The final post. of 2008.

Mankind has always needed some sort of guidance. Religion serves this purpose really well, even though it's really flawed and doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. I guess that's what faith is. Blind faith? All forms of faith are about being blind. After watching and reading documentaries and stories of wisemen trying to teach people how religion is false and they should open their eyes, I've realized a few things.

1)Like Nietzsche says, sometimes you defend your point of view only because the opposition really gets on your nerves. Religious people have their faith strengthened with every argument they have with atheists, and atheists feel more strongly that religious people are blind after every argument. It's human nature to defend your point of view, even though 90% of the time it isn't YOUR point of view, just a collective point of view that seems to make more sense to you because of what you've been taught your whole life. Evolution wasn't MY way of explaining things, it was Darwin's idea, I rely on smart people to get me answers. And so does the rest of the less than smart population of the Earth.

2)The thing is, as much as I'd like to believe the human mind is the most powerful organ ever, just looking at the bell curve shows you that only a lucky few can open their minds and accept the truth. Most people will try to have the best of both worlds. You know, a lot of people try to explain religious stories, traditional values with science, without realizing it's one or the other. I know people who can sit down and explain every physics theory but still pray at the end of the day.

3)I realized that as much of a lie religion way be at times, it is a great tool. We've all seen first hand how it can be bent to change a persons mind, but let's not forget the number of people who live an actively "good" lifestyle because of their beliefs.

4)Freedom is an illusion. I've illustrated this point previously, but I think I might as well do it again. If I told you an apple was actually an orange using scientific mambo jumbo explanations(this is just a thought experiment, play along), in your mind, it would still be an apple, not because it IS an apple(for apples are called so many different names in so many different languages), but because you've been told(from a young age) that it is an apple. Same thing goes for nearly every other thing. If you were taught religious values when a child, then chances are you are going to cling to them for the rest of your life unless you've opened your mind.

So IF religion isn't as true as it claims to be, HOW would you know if your living a good life, a proper life? Simple. Here I need to explain something mathematical.

-Time is infinite
there is no beginning, no ending, no middle of time. It's not one long line, it never ages, it never slow and never speeds up. OK? So it goes on and on and on and on forever.

-Matter is finite
Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Just converted

-Movement is random
That just means NOTHING is scripted. everything moves without consciously knowing why it is moving or where it is moving.

Okay? Now for the thought experiment.
If I gave a typewriter to an immortal chimp and all it could do was randomly hit keys on the typewriter for EVER, even though most of what the chimp types out will look like:

oadgaodbigabipgbo[iaogbdab gddba igasidigai

EVENTUALLY, he would have written every Harry Potter book and every other book in existence. Why? It is all about probability. Even though the probability of all those logical words coming together is very very low, given the infinite length of time and the ageless chimp, eventually, it will come together. It may take days, hours, years, or much much longer, but EVENTUALLY, it would happen.

Now, let's assume those three things I've pointed out are true
-Time is infinite
-Matter is finite
-Movement is random

Then eventually, this life, this universe, this age of man will repeat itself, right? Given a few trillion years, this might just happen again. Me, sitting here and typing. Hell maybe it has happened many times before, and this could be the 4th or 5th time this version of the universe has existed. It sounds crazy. But hey, this is a thought experiment, not an actual truth.

The very fact that you can imagine the possibility is enough for the next section of the thought experiment. So, make sure you understand the first section.

Now, imagine every action, every joy, every sadness, every aspect of your life being repeated over and over and over again and infinite number of times. Would you feel despair or joy if the choices you make now are repeated over and over again? Remember, in THIS version of the universe, I might choose to shout at precisely 1pm, but in a remake I'd choose NOT to. In another remake I'd choose to clap my hands at 1pm. The possibilities are ENDLESS. And all those possibilities are repeated over and over and over again.

So now, if you've understood what I just wrote, take some quiet time to imagine this life being repeated over and over and over again(remember, it doesn't matter if it really happens, time could be finite according to some physics people, and it doesn't matter if you would remember this life the next time it occurs, the mere fact that you can imagine it recurring over and over and over again will show you if the choices you made are right or wrong). imagine it, and ask your self, are you happy with the version of life you are living? If you suddenly feel you don't want to be in this version of your life, then it is truly time for a change.

Sincerity

Nietzsche and me share so many ideas, but on certain important ideas, we go our separate ways. That makes only one of us right, or both of us utterly wrong.

Nietzsche believes that there isn't such a thing as sincerity. And for a time, he got me believing that too. Until I broke loose of that sick idea and found a different way to see things.

Nietzsche claimed that every living thing has a will to power. Like a domination over another being.It is in everything. The man who wants to be pitied is only showing his will to power by bringing down everyone else to his level.

Thing about it, every time you thought you failed, your first reaction is to look for someone who failed WORSE. To Nietzsche, this meant that there wasn't a sincere action. In donating money, the rich man shoes that he has the power to give money and is superior to the man who is begging. The beggar replies 'Thank you' not sincerely. By saying 'Thank you' he has switched roles with the rich man. Here, the poor man is giving and the rich man is receiving.

Now you see why that idea scared me. It fits in with Natural Selection and Darwinism and every other logical idea.

But then I got thinking.

And I realized there might be a way around this.

What if man was aware(subconsciously) of the absence of empathy in most of nature, and so was struggling to become less of an animal, and establish itself OUTSIDE the boundaries of nature. To have mankind placed in a different category than other animals.

Think about it. It is natural for us to shun immoral acts. But immoral acts tend to be the natural thing to do right? Every time you act out of impulse, it reflects something an animal would do, like fight, or challenge another. But conversely, when you behave your self and act more 'human', you are acting unlike any other natural creature, am I right?

And this 'human' way of acting; morals, decency, discipline and everything you'd normally NOT see in any other animals list of things to do, is always encouraged, and looked highly upon.

Our arts, our sciences, our modern cultures, our ethics, our morals, all go against the natural way of the animal. Like it or not, sincerity is a lie, whichever way you look at it.

Unless of coarse you still cling to traditional values.

In which case.

I pity you.

And that soul you think you have.

Human (back to usual rantings)

Natural selection is a cruel process. Survival of the fittest. As peaceful as nature may seem on the outside, in reality, everything either dies or lives to die another day. Well everything living that is. Natural selection isn't a choice, or a way to look at things, it just IS. God wouldn't seem as kind if you just took the time to think of how he shaped thoughtless creatures to devour each other to protect its own interest would He? No!

Just dig deep into some parts of the world and you'll discover not one or two, but thousands upon thousands of species that were eliminated through natural selection.Now, let's look at natural selection for a moment. It isn't a process were nature consciously makes decisions like, 'Okay, I like the snake more than this sorta old lizard, so i'll kill the old lizard off'. No, we use the term natural selection only because before man came about, we had no influence on how any animal or plant would live. So, this process of selection happens naturally.

The 'selection' isn't the sort of selection that goes on when you shop, for instance. Every organism needs to do one thing; survive. And because of that, organisms have to keep changing, keep taking in and throwing out certain things.

Anyway, all this natural selection is beyond me. I cannot truly understand it until I have studied it. In any case, we have evolved to have the ability to think and reason, just as a bird has the ability to fly, and the horse has the ability to sprint.

And with this ability to reason, whether subconsciously or not, every action, every piece of art created, every music piece written, every book written, every mathematical equation equated has been to escape natures way of doing things. Had we had stuck to natures plan, things like ethnic genocide and eugenics would be carried out by the best of us. Instead, the best of humans, or at least the kind of people who are made models of what a man should be, carry out acts of kindness.

The system we live with, where the man who donates money to the poor instead of leaving the poor to die, works completely and utterly against natures way of natural selection.

I think mankind is subconsciously aware that nature is cruel and our mission is to escape natures way of selection.

Or perhaps, consider this interesting theory;
nature itself realized the need for natural selection to end. (A God perhaps, realized this) And so man was created, and man himself was tasked with shaping the earth in his image(which is an image which, unlike anything else on earth can see beauty, is kind to the weak, and has the sort of values no other animal can ever have). And isn't that what we have been doing all this while? Shaping the world? Killing nature. Weird. I know. It's the kind of theory that sounds better in my head than on my blog.

forgive the messiness in this post. I wrote the last paragraph first and the first last.

Happiness/ Well being and Mind Training.

First off, if you want to know why we all strive for happiness/well being, all I can say is, it is purely genetic. And I'm not a geneticist, I am a man with a lot of questions. I just had rotten luck to have enough time on my hands to think each one through.

So back to the topic at hand. I'll just call it well being. Happiness is a vague way of saying well being, people often mistake happiness for something less important and more temperature, like pleasure or titillation. Here, I'll show you what pleasure is.

I'll give you the example of pleasure first :
Say you've ordered a nice, rich chocolate cake. Your first serving, it's delicious. Your mouth is watering, and by the time your done with that particular serving of cake, you are pleasured. Then, the second serving of nice, rich chocolate cake arrives. By this time, you are less hungry and have lost your appetite due to the richness of the first serving of cake. But you press on, and eat the cake. Now you feel bloated, but the third serving of cake is about to arrive. Now, you are no longer pleasured, you are disgusted.


Happiness on the other hand has a more lasting effect, and this is best illustrated with a comparison between pleasure and well being:

If you had a ten dollar bill, and was fully conscious of the ramifications of giving that ten dollar bill to the next homeless person you saw, would you still waste it on something purely material as a piece of cake?

Well being is a deep state of fulfillment. You can be sad, but still be in a state of well being. They are both separate layers of emotion.

Pleasure is very different. Some people can rejoice in others' suffering. It is a fleeting emotion.

It is a Buddhist view that everything that has the ability to bring pleasure has the ability to bring great pain. And I agree completely, for the same things (say this computer as an example) that made me feel on top of the world the first time I got it, now sometimes makes me feel frustrated(when I realize how old it's gotten and it starts lagging, etc; i'm human too you know).

And I feel very Buddhist writing a post as shallow as this. I am fully aware that happiness and well being are all in the mind, all social things hard wired into our genetics. But since we cannot escape these states, we might as well learn to understand them. Maybe even to someday completely overcome them.

Okay, anyway, since we've established the differences between the fleeting emotions brought about by pleasure, we must now ask why we'd rather be happy than in pleasure.

Pleasure is, well, a more, not to say diluted, but generic form of happiness. That is why it is so often mistaken for happiness. It takes form of happiness. Like a bellowing storm cloud. From the outside, pleasure looks solid. But move closer, you will see that the emotion is permeable.

Happiness on the other hand is solid. So often we spend hours with hobbies, with trying to look more like people on tv, with exercise. But if it is a fact that the one thing we aim to achieve is a state of happiness, why then do we not focus on what would get us there?

Mind training is a solution. Monks and such meditate to train their mind. But one doesn't need to be a monk to mind train. The simple realization that every emotional impulse is result of complex genetic instruction and hormonal interference is enough to make you wonder how useless it is to be angry/frustrated/envious of someone or something. An open mind helps too.

With that in mind, learning to understand, let go of, and choose emotions becomes an altogether easier thing to do.

The reality of emotions is utterly unmagical, and bland.

That is all for now. This post is not a very good one I think. I don't have enough Buddhists in my life to be sure of what I have just discussed above. But it is EXACTLY what I believe.

Rethinking the 'why'

What is the point of doing good? Often we find that doing good brings much less benefit than doing evil.

I'll use the example of a lawful and unlawful man.

Clearly the man who over charges when selling his goods has the upper hand over the man who sells at a lower profit margin. One cheats his customers into spending more, and the other allows himself to suffer a little more (or longer) in order for his customers to spend less. The unlawful one here has the upper hand. So why is the lawful man doing good?

My initial theory was that all men are selfish. But not selfish in greedy sort of way, but selfish in a sense that every choice made by him is to grant him benefit. In the scenario above, both men believe they have the upper hand. Although Socrates might argue differently(his discussion ends with the conclusion that the unlawful man has the advantage), the 'selfish theory' was not considered by him.

On a brief side note, I thought of this theory that all men make choices that benefit themselves in July 2008. But I realized, when my father introduced me to Friedrich Nietzsche in October, that he already thought of all this hundreds of years before me!

Anyway.

Socrates failed to answer, let alone present the question : why does the lawful man remain lawful, conscious of his disadvantage?

Or maybe the question should be : What does the lawful man get in return for being just that?

The answer, I found, was using the theory of selfishness.

The lawful man was thinking of nearly every factor that turned to his advantage over the unlawful man other than money(and related material factors).

The lawful man might consciously or even subconsciously know of the ramifications of his kindness and lawfulness. His customers will have a higher probability of returning(but this isn't the main reason he remains lawful).

The lawful man does not hold material wealth as his main desire.

[I look forward to doing the happiness post, in which i will talk about how having money does not lead to happiness, but is auxiliary to our well being]

The lawful man seeks the deeper satisfaction that is often felt when good or kindness is done to another human being.

I call it pride. So, I conclude that, the lawful man is just as selfish as the unlawful man; but what they both seek are completely different.

Plus, the lawful man doesn't put other people in disadvantage(instead, quite the opposite) when being naturally selfish.

Sure, there are a billion and one other reasons to remain lawful, but at 3 in the morning, I'd rather summarize.

So the question now is;
What do you seek to gain out of every choice you make?
A slave does his masters bidding to avoid further injury upon himself.
In fact, you can find that little piece of 'selfishness' in every action every sane human has ever made.
Or so I hypothesize.

life, pre life, principles of life.

Existentialist. I didn't know that there was such a simple word to describe a person like me. What's really surprising is that, once again, when I came across this word, and then wiki-ed it, it turns out Friedrich Nietzsche was one too! Incredible; I only found out about him 2 or 3 months back, and it turns out he'd been asking the same questions I ask, and living on the same twisted principles of nihilism as I am. It is as though he visited me in my sleep to teach me everything I believe in.

So let's talk about that for a moment. Principles, the meaning of life, what values should be admired, and which should be discarded.

Here, we bring in Socrates(not again!), because he brings reference to the soul more often than Nietzsche.

Socrates reasons that the honest man, bereft of the ability to exploit anything to his advantage(or more accurately, to another persons disadvantage) is the better man; as he has based his life on the purest and most respectable principles.

Nietzsche on the other hand, emphasizes on how these values (being humble, chiefly) aren't really values at all. You see (and I'm sorry to have caused offense), modern religions (post Judaism) began spreading at the lowest class of people; slaves and common men.

These were classes of people that didn't have that much to brag about really. So, it became custom for such values as being humble (for a slave must have this value), to be a basic principle in life. So, in truth, the humble man, if humble but without much to be humble about, is NOT a better man. Conversely, the pompous man, with much to his name*, is the better man.

*remember, the example of the pompous man must be a man who is ascended to a throne, not born to one.

I think, Nietzsche relies more on his ability to reason, without having to honour tradition or religion. Socrates on the other hand often attended traditional ceremonies and started off The Republic with the persona attending a ceremony.

Of coarse, before starting to ditch old ways of living, you need to understand why it is you are leaving it behind. Then ask yourself, were you ever free to choose? Freedom of choice is an illusion for most people. If you were born and raised to believe one way of living, then the choice has already been made for you has it not?

Breaking away from the illusion is the hard part. Understanding why freedom is never free is important too. The gay man is taunted and looked down upon. So is the Godless man. But why? Breaking traditional beliefs grants these people freedom most can never dream to have. Is that the reason for all that taunting? Jealousy? I never thought it would be that simple.

The man who believes he is doing Gods work here might just be a man who is subconsciously envious of the man who has given himself freedom of choice. I cannot find reason why the man on Gods side should do his work; for the almighty should be mighty enough to handle it on His own.

Since I've already moved on to another topic, I might as well start poking fun here.

Firstly, I strongly disagree with the statement
God is not the author of all things, but good only.

Socrates wasn't looking far back enough, and his concepts of God were much different.

The existence came before the essence. Think about that. I will elaborate when the time comes.

But now, think about this;

let's start with physics, since Neils Bohr thinks that all science is physics.

1)In a perfectly Godless world, will everything physical be possible?

As in, without a divine hand, would a planet have its own mass?
Yes it would, there's nothing divine about having mass, and so it can move too, without the help of a God.

With that settled,
2)In a perfectly Godless world, would everything chemical be possible?
As in, without a divine hand, would a iron rust, or carbon combine to form diamond?
Yes it would, it's all logic and quantum physics(which is still beyond just about everyone).

With THAT settled,
3)In a perfectly Godless world , would everything biological be possible?
Hah, here is where the shallow and the deep go their own ways!
No one can explain how the *poof it became coco crunch* theory happened with life on earth.
I'd like to believe in the iron-sulfide theory. Because it makes (almost) perfect sense.
I mean, it just does. It makes so much more sense than whatever it is I used to think.

Now, an off topic way to close this post,


There is nothing supernatural about the supernatural. The fact that there are still so many things out there left unexplained is proof that science, and great men of science are not done with their work.

Where do I take this pain of mine

Pain. It's the one thing we all loath, but the one of the many things we can't live without. The purpose of pain, according to most studies, is to warn you that your of potential damage. Stepping on a nail is definitely a good way to damage your feet, so you body needs to teach you the hard way to watch where you step. Pain itself, contrary to what you may think doesn't harm. Although harm or potential harm will cause pain; It isn't pain itself that deteriorates your body; instead, just your mind.

That's how you learn. You know that pain wears you out, and so your mind establishes pain as a negative feeling, a sensation to be avoided. This means you'll not harm yourself.

So then, what in the world is emotional pain. I'm quite (damn near 100%) sure that the heart has nothing to do with anything other than pumping blood. The whole reference to the heart; the phrase "listen to your heart" is purely metaphorical. The rate at which your heart beats is influenced by hormones, stimulated by parts of your brain.

I think it's a social thing to feel loss over something or someone. That's why pain is so relative and subjective.