Saturday 14 April 2001

Pic of the day: Screenshot from the RPG Daggerfall. It felt vaguely more relevant than the snow falling outside.

God or beast

For some obscure reason, people still throw around quotes by Aristotle. I've read about the guy in my philosophy books, and I have to admit that he was doing an admirable job for his time, trying to establish a more down to earth philosophy than Platon. Not that this takes much, but he really worked long and hard and wrote many books. It seems that unlike much of the classical literature, these works survived the dark ages and the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria.

The other day, I was exposed to a quote supposedly from Aristotle, saying that anyone who does not need to live with other people must be either a god or a beast. My reaction, by and large, was: Aren't we all a little of both?

(It bears mention that Aristotle also recommended that men tie off their left testicle if they wanted a boychild. So you may wish to take his authority as less than divine. Of course, I have never taken that advice either, but still.)

***

April last year was a good month when it comes to writing. I am quite impressed by some of my thinking back then. In particular, that I managed to derive so much knowledge and wisdom from playing Alpha Centauri, that's respectable. Anyway, I shall re-iterate one of my main points from back then, because it is very relevant right here.

There are a few other creatures on Earth that have a similar level of intelligence as ours. The apes are somewhat dumber than us, but still smart enough to learn some language and quite a bit social behavior. Several species of dolphin have an intelligence at human level or slightly above. They solve maze puzzles easier, they remember both actual objects and symbols better, and they have an advanced language (which we sadly don't understand, and they not ours). They also show a very advanced social behavior, and they are bright enough to treat humans more like fellows rather than just animals. (Sadly this is not always mutual either.)

However, of all species we know, only humans have infinite self awareness. That is, we are aware not just of our bodies, but of our minds. We are aware of our self awareness, and of our awareness of self awareness. (And so on for as long as we care to go on.) We have a feedback loop.

This is important because it allows us to monitor our own thoughts and emotions, and adjust them on the fly ... before they are output. We can act as an influence on ourselves, in much the same way as a very close human partner could have done, only faster and more accurately.

The feedback loop allows us to adjust our thoughts and emotions, to stabilize them on such a level that the output will be acceptable to society. Think conscience, thought the conscience is really just a subset of this. But, the feedback loop does not necessarily work this way. It is quite possible for it to tend toward one or the other extreme, especially when not adjusted by regular input from others. A runaway feedback loop means that our thoughts and emotions are not adjusted toward the norm: They are going gradually more and more toward one extreme. God or devil, beast or machine.

***

The individual is not necessarily the best judge of his own mental status, though. The christian Bible has a fascinating prophecy, that the anti-Christ, also known as the Beast, shall take seat in God's temple and pretend to be God. Now isn't that an image: The beast pretending to be god! Most of us don't go quite that far. But the fact remains, we are not always the perfect judge of our own character.

I dare guess that this Beast fellow won't be married, or he would definitely get to hear well in advance that he wasn't God. When two humans live together, they can adjust each other. When one gets too high or to low, the other will usually react to correct that. If love songs are anything to judge by, people are mostly concerned with having someone to pull them up when they feel low. But the opposite is certainly equally useful.

Baby, when I get down I turn to you
and you make sense of what I do,
I know it isn't hard to say.
But baby, just when this world seems mean and cold,
our love comes shining red and gold
and all the rest is "by the way".

Dire Straits: Why worry.

Of course, it does not always work out that well. Particularly when the beast tries to play god, it can be very uncomfortable to be adjusted. The family group is a constant source of friction. By and large, though, it has shown to be quite useful to most people. And even those who are not part of a family group, tend to seek out human company even when not paid for it. I guess I do too, in as far as I visit message boards and even occasionally an IRC channel on the Internet. So it is a shadow of a shadow of what most people need in terms of human company, but it is still something.

"We need to be close to other people as surely as we need food and water" says Psychology Today. Of course they would say that. Another publication might say that "we need to be close to God as surely as we need food and water". It all depends on your personal experience and outlook. As for my humble self, I can get by pretty long on myself. Because not only is the Kingdom of God within me, but there is definitely also the beast within. I'm not going to give any examples today, but take my word for it.

And this, I guess, is how it must be. Perhaps even should be. Whether incarnated in yourself, your spouse or your siblings, the divine and the beastly will always be there, somewhere, for as long as you remain human.