Saturday, December 30, 2006
This Just In
This is the New Religion. Everything you loved about God remains. Everything else you learned was a lie. We will interpret God's work through direct observation, which we call Science. We will create Art to celebrate this breakthrough. Join us and you will learn how to accept yourself and your place in the world. Offer expires soon, so act now.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
The All
The All is what exists, and we are a part.
The All's word is Reason, which we accumulate into Knowledge.
The All does not speak through prophets, or write scripture.
The All does not demand our worship, or heed our prayers.
The All is not Male or Female, Good or Evil; these are categories we have invented, to be used as crutches until we can walk.
The All may be infinite, but we have no way of knowing.
In the beginning, we have no idea what went on. Now we exist, and our task is to figure this out. Why are we here? What purpose do we serve, if any? What powers control our lives? Why do bad things happen to good people, and vice versa? What the fuck is going on?
These are hard questions, and the temptation to go with easy answers is overwhelming. God did it, or Satan, perhaps... or maybe it's just a random jumble of nonsense, with a bit of evolution thrown in to stir the pot. Glib answers slake our thirst for understanding like Gatorade after a hot game; but the hunger for something more substantial remains.
This is not a new problem. The people of antiquity were not stupid, although by today's standards they were certainly ignorant. In their innocence, they did their best to come up with useful answers to these sorts of questions. Who can explain the death of a mother to a five-year-old, without the urge to give at least a little comfort? Imagine if you will, this scenario in a landscape of unremitting difficulty, disease, death, violence, and random acts of natural destruction. Now subtract all that we have learned in the last few thousand years; go back to a time when everything around us was a complete mystery. Who among us would not see the forces of nature as powerful gods? Who could possibly come up with the idea that the mother's death was meaningless; that the force of her being has simply vanished; that she lived a life (paraphrasing Mark Twain) where she was of no consequence, achieved nothing, where she was a mistake and a failure and a foolishness? Could you say that to your child, even if you believed it with every fiber of your being?
The chidren cry.
The All flirts with randomness, but there is more to that than meets the eye.
Faith cannot be dispensed with easily. Even the most hardened atheist has faith; faith that his reason will sustain him in moments of grief and despair. What use is reason if it abandons you in your darkest hour? Say what you will about religious faith and conviction, but it is generally not a fair-weather friend. Cold, hardended reason doesn't offer much of a shoulder to cry on.
Every theorem starts with at least a single axiom; and so it is that one article of faith is impossible to escape from, and that is faith in ourselves. Without that, whatever convictions we feel today are at the whim of a stronger voice which speaks tomorrow. Rationality has no value if it is subservient to vanity, flattery, promises and threats. Faith in reason is not an oxymoron; it is the fundamental sacrament of those who refuse to be bound by unreasonable appeals to tradition, honor, pride, shame, and expediency. In our hearts, truth cannot be for sale. It is the holiest of holy, the burning bush, the crucified martyr, and the virgin mother combined. It represents that which can never be corrupt; for corruption is simply another term for falsehood.
But of course the question arises: What is The Truth? Will I know it when I see it? Will it smack me upside the head, or slap my back like a rowdy friend at a bar? Will it creep quietly into my bed when I am sleeping, and startle me when I awake? Maybe The Truth will just walk on by, unnoticed by us... the quiet, harmless neighbor who secretly cures cancer, or perhaps kills strangers and buries them under his basement. So many truths, so little time.
The truth is, The Truth is our prey. We are hunters by nature, and so by pure instinct we stalk the truth, carefully sneak up on it, surround it with allies, and strike for its heart. We miss frequently, but when we make the kill, there is no mistaking it. But, the single truth we hunt today is limited, finite, partial. There is always more truth to be killed, slaughtered and eaten. So the hunt continues.
The All is Truth.
The All wants your money.
This last one was just to make sure you're paying attention. Everyone wants a piece of you; everybody wants to be your baby. The world is a dog-eat-dog place these days (and I feel safe in the likelihood that this will remain true far beyond my own time). You are a resource to someone else; your ability to be manipulated is the truth that they stalk. You are their prey. They do not tell you The Truth, but they shower you with Truthiness. The truth is that we cannot simply trust each other to be nice, careful, earnest, honest, sensible, reasonable, or wise. All too often, we find that others are in fact vain, petty, greedy, selfish, misguided, hungry, needy, confused, numb, and crazy like a fox. One of the beautiful things about religion is that it gives us some common ground on which to meet and learn to trust each other. Without shared values and a sense of common cause, why would anyone grant anybody that first sliver of benefit of the doubt? Reason is not comforting here; it gives us game theory, zero-sum and otherwise. There's the Prisoner's Dilemma, Tit-For-Tat, laissez-faire economics, categorical imperatives, and the tragedy of the commons. These are all very reasonable ideas, put forth by men (mostly) who were nothing if not reasonable. So why is it that no one, or at least very few of us, choose to live our lives according to these principles and nothing more? Even the minority that spend their time in academic circles, read the philosophy texts, and do the math, as it were, seem to frequently run right off their rails like the rest of us, if not worse. What's that about?
The All doesn't care if you are right or wrong.
The All doesn't punish misdeeds, or reward good behavior.
The All doesn't care if you live or die.
These are harsh words. If this is a religion, where is the succor? Do I really imagine that this tract will pull you in, Harry Potter style? If you have read this far, you are probably wondering what the point of this screed really is. I have a point, I promise. What went before was windup; this is the pitch:
You are part of The All; do your part.
That this is good advice is an article of faith. I have no justification for it. I cannot prove it. If you do the math and calculate your odds, I suspect you will find that there is no provable vigorish in doing your part; it's an axiom, not a theorem; it's a choice. And that's the crux: you are free to be a shithead, but you also have the choice not to be one. For many years I was convinced that being a shithead was fine. I knew shitheads, we all sat around shitting on each other's heads, and that was great. We laughed, we loved, we won and we lost. What was missing was, we didn't really care what the hell happened. We had no skin in the game, as the saying goes.
There is no magic pie in the sky, no all-powerful being forcing you to choose the 'right' way. Ask yourself: do you know people who talk about good, and do wrong? Talk the talk, then walk off with the money. What higher power lets them get away with that nonsense? Perhaps they will suffer later, but who knows? Do the math.
It's time to grow up, world. Stop waiting for someone to push your buttons and pull your strings. Don't let hypocrites with self-proclaimed powers push your soul around like a shopping cart at a holiday sale. They may have power over you now, but that power doesn't come from above; it comes from your own acquiescence. If more people decide to do their part, the power of the kingmakers and rainmen will dissolve like the cotton candy it really is. Their puffery and pretensions will become unmasked, and they will be forced to take stock of themselves without the trappings and conceits of power. Then they too will have to choose; and we will mark their choice in our little black books.
The All has spoken.
The All's word is Reason, which we accumulate into Knowledge.
The All does not speak through prophets, or write scripture.
The All does not demand our worship, or heed our prayers.
The All is not Male or Female, Good or Evil; these are categories we have invented, to be used as crutches until we can walk.
The All may be infinite, but we have no way of knowing.
In the beginning, we have no idea what went on. Now we exist, and our task is to figure this out. Why are we here? What purpose do we serve, if any? What powers control our lives? Why do bad things happen to good people, and vice versa? What the fuck is going on?
These are hard questions, and the temptation to go with easy answers is overwhelming. God did it, or Satan, perhaps... or maybe it's just a random jumble of nonsense, with a bit of evolution thrown in to stir the pot. Glib answers slake our thirst for understanding like Gatorade after a hot game; but the hunger for something more substantial remains.
This is not a new problem. The people of antiquity were not stupid, although by today's standards they were certainly ignorant. In their innocence, they did their best to come up with useful answers to these sorts of questions. Who can explain the death of a mother to a five-year-old, without the urge to give at least a little comfort? Imagine if you will, this scenario in a landscape of unremitting difficulty, disease, death, violence, and random acts of natural destruction. Now subtract all that we have learned in the last few thousand years; go back to a time when everything around us was a complete mystery. Who among us would not see the forces of nature as powerful gods? Who could possibly come up with the idea that the mother's death was meaningless; that the force of her being has simply vanished; that she lived a life (paraphrasing Mark Twain) where she was of no consequence, achieved nothing, where she was a mistake and a failure and a foolishness? Could you say that to your child, even if you believed it with every fiber of your being?
The chidren cry.
The All flirts with randomness, but there is more to that than meets the eye.
Faith cannot be dispensed with easily. Even the most hardened atheist has faith; faith that his reason will sustain him in moments of grief and despair. What use is reason if it abandons you in your darkest hour? Say what you will about religious faith and conviction, but it is generally not a fair-weather friend. Cold, hardended reason doesn't offer much of a shoulder to cry on.
Every theorem starts with at least a single axiom; and so it is that one article of faith is impossible to escape from, and that is faith in ourselves. Without that, whatever convictions we feel today are at the whim of a stronger voice which speaks tomorrow. Rationality has no value if it is subservient to vanity, flattery, promises and threats. Faith in reason is not an oxymoron; it is the fundamental sacrament of those who refuse to be bound by unreasonable appeals to tradition, honor, pride, shame, and expediency. In our hearts, truth cannot be for sale. It is the holiest of holy, the burning bush, the crucified martyr, and the virgin mother combined. It represents that which can never be corrupt; for corruption is simply another term for falsehood.
But of course the question arises: What is The Truth? Will I know it when I see it? Will it smack me upside the head, or slap my back like a rowdy friend at a bar? Will it creep quietly into my bed when I am sleeping, and startle me when I awake? Maybe The Truth will just walk on by, unnoticed by us... the quiet, harmless neighbor who secretly cures cancer, or perhaps kills strangers and buries them under his basement. So many truths, so little time.
The truth is, The Truth is our prey. We are hunters by nature, and so by pure instinct we stalk the truth, carefully sneak up on it, surround it with allies, and strike for its heart. We miss frequently, but when we make the kill, there is no mistaking it. But, the single truth we hunt today is limited, finite, partial. There is always more truth to be killed, slaughtered and eaten. So the hunt continues.
The All is Truth.
The All wants your money.
This last one was just to make sure you're paying attention. Everyone wants a piece of you; everybody wants to be your baby. The world is a dog-eat-dog place these days (and I feel safe in the likelihood that this will remain true far beyond my own time). You are a resource to someone else; your ability to be manipulated is the truth that they stalk. You are their prey. They do not tell you The Truth, but they shower you with Truthiness. The truth is that we cannot simply trust each other to be nice, careful, earnest, honest, sensible, reasonable, or wise. All too often, we find that others are in fact vain, petty, greedy, selfish, misguided, hungry, needy, confused, numb, and crazy like a fox. One of the beautiful things about religion is that it gives us some common ground on which to meet and learn to trust each other. Without shared values and a sense of common cause, why would anyone grant anybody that first sliver of benefit of the doubt? Reason is not comforting here; it gives us game theory, zero-sum and otherwise. There's the Prisoner's Dilemma, Tit-For-Tat, laissez-faire economics, categorical imperatives, and the tragedy of the commons. These are all very reasonable ideas, put forth by men (mostly) who were nothing if not reasonable. So why is it that no one, or at least very few of us, choose to live our lives according to these principles and nothing more? Even the minority that spend their time in academic circles, read the philosophy texts, and do the math, as it were, seem to frequently run right off their rails like the rest of us, if not worse. What's that about?
The All doesn't care if you are right or wrong.
The All doesn't punish misdeeds, or reward good behavior.
The All doesn't care if you live or die.
These are harsh words. If this is a religion, where is the succor? Do I really imagine that this tract will pull you in, Harry Potter style? If you have read this far, you are probably wondering what the point of this screed really is. I have a point, I promise. What went before was windup; this is the pitch:
You are part of The All; do your part.
That this is good advice is an article of faith. I have no justification for it. I cannot prove it. If you do the math and calculate your odds, I suspect you will find that there is no provable vigorish in doing your part; it's an axiom, not a theorem; it's a choice. And that's the crux: you are free to be a shithead, but you also have the choice not to be one. For many years I was convinced that being a shithead was fine. I knew shitheads, we all sat around shitting on each other's heads, and that was great. We laughed, we loved, we won and we lost. What was missing was, we didn't really care what the hell happened. We had no skin in the game, as the saying goes.
There is no magic pie in the sky, no all-powerful being forcing you to choose the 'right' way. Ask yourself: do you know people who talk about good, and do wrong? Talk the talk, then walk off with the money. What higher power lets them get away with that nonsense? Perhaps they will suffer later, but who knows? Do the math.
It's time to grow up, world. Stop waiting for someone to push your buttons and pull your strings. Don't let hypocrites with self-proclaimed powers push your soul around like a shopping cart at a holiday sale. They may have power over you now, but that power doesn't come from above; it comes from your own acquiescence. If more people decide to do their part, the power of the kingmakers and rainmen will dissolve like the cotton candy it really is. Their puffery and pretensions will become unmasked, and they will be forced to take stock of themselves without the trappings and conceits of power. Then they too will have to choose; and we will mark their choice in our little black books.
The All has spoken.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
crucifix lollipops
Needs no further elaboration. Like "Snakes On A Plane", made of Memonium: memes compressed so tightly, everything they are is contained in their title. The medium is in fact the message; better yet, the caption heading is the story. The movie trailer is the film; the review is the book. The hangover is the binge; the post-orgasmic cigarette is the sex. The pre- and post-operatives are the relevant imperatives; the middle (section, class, ground) is no longer relevant, or even necessary (A bit of an embarrasment, really).
The Big Bang == The Big Crunch, as physics is reversible. Therefore, the end is the beginning, and there is nothing in between; a veritable air
sandwich.
crucifix lollipops.
The Big Bang == The Big Crunch, as physics is reversible. Therefore, the end is the beginning, and there is nothing in between; a veritable air
sandwich.
crucifix lollipops.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
The Contract
my answer to Steven Hawking's question on Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060704195516AAnrdOD
In my somewhat humble opinion, the key to long-term human survival lies in our ability to outgrow several outmoded thought patterns that were evolutionarily useful in the past, but conflict with the realities of the present. In particular, the memes of national, ethnic, religious, and cultural identification seem to be responsible for a major part of the world's misery. Rather than seeking solace in ancient myths, dubious historical covenants, and increasingly meaningless divisions of race, religion, and class, people need to rally around a set of ideas and practices that have a foundation in rational ethics, and what Kant referred to as Moral Philosophy. I envision a collaborative, wiki-like social Contract, developed along the lines of recent open-source software initiatives. Adherents to this Contract would bind themselves morally to acting in ways consistent with the concepts of ethical and moral behavior codified in the Contract. In cases where the laws, policies, and practices of people in positions of power and influence confict with the Contract, signees would be morally compelled to support morally defensible forms of resistance and protest, and work towards the conformance of laws and regulations to the Contract.
In my somewhat humble opinion, the key to long-term human survival lies in our ability to outgrow several outmoded thought patterns that were evolutionarily useful in the past, but conflict with the realities of the present. In particular, the memes of national, ethnic, religious, and cultural identification seem to be responsible for a major part of the world's misery. Rather than seeking solace in ancient myths, dubious historical covenants, and increasingly meaningless divisions of race, religion, and class, people need to rally around a set of ideas and practices that have a foundation in rational ethics, and what Kant referred to as Moral Philosophy. I envision a collaborative, wiki-like social Contract, developed along the lines of recent open-source software initiatives. Adherents to this Contract would bind themselves morally to acting in ways consistent with the concepts of ethical and moral behavior codified in the Contract. In cases where the laws, policies, and practices of people in positions of power and influence confict with the Contract, signees would be morally compelled to support morally defensible forms of resistance and protest, and work towards the conformance of laws and regulations to the Contract.
Friday, July 07, 2006
note from PKD
Phillip K. Dick left the following note for Timothy Leary when they were roommates sometime in the '60s:
"Tim. I'm moving out. You won't see me for a long time. Phil."
"Tim. I'm moving out. You won't see me for a long time. Phil."
Monday, July 03, 2006
Forgive the trees
A robot tried to kill me today. 400 lbs of metal lurched towards me like a drunken gorilla bent over like a bull. I jumped out of the way at the last minute, and it plunged headfirst into a bookcase, smashing it to bits. It grazed my arm but no serious injuries resulted (other than to the robot).
people think this is a joke: http://www.robotuprising.com/
but it's real to me.
OK, so the robot didn't really "try to kill me". It just lunged at me with beady glowing eyes and murderous intent. My friend Trevor built it and wrote the software, and he swears he didn't program it to be evil, but there you are. I think this conclusively proves that evil is deeper than logic or intent; it's really just a form of stupidity. And yet it seems to work evolutionarily to some degree, or it wouldn't exist at this point. But maybe it's just a holdover from a time when stupid responses to other stupid creatures was a necessity. You can't argue Kant's categorical imperative with a dinosaur; the dinosaur wins every time.
If a tree falls on a frog in the forest, is it a bad tree? Will it get into tree heaven? Will Jesus forgive it? "Forgive the trees father, for they know not what they do. As for the people nailing me to this tree, please kick their asses, for they should know better."
Now that's a kick-ass savior.
people think this is a joke: http://www.robotuprising.com/
but it's real to me.
OK, so the robot didn't really "try to kill me". It just lunged at me with beady glowing eyes and murderous intent. My friend Trevor built it and wrote the software, and he swears he didn't program it to be evil, but there you are. I think this conclusively proves that evil is deeper than logic or intent; it's really just a form of stupidity. And yet it seems to work evolutionarily to some degree, or it wouldn't exist at this point. But maybe it's just a holdover from a time when stupid responses to other stupid creatures was a necessity. You can't argue Kant's categorical imperative with a dinosaur; the dinosaur wins every time.
If a tree falls on a frog in the forest, is it a bad tree? Will it get into tree heaven? Will Jesus forgive it? "Forgive the trees father, for they know not what they do. As for the people nailing me to this tree, please kick their asses, for they should know better."
Now that's a kick-ass savior.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
War: Good God! What is it good for?
[copied from a post to a newsletter. I think that's kosher..]
ISTM on the face of it that war, xenophobia, and a whole bunch of socially negative human traits evolved for the simple reason that if I kill you and your children, there's more scope for me and my children (and our genes) to propagate. It's a simple zero sum game: even in the case where there's enough resources for us to live in peace without population growth, it is clearly in my sociobiological interest to simply kill you and yours, and allow my genes to dominate the entire available niche.
In practical terms, this seems mapped onto territorial aggression. Practically all wars today are fundamentally about place, homeland, and the right to dominate the politics and social discourse of places and people. Genocide appears to be the rational end product of displacement and ethnic cleansing [note: I don't mean to imply that genocide is 'rational' in any ethical sense!!!] I challenge someone to mention a conflict of today or recent history that wasn't essentially about removing people from some place, through banishment or slaughter. It's justified a hundred different ways, but it always comes down to something like this:
"My God(s) and traditions tell me this land is our rightful homeland. Get the f**k out because we're the chosen people here. And BTW, we're going to expand all over your supposed homeland because you keep threatening us, and you are discriminating against our people who moved into your lands because you or some other bad people pushed us out of our ancestral lands so-and-so many years ago. Amen, hallelujah, Heil Elmer, Go Jihad, etc."
The most enlightening thing I ever read about war was Jane Goodall's "Through a Window", where she outlines the way the chimps occasionally just go completely berzerk on another tribe, tearing babies limb from limb, etc. As I recall she seemed quite shaken herself, having perhaps bought into the image of the chimps as relatively peaceful beings unsullied by the errs of human civilization.
My father was an actor. He developed a one-man show based on Kafka's "Report to an Academy", about a 'humanized' ape. The savage beast lives within us all.
-dbm
ISTM on the face of it that war, xenophobia, and a whole bunch of socially negative human traits evolved for the simple reason that if I kill you and your children, there's more scope for me and my children (and our genes) to propagate. It's a simple zero sum game: even in the case where there's enough resources for us to live in peace without population growth, it is clearly in my sociobiological interest to simply kill you and yours, and allow my genes to dominate the entire available niche.
In practical terms, this seems mapped onto territorial aggression. Practically all wars today are fundamentally about place, homeland, and the right to dominate the politics and social discourse of places and people. Genocide appears to be the rational end product of displacement and ethnic cleansing [note: I don't mean to imply that genocide is 'rational' in any ethical sense!!!] I challenge someone to mention a conflict of today or recent history that wasn't essentially about removing people from some place, through banishment or slaughter. It's justified a hundred different ways, but it always comes down to something like this:
"My God(s) and traditions tell me this land is our rightful homeland. Get the f**k out because we're the chosen people here. And BTW, we're going to expand all over your supposed homeland because you keep threatening us, and you are discriminating against our people who moved into your lands because you or some other bad people pushed us out of our ancestral lands so-and-so many years ago. Amen, hallelujah, Heil Elmer, Go Jihad, etc."
The most enlightening thing I ever read about war was Jane Goodall's "Through a Window", where she outlines the way the chimps occasionally just go completely berzerk on another tribe, tearing babies limb from limb, etc. As I recall she seemed quite shaken herself, having perhaps bought into the image of the chimps as relatively peaceful beings unsullied by the errs of human civilization.
My father was an actor. He developed a one-man show based on Kafka's "Report to an Academy", about a 'humanized' ape. The savage beast lives within us all.
-dbm
father's day
Brax & I biked around Stanford. Really quite something to see a little mind mature. Brought back memories of hanging with my Dad. I remember walking from our old place on 91st and Riverside, down to our just-rented, empty apartment on 79th and Columbus. I insisted on walking, and boy was I tired by the end of the trip. I had just turned 5. I was sure we were moving to the third world.
A friend commented re: an earlier blog (she refuses to sign in & comment publicly) that perhaps for most of us, our life project is our children. Even the twisted Jihadists (on all sides) probably think they're doing it all for the kids.
A friend commented re: an earlier blog (she refuses to sign in & comment publicly) that perhaps for most of us, our life project is our children. Even the twisted Jihadists (on all sides) probably think they're doing it all for the kids.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Herbal Excuses
I keep misreading my "Herbal Essences/Nourishing Palm Shampoo for Fine & Limp Hair" as "Herbal Excuses".
I think Herbal Excuses are the bullshit rationalizations we make for ourselves that we've done something good for society/the environment/poor people/people of color/disabled veterans/the whales/nukes, etc. Face it, we haven't done shit.
What's that about?
I think Herbal Excuses are the bullshit rationalizations we make for ourselves that we've done something good for society/the environment/poor people/people of color/disabled veterans/the whales/nukes, etc. Face it, we haven't done shit.
What's that about?
Sunday, May 28, 2006
fixer upper
new mythology: God is the creator, but s/he is not all-knowing or all-powerful. That would be a logical impossibility (Church/Turing, etc). He creates us as best he can, and it takes all he's got. Our responsibility to him is to improve ourselves... to build on his inspired but flawed work. He was an artist, a tortured soul; perhaps a flame that burned brightly and burnt out? Think Galois meets Janis Joplin... Charlie Parker crossed with Alan Turing.
Anyway, he's either dead, incapacitated, or otherwise engaged, so now we are on our own. We must take up the mantle; this world is a fixer-upper. Get to work!
Anyway, he's either dead, incapacitated, or otherwise engaged, so now we are on our own. We must take up the mantle; this world is a fixer-upper. Get to work!
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Better Religion Through Science
The problem of social interaction from an engineering perspective boils down to the tension between individual and collective good. Even the definition of these terms is up for debate; it's been seriously proposed that the agent of evolution is the gene itself, and the phenotype (body, brain, etc) is just a 'lumbering robot designed to carry around the genes'. At the other extreme, it can be argued that the species is the fundamental unit of change. In reality, all of these levels of competition and cooperation are operative simultaneously (though they may work at vastly different time scales).
The appropriate field of study for the interaction of independent agents is game theory; but its application to humans and other living &/or sentient beings is complicated because of this issue of what exactly constitutes an agent in the game. So the first job is really to decide what we're talking about in terms of who we are, and what we wish to accomplish during 'our' existence (single human lifespan; history of the tribe/group; lifetime of the species...)
What I've been wondering is whether there really could be some sort of nerdy, mathematical/logical approach to living, that would help people get through their lives with minimum pain and maximum satisfaction. Obviously there are thousands of self-help books, from the Bibble onward. But none of them seem grounded in the scientific method; they're basically appealing to emotional, hand-waving arguments about what may or may not make you feel good about yourself.
Two non-recent writers who tackled these subjects from a rational perspective were Machiavelli and Kant. They represent the two poles of behavior towards each other that we often have to decide between. The Prisoner's Dilemma game encapsulates these behavior models, terming them "defector" and "cooperator" (see wikipedia entry on "Prisoner's Dilemma", particularly section on iterated game).
The short version of things is this: the best scenario for an agent (whether gene, individual, or species), is to be a defector in a world of cooperators. But of course other rational agents will act on the same logic; so a world of agents who make rational decisions, without any sort of repercussions for defection, will suck mightily.
Note that as agents begin to cooperate, they aggregate their interests, and effectively become the next agent up in the heirarchy. When genes cooperate, we get cells; when cells cooperate, we get multi-celled organisms; when organisms cooperate, we get tribes and society.
What will happen when societies finally start cooperating?
The appropriate field of study for the interaction of independent agents is game theory; but its application to humans and other living &/or sentient beings is complicated because of this issue of what exactly constitutes an agent in the game. So the first job is really to decide what we're talking about in terms of who we are, and what we wish to accomplish during 'our' existence (single human lifespan; history of the tribe/group; lifetime of the species...)
What I've been wondering is whether there really could be some sort of nerdy, mathematical/logical approach to living, that would help people get through their lives with minimum pain and maximum satisfaction. Obviously there are thousands of self-help books, from the Bibble onward. But none of them seem grounded in the scientific method; they're basically appealing to emotional, hand-waving arguments about what may or may not make you feel good about yourself.
Two non-recent writers who tackled these subjects from a rational perspective were Machiavelli and Kant. They represent the two poles of behavior towards each other that we often have to decide between. The Prisoner's Dilemma game encapsulates these behavior models, terming them "defector" and "cooperator" (see wikipedia entry on "Prisoner's Dilemma", particularly section on iterated game).
The short version of things is this: the best scenario for an agent (whether gene, individual, or species), is to be a defector in a world of cooperators. But of course other rational agents will act on the same logic; so a world of agents who make rational decisions, without any sort of repercussions for defection, will suck mightily.
Note that as agents begin to cooperate, they aggregate their interests, and effectively become the next agent up in the heirarchy. When genes cooperate, we get cells; when cells cooperate, we get multi-celled organisms; when organisms cooperate, we get tribes and society.
What will happen when societies finally start cooperating?
Friday, May 12, 2006
Bullet points to live by
* Nothing is sacred
* No one is divine
* Ethical behavior is a field of research
* Group identity is bogus
* The world doesn't have to be a living hellhole
* No one is divine
* Ethical behavior is a field of research
* Group identity is bogus
* The world doesn't have to be a living hellhole
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
America, the new Microsoft
The rest of the world hates America in exactly the same way, and for almost precisely the same reasons, that all my geek friends and I hate Microsoft. It's hard to point at one thing precisely and say, "this is where they went over the line". It's more an accumulation of petty incidents of take-no-prisoners gamesmanship, opportunism, arm-twisting, and taking every little unfair advantage when the ref isn't looking, seasoned with a sickly sprinkling of hypocritical lip-service to sportsmanship and fair play.
It's that last part that really gets people's goats.
It's that last part that really gets people's goats.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
what it is to be a...
Read some interesting stuff by Benny Morris (Israeli 'new historian'; http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm). He believes that the early Israelis were guilty of ethnic cleansing and forced migration; but that it was a necessary evil for the formation of Israel. Basically, he takes the attitude that all states have been founded on such acts (some would say crimes); and why shouldn't the Jews have a state? By implication, the Arab states were formed through massacres, atrocities, ethnic /religious terror, etc., even if it all happened too long ago to have verifiable proof. It had to have happened, even though in general the victor writes the history, so the record is inconclusive. Nations are like laws and sausages; you don't want to see how they're made.
hmm... so two wrongs make how many rights? But this is the way of history. He's right about that. Doesn't really make it morally defensible; just 'reasonable' in some sense. (Was Hitler being reasonable when he forced the Jews into ghettos, before the death camps? Morris threads a fine line between forced emigration and murder/genocide; he concludes that the latter is reprehensible and morally indefensible (whew!), but the former is a sometimes necessary evil of war [obviously this begs the question of whether the war itself is justified; I hope he delves into that question in his books..]. Yet he states there is clear proof of at least a few hundred murdered Palestinians, massacred to scare the rest into leaving.) This is scary stuff.
And of course the 'cleansed' don't take it lightly. And why should they? It is their homes, their lives, their honor being trampled. As the Jews once were; and now the Palestinians. Whether or not they brought it on with their own aggression; whether this is karmic payback for past crimes (obvious point: anti-semites accuse Jews of past crimes. The cycle goes on and on...) -- no matter what the justification, it is inevitable that the direct recipients of this sort of treatment see it as an unforgivable crime.
All this gives me a new sense of where religious conviction comes from. Not the religious part, per se, but the association of religion with a people, a community, a sense of tribe. The rituals, the clothes, the traditions -- these must continue, in order to spite the enemies who would have them supressed. Even the religious belief itself, becomes merely a token -- a symbol of our right to believe, worship, act, behave, and *be* what we are, who we are; and a big FUCK YOU to anyone who tells us to be otherwise, for the sake of peace; for the better good, we should lay down our past. But to us (Jews, Christians, Moslems, Tibetans, Serbians, African Americans, Fighting Irish...) that is really just saying, give up who you are because you have lost the fight. Cry Uncle; admit defeat.
Well, human nature doesn't work like that. Generally, our strategy is to be the poison pill. We will never give you the satisfaction of an easy victory march. The response is to dig in one's heels; to emphasize, rather than ameliorate, the differences that stick in your craw. Who are you, the imperialist, rich one, powerful one, one who believes in your divine right? So we will continue to worship our God who annoys you; wear our clothes which mark us as different; behave in ways that you find socially abhorrent. The last thing I will do in this stance is change my ways, or question my beliefs; because, even if there were rational reasons to do so, I cannot give you the satisfaction of appearing victorious. That would be to give up my dignity, my individuality (as a people); my right to be me. And, for anyone with a gram of self respect, that is non-negotiable.
No wonder the world is so fucked up.
hmm... so two wrongs make how many rights? But this is the way of history. He's right about that. Doesn't really make it morally defensible; just 'reasonable' in some sense. (Was Hitler being reasonable when he forced the Jews into ghettos, before the death camps? Morris threads a fine line between forced emigration and murder/genocide; he concludes that the latter is reprehensible and morally indefensible (whew!), but the former is a sometimes necessary evil of war [obviously this begs the question of whether the war itself is justified; I hope he delves into that question in his books..]. Yet he states there is clear proof of at least a few hundred murdered Palestinians, massacred to scare the rest into leaving.) This is scary stuff.
And of course the 'cleansed' don't take it lightly. And why should they? It is their homes, their lives, their honor being trampled. As the Jews once were; and now the Palestinians. Whether or not they brought it on with their own aggression; whether this is karmic payback for past crimes (obvious point: anti-semites accuse Jews of past crimes. The cycle goes on and on...) -- no matter what the justification, it is inevitable that the direct recipients of this sort of treatment see it as an unforgivable crime.
All this gives me a new sense of where religious conviction comes from. Not the religious part, per se, but the association of religion with a people, a community, a sense of tribe. The rituals, the clothes, the traditions -- these must continue, in order to spite the enemies who would have them supressed. Even the religious belief itself, becomes merely a token -- a symbol of our right to believe, worship, act, behave, and *be* what we are, who we are; and a big FUCK YOU to anyone who tells us to be otherwise, for the sake of peace; for the better good, we should lay down our past. But to us (Jews, Christians, Moslems, Tibetans, Serbians, African Americans, Fighting Irish...) that is really just saying, give up who you are because you have lost the fight. Cry Uncle; admit defeat.
Well, human nature doesn't work like that. Generally, our strategy is to be the poison pill. We will never give you the satisfaction of an easy victory march. The response is to dig in one's heels; to emphasize, rather than ameliorate, the differences that stick in your craw. Who are you, the imperialist, rich one, powerful one, one who believes in your divine right? So we will continue to worship our God who annoys you; wear our clothes which mark us as different; behave in ways that you find socially abhorrent. The last thing I will do in this stance is change my ways, or question my beliefs; because, even if there were rational reasons to do so, I cannot give you the satisfaction of appearing victorious. That would be to give up my dignity, my individuality (as a people); my right to be me. And, for anyone with a gram of self respect, that is non-negotiable.
No wonder the world is so fucked up.
Monday, April 17, 2006
in the forest
A friend told me I should blog. I said I do, but no one reads it. If a blogger blogs in the forest...
Later that night, this same friend (along with my Mom and a few other lucky spectators) watched some of our old MMM&S tapes. She said it was sad that we never made it big. I agreed; still do. If a band plays in the forest...
My last two blogs were about suicide, and the question of what we leave behind. If a hermit lives in the forest...
Which got me to thinking about God. If he's not around, are we all in the proverbial forest?
I have some fuzzy, bad-science-fiction-inspired theories about super-aliens that might have started the Universe off with a bang & some rules. Others have their own musings on this subject, with varying degrees of supposed evidence or proof for their way of thinking. There's always the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_monster), Scientology, Falun Gong... no shortage of religion and quasi-faith-based speculation about what happened, with associated prognostications about what is to come.
Then there is Dennett's "Breaking The Spell", which I haven't read, but I might as well have. (I've read most of this other works; I saw an hour-long interview with him on the book; and the bits I've seen in reviews (most of which have been rather negative), lead me to believe that he pretty much sums up everything I had already thought of and/or know to be true). The basic premise is that religion evolved and thrived in human culture for the same reason anything evolves -- because it had attributes that increased its own chances of survival. This is not really a new idea; but the application of terms like "memetics" makes it so au courant. Daniel Dennett is not philosophizing in a forest; he was able to get a witness.
Hearing his interview, and divining the contents of his book through near-mystical interpolation, led me to thinking a bit more about religion, ethics, morality, etc. I haven't got any answers, but I think I have a book title:
"In Absentia: The Search for Meaning Within A Godless Universe"
by Daniel B. Miller
A few pseudo-random reviews from Amazon (grammatical errors are intentional):
"First-time author Miller attempts to derive the ultimate 'secular religion' (religion without God!?) from first principles. Taking a page from recent works by Dawkins and Dennett (and occasionally harking back as far as Edward O. Wilson), he applies the concept of mimetics (ideas as cultural genes) to analyze religions old and new. Then he takes the next logical step, proposing a sort of open-source approach to the building, by intentional design, of a new edifice to replace the aging houses of worship we have inherited from the murky depths of pre-history. A valiant, if occasionally ill-advised effort."
"I loved this book! It's the book I always wanted to write. Piece by piece, Miller dissects and reverse-engineers the wheres, whys, and how-fors of the history of religious belief's. He proceeds to suggest that we all start thinking really hard about what comes after 'myth-based belief systems'. Questions tackled in this sure-to-be-influential work include: What does it mean to have free will, when Science seems to imply either absolute determinism, or meaningless random noise? Is there a scientific basis for morality? How do competition and cooperation play out on a galactic scale? And so on. This guy is a total genius."
"In this intolerable, self-absorbed, hopelessly ill-concieved and poorly written screed, heretofore (and hopefully henceforth) unknown author Miller attempts to run with the big boys, and shows us just how sad it is to see a minor player attempt to compete in the major leagues. With a superficially decorative pastiche of eastern philosophy, half-baked secular humanism, and just enough real science to get himself hopelessly into trouble, Miller makes a pathetic attempt to pin down the true basis of Mankind's religious longings. Then, incredibly, he has the hubris to suggest that they all got it wrong; and, guess who -- none other than Miller, himself! -- has come up with the next big thing: a 'scientifically based' pseudo-religion that will make us all feel better about ourselves, cure the world of its ills, and, one suspects, also clean our carpets. Not since L. Ron Hubbard supposedly transcended this physical world en route to the astral plane, has someone had the cohones to try to sell this sort of patent medicine as if it were the result of years of valid scientific research. Miller is merely the latest (though doubtless not the last) in a long line of charlatans who misunderstand the true meaning of faith; one imagines it is precisely because they have the misfortune to have no place in their hearts for such an outdated mode of understanding. I for one pity their lost and wandering souls."
If a believer worships in the forest...
If campers sing around the campfire, in the forest...
If a civilization arises, people live, love, and die, develop relationships, trust each other, betray each other, and create great works to commemorate the beauty and sadness they have seen, in the forest...
Later that night, this same friend (along with my Mom and a few other lucky spectators) watched some of our old MMM&S tapes. She said it was sad that we never made it big. I agreed; still do. If a band plays in the forest...
My last two blogs were about suicide, and the question of what we leave behind. If a hermit lives in the forest...
Which got me to thinking about God. If he's not around, are we all in the proverbial forest?
I have some fuzzy, bad-science-fiction-inspired theories about super-aliens that might have started the Universe off with a bang & some rules. Others have their own musings on this subject, with varying degrees of supposed evidence or proof for their way of thinking. There's always the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_monster), Scientology, Falun Gong... no shortage of religion and quasi-faith-based speculation about what happened, with associated prognostications about what is to come.
Then there is Dennett's "Breaking The Spell", which I haven't read, but I might as well have. (I've read most of this other works; I saw an hour-long interview with him on the book; and the bits I've seen in reviews (most of which have been rather negative), lead me to believe that he pretty much sums up everything I had already thought of and/or know to be true). The basic premise is that religion evolved and thrived in human culture for the same reason anything evolves -- because it had attributes that increased its own chances of survival. This is not really a new idea; but the application of terms like "memetics" makes it so au courant. Daniel Dennett is not philosophizing in a forest; he was able to get a witness.
Hearing his interview, and divining the contents of his book through near-mystical interpolation, led me to thinking a bit more about religion, ethics, morality, etc. I haven't got any answers, but I think I have a book title:
"In Absentia: The Search for Meaning Within A Godless Universe"
by Daniel B. Miller
A few pseudo-random reviews from Amazon (grammatical errors are intentional):
"First-time author Miller attempts to derive the ultimate 'secular religion' (religion without God!?) from first principles. Taking a page from recent works by Dawkins and Dennett (and occasionally harking back as far as Edward O. Wilson), he applies the concept of mimetics (ideas as cultural genes) to analyze religions old and new. Then he takes the next logical step, proposing a sort of open-source approach to the building, by intentional design, of a new edifice to replace the aging houses of worship we have inherited from the murky depths of pre-history. A valiant, if occasionally ill-advised effort."
"I loved this book! It's the book I always wanted to write. Piece by piece, Miller dissects and reverse-engineers the wheres, whys, and how-fors of the history of religious belief's. He proceeds to suggest that we all start thinking really hard about what comes after 'myth-based belief systems'. Questions tackled in this sure-to-be-influential work include: What does it mean to have free will, when Science seems to imply either absolute determinism, or meaningless random noise? Is there a scientific basis for morality? How do competition and cooperation play out on a galactic scale? And so on. This guy is a total genius."
"In this intolerable, self-absorbed, hopelessly ill-concieved and poorly written screed, heretofore (and hopefully henceforth) unknown author Miller attempts to run with the big boys, and shows us just how sad it is to see a minor player attempt to compete in the major leagues. With a superficially decorative pastiche of eastern philosophy, half-baked secular humanism, and just enough real science to get himself hopelessly into trouble, Miller makes a pathetic attempt to pin down the true basis of Mankind's religious longings. Then, incredibly, he has the hubris to suggest that they all got it wrong; and, guess who -- none other than Miller, himself! -- has come up with the next big thing: a 'scientifically based' pseudo-religion that will make us all feel better about ourselves, cure the world of its ills, and, one suspects, also clean our carpets. Not since L. Ron Hubbard supposedly transcended this physical world en route to the astral plane, has someone had the cohones to try to sell this sort of patent medicine as if it were the result of years of valid scientific research. Miller is merely the latest (though doubtless not the last) in a long line of charlatans who misunderstand the true meaning of faith; one imagines it is precisely because they have the misfortune to have no place in their hearts for such an outdated mode of understanding. I for one pity their lost and wandering souls."
If a believer worships in the forest...
If campers sing around the campfire, in the forest...
If a civilization arises, people live, love, and die, develop relationships, trust each other, betray each other, and create great works to commemorate the beauty and sadness they have seen, in the forest...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
more sad news`
Last Friday, the mother of a child Braxton takes classes with at the JCC killed herself. Her name was Gloria Hejna, mother of was:4 2; she died after jumping into oncoming traffic on 101, off the San Antonio overpass. I didn't know her personally, but I undoubtedly saw her now and then while dropping Braxton off at preschool.
No blogs this time, but I did find out that she worked at Oracle; her husband has several patents involving the ability to play back audio faster than it was recorded (without changing the pitch), and sold his company, eNounce.com, in 2000. Gloria was a runner (5K), and obviously in good shape (initial reports had her in her 'late teens to early 20's'). They bought their home in Los Altos in 1996 for a little under $500K.
Is this morbid, or voyeuristic? Who doesn't rubberneck highway accidents? With so little community, and the relative infrequency of death in suburban california and the age of high-tech medicine, it's difficult to get a handle on what it really means to be gone. What did you leave behind? What paths did you not take that might have led you somewhere else? And of course we read about death; we fantasize about it in our entertainment (24, Law & Order, CSI, Battlestar...) It's all around us, and yet carefully hidden from view, so as not to upset us (most of all, we have to hide it from the kids...) Like the scene in Brazil; they're eating at a restaurant (I *strongly* recommend the filet!) -- the table next to them is blown up by terrorists. The staff bring out a handsome Japanese screen, to shield the customers from the unseemly sight of men in hazmat suits cleaning up the carnage.
I'm dealing with these issues with Braxton. He asked me where the Beatles were; I explained that two of them were alive, and the other two are dead. One thing led to another, and we were talking about why Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon with a gun. Before this discussion, he didn't know what a gun was. The idea that something would exist solely for the purpose of killing someone was quite a shock. A few days later, I heard him say to his friend Vijay, "I'm gonna put this gun in your belly button!"
Suicide is a fundamentally different beast than accidents, murders, illness, or old age. These are basically due to factors that we cannot control. Taking your own life is a different sort of death: it's your decision. Abandonment of our shared belief that life is worth living. It can't help but make you wonder about your own life. Are you doing what you love? Are you spending every minute living life for all it's worth? Or are you drifting from your own goals, compromising your own integrity, losing faith in yourself, and in the ability of the world to support your reasons for living? (REM, "Losing My Religion" -- only song of theirs I ever liked.)
Personally, I don't think I've ever had 'sucidal ideation'. I love myself a bit too much, and I'm a bit too insensitive to other people's feelings. I'm more likely to commit homicide than suicide, though I think both pssibilities are remote. I told my friend Ed (Fredkin) the other day, that the only way I would commit suicide would be to spite someone (other than terminal illness or impending mental disability -- but that's another post).
But then maybe that motive is more common than we realise (think 9/11). Hate is a pretty strong motivator.
No blogs this time, but I did find out that she worked at Oracle; her husband has several patents involving the ability to play back audio faster than it was recorded (without changing the pitch), and sold his company, eNounce.com, in 2000. Gloria was a runner (5K), and obviously in good shape (initial reports had her in her 'late teens to early 20's'). They bought their home in Los Altos in 1996 for a little under $500K.
Is this morbid, or voyeuristic? Who doesn't rubberneck highway accidents? With so little community, and the relative infrequency of death in suburban california and the age of high-tech medicine, it's difficult to get a handle on what it really means to be gone. What did you leave behind? What paths did you not take that might have led you somewhere else? And of course we read about death; we fantasize about it in our entertainment (24, Law & Order, CSI, Battlestar...) It's all around us, and yet carefully hidden from view, so as not to upset us (most of all, we have to hide it from the kids...) Like the scene in Brazil; they're eating at a restaurant (I *strongly* recommend the filet!) -- the table next to them is blown up by terrorists. The staff bring out a handsome Japanese screen, to shield the customers from the unseemly sight of men in hazmat suits cleaning up the carnage.
I'm dealing with these issues with Braxton. He asked me where the Beatles were; I explained that two of them were alive, and the other two are dead. One thing led to another, and we were talking about why Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon with a gun. Before this discussion, he didn't know what a gun was. The idea that something would exist solely for the purpose of killing someone was quite a shock. A few days later, I heard him say to his friend Vijay, "I'm gonna put this gun in your belly button!"
Suicide is a fundamentally different beast than accidents, murders, illness, or old age. These are basically due to factors that we cannot control. Taking your own life is a different sort of death: it's your decision. Abandonment of our shared belief that life is worth living. It can't help but make you wonder about your own life. Are you doing what you love? Are you spending every minute living life for all it's worth? Or are you drifting from your own goals, compromising your own integrity, losing faith in yourself, and in the ability of the world to support your reasons for living? (REM, "Losing My Religion" -- only song of theirs I ever liked.)
Personally, I don't think I've ever had 'sucidal ideation'. I love myself a bit too much, and I'm a bit too insensitive to other people's feelings. I'm more likely to commit homicide than suicide, though I think both pssibilities are remote. I told my friend Ed (Fredkin) the other day, that the only way I would commit suicide would be to spite someone (other than terminal illness or impending mental disability -- but that's another post).
But then maybe that motive is more common than we realise (think 9/11). Hate is a pretty strong motivator.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
sad news
I don't know this guy, he was a friend of some people I know. Apparently a very promising AI researcher, recently won his PhD; about to be married to his beautiful gf, and so on. So why?
http://pedia.media.mit.edu/wiki/Push_Singh
and here's the wierd part -- his blog: http://pushsingh.blogspot.com/
right here on blogspot. I downloaded some of his papers, and will read them in due course. He was working with Marvin Minsky on SOM stuff.
Normally I would post this in my own journal, but running across his blog, and his papers, got me thinking about life, death, and the permanence or lack thereof of the things we say and do (tho saying is doing something, eh?) during our lifetime. I sometimes regret not having done more to get our music out there when I had the inspiration and energy of extreme youth. I guess I could do something now, but the moment is gone. Maybe another one will come; at least I hope to contribute something, somewhere, in some medium. Something of permanence.
At the time we were always waiting for the big break; this was pre-www, the idea of just putting it out there wasn't really available. Well, it was to a point-- we did independent releases, played the gigs and stuff. And Jonathan Lethem talks about us in Fortress of Solitude. Funny about that.
So I wonder if in the future, our lives will more and more be distilled into myspace pages -- some hugely popular and profitable, some not so much. But everyone with a page, a blog, a media archive, and a few links to others. And will these pages stay up for centuries, for your descendents to see? Like letters in the attic, multimedia style.
Suicide seems like such a lousy option. YMMV
http://pedia.media.mit.edu/wiki/Push_Singh
and here's the wierd part -- his blog: http://pushsingh.blogspot.com/
right here on blogspot. I downloaded some of his papers, and will read them in due course. He was working with Marvin Minsky on SOM stuff.
Normally I would post this in my own journal, but running across his blog, and his papers, got me thinking about life, death, and the permanence or lack thereof of the things we say and do (tho saying is doing something, eh?) during our lifetime. I sometimes regret not having done more to get our music out there when I had the inspiration and energy of extreme youth. I guess I could do something now, but the moment is gone. Maybe another one will come; at least I hope to contribute something, somewhere, in some medium. Something of permanence.
At the time we were always waiting for the big break; this was pre-www, the idea of just putting it out there wasn't really available. Well, it was to a point-- we did independent releases, played the gigs and stuff. And Jonathan Lethem talks about us in Fortress of Solitude. Funny about that.
So I wonder if in the future, our lives will more and more be distilled into myspace pages -- some hugely popular and profitable, some not so much. But everyone with a page, a blog, a media archive, and a few links to others. And will these pages stay up for centuries, for your descendents to see? Like letters in the attic, multimedia style.
Suicide seems like such a lousy option. YMMV
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