A note on being an "agnostic atheist"

I've addressed the religion topic somewhat totally earlier. Here, I'd just like to further clarify conclusions from that post, and be a little more blunt. As far as there possibly being a "the God" beyond everything, this cannot be ruled out completely.. ever. So at this point, some theists find it perfectly fine to rest their case. But that's bullshit. You see, there's no problem in just stating there may be a God, but a problem does arise when you begin to describe and define (through its actions) this God. For instance, to say "he" created the world and the Universe in 6 days... is bullshit. To say he created Adam and Eve and no dinosaurs - bullshit. You may at this point say it's symbolic, but then who determines a correct interpretation? If you can just choose to interpret it differently with each period, surely one can do that for other creation stories. In terms of creation tales, the Judeo-Christian one is not even the most plausible, or right. So, before saying "checkmate atheists", perhaps a little honesty about what your religion is about is in order, at which point it fails miserably. This is all AFTER you can get over the fact that the tales were written a little under 3000 years ago and promoted through less than holy politics and wars through the ages.
That's enough on addressing the theists. To the atheists out there, it is equally important that in being honest about the situation, one has to conclude that there could be something outside of the known universe that is both odd and accounts for why "all of this" is here. That may be possible. But, that point shouldn't matter. I don't see why one has to always go to the ends of our knowledge at any moment of time in debating these fake fuck wads (not referring to all theists, just the arrogant, militant ones. Militant Atheists are a bit fuck wadish as well). Their religion makes certain claims as far as science goes, and these are ridiculously untrue. They can then go to the moral teachings, but there too, killing other tribes in the name of God seems to be fine in certain instances, reducing the status of women as well seems ok.... but no God who "created" or planned all of this would conclude like this. We piddly mortals already know how we are so much more equal both as sexes and races on account of our genetics and the functioning of our brains. No true God would ever say it's "correct" to kill other people who are just like you. An omniscient God who is so pathetically myopic? Really?
Lastly, there's no need for atheists to be militant. You just need to state the facts, and contrast that with the claims and origins of other faiths. That's it. Their days are numbered anyway, for there isn't a way out in a digital age where information is readily accessible. As more young people grow up in a society that's unshackling itself more intensely from the stupid and unwarranted customs of old, all these unfounded craplings will find their way in the sewer of history. Hate to be mean, but it's .. pretty much how it's going to be, as far as I can see it. But hey, I could be wrong. So cheer up Theists! Just believe I have no arguments, have blind faith in me being irrational... and you're done. Just do the usual.

The World's Dilemma : My rough solution

In my original post on The World's Dilemma, I pointed out why on account of our human nature and the structure of the system we have, the world is always going to be kind of fucked up, and will require a constant source of checking and feedback. This doesn't mean however that we should be dejected and accept failure. Far from it. What does bother me about the world today is that, despite it probably always going to be fucked up (as long as the constraints remain true), it is SO far from being the system it could be. Let's forget perfection, and just talk progress. We could have it much better, we can have a much "smarter" system in place, both globally and locally. How to get it going practically is a tricky problem, that I sadly don't have a general answer to. But what I do have some insight into is what needs to happen in order for us to have a better, smarter system.

1) Education : The most pressing problem, and at the heart of the whole dilemma, is that people are simply too uninformed and apathetic, but not quite in the sense that most people think however. By uninformed, I mean that we simply don't know the bigger picture well enough, and this is simply not promoted as far as our education is concerned. We arenot sympathetic enough of our differences, or aware enough of our broader similarities. That seldom gets into the equation, and understandably so. We live pretty insular lives, comforted into a system that seems, for the most part in those areas we access... fool-proof and fail-safe, even in times like these where global instability is just a probable event away, and the system may be crumbling in front of your very eyes. Even in times like these, most people simply look around them and notice most of the following -  the roads are still around, their house is around, the people they care about are alive and ticking, and things seem to be going on just as "usual". At least most of these things are going on at the same time, but seldom all. In any case, the picture our uninquiring minds will paint in circumstances like these, is to just go on. But even when a lot of these things AREN'T going on right, the other aspect of our present system kicks in. The other aspect is that it makes us think that it is too big for us. That's what I mean by apathy... a subconscious belief that "it" is too big, rather than a voluntary, conscious process of not taking any initiative. Surely, we can't alter the way things are. We are just piddly ants in an enormous ant colony, and the ones running the colony can squash us without the slightest effort should they choose to. Surely, there is no simple way to alter the system, which has been rigged up in such a way so as to prevent any obstacles we piddly workers might try to come up with. Well, sure... that is partially true. But they are not invincible, if that is the belief, which it often is. There is a certain amount of concentrated and coordinated work required, but it is most certainly possible. It just is that people can't see this. They simply can't see the coordinated process, and so they don't do anything... or a very deep level. This is why revolutions pick up so well. It gives them that faint glimmer of perspective that makes them see change just an inch away. It all becomes real. But it is ALWAYS real... we just don't take the time to see it, and realize it.
So this is what I see broadly lacking on an individual level. The solution then is to somehow get people not only more informed, but also to understand their significance in altering events in society. The two basic themes I just addressed are easy enough to achieve. The hard part, is getting people to agree on what the solution ought to be. There unfortunately is no simple way to come out with a "societal" right and wrong. People will generally infuse into the societal solution, their own views and ideas, and this will often be restrictive in terms of the bigger picture of needing a system that caters to the masses, ensures individual rights, that honours the dignity of human life, and so on. The idea that things must be "as consistent and right as possible" needs to enter the conversation. This will sometimes involve not having the right solution as far as many things you are concerned with is involved, but it will be the right thing if you take the pieces of information of the broader society you belong to, and the global picture, into account.  The understanding of "consistency" and "empirical evidence", is something that will be tricky to make people get. Even smart, informed people, sometimes don't get the significance of these two things in leading up to a "correct" conclusion in all contexts, including social and societal. (correct in quotes since it is only the most correct thing you can get for a set of facts, and not necessarily THE correct thing). The rules of logic for mathematics is easy, because there is no confusion about the objects being dealt with, the axioms, and the rules of the game. With people, there is ambiguity throughout. But it is my belief, that should we know a) what the constraints of ourselves and the societal system (at a given time) are, b) what conditions this system ought to satisfy for the people in order to result in an efficient society that is maximally beneficial, and c) where the people and the society are functionally at a given point in time; ... should we know these three things with little ambiguity, AND be informed and proactive.... then a common-ish (a good majority) solution can be acquired by the people. We can then have some sort of uniformity in opinion.

2) Explicit self correction mechanisms in every societal system : Again... hard for me to generally formulate. Every system that we will come up with will be based on a sweeping generalization of reality. It will also be at a point in time, rigid. This in turn will guarantee not every issue will be handled in the "right" way in society. The system itself, were it perfectly followed in an uncorrupt way, will lead to issues due to it being rigid. So, a method of allowing...iterative changes to the system, adding and taking away things as we go along and learn over time, is pretty essential. But the fact that systems are corrupt means that there must be a better way to check on the people running the system itself. This again leads us to point number one - education. An informed and proactive public will add pressure to any system. It may originally be democratic in its ways, in which case the correction mechanism is implicit in the system (however it may not be thoroughly exercised, as in present times), OR it may not be, in which case it never is too late to start a revolution and force democracy onto it. I addressed a part of this point in the post Pubeocracy not too long ago.


Broadly speaking then, getting the public "educated" in the sense I mentioned, and having the system equipped with self rectifying democratic tools, is fundamentally what is needed. Each country obviously comes with their own little goofy issues. In addressing these problems on the level of the system (modifying laws, introducing regulation, starting institutions, etc) they have to be introduced in as much as possible, a simultaneous and consistent way. It will be hard to introduce such things perfectly, and there will always be glitches, but we presently have a shitty global system, and the local scenario is pretty shitty for most countries. In all of this, I have my fears that people will never get "honest and real" when asked to make public decisions, and will always seem to address their self interest first. It's because of this that "education" for me is so important. It gives the hope of character development for a great many people. It equips them with ways to handle obstacles in their way, to think and be independent ... to be individuals. A world with a majority of people like these WOULD be better. I haven't run a simulation on this... but I'd be very interested in what society a sociologist running a program with people characterized the way I have, will come up with. I'm pretty sure it would validate my view, and in any case it is worth a shot from the standpoint of our race. The only question then is.... "How does one practically achieve this informed, individual filled society, from a system that is hell bent on leaving people as ignorant and foolishly content as possible, so that the ones running the show can capitalize on their interests?" . This is the Catch 22 situation I alluded to in my original post. The solution required to fix the system cannot be practically acquired from the system itself in the present time ... save perhaps for a technological or sociological revolution. Perhaps that is why the internet has caused a slight hiccup here and there, and will continue to do so ... at least until those idiotic laws in the works get passed.

The Golden Algorithm

Observe, Understand, Accept, Adapt, Evolve

Each step is more intensive and complete than the mere word seems to suggest, with the whole process being dependent not on intelligence, not on bravery,...  not on anything other than one thing - honesty.
But yes, this is in essence the magical formula for all people, in all times, and all societies, to reach their full potential and discover themselves.

Fine... I'd better break it down:
Observe yourself and your environment, either with respect to a particular problem or system. Gather as many pieces of information you can. Again, honesty is the key to getting the right pieces. You must gather the pieces in as objective a framework as possible. Question the assumptions, and break the framework as much as possible. Get to the most objective one, and then observe.
Understanding involves looking for a consistent picture of the pieces you've just acquired. They will paint a picture, both of yourself and the system/problem you're analyzing. New questions will arise, and at this stage greater generalizations will be possible. You'll ultimately be able to formulate something very general, but so general that it would be useless as a practical tool without adding in more specifics. But having acquired this overall system for looking at the situation is a very useful place to continue.
Accept those aspects which can't be changed. Yes, they MAY ultimately not be immutable, but for now, as far as you can see... they are. So accept them till further insight. Build from this as your starting point. These are the things about both yourself and the situation/problem you're dealing with that you can't change. It may be a temporary thing, based on this point in time, but these are the constraints you will have to deal with in coming up with a practical solution.
Adaptation involves coming up with a plan to now use what you have, to take you from where you are to where you want to be. So you figure out a plan of action essentially, but all of this coming AFTER you've figured as much of the bigger picture as possible, and understanding the underlying dynamics that drive the whole thing in reality. That was the whole point of all the earlier points.
Evolve involves actually going on to the next level. Your plan will seldom work perfectly, because you will learn a new thing about yourself and of the system you are dealing with. In this case, repeat the whole process and refine the plan. So it is both the minor evolution of yourself with respect to your earlier plan, and the evolution of the plan with respect to the new information you have unwittingly acquired.

This then is broadly speaking, the procedure I have and do use time and again to get things right, both in terms of actions in life, and thought processes. It has worked nearly perfectly nearly all the time. The times it hasn't worked is when getting informed to a sufficient degree was too difficult (as in some social circumstances), and in those cases where the actions to be performed are unfeasible at the moment... at least in a simple way (as in my desire to fix the world. I just don't have the resources in every possible sense). But in every other case, it does help to eliminate "losses", ensure you get things "right", and to reach a "higher" level. Does it come at the cost of spontaneity? Yes, in many ways... absolutely. But this is for those people who are sick and tired of fucking up all the time. It is the only way I know of to nearly guarantee you WON'T fuck up in what you're trying to do, or the thing you're trying to solve. The extent of success depends on how honest and inquisitive you are willing to be. Get those right, and you're pretty much set.

Religion

(This post, and the one on Abortion that I will follow up on... at some time, is dedicated to Madhuri Kumari from RRI. I will follow her advice and make it as complete as possible  with all the thoughts that I have on the topic, despite it then leading to a VErrrrrrrrrY long post. If people are interested enough, they can read. Else... it doesn't matter.
Thank you for that discussion on the 7th of June. It helped me more than you'll probably know. The vodka did it's bit as well.. but not as much as you. I don't understand WHY it did work so well in "centering" me from then on, but I guess that has to do with that part of my mind which has avoided detection by its consciously and meticulously probing part.)

I was wondering how to write on this topic. I was wondering if using logic and truth like a sledgehammer would be appropriate. The sledgehammer is going to creep in.... there's no way around it, and there is no reason for there to be a way around it; I'll only be speaking the truth. But before I get into the nasty business of all this truth speaking (which will ironically be the tool required to bludgeon the thing that claims to be promoting "THE truth") a brief disclaimer. We're all religious to different extents, in the sense that we believe in things that are in a sense un-provable by reality in the present. For instance, I believe that I will be able to be a successful physicist, even though I have done nothing other than learn the theories of physicists that came before me. I've only acquired a sense of shallow mastery where I can manipulate the theory to solve certain problems, and not mastered things well enough to show why the theories are wrong. In this case however, the odds of my faith having some bearing with reality is perhaps a lot stronger than the faith that there is a daddy God in the sky interested in whether you picked your nose a particular way at 5 a.m. in the morning, when the moon was positioned a certain way with respect to the Earth. But in any case, what we all possess are bits of faith that drive our lives, and influence our actions... and which serve to define us and give us and our lives meaning, in both subtle and obvious ways. In this sense, we are all religious. It just so turns out that saying you're "religious" implies your affiliation to the most extreme, and universal, ridiculous and unsubstantiated belief that there is some supernatural force driving our lives. Alright, before I go further, I must also state that if you are religious, my problem in not necessarily with you. That was the point of the "we are all religious" start to this post. I don't care if you are religious. I have only two problems as far as religion is concerned -
1) The existence of organized religion, and more specifically, the authority they demand to have.
2) The use of religious arguments as valid realistic ones, so much so that they are used as the sole driving force against aspects of our reality that are demonstrably and evidently true, and scientific theories and ideas that have been shown to be true. These arguments are then used to dictate social and societal norms.

If you do subscribe and believe in either points 1) or 2) (or both) in their entirety, then yes, I will be attacking you.... thoroughly, in what follows. But if on the other hand, you have a certain faith, but also a certain humility enough to tolerate other peoples faith, and enough sense to identify that social and societal rules may sometimes have to violate what you personally believe in.... then no, you're fine with me. Without further ado, let's get started.

I don't see organized religion having a good ending for us as a global community. The reasoning behind this is quite simple. For one thing, it deals with "a very important topic", and too many people disagree on the central point of this topic. So conflict is going to result as a consequence, since it is probable that in any case there would be some religions that demand dominion over other "false ones". But why is this topic so important? Is it merely because as children, these people were indoctrinated and brainwashed into thinking our world has some deeper element to it that deals with them personally, that other people are blind to. Well, yes... but it's not so simple. It had to be something that also had a parental aspect to it, something I prefer to call "paternal" .. the father figure. Our brains seem to hook on to these things for some reason. It's part of our nature. Belligerent fanatics, and promoters of societally retarded policies seem to come exclusively from these "paternal" religions. You see Buddhist monks with intense fervour and belief, but you don't see them asking for banning homosexuality, or for destroying China, and so on. It's not that Christianity and Islam would lead to this consequence in all cases. Not at all. It's because of that element of "God is looking down at you" ,"He's judging you", "It is a sin, he say's so",etc being hammered away. It's because of this style of teaching/brainwashing... because of this form of promotion, that I think we have ourselves a problem. One could just as well just teach the message of Jesus Christ without getting into him being THE son of God, and then explaining who God is by going to the previous chapters of the "Good book" where it's mentioned how many atrocities are fine under the right circumstances - like murder, stoning, genocide,etc. Once the good judgmental daddy, and the nasty,wicked uncle theory gets into our head as children... I think it's hard to eliminate. Maternal religions of the past, promoting a love of nature, conservation and preservation... didn't lead to as much trouble as the paternal ones. Since the most dominant organized religions of the world are the monotheistic, Judeo-Christian ones, which lead to belligerent, oppressive, fanatical and psychotic fuckers... this is what gives me a slight cause for alarm about organized religion on a global stage in the 21st century, and beyond. Again, to reiterate, not all organized religions being taught in certain ways would lead to the present situations. As far as I can see it... you need these paternal ones. And it's perhaps easier to buy into one big daddy god, as opposed to a supergroup of Uncles like the Greek "myths". It doesn't demand so much authority does it? If you piss off one, you can always suck up to the other. Plus, the greek gods had limitations. They were horny like us, they didn't pay attention all the time, they made mistakes, and so on. In other words... they were all too human (and that was the intent I believe... the personification of human attributes in a higher and more extreme form). The reason I mention this here, is that I've noticed the argument that Christianity and Islam being so widespread, speaks of their "truth value". It doesn't. It just speaks of a war like nature of the dominant nations of the past that promoted them, the methods in which they bought subservience of the people they conquered, and the ease with which a paternal religion can demand authority with the right organized structure established to threaten you should you not follow. That's all that was required to ensure it being spread over time. That, in a nutshell, is the reason for its "success".

But all this is one thing. The thing that pisses me off is the blatant concealment of history by these religions. For an institution that demands such authority, and have for over a thousand years, they are painfully opaque about their origins. The scholars of these faith, the priests of Christianity for instance, are familiar with the all too human origins, both of their religion and of their institutions, but they keep them secret. If asked personally, they will probably tell. But on the podium, one only gets to hear the message, and the brainwashed sheeple are required to lap it up like golden chunks of truth. I'll focus only on the origins of the faith itself, and not on the institutions. It's more effective to get to the root, than deal with the superficial societal construct that followed.
The truth is that the Pentateuch, your Old Testament, were written by four "authors" (or rather author groups) between 950 BC and 550 BC - the Yahweists, the "Priestly"s, the Elohists, and the Deuteronomists. The Old testament is a clear copy paste of  these not so ancient texts. There's a decent enough historical evidence to see what was being said is not true, either completely or partially. Well, you protest, who is to say any source of history is authoritative? No one says any one source IS, but when there are several independent sources saying one consistent thing, and one source contradicting the rest, chances are that the one source is full of shit. Imagine reading texts from a thousand years from now, where there is some dominant religion (after we have all blown ourselves up, or drowned ourselves) saying that there once was a land called North Korea, and it was the greatest nation of the world. The people following this ancient text will believe strongly in it, and will claim that there was a God that rose from the mountain and all that crap. But there will be evidence from all other nations claiming that this is not true, painting a picture of the 20th and 21st century that is more or less consistent save for this one contradictory bit of literature acquired from North Korea. Who would you believe, given this evidence? If the organized religion from the time of our demise till the thousand year later period worked well enough, you'd believe that they're both arbitrary, and you'll believe that North Korea is the place where God was born and there was heaven on Earth. You can believe that, but you'd be wrong, just like you'd be wrong in thinking the old Kingdom was actually a Kingdom as opposed to a bunch of scattered tribes ... which is what is evident from archaeological data and from the input of neighbouring nations and tribes. This mind you, is not data acquired by some determined atheists. This is what Israeli archaeologists... and all other ones surveying the region have come to know. Nothing controversial here.  Neither was a Bethlehem found to have supported any colony around the time of the birth of Christ (and neither would it, since the nativity story was added afterwards in the "Matthew's Gospel", which essentially plagiarized the original one by Mark, the one by Mark being written some 30-40 years after the supposed death of Jesus). There were the Gnostics, who did promote the coming of a saviour, and spoke of a deeper truth. For all we know, there were hundreds of these prophets. It's possible one had more traction than the rest, but in any case, there is no historical data to support his birth. Some may claim, falsely at that, that since people made such a big deal of it, SOMEONE must have lived at that time for sure! Well, no. You're simply projecting the modern society's ability to promote information quickly via media into an ancient world, where I could have just walked to another city, made a bunch of shit up, and it would have spread like wildfire among a bunch of disgruntled people. It need not have had any truth value to it whatsoever. But that's besides the point. If we just stick to the New Testament, it is also very clear that Matthew, Luke and John, following up roughly a decade later in succession, essentially plagiarized the original by "Mark". That's all that we get from the historical data, and the point of it being plagiarized is the most probable explanation on account of the spacing in time between the different authors. You are free to disagree , since that point is not ironclad. What is though, is that it was written decades later. Following this (and here comes the part that is REALLY going to get me in trouble) five centuries later, a fellow comes up with Islam to bridge the tribes under one religion. Now, Muhammad almost certainly did exist, for there is clear evidence of the period before and after his time on Earth. There is no written evidence from this period, but someone like him probably did exist to form the uniform tribe that was spreading across the middle east. He probably did have very good intentions, and his message was indeed originally one of tolerating other religions. Indeed, when Islam was spreading till 1100-1200 AD, they didn't force their religion on the nations they conquered. People of different faiths (i.e. Christianity and Judaism), were allowed to follow their faith in most of the conquered parts. In Spain, they were the promoters of science and intellectualism.
I won't go into this further. All I wanted to do is present the history behind it. It's to show that these religions really came from an all too human source, from a time that was in no way uniquely special in terms of genies and dragons flying around. It was, as far as aspects of reality are concerned, "just like now". When presented with this, I should think it should make you feel a little humble about that faith you think is so divinely sourced. All too often, people just forget to question where those words in the text they use to proclaim the righteousness of something, or the wickedness of something else, really came from. They were written not too long ago, by people just like you. All you had to do was just take one step back and ask "where did this thing I value so highly, come from?" . You can obviously say that all that I said is bullshit. Well, go out there and get informed yourself. If you don't want to appreciate any bit of historical and scientific evidence, then there's nothing I want to say or can say. The programming as a child worked wonderfully on you. I'm assuming and hoping it happened as a child, because if you have consciously, as an adult, acquired such a strong affiliation, it makes it very hard for me to understand the extreme irrationality you possess.

Ok, so so far we've covered that organized religion is built on very human and earthly based constructs (and what I haven't covered is that the institutions were built with a whole lot of politics, suppression of information, and bloodshed) , and that should the religions they promote be taught in the way they presently are, there's going to be eventual conflict... which in the context of our modern and technologically advanced society where it gets increasingly easier to cause greater and wider scale harm with decreasing effort ... poses a bit of a problem.
But I haven't covered the God topic yet, have I? What if he/she/it really does exist?!! Well, maybe he/she/it does, but all that I'm saying is that you have as much access to he/she/it as did those people from a thousand years ago. Something spectacular might have happened, but there is no way to tell. The word of God you protest! You mean those bits of text that are scientifically and historically inaccurate, about the origins of ourselves and our universe? You mean those texts that put people of different nations and women on a lower platform, when we can understand full well that they are different but equal from a genetic standpoint? Is that the basis of the divinity argument? Because if it is , it only seals the man made point more than otherwise. It becomes increasingly more probable that we just came up with an imaginative way to make people follow rules and social norms that were considered appropriate at the time. I also don't think the same nativity story cropping up time and again is a sign of anything other than unintelligent plagiarism of an old tale that started in ancient Egypt.  But still , lets give the God thing some thought... specifically that man is important or special, worthy almost of his/her/it's attention. Well, let's look at the facts. There are a 100 billion galaxies in our observable universe (there are many more that we simply DON'T observe). There are a 100 billion stars in each of these galaxies, and around each of these stars there's anywhere from 2-4 "goldilocks" planets , on average*. That's something in the order of 10^22 life sustainable planets out there. And here some of us have the audacity to think that we are the pinnacles of life, we... the end product of a bunch of meek miniscule mammals that were allowed to reproduce in the aftermath of the extinction of the dinosaurs, all that being permitted by the chance collision of our planet with a meteor. Just think about that. Just think about how ridiculous it is to think that if there is a God, he/she/it cares for us in any special way. That we in any way could be the most evolved life form in the Universe after a 64 million year experiment left to run, in a Universe that's almost 14 billion years old. It's either got to be equally important, or equally indifferent... but nothing special. Why would the events concerning us humans on Earth, based on an artificial,self-sustaining, man-made system designed to support a growing population, be of ANY interest to "the" God?  This is all assuming "the" God exists. For if "the" God is just an evolved being in the Universe, there is no reason to buy into its rules any more than ants and other animals must cater to our rules (all of this assuming this "evolved being God" could communicate with us in some way, for which there is no evidence in the present or historically). We may find them a nuisance and squash them, or kill them, but that's just the exercise of our power to protest their hindrance to our plans, not because what they are doing is fundamentally wrong. A rat or cockroach does nothing fundamentally wrong... it is we that find it wrong from our perspective. In the same sense, this evolved being could very well be wrong about what is right for us.
I think that covers the God point.

 Perhaps I ended up going far deeper than I planned on, but I just wanted to be as complete as I could be on this topic.


P.S: I wanted to cover the attack of religious institutions and religious people on science and social rights, but I think the fact that they don't have a leg to stand on is sufficient an argument. The idea of things being "just a theory" however, I will cover...  in a separate (and much shorter) post. Yea, I'll use the title "Just a theory" for it.



*The goldilocks planets are those with the right distance from the star, such that the temperature is sufficient to have liquid water around. Since our universe is loaded with organic matter, it is very likely that these water laden planets will promote carbon based life. There could be life that is not carbon based (silicon for instance) , and it could function through something other than water. There may be alternatives to the carbon based energy cycles for life. So much for the sanctity behind the anthropic principle. All in all, the number for life arrived at is very conservative, but how much life is there in the Universe will have roughly the same order of magnitude, as an upper limit. 

Blast from the past - Insanity Crackers vol.1

The Unnecessary Background (Skip if you don't give a shit, straight to the "crackers" below):

I don't know if anybody knows this about me, but for the longest time... I wrote down almost all of my thoughts and e-xpressions.  This included any ideas that I had, which I considered "good", interesting or strange at the time; a considerable number of comments I wrote on websites, blogs and other places that I thought had either enough comedic value or "truth content"; physics ideas I thought were extremely interesting and important, and ideas about physics which I thought were worth investigating. This personal exercise began after I popped into existence, and went on till I began my Masters' Program, at which point I thought it quite important to buckle down, JUST focus exclusively on my self improvement in physics and get ALL other distractions and hobbies out of my way as much as possible (hence my lack of torrent use for movies and music, and my absence from the net). Turns out I got quite a social life back and ended up in a very deep relationship for a while... so the physics thing didn't quite work out ... as well as I planned anyway ;) . But, the point remains that the writing died.

Well, that's enough background that you may not have needed. The point of this post is to share a particular set of philosophical musings that I wrote on a YT channel I had a LOooooNG time back, one that hosted documentaries I found interesting.Long story short, YT blocked the channel because even if I did want to try to make the world a slightly better place by sharing and making accessible a bunch of documentaries dealing with art,science, history and philosophy that few people were aware of, but which were arguably topics that would increase their personal awareness and understanding of reality..... *DEEEEP Breath* .... thereby making them more informed and tolerant so as not to be swayed by manipulative external sources and forces like the public media, ....  it violated precious copyright laws on technical grounds, since YT making money off of them did not constitute fair play usage... technically..... *Another DEEEP Breath*... but this technicality could have just as easily been bypassed if I simply bothered to use a video editor to speed up or slow down the video at some point of the video for a brief bit of time; such videos being immune from cop(yright)blocking. (If you are thinking that the explanation to make the long story short was longer than the story itself, and are chuckling at the "irony".... congratulations for having the thought,but it was intended! That was the thing that was tickling my brain to make me do it. It's not an unintentional ramble by a deranged man! It's an intentional textual expectoration by a half witted gnat twat from curry land! Why doesn't anyone get my damn humour?!! Why?!! ( <-- Ok, this was unintentional ( I meant the lengthy explanation about the humour behind the short explanation being lengthy.... and not the fact that I put another set of parentheses inside a set of parentheses.... and whoop, wouldn't you know it.. I've done it again! Just like Britney Spears. (Well... not like Ms.Spears. She makes crappy albums over and over. I on the other hand am fond of nested parentheses apparently. There's a slight difference)))).

What was I talking about again? Oh yes... I had a channel. And on it I took the chance to share my wisdom at the time in the interest of giving them something to think about... which is never a bad thing. I called these "insanity crackers", and I'm going to share a couple here now, and the rest later. Upon reading what I wrote in 2007, it's almost like an "aww, ain't that cute" feeling that I'm getting. It's like me listening to a younger brother, or a younger me! Oh wait  ...


The Insanity Crackers:

Insanity Cracker 1:
"Fear is what runs our lives- The fear of being destitute makes us collect more money than we would ever need, the fear of dying alone makes us go on those god awful dates, the fear of being alone get us on youtube, in chat rooms and Myspace to name a few...the list goes on.Fears lead to insecurities which lead to a cyclic destructive paths being formed, cycles which seldom truly end. Yet in all this we neglect our greatest virtue, our human spirit, which can see light in the midst of darkness, joy when enveloped with the shards of broken dreams. Defiant against the curse of memory and the gift of foresight. Does not the bum on the street find moments of joy when there ought be none? The objects of fear are immeasurably weaker than the latent strength we all possess, stemming from our indestructible human spirit."


Insanity Cracker 2:
"Honesty , is not a badge of honour to be waved around by those open individuals comfortable with their shortcomings, who enjoy tormenting those who are ashamed and/or in denial of who, what or where they are. No, honesty and particularly self-honesty is a tool to be used by an individual to realize who and where they are at a moment, and thus give them the power to consequently go and be where they want to be. Lying to others is perfectly fine both logically and practically, PROVIDED you either have no direct responsibility to the other individual, i.e some actual relationship, and wish to spare their feelings over a reasonably harmless matter, or in the case of lying actually being in the interest of a greater, larger and demonstrable truth. But whatever you do.. NEVER lie to yourself, as far as is possible before breaking down and going insane. To do so will only lead to self-denial and perhaps even self-destruction."

Pubeocracy

I've been floating around a "radical idea" regarding voting for quite a while now, and I thought I'd share it here. The idea is simple- To make voting not an inalienable right, but an acquired right; a privilege. You've got to clear a screening test that will test you on your knowledge of current affairs, on present policies of the country or state, and on the policies being advocated by the people running for office (along with other aspects of their background if need be). Now reading this I know you're most probably thinking - "That's insane" . But really, it is very elementary. Agreed, it would be very tricky to set up such a system and procedure, especially when starting out with such a corrupt system to begin with, which is present to a different extent in virtually every part of the developed and developing world. They would obviously not favour such a system for obvious reasons that I'll get to in a bit. But getting back to the main point at hand, ignoring the question of how to set it up (which is by no means impossible), why is it so crazy? Think about it. The only criteria for a person to vote, technically speaking, is that they have pubic hair. That's it. Everything else is assumed.... quite falsely at that. That they'll be politically aware - false; that they'll be pro-active - False; that they'll vote in the best interest of their country - false; that they know what is in the best interest of their country because they know of the major issues of the country at that time, and the relation of the country with other nations - false,.... and on and on. A major reason why democracy at present doesn't work is that politicians are simply bought by corporations, and lobbyists, and so you largely are voting for puppets. But another part is that people simply don't pay attention to what the situation of the country or state is, what the policies being pushed by the candidates are, what are their track records,etc. The moment you have a populous that is aware of these issues and takes their ability to vote as a serious right that needs to be exercised, you'll  just as suddenly have a system which will put immense pressure on the political system which will permit no phonies, as it will be constantly scrutinized. The whole buying of politicians thing will be harder, new ideas will be required to fix old problems, and people will be able to determine if they make sense or not with regards to their knowledge of the issue. It won't be perfect, it won't be flawless, and it will have setbacks... but over time, there will most probably be a definite trend of progress, where by progress I mean making definite strides forward in fixing outstanding issues (market stability, development and prosperity,global standing, etc) .
That is what democracy ought to be, if you ask me and if I dare wish it to be such. You may very well retort that classically or conventionally that is not the true definition (which anyway would not be a wholly accurate thing to say), but even if it were... I then say change the damn definition. For me, the definition of democracy as is is not what's most important. The question ought to be: What system involving the participation of people will be the most productive, and will lead to maximum efficiency, ...both being seen with respect to the country or state? If that is the question, then just screening people on the basis of their age, irregardless of what they know at a bare minimum (ideally, what they understand should matter, but that is probably impossible to test in this context completely) is absolute lunacy... and I hope you agree.
When people vote of course some are informed, and some are not. The net effect by appropriate weighting , is that the impact of the informed cancels out with the impact of the uninformed, and all that you're left with are the constructively added up pubic hairs. Admit it, you know it .... we have a Pubeocratic system. Nothing more. Perhaps, something less.

The World's Dilemma / a random discussion aimed at giving you a cerebral massage

The world is pretty much... fucked. Or to say it more accurately, is constantly being fucked by certain people/groups whose actions and choices have a larger consequence on the world we live in. The real problem is that we let them. The real question is "why?". As a teenager, before the internet what it is today, I believed that the main problem is that we are all too mired in the habit of being both apathetic and distrustful; but fundamentally, if we could , we would make a difference. We would buckle down, do the "right" thing, and correct for errors like a good and proper democracy should.... if only we had the knowledge and capacity. If only. The habit made a lot of sense in the past, since our capacity to be truly informed on what is going on, leave alone making a difference, would have seemed like a fantasy. But with the internet, and its nature as of today... and what one could project about it in the future to within safe limits, there is absolutely no grounds to think that we can neither be informed, nor make a change. People are quite aware of this fact, and there have been a  lot of stupid "movements" created to create "change". For instance, the stupid "Kony"  movement that achieved nothing other than causing a jerk off showdown in San Francisco, and the Indian "Jan Lokpal" movement, that sounds pretty nice if you know nothing, but then sounds disastrous when you realize that what is being promoted is a parallel government with an unregulated body with nearly unlimited policing powers... without the ability of the members being incriminated. So "movements" like these take off in the "shit not hitting the fan" parts of the world, which may or may not even have a clear purpose (which is a major drawback of the "Occupy" movement/s) , are not carefully structured, are followed by people who haven't bothered to get thoroughly informed, and that achieve nothing... on account of it really being a jerk off movement in disguise (as my description attests to quite well). It has taken the "shit hitting the fan" situations in Egypt, Libya and Greece to really make the ones in power... shit their pants. And the fact that it takes such extreme situations of do or die, before people really do, that makes it clear what the real problems are.
1) People are too damn selfish: Think of "the prisoner's dilemma", that classic game from game theory. People will always choose the route that maximizes their chances. Given two prisoners caught in a crime, one prisoner will sellout the other if he can get a better deal, and odds are both will try this resulting in an outcome that is not the most "profitable" to either. And people do unfortunately think like this most of the time in all applicable contexts. It's precisely this driving force that make corporations, bankers and politicians screw people over time and time again. Their personal interests trump those of the people they serve or cater to, the environment, and everything else. Sometimes this is driven by sheer greed, sometimes to be competitive as in a political and business arena. Most of the time, I guess, it's both.
2)We don't have a set of "societal ground rules", aka the diversity problem : We live in a world where people choose to make science a matter of belief, and belief an issue of principle. All of this being a consequence of the aforementioned selfish point, coupled to that wonderfully disastrous property in humans to choose comforting beliefs over facts. But choosing comforting beliefs over facts in one thing, insisting that it should be what EVERYONE follows is wholly another. This gets nicely and thoroughly exploited by corrupt politicians and interest groups. I forgot to mention our desire to belong in a tribe, but sure, toss it in. The point stays the same.
3)Empathy: We have a limited capacity for empathy. When we did belong in small tribes, as we did for most of the 200,000 years we've been on Earth, it was quite easy to care about and suffer the consequences of our actions on account of being tribe leader. We simply cannot expect the same concern, or more importantly... the same level of concern out of our present leaders - business, state or otherwise, following their actions. It's this that makes waging wars and screwing the masses quite easy. ( This by the way is not a wishful thought. It's based on a couple of studies done on apes , a very interesting one was done in 2008, where I first got to know of this, and there have been studies on humans as well. I will try to find the link to the 2008 study and other interesting ones, and add it to the comments. The point is - empathizing with millions is impossible, and being unable to do that and have that level of personal impact as a consequence of ones actions makes the actions far easier to perform. It's one thing to think of starving people in Africa and feel bad... it's another thing to experience it personally. )

Having stated these it seems pretty damn bleak. After all, I've really just said that human nature and limitations is fundamentally to account for our shortcomings as a society, and there is no magical technology, no fancy app, nothing at all that will make much of a difference. Even if we had unlimited resources, it wouldn't do anything. You'd think that if there was plenty of water to go around, there wouldn't be the middle east crisis. But unfortunately, our society is structured in a hierarchical way (a triangular one)*, so that people at the top will have more influence.... they again cannot empathize with everyone, and they will follow through on the prisoner's dilemma route and look out for number one. You will have uneven distribution, you will have conflict. Mind you, this will be even in a system where we had EVERYONE equal, and I mean equal in a very strict way - same skills, talents, intelligence, etc, all the properties that go into deciding where one lands up in this hierarchy. If you try to fit all these people in the system, some will end up in the lower strata and fewer in the upper. In this case, luck and chance will have a dominant role in deciding placement, as opposed to our real world situation of having a better degree, having more talent, having influence, kissing ass, performing sexual favours, and so on. So even in a world with perfectly "identical" people, we will require this hierarchy for corporations, institutions and so on... and you WILL have people in the bottom ( This, by the way, is a pretty good argument for requiring a safety net to provide "basic needs" to all people in a society.... but I won't get into that). You could now imagine a future where robots did all our work, there was no hierarchy anymore, we DID have unlimited resources. In this world, it may be possible to have everything "right". But seeing how this is certainly not going to be in the near or even distant future, a solution ought to be sought.


I personally don't think it's hopeless for us. There are certainly solutions, but none that can be very easily implemented in the present. Indeed, getting some of these solutions going would lead to a Catch 22, and may thus never get going ever. I would have provided my personal solution/s (which are only two really) , but because they'd be a tad bit controversial, and because I'm as tired of writing now as you are by reading what I've written... I think I'll save it for later, if the desire and/or necessity arises. This anticlimactic situation of course does allow you to imagine your own solutions, or to just disagree and say "we're all screwed". Either way... you can end the movie any way you see fit, the play will follow its own course anyway.

* You might be wondering whether any other hierarchy other than the "triangular" one is possible... maybe "rectangular" one. Surely, not every hierarchy will lead to this "dilemma". Well, that may be... but I think we are stuck with the triangular one till we get the robots to do our stuff and take over us. Here's why. You need a system that is going to be stable in managing a growing population, and that has to cater to the needs of as many people as possible. You've also got to take into account human limitation. It is impossible for a person to effectively manage more than a certain finite number of people. So you need all those farmers and hunters, the sewer cleaners and so on. You need them to be managed, and those managers need to be managed and so on. When you take all of that into account, irregardless if we have a plutocracy or any other system with some other object of value (even a barter system), you will end up with this peculiar hierarchy, and this peculiar hierarchy is going to lead to disparity. It's what ensures you get what you need on a daily basis without having to do all that hard work yourself. It's what makes your day possible and reasonably comfortable, and what allows us collectively to grow the population. To have a stable system that caters to our exponentially increasing population, this hierarchy is just going to crop up.
(A shout out to my friend Mriganko Roy, with whom I had a vodka induced conversation that led to this addition in the post)


UPDATE: I have added my "solution" to the "dilemma" (I couldn't resist). You can find it here : http://lupineloopine.blogspot.in/2012/06/worlds-dilemma-my-rough-solution.html

Me?

Fuck it. This is probably going to be the worst rigmarole I'll ever produce. It's going to be long and it's going to be painfully blunt, but it's going to be relevant. Everything tangential shall be put at the end in case the topic interests you. It's something of a confession; it's me stripping before you with some cheesy porn music playing in the background. Here goes....

I want to do physics. I can't. I want to do physics not because I desire to do so (I mean in a genuine and one track sense) , but because it's most consistent with my beliefs. There is no real, raw, powerful curiosity propelling me forward... or in any case it's not dominant in my thoughts. My thoughts revolve around my true desires and longings, which are rather earthly, and which I'll get to in a moment. There is a rather strange form of "self-insignificance", one that has been tenderly nurtured by society to its present form. I can't live for me... I just can't, or rather I should say I can't live for a purpose where it is me that benefits at the end of it. My life will be selfish no matter what I do. I realized this long ago. But if those actions yield something that has a greater significance than just making my stupid 70 year old odd life more comfortable, by me having certain labels and trinkets that really mean nothing and do nothing other than upgrade me in a stupid social game, then it would be for the better. It would only be under such a circumstance that I COULD bother to live. Why this is is presently not relevant, but like most people, upbringing had a big part in it.... nature took care of the rest.

I was born to brood, and was bred to die. I'm a poet; forgive me ... I can't help it. I don't care much for this trait. I can see and imagine ridiculous things, which when coupled with my aforementioned trait, leads to some pretty crazy written material. This written material seems to amuse a few. I guess I'm funny. I say this since I don't know what funny really is other than an odd combination of surprise and twisted reality, but I do know that when you are funny you ought to make a good cross section of people laugh quite a lot of the time. I like making this happen at absurd costs. It gives me a reason to live when there often isn't anything else.
I worship truth, but the basis for this worship isn't so noble. Plagued by insecurity, looking at things from a knowledgeable and impersonal base served a way of looking beyond what others could see, and helped me find flaws in their arguments, judgments, reasonings and opinions. It empowered me, and I got addicted to it. At about the same time as this got a hold of me, I started to value what lay beyond everyday reality... the true underlying reality. It sounds Einsteinian, but really it had more of an anthropomorphic basis... the consideration of the possibility of fate and destiny; human events happening for a reason... yes, superstitious bullshit was a part of it, but certainly not all of it (Quantum mechanics was the rest). Education and "the consistency principle" (truth and reality is consistent) had shown me not too long after that such thoughts are childish. Feelings and thoughts merged to produce a person who is secure at the cost of being impersonal and detached. The need to belong and to be loved however hasn't been cured. My experiences have made me believe I am incapable of being loved. If it it was not possible for my closest friends and family to understand me ... or rather I should say, my labels and past indiscretions, after I explained it to them... then how can I expect strangers or anyone else to be capable of it***. Experience has confirmed that as people get closer to who I am, as well as knowledge of some of these labels, they choose to be farther away. The truth is I neither belong to the group of people who have really lived and had a lot of fun experiences, nor to those who have really tried to achieve a lot. The proof is my nature. Most could handle just fine I should think, in life under the constraints I was in, without having to become some fucking caterpillar and go into a cocoon... only to come out with some self empowering perspective where I fly over everyone's head. People take more before they crack.... people take more before they die. I however, was.. and to a large extent, am clearly weak, someone who could not handle the relatively slight heat at the time when people handled much more. This fact makes me feel small, and I often wonder what ridiculous achievement in the present or future will ever enable me to overcome this feeling of inadequacy produced by the non-actions of my past. These arise only when I am in a group of people, and these force me to go far away. I simply don't belong.
I say I'm not looking for love, and this is partially true. I think love is stupid... forgive me lovers. I think you are all delusional and see what you want to see, and are so narrowly aware of certain things that you miss the bigger picture. When I like or dislike something, when I experience something ... I always ask myself what would happen under different circumstances. I want to know the fine print, while most are content with the package as shown. This would make something like love (for another person) difficult for me in any case, for it requires me to trust and be selfless; it requires me losing myself to this person... something I cannot really do completely when I find out that she'd leave me if she knew this ... or that, or if her assumption here was shown to be false, and so on. It's too much of a hassle, and it's too fake.... like being drugged up for a while. I personally would accept reality for what it is and be sad for a bit while I figured out what was required of me to get out of the problem, than be happy in some make believe world where happiness depends on me not testing the conditions of this relationship, which were it tested... it would surely fail except with the most remarkable of people. Yes, I am painfully cynical as well. It's just my nature.

But I would be lying if I said this was it. This perspective is relatively recent. No, there is something deeper. The truth is I can't stand rejection. As people get closer, they grab hold of you more and more, such that when they go away they rip you apart. Just faintly recalling the instances of rejection right now by those I cared about has plunged my heart into some tar pit; some void. It actually feels like this. So were I less aware and less mentally dominating than I am today, I would still not go there with the exception of some extreme circumstances. I would still not look for her... for to find her would mean certain pain, the kind of which I am not ready to experience. Not now... and certainly not then. Maybe it could have been possible if I didn't know what I do now... but I can't fool myself in important matters anymore (and be happy about it).
The last significant piece of the puzzle - I can't stand fooling myself. I screwed myself in the past by assuming and expecting things that were not true, by not seeing the complete picture. I got my emotions and my mind wrapped up in things in a disproportionate way. I didn't bother to ask what would make me happy; I didn't bother to realize I can't have EVERYTHING. I was naive and stupid, a dangerous combination. My perspective makes me make sense of the world. Recently, in an internal examination whose results are going better than expected, but which are still pretty damn bad (a natural consequence of the amount of preparation put in, mind you), I had something of a "truth crisis". I couldn't resolve how a day's preparation is all that separated me from two completely different labels. It was, as I put in an analogy to a friend (or rather, a person becoming a friend) a few hours ago, as if drinking a cup of water is all that separated you from a weighing scale saying you're 60 kilos or 120 kilos. It so happens that both the scale and label it produces are wrong, and that our sense of worth... our weight, has to be determined in some other way, irregardless of how well accepted the system and the interpretations of the labels are. I have no problem breaking down what the marks do mean... I've been doing it for three years when I've been up on the scale... but it tires me to explain it over and over, and it can't be done for an infinite sea of non-thinkers. It bothered me then, as it bothers me now. It wouldn't have if what was put into question here was the integrity of our abilities... which should be independent of the societal circumstances. Truth to me, as far as self is concerned, involves having the same nature independent of social and societal factors. I've narrowed it down to this definition... again as far as oneself is concerned.* I aim to be something consistent, irregardless of social circumstances.** There could be some aspects muted at some time (like my ability to crack a few stupid jokes), which are there but not called for by my environment. What should never happen (and I will indeed say should), is me being inconsistent with my beliefs through my actions. The real challenge for me however is that of overcoming thoughts to be consistent with truth, and this with all my sacrifices and mental efforts and reminders, has just not happened. Desires still preoccupy me.

I guess the heart wants what it wants, even if at the end of it lies a submersion into a tar pit. I'm beginning to accept this as an aspect to me. My present growth in my ability in physics is allowing me to feel more relaxed and not be so ... rigid. I'm thinking that relaxing a bit might be the right thing to do.. but sensible relaxation, ever aware of what's most important. No escapism. No binges. I need not disappear from the internet, or shut all people out. I am presently fooling myself a little... a teensie, weensie, WEEEEEEENSIE bit, with a few people in real life. I think I'll add a couple of people I know online to this "group" as well. My heart has been set to oscillate above a bubbling tar pit upon realizing I can have in depth discussions with them on either physics or philosophy, and in the case of a recent addition, both. I think this inclusion won't last long, ... that the dip into the pit is but a few moments away, certain to happen if I could magically reveal all that I am... but I'm for once not listening to my mind. Life's good! I'm happy to be alive. Bubble away tar pit, bubble away. My mind really is a bitch.



Fuck, I have outdone myself this time haven't I? My volume keeps increasing; there is no limit. If only my textual extensions matched my sexual ones, I'd make a blue whale turn white (elephant).


* Truth in any other case can either be a synonym for reality, or for the set of underlying laws for a particular system. Of late I've been thinking again about what it means to be "real", that being in a social setting is a different environment altogether from one where you're all alone... and as such the consequences will be different. We ought to necessarily act differently when in public than when we are in private, that neither is any more real than the other... but both are nothing more than the consequences of ourselves placed in different settings. This is true provided you want to follow the path of least resistance, the path of most comfort. In that case, we end up doing many things that are flawed, wrong and incorrect with respect to what we believe and think, and just go with the flow. We could end up doing many things that make us feel miserable on the inside over the course of time. The opposite is to be principled and have character. I can't end this with some happy conclusion, for shocking as this may sound, I really don't know in general which path is better for an arbitrary individual - the path of immediate gratification, least resistance and potential destruction, or the path of self denial, courage and potential achievement. I don't think absolutes are good for anyone, though one should try to see if it helps. Experiment away to know yourself.


** I strive to have a nature, a set of thoughts and ideas... all internal, such that the results from this shows me to have a certain skill and ability. In this case only, does label= reality. Imagine a test on your ability to walk. Those of us with able legs will pass very well on any test where we're asked to walk in circles, in a straight line, over a slightly funny path on some strange terrain and so on (If you're saying certain bow legged folks, and folks who are drunk can't manage it... if you're that picky, then fuck you. There's no such thing as a perfect analogy, so stop being so anal about my shit O_o. Play along wonchye?) . So here, the ability to walk is real, and the test actually reflects this mastery. What presently happens is that there are a set of bums who roll around, who a day or a week before the exam manage to drink some coffee... and with this they can wobble around on two legs for some time. Others manage to grab hold of some of these wobblers in a cheeky way and cheat the onlooker into thinking he or she can walk... and there are some who are fortunate that a smooth slope designed for their legs was involved in the test, that enabled them to walk alright (whose result would be drastically different under some other testing circumstance). This then is the problem, in the form of an analogy. Were I to have done really well by a fluke, I would have felt worse than I do now. I must become the real deal, and now is the time to act... hence my absence from the internets, which I'll try from now on to not make absolute. I need not go THAT far... it's simply not necessary. I am human after all, I have to pause for a bit, if not a day. I'm growing.. slowly, and I hope inner peace lies at the end of this venture.

***Some may say that was not love then, since love is not shallow, label-centric and superficial. No... love is selfless and pure! .. you protest.
But let's face it ... love is, like all other human emotions, quite superficial - quite dependent on labels. It's not who you are that people fall in love with, it's what you represent.. what you appear to be. So as far as social reality is concerned, your labels ARE who you are.
Two points on this matter shall seal my point, just for you straight ladies who are deep and non-superficial -
1) You love a person for a certain deep trait right? A person whose mind works a certain way. Now consider two men, identical with respect to this nature... just one ends up looking like a hunk, I dunno.. Pitt, Depp or what have you, .. and the other is, to put it mildly, "unattractive". You may NOT assume that the attractive person will have less insecurities and thus have less character or anything else of the sort. They are both identical, mentally speaking, with the exception that they are both two different people. Who do you pick to be with?
... so much for love being blind.
2)You love someone for a certain quality. An aspect of his personality. Ok, now this quality was acquired because of the person having had a certain set of experiences... largely. This person you love has flaws. Now let's say you find another person, who is just one small experience away from having this trait. POW... he just got it! He lacks the flaws of the one you're supposedly in love with. What happens now? Do you stick with the one you love, or fiddle around with the new one? This, incidentally, is just a redefinition of how people fall out of love. What happens with time is the woman in the relationship undergoes a change in values ... her needs change, and the "cons" bucket keeps filling up with the dude she's involved with... either because he's getting too old, or is not living up to her expectations. She then finds someone who lacks the cons, and who satisfies her present criteria for falling in love, i.e having this trait she needs... and she thus "moves on". In my case, I kept the trait constant, but fiddled with the "cons" side of the scale of the other guy.
Point: 1) Love (practically speaking) is seldom selfless, and ultimately is selfish as far as MOST humans are concerned.
2)Love is superficial. Women will be drawn to those more attractive and powerful, all other traits held constant. I didn't bother using men in my examples because it's too easy. Where's the challenge in that?!
Please do cite a case of realized ideal love, where both lovers involved are selfless under extreme circumstances. I'd love to hear it. If you do come up with ONE... think of the odds - one in how many billion billion?

Ignorance IS bliss

Here's a simple enough post to kick things off. I get pissed off when people keep speaking about finding things that make you happy. Of course, I too say it, but what I mean is that I hope they get what they desire .. at that moment of time. You see, happiness is a really funny thing, just as comedy is something that makes you happy. There is always an angle to our happiness. If you're poor and working like a dog, happiness would be being rich and having nothing to do. If you're weak and insignificant (in your head ... or maybe to a considerable degree in reality) you want power and to be treated with respect. And it goes on and on.

Now I know what you're thinking. I've insulted you and I've disgraced myself. Such simplistic notions! Fair enough, I was just warming up... and by "you're" I only mean what is observed statistically. So let's try to generalize it all and work with what human beings are... all of us. We all have our basic instinct to have comfort, to have an overabundance of resources and to be "up" in whatever social system exists. All three traits would exist at any time and under all circumstances. What happens with some people is that a perspective is formed which changed the importance they give to these things. Say, a person realizes the brevity of life... sharply. (These realizations are usually sharp to overcome the accumulated urges that have formed over thousands of years of our evolution) . The time to think about these things, as well as the potential to have many lifestyles, is the cause for this. So modern life, to a large extent, is responsible for this new "force" that dictates our lives and has changed the trajectory from just finding food and having sex. This too may be taken as a fundamental aspect of our lives... the increasing percolation of information through the media, that has an ever increasing effect on our outlook of the world. What happens unfortunately with such a large environment*, is that we are aware of greater levels of achievement, whose standards none of us can reach to that degree. We can't have it ALL is another way of putting it... and we do want more as was indirectly established through the discussion of our fundamental nature.

Now you may protest at this point (congrats for giving a shit to read this far!) and say that you've figured it all out; you know your priorities. You know what means something to you... and you're following a well orchestrated plan to get it. You're happy following it and you WILL be happy. Sure, this means you sacrifice some things, but ALL things considered, it's the best option... and you KNOW it, and knowing this only makes you happy.

There's a problem. The problem is you feel. The problem is that there is an angle for happiness, broadly... in both thoughts and feelings. So while you can say that doing the things that satisfy the deepest desires of your mind does make you happy, you can't say... with certainty, that experiencing the deepest of your emotional and sensual desires, won't make you happy. Even if you could disregard one in favour for the other, let's say you favour the desires of the mind, then there is a second most desirable thing for your mind... maybe an equal, but one which you consider "unfeasible" due to practical considerations. These practical considerations are quite often false reductions of reality on the basis of statistics. For instance, when it is said people are stupid... this just means that should I pick a person on the street there is a high probability that this person is "stupid" going by whatever standard that statistical measurement involved (aptitude tests, general knowledge, logic, etc). None of these things speak of the potential of growth of this person. Does this stupid person have to be stupid forever? Is this person's stupidity time independent? No, of course not. Similarly, neither is the state of society, of your social situation or pretty much anything else that you might consider in your own personal "happiness equation". Reality is completely pliable in practically every department... it has to be since it is linked with society that is never the same due to changes in technology (the way we interact gets affected by this), in our understanding of the world and each other, and in the political changes and continual reformations of retarded policies of our more retarded medieval past. These facts are completely ignored most of the time to simplify the situation for us and to mask us from the reality, that reality for us is filled with immense potential.... provided we try (sometimes a lot... but the important thing is to keep at it). If you'd live for 500 years, you'd succeed eventually with all that trying ... but maybe not if everyone else lived that long as well. Reality in all honesty cannot be reduced, for it is directly dependent on you. Reality is a function of you and your actions. It may take time before your actions manifest in a way that is easily perceptible... but you always do make an impact, infinitesimally small as it may be.

But let's step away from what reality could be to what reality is. I think it is safe to say that no one can accurately gauge every aspect of reality related to our desires. Say you want to be a businessman. The driving force will be one or two things.... you're desire to be an entrepreneur with your own thing that you control.... you big fucking man... YEAH!, and also to be rich. You're probably not considering business permits and 14 hour days managing a bunch of people you need to constantly supervise. You're probably not considering the fact that a good proportion of them won't like you. You've almost definitely not considering the small likelihood that one of them in time could be crazy and would want to stab you for firing him (mostly hims do that kind of thing.). You're probably not considering the difficulties that could arise from anomalous societal events like the recent economic meltdown. You're probably not considering things that are important at the moment that you unfortunately do not value, but which you will at the time when you are asked to sacrifice it to progress your business. What I'm getting at is that your perception is flawed. And so far, I've not even tackled the point of your primary two drives being just a temporary desire on the basis of your contemporary situation!
How does one then really know something? One can't. Reality will tell you that. You have to prove it to yourself that your values are such and such, and that you really desire it. When the test from society comes... if you stand up and fight for it, THEN you know you desire it. BUT, there's always a price. You have to give something up. The bigger the prize, the bigger the price. That's the rule. No matter how one track and gifted you are, that's the rule. So at that point you can comfort yourself with the coping mechanism that you've acquired the best state you could possibly get out of reality (or to be honest, your perception of it at the time of forming your "value system"... the thing that determines what's "most desirable") .. but know full well that that's bullshit. It is true that there are some causes and things in reality that are more noble, virtuous and worthy than others, that will be generally perceived to be so by most people in most times on account of our nature. What is not true is our happiness depends on living a life in sync with this perception. It could be that should you have lived that alternate life with creature comforts and with that person who you could confide and trust and share wonderful life moments with.... that you would have been happy. It is after all pleasurable due to it satisfying some desire or another, innate or formed. Over time and repeated exposure, who is to say that the scales could not tip in favour of this supposedly less desirable thing should you have acquired it. Upon this being more realistic, you may have deemed the other reality (the one which you most desired and slogged like a street dog for) unachievable and impractical.

With all the uncertainty in the perceptions of the human mind and the nature of social reality, as well as the impact of knowledge upon our happiness** , it is impossible to state a formula for "true happiness". All states that we could achieve will have something to be happy about, and something that will make us feel miserable. If you have a life where you've achieved something through a lot of mental effort, then thinking about the emotional losses could make you unhappy, and vice versa (and when I say vice, I mean reverse the vice). You may think a balance is good idea, but then you cannot compare with the other people "out there". You may try to find solace in your knowledge of "truth".... but the human system, which is what we're concerned with .. has nothing to know (as I mentioned earlier, time determines what is and what is not) , and no real truth. Change the environment, and you change the perception. No matter how fixated a person is on a certain topic, you can set up an environment to change his mind. Simple example: starve any person, and they'll end up thinking of food like no computer geek has ever though about McDonald's burgers. You can set up hypothetical harems for sexual drives, hypothetical control over esoteric and difficult subjects to test over-achievement and so on. Point: no absolutes. Implication: No truth.

The happiness I have been referring to is that liberating, boundless joy that we had as kid... true happiness if there ever was something of the sort.... not quiet contentment. This happiness can be achieved by only those who have a mind that conceals reality (those who are ignorant), or a reality that conceals the mind (falling in love and other mentally distorting experiences). Over time the truth seeps through, and well... it's over.

There's nothing wrong or right here... this was just a discussion (with myself) on a topic that just is. If you're perceptions were contrary to what is... well, I hope you now perceive better. If you think I'm wrong about something (I suspect I crossed the bounds a bit here and there) then feel free to point it out... with the right basis of course. By that I mean that your arguments should be based on something factual, or things and concepts that are "real" (to be defined a bit more in a future post).

If you hated reading all of this, blame Misspacman08. My discussion with her on "life choices" led to some subsequent thoughts, which formed the basis of much that was typed here. She's truly an emerald in a growing sea of poo. Thank you for existing, MP.


*I mean social, mental and physical environments... all aspects of reality that we can, and do, relate with.
** I've assumed we get more knowledgeable with time, which is true for all but a very, very, very small number of "special" people.