical conductivity, are not inherent in things but describe a relationship between theory and measurement. Electrical measurements are made on copper, and we deduce that copper’s electrons are unstable (relating it to atomic theory). Conductivity describes that relationship between measurement and theory.
Is liquid inherently wet, or is this an abstraction we create in relation to liquids? Is our conception of wetness dependent on our perception? Can liquid be wet without us, or does liquid—or the whole universe for that matter—just exist?
When an atom on the periodic table is discovered, because it fit within the theory based on the theories properties or measurable qualities, was an inherent object discovered or did the theory define the object?
“If the hold it is asking not, ‘How do the properties intrinsic to objects emerge dependent on the properties of their constituent parts?’ But rather ‘How do objects arise?’ then he or she is asking the same thing as a contingentist.”
“A chase is never itself available to observation, but is rather an inference that is drawn after making repeated observations.”
Energy and forces do not refer to any observable thing, no matter how subtle. Force, for instance, is a quantity used to explain or predict where things will move or not. “‘Force in some contexts seems to mean ‘what keeps things together’ (or perhaps, ‘what keeps things apart’), but more precisely means ‘what helps predict whether things will be observed together’.”
“What we experience, observe, and narrate as the regularity and predictability of the universe is just that. Regularity and predictability obviously depend on observers who group phenomena into patterns and relate them with other patterns. The ‘grouping and relating’ process is analogous to how objects depend on observers who experience certain phenomena as bounded and continuous.”
“[A process such as the establishment of the first law of thermodynamics] does not describe a prior separation from and subsequent revelation of the structure of the universe as it is. Such a process is better described as a full participation in a universe that is rendered explicable, predictable, and understandable by virtue of the participation. It is our very intimacy with and participation in ‘what is’ that gives rise to this very real, regular, and predictable world.”
Is the first law an inherent property of the universe? Or is it just a pattern, a regularity also immersed in the universe which we participate within? Was the first law revealed to us, or did our participation render it so? Doesn’t this imply some causality…?
Do our senses indicate inherence in objects? Gives an example where our norm of visual clarity implies sharp edges and contrast, and blurriness is an impairment. But, if everyone were “impaired” and saw blurred edges, those objects and their blurred edges would become the norm. And so the objects, and their seeming inherence, would change based on our sensory abilities.
“Our sensory capacities simply are what they are, and not what could be thought of as “optimal” in the sense of optimally suited for delivering to us an accurate picture of an autonomous reality.”
“What our senses deliver to us simply is, and through coordination with social members, it becomes the real, shared world.”
The contingentist says, to a claim that a meteor floating through space is completely independent to us, that the conception of the meteor cannot be independent of us, since we are conceiving of it. There is an is there, but it is completely beyond human conception.
To preserve the vastness of what is is (existence itself), we try to assert its independence from us. But that ironically constrains the vastness by imposing assumptions upon it (whether it be “a something” or “a nothing”). It also assumes what it means for “what is” to be, like for it to be independent. “Contingentism helps preserve the vastness of what is by questioning these very assumptions.”
“What do objects depend on? They depend on observers to bound them and hold them as continuous over time. Their effects depend on observers to distinguish objects from each other, and to note regular interactions between objects that have thus been distinguished. Their properties depend on what is sensed and measured, and on the relations observers make between measurement and theories. Their vividness and their place as bona fide members of the real world depend on the coordination of various bodily movements and sense perceptions, as well as coordination between interacting members of social collectives.”
3: What Does Sensing Depend On?, Transduction, energy, and the meeting of worlds
Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, wrote in 1948 that “Information is information, not matter or energy.” Information was thus described as its own quantity, with sensing being a kind of information processing.
Deeply wrong
Plants are said to assimilate light, as a primate assimilates an apple. We generally think of plants as using light, rather than seeing or sensing it. But it turns out chlorophyll derivatives have been found in animal eyes; for instance, in some fish species they help transfer photons to retinal cells, which expands the fish’s ability to see longer wavelengths (i.e., infrared)
Interestingly, some fish with the chlorophyll in their eyes did not evolve them through “chlorophyll genes”, rather, they get chlorophyll through their diet and incorporate it into their eyes.
We have a sense that most things cannot be made the same as our bodies, like an apple seems to. We can assimilate an apple, but what about a smell? Well, a smell can stimulate salivation like a digesting apple secretes gastric juices. A loud abrupt sound can leave our muscles tense for days. Is the sound (and therefore its source) not somehow assimilated within us?
Information: derived from the Latin in or “into” and forma or “form”. Something abstract taking form.
“Energy is associated with the chemical bonds of the atoms in gasoline. So this chemical energy is associated with the relationship of the atoms. But most often you like to say that there is energy in your gallon of gasoline.” - David Jeffrey
So there is a potential of energy—a potential of movement—associated with the chemical structure. That energy is contingent on those chemical bonds—it depends on them (among other things, such as their ignition)
“[The conservation of energy] states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes…it is a numerical quantity, which does not change…it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number, and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it’s the same.” - Feynman
Is energy inherent? When it changes form, such as from light energy to chemical energy, we nevertheless assume continuity of energy itself. If energy is considered a substance, this is a kind of essentialism; it is considered a number (a la Feynman), that is, a mental abstraction, there is no essentialism since the number is contingently existant, dependent on an observer to bound the system and spit out numbers.
If we see the world as:
Things, then objects will be the ‘same substance over time undergoing changes in form,’ and energy will be ‘what causes changes in object-forms.’
Energy, then energy will be ‘the same substance over time undergoing changes in form’ (e.g., chemical energy into mechanical energy), and objects will be ‘what causes changes in energy-form’ (e.g., muscle contraction via metabolic combustion of energy stores)
“In either case, the confusion is created by thinking of energy and form as separable from one another, when they are not.
Energy and information are not two separate things.
The contingentist perspective sees no causal power linking one phenomena to another. In certain conditions, other conditions arise—yet there is no link between the two other than the cognitive process of linking.
A similar cognitive process links small scale phenomena to large scale, a whole is caused by (or depends on) its parts, we say. Wooden chairs depend on the wood that makes them up, we think. Yet, the wood doesn’t make the wooden chair (the whole) happen. The wood doesn’t have some inherent power to create the chair.
One might say “Copper is copper because it is made up of copper atoms and not aluminium or helium atoms.” But, we called them copper atoms because of coppers unique properties in the first place. If we were to find a block that seemed to be copper, we would empirically study the material and dissect it down to find small copper particles. With a copper substance, we will find copper particles, but neither causes the other. They co-arise.
Is water “water” because it is made up of water molecules? Are water molecules “water molecules” because of their presence when we decompose a substance we call water into its parts? Neither cause the other, they co-arise. We regularly see aggregations of water molecules as water. In the case of one, we always find the other.
“A set of molecules does not precisely ‘become’ a cell, nor does a cell ‘emerge’ at a higher level of organization from a set of molecules. Rather, the cell is a cell when related with as a cell, and a set of molecules is a set of molecules when related with as such.”
For the contingentist, “a world of diverse kind is genuinely of diverse kind “because it is experienced as such. There is no intrinsically existent oneness to which this multiplicity is reducible…On the other hand, the world is not intrinsically multifarious, simply because the multiplicity is contingent upon sensing.”
If no object exists intrinsically, and are rather bound and held continuous by cognition and linked by causal accounts, then we don’t know in advance precisely what will be experienced as an object and what will not. Objects are therefore indeterminate in this sense (rather than deterministic)
“The ‘free agent’ arises only dependent upon countless factors…Though these dependencies are sometimes described as ‘constraints upon choice’, they can equally be described as ‘what makes choice possible at all’.”
The physical-psychological divide:
On the one hand, there’s a fear that a fundamentally physical world is a fundamentally dead, determinate, and mechanistic place.
On the other, there’s a fear that a fundamentally psychological world is fundamentally indeterminate and therefore mystical, supernatural, and inexplicable.
What if we could have both?
Early cell physiologists and pharmacologists used to consider the cell as a series of chemical reactions, rather than an animal-agent. They had yet to dissect the cell and see it as a composite, aggregate, or interacting network of reaction. The cell as a whole was considered reactive: not reacting to its environment but with its environment, transforming both.
“In the moment of seeing an apple, you haven’t just discovered or met the apple that has been there outside of you. Rather, in that moment, the apple arises as form, properties, continuity, vividness, and the like, for none of these exist intrinsically but arise contingent upon your activities. At the same moment, you are new, being not intrinsically the same thing before and after the seeing. The apple is assimilated into your body, not via digestion, but via sensing. Your physiology is changed upon seeing the apple.”
“However, this change does not involve the transfer of any substance—neither energy nor information or anything else, no matter how subtle. Though we might usually say, ‘The organism senses the apple’ or ‘The apple caused a response in the body’, we could also say, ‘When the apple is seen, the body is changed.’ Furthermore, if we don’t take the body to have some essence that somehow stays the same over time despite myriad changes in its form, instead of saying ‘The body is changed’ we could equally say, ‘The body is new.’”
The contingentist account of sensing describes phenomena not as intrinsically existing, nor as interacting, reactive, or changed or transformed over time. The contingentist contends that phenomena arise anew each instant, and this “arising anew” occurs dependently—“that is, phenomena bring each other newly into being in each instant.”
Bring into being…even this language implies causality, or co-causality. ‘Bringing’.
4: What Do Organisms Depend On?, Bodies, selves, and internal worlds
Our lungs are surfaces exposed to the “outside” world, and depend critically on that world being air and not water at every moment.
We assume boundedness and continuity of organisms. The eggshell of a developing chicken embryo seems like a boundary, but it also acts as a lung, diffusing oxygen and carbon dioxide. When does the embryo end if it depends on the surrounding air?
“The self is assumed to be above or separate from the thoughts, emotions, and actions, a kind of chooser, decider, or integrator. But what is the self other than thoughts, feelings, and actions? Who is the chooser behind the choice, or the thinker behind the thought? Who do thoughts belong to?”
The rubber hand experiment (where someone is persuaded into thinking a rubber hand is theirs) show us that things that are not usually experienced as part of the self can become experienced as the self.
Is an experiencer separate from experience? We tell ourselves we’re ’having’ an experience. But can you possess an experience? “Experiences aren’t intrinsically yours or mine.” The linguistic shorthand that, if taken too literally, tell us that experiences are things that can be possessed, giving rise to the separation between experiencer and experience. There is no inherently existent experiencer—experiences simply arise.
Speaks of dualists, physical monists, and ideal monists. Dualists see two separate physical and nonphysical realms (e.g., matter and consciousness are separate). Physical monists see everything as physical and predictable (if not now, perhaps eventually). This includes (what seem like) cognitive products like experience and consciousness. The idealist monist sees everything as mental, everything as consciousness, with no dependence on matter (for matter doesn’t exist, it is a mental construct).
The contingentist sees physical substance as necessary for organisms, organism as necessary for experiences, and experiences as necessary for physical substance (for the physical substance cannot be revealed without the light of experience, and whatever it is beyond that lens of experience we cannot know)
Rather than locating experiences in the body or brain, or attaching them to a possessor such as I or mine, one can simply say “experiences arise.” “This is how the subject can disappear, even if the organism as a nexus outlined for various purposes does not.”
“What do organisms depend on? They depend on delineations of distinct spatial boundaries and temporal continuity. The organism-as-subject depends on the sense that experiences arise from a locus, whether material or immaterial. Finally, whereas the organism-as-object depends on material and energy flows, the organism-as-subject depends additionally on the experience of the nexus of such flows as a separate, intrinsically existent thing.”
Paradox—the organism depends on a subjective experience that believes it is something intrinsic (independent), yet the subjective experience depends on the organism who depends on physical substance which depends on experience to reveal it…
So, we depend, at the very least, on illusions (i.e., that we are independent)?
5: What Does Order Depend On?, Patterns, gaps, and the known world
“One can say, ‘I don’t believe in the intrinsic existence of objects, so I’m going to stop seeing the world as objects,’ but it most probably won’t work. Developing an intellectual disbelief in substantiality only reaches the most superficial levels of cognition. No one ‘creates their own world at will.’ To claim this is to over-identify the subject with the will and to put undue stock in the inherent unity of the subject as a ‘well-organized organizer,’ or as the agent that causes things to happen in the world while remaining itself free and independent.”
Good predictive technologies are superior to bad predictive technologies only because they help us predict events, not because they fit more closely to some intrinsically universal order.
“One might get the sense not only that matter exists outside of experience exactly as it appears to exist in experience, but also that matter existed before experience exactly as it appears right now.”
“In the course of reflecting upon or describing the past, it is easy to gloss over the fact that this thought of the past is happening right now.”
Memory has a referent, just as a name has a referent (flower refers to ‘flower-in-itself’). Just as the word flower stays the same and implies intrinsic existence, and yet flowers-in-themselves are not, the same happens with how we conceive of the past.
We assume our cognitive limit is that we do not have access to all possible experiences, analogous to our lives as being a mere subset of the vast space of all that is theoretically possible. “But maybe the cognitive limit is that we assume there’s more to it all than just this: more to objects than vividness and predictability, more to subjects than experiences, more to natural order than conceptual patterns, and more to knowledge than the ongoing process of living itself.”
Considering all of which our knowledge depends (body, senses, thoughts, language, culture, society, environment), we may feel trapped. But we could also ask ourselves whether it was supposed to be some other way. Isn’t it these things that enable experience? Couldn’t we be thankful for these things?
If we picture these processes (body, language, thoughts, culture, etc.) as constraints upon some abstract theoretical space, we can torture ourselves and others into thinking we’re separated from and desperate for the really, really real world. Instead, we can experience these processes as precisely what allow us to live in a world that is plenty vast, vivid, and endlessly changing and those ‘constraints’ change with it.
“The world is not an illusion.”
Okay… but what about the essentialist who believes that intrinsic phenomena exist? He’s part of the world, engaging in a belief that seems illusory (and yet sustains him). Is it that the process of experiencing illusion is real and not illusory? Experiences are real?
Conclusion, Life as we know it
“Like all scientists, biologists seek patterns and describe them. Patterns relate to other patterns, and biology becomes an increasingly intricate, beautiful, regular, and dense net of relationships. It is easy to imagine that the net is grounded somewhere. Sometimes when we come across a spider’s web, it can be difficult to find where it’s anchored; yet the assumption is that is anchored somewhere. Similarly, it is easy to assume that the dense net of experiences is anchored somewhere—in a world of objects, or in a body, brain, or soul. We often believe that the regularities we experience must be grounded in some kind of substance beyond them—material, spiritual, or mental. However, it is entirely possible that the net is aloft, that it is not tethered to anything outside of it. In fact, as far as anyone can tell, the net is all there is, so there can be nothing outside of it that could serve as a tether.”
“Those who [have made money for themselves] are twice as attached to [money] as everybody else: just as poets love their poems, and fathers love their children, so money-makers love their money—as their own handiwork, and then on top of that, like everyone else, they love it for its usefulness. This makes them hard to be with, because they’re unwilling to put in a good word for anything but wealth.”
“The ways to be bad are plenty, the choice easy - The path is smooth, the destination close; But to goodness, the gods ordain, we must sweat our way” - Hesiod (Works and Days)
Speaks of preventing the corruption of the people by baseness, “like animals in a bad pasture, taking a little from here, a little from there as they graze, day after day, not noticing that they are putting together one big thing, and a bad one, in their own souls?”
“When lack of restraint and illnesses burgeon in a city, don’t lawcourts and doctors open up all over the place, and the arts of lawcourt speaking and medicine start giving themselves airs, as many people, even free ones, start to take such things really seriously? […] And where doctors are concerned it’s reasonable enough to need their skills for healing wounds, or because happens to have caught some seasonal disease; what is shameful—don’t you think so?—is filling oneself with fluids and gases, as if one were some sort of lake, through the kind of lazy regimen we’ve just described…”
Speaks of mollycoddling diseases, this tendency to enable overindulgence by overprotection and enablement of indulgence.
“The cunning and suspicious kind, who’s done many unjust things in his time, and thinks he’s wise in a smart sort of way—he looks clever when he’s with people like himself, because he knows from consulting the models in himself that he needs to be extracautious, but when he’s in the company of good people and people older than himself, he immediately looks stupid, suspecting people when he doesn’t need to and not recognizing a healthy disposition when he sees it, because he has no model of such a thing available to him.”
The Good will purse the right physical training, the “one that spares him any need of a doctor, except when he can’t avoid it.”
To exercise to arouse the spirited aspect of our nature, not to “undertake diets and workouts for the sake of [our] physique.”
Socrates mentions that a life with physical exercise but without music produces fierceness and harshness, and a life with music but without exercise produces softness and gentleness.
“What we’re aiming for in founding our city isn’t to make any particular group of our people exceptionally happy, but rather to achieve happiness so far as possible for the city as a whole.”
“Let me indulge myself in the way lazy thinkers do when they’re out walking on their own.”
“The half is more than the whole.” - Hesiod
“Philosophers are those capable of getting a hold on that which remains forever exactly as it is, and those who have no such capacity, lost and wandering as they are in a multiplicity of things that are now this and now that, are non-philosophers.”
Rajasa vs. Sattva. Multiplicity vs whole.
Socrates’ requirement for a good philosopher are good memory, quickness at learning, open/high-mindedness, grace and a love for and affinity to truth, justice, courage, and moderation.
“It’s the form of goodness that is the most important subject, since it is what brings about the goodness and usefulness both of just things and if everything else.
“Finding the eyes of the soul dug deep down in some kind of alien slime, [dialectical inquiry] gently draws it out and guides it upwards, employing the kinds of expertise [math, geometry, astronomy, harmonics, dialectic] we’ve talked about as co-workers to help bring it round.”
The maths and sciences are frequently labelled as branches of knowledge, but they are actually not knowledge itself but a way of approaching it through their grouping together. They produce thoughtfulness—more discriminating than belief, but not quite knowledge.
The line of knowledge has first knowledge itself, second thoughtfulness, third conviction, and fourth conjecture. The third and fourth are beliefs (conviction being strong opinion, conjecture being a belief based on incomplete information [isn’t incompleteness what makes it a belief—doesn’t that make conviction part conjecture as well?])
“A body that’s forced to work hard is never the worse for it, but a lesson forced on the soul is never retained. […] As you bring up these children of yours in their various subjects, best not to do it using force, but in the form of play.”
A man without spirit or reason falls into love of money, choosing passion to be the blind leader of his chorus.
The oligarchic man, who loves money above all else creates an internal division. In front of others he will remain respectable to maintain reputation, but behind closed doors will be a slave to his desires. This lack of unity will lead to an internal faction, falling “a long way short of the true goodness of whole, when it is at one and in harmony with itself.”
“Ruling as they do on the basis of their great wealth, I imagine the rulers are unwilling to place legal curbs on young people who lose their self-restraint, and prevent them from spending and losing their property. They want to be able to buy and lend their money on it themselves, in order to add still further to their own wealth and prestige.”
When money is paramount to political leaders, they will not regulate their citizens (moderate their citizens), for regulating their citizens to deny the pursuit of indulgence would cause them to lose money (which they hold paramount)
When rulers become oligarchic, they’ll be pale and have “rolls of excess flesh, […] hopelessly wheezing and helpless.” This leads to democracy—a rebellion started by the ruled as they realize how weak and pathetic oligarchic rulers are and overthrow them.
Same goes for a parent who is stingy and loves money. Pursuing money at the expense of health, their children will lose their respect and use their wealth to pursue selfish pursuits.
Three fundamental types of people: lovers of wisdom, lovers of winning, and lovers of profit.
“’So it looks as if people who have no experience of wisdom and excellence, and who are engaged the whole time with feasting and the like, travel down and then as far back again as the middle, wandering like that their whole lives through, and never rising further - never yet having looked up, to the true up, beyond the middle, let alone travelled there, or been really and truly filled with things of substance, or tasted a pleasure that is sure and pure. Instead they look permanently down, as if they were cattle, heads down to the ground - or rather the table - grazing away, alternately fattening themselves and copulating, kicking and butting each other with iron hooves and horns to get more of the same, and finally doing one another to death, from frustration, because they’re filling themselves with nothing substantial, they’re not filling the substantial part of themselves, and they’re not even filling the part of themselves that contains it.’”
Socrates talks about the tri-nature of the human soul. The first component belongs to passion and desire and money-loving, something like a multi-headed beast, with some heads good, some bad; the second belongs to the spirit, courage and glory and power-loving, something like a lion; the third is the rational element, love of wisdom, and is something like a human. When the multi-headed beast rules over the lion and human, chaos and misery ensues. When the power-lust lion rules, it is slightly better than if the passions ruled however still falling short of the rational. When the rational element rules and regulates, taming the beast to satiate only necessary desires (like the need for food and reproductive sex) and taming the lion (being moderately courageous), one can pursue truth and becomes most happy, clear-headed, and fulfilled.
The multiheaded beast reminds me of Indrajit, a demon in Ramayana and a master of illusion, changing forms constantly. Indrajit is a manifestation of these whimsical passions and desires, which lead to confusion, deception, and so on.
“And isn’t the measure of the excellence, beauty, and correctness of any manufactured item, any living creature, any activity none other than the use for which each is made or born?”
Do we as humans surrender our excellence to the technologies we develop? People are using their bodies less and less—spending all day passively sitting and consuming—become more disembodied from the beauty and excellence of life itself.
“…rooted trees ran to hear and running rivers stopped to listen.”
Book 1
On first seeing Lady Philosophy, she is described as having a “complexion as fresh and glowing as that of a girl,” yet “that she was ancient and that nobody would mistake her for a creature of our time.”
I think the youthful attraction refers to the light of love, and the ancient nature refers to profound wisdom. Philosophy=loving wisdom
On her dress was pi (practice) with steps leading above to theta (theory).
Is practice love? Is theory a formalization of what exists in practice? Is practice informed by theory?
Lady philosophy on the sad prisoner listening to the Muses: “they have no cures for what ails him. Indeed, what they offer will only make his condition worse! What we want is the fruits of reason, while all they have is useless thorns of intemperate passion. If he listens to their nonsense, he will accustom himself to depression instead of trying to find a cure.”
Lady Philosophy has been “doing battle forever against proud stupidity.”
“And even though there are many of them, we can still despise them because they have no principles to lead them and are motivated only by ignorance and whim that lead them now one way and now another.”
“From our ramparts we look down and laugh at them as they busy themselves carrying away their pointless, cumbersome trophies.”
“The secret pleasure of doing the right thing is spoiled if a man brags about it.”
“The world judges actions not on their merit but on their results, which are often a matter of pure chance. Men admire nothing more than success, however achieved.”
“It isn’t books that are important but the ideas in them, the opinions and principles of times gone by, which is what gives the books their value.”
“Cast out your doubts, your fears and desires, let go of grief and of hope as well, for where these rule the mind is their subject.”
Throwing shade at both grief and hope—likely in the blind pessimism/optimism sense. Doom and utopia bend the mind towards the predicted outcome.
Anything obtained via luck is not worth having, and in losing those things we lose nothing of importance.
Do not use privilege produced by luck as the basis of your happiness, for the face of lady fortune is unreliable; “she remains constant to her inconstancy.”
In worshipping lady fortune, we “spread our sails before the wind, then we must go where the wind takes us and not where we might wish to go.” Luck is fleeting and whimsical, so just as we are graced with good luck, we are burdened with bad luck. Can’t choose one, they’re a package deal.
“Most people who are extremely lucky in their lives are the most sensitive to any slight adversity, because they aren’t used to having to deal with disappointments and frustrations, and therefore they are the most easily upset.”
“It seems to me that wealth is more splendid in the spending of it than in the getting of it.”
“So money is precious not when you have it but when it passes on from you to somebody else, in which case you don’t have it anymore.”
“Are you not able to find value in yourself? If you could see that you wouldn’t need all those external trinkets.” Do you need all this lifeless stuff to be happy?
“High office, then, when it is given to a dishonest man, does not make him worthy of it but rather displays his unworthiness to the world.”
Book 3
“The taste in the mouth of honey is sweeter by far if it follows something bitter.”
Honey tastes sweeter when it follows something bitter
“And you, too, must prepare yourself for change, withdraw your neck from the yoke of your false gods and raise your head in order that truth may enter.”
“And we know that any kingdom, however large, has a border beyond which that particular king does not rule. And wherever his rule ends, that is where his dissatisfaction begins as he realizes his limitation.”
“Pleasures are alike, tormenting those who pursue their sweetness. Angry bees emerge from their hives where the honeycombs were plundered to swarm and inflict the sharp stings of reproach on guilty hearts.”
“What is simple and undivided by nature human error manages to divide and distort. What is true and perfect becomes false and imperfect.”
“See if some spark of truth flies up from the collision.”
Book 4
Wicked men are destitute of all power, “for why do they abandon virtue and pursue vice? Is it because they have no idea what things are good? But what is weaker than the blindness of ignorance?”
“Or do they know what is good but nevertheless pursue those things for which they have an uncontrollable desire.” This also makes them weak, for they cannot restrain themselves
Nice poem about mighty kings in luxurious robes, but beneath heavy chains bind them. The chains include greed, wrath, lust. Nothing satiates their endless desire; their endless desire overthrows them and occupies their thrown, it is their master.
Poem about a wandering ship whose sails send it to a goddess who offers the crew a drink. They’re turned into animals, losing their voices and transforming their bodies, yet their minds remained conscious of their demise. Metaphor of what it’s like to lose yourself to aimless indulgence and vice.
“That is why, in the hearts of the wise, there should be no room for hatred. Only a fool would hate good men; and as for the bad, there is no reason to hate them either. Weakness is a disease of the body, and similarly wickedness is a disease of the mind. We feel sympathy rather than hatred for those who are sick, and those who suffer from a disability greater than any physical ailment deserve pity rather than blame.”
“Beating the winds with their wings to float above us and swim in the lovely liquid air.”
“Things are known not according to their natures but according to the nature of the one who is comprehending them.”
“One who lives in time progresses in the present from the past and into the future.”
“The knife-edge of the present, the brief and fleeting instant.”
“GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle? What is an ‘I’, and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russel Edson once wonderfully phrased it, ‘teetering bulbs of dread and dream.’”
To feel one’s way out of the mystery of consciousness, one must find that the key lies not in “the stuff out of which brains are made, but the patterns that can come to exist inside the stuff of a brain.”
Ah. Same with wisdom traditions. It is not the particularities of the traditions themselves, or the people that make them up, but the patterns that the people engage in. And those patterns are material agnostic (mmm, not material agnostic, that’s not quite right).
Part 1: GEB
The Epimenides paradox or liar paradox: “I am lying;” or, “This statement is false.” If the statement is indeed false then I can’t trust that it’s false. If I think it’s true, well, that means it’s false. Infinite, paradoxical loop
Isomorphism: an information preserving transformation
Interpretations of symbols are meaningful insofar as they accurately reflect an isomorphism to the real world. There can be multiple meanings, multiple links, of one symbol to real world phenomena.
Author notes three layers of any message: 1) the frame message: some pattern or order that indicates a message contained that can be decoded; 2) the outer message: the symbols and patterns within the frame that are to be decoded: 3) the inner message: the meaning carried by the collection of patterns that the generator of the message intends to communicate
Gives the metaphor of a message in a bottle: the bottle is the frame (hey! Im worth decoding!); the text is the outer message (here’s what to decode!); and the meaning of the text is the inner message (here’s what it all means)
If the meaning of a message can be decoded in some universal sense, by many distributed and divided intelligences, there seems to be more meaning inherent in the message itself
“Intelligence loves patterns and balks at randomness.”
Music has three major dimensions: melody, harmony, and rhythm. Story, continuity (both in linear time flowing into each other and at various levels simultaneously), and pace.
Zen is holism, carried to its logical extreme. If holism cares that thing can only be understood as wholes, not as sums of their parts. Zen goes one further, in maintaining that the world cannot be broken into parts at all To divide the world into parts is to be deluded, and to miss enlightenment
A master was asked the question, “What is the Way?” by a curious monk
“It is right before your eyes,” said the master.
“Why do I not see it for myself?”
“Because you are thinking of yourself.”
“What about you: do you see it?”
“So long as you see double, saying ‘I don’t’, and ‘you do’, and so on, your eyes are clouded,” said the master.
“When there is neither ‘I’ nor ‘You’, can one see it?”
“When there is neither ‘I’ nor ‘You’, who is the one that wants to see it?”
Has a dog Buddha-nature? This is the most serious question of all. If you say yes or no, You lose your own Buddha-nature.
Non-dualism.
Part 2
Discussion on compilers working on machine language. Bootstrapping occurs when a minimal unit of compiler, one level above machine language, can be used to translate bigger compilers into machine language. Likens it to “the attainment by a child of a critical level of fluency in his native language, from which point on his vocabulary and fluency can grow leaps and bounds, since he can use language to acquire new language.”
Talks of chunked models. Generally when we work at the level of a higher level, we don’t need to understand lower level components. For instance, to deliver a joke you don’t have to understand cell biology. This simplicity comes at the cost of less determinism. “A chunked model defines a ‘space’ within which behaviour is expected to fall, and specifies probabilities of its falling in different parts of that space.”
I see your side; but I believe you see things too narrowly.
“Ant colonies have been subjected to the rigors of evolution for billions of years. A few mechanisms were selected for, and most were selected against. The end result was a set of mechanisms which make ant colonies work as we have been describing. If you could watch the whole process in a movie—running a billion or so times faster than life, of course—the emergence of various mechanisms would be seen as natural responses to external pressures, just as bubbles in boiling water are natural responses to an external heat source.”
“I have as much difficulty as anyone else in seeing things on such a grandiose time scale, so I find it much easier to change points of view. When I do so, forgetting about evolution and seeing things in the here and now, the vocabulary of teleology comes back: the MEANING of the caste distribution and the PURPOSEFULNESS of signals. This not only happens when I think of ant colonies, but also when I think about my own brain and other brains. However, with some effort I can always remember the other point of view if necessary, and drain all these systems of meaning, too.”
Brilliant. Farsighted wisdom reveals inevitable cause and effect. Nearsighted love reveals overwhelming purpose and agency.
Speaks of signals and symbols. Letters are passive symbols, which are individually meaningless, that combine to create meaningful passive signals: words. In adaptive systems, such as ant colonies or brains, active symbols are distributors of information (individual ants or neurons) that come together to produce an active signal (purposeful action).
Meaning of passive symbols can only be derived from an active symbol interacting with it: words (symbols) on a page are given meaning by the active symbols (brain activity) interacting with it. Meaning drips down from the active symbol and coats the passive symbol.
To see an ant colony at its highest symbolic representation rather than the collection of ants that compose it is to identify that colony with a self (in the book’s case: Aunt Hillary). The agent/self we ascribe to the colony is the part that remains and coheres over time as the parts/signals constantly evolve.
With consciousness, we are fully restricted to the symbolic level, we have no access to the signals (neuron behaviour) that produce consciousness.
“There are, after all, several distinct ways to rearrange a group of parts to form a “sum”. And Aunt Hillary was just a new “sum” of the old parts. Not MORE than the sum, mind you—just that particular KIND of sum.”
The same parts can form a different sum. Neither is MORE than the other, they are simply of different kind or quality. Like two humans are different organizations of the same component cells yet create two different kinds of humans.
When we create higher order representations of things, like how plants and animals or people or societies behave (i.e., biology, psychology, and sociology) we sacrifice determinism for simplicity. “Our reality ends up being able only to predict probabilities of ending up in certain parts of abstract spaces of behaviour—not to predict anything with the precision of physics.”
“Our culture has consistently favoured yang, or masculine, values and attitudes, and has neglected their complementary yin, or feminine, counterparts. We have favoured self-assertion over integration, analysis over synthesis, rational knowledge over intuitive wisdom, science over religion, competition over cooperation, expansion over conservation, and so on. This one-sided development has now reached a highly alarming stage; a crisis of social, ecological, moral, and spiritual dimensions.”
50 years ago.
Part 1: The Way of Physics
“Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” - Carlos Castaneda
“The term ‘physics’ is derived from [physis] and meant therefore, originally, the endeavour of seeing the essential nature of all things.”
“The Milesians [of Ionia, 6th century BCE] were called ‘hozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter.”
“Heraclitus taught that all changes in the world arise from the dynamic and cyclic interplay of opposites and he saw any pair of opposites as a unity. This unity, which contains and transcends all opposing forces, he called the Logos.”
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they are not reality.” - Einstein
“Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.” - Ananda Coomaraswany
Hindus with deep insight know all their gods are creations of the mind representing the many faces of reality. But they also know they are not merely created to make stories more attractive, “but are essential vehicles to convey the doctrines of a philosophy rooted in mystical experience.”
Part 2: The way of eastern mysticism
The basis of all Hinduism is that the multitude of things are but different manifestations of the same ultimate reality: Brahman. Brahman is the “unifying concept which gives Hinduism its essentially monistic character in spot of the worship of numerous gods and goddesses.”
“This that people say, ‘Worship this god! Worship that god!—one after another—this is [Brahman’s] creation indeed! And he himself is all the gods.”
“The original meaning of the words yin and yang was that of the shady and sunny sides of a mountain, a meaning which gives a good idea of the relativity of the two concepts: ‘That which lets now the dark, now the light appear is the Tao’”
“From the very early times, the two archetypal poles of nature were represented not only by bright and dark, but also by male and female, firm and yielding, above and below. Yang, the strong, male, creative power, was associated with Heaven, whereas yin, the dark, receptive, female and maternal element, was represented by the Earth. Heaven is above and full of movement, the Earth—in the old geocentric view—is below and resting, and thus yang came to symbolize movement and yin rest. In the realm of thought, yin is the complex, female, intuitive mind, yang the clear and rational male intellect. Yin is the quiet, contemplative stillness of the sage, yang the strong, creative action of the king.”
“A dog is not reckoned good because he barks well, and a man is not reckoned wise because he speaks skillfully.” — Chuang Tzu
An essence of Taoism is the interplay of opposites. “Be bent, and you will remain straight. Be vacant, and you will remain full. Be worn, and you will remain new.”
Challenge yourself ethically, and you will remain ethical. Empty yourself of material goods, and you will be replenished with meaning. Challenge yourself physically and mentally, and you will be sharper in both respects.
“When the zen master app-Chang was asked about seeking the Buddha nature he answered, ‘it’s much like riding an ox in search of the ox.’”
Part 3: The parallels
“When all in the world understand beauty to be beautiful, then ugliness exists; when all understand goodness to be good, then evil exists.” - Lao Tzu
Enhancing beauty creates more that is ugly relative to it, and so it is with goodness and evil.
Space and time interpenetrate one another.
“It is believed by most that time passes; in actual fact, it stays where it is. This idea of passing may be called time, but it is an incorrect idea, for since one sees it only as passing, one cannot understand that it stays just where it is.” - Zen master Dogen
“Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen … In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.” - Swami Vivekananda
“In the collision processes of high-energy physics, mass is no longer conserved. The colliding particle can be destroyed and their masses may be transformed partly into the masses, and partly into the kinetic energies of the newly created particles. Only the total energy involved in such a process, that is, the total kinetic energy plus the energy contained in all the masses [potential energy], is conserved.”
“We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the field is extremely intense … There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.” - Einstein
Speaks of Shiva’s cosmic dance. In one of his four arms he holds a drum, symbolizing the primal sound of creation, in another the tongue of a flame, which symbolizes destruction. Between his hands his face shows detached serenity, showing that he transcends the polarity of creation and destruction. His other right hand bears the sign of ‘do not fear’, symbolizing maintenance and peace, while the remaining left hand points down to his uplifted foot, symbolizing the release from the spell of maya. He dances on a demon, the symbol of human ignorance that must be conquered before liberation can be attained.
Based.
Order underlying quantum physics: symmetry (conservation of momentum/angular momentum and energy), unitarity (although everything is probabilistic, i.e., uncertain, the sum of probabilities is equal to 1), and causal (in particle interactions, the former must precede the latter, and the interaction occurs at a singularity—a confluence of interaction)
“Physicists have come to see that all their theories of natural phenomena, including the ‘laws’ they describe, are creations of the human mind; properties of our conceptual map of reality, rather than reality itself. […] All scientific theories and models are approximations to the true nature of things, but the error involved in the approximation is often small enough to make such an approach meaningful.”
“The incomplete character of a theory is usually reflected in its arbitrary parameters or ‘fundamental constants’, that is, in quantities whose numerical values are not explained by the theory, but have to be inserted into it after they have been determined empirically.”
“To see a world in a grain of sand // And a heaven in a wild flower, // Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, // And eternity in an hour.” - William Blake
“Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humours, is also such a garden or such a pond.” - Leibniz
“He who knows does not speak, // He who speaks does not know.” — Lao Tzu
Bhagavad Ghita means “The Song of the Blessed One”. In this song, Krishna acts as an elder kinsman that tells his people (through Arjuna) truths they already, though imperfectly, know.
“The spiritually mature human being lets all things come and go without effort, without desire for any foreseen result, carried along by the current of a vast intelligence. As the great twentieth-century Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi said, ‘The idea that there is a goal . . . is wrong. We are the goal; we are always peace. To get rid of the idea that we are not peace is all that is required.’”
“Nevertheless, whether or not Arjuna should fight is at most a secondary question for the Gita. The primary question is, How should we live?”
Just as the essence of Judaism is ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself’, the essence of Hinduism is “Let go.” These two essences are different entrances to the same truth which offers beginning and end for all spiritual practice
“You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits.”
“The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners.”
“As unnecessary as a well is / to a village on the banks of a river, / so unnecessary are all scriptures / to someone who has seen the truth.” (2.46)
Once you’ve caught the fish, what need have you for the net?
The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
Chapter 1: Arjuna’s despair
“Because their minds are overpowered by greed, they see no harm in destroying the family, no crime in treachery to friends.”
Interesting. The battle between the Pandavas and the Kurus can also represent a battle against the forces that threaten to pull the family apart—even if those forces come from within the family. In this story it’s cousins battling, however this battle may arise from siblings, spouses, or even oneself (if I act selfishly I harm my family)
Chapter 2: The practice of yoga
“If you think that this Self can kill / or think that it can be killed, / you do not well understand / reality’s subtle ways.
“Foolish men talk of religion in cheap, sentimental words, leaning on the scriptures: “God speaks here, and speaks here alone.” Driven by desire for pleasure and power, caught up in ritual, they strive to gain heaven; but rebirth is the only result of their striving. They are lured by their own desires, besotted by the scriptures’ words; their minds have not been made clear by the practice of meditation.”
“You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits. Act for the action’s sake. And do not be attached to inaction.”
It is true that you perform actions. However, you are not what gave rise to those actions. You act, yet you are not the reason you act—you have no right to your actions’ fruits.
“When the mind constantly runs after the wandering senses, it drives away wisdom, like the wind blowing a ship off course.”
Chapter 3: The yoga of action
“The whole world becomes a slave to its own activity, Arjuna; if you want to be truly free, perform all actions as worship. The Lord of Creatures formed worship together with mankind, and said: ‘By worship you will always be fruitful and your wishes will be fulfilled. By worship you will nourish the gods and the gods will nourish you in turn; by nourishing one another you assure the well-being of all.’”
The recognition of something more important than oneself provokes worship. Action as worship is more generative and invigorated than mere activity for the self. Collective worship nourishes the whole that is worship.
“Good men are released from their sins when they eat food offered in worship; but the wicked devour their own evil when they cook for themselves alone.”
“Whatever a great man does ordinary people will do; whatever standard he sets, everyone will follow.”
I had a thought…with the world becoming more disconnected, relationships tending to be less embodied and shallow (due to technology), that greater standard is more difficult to follow. (e.g., with work from home, my colleagues really only see me 1 day a week. How much can I influence them, even if only by immersion, and make healthy behaviour more normal?)
“A man deluded by the I-sense imagines, ‘I am the doer.’”
“Performing all actions for [God’s] sake, desireless, absorbed in the Self, indifferent to “I” and “mine,” let go of your grief, and fight!”
Like the Buddha’s ‘Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.’
How does one act without desire? One could say the heart beats free from desire, but what keeps it beating is a desirous process that sustains its function by providing it with energy and material (food). I suppose this desirelessness is more of an ideal to strive towards.
Arjuna asks what causes evil. Krishna answers desire and anger, which arise from the guna called rajas.
“As a fire is obscured by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, as a fetus is wrapped in its membrane, so wisdom is obscured by desire.”
Chapter 4: The yoga of wisdom
“Many times I have been born, and many times you have, also. All these lives I remember, you recall only this one.”
Life is like a perpetual reawakening, a reknowing, a remembering of the history that sustained life itself. When we are brought into this world, our memories are reset, yet the cultures that persist are those who don’t forget themselves and help individuals rediscover their self in that culture.
“However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end.”
Truth isn’t restricted to one particular path. Different paths, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic, point towards the same truth. And that truth is to radiate love and acquire wisdom (a higher perspective).
“God is the offering, God is the offered, poured out by God; God is attained by all those who see God in every action.”
This book is an offering, I am what it is being offered to, and the process of my reading it and it being delivered to my mind is God.
This is why action must be done in worship, as worship implies an offering—at the very least an offering of one’s attention. The attended-to is offered attention, God is in both, and the process of attending is God.
“Partaking of the essence of worship, forever they are freed of themselves; but non-worshipers cannot be happy in this world or any other.”
Chapter 5: The yoga of renunciation
“The man who has seen the truth thinks, ‘I am not the doer’ at all times—when he sees, hears, touches […] at all times he thinks ‘This is merely sense-objects acting on the senses.’”
To claim that “you” are the doer is a manifestation of pride, which always stems from ignorance.
“The resolute in yoga surrender results, and gain perfect peace; the irresolute, attached to results, are bound by everything they do.”
Playing to win vs. Playing to keep playing. Which is finite and bounded, which is infinite and free?
“When knowledge of the Self is obscured by ignorance, men act badly. But when ignorance is completely destroyed, then the light of wisdom shines like the midday sun and illumines what is supreme.”
Here, Self refers to the unseparated Self, the Self that embodies the whole. To lose sight of that interdependence, unseparateness, is ignorance.
“Pleasures from external objects are wombs of suffering, Arjuna. They have their beginnings and their ends; no wise man seeks joy among them.”
“The wise man, cleansed of his sins, who has cut off all separation, who delights in the welfare of all beings, vanishes into God’s bliss.”
Chapter 6: The yoga of meditation
Right action is itself renunciation. “In the yoga of action, you first renounce your selfish will.”
“For the man who wishes to mature, the yoga of action is the path; for the man already mature, serenity is the path.”
Maturity is the renunciation of selfish will
“He should lift up the self by the Self and not sink into the selfish; for the self is the only friend of the Self, and its only foe.”
To hoist up the finite self with the infinite self. The self, a kind of personal consciousness or awareness, is our only opening towards the higher Self. But, of course, the personal self can be the cruelest foe.
Later… “When his mind has become serene by the practice of meditation, he sees the Self through the self and rests in the Self, rejoicing.” To see the Self through the self.
“[The mature man] looks impartially on all: those who love him or hate him, his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends, the good, and also the wicked.”
Impartiality is truth. However…one aspect of life is that it is necessarily impartial. That impartiality is what sustains life (“I” must reproduce and survive, not you). Again, an ideal that we strive towards.
“For the man who is moderate in food and pleasure, moderate in action, moderate in sleep and waking, yoga destroys all sorrow.”
Temperance is a precondition to enlightenment.
Arjuna asks what happens to the man who wanders from the path of yoga before he matures. Krishna answers that, given his initial faith, he will be reborn into a righteous family. He may even be born into one whose parents practice yoga and are wise. “There he regains the knowledge acquired in his former life.”
Engaging in the practice at minimum sustains it, and increases its likelihood of reproducing over time. This reproduction is its rebirth. The righteous discipline of one man is reborn in another. And because the Self of the first man is not separate from the second—there is but a continuous righteous transformation of the Self. “You” doesn’t profit from rebirth—at least, the “you” you’re thinking about. The rebirth process is selfless.
Chapter 7: Wisdom and realization
“Others are deluded by [Krishna’s] power; they do not attempt to find me and, in their ignorance, sink into demonic evil.”
“Men whose wisdom is darkened by desires, men who are hemmed in by the limits of their own natures, take refuge in other gods.” Krishna then grants them unswerving faith in those other gods, and those men are rewarded for their faith. “But fleeting is the reward that men of small minds are given.”
Chapter 8: Absolute freedom
Chapter 9: The secret of life
“Any offering—a leaf, a flower or fruit, a cup of water—I will accept it if given with a loving heart. Whatever you do, Arjuna, do it as an offering to me—whatever you say or eat or pray or enjoy or suffer.”
“I am the same to all beings; I favour none and reject none. But those who worship me live within me and I live in them.”
A true Creator is indiscriminate to all beings. The allure that humans are somehow more important than others is born of desire and ignorance—we see ourselves as special so we assume our God must see us as special. Incorrect. Ignorant. God favors none and rejects none. Those who think god should give them special treatment will be deeply troubled when bad things happen to go their group’s way, which they inevitably will.
Chapter 10: Divine manifestations
Chapter 11: The cosmic vision
Krishna assumes his true cosmic form at the request of Arjuna, an enfolding and unfolding of all that is in the universe.
“Crowned with fire, wrapped in pure light, with celestial fragrance, he stood forth as the infinite God, composed of all wonders.”
“You gulp down all worlds, everywhere swallowing them in your flames and your rays, Lord Vishnu, fill all the universe with dreadful brilliance.”
“I am death, shatterer of worlds, annihilating all things.”
Krishna then, again at the request of Arjuna, resumes his human form.
To see the ultimate form of what we are worshipping would overwhelm us, as it did Arjuna. We are feeble, thus needing a tangible form in which to direct our attention and capture our veneration. This is what the human form of Krishna offers.
Chapter 12: The yoga of devotion
“Knowledge is better than practice; meditation is better than knowledge; and best of all is surrender, which soon brings peace.”
One can practice without gaining knowledge, but one cannot gain knowledge without practice. One can have knowledge, yet if one’s attention is feeble and immature that knowledge will be fruitless and even destructive. Surrender is necessary to recognize the cosmic Self—that which is far beyond you.
“He who has let go of hatred, who treats all beings with kindness and compassion, who is always serene, unmoved by pain or pleasure, free of the “I” and “mine,” self-controlled, firm and patient, his whole mind focused on me—that man is the one I love best.”
“He who is pure, impartial, skilled, unworried, calm, selfless in all undertakings…”
“Indifferent to praise and blame, quiet, filled with devotion, content with whatever happens, at home wherever he is—that man is the one I love best.”
To be at home wherever you are.
Chapter 13: The field and its knower
Chapter 14: The three gunas
“Sattva causes attachment to joy, rajas to action, and tamas, obscuring knowledge, attaches beings to dullness.”
“Sattva prevails when it masters rajas and tamas both; rajas or tamas prevails when it masters the other two.”
The luminosity of Sattva can’t be attained by sloth or unending action. Restless action can’t be attained by sloth or satisfaction with what already is. Stagnation can’t be attained without darkening the illuminating light of joy and knowledge and hindering activity.
“When the light of knowledge shines forth through all the gates of the body, then it is apparent that Sattva is the ruling trait.”
Pure awareness through all the sense gates and the mind is sattva
“Greed and constant activity, excessive projects, cravings, restlessness” arise when rajas is the ruling trait.
“Darkness, dullness, stagnation, indolence, confusion, torpor, inertia” appear when tamas is the ruling trait.
The fruit of Sattva is right action, the fruit of rajas is suffering, the fruit of tamas is ignorance.
“If he dies when rajas prevails, he is born among those attached to action; if tamas prevails, he is born among the deluded.”
Again, this notion of what habits you live by will be reborn and sustained in your society. The ignorant will produce more delusion. The restless will produce more restlessness.
“Men of Sattva go upward; men of rajas remain in between; men of tamas, lowest of all, sink downward.”
Chapter 15: The ultimate person
“When the Lord takes on a body or leaves it, he carries these senses just as the wind carries fragrances from the places where it has been. Presiding over the senses of hearing and sight, of touch, taste, smell, and also of mind, he savours the senses’ objects.”
The Lord is awareness of thought and the five senses.
“Whether he leaves or remains, enjoying his contact with the gunas, the deluded see nothing; but wise men see him with their inner eye.”
The deluded do not notice their senses or thoughts; their awareness is clouded—this is the delusion. They cannot see the grace that awareness gives us. How may we help them see?
“In this world, there are two persons: the transient and the eternal; all beings are transient as bodies, but eternal within the Self.”
Chapter 16: Divine traits and demonic traits
“Driven by insatiable lusts, drunk on the arrogance of power, hypocritical, deluded, their actions foul with self-seeking, tormented by a vast anxiety that continues until their death, convinced that the gratification of desire is life’s sole aim, bound by a hundred shackles of hope, enslaved by their greed, they squander their time dishonestly piling up mountains of wealth.”
“‘Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. […] Bewildered by endless thinking, entangled in the net of delusion, addicted to desire, they plunge into the foulest of hells. Self-centered, stubborn, filled with all the insolence of wealth, they go through outward forms of worship, but their hearts are elsewhere. Clinging to the “I”-sense, to power, to arrogance, lust, and rage, they hate me, denying my presence in their own and in others’ bodies.”
I can’t help but think of America while reading this, who have just re-elected someone who embodies the qualities above. Who are bewildered by endless thinking in the form of a shallow and turbulent news cycle. Who re-elected a businessman so they can have more of what they desire—the businessman serves the business, that business is America
Chapter 17: Three kinds of faith
“Men who mortify their flesh in ways not sanctioned by the scriptures, who are trapped in their sense of “I” and driven by warped desires, in their folly torturing parts that compose the body, and thus torturing me in the body—know that their aim is demonic.”
Back in these times would this have been referring to overly ascetic practices (e.g., starvation) that were a weird roundabout way of yearning for attention? Perhaps tattoos and piercings? In today’s world I can’t help but think of the sexual climate—not homosexuality, as there is no mutilation that occurs in it, but the more bizarre attempt to transform the body by removing sexual organs. Contraception is a grey area here as well, some women describe the side effects of birth control as feeling like a slow burn.
Control of the body: nonviolence, chastity, uprightness; Control of speech: speaking truth with kindness, honesty that causes no pain, and the recitation of scripture; Control of mind: serenity, gentleness, silence, benevolence, self-restraint, purity of being, compassion.
“Rajasic control—by its nature wavering and unstable—is performed out of pride or to gain repsect, admiration, and honor.”
“Control is called tamasic when used by deluded men to mortify their flesh or to gain the power to cause harm to others.”
Chapter 18: Freedom through renunciation
Renouncing: giving up desire bound actions
Relinquishing: giving up the results of all actions
“Some sages say all action is tainted and should be relinquished.”
This would be those who think that since all action is biased, it is in some sense deluded, and therefore relinquishing it all is closer to the truth.
“Here is the truth: these acts of worship, control, and charity purify the heart and therefore should not be relinquished but performed.”
Right action expands love and so should be performed, despite being tainted.
“An embodied being can never relinquish actions completely; to relinquish the results of actions is all that can be required.”
One cannot live without acting. But one can live without being attached to outcome and inhabiting earnestly the present
Knowledge
Sattvic: to see in all things a single, imperishable being, undivided among the divided
Rajasic: to perceive a multiplicity of beings, each one existing by itself, separate from all others.
Tamasic: a clinging to one thing as if it were the whole, and has no concern for the true cause and essence of things.
Action
Sattvic: without craving or aversion, unattached to results
Rajasic: “with a wish to satisfy desires, with the thought “I am doing this,” and with an excessive effort.”
Tamasic: beginning in delusion and no concern that it may cause harm to oneself or others
Agent
Sattvic: “free from attachement and the I-sense, courageous, steadfast, unmoved by success or failure.”
Rajasic: impulsive and results-driven, “greedy, violent, impure, and buffeted by joy and sorrow.”
Tamasic: “undisciplined, stupid, stubborn, mean, deceitful, lazy, and easily depressed.”
Will
Sattvic: unswerving, control of mind, breath, senses by meditation
Rajasic: “attached to duty, sensual pleasures, power, and wealth, with anxiety and a constant desire for results.”
Tamasic: ignorantly “clinging to grief and fear, to torpor, depression, and conceit.
Happiness
Sattvic: comes from long practice and at first is like poison, but at last like nectar, arises from serenity of mind
Rajasic: “comes from contact between senses and their objects, and is at first like nectar, but at last like poison.” (!!!)
Tamasic: self-deluding, arising from sleep, indolence, and dullness.
“It is better to do your own duty badly than to perfectly do another’s.”
Hmmmm…
“No one should relinquish his duty even though it is flawed; all actions are enveloped by flaws as fire is enveloped by smoke.”
Beautiful.
“Focused on [God] at all times, you will overcome all obstructions; but if you persist in clinging to the I-sense, then you are lost.”
To free oneself from notions of “I”, “me”, and “mine” is critical. Those in rajasic and tamasic states will encourage others to cling to the I-sense, perhaps to exploit them or reinforce their own pleasure now, poison later mindsets.
“These teachings must not be spoke. To men without self-control and piety, or to men whose hearts are closed to me.”
I feel this. So many people could benefit from these lessons but lack the discipline and humility… Do I?
“It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey” - Wendell Berry
Ask: “How is the world treating you?” Then, “How are you treating the world?”
Striving towards a collective dynamic balance that would feel like “what being healthy feels like. It is what genuine happiness feels like. It is like being at home in the deepest of ways.”
Take your experiences seriously but not personally, with a healthy dose of lightheartedness and humour.
Part 1: Meditation, it’s not what you think
“There is no way to peace; peace is the way.”
A Zen master would start each talk by holding up a stick and asking the audience whether they saw it, and thwacked it on the ground and asked them whether they heard it. Often, we see our concepts rather than the stick, and hear our concepts rather than the thwack. We evaluate, judge, digress, categorize, react emotionally, “and so quickly that the moment of pure seeing, the moment of pure hearing, is lost. For that moment at least, you could say that we have lost our minds and have taken leave of our senses.”
The zen master was “inviting us to wake up from the dream of our self-absorption and our endless spinning out of stories that distance us from what is actually happening in these moments that add up to what we call our life.”
The core of the Buddha’s teachings, summed up in one sentence by Buddha: “Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.”
“It may be that in clinging to our self-referential ways of seeing and being, to the parts of speech we call the personal pronouns, I, me, and mine, we sustain the unexamined habit of grasping and clinging to what is not fundamental, all the while missing or forgetting what is.”
Given the popularity of identity politics, which preoccupies itself on pronouns and labels, we still have work to do.
“Practice gradually, or sometimes even suddenly, transcends all ideas of practice and effort, and whatever effort we put in is no longer effort at all, but really love.”
When we practice awareness, the world offers itself to our imagination.
“What they undertook to do, They brought to pass: All things hang like a drop of dew Upon a blade of grass.” - W. B. Yeats
Talks about the importance of scaffolding to help us develop, to benefit from the work and methods of those who preceded us. Yet, like Michelangelo wouldn’t need the scaffold after his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was complete, we can set aside our scaffolding once our wakefulness is well-cultivated. Like the Daoist expression, once we’ve caught the fish, what need have we for the net?
Part 2: The power of attention and the dis-ease of the world
We are out of touch with just out of touch (mindless) we can be.
“Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal, It knows not what it is, …” - W. B. Yeats
Suffering and attachments (first line), impermanence and death (second line), mindless ignorance (third line)
Emptiness, in this case meaning empty of inherent self-existence, “allows for a true ethics, based on reverence for life and the recognition of the interconnectedness of all things and the folly of forcing things to fit one’s own small-minded and shortsighted models for maximizing one’s own advantage when there is no fixed enduring you to benefit from it, whether ‘you’ is referring to an individual or a country.”
“You live in illusions and the appearance of things. There is a Reality, you are that Reality. When you recognize this you will realize that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.” - Kalu Rinpoche
When we lose our selves, we blend into the larger whole. The selves become nothing, the whole is and was everything.
Part 3: The sensory world
“The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having fresh eyes.”
“Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?” - William Stafford
The present moment is the only time we ever have to influence the future.
“We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.”
Part 4: Embracing formal practice
“If you think of your body as a house, the body scan is a way to throw open all the windows and doors and let the fresh air of awareness sweep it clean.”
“Our thoughts may have a degree of relevance and accuracy at times, but often they are at least own what distorted by our self-serving and self-cherishing inclinations, such as our ambitions, our aversions, and our overriding tendency to ignore or be deluded by both our ambition and our aversions.”
“No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.” - David Wagoner
Part 5: Healing possibilities, the realm of body and mind
“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.” - Albert Einstein
Part 6: Arriving at your own door
“We fill up our time and then wonder where it all went.”
“Because [mindfulness] is on its face such a good and compelling idea to be more present in one’s life and less judgmental, some professionals naturally assume that it can merely be grasped intellectually and then taught to tigers that way, as a concept, and that that can be done without a solid ground in one’s own personal practice. But without practice, no matter how clever or articulate or sensitive or therapeutic what one is offering may be, it just isn’t mindfulness, or dharma. […] It is the practice itself that is the vehicle for our coming to our senses and waking up to the full spectrum of what is and what might be possible.”
“I felt impelled to somehow try to make clear what I saw as the core problem with what they were proposing, while at the same time, honoring the evident fact that both their intuition and motivation were clearly right on target.”
Do not ask anything of those you care for that you do not already ask of yourself.
“Spiritual communities are at a particularly high risk for [clinging to concepts and fantasies], the self-satisfied belief that your style of practice is the best practice, your core of the path the wisest view, your tradition is the best tradition, and on it goes.”
Part 7: Healing the body politic
Whether our collective suffering is described by an autoimmune model, a cancer model, or an infectious model, “they are interrelated in that autoimmune diseases and their treatments can frequently make the body more susceptible to cancers and to opportunistic infections.”
“As in medicine and in health care, prevention is the best policy in governing and in diplomacy.”
“We are wont to vilify particularly egregious emergences of ignorance as evil. This allows us to assert categorically our own identification with goodness in contradistinction. It is a gross and ultimately unhelpful gloss, even if there are elements of truth in it. Both views, of others as evil and of ourselves as good, may be better characterized as ignorant. For both ignore the fundamental disease, the one that manifests in human beings when we fall prey to unawareness of the preciousness of life, and wantonly or witlessly harm others in seeking pleasure and power for ourselves. In the Book of Psalms, evil is often referred to as “wickedness,” but perhaps a better rendering would be “heedlessness,” an inattention to the full spectrum of the inner and outer landscape of our experience. This inattention allows us to artificially separate self from other, the “I” from the “Thou,” to de-sacralize the world and thus make it predicated on division, on artificial separation and boundaries.”
Carl Jung described the Tao as “the method or conscious way by which to unite what is separated.” He mentions the polarity of the conscious and subconscious, and how our lack of conscious understanding for our unconscious motivations cause much suffering. The path to self-enrichment must be done through a shining of conscious light on the unconscious, on the “union of opposites through the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience, which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao.”
“When the artist reveals the reality concealed in things, he sets it free and, in turn, he liberates and purifies himself. This invisible process, fundamental to Chinese art, is the action of Tao.”
The Chinese view bamboo as the symbol of a gentleman: upright and outward bearing, yet inwardly empty (humble)
“My primordial nature has no liking for the life in the cities. To be free from the noise I build a little thatched cottage Far away in the depth of the mountains. Wandering here and there I carry no thought. When spring comes I watch the birds; in summer I bathe in the running stream; in autumn I climb the highest peaks; during the winter I am warming up in the sun. Thus I enjoy the real flavour of the seasons.”
“Where things grow and expand that is k’ai; where things are gathered up, that is ho. When you expand you should think of gathering up and then there will be structure; when you gather up you should think of expanding and then you will have inexpressible effortlessness and an air of inexhaustible spirit.”
“The wise follow the path of non-assertion and teach without words.”
A Buddhist and Taoist idea is that “unity is within diversities and the particularity is identified with universality.” Interpenetration of one in all and all in one. One is all, all is one. Interdependence, inter-being.
“The petal of a blossom never comes forth alone, but unimpededly takes in all related parts of the blooming tree and This petal must dissolve itself, thus entering into all and taking in all.” - Chang T’ai-yen
“Why I like to divide things is because such division must be based on the totality of things. The creation of one rests upon the all. Why I dislike to complete things is because completeness means containing everything. Therefore it is isolated and self-sufficient, rejecting the relation to other things.” - Chuang Tzu
Notable divergence from some monotheistic thought, who claim their Gods are self-sufficient. Does self-sufficiency imply isolation? The God doesn’t need its constituents if it’s self-sufficient… Clearly, the Durkheim conception of god as society necessitates that Gods would be nothing without their worshippers (duh), but monotheistic have to do some inflating to make a case for a more formidable god.
“The fishing net is used to catch fish; let us have the fish and forget the net. […] Words are used to convey ideas; let us have the idea and forget the words.”
Chuang Tzu says “that which is one is one. That which is not one is also one.” Every number is contained in one, one, the singular whole, is the source of all things. This one is called T’ai Chi—or Tao.
The Confucian Jen, or fellow-feeling, is a discriminatory kind of love. It orders whom we love by similarity—be affectionate towards family, love fellow people, and be kind to animals. But superiority and remoteness are correlated, so differentiating disconnects us from others and makes it more difficult to love.
Tao means way or road, but its symbol is that of a road, below a head of a leader, and below that the foot of a follower. The symbol signifies a leader and follower united in finding their path.
Opening line of Tao Te Ching: “The Tao that can be told is not the real Tao and the name that can be named is not the real name.”
“Those who speak do not know; Those who know do not speak.” - P’o Chü-i
The uncarved block, P’o, means simple and plain, with no color or markings. The great unity. Men with P’o make no artificial effort towards morality or intellectual distinction. “He acts but does not appropriate; accomplishes but does not claim credit.”
When one is transformed and at one with all multiplicities, he is not self-assertive but selfless, disappearing into all other selves. This makes one ignorant and obscure, losing oneself in the uncarved block.
When we moralize and intellectualize, we divide the block, losing sight of the uncarved whole. “Only in the world of absolutely free identity does the great sympathy exist: the universal force that holds together man and all things.”
The method of wen ta, or the Japanese mondo, used questions and answers to make an opening wedge in the personality through which enlightenment may pour.
“If we speak of the one then the one becomes the object, with ourselves as the subject, and oneness exists no longer in its higher unity.”
Lao Tzu claims the losing method is how to attain quietude, notably “The student of knowledge learns day by day. The student of Tao loses day by day.” This is also known at gradual attainment in Buddhism
“The wild geese fly across the long sky above. Their image is reflected upon the chilly water below. The geese do not mean to cast their image on the water; Nor does the water mean to hold the image of the geese.” Eighth century Chinese poem. Our minds mirror Tao, reflecting the here-now of creation. Deliberate thought muddies the reflection, distorting it. This is what is meant by no-thought: the mind’s clear and pure reflection of Tao.
Ch’i is a material cause, matter and energy. Li is an immaterial cause, a plan that organizes ch’i into a coherent and meaningful whole. “Before the cart, or the ship, exists, there already exist the principles of their being. Invention, thus, is merely the discovery of existing principle.”
The image of the geese reflected on the water is done completely without intention. “Such spontaneous reflection is the creativity of the Tao.”
The creativity aspect of Tao is that it contains the potential to unfurl all outcomes, and as such contains all multiplicity of possibilities into a single unity. It is the great mother.
“Sympathy moves from all to one, creativity moves from one to all.”
Sympathy is like awareness to relationship? Creativity unfurls relationship?
Chinese buddhists: “The lion with all his hairs, taken together, is at the same time found within a single hair.” Kuo Hsiang: “A man is born but six feet tall. …However insignificant his body may be it takes a whole universe to support it.”
Unity within multiplicity
The Zen who, lifting his finger, perceives the universe to move with it. “The lifting of a finger is the slightest of gestures, but when it is viewed from the vantage point of the absolute moment it generates the power of the divine and blossoms into creative vitality.”
“The Sages contemplate ten thousand years and conceive them as a pure complete oneness.” - Chuang Tzu
Talks of change and changelessness. This quote represents the changeless. Kind of like the boundary of the whole remains changeless, but its internal landscape always moves.
Interfusion and identification between self and nonself is the source of all potentialities. “When man is in this creative process he is truly egoless: as egoless as the Moon and the stars.”
Confucianism sees an emphasis on rationality and analysis as a route towards enlightenment, working with effortful conscious knowledge to gain an understanding through differentiation, dividing the world into parts and understanding those parts
Taoism sees an emphasis on unconscious effort, intuition, believing that discrimination obscures the truth. “According to the Taoists the analysis of things succeeds only in separating object analyzed and subject analyzer. When the analyzer and the analyzer are two, the ego persists in its function of differentiating and prevents the emergence of the great self […] The Taoist sees the ego as a hard core, which can be broken only by the energy of the unconscious, which penetrates it, turns it inside out.”
“Those who can reflect freely and purely as nature reflects the passing moods of the day are those who have achieved the light of Tao as the great creativity.”
Walk across the river without wetting one’s feet. We flow through a river of experience, Tao, but to connect with Tao we mustn’t attach ourselves to it, we mustn’t wet our feet. To feel the action of the Tao requires non-action from within.
While the picture in a painting may not be particularly beautiful, there is an expressive wholeness that overflows it and removes the mutually exclusive opposition between painting and observer. “Thus we throw our whole being into the beauty and move along with it.”
“What [the painter] puts into his work comes out from it and flows over into our minds; and we recognize something which cannot be called intellectual only, sensuous only, or emotional only; it is wholeness of spirit which goes out, free and unafraid, into wholeness of universe.” - Laurence Binyon
“Our habitual mind is overdevoted to thought and analysis. Our thinking process tends to dissect reality in order to better understand it. Even though these dissections be reassembled into a whole, they can never regain their original inner unity. They are no longer part of the same oneness.”
“It is only when oneness—‘one thought’—is reached that we have enlightenment. […] Intellection is necessarily dualistic because it always implies subject and object.”
“To a man who has achieved the self of non-self, all music, whether from pipes or flutes or the wind through nature’s apertures, is heavenly music. But to the man who has not achieved this non-self, these sounds are still heard as the music of man and the music of earth.” - Yao-Nai
“The genuine meaning in the fragrance of blossoms and the Patriarch’s teaching in the melodies of birds are there all the time. But a man whose mind is shut up is not aware of it. But a man whose mind is prepared will be awakened by the fragrance of the flowers and the melodies of the birds.”
“To achieve the Middle Path one must free oneself from being and non being, life and death, construction and destruction.”
“The third dhayana requires man to free himself from the two forms of nonatmaness (ego of persons and ego of things), in order to achieve oneness.”
We attribute egos to things too. But things are truly without ego, are empty. We label them based on the conditional emotions they provoke on us, but those labels are not real except in our consciousness. Same goes for people. For yourself. And we litter each of our selves with conditional emotional labels in the same way.
“Be like the newly born calf, gazing but not seeking anything.” - Pei I
Yoga, in Indian philosophy, is a way of samadhi (abstract meditation) and prajna (transcendental wisdom)
“Let hearing stop with your ear, Let the mind stop with its images. Breathing means to empty oneself and to wait for Tao. Tao abides only in the emptiness. This emptiness is the fasting mind.”
The fasting mind.
“A poem should not mean, but be!” - Archibald MacLeish
“The writing of poetry is not primarily a cause of joy to the poet, rather the writing of poetry is joy.” - Heidegger
The best poetry is a pure reflection of objective reality, like how water effortlessly reflects the image of geese flying overhead
“A king is but a foolish labourer / Who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.”
The Coming of Wisdom with Time
“Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.”
The Magi
…
“And all their helms of silver hovering side by side And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find one more, Being by Cavalry’s turbulence unsatisfied, The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.”
Interesting… turbulence depends on a cascade of vortexes hovering side by side in mutual exchange and stretch, before dissipating into the uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. We are vortices…
Unsatisfied…some Buddhist connotations here. Life is characterized by dissatisfaction.
The Irish Airman Foresees his Death
…
Those that I fight I do not hate, That that I guard I do not love,
…
A lonely impulse of delight Drew me to this tumult of clouds;
…
Solomon to Sheba
…
Discovered that my thoughts, not it, Are but a narrow pound.
…
There’s not a thing but love can make The world a narrow pound.
Wisdom and love. The first, wisdom, recognizing how small we are. The second, love, condensing the world into a tangible point of infinity.
Tom O’Roughley
‘Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, And aimless joy is a pure joy,’
…
‘And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What’s dying but a second wind?
…
Shepherd and Goatherd
… Knowledge he shall unwind Through victories of the mind, Till, clambering at the cradle-side, He dreams himself his mother’s pride, All knowledge lost in trance Of sweeter ignorance.
Philonikia (love of victory) unraveling knowledge, making us infantile and relishing the love and recognition from parents, and losing ourselves in that sweet dream of ignorance. Brilliant
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes (II)
On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, A Buddha, hand at rest, Hand lifted up that blest;
And right between these two a girl at play That, it may be, had danced her life away, For now being dead it seemed That she of dancing dreamed.
Although I saw it all in the mind’s eye There can be nothing solider till I die; I saw it by the moon’s light Now at its fifteenth night.
One lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moon Gazed upon all things known, all things unknown, In triumph of intellect With motionless head erect.
That other’s moonlit eyeballs never moved, Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved, Yet little peace he had, For all that love are sad.
O little did they care who danced between, And little she by whom her dance was seen So she had outdanced thought. Body perfection brought,
For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind? Mind moved yet seemed to stop As ’twere a spinning-top.
In contemplation had those three so wrought Upon a moment, and so stretched it out That they, time overthrown, Were dead yet flesh and bone
Lovely. The sphinx a symbol of knowledge/wisdom (and a sort of intellectual prowess/pride), the Buddha of love, and the carefree girl playfully dancing in between.
“Yet little peace he had, / For those that love are sad.”
“Mind moved but seems to stop, / As ‘twere a spinning top.”
Sailing to Byzantium
“Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is, and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.”
Meditations in time of civil war
VII
“[…]
Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie, Nor hate of what’s to come, nor pity for what’s gone, Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye’s complacency, The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.”
Lack of delight and wonder, lack of foresight, lack of gratitude, nothing but grasping, ignorance, and restless myopic activity. Getting Buddhist vibes from this. The moon is a symbol for clarity, peace, and enlightenment.
Among School Children
… Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Labour blossoms or dances when conditions are cultivated with love (no bruising)
Beauty is not born out of despairing, nor is wisdom by overworking with little sleep?
Is the tree the leaf, the blossom, or the trunk? Is the dancer the dance? Is the lover love? Is the wise wisdom?
Human Dignity
I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To passing bird, but I am dumb From human dignity
Pride—>stupidity
Repenting? Praying for mercy? The passing bird—> Holy Spirit? Dove?
All Souls’ Thought
…
Such thought, that in it bound I need no other thing, Wound in mind’s wandering As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound.
A Dialogue Between Self and Soul
II.
My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
The finished man among his enemies?— How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what’s the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast?
I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest.
Love this one. Story of man. Start out ignorant, small, clumsy, envious and impatient. Then, once ‘finished’, attracts envy from enemies, and starts to see himself as they see him. Yet being to content to do it all again, starting out as a mere ignorant tadpole ‘blind battering blind’, and being made a fool by unrequited love. And finally, the beautiful mutual blessedness of life. Laughing, singing, and blessing everything with our attention as its attention blesses us.
Blood and the Moon
… I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair; …
Spilt Milk
We that have done and thought, That have thought and done, Must ramble, and thin out, Like milk spilt on a stone.
Coole Park
… And half a dozen in formation there, That seemed to whirl upon a compass-point, Found certainty upon the dreaming air …
Talking of swallow formations. But this wonderfully captures turbulent eddies…Found certainty upon the dreaming air… ah…
“Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy [Passion], Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.”
“From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy [Passion]. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.”
“Energy [Passion] is the only life and is from the Body, and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.”
Hmmm. Reason rides the periphery of passion? Reason depends on passion (reasoning is biased by passion), but also restrains that passion (from what? From encroaching the energy of others?)
“Those who restrain their desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.”
“And being restrain’d it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire.”
Proverbs from Hell
“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”
“The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.”
“A dead body revenges not injuries.”
“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”
“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”
“Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.”
“Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.”
“What is now proved was once only imagin’d.”
“The cistern contains; the fountain overflows.”
“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”
“Expect poison from the standing water.”
“The weak in courage is strong in cunning.”
“The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.”
“Exuberance is Beauty.”
Abundance of energy, excitement, cheerfulness
“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius.”
Improvement in the instrumental sense, with brings us further from the complexity of reality. The crooked roads are more likely to fit closer to that complexity, to fit closer reality and draw from the source of Genius.
“If the door of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks in his cavern.”
“Does not the eagle scorn the earth and despise the treasures beneath? But the mole knoweth what is there, and the worm shall tell it thee.”
The eagle delights in soaring, and so despises that which removes him from that freedom
The discerning analytical eye, distanced from stable ground, sees embodied, grounded experience with contempt (as the left hemisphere’s mode of being does)
The mole represent a blind, yet intuitive being, who knows what is there while nevertheless having a less objective, birdseyeview of the landscape.
“And I know that This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision. I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun, & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity, & by these I shall not regulate my proportions; & Some Scarce See Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Bye is formed, such are its Powers. You certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not to be found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or Imagination, & I feel Flatter’d when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil & Milton in so high a rank of Art? Why is the Bible more Entertaining & Instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination, which is Spiritual Sensation, & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason?” (From a letter to Dr. Trusler)
Milton
Plate 31
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine. All Nature listens silent to him, & the awful Sun Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird With eyes of soft humility & wonder, love & awe.
…
Thou perceivest the Flowers out forth their precious Odours, And none can tell how from so small a center comes such sweets, Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expands
The Divine Image
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.
Nurse’s Song
When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still.
‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies.’
‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.’
‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.’ The little ones leapèd and shoutèd and laugh’d And all the hills echoèd.
The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Youth of delight! come hither And see the opening morn, Image of Truth new-born. Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason, Dark disputes and artful teazing. Folly is an endless maze; Tangled roots perplex her ways; How many have fallen there! They stumble all night over bones of the dead; And feel–they know not what but care; And wish to lead others, when they should be led.
From the Book of Urizen
… From the depths of dark solitude. From The eternal abode in my holiness, Hidden set apart in my stern counsels Reserv’d for the days of futurity, I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation Why will you die O Eternals? Why live in unquenchable burnings? …
Mock on, mock on
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on; ‘tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel’s paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus And Newton’s Particles of Light Are sands upon the Red Sea shore, Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.
“[History] cannot be interpreted without the aid of imagination and intuition. The sheer quantity of evidence is so overwhelming that selection is inevitable. Where there is selection there is art. Those who read history tend to look for what proves them right and confirms their personal opinions. They defend loyalties. They read with a purpose to affirm or to attack. They resist inconvenient truth since everyone wants to be on the side of the angels. Just as we start wars to end all wars.” — B. H. Liddell Hart
“Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see.”
“If you want to do better as an investor, the single most powerful things you can do is increase your time horizon. Time is the most powerful force in investing. It makes little things grow big and big mistakes fade away.”
“Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. […] What you probably want is respect and admiration. And you’re more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility.”
“I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, the joust of life.”
“Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew the rancors (longstanding bitterness) massed about them and knew their zeal was in vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time would surely scatter all. A hoard heaped on the roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh.”
On the wealthy stock traders.
“On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.”
“Unwholesome sandflats waited to such his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in sea fire under a midden of man’s ashes.”
“Darkness is in our souls, do you not think? Flutier. Our souls shame wounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more and more.”
On cats: “They understand what we say better than we understand them. [The cat] understands all she wants to.”
“I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short time of space.”
On the priest who conducts funeral services: “Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.”
Something must be said, better to make it pleasant.
“Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum.”
“Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.”
“‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all minds that have lost their balance.’”
“Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.”
“Course everything is dear if you don’t want it. That’s what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants to sell.”
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” — Thomas Gray
“[She] broke out into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May morning.”
“Love laughs at locksmiths.”
“[Perfume/woman’s scent] is like a fine veil or we. They have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it.”
“The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls of wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial of dew stars.”
“How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold and coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad of metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangles sign upon the forehead of Taurus.”
“The Soap: We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.”
Haha
“My methods are new and are causing surprise / To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.”
“Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles.”
“People could put up being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew.”
“Motion, then, is not an unusual departure from stasis, but stasis an unachievable imaginary state, which in reality can be approached only as an asymptote.”
Just as stasis is the limit case of motion, the explicit is “merely the limit case of the implicit, with much of its vital meaning sheared off: narrowed down and ‘finalised’.” Likewise, the literal is “merely the limit case of the metaphorical, in which the wealth of meaning is collapsed into a 1:1 correspondence for a useful, temporary, purpose.”
“Randomness is merely the limit case of order, which is the universal norm. Indeed, true randomness is a theoretical construct that does not exist.”
Hmm…
Simplicity is the limit case of complexity, which is the norm, where complexity is cleaved off in an attempt to make the unintelligible intelligible. Simplicity is always a feature of the model, not of the reality modelled
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they are not reality.” - Einstein
The actual is the limit case to the potential, a lone petal in the blossoming flower of potentiality, which is equally real.
Linearity is the limit case of nonlinearity, everything is curved and straightness can only be approximated by narrowing the view of a complex picture.
Discontinuity is the limit case of continuity, independence the limit case of interdependence.
“This cosmos is one from which we are never separate, but out of which we arise, in which we dwell, and to which, finally, we return.”
The relationship between us and whatever-this-is (reality) is a reciprocally creative process, like a relationship between two conscious beings: “neither is of course ‘made up’ by the other, but both are to some extent, perhaps to a great extent, ‘made’ what they are through their relationship.”
“It is true that we can see the world only partially, but we still each see the world directly. It is not a re-presentation, but a real presence: there is not a wall between us and the world. Our experience of whatever-it-is is not another thing, even if we can’t get away from the fact that it is we who are experiencing it.”
“To be in the groove, in the flow, is to feel oneself played by, as much as playing, the music. As Yeats says, ‘How can we know the dancer from the dance?’”
Truth is an encounter, and whatever I find in “whatever-it-is does not pre-exist my encounter with it. There must be potential, true enough, but it is actualised only in my encounter with it. The encounter is genuinely creative. The whole universe is constantly creative—but not out of nowhere.”
Summary of hemisphere differences
LH: fine details, local, foreground, graspable; RH: whole, background, periphery, difficult to grasp
LH: detects what is familiar; RH: detects what is new. RH is on the lookout for what might be erroneously assumed to be familiar by the LH
LH narrows to certainty; RH opens to possibility. RH tolerates ambiguity and holds together conflicting info, LH tends to collapse them into either/or decisions
LH: isolates, fragments, mechanical pieces and parts; RH: complex whole
LH: stasis; RH: flow
LH: favours explicit and struggles with implicit, and thus struggles with metaphor, myth, irony, nuances in tone, humour, and poetry. Takes things literally
LH categorized by absence or presence of a particular feature; RH by a ‘family resemblance’ approach (it sees Gestalt)
LH sees common parts; RH sees unique wholes
“One could say that the LH is the hemisphere of theory, the RH that of experience; the LH that of the map, the RH that of the terrain.”
The LH is optimistic, lacking insights to its limitations; the RH is realistic, but tends towards pessimism
Interesting…
“So how might one characterise, as a whole, each hemisphere’s vision of reality? One view, the left hemisphere view, is of a world composed of static, isolated, fragmentary elements that can be manipulated easily, are decontextualised, abstracted, detached, disem-bodied, mechanical, relatively uncomplicated by issues of beauty and morality (except in a consequentialist sense) and relatively un troubled by the complexity of empathy, emotion and human signifi cance. They are put together, like brick on brick to build a wall, sc as to reach conclusions that are taken to be unimpeachable. It is ar inanimate universe - and a bureaucrat’s dream. There is an exces of confidence and a lack of insight. This world is useful for purpose of manipulation, but is not a helpful guide to understanding th nature of what it encounters. Its use is local and for the short term.”
“In the other (the right hemisphere version), as in the world the map represents, and in the world revealed to us by physics, by poet-ry, and simply by the business of living, things are almost infinitely more complex. Nothing is clearly the same as anything else. All is flowing and changing, provisional, and complexly interconnected with everything else. Nothing is ever static, detached from our awareness of it, or disembodied; and everything needs to be understood in context, where, if it is not to be denatured, it must remain implicit. Here, wholes are different from the sum of the parts, and beauty and morality, along with empathy and emotional depth, help us to intuit meaning that lies beyond the banality of the familiar and everyday. It is an animate universe - and a bureaucrat’s nightmare. This is a world from which we cannot detach ourselves, since we are part of it and affect it by our relationship with it. The overall timbre is sober and tentative. This world is truer to what is, but is harder to comprehend and to express in language, and less useful for practical issues that are local and short-term. On the other hand, for a broader or longer-term understanding the right hemisphere is essential.”
“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.”
‘If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.’ - Emerson Pugh
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Part 1: The Hemispheres and the Means to Truth
“The more precise anything is, the less content it has: ‘the more certain our knowledge the less we know.’”
Right hemisphere insult leads to an ignorance of ignorance. If a patient is harmed by their inattention caused by hemineglect, they blame others (e.g., if they bump into a stranger due to lack of left-sided vision, they blame the stranger). Responsibility is downplayed.
Left hemisphere insult leads to an opposite, where people claim responsibility for things they had nothing to do with. This is what occurs in depression, as people claim responsibility for atrocities clearly beyond their control.
Hierarchy of attention: we see things as a whole first (right hemisphere) before homing in on details with the left hemispheres sharp, narrow, focused attention. Right hemisphere deals with the form of the whole, the left with bits and pieces.
“The musician does not only manipulate the instrument like a separate object, but lives in it like a limb and inhabits the expressive musical space it opens.” - Behnke
A technological extension of us (techno in the art/craft sense)
From a developmental perspective, the right hemisphere (both the upper neocortex and the lower limbic system) nurture the development of the left hemisphere. The whole nurtures the parts…
Attention is not only responsible for the ‘how’ and ‘what’, but for the ‘whether-at-all’ of existence. What the left hemisphere doesn’t attend to, doesn’t exist.
“Perception is the act whereby we reach out from our cage of mental constructs to taste, smell, touch, hear, and see the living world.”
Disgust in many modalities is associated with the left insula. Interesting… Disgust removes emotional depth from, emotional embodiment with the object of disgust. Makes sense.
Information flowing to the left hemisphere tends to attribute ‘successes to internal, stable and global causes, while failures were blamed on external, unstable, and specific causes.’ (Drake and Seligman, 1989)
The left hemisphere “takes kudos when things go well, and denies responsibility when they do not.”
“The left hemisphere appears to detest uncertainty; it creates explanations and fills in gaps of information in order to build a cohesive story and extinguish doubt.” (Marinsek, Turner, Gazzaniga et al., 2014)
“The layman’s grounds for accepting the models propounded by the scientist are often no different from the young African villager’s ground for accepting the models propounded by one of his elders.” (Robin Horton)
We have a tendency toward magical beliefs, belief that we believe are real yet are invalid. This is probably adaptive; it would pay to mistakingly conjure a tiger behind the leaves more than it would to miss it altogether. A creative mind is functional, and uncreative mind is closed of to the new, incapable of adapting, and excessive creativity leads to overwhelming delusion
“To put it crudely, the right hemisphere is our bullshit detector. It is better at avoiding nonsense when asked to believe it, but it is also better at avoiding falling prey to local prejudice and just dismissing rational argument because the argument does not happen to agree with that prejudice.”
The left hemisphere is a conformist, and whose “job is to create a model and maintain it at all costs.” (Ramachandran, 1998)
The left hemisphere adopts a theory, and denies what doesn’t fit the theory. As John Whitfield said “the LH seems to suppress sensory information that conflicts with its idea of what the world should be like, the right sees the world how it really is.”
While the LH excels at processing verbal material, the RH has the advantage at language comprehension. Understanding requires “retention and integration of different types of verbal information over long time spans, and the ability to revise as new words are encountered and integrated with prior contexts.”
“My model, says the LH, is better than your reality: in the canonical, theoretical world of general abstractions, things should work out according to my plan. But then reality, with all its messy complexities and differences, gets in the way and spoils the story.”
“Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them.” — Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching 64)
Apprehend: Latin for to hold on to; Comprehend: Latin for to hold together.
The brain region associated with right hand grasping is next to the one for language (a sort of symbolic grasping).
Language likely started with music, originating in the RH and gradually migrating to the LH as language was formalized. This might have happened as social groups grew and became more specialized, as relationships shifted more from I-Thou to I-It (reference to objects more common)
“[Language] instead may be a way of mapping the world — a system of symbols that reflects the world. Words, according to this view, are tokens for things, and grammar a schema of how they relate, enabling us to plan a strategy and manipulate more effectively.”
“Tokens or symbols cannot escape being a part of the real world in the RH, and the real world cannot escape becoming tokens or symbols in the LH.”
Abstract: dragged away; discourse: running to and fro; metaphor: carried across
“It is metaphor alone that can carry us across the apparent gap between language and the real lived world.”
Writes of the decline in general intelligence, which is tied to the right hemisphere. While IQ has risen, IQ tests much depends on procedural, abstract, unembodied knowledge that the left hemisphere excels at. But we’ve been teaching children to focus on those procedural tasks, given them ‘scientific spectacles’, and fundamentally ‘overfit’ them to narrow tasks. And now their ability to deal with phenomena that fall outside of those procedures, novel phenomena, is receding.
Three phases of creativity:
”The first of these phases, preparation, is partly conscious and partly unconscious, partly willed and partly serendipitous, and may go on for years. It is generally associated with some pretty hard work, acquiring skills and knowledge, thinking consciously and mulling things over unconsciously, so as to prepare the fertile ground in which the seed can grow.
The second phase, incubation, is unconscious, and not under voluntary control: it can only be impeded by conscious effort and introspection, much as it does a plant no good to keep digging it up to see how its roots are growing.
The third phase, illumination, flowers out of the unconscious quite suddenly, again unwilled, and is effortless and accompanied by feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and fulfilment. Insight is effectively this third phase of creativity considered in isolation: the so-called ‘light bulb’ moment.”
“Talent hits a target no-one else can hit, wrote Schopenhauer; genius hits a target no-one else can see.”
“Furthering creativity is mainly about not doing, rather than doing… The creative process is inevitably governed by uncertainty, without which neither self-realisation nor creative innovation is possible… The less we leave things to fortune, the less likely we are to make a fortunate find.”
Spotlight analogy: “Certain kinds of mind-wandering are creative; narrow attention hampers creativity. Only turning off the spotlight of left hemisphere attention enables the more complex and diffuse arrays of neurones in the right hemisphere to work on solving the problem.”
“Trying to see what has to be an unconscious process is like ‘trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks,’ as William James memorably put it.”
“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, but to know how to create is better… Without [intuition], the geometrician would be like a writer well up in grammar but destitute of ideas.” — Poincaré
“Analysis reveals elements in [art], and can go on indefinitely, yielding more and more understanding; but it will never yield a recipe.” — Susanne Langer
“[The subliminal self] knows better how to divine than the conscious self, since it succeeds where that has failed. In a word, is not the subliminal self superior to the conscious self?” — Poincaré
Divine - guess/discover (from the French deviné)
‘To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion - not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense, and you still don’t understand what your creature is up to; to have a break-through idea; to be frustrated as an artist; to be awed and overwhelmed by an almost painful beauty; to be alive, damn it’ — Paul Lockhart
“A good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of dissimilars” - Aristotle
“You are a philosopher, Dr Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don’t know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.” (Boswel, Life of Johnson)
Right hemisphere is melancholic, left hemisphere is optimistic
“A brain disease or mental illness…is a change in a person’s whole way of being in the world.” It is not necessarily a specific part disfunctioning. It’s a holistic change in how the world comes into being for that person.
It’s fruitless to argue with a deluded schizo patient, since they cannot know what they don’t know. Their reality does not coincide with the best evidenced view, so we are right to think them mistaken, but for them the experience is authentic.
Three RH functions impacted by schizophrenia (and modern culture): sustained attention, the ability to read faces, and empathy
(TO READ) Madness and Modernism, Louis Sass
One schizophrenic patient described by Saas reported that ‘the world consists of tools, and … everything that we glance at has some utilization.’
I’m drawn to this…but utilization for whom? Over what timescale?
Dopamine antagonists are used to treat schizophrenia and mania, because the left hemisphere relies more heavily on dopamine than the right hemisphere.
Autism means morbid self-absorption (from Greek autos, self) and a lack of contact with reality.
“Without a self, there is no capacity for intersubjectivity, for the experience of shared time in a shared world…”
“As Merlau-Ponty noted, ‘presence’ concerns both self and world: subject and object are just two abstract ‘moments’ within a unique structure — presence.”
Self and other, as distinct but not isolated, is a necessary for there to be relation, betweenness. If there is no separation, nothing can flow between to reconcile the distinction
We are experiencing a rise in so-called dissociative disorders such as borderline personality disorder, conditions in which the sense of one’s own identity is weakened or lost altogether. In the modern world the individual may experience himself or herself as no longer having a role and a place in a close-knit community on a human scale, and therefore as engulfed in the mass - of the populace, of the city, of bureaucratic organisations and global corporations-relatively powerless. No wonder people emphasise (with tragic and damaging results) something called identity, in which, ironically their true identity is swallowed up.”
Is an intact self of self required for self-transcendence (e.g., enlightenment)? Is the sense of self required as a stable base from which we ascend? Transcendence is more of an orthogonal ascension though…there needs to be some coherent motion on the material plane (self, vortex) to orient oneself vortically…
Excessive abstraction is characteristic of schizophrenia, “living in the map, not the world: words that refer only to other words; abstractions that become more real than actualities; symbols that usurp the power of what they symbolize: the triumph of theory over embodied experience.”
“Kretschmer describes the schizoid temperament as having ‘a certain tenacious characteristic, a tendency to the enumeration of names and figures, to numbering, and schematisation, to logical abstraction, and to the building of a system at all costs.’”
“A triumph of literal-mindedness [a schizoid/LH quality], an inability to deal with the purely implicit, and indeed a fear of humour (as dangerously dealing in the implicit) are also identifiable in public discourse today.”
LH dominated activity leads to a loss of uniqueness (and thus uncertainty) in exchange for increased generality and perceived certainty, where uniqueness is transmuted into abstract categories. People lose their individuality and become typical of a certain class of people.
Our tendency to generalize and drop people into categories denatures them and robs them of their identity. We do it to make things more simple, in protest against uncertainty and ambiguity. In doing so we devitalize the people we categorize.
“Those who espouse grand theories supposedly based on love for mankind, are by no means the kindest people one meets; and those that are innately suspicious of such schemes often surpass them in generosity and kindly warmth towards actual human individuals.”
“He who binds to himself a joy / Does the wingèd life destroy / He who kisses the joy as it flies / Lives in eternity’s sunrise.” — Blake
“To stop a thing would be to halve a sight or sound in our heart. Cherry blossoms whirl, leaves fall, and the wind flits them both along the ground. We cannot arrest with our eyes or ears what lies in such things. Were we to gain mastery over them, we would find that the life of each thing had vanished without a trace.” — Bashō
“Because [the LH’s] ‘experience’ is not in touch with the presenting of life known to the RH, and it therefore experiences its own re-presentations, it seems to itself to live in a self-enclosed theatre, where experience is projected on the walls of the cell: ‘created by my own mind’, like the world as imagined by certain philosophers and psychologists.”
“Let us, then, understand our condition: we are something and we are not everything. Such being as we have removes us from knowledge of first principles, which arise out of nothingness. And the smallness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite.” — Pascal
First principles arise from nothingness? Why… Because they stand on their own, unsupported. Nothing is beneath them, for they are the base.
“The schizophrenic subject appears to occupy two extremes simultaneously: both skeptical to the point of paralysis about matters that must be taken for granted if one is to function at all, and yet gullible enough to espouse enormously improbable belief systems that are clearly delusional.”
Part 2: The Hemispheres & the Paths to Truth
Ch10: What is Truth?
LH approach to truth
Truth is a thing.
Can be experienced in the mind as a representation from something outside of the mind. Subjective experience of the objective
Starts with a secure set of facts and piles them on top of each other to build a representation of truth.
Impersonal truth, timeless, unchanging, independent of context.
Ultimately single, in that if a path is rigorously followed, everyone should reach the same conclusion
Ultimately perfect, precise, certain
All these descriptors deal with something that was, a process that has now stopped. Representation, fact, perfect, precise, certain, and concluded. These words describe stasis, eternity, fixity rather than motion, time, and flow
RH approach to truth
Truth as a process
Has no ending (infinite game)
Truth as a relationship, a continual reverberation between the (never completely distinct) interdependent subject and object modes of consciousness that answer or co-respond to one another
This accord or attunement would be the evolving truth
Incomplete yet in the process of completing itself, uncertain but approaching certainty
Ungraspable except through embodied being, through a consciousness that is in the flesh and engaged with the world
These descriptors (reverberation, answer, accord (literally to bring heart to heart), attunement, engagement) involve motion, reciprocity, and energy.
“Truth and trust (belief) go together. One cannot have trust in a society where there is no truth; and one cannot be true to a society in which there is no trust.”
An opinion about what is good or beautiful cannot be forced upon a soul not ready to accept it. Yet, as Edmund Burke notes: “There is rather less difference upon matters of taste among mankind, than upon most of those which depend on naked reason…men are far better agreed on the excellence of a description of Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.”
Truth as a process of revealing itself to us only through our experience. The Greek word for truth, aletheia, literally means ‘un-forgetting’
Woah, similar to the avatara of eastern thought. The lessons re-remembered, the un-forgetting.
“The ambition of being able finally to demonstrate truth to someone incapable of seeing, or determined not to see, what one means is a complete waste of time. Why should truth have a coercive quality? Truth might be more a matter of something to which we are drawn freely as it were ‘from in front’—attracted—rather than compelled inevitably ‘from behind’—pushed. Very little that we take for granted as most essential to life—love, energy, matter, consciousness—can[not] be convincingly argued about, or even described, without becoming ultimately self-referential. You have to experience it to know it: all we can do is point.”
Ch11: Science’s claims on truth
“Perceptions are laden with theory. We never just see something without seeing it as something. We may think that our theories are shaped by observations, but it is as true that our observations are shaped by theories.”
“To the extent that we have knowledge or experience of the world on which to base an understanding, we cannot know what it is like when we don’t know it.”
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” — Max Planck
The view that anything goes is pernicious and incoherent. “Pernicious, because it effortlessly exalts any crack ideology to the same level as the distilled wisdom of a civilization, and thereby debases the distilled wisdom of a civilization to the level of any cracked ideology. Incoherent, because, if anything goes, nothing goes: we no longer have any purchase on reality.”
The danger of social philosophies lie “not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole…in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied; and that if either could have been made to take the other’s views in addition to its own, little more would have been needed to make its doctrine correct.” — John Stuart Mill
“There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.” — Whitehead
“All we know is that there are local habits in the part of universe we inhabit.”
“In contrast to terms such as ‘theories’ and ‘laws’ which radiate some sense of absolute truth, the term ‘pattern’ is more subtle, less committed, less definitive, more open to modification…If we keep in mind that every hypothesis, theory, or law is ultimately just a pattern, the day that theory or law is modified or revoked will be less surprising, less disconcerting.”
Ch 12: The science of life: a study in left hemisphere capture
“When nature has come to exist in God through the essential unity of him in whom it was created, it will possess an ever-moving stability and a stable and changeless form of movement generated eternally round that which is one, unique, and always the same.” — Maximum the Confessor, 7th century theologian
Agree with all until ‘always the same’… but I get it, I think
The organism as a whole acts in a co-ordinated fashion to create and respond to meaning in the pursuit of value-laden goals, whereby it is fully realised and fulfilled as an organism.”
(TO READ) Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology
Why Organism are Not Machines
No on-off switch. “The very existence of an organism is, from beginning to end, one unceasing flow of matter and energy. For it to stop, even for an instant, would mean immediate death. The being of an organism, its form, its becoming, is its movement. And its movement is its being.
Motion vs stasis. “The chief problem in the philosophy of Nature is not to explain what is active in Nature (for that, being her primary condition, is easily understood), but rather that which is static and permanent. The explanation however lies within that very condition—that whatever is permanent is for Nature the limit-point of her activity. For, given this, Nature strives against every limitation.” — Schelling
Interesting…I get stasis/permanence being the limit point of Nature…Why does Nature strive against it? Let it simmer…
Organisms are “open systems that must constantly exchange energy and matter with their surrounding in order to keep themselves far from equilibrium. The persistence of an organism is dependent on its ability continuously to maintain a low-entropic ‘steady state’ in which there is a perfectly balanced import and export of materials.” — Dupré (2018)
Metabolism comes from the Greek metabole, meaning change
“Evolution is a flow that seamlessly connects all life. What seem like species are just our way of reifying that flow (‘thingifying’ it) at any one moment in time.”
Organisms as processes that change/adapt in order to maintain stability (e.g., homeostasis). Seen this way, natural selection is not an agent of change, but of stabilization. By selecting the most adaptive phenotypes, the lineage is stabilized over longer periods of time.
Again emphasises flow vs series of steps. “It is the difference between a sequence—a concatenation, a chain—and a single, indivisible movement, a flow. Flow is a process: a chain is a series of things, that are static until one is given a push or pull by the thing next to it. An organism is a flow, and is alive. A machine is a chain, and is dead.”
Speaks of the problem of causation in flow, and an example by Alan Watts: you see a cat for the first time through a slit, its head appears first, followed by its tail. This repeats various times. With this narrow view, we assume the head caused the tail, the tail being the effect of the head. It’s this narrow view, this loss of the whole, that misleads us into thinking one part causes another.
Does a waterfall or tornado have a cause? “That depends on seeing the world at large as a collection of things, not processes. For where does the precipitation of rainwater, the configuration of the land, the air pressure, the wind speed that would be said to be their causes begin and end?” Acknowledges that this is why we have to economize and think in terms of “things”, but that the assumptions we make are worth challenging.
“Cells use DNA to adapt to new ends; it is not a matter of DNA using cells to further its own ‘selfish’ ones. The idea that genes are somehow (how?) ‘programmed’ to pass on their DNA does not sit well with the fact that cells are constantly acting on it to change or repair it; and such persistence as there is depends on ‘elongate editing and correcting processes in the cell.’”
Cells use DNA, not the other way around. Cells aren’t programmed, given directions by the gene itself. The DNA strand is under constant self correction, modification, by the whole of the cell and the context it finds itself in. There is no intrinsic soul of the cell, the gene, that directs modification while safely remaining unscathed by its surroundings. It utterly continges with its surrounding.
Example of epigenetics: a fruit fly was stressed during development (the pupae were heat shocked) leading to abnormal wing veins. In 14 generations of consecutive heat shocking, the next generation inherited the abnormality even without heat shocking, meaning the gene had been altered directly by the environment, i.e., not only by random mutation.
The role of science is to understand nothing less than who we are.
“A purpose here is not a plan. It is a tendency inseparable from—woven into, as it were, the fabric of—a life, which leaves all the detail, and even the final outcome, undetermined.”
Tend comes from the Latin tendere, to reach out to something. Tendencies are reaching outs, attending is reaching out with…attention? Awareness? Implies a drawing towards rather than pushing behind.
In cells and multicellular organisms, seemingly free and undetermined sporadic action nevertheless exhibit patterned and purposeful behaviour. Cells divide, merge, lose and gain constituents, such that the same constellation of parts never recur. “Yet their joint behaviour converges upon a nonrandom resultant, keeping the state of the population as a whole relatively invariant.” (Weiss 1962)
Just like turbulence
“Every machine we know of is designed by an intelligent mind that is external to the machine, conceived the design before building it, and creates it for his own utility, a purpose that is extrinsic to the machine itself.”
Intelligent design prior to the fact is a left-hemisphere concept. Man is not a machination made by God.
“All attempts at stretching the machine model in one form or another come down to repeating La Mettrie’s absurdity, that of a ‘clock that winds itself’. The correct conclusion to draw is not that some watchmaker, blind or otherwise, did or does wind the machine, but that it is not a machine.”
“Nature delights in her own.”
Western philosophical distinction of nature: Natura naturans (nature naturing) vs. Natura naturata (nature natured). The former treats nature as an eternally becoming process, the latter a passive ‘thing’ already created in full.
“Quantum fields manifest particle-like properties in virtue of their intersection being constrained to occur in multiples of fixed quanta, and the conservation of those quantized properties. The quantisation is reminiscent of particles, but it in fact a quantisation of wave-like processes, not particles…there are no physical particles…” — Mark Bickhard
“As in modern physics there is no matter in the sense of rigid and inert particles, but rather atoms are node-points of a wave dynamic, so in biology there is no rigid organic form as a bearer of the processes of life; rather there is a flow of processes, manifesting itself in apparently persistent forms.” — von Bertalanffy
“Over the past fifty years or so scientists have allowed the conventions of expression available to them to become entirely too confining. The insistence on bland impersonality and the widespread indifference to anything like the display of a unique human author in scientific exposition, have not only transformed the reading of most scientific papers into an act of tedious drudgery, but have also deprived scientists of some powerful tools for enhancing their clarity in communicating matters of great complexity. Scientists wrote beautifully through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. But somewhere after that, coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader.” — David Mermin (1990)
Ch13: Institutional science and truth
“In an era where not just every organ, but every organelle, has its journal, and in which the jargon of each speciality becomes increasingly intimidating to outsiders, there is little incentive to look beyond the boundaries of your own ever narrower specialism. Indeed, the way to get on is to dig deeper in the hole you are already in, not to look around you to work out what all this spadework is about. For that way lies career death: you will cease to be an expert - one who has been defined as knowing more and more about less and less.”
In regards to scientific papers, “the heavy acronymic jargon of research papers seems to me to present an almost impenetrable barrier to anyone other than the most highly specialized reader, and even then, if they are to get anything out of the exercise, they must have a huge capacity to tolerate boredom.”
Issues with the scientific institution:
Reproducibility: studies consistently underestimate their uncertainty. This not only occurs in psychological and medical studies, but in physics studies of physical constants
Misdemeanours: in order to build a quantity (rather than quality) of published work, researchers will data mine (keep analyzing the same results in slightly different ways) until a p-value of significance is revealed
Mainstream positivity: large journals are more likely to publish positive outcomes rather than negative (such as finding that a medical intervention does not work). In medicine, this results in the illusion that treatments being more effective, and less harmful, than they might actually be
H-index/impact factor: authors pile their names onto journal papers in order to grow their h-index, even if they are dimly aware of the research. This allows them to distance themselves from a paper if it’s highly criticized, but claim glory when it’s time to dish out prizes.
Richard Smith, an editor at BMJ, conducted a study on peer review itself, finding it to be “a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless … science and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief.”
Science departments increasingly treat researchers as numbers (publishing scores, or worse: by race, gender, etc.) rather than taking people they actually want to work with. While this is open to bias, “bias is intrinsic to human life. We just waste a lot of time and money pretending we’re avoiding it, and then kid ourselves that the outcome was ‘objective’—a more dangerous position, because it introduces complacency and is a much more difficult thing to fight, precisely because of its appearance of objectivity.”
Experience comes from the Latin experientia, from experiri, meaning to ‘try out’. The per underlies the word ‘peril’, and is related to danger. “Experience is an inherently uncertain business that carries risks.”
“My mother groaned, my father wept, / Into the dangerous world I leapt.” — Blake
Ch14: Reason’s claims on truths
Reason is a blend of rationality (LH) and intuition (RH). Rationality is exclusive, reason is inclusive due to wending in intuition, emotion, and imagination.
“We must reject the distinction between nature as it really is and experiences of it which are purely psychological. Our experiences of the apparent world are nature itself.” — Whitehead
“No ‘-ism’ that is already parti pris can offer a rich and ordered landscape, because the mind that gives rise to it is closed, disregards the whole tapestry of reality in favour of just one strand, and inevitably needs to disparage those points of view it doesn’t share. The rich view, by contrast, will draw from a number of standpoints and achieve a balanced synthesis.”
We all have different experiences, but they share a common ground. There is ‘betweenness’ that “links us to one another in intersubjectivity.” Human consciousness is not fused with, yet not wholly separate from, that of others; nor is the world wholly separate from consciousness.
Rationality is grounded on axiom, an assumption deemed to be true. The word axiom comes from the Greek axia, which means ‘value’)
“Reason, like both science and, in a different way, morality, can bring a verdict into doubt only if it is grounded on something which is exempt from the doubting process.”
Gives Wittgenstein’s analogy of a door requiring stable hinges to turn
“Outside of courts there are no laws, only regularities.”
“For [philosophy] does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.” (Plato, Epistles 7, 341c)
Philosophical truths are more subtle, and are difficult to make explicit. Instead they’re gradually kindled, gently blown on by others, gently growing
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” — Hume 1896 Bk 2
“Many professional philosophers and their students slide unthinkingly into proceeding as if philosophy is about argumentation and they lose sight of the fact that it is really about insight.” — Magee (1998)
“Thinking analytically is like going on a diet. Its aim is a healthy austerity of thought, a certain trimness of mind. But when it’s carried too far, we’re left only with a skeleton. Carried too far too often, we lose the sense that something is amiss when the patient exhibits no life. We come to take pride in our cases of polished bone.”
“One can only become a philosopher, not be one. As soon as one thinks one is a philosopher, one stops becoming one.” — Schlegel
The Technical Philosopher fears natural and ordinary language. “Ordinary language is so obscure; words come dripping out of a sea of feelings and related meanings, and are logically unmanageable” (William Earle). Instead, they construct an artificial symbolism that takes years of training to read with any ease.
“Some things can only be experienced or understood when they are not put to analysis. This is not because analysis defeats them, but because they defeat analysis. The effect of the direct glare is to banish the penumbra of myriad delicate threads that make it what it is to what nourishes it and gives it life, like the roots of a plant or the vessels that feed the heart and which it feeds. Snatch the plant from the soil, snatch the heart from the body, and they not only die, but can no longer be understood for what they are.”
Ch 15: Reason’s progeny
The moment we express something in a word, “an alienation takes place, and the full experience is substituted for by the word. … When he thinks he grasps reality it is only his brain-self that grasps it, while he, the whole man, his eyes, his hands, his heart, his belly, grasp nothing—in fact, he is not participating in the experience which he believes is his.” (Fromm, 1960)
When we describe something we cease to participate with it to some degree…
“Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain the one lead is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept of ‘leaf’ is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.”
Conceptualizing anything is a way of asking what that concept can do for us. This type of linear thinking is “essentially power thought—the sort of thought…whose purpose, conscious or unconscious, is to give power to its possessor. Now power is a causal concept, and to obtain power over any given material one need only understand the causal laws to which it is subject. This is an essentially abstract matter, and the more irrelevant details we can omit from our purview, the more powerful our thoughts will become.” (Russel 1931)
Russel then gives an example of the farmer growing corn makes less money than the railway company that transports it, who makes less money than the stock broker who invests in the industry. The more abstracted away from the activity, the more general the relationship, the more distanced from the unique, the more opportunity there is to exploit and make use of those general concepts to further oneself. The more devitalized, the more predictable.
“There is a clear connexion between the will to power of the left hemisphere, and a tendency to try to make reality conform to our theory; wisdom lies in conforming one’s theory as far as possible to experience.”
“The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.” — Rabindranath Tagore
“A people that has been deprived of its customs through a desire for written laws has imposed on itself the harsh necessity of writing down everything, even its customs.” (Louis de Bonald)
Increasing precision of law leads to longer text, a reduced likelihood in it being read, and a stronger justification for the permissibility of a dubious act that was (inevitably) missed by the list. How stupid do you have to assume people are (because they claim not to understand an ambiguous but accurate statement such as “Keep hands away from moving parts”).
The assumption that philosophy can be done impersonally, objectively, is naive, neglecting the subjects that the philosophizing inevitably flows through. And “it is not just that philosophy can never free itself from personality: a person’s philosophy may be doing psychological work for that personality, which might explain why philosophies are so passionately defended.”
Philosophy as psychological work… a psychic framework that minimizes loss, preserves and maximizes efficiency for itself (whatever self that may be)
“A myth was never intended as an accurate account of a historical event; it was something that had in some sense happened once but that also happens all the time.” — Karen Armstrong
Anthropologist Levi-Strauss suggested myths aren’t thought up, but rather myths think through us, bringing themselves into being through us. Levi-Strauss saw his work as getting thought within himself, unbeknownst to himself.
The word immaterial itself refers to embodied experience. The Latin materia means wood, and even further mater means mother—in the sense of an origin. The immaterial means that which has no mother.
“Direct experience which is never adequately communicable in words is the only knowledge we ever fully have. That is our one and only true, unadulterated, direct and immediate form of knowledge of the world, wholly possessed, uniquely ours. People who are rich in that are rich in lived life. But the very putting of it into words translates it into something of the second order, something derived, watered down, abstracted, generalised, publicly shareable. People who live most of their outer or inner lives in terms that are expressible in language - for example, people who live at the level of concepts, or in a world of ideas - are living a life in which everything is simplified and reduced, emptied of what makes it lived, purged of what makes it unique and theirs.” — Brian Magee
“Propositions, however intricately devised, are the work of logos, and merely get in the way of the process of religion, which is, or should be, about how to find meaning and fulfilment in life, and to help us understand our relationships with one another, with the world at large, and with the divine, however we conceive it.”
mythos implicit order, logos explicit order
“What flows into you from myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level.” — C. S. Lewis
Ch 16: Logical paradox: a further study in left hemisphere capture
Paradoxes like Achilles and the Tortoise or the Dichotomy (distance from A to B halved infinitely means you never get there) fall prey to assuming abstractions can be brought together to recreate reality. What happens is a (1) fragmentation of (2) static instants of (3) re-presentations in a (4) abstract realm, rather than the intuitive understanding of a (1) indivisible whole in (2) motion (3) present within a (4) embodied experience.
An infinity of points does not make up a line, since they have no length, and to presuppose a length would be to smuggle in the thing you’re trying to create (a line). Same goes for instants in time, an infinity of instants will not get you a duration. The nature of temporal extension or spatial depth requires a leap into something of an irreducibly different nature.
“It is easy to kill something with a knife, but with the knife you cannot make it alive again.”
Evermore straight line tangents will only approximate a curve; increasing a polygon’s sides will only asymptotically approach a circle; a mechanized doll may be as lifelike as you can make it, but it will never actually live. The process doesn’t work when discrete parts are aggregated. “In every case what can only be called a ‘leap’ has to be made from one realm into another, to bring it to life.”
Ch 17: Intuition’s claims on truth
An archetype is not like a stereotype. Unlike the stereotype, which is a post factum abstraction that is purely general in nature, the archetype exists ante factum, and is instantiated. It is the coming together of the absolutely unique with the absolutely universal - in fact this absolutely unique experience is felt as both absolutely unique and absolutely universal at the same time. Every time someone falls in love, the experience seems unique, as though it could never have happened before or ever happen again in the history of the world. And yet it is as ancient as humanity itself - or older - as the experiencer also acknowledges. It is both a typical human experience, and a completely unique one, of unmatchable power and significance. And so it is, to one extent or another, with all archetypes. In fact their constantly repeated nature is part of their power: according to Jung, ‘endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution.’ When we encounter them afresh, it is the experience, not of cognition, but of re-cognition, or anamnesis.”
Ch 18: The untimely demise of intuition
Philosopher Gadamer pints of that “in as much as tradition serves as the condition of one’s knowledge, the background that instigates all inquiry, one can never start from a tradition-free place. A tradition is what gives one a question or interest to begin with.”
Tradition as the Wittgenstein’s door hinges, the ground upon which we stand (which can change as well)
“A tradition changes by being born anew in each member of the community that shares in it.”
“To embrace a tradition is to make it one’s own by altering it. A passive acknowledgement of a tradition does not allow one to live within it. One must apply the tradition as one’s own.” — Barthold
Perhaps one consequence in a society that lacks trust is one that must become more reliant on explicit reasoning rather than intuitive reasoning (and thus the trend of ridiculing intuitions, prejudices, and the like). One can be expressed, the other is less expressible and thus must be taken on faith. But if we hardly know our fellow interlocutors, why would we trust their intuitions?
“By intuition is meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known, that is, to elements common both to it and other objects. To analyse, therefore, is to express a thing as a function of something other than itself. All analysis is thus a translation, a development into symbols, a representation taken from successive points of view from which we note as many resemblances as possible between the new object which we are studying and others which we believe we know already.” — Bergson
TO READ: The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Muller
“When organisations committed to metrics wake up to this fact [that simplifying diminishes the complexity of life], they typically add more performance measures - which creates a cascade of data, data that becomes ever less useful, while gathering it sucks more and more time and resources .. Because belief in its efficacy seems to outlast evidence that it frequently doesn’t work, metric fixation has elements of a cult. Studies that demonstrate its lack of effectiveness are either ignored, or met with the assertion that what is needed is more data and better measurement. Metric fixation, which aspires to imitate science, too often resembles faith.” — Muller
“In situations where there are no real feasible solutions to a problem, the gathering and publication of performance data serves as a form of virtue signalling. There is no real progress to show, but the effort demonstrated in gathering and publicising the data satisfies a sense of moral earnestness. In lieu of real progress, the progress of measurement becomes a simulacrum of success.” — Muller
When the LH is faced with evidence that its theory is bunk, it will at first reject the claim and, when pressed, will double down on its theory and claim not enough data has been gathered to validate the theory (which must be right).
Reminds of War and Peace, theory obsessed war general
“The quest for numerical metrics of accountability is particularly attractive in cultures marked by low social trust.” — Muller
“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” — Whitehead
Ch 19: Intuition, imagination and the unveiling of the world
“Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, ‘I will compose poetry’. The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within … but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.” — Shelley 1921
“These percepts, these termini, these sensible things, these mere matters-of-acquaintance, are the only realities we ever directly know, and the whole history of our thought is the history of our substitution of one of them for another, and the reduction of the substitute to the status of a conceptual sign. Contemned though they be by some thinkers, these sensations are the mother-earth, the anchor-age, the stable rock, the first and last limits, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of the mind. To find such sensational termini should be our aim with all our higher thought.” — William James
On the primacy of the sense, the ground upon which higher thought springs
“Analysis should always be a prelude to a synthesis, in which the original synthetic take and the subsequent analytic take are themselves synthesized. The whole purpose of division is to enrich a union.”
So Coleridge calls this dividing the process of philosophy, and its reunion the result of philosophy
“My contention is that imagination, far from deceiving us, is the only means whereby we experience reality: it is the place where our individual creative consciousness meets the creative cosmos as a whole. (It is no coincidence that the same Indo-European root, present in classical Greek, indicates both ‘to know’ and ‘to generate’ or ‘to be born. It is the virtual, re-presented world of the left hemisphere that is the deceit. Imagination is not, as it is sometimes conceived, the capacity to conjure the unreal, but, for the first time, to see the real - the real that is, for reasons of deeply ingrained habit, no longer present to us. It is not a means of placing something else between us and the world, but of removing the accretions that prevent us from that world’s fuller realisation. To see is not just to register sense-data, but to see ‘into’ the life of what is seen; and ‘through’ it to the greater picture that lies beyond it, is implicit in it, and makes sense of it in terms of the totality of experience.”
Part 3: The Unforeseen Nature of Reality
Chapter 20: The coincidentia oppositorum
“The heart’s wave would never have risen up so beautifully in its cloud of spray, and become spirit, were it not for the grim old cliff of destiny standing in its way…” — Friedrich Hölderlin
Harmony: the reconciliation of things that contend with one another.
“They do not understand how a thing agrees at variance with itself: it is an attunement turning back on itself, like that of the bow and the lyre.”
It is through the tension of opposing sides of the bow and lyre that each may function and breathe life
“In 1953 I realized that the straight line leads to the downfall of man-kind. But the straight line has become an absolute tyranny. The straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is a line which does not exist in nature. And that line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilization… The straight line is atheistic and immoral. The straight line is the only sterile line, the only line which does not suit man as the image of God. The straight line is the forbidden fruit. The straight line is the curse of our civilization. Any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. Today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist know-how and yet, at the same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. An aesthetic void, desert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power. Even creativity is prefabricated. We have become impotent. We are no longer able to create. That is our real illiteracy.” — Friedensreich Hundertwasser (painter and architect)
Empodecles, a contemporary of Heroclitus, saw the origin of being as a circle. Each face of the circle represent a coincidence of opposites, man and woman. It represents both the finite and the infinite, since it has no end. It represents that which moves while also remaining still.
“Stay with the contradiction. If you stay, you will see that there is always something more than two opposing truths. The whole truth always includes a third part, which is the reconciliation.” — Jacob Needleman
“A gem stone is not polished without friction, not is a man without adversities.” — Seneca
“One thing acquired through pain is better for man that one hundred things easily acquired.” — Midrash
“Anyone who is afraid of suffering suffers already of being afraid.” — Montaigne
“The extreme of the law is extreme injustice.” — Hegel
“In order to be natural, we must try not to be so; if we wish happiness, it is fatal to pursue it; freedom requires self-discipline; sometimes we must be cruel to be kind.”
“Most human institutions, by the purely technical and professional manner in which they come to be administered, end by becoming obstacles to the very purposes which their founders had in view.” — William James
Rigidity of rule results in rebellion.
“Somehow life does, out of its total resources, find ways of satisfying opposites at once. This is precisely the paradoxical aspect which much of our civilization presents… the way to certainty lies through radical doubt; virtue signifies not innocence but the knowledge of sin and its overcoming; by obeying nature, we command her, etc. The ethical and the religious life are full of such contradictions held in solution. You hate your enemy? —well, forgive him, and thereby heap coals of fire on his head; to realize yourself, renounce yourself; to save your soul, first lose it; in short, die to live.” — William James
The once-born and twice-born of William James: once-born are those who are naturally uncomplicatedly happy, twice born are those who attain happiness only through enduring and overcoming abject misery. On the twice-born, “the process is one of redemption, not of more reversion to natural health, and the sufferer, when saved, is saved by what seems to him a second birth, a deeper kind of conscious being than he could enjoy before.” — James
Architective knowledge tends to accumulate in cultures since it is the kind that can be “precisely codified and stored, faithfully passed from generation to generation, built on and accumulated; while connective skills are not easily codified or handed down … a personal lifetime of connective nous is usually buried with the individual.”
TO READ: Physical Spirituality: Changing the Paradigm, by Mike Abramowitz
Life is constantly pursuing an equilibrium that is constantly disturbed and reestablished. This asymmetry keeps the ball of life rolling.
“It is precisely because creatures are incomplete that they are living.” — Ssu-ma Ch’ien (1st century BC)
The Chinese tradition of leaving the last three roof tiles missing
Chapter 21: The One and the Many
“No movement ever repeats. Looked at in enough detail, every event in the universe is unique…the more detail we note, the more apparent it is that no event or experiment can be an exact copy of another.” — Smolin
The word identity comes from the Latin idem (meaning the same), thence identidem (again and again). Identity is what makes us the same again and again, which is also the very thing that makes us different from others.
“Internal sameness is a condition of external difference.”
“As we encounter experience it is unique; yet as we represent it to ourselves, it becomes general. As Whitehead put it, ‘we think in generalities, but we live in detail.’”
“Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.” — James
Categories merely help us manipulate things to our own ends, and we cannot love categories—the profundity of love requires a rich, unique individual. ‘Loving’ a category “devalues its objects, by substituting labels and categories for individually different living beings, makes them means rather than ends, and lends itself to greed, abuse and never-to-be-satisfied restlessness: Don Juanism.”
“We are pierced, the this strikes into us like a shaft of light. We are focussed by it and experience it as focussed: what is this is unique, it has an utterly distinct - and here notice the sense modality we reach for - flavour or fragrance. (What is important about the metaphor is that it recognizes the object as knowable but neither visible nor graspable.) Often the experience also includes an awareness of not being able to give an account of the this - we can point, but not say.” Jan Zwicky
“Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass stains the white radiance of eternity.” — Shelley
“It seems to me, also, that the tendency of the world, the living world especially, is not towards oneness and sameness, but towards pluralism, difference and particularity — towards beings with a history: away from generalisation and equality, towards ever greater differentiation, relishing the uniqueness, the ‘this-and-no-otherness’, of each being.”
The endless unfurling of potential. Entropy. The gradual expansions and reverberating contractions; disintegration and re-integration; exhale, inhale.
“The non-duality of duality and non-duality.”
Both “either/or” and “both/and”
A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing. “Yet the intellect requires both. In the one hand, the knowledge of many things is of no use if it is not capable of being held together into a coherent framework; on the other, the single great though requires unfolding and differentiation.”
“The secret of Soto Zen is ‘yes, but.’” — Suzuki 1999
“Non-duality [in Buddhism] is not the negation of multiplicity in favour of some idea of the absolute; it is also not the nihilism so many Westerners think Buddhism to be.” — Jane Hirshfield
“When it comes to understanding the self, one can predict that each hemisphere will support a different version. The self as conceived by the left hemisphere, should be - and is - an entity that is relatively static, separate, fixed, yet fragmentary, a succession of moments, goal-orientated, with its needs at any moment perceived as essentially competitive (since others may similarly target the same resources), determinate, consciously wilful, circumscribed in the breadth and depth of what it sees, at ease with the familiar, certain and explicit, but less so with all that is fluid, ambiguous, and implicit, and unaware of the limitations of its own knowledge. The self as conceived by the right hemisphere should be - and is - more akin to a process than a thing, essentially fluid and less determinate, nonetheless forming a unique whole over time, aware that it is fundamentally inseparable from all else that exists, open to others and to experience, more concerned with co-operation than competition, less consciously wilful, more engaged in what one might call ‘active passivity’ (an open attendant disposition, in which one is ready to respond to what emerges), seeing the greater picture in space and time, and aware of the extent of its ignorance.”
“I earlier quoted Bergson’s observation that we can move from an insight to analysis, but not from analysis to insight. The broad and flexible can see the value of being narrow and rigid at times, whereas the narrow and rigid, by definition, can only see the value of being narrow and rigid.”
Chapter 22: Time
“To think away time and space is completely impossible, while it is very easy to think away everything that appears in them. The hand can let go of everything, except itself.” — Schopenhauer
Time is to humans as water is to fish. As a fish discovers the true value of water after being removed from it, so it is with us and time (schizophrenia, for example, distorts our sense of time)
Bergson describes reality as the flow of experience itself, and that ‘things’ come forth from that fluid ground, rather than the other way around.
Substantial literally means ‘stand under’, as in things are substantial and lay the ground on which phenomena play out. But Bergson says this is upside-down. “Reality is what we experience—ever moving, changing, and continuous. Things, however, are secondary, static, products of perception which supervene on ‘from above’, not support ‘from beneath’, that field of flow.”
“The brain […] shows us less the things themselves than the use we can make of them. It classifies, it labels them beforehand; we scarcely look at the object, it is enough for us to know to which category it belongs.” — Bergson
“It is therefore a much more direct vision of reality that we find in the different arts; and it is because the artist is less intent on utilizing his perception that he perceives a greater number of things.” — Bergson
“There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when i have already passed them and turn back to observe their track.”— Bergson
TO READ: Creative Evolution by Bergson
“When you have broken reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness. Out of no amount of discreteness can you manufacture the concrete.” — William James
“The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.” — Borges
The past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.
“Science…sets out to rediscover the natural seams of the universe, where we have carved it artificially.” — Bergson
“An organic whole, in contrast to a mechanism, does not consist of a hierarchy of parts which exert control over other parts. Instead, it is a maximally responsive and transparent system in which changes and adjustments propagate simultaneously upwards, downwards and sideways, in the maintenance of the whole.”
The root meaning of the word ‘cause’ is ‘that without which something would not be’, a source taking credit (or blame) for that ‘somethings’ coming about.
Aristotle distinguished between four types of causes: material (horseshoe is caused by metal), formal (horseshoe is caused by its shape), efficient (because its blacksmith made it so), and final (because it preserves a horses hoof, its purpose).
Those distinctions are useful for analysis, but that analysis cuts up the truth, which is closer to the fact that “there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.” (Borges)
“Only a privative focus on detail delivers the clear cause and effect mechanism. Does the trumpeter cause a sound, or the trumpet - or is it the air blowing through it that causes the sound? Or the trumpeter’s lungs, or the listener’s ear? Or the instrument maker’s skill? Or Handel, who wrote the music? Or all their parents for bringing them into being? Or the musical history of Europe? Or - the audience that will hear the performance tomorrow?”
Chains of causation imply past causes present which then causes future, but does future also cause phenomena of present? Are all living beings not striving for an idealized future?
Past and future aren’t symmetrical. Time flows one way. “The past has been ‘passed’ through the filter of being present, in the process acquiring embodiment, richness of human meaning and uniqueness. By contrast, the future is a theoretical projection, general, disembodied, and free to accept whatever meanings we care to throw at it. In that sense the future is all theory.”
“When we are absorbed, neither time nor our embodiment is in the foreground of our attention: when I am a lived body, I live time.”
“Clock time is invented time, but man has been too gullible, he has ended up believing that his invention has an objective existence … Objective time, clock time, exists because the mind invented clocks. That invention gave us a definition of an apparently objective time that we believe in too much … [However] objective time has gone. It has gone in relativity, gone from the quantum world, gone in cos-mology… Only in the ‘normal’ world, which has been impoverished by our definitions and explanations which define poorly and explain little, does objective time still hold sway.” — Michael Shallis
“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” — Borges
“So it is that each note of a melody is prepared by, and still contains the presence of, the notes that come before it, and prepares for and already contains an anticipatory experience of the notes that are to come. If this were not the case, there would be no meaning whatsoever in the note at the instant it was heard.”
The word scholarship comes from the Greek ‘scholē’ meaning leisure, and the pursuit of insight, simplicity, beauty. “Leisure was the disposition of receptive openness to what is, all that we miss as we rush through life on our highway to the grave.”
“The world is not made in time, but with time.” — St. Augustine
Chapter 23: Flow and movement
“For, while there may well be a stream of consciousness, one aspect of consciousness, namely conceptual thought, as James realised, is not part of that flow. What he may have overlooked is that, to continue the metaphor, it provides rocks and stones in the steam: resistance to flow… And for anything to ‘arise’…tend, grow,change—there needs to be a degree of architective resistance within the connective flow.”
“A stream flows in a straight line forward as long as it encounters no resistance. Where there is resistance - a whirlpool forms. Every original product of nature is such a whirlpool, every organism. The whirlpool is not something immobilized, it is rather something constantly transforming - but reproduced anew at each moment. Thus no product in nature is fixed, but it is reproduced at each instant through the force of nature entire … Nature as a whole co-operates in every product.”
In Schelling’s view each distinct consciousness arises as a vortex within an endless flow, an eddy in the stream. Compared with other aspects of, or ‘products’ of, Nature, ‘we are simply more advanced whirlpools, more clearly articulated expressions of the absolute.’ For Schelling, the emergence of thinking subjects from nature is part of a process whereby an absolute subjective consciousness comes to know itself. The process of consciousness is creative not just of what it comes to know but of itself, which are ultimately one and the same thing: ‘What in us knows’, says Schelling, ‘is the same as what is known.’”
“…the world-soul, itself does not know what is to come, since it gets to know itself only through the process of creation whereby simultaneously it and the world come into being together - not again as two distinct events just happening to happen simultaneously, but simultaneous because we are seeing one and the same process, just from two different standpoints.”
“In listening we do not stand stock still on the bank of the stream with a flow gauge and a clipboard in hand, but move together with an entrained by the flow.”
The more time we spend indoors, the more we become like the clipboard holder. We measure everything via our devices, yet don’t submerge ourselves within the musical reality we inhabit. We make ourselves full of measurements and statistics and numbers so that our flutes become stuffed and the music dies out.
When it comes to music, we have to surrender ourselves to experience it in its entirety. “We must be actively receptive in relation to it, not actively expressive—as also in prayer and meditation.”
“The essence of life is its continuously changing character; but our concepts are all discontinuous and fixed, and the only mode of making them coincide with life is by arbitrarily supposing positions of arrest therein. With such arrests our concepts may be made congruent. But these concepts are not parts of reality, not real positions taken by it, but suppositions rather, notes taken by ourselves, and you can no more dip up the substance of reality with them than you can dip up water with a net, however finely meshed.” — William James
“What is differentiated can never be separate, because it is what it is only in relationship to everything else.”
“Early Celtic and Teutonic cosmologies held that life emerges from a vortex, an idea also common to many pre-Socratic Greek philosophers.”
TO READ: learn about this Celtic and Teutonic guys
“Movement is the essence of knowledge; take away this vital element, and it dies like fruit stripped from the living tree.” — Schelling
“Consciousness is always consciousness of something, reaching out and going to meet something beyond the self…Creation of other is also creation of self; knowledge of other is also knowledge of self.”
“Space is the potential for something to move within it; time is the potential for something to change within it.”
Chapter 24: Space and matter
After an experiment where subjects were hypnotized to see more/less depth, the more depth group “experimenters report that ‘the usual perception of objects in the environment as things in themselves, independent of their surrounding, seems replaced by a perception of objects as being in interaction with their surrounds and with the active properties of the space around them.’ In other words the world showed itself to be resonant.”
When people have psychedelic experiences, this is what I think is happening. The pulsing whole is being revealed to them, but it is always pulsing if you take the time and effort to tune into it.
“We see the general not by turning away from the particular, but by looking intently at it so as to see into it, whereby the value of the particular is not in any way negated, but taken up into something greater beyond. Similarly, I suggest, we find the soul not by turning away from the body, but by embracing it in a way that spiritualises the body; and we find the sacred not by turning away from the world, but by embracing it, in a move that sanctifies matter. The soul is both in and transcends the body, as a poem is in and yet transcends mere language, a melody in, yet transcends, mere sound, a painting in, yet transcends, the merely frescoed wall.“
“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” — Bohr
“Wave and particle are two modes of being of the same field phenomenon: this makes possible the coming together of union and division, of continuity (the wave) with discreteness (the particle) within a single uniting phenomenon (the field). Louis de Broglie proposed that the dipole of wave and particle is universal: everything that moves—which is another way of saying everything—has some aspects of a wave and some aspects of a particle.”
It’s not that there are no quanta (particles), but that they are emergent from continua.
Mass is the tendency of an entity to resist movement. Harking back to the flow chapter, “nothing comes into existence except by means of resistance to flow. The recalcitrance of mass gives rise to the possibility of enduring form.”
“It could be said that while mass comes about because of an attachment to - a drive to make cohere and endure - some particular form, weight comes about because of an attraction between existing material forms. The first causes a new event to persist, for a while, in the face of instabil-ity; the second causes the coming together of what so persists, so that this creative achievement can grow, can realise further potential. Gravity converts a resistant or disjunctive force, namely mass, into a propulsive or conjunctive force, namely weight.”
“A particle exists in space and around it is empty space. A field, on the other hand, is something that exists everywhere as a property of space. Its intensity may be small, but it is never zero. Even in areas where there are no quanta, there is a small amount of field called the vacuum field. In [Quantum Field Theory] there is no such thing as empty space.” — Brooks
“What we call empty space contains an immense background of energy, and … matter as we know it is a small, ‘quantized’ wavelike excitation on top of the background, rather like a tiny ripple on a vast sea.” — Bohm
Chapter 25: Matter and consciousness
Consciousness means “knowing with” (con-, with, + scientia, knowledge). It is not a thing, but a process of betweenness.
Whether we unconsciously respond to something or consciously do, it implies some subjective awareness. Reflective awareness is still awareness, and most of our psychological actions are reflective.
The brain can be either involved in the emission, the transmission, or the permission of consciousness. Emission implies the brain secretes consciousness, transmission implies the brain as a passive, noncreative participant in consciousness, and permission implies the brain is an active, creative participant with consciousness.
“Something about me—in the ‘field of me’—permits these particular activities: and that something is what, in the broad definition, I am calling my consciousness.”
Experiential, both conscious and subconscious (these are two manifestations of the same things, not exclusive)
“Thinking, however, is not so much a substitute for the earlier processes as a subsidiary addition to them. It only pays in certain cases, and intelligence may be shown also by discerning what they are and when it is wiser to act without thinking … Philosophers, however, have very mistaken ideas about rational action. They tend to think that men ought to think all the time, and about all things. But if they did this they would get nothing done, and shorten their lives without enhancing their merriment how marvellous that a philosopher could then say such things!]. Also they utterly misconceive the nature of rational action. They represent it as consisting in the perpetual use of universal rules, whereas it consists rather in perceiving when a general rule must be set aside in order that conduct may be adapted to a particular case.” — Wolfgang Pauli
We think about that which cannot be reconciled habitually, automatically. I think a lot of this resistance stems from the tension between individual and collective in humanity. We are a deeply collaborative and competitive species, thought springs forth from that collision
“Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle - they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.” — Whitehead
“It is a general principle in psychology that consciousness deserts all processes where it can no longer be of use.” — William James
Ever-increasing sophistication of technology seems like it may encroach on thought… will it? Or will we become more useless and thought amplifies? Hmmm
“Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum nechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes he only rational alternative to solipsism.” — Richard Conn Henry, Astrophysicist, writing in Nature
“It is not matter that creates an illusion of consciousness, but consciousness that creates an illusion of matter.” - Bernard Haisch, Astrophysicist
“Contemplation of the world in a spirit of openness and humility fundamentally enlarges our being, where dogma and complacency simply narrow it. Equally it enables the greater reality of the cosmos - whatever it may be - to fulfil itself through us.”
“Where there is animacy, both consciousness and matter equally evolve much faster than they would do in its absence; or, to use a both more familiar and less appropriable terminology, they become faster than in its absence.”
“Is [music] out there, on its own? Clearly not. Is it, then, just in my brain? Clearly not. It exists only when outer and inner come together: that is, it lies in the betweenness. Experience - mind - is always a betweenness. And I believe all reality is like this.”
“Nature has neither kernel nor shell: she is everything at once.” — Goethe
“While it is the job of the membrane in a single cell to be aware of the environment and set in motion an appropriate response to the environment, in our bodies those functions have been taken over by a specialised group of cells we call the nervous system. It is not a coincidence that the human nervous system is derived from the embryonic skin [the ectoderm], the human counterpart of the cell’s membrane.” — Lipton
The cell membrane acts as a permissive barrier, allowing somethings in and prohibiting others. Interestingly, the brain derives from a similar material, and also acts as a sort of permissive membrane to allow certain experiences to flow in and out
Brain activity was found to reduce in those entering trance-like states, and their writings were more complex than the non-trance counterparts. It seems like the filter is relaxed, and more experience can pour through.
“It’s as if the damaged brain prevents the person from consciousness, but then as the brain finally begins to die, consciousness is released from the grasp of the degenerating brain.” (Greyson)
A not uncommon experience for brain damaged, dull or unconscious patients near death is to awaken with elevation of mood and spiritual expression from about a week to a day before death.
[Reality] has breadths and depths beyond our wildest imagination. The quality of our vision depends entirely on the extent our consciousness permeates and resonates within her magical realm. In this respect, there is complete symmetry between science and art. Both are creative acts of the most intimate communion with reality.” — Ho
The brain increases power through shedding neurones and pruning connections; the corpus callosum functions to inhibit; of the most important functions of the frontal lobes is to inhibit behaviour; and the brain has proportionally more inhibitory neurones than any other species. The brain is built to inhibit, to provide a necessary resistance, to impede an otherwise free flow of Consciousness, which gives life to our swirling consciousnesses.
Consciousness may not be to our purpose, but we to the purpose of consciousness.
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic purposiveness: to say the purpose of music is to help you relax or the purpose of mindfulness is to help you extract more resources from the market is to denature them. These processes have a kind of purpose which is fulfilled by merely being themselves. This is why an engineering, omnipotent God who imports extrinsic purposes on everything is a destructive idea, it is inherently reductive rather than fulfilling.
“It is not that consciousness is fragmentary and must be integrated if there are to be individual beings; it’s that consciousness is integral and must somehow be divided if there are to be individual beings. The whole business of consciousness limiting itself by embracing the stickiness of matter (remember, matter slows energy down and makes its forms persist longer than they otherwise would), is to produce differenti-ation, individuation, thisness, actuality precipitated out of a sea of potential. The process of individuation involves sculpting, filtering - however one wants to put it, delimiting and distinguishing - parts of the seamless whole. Thus the brain needs two streams of con-sciousness, one in each hemisphere, but they are like two branches of a stream that divide round an island and then reunite.”
Are thoughts and feelings in us, or are we in thoughts and feelings? Is what we are conscious of selected from a larger field of consciousness that envelopes and enters us?
“We become what we love and yet remain ourselves.” — Heidegger
“In the psychological, ethical and social sphere an uncompromisingly rigid definition or argument often leads away from, rather than to-wards, Reality. It is true that the facts tend to assume a certain order within the framework supplied by our reason; but it is no more thar a tendency, and the facts invariably overflow if the framework is too exactly defined…” — de Broglie
“‘We cannot observe any of the properties of a multiverse…as they have no causal effect on our universe…The hypothesis that a multiverse actually exists will always be untestable,’ writes astrophysicist Luke Barnes. There is nothing wrong with that — unless one claims it is science, rather than faith.”
“Unless you are intellectually numb, you can’t escape the awe-inspiring feeling that the essence of reality is unknowable.” — Strawson
Chapter 26: Value
“There is something in common between truth, beauty, and goodness: they each make demands on us, and also fulfil us, and also leave us thirsty for more.” — Andrew Steane (Physic prof at Oxford)
“Truth—is as old as God— / His Twin Identity / And will endure as long as He / A Co-Eternity.” — Emily Dickinson
“It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.” — Max Planck
A leap of faith isn’t a random plunge into the unknown, but a leap towards what is valued. We leap into the light, not into the dark.
“Belief is not holding a proposition, but a disposition, an openness to trust, in order that one may experience, and therefore know. Conviction will come, if it comes at all, from experience—never from trading propositions.”
Love discloses. Love must first disclose what reason then may judge.
To have a disposition towards the world, an active, open consciousness towards it, implies that we find the world valuable—we preclude it having value. In this sense, faith is involved.
“If we reflect deeply upon what we feel as we look [upon a exceptional artist], we shall find that, if we accept them and admire them, it is because we have already perceived something of what they show us. But we had perceived without seeing.” — Bergson
Great art reveals what we already know deep down. Truth as unconcealing.
“Beauty — be not caused — It Is — / Chase it, and it ceases — / Chase it not, and it abides —“ — Dickinson
“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. This is the reason why beauty is still escaping out of all analysis. It is not yet possessed, it cannot be handled…It instantly deserts possession.” — Emerson
“Do not think to place holiness in doing; we should place holiness in being, for it is not the works that sanctify us, but we who should sanctify the works.” — Meister Eckhart
Moral acts are the result of the disposition of a morally good being. Moral action is an expression of a morally good being.
Acts are still important, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’, but these fruits consistently arise out of the being, and a good intentioned being is more likely to produce fruits over the long run, even if sometimes they don’t
Deontology is derived from the Greek word for duty/obligation. Deontology = ideas concerning duty, judgments based on intrinsic rightness/wrongness of action separate from consequence
“The price of certainty is absurdity; the prize of uncertainty is wisdom.”
“What matters most in all religious ethics is the underlying attitude: and the attitude that all the great religions demand of us is always the same. All preach personal humility, and all teach what the Buddhists call compassion and Jesus called love. I suggest that these two - personal humility and compassion (and particularly compassion) - are indeed the most fundamental notions or feelings that underpin all moral codes, of everyone, whether they deem themselves to be religious’ or not. We could (and I believe should) add a third: the sense of reverence towards all life and towards the universe as a whole.“ — Tudge (2013)
“Symmetry is about relations between parts, but asymmetry is about the relations between symmetry and its absence, something still deeper.”
“Beauty depends on contrast. If everything attracts us equally, nothing in particular attracts us.”
Chapter 27: Purpose, life and the nature of the cosmos
“Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to dissipate entropy as quickly as possible (I doubt it). Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to produce more lioness genes (I doubt it). Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to kill, eat, and copulate (I doubt that, too). Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to be a lioness (this seems to me to be on the right track). Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to express whatever good a lioness is capable of expressing (I am inclined to pick this one). Perhaps the purpose of a lioness is to express an aspect of what the verb to be can signify.” — Andrew Steane
Entropy dissipation, reproduction, survival at the level of the individual do not fulfil a global purposes, though they could be considered local purposes. The global purpose could be something closer to: express good, fulfil your particular role so that the whole can fulfil itself.
“Would [Dawkins] be willing to consider a description of Nature as something that discovers what it is in the process of becoming what it is, and the point and purpose of which lies in itself: a free, exuberant creation, not a micro-controlled one? No algorithm, no programme, no robots: just an endless self-discovering act of creation?”
Randomness in the toss of a dice is not the a result of disorder, but highly specialized order: the weight distribution of the dice, roughness of surface, aerodynamic nuances, etc.
“Randomness is the limit came of order (one that is strictly speaking impossible fully to achieve); not order the limit case of randomness.”
“A concrete example of the necessary fruitful relation between purpose and indeterminacy comes from a cell’s response to threat. Cells actively promote mutations under certain circumstances, and this process begins not from DNA, but merely uses DNA as a resource. Faced with the need for a new antigen, the mutation rate in part of the genome can be accelerated by as much as 1,000,000 times. According to Noble, so far as we know, the mutations occur randomly. But the location in the genome is certainly not random. The functionality in this case lies precisely in the targeting of the relevant part of the genome.”
DNA mutations are locally random, but arise from a global order whereby the cell uses variation as a creative resource to adapt to threats.
Nature proceeds not randomly, but gropingly.
“Cancerous tumour cells can suppress apoptosis, a mechanism that ensures the death of excessive cells where appropriate, rewire metabolism, so as to promote the proliferation of blood supply to the tumour, and evade immune responses, in such a way as to promote tumour growth at the expense of the organism.” (See Fouad and Aanei 2017 for a review)
Cancerous cells are adaptive too… of course!
Appetite means literally (ad+petere) a seeking, a tendency
“life itself is comparatively deficient in survival value. The art of per-sistence is to be dead. Only inorganic things persist for great lengths of time… The problem set by the doctrine of evolution is to explain how complex organisms with such deficient survival power ever evolved. They certainly did not appear because they were better at that game than the rocks around them. It may be possible to explain “the origin of species” by the doctrine of the strug foresten. among such organisms. But certainly this struggle throws no light whatever upon the emergence of such a general type of complex organism, with faint survival power.” — Whitehead
Chapter 28: The sense of the sacred
“The first gulp from the beaker of knowledge estranges us from God, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for him who seeks.” — Carl Friedrich Von Weizsacker
“There is a parallel between the false view that we are separate from and over against Nature (encapsulated in the disastrous idea of Nature as the ‘environment’) and the idea that we are separate from and over against the cosmos. This cannot be true, for the same reason in either case. We were born out of, and return to, the one and the other. It therefore makes no sense to set us up as proud, lonely, tragic figures, struggling against Nature, trying to subdue her, or struggling defiantly to bring love, goodness and beauty into a hostile cosmos. Any love, goodness and beauty we can bring come out of Nature and out of the cosmos in the first place: where else can they possibly come from?”
“The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.” — Wittgenstein
“Having ready answers means you don’t understand; understanding here means never letting go of the questions. Unknowing will turn out to be a sign not of weakness, but of wisdom.”
The RH “purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being.” — Shelley
“The deeper we know our unknowing, the nearer we are to truth.” — Nicholas of Cusa (On Learned Ignorance TO READ)
“God cannot be said to ‘exist’ (Latin, ex- ‘out’, + -sistere, reduplicative of stare, ‘to stand’) in the way that a thing stands forth for us against the ground of our already existing field of vision. God is that ground.”
“When we speak of God, we do not clear up a puzzle; we draw attention to a mystery.” — Herbert McCabe (theologian)
”We [modernity] are like someone who, having found a magnifying glass a revelation in dealing with pond life, insists on using it to gaze at the stars - and then solemnly declares that if only people in the past had had such a wonderful magnifying glass to look through, they’d have known that, on closer inspection, stars don’t actually exist at all.”
“We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it … Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that they hold some greater thing within them though they cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the utterances that come from them they perceive the power, not themselves, that moves them …” — Plotinus
“One can sit on the brink for a lifetime waiting to learn how to swim, but without getting into the water one can never learn to swim at all. ‘Seek not to understand so that you may believe’, wrote St Augustine, ‘but to believe so that you can understand.’”
“Modern man is neither more pious nor more impious than man in any other period. The loss of the dimension of depth is caused by the relation of man to his world and to himself in our period, the period in which nature is being subjected scientifically and technically to the control of man. In this period, life in the dimension of depth is replaced by life in the horizontal dimension. The driving forces of the industrial society of which we are a part go ahead horizontally and not vertically… He transforms everything he encounters into a tool: and in doing so he himself becomes a tool. But if he asks, a tool for what, there is no answer …” — Tillich (1958)
“The meaning is not in the words. But it responds to the inquiring impulse.” (Baojing Sanmei)
Religion at its best is a cultural expression of that inquiring impulse.
Religion is derived from the Latin religare, to bind. Religion is to bind together a community (common+unity)
“There is nothing blind about faith, but there is nothing certain about it either.”
The God of deism is a product of the proud intellectual LH: “the ‘dead’, static, finished, concatenated products of a controlling, ever obvious, will; God as the tao is a product of the humble RH: “the ‘living’ creations of an animating, in some sense hidden and unknowable spirit, which are themselves unknown ahead of time, and come seamlessly into being, as if generating themselves within the flow.”
“The world of a great poetic dramatist is a world in which the creator is everywhere present, and everywhere hidden.”
“To reconcile therefore is truly the work of the Inspired! This is the true Atonement — i.e. to reconcile the struggles of the infinitely various Finite with the Permanent.” (Coleridge)
“Atonement is literally ‘at-one-ment’: reconciliation of apparent incompatibles.”
Nicholas of Cusa’s understanding of the relationship between god and his creation is that all beings are an ‘unfolding’ of God in time and space, but are meanwhile ‘enfolded’ in the undifferentiated oneness of God, their divine source.
“What is at first implicate is first taken up by the right hemisphere, then explicated by the left hemisphere, and then the products of that explication [are] re-enfolded or reintegrated in its more complicated form by the right hemisphere’s vision of the whole once more. This is how the hemispheres, when they work well together, co-operate in giving us insights into the depths of reality.”
Cusanus would refer to God as posse ipse (Possibility Itself). But he also used the term possest (Can-Is). Potential and Actual.
“Such ideas as these are hardly peripheral or unorthodox in the istory of Christianity. Thomas Aquinas thought of God as an infinite potential, attracting things to their fulfilment. Yet in doing so god is not seen as determining, engineering or controlling, though neither is God merely passive. From this perspective, God is seen as the ultimate good who attracts all things to their flourishing, the possibility that is most fulfilling for them, but does not compel them to take that path: they have the freedom to respond for better or for worse. This is like a lover, who by virtue of love draws whatever merges in the loving relationship towards a greater fulfilment in love, but cannot in any way enforce such an outcome.”
“We need immanence, yes, which pantheism offers; but we need the union of transcendence with immanence, which only some form of panentheism encompasses. Yet again, we need union, but we need that to be the union of division with union.”
“I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through. [Hafiz, Persian poet] (Note that for Hafiz there was no insuperable divide — quite the opposite — between Christ and Mohammed)”
“Do not imagine that God is like a human carpenter, who works or not as he likes, who can do or leave undone as he wishes. It is different with God: as and when God finds you ready, He has to act, to overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure the sun has to burst forth and cannot refrain.” — Meister Eckhart
“contradiction would have to be taken as the profounder determination and more characteristic of essence. For as against contradiction, identity is merely the determination of the simple immediate, of dead being; but contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a contradiction within it that it moves, has an urge and activity.”
Consciousness/love depends on contradiction. An act of love depends on a gap being bridged.
”By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“If God is an eternal Becoming, fulfilled as God through the response of his creation, and we, for our part, [are] constantly more fulfilled through our response to God; then we are literally partners in the creation of the universe, perhaps even in the becoming of God (who is himself Becoming as much as Being): in which case it is imperative that we try to reach and know and love that God. Not just for our own sakes, but because we bear some responsibility, however small, for the part we play in creation (and indeed how ‘big’ or ‘small’ we cannot know: the terms are derived from our limited experience of a finite world).”
“Analysis on its own not only fails to see most of the picture…but removes the connexions between what we take to be ‘things’, and deceives us into thinking that this is how we come to know what they are: it is the very connexions, not the things, that constitute reality.“
“In the panentheistic view, God, having created the world, also dwells in it, and conversely, the world which he has created exists in him…” — Moltmann
“When the left hemisphere predominates, the space of unknowing in which spiritual life flourishes comes to be replaced by dogma; openness by contention; tolerance by self-righteousness; forgiveness by stigma; orderliness by legalism. There emerge steep hierarchies. Fundamentalism insists that the truth lies in a written word, a holy book; whatever wisdom the book enshrines no longer seen as the work of variously inspired, yet fallible, humans, but of a divine hand; taken out of its historical setting and viewed as absolute; conferring on its adherents the possibility to be finally right, and those who doubt them unquestionably wrong. Truth indeed changes its nature, and becomes simplistic, literal, stateable and knowable, explicit and abstracted from context. The body becomes no longer the best image of the human soul, in Wittgenstein’s phrase, but the soul’s prison and antagonist. Representations come to replace the living presence they purport to represent.”
“The smaller the question, the clearer the answer. Expecting clear answers to big questions is to be thinking too small.”
“Why should we consider literal truth superior to, rather than just different from, metaphoric truth? We need both and they have different proper applications. They are not in conflict. It may be that, ultimately, literal truth is merely a special case, the limit case, of metaphorical truth, as actuality is a special case, the limit case, of potentiality; and that making the difference into a dichotomy is a product of modern Western ways of thinking. Mythos was considered anciently truer than logos, and not by simple people either, but by sophisticated people who had a different outlook on the world.”
“The notion that the only things worthy of belief are those which are objectively verifiable is not itself an objectively verifiable belief.” — Jonathan Gaisman
“There is something much too small about a world in which we are isolated from the divine; in a ‘disenchanted’ world, as it has been called, one that has no place for the sacred, we ourselves loom, im-aginatively, far too large, as if occupying too much of the screen. At the same time we see ourselves conceptually as diminished, because as soon as we pan out, we see ourselves dwindle to a pointless speck in a barren cosmos. A religious cast of mind sets the human being and human life in the widest context, reminding us of our duties to one another, and to the natural world that is our home; duties, how-ever, that are founded in love, and link us to the whole of existence. The world becomes ensouled. And we have a place in it once more.”
“Soul is the Gothic saivala, and this is clearly related to another Gothic word, saivs, which means the sea. The sea was called saivs from a root si or siv, the Greek seio, to shake; it meant the tossed-about water, in contradistinction to stagnant or running water. The soul being called saivala, we see that it was originally conceived by the Teutonic nations as a sea within, heaving up and down with every breath, and reflecting heaven and earth on the mirror of the deep.“ — Max Müller
“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves’, the universe ‘peoples’. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” — Allan Watts
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things… are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of the flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” — Lewis
“Sweet are the uses of adversity, / Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, / Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; / And this our life exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” — Shakespeare, As you like it
367 Sikka 1994 (426): ‘Evil is thus nothing merely nega-tive. It is positive discord, arising when the part strives to be the whole, when a particular will opposes itself to the universal will by seeking to be the creative ground of all reality. It then seeks to usurp the place of God, who is that ground, and does so by perversely asserting its own existence in opposition to, rather than in harmony with, the existence of other natures and other beings. It is not limitation that is evil, then, but the refusal, on the part of a finite being, to accept limitation.’
It’s possible that redemption brings us closer to god than had we never been alienated or divided at all. It is from the divine sparks within the shards of the vessels that this greater unity, this fulfilment of creation, this redemption, is achieved, so that ‘a world that is alienated from and then reunited with God is superior to one that had never been alienated or divided at all’.
Evil as the intentional forgetfulness of the higher entity.
The map depends on the world, but the world does not depend on the map.
Epilogue
Speaks of the diminution of sorrow, and the rise of anger, resentment, and self-righteous indignation in its place. “Sorrow and sadness depend on connexion; anger, resentment, and self-righteousness on alienation. Sorrow leads to insight; anger to blindness.”
Sorrow reaches us out to others, anger reaches us into ourselves
“Let us allow Nature to play her part, she understands her business better than we do.” — Montaigne
“Wisdom and humour are both expressions arising from the shared suffering involved in acquiring one of the greatest flowed of life, a sense of proportion.”
“Myths oversee—or underwrite—what we are capable of seeing. The nature of the attention that we bring to bear on the world, and the values which we bring to the encounter, change what we find; and in some absolutely non-trivial sense, change what it is. At the same time, the encounter, as is always the way with encounters, changes who we are.”
“It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.” Thoreau (quasi-quote)
“The refusal to go down into the lake is the the refusal to be eaten by life. The delusion is that there might be a possibility of immunity from the natural failures that accompany the soul’s explorations of the world. But the story says you are going to be swallowed by something greater one way or another. The question is whether you will give yourself to that greater life consciously.”
“Winning does not tempt that man / This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively / by constantly greater beings.” — Rilke
“Always this energy smoulders inside / when it remains unlit / the body fills with dense smoke.” - David Whyte, Out on the Ocean
“The toxic components of the smoke are resentment, blame, complaint, self-justification, and martyrdom.”
A bad poem belongs only to the writer, a well-made poem to a circle who share a sensibility to the author, but a great poem pulls in everyone who reads it for generations to come
“What separates poetry from religious dogma is the ability of a poem to speak across time to everyone no matter their world view.”
“I want to be with those who know secret things / or else alone.” — Rilke
Werner Heisenberg, on his deathbed, declared that he had two questions for God: “Why relativity and why turbulence?” He mused that “I really think He may have an answer to the first question.”
Turbulence is cooked
“Ten years ago… / I turned my face for a moment / and it became my life.” — Lady manager at AT&T
“nature…by self-entanglement, produces beauty.” — Otto Rossler
At the beginning of Dante’s inferno, Dante attempts to climb the mountain to heaven straight away, but is met with a lion (disowned courage, pride, aggression), a wolf (greed), and a leopard (restless lust). Without confronting these parts of himself through the inferno, he cannot rise toward heaven. “We may thank God that it is when we admit our powerlessness that the guide appears” (Helen Luke)
Description for a castle: “Skeleton of unfleshed humanity”
“Glittering like a brook.”
“high Heaven rejects the lore / Of nicely-calculated less or more;”
“…on a mountain height / Loose vapours have I watched that won / Prismatic colours from the sun…”
“More skilled in self-knowledge, even more pure / As tempted more; more able to endure / As more exposed to suffering and distress / Thence, also, more alive to tenderness”
“Gurgling rills” - rill: a small stream (noun) or trickle (verb)
“Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now Been doomed so long to settle upon earth, That not without some effort they behold The countenance of the horizontal sun, Rising or setting, let the light at least Find a free entrance to their languid orbs”
Where’er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
“The mild necessity of use compels To acts of love; and habit does the work 0 Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul, By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued, Doth find herself insensibly disposed To virtue and true goodness. Some there are, By their good works exalted, lofty minds And meditative, authors of delight And happiness, which to the end of time Will live, and spread, and kindle”
To a Sky-Lark
… Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, And hope for higher raptures, when life’s day is done
The Green Linnet
…
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, That twinkle to the gusty breeze, Behold him perched in ecstasies, Yet seeming still to hover; There! where the flutter of his wings Upon his back and body flings Shadows and sunny glimmerings, That cover him all over.
My dazzled sight he oft deceives, A brother of the dancing leaves; Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves Pours forth his song in gushes; As if by that exulting strain He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes.
Perched in ecstasies, yet seeming still to hover. Sunny glimmerings. Catches the calm vibrating vibrancy of nature
Pours forth his song in gushes… ah..
The voiceless form he chose to feign…likely passing humans or larger animals, silent looming shadows, voiceless Forms.
Yew-trees
… Huge trunks!—and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,— …
The Inward Eye
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Resolution and Independence
There was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.
All things that love the sun are out of doors; The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth; The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth; And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. …
Mountain Echo
Yes, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!
Unsolicited reply To a babbling wanderer sent; Like her ordinary cry, Like—but oh, how different!
Hears not also mortal Life? Hear not we, unthinking Creatures! Slaves of folly, love, or strife— Voices of two different natures?
Have not ‘we’ too?—yes, we have Answers, and we know not whence; Echoes from beyond the grave, Recognised intelligence!
Such rebounds our inward ear Catches sometimes from afar— Listen, ponder, hold them dear; For of God,—of God they are.
Devotional Incitements
Long but good
To a Brook
… It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee With purer robes than those of flesh and blood, And hath bestowed on thee a safer good; Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.
Expostulation and Reply
Why, William, on that old gray stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away?
“Where are your books? — that light bequeathed To Beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed From dead men to their kind.
“You look round on your Mother Earth, As if she for no purpose bore you; As if you were her first-born birth, And none had lived before you!”
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why, To me my good friend Matthew spake, And thus I made reply:—
“The eye — it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where’er they be, Against or with our will.
“Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.
“Think you, ‘mid all this mighty sum Of things forever speaking, That nothing of itself will come But we must still be seeking?
“Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old gray stone, And dream my time away.”
Yarrow Revisited
…
Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day, Their dignity installing In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves Were on the bough, or falling; But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed- The forest to embolden; Reddened the fiery hues, and shot Transparence through the golden.
For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on In foamy agitation; And slept in many a crystal pool For quiet contemplation: No public and no private care The freeborn mind enthralling, We made a day of happy hours, Our happy days recalling. …
The Tables Turned
… Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.
The Fountain
… And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind …
Ah… agency. Choosing to let it go rather than have it ripped out of your hands. Still sorrowful, still a loss, but a more personal and meaningful one.
A poet’s epitaph
… A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: And he has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own God;
One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling Nor form, nor feeling, great or small; A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All-in-all!
Shut close the door; press down the latch; Sleep in thy intellectual crust; Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch Near this unprofitable dust.
But who is He, with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.
He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley, he has viewed; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart,— The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
“Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. / Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, / where something might be planted, / a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.”
“Do you think I know what I’m doing? / That for one breath of half-breath I belong to myself? / As much as a pen knows what it’s writing, / or the ball can guess where it’s going next.”
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. / There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, / there is a field. I’ll meet you there. // When the soul lies down in that grass, / the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other / doesn’t make any sense.”
“In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul and you are that. // But we have ways within each other / that will never be said by anyone.”
“How can anyone say what happens, even if each of us dips a pen a hundred million times into ink?”
Our descriptions will always fall short of what is.
“This mirror inside me shows… / I can’t say what, but I can’t not know!”
We have a deep familiar sense of who we are, but have a hard time describing it. Again, descriptions will always fall short.
“And the motion of the body comes from the spirit like a waterwheel that’s held in a stream.”
“What the sayer or praise is really praising is himself, by saying implicitly, ‘My eyes are clear.’ // Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing himself, saying implicitly, ‘I can’t see very well with my eyes so inflamed.’”
Wonderful. Those who praise praise themselves for recognizing what is praiseworthy. Those who blame blame themselves for being teary-eyed victims of the so-called blameworthy. Both try to pretend that their judgment is not clouded.
“Never ignore those intuitions. / When you feel some slight repugnance about doing something, / listen to it. These premonitions come from God. […] It’s not always a blind man / who falls in a pit. Sometimes it’s one who can see.”
“There’s no blocking the speechflow-river-running-all-carrying momentum that true intimacy is.”
“The stars come up spinning / every night, bewildered in love.”
“To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.”
“Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity? / Why would you refuse to give / this joy to anyone? // Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups! / They swim the huge fluid freedom.”
“The visible bowl of form contains food / that is both nourishing and a source of heartburn. // There is an unseen presence we honor / that gives the gifts. […] When the ocean surges, / don’t let me just hear it. / Let it splash inside my chest!”
“What is the mirror of being? / Non-being. Always bring a mirror of non-existence / as a gift. Any other present is foolish. […] Your defects are the way glory gets manifested. / Whoever sees clearly what’s diseased in himself / begins to gallop on the way.”
I come before dawn
“…Remember the rewards you get for being obedient! There are two types on the path. Those who come against their will, the blindly religious people, and those who obey out of love. The former have ulterior motives. They want the midwife near, because she gives them milk. The others love the beauty of the nurse. The former memorize the prooftexts of conformity, and repeat them. The latter disappear into whatever draws them to God. Both are drawn from the source. Any movings from the mover. Any love from the beloved.”
Story Water
A story is like water that you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet, and it cleans you!
…
The body itself is a screen to shield and partially reveal the light that’s blazing inside your presence. Water, stories, the body, all the things we do, are mediums that hide and show what’s hidden. Study them, and enjoy this being washed with a secret we sometimes know, and then not.
Permissive role of the body in consciousness. In line with McGilchrist’s view that the brain brings into being consciousness through resistance, active filtering.
In a boat down a fast-running creek, it feels like trees on the bank are rushing by. What seems
to be changing around us is rather the speed of our craft leaving this world.
As we age, our escape velocity increases. What we think as the world changing around us could be us changing within the Oneness of the world. Time flying by could be us flying from time.
“The physical sun is unique, but it’s possible to imagine something like it. // The spiritual sun has nothing comparable, inner or outer. Imagination cannot contain it.”
When two lovely souls meet, they become one and many. “The ocean waves are their closest likeness, when wind makes, from unity, the numerous. This happened to the sub, and it broke into rays, through the window, into bodies. The disc of the sub does exist, but if you see only the ray-bodies, you may have doubts. The human-divine combination is a oneness. Plurality, the apparent separation into rays.”
Apparent separation.
“These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical, / but the globe of soul fruit / we make, / each is elaborately / unique.”
“Your words are guesswork. / He [the Lord] speaks from experience. / There’s a huge difference.”
Theory vs. Experiential knowing
“The moment this love comes to rest in me, / many beings in one being. / In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks. / Inside the needle’s eye a turning night of starts.”
Unity/multiplicity. Rotation.
“No better love than love with no object, / no more satisfying work than work with no purpose. // If you could give up tricks and cleverness, / that would be the cleverest trick!”
Intrinsic love and purpose. Really good ending… we need to be somehow cleverer about not being clever.
“I am so small! I can barely be seen. / How can this great love be inside me? // Look at your eyes. They are small, / but they see enormous things.”
“…A Spring wind moves to dance / any branch that isn’t dead.”
“If love is your center, a ring / gets put on your finger. // Something in the moth / is made of fire.”
Revolving again
Whatever language you speak, speak with love
“Do not avoid your suffering. / Plunge it in the Nile. // Purify your stubbornness. / Drown it. Burn it. // Your body is a stingy piece of aloeswood / that won’t let go its healing smoke / until you put it in fire.”
“No is a thousand yesses / in the code of emptiness.”
A thousand yesses is like a light too bright. A bit of shadow, a single no, reveals the contours of the face. Darkness offers the potential for light to fulfill itself.
“…the shore looks like there are multiple marriages going on at once…”
“Your body must become soul, / every hairtip quivering with spontaneous life.”
A Cleared Site
The presence rolling through again clears the shelves and shuts down shops.
Friend of the soul, enemy of the soul, why do you want mine?
Bring tribute from the village. But the village is gone in your flood.
That cleared site is what I want. Live in the opening where there is no door to hide behind. Be pure absence. In that state everything is essential.
The rest of this must be said in silence because of the enormous difference between light and the words that try to say light.
Beautiful. Captures renewal and the discomfort associated with it; how emptiness makes what is whole more essential and offers a fertile bed upon which the whole can fulfil itself; and the unspeakable nature of the field of embodied experience and God
“Let your prayer be pure praise, not begging for something to happen, or not happen.”
“Fast, and watch what arrives. / A materially full person is not alert / for dishes that descend. // Don’t always eat what’s offered. / Be lordly. Refuse the first plate. / Wait, and the host will send out better food.”
“Don’t fall down the well of scripture. Use the words to keep moving. Thousands are trapped in the Qur’an and the Bible, holding to a rope. It’s not the rope’s fault. Let the wellrope pull you out. Then let the wellrope go.”
Teaching Assistant, University of Waterloo, Systems Design Engineering Department, 2021
Identifying, understanding, and analyzing the interactions and impacts among technology, society and the environment for current and emerging technologies.
Teaching Assistant, University of Waterloo, Systems Design Engineering Department, 2021
Fundamental concepts in systems involving fluid flow. Basic treatment of statics, kinematics and dynamics of fluids. Conservation of mass, momentum and energy for a control volume. Dimensional analysis and similarity. Flow in pipes and channels. Brief introduction to boundary layers, lift and drag, ideal and compressible flow.
Teaching Assistant, University of Waterloo, Systems Design Engineering Department, 2021
Geometry and algebra: root-finding, vectors, coordinate systems, lines and planes, conic sections, complex numbers. Introduction to numerical computation. Floating point arithmetic, accuracy and sources of error. Matrix algebra, inverses. Analytical and numerical techniques for systems of linear equations.
