Category Archives: human mind

Two confidences

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“Just how perfect can I be?” There are two very different ways one can arrive at this feeling. One of them is very much more likely when you are young.

Pew Research, who (fittingly for their name) found out that American Christians knew less about religion than anyone else in America, have also found out that Democrats also know less about politics. The parallel is striking, if you ask me. The less you know, the more you are into it… or?

It is a bit more complex than that, in both cases. See, the study shows that the Democratic party has two very different groups of voters. The one that gives them the bad score is the barely literate working class workers who are connected to the party through their union and don’t need no facts to disturb them. The other part of the party, much smaller but quite important, is the academic elite. They tend to do the thinking for the party, and are pretty well informed. They also tend to be a bit remote from the mainstream, to put it that way. (Luckily for the Democrats, the elite of the Republican party is not exactly the man in the street either.)

The Democratic party, like all leftist parties (of which it is quite possibly the least leftist in the world, but by American standards it is leftist) has these bold plans to reform society. There may be two very different points of view that lead to this aspiration, and I will show how these fit the two main voter blocks mentioned above.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the overconfidence of the ignorant. Because they know so little, they think there is very little to know, and so they overestimate themselves. Looking at others, they have no clue how to estimate them either, so will randomly put them down or up depending on unrelated factors.

Once you learn a bit – not a lot, but enough to get an overview of that particular field – you realize that you have been an idiot, and your confidence plummets to record lows. It stays low for quite a while as you continue to study, but gradually climbs as you amass a wide and deep knowledge base. In the end, it is clear to you and your fellows in this particular field that you are a leading expert. You start getting used to the fact that others just don’t know what they’re talking about, and gradually you stop listening to them. In this way you enter the second and last overconfidence, the overconfidence of the elite.

You may wonder why I call it overconfidence when they actually are the best, head and shoulders and chest above the rest. The answer is: Because they are still not God, they are not omniscient, not by a long shot.

The exception to this rule is Ryuho Okawa … according to Ryuho Okawa. I have mentioned before that I can totally understand why he thought he was a god. When you read (and write!) more books in a year than most successful people do in a lifetime, it is hard to find your place in the rank and file of what normally pass for humanity on this planet. Not that I am like that or anything, I am just an ordinary superhuman. ^_^

Now the tenured elite in America have not actually come out and called themselves God and Savior, but they clearly do believe there is no other being in the universe that is above them, and they have bold plans to make life better for the lesser humans, this time through social engineering.  Wanting to reshape the very soul of a nation according to their untested ideas (or, in some cases, tested and failed) is almost certainly reaching too far.

Luckily democracies are really good at oscillating, so that after a few years of Democrats there will be a spell of Republicans and so back and forth. Religion does not have this natural oscillation. This is why I would rather have democracy than theocracy, no matter how well-meaning the theocrats are. In fact, the more well-meaning, the more likely to go completely overboard. The more certain you are of your own righteousness, the more clearly evil are those who oppose you, and unfortunately they just have to be removed with extreme prejudice.

Socialism, as I have said before, is essentially a political religion. It is no coincidence that communist regimes, the extreme of socialism, murdered millions and millions and millions of people over the past century, not just in one country but several. For the betterment of mankind, of course. (Social democracy, on the other hand, is still subject to oscillations. To refer to a country like my native Norway as “socialist” is pretty ignorant. Rather, any democracy will eventually move in the direction of the majority voting for money to themselves, from the savings of the past generations first and then by borrowing from the future, until the creditors shut the door. As we say about Greece: When your socialism fails, blame capitalism!)

But enough about the sad political religion of the left.  Let us see whether true religion also has two prongs, like politics have. The large mass of staunchly religious would be those who don’t know enough about religion to even doubt it. Then there would be a large number of doubters in the middle. And finally at the other end there would be those who have studied religion in great detail, both in theoria and praxis, and have confidence because they truly know in what they believe.

And unlike socialism, which wants to change the world from the outside, changing circumstances, true religion seeks to change the individual from inside. Therefore change always begins with ourselves. As the Christian Bible says: “It is now the time when the judgment begins with God’s house.”  Such a confidence can be tested quickly and effectively through the experiences of daily life. In fact, it cannot avoid being tested. Then our divine nature (or lack thereof) will definitely show itself.

But once you have studied religion enough to realize your ignorance, there is no going back (unless you stop really early, I guess). Madness is not the only danger in books: There is also the danger that something may be understood that can never be forgotten. You have to keep learning, working your way up from the lowlands of doubt until you reach the city on the hill. And our understanding, or lack thereof, will be tested in our own lives sooner or later. A saint or sage can say: “Come follow me!”. Listen for this from your pastor or rabbi, and the same from your congressman, and it will serve you and your country well.

Stupid people don’t read this

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“Even if they can’t read the message, they would know what this picture means.” In the days before widespread literacy, there was sacred art, sacred architecture and sacred music. But I can only paint and compose in words.

There is no comma in today’s subject line. There is no need to say “stupid people, don’t read this”, because they can’t. It is too much bother for them, poor things. tl;dr as they say these days.

I know this not just from the level of response I get, but also from this article in Business Insider: Bite-Sized Chunks Of Info Are Best. Here we learn that “Humans can only process small amounts of information at a time” … “There is no chunking here, there is not progressive disclosure. It’s just all the information thrown on the page all at once. The result? You don’t read it, you just leave.” Sounds like one of my regular pages, don’t you think?

Well, there is nothing wrong with just leaving. Even though I write mostly in middle school level language, it may just be too much for ordinary humans. I am not all surprised; I went to school with ordinary humans. They keep the wheels of capitalism turning, but I’d feel rather weird if they started hanging out here in droves. I mean, it would be kind of nice if they could learn happiness from me. But they would probably look mostly at the pictures and headlines and conclude that “the key to happiness is to be single, play computer games and watch anime.”  ^_^

***

As I have said before, I actually have a lot of respect for simple-minded people. Many of them manage to persevere and often accomplish something in this life, even though they walk as if in a fog. Many live morally, even though they are not able to foresee the sorrow and heartbreak that immoral living would cause for themselves and others further ahead in time. I am certainly not all-knowing, but often I can see such things ahead and it is simply practical to drop such temptations as gambling, non-medicinal drinking, pyramid schemes and careless flirtation. They are, past a certain point, not even tempting. But for those who can’t see the world as if from a very high place, these and many other temptations are mostly resisted by faith alone, or fear of getting caught.

I – and you, if you have read this far – are privileged. Written words are our friends, not our enemies. And so we are allowed into the library of the ages, there to learn from the great teachers who have preceded us. They teach us not only facts, but how to think, sometimes even how to think about thought. It is like a kind of superpower, of the type that starts small and grows over time and use. But with great power comes great responsibility, as Jesus Christ said. Wait, that was not exactly what he said… “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required” is the old-fashioned English version. But the point still stands, and it is a rather sharp point and painful to touch for me.

I don’t want to go to my eternal dwellings yet. I have still so much to learn, and so much to teach. I wish to say all the worlds that should be spoken, before they are lost forever. But how, when I cannot reach those who need it the most?

 

Universal genius

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Yozora is not desperate to have friends, because she has books and an invisible friend. Clearly a case of genius! Also note how many thin books there are on the shelf behind her. That’s because they are written in kanji, a much more compact script than ours. Yes, all these things appear in today’s little essay.

“Universal genius” is a literal translation of the Norwegian word “universalgeni”, which is roughly equal to “polymath” in English, but easier to understand. It is actually based on a Latin phrase (“genius universalis”) and is also used in nearby languages.

A related term is “Renaissance man”, as the ideal at the time was a person who was thoroughly familiar with all the arts and sciences. The world had recently emerged from the Middle Ages and retrieved the knowledge of the Classical era of ancient Greece and Rome (with a little help from our Muslim friends, or sometimes enemies). At the same time the printing press had made knowledge easy to spread, and the era of great discoveries had expanded the world greatly. It was a time of opening of the human mind in space and time, leaving the cloistered garden of the previous era. It seemed that nothing would now be impossible. That turned out to be a bit optimistic, of course.

In our modern age, nobody can be an expert in all sciences. In fact, it is probably impossible to be an expert even in one science, such as history or physics or chemistry: They each cover so much ground that you can only have a moderate knowledge of each sub-field, and there will be many, many people who know more than you about the details.

Even so, some of us feel that a broad overview of human knowledge is important. Without it, we cannot easily – if at all – understand our own place in the world. There are those who don’t care: As long as they get paid and preferably enjoy their specialized work, it does not matter to them whether it is meaningful in a broader sense. But not all of us can be satisfied with this. We want to see the world as if from a much higher place, where it becomes obvious how all things are connected. Luckily this is still possible, but perhaps not common.

Universities were founded to give a universal education, as their name implies. I think it is fair to say that things have changed a bit since then, although there is still an element of this expansive role of higher education. Even a century ago, a “liberal education” did not mean being indoctrinated in leftist politics, but rather an education that was free from attachment, a study of knowledge for its own sake or for the sake of the student, rather than associated with a particular career. The original meaning of the “liberal arts” were those that were considered suitable for a free citizen. So universities would teach universal truths with the purpose of setting the student free, to make his own decisions and choose wisely how to contribute to society. (Your university may vary.)

***

Myself, I don’t even have a university education. I have two school years of college-level education, paid by my employer, and it was (unsurprisingly) mainly about economy and law, not philosophy. I have read randomly about the sciences from my early childhood, but did not really think hard about First Principles until middle age. Still, already for many years I have seen the sciences as a vast dome, where there are no lines (much less walls) between each science and its neighbors. For instance, astronomy seamlessly changes into cosmology as the scale of things increases. But cosmology is not the end of the world (except in the most literal sense). It wraps around to quantum physics, which again is fundamental to chemistry, which again cannot be separated from biology and medicine…

I don’t see many people who are even officially interested in seeing the world like this, as an organic unity. It is not something I have striven to achieve, cutting out parts that did not fit in or adding controversial fillers. It is a natural result from grazing all over the place since I was little. My father has a similar attitude, I think, but he grew up in an age where knowledge was hard to come by. So did I, for that matter, but not for as long. Today, the place where I had to dig wells for information is so flooded with it that people are striving not to drown. Information overload.

***

As I said, it is probably not possible to be a universal genius today, but one who still tries is your would-be god and savior from Venus, Ryuho Okawa. Those extraterrestrial and religious aspects may be somewhat creepy, but you can’t go wrong with reading 1000 books a year. Of course, I can’t prove he actually does that, but it certainly looks like he has an extremely wide-ranging knowledge. And it just may be possible in Japan, because Japanese books are mainly written with kanji, signs that represent a basic concept.

There are a bit over 1000 kanji in modern Japanese books and newspapers; most words consist of two kanji, some common words of only one. For grammatical particles and words that lack modern kanji, Japanese use hiragana, a syllabic script (each letter is one syllable rather than one sound). This makes for extremely compact books compared to English, and particularly well suited for speed reading.

When we speed read, we don’t look at the individual letters but use the brain’s amazing pattern matching ability to recognize words or even groups of words by their shape. Expremients have shown that we reogcnize words, epseically long words, mainly by their first and last letter and the length of the word. (Teachers are probably an exception to this as they are conditioned to become very agitated if every letter is not in the right place.)

Japanese, and Chinese even more, skips the whole letter phase and teaches the shapes of the concepts that are the building block of the language. As such, once you know all the signs so well that you don’t have to stop and think, you can read these languages at a ferocious speed. The more you read, the better you get. So 1000 books a year is definitely doable.

For the same reason, I believe that the West will inevitably fall behind in the information age. China, Japan and Korea will dominate the world unless they manage to get themselves into yet another war with each other. It is too late for us to change to a pictographic language now, and we also lack the culture of reverence for learning. We had some of that, but not to the same extent, and it seems to be fading now. Japanese children do as much homework in a day as American children do in a week, according to The Economist. Here in Norway it has been proposed to abolish homework entirely.

To return to what may be the world’s strangest man, Ryuho Okawa, you can (and almost certainly will) be wary of his claims to be a god from outer space and able to summon the spirits of everyone who has ever lived on Earth (and probably Venus as well). But anyone who has written 800 books and reads 1000 books a year is definitely a genius, and probably the closest we come to a “universal genius” these days. Although the words of Aristotle come unbidden to mind: “No great genius has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

It may be that the price of being a universal genius is a touch of universal madness. That would be a high price indeed. Of course, madness may be partly at least in the eye of the beholder. According to the Gospel, Jesus’ family thought he had lost his mind when he was out preaching. I have acquaintances even today who hold the same view on him. And while I am just barely extraordinary myself, I would not be surprised if people are already getting suspicious. Not least after an entry like this. ^_^

 

Stupid, ignorant fools!

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Don’t get it? Color me unsurprised.

“Stupid, ignorant fools!” Does today’s title sound like someone you know? Perhaps like a good many people you know? It should, for it is the human condition. If I am a little wiser than the average, it is largely in this that I am aware of the foolishness in myself as well as others.

There are the great thinkers of history, of course. I would be a real fool to not admit that they tower above me intellectually. But they were also limited. Aristotle was one of the founders of philosophy as we know it; he thought you could choose to have a boychild or a girlchild by tying off the appropriate testicle. Martin Luther, no matter what you think of the Reformation, was a great scholar, speaker and linguist; he was also a raging anti-semite.

As I have previously quoted C.S. Lewis on, by reading the books of previous ages we realize that each age has its own particular myth-takes which are accepted without question at the time, but not in our time and not even in other ages before and after. And unless we are complete morons, we should begin to suspect that the same is bound to be true about us.

Apart from the collective delusions, there is also the fact that we are born knowing nothing but a few basic instincts, and only live for some decades at best. It is the rare soul that stays lucid for as long as a century. Of those who do, not many have devoted themselves to knowledge and insight. Not saying that this will shorten your life – quite possibly the opposite – but few people are scholars at the best of times, and few people grow old without losing their mind. And even if you do both, there is still simply too short a time to become an expert on more than a couple things, and get a passing acquaintance with some others.

It is not like we have unlimited processing capacity in our brains, either. We learn a little more than we forget for much of our lives, but only a little more. Things we don’t understand deeply tend to fade unless we use them. And to understand things deeply, we often need to know quite a bit already. “Inspiration comes more frequently to those who make effort.”

To once again quote Ryuho Okawa (although this may well be a familiar view in Japan), you should not consider yourself an intellectual until you have read a thousand books. I would assume fluffy entertainment and trashy romance novels don’t count in that number, but a lot of people would not reach it even then. How then can one think himself a scholar on a particular topic without having read at least a hundred books from various sources? I hope I have mentioned this before, but on Google+ I frequently see people who have very strong opinions. And in very nearly all cases it all comes down to the Dunning-Kruger effect: Being too ignorant to realize even that one is ignorant.

I am convinced it is hard to have a strong opinion on, for instance, Islam or Mormonism once you’ve read a couple *dozen* books by insiders, outsiders, friends and enemies of the faith. What I don’t really know is what happens once you have read a couple *hundred* books on the topic. Are you still uncertain? I think perhaps not. But I do not know:  There is no single topic I have read hundreds of books on. I tend to flit from one topic to another, so I am at best a jack of a few trades but a master of none. So perhaps you are certain – but something I know, even if you are certain, you deeply understand the views you disagree with. Now that I think about it, Aristotle said the same: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Quick note on that ancient proverb. What you find with the people with the intense opinions is that they have latched on to a thought and accepted it, then either simply not come across an opposing view, or shunning the opposing view. Usually, they are not able to entertain the opposite thought because that would be like accepting it. There is nothing morally wrong with this when used rightly: If you have found a virtue you should not seek a vice. But intellectually speaking, it becomes wrong, because the burden of an intellectual is to see things from many sides. Not necessarily to live many different lives: Life is too short for this, and it may be bad in other ways too. But the price of being an “educated mind” is to be exposed to lies, lots and lots of them. The reward is sometimes knowing them for lies, when you would otherwise not.

Even if you are educated in the most literal sense, having a Ph.D or some such, that actually only tells something about your mastery of one particular field. You probably also have had to sit through some more general classes, of course, but that may be a while ago and their impression on you may not have been all that deep. I see from time to time people who are experts in one field and make bold statements about unrelated fields of which they are clearly ignorant. Having a long education or even having contributed noticeably to the world does not make you a universal genius. And even if you are that, you may still end up saying something stupid. That’s human nature.

We all make mistakes, walking in twilight at best compared to the blinding light of absolute Truth. But we should not stop trying to chase truth and wisdom, even if our progress is like that of the snail. If we do not, then who? And if not truth and wisdom, then what?

 

 

The miracle of understanding

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If only I could transfer understanding like that! But in this world, understanding is quite unpredictable even if all involved do their best, not to mention when not.

Last spring I wrote in one entry: “Madness is not the only danger in books. There is also the danger that something may be understood that can never be forgotten.” But what is this unique experience of understanding something, that suddenly makes a permanent change, completely different from the normal mode of learning?

It occurred to me recently that if understanding was not already widely accepted as a fact, it would fail the Randi bet.  Former “stage magician” (illusionist) James Randi has organized a standing prize of $1 million to whoever can prove supernatural or paranormal powers or events in a controlled test environment. So far nobody has run off with the prize, although some have complained about the conditions. Generally, the supernatural event must be predictable, so that one can ensure that it takes place during the experiment. It must be repeatable, so that it is not just a chance occurrence. And it must be unusual. It is on the last count that understanding (barely?) would be rejected at the outset. But actually it would not fit the other two either.

As I am sure any teacher can testify, there is a big difference between rote learning and understanding. Learning – such as memorizing vocabulary in a foreign language – follows a predictable curve. The amplitude of the curve may vary from person to person, but the shape of the curve is the same for nearly all. In contrast, understanding may or may not occur at all. It is certainly not possible to predict exactly when someone will understand something difficult. It may be today, tomorrow, next year or never. Furthermore, once you have understood it, the event is not repeatable: You cannot un-understand something simply by waiting, the way you can do with French irregular verbs. Once it clicks into place, it takes extreme measures to wipe it out.

If this is the case with scholarly topics such as special relativity, it is even more so with moral and emotional understanding. I have repeatedly mentioned how my life changed in a matter of minutes one day while I was reading a tract by Elias Aslaksen about the way to react. Until then, I had been like almost all children: If you insulted me, I would fly into a rage. My oldest brother had made this a routine amusement, it seems to me. But at that time – I think I was 15, but it may have been the year before – as I was sitting in my grandfather’s rocking chair, my view of life changed completely. I realized with blinding clarity that no one else can lift my hand. (Well, technically they can, but I mean they can’t do so by words or gestures.) I was responsible for how I acted, it did not matter what others had done to me. As long as I was alive and in control of my own body, I was the one who could – and must – decide what it would do.

This did not automatically change my life completely, but pretty drastically. There are certain reactions that are bordering on instinct, but even there a range of different actions exist. This understanding has continued to spread through my life, but its actual creation – or whatever you would call it – happened in a matter of minutes at most. I rose from that chair a different and much freer person than I had been when I sat down. Yet there are people who die at a ripe old age and have never had this experience, never gained that understanding. They continue to believe that their behavior is formed by their genes or their environment or some such that they have no control over.  Of course, these things act as input on us. But there is something between the input and the output. There is a space between impulse and action. For some of us.

There are various types of understanding, but it seems to me that they are all to some extent unpredictable and non-repeatable. As such, they fall short of the Randi bet in the same way that healing by prayer or reading thoughts. These things simply don’t happen on command, but sometimes they happen when you don’t expect it at all. And to some, they don’t happen at all. But once they do, they don’t unhappen. You cannot spool life back and play it over.

So if we were to categorize it, I would say that understanding is a miracle. (And understanding between humans even more so, but let us limit ourselves to understanding things this time.) Whether it is supernatural, depends on how super you consider nature itself to be. But it can certainly feel like a magical moment.

The other fools’ days

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Do people on your planet save each other because they want something?

“What, do people save each other on your planet just because they want something?” You could certainly get that impression sometimes. Don’t be fooled though!

I won’t write much, since this is April Fools’ day. People are naturally skeptical of whatever is written on this day. I certainly understand that.

What I’d like was if people would be skeptical of the foolishness of the other 365 days of the year. (Since it is a leap year, I mean. The other 364 next year.)

There are people trying to fool you every day. Fool you into buying something that you don’t need and which won’t make you happy. Fool you into supporting policies that will cause more misery than happiness. Fool you into believing in wrong myths that only close your mind instead of opening it to the true brightness.

For the most part, those who wish to fool you have something in common: They want something from you. Or if not, they are fooled by those who do, and are running their errands. Trace the chain of command back and see whether you find someone who wish to give or someone who wish to take. This is your best bet, I believe.This is what I was taught when I was young, and it has served me well so far.

I hope you will find that I, and the One that I revere, want to see you happy for your own sake. We do not want or need to take anything from you. But if you don’t believe me – and it is understandable if you don’t – then look at those who tower far above me. Buddha, who left a castle and a kingdom to seek Enlightenment. Moses, who chose to suffer with God’s people rather than be called Pharaoh’s daughter’s son. Jesus, who turned his back on the kingdoms of this world and all their glory, and testified that his Kingdom was not of this world. And many, many great lights throughout history, who gave without asking anything in return. This is your best bet to find someone who is not out to fool you. Let us rather become fools for your sake, than you for ours.

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
-Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah.

Everyone else too

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“I have trouble talking to people who look like they have friends” says this girl. Not all pains or disabilities are visible on the body.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I was surprised to see this attributed to Plato, and by all accounts this is just a way to add authority to it. It is not much over a century old. But the idea itself has certainly been true since Plato and before. It is also a fundamental tenet in Buddhism, although not a direct quote there.

If we look at it simply, we can say that people experience suffering from their body, from their mind, and from their relationship with other people. It is rare to meet anyone who does not have at least two of these three more or less constantly, or at least frequently. Some carry all three of these burdens at the same time.

Even if you do not see a person wince in pain, chances are they still have their afflictions. And if not directly painful, then certainly limiting. Some weakness of the body, or some phobia, or some obligation to a family member, may keep one from the path in life that they have always been longing for. You cannot see such a thing and will not hear about it unless you learn to know them well, perhaps. But these things are very common even among those who seem successful.

Of course there are differences, and some people are simply luckier. But it is not easy to know which. It is not always those who complain the most who carry the heaviest burden, far from it.

We should understand that everyone else too is carrying a burden, and cut them some slack at the least, if we cannot help them. Unfortunately people will sometimes lash out, not knowing the other person, adding insult to injury and salting the wounds. Sometimes we may have to act to protect one person from another, to stop an injustice, but to attack simply because we are irritated or upset is not a good thing.

One of the things I have learned from Happy Science is to notice this, that illness tends to make us self-centered. If we experience pain, the first thing we drop is helping others. This is not in itself evil, for we also have an obligation to look after our own body. If we let it continue to grow sicker because we exert ourselves, we will soon be unable to even care for ourselves, even when we otherwise could have done so. But there is a seductive side to this being excused from our duties. It is something we can get addicted to, and make use of more than is right. It may even turn into a subconscious desire to fall ill, for those who are weary of their duties and wish to relax. So that is something to be aware of.

Of course I am thinking of my own recent experiences when I say this. We each have to look out for our own tendencies and temptations first and foremost.

But even those who don’t write about it on the Net, have their struggles. Let us be kind, let us be merciful. Would we not hope to meet that kind of good will ourselves on our day of need?

Fooled by an old trick

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Hero?

My main character of the weekend, Color of Reverence. No points for seeing a theme here.

No, I did not bite on a Nigeria scam. It is much more trivial than that, barely noticeable. But I need to learn from small things. Despite my lofty aspirations, I still make mistakes. And as St Teresa says, God preserve us from excusing ourselves with “I am no saint”. (She admits in her Way of Perfection that she used to say that before. Of course, by the time she wrote this, she probably already was a saint…)

Me, I am not a saint (except in the most generic sense, as synonym for God’s people, if even that.) Nor am I a hero, but I play one on the Internet. And that’s where I made my mistake, which I think may be instructive for others too.

I joined the online superhero game City of Heroes during its closed beta, a great honor in my view, and played it probably literally every week for about 7 years. Usually more than once a week too. No exception for vacations (but then I don’t actually travel during my vacations, I write). It is only the last year or perhaps even less that the game has begun to gradually fade from my life, like so many other things do eventually.

It is a good game, too. I don’t mean just in value of production, but in production of value. You take on the role of a hero with slightly superhuman powers, and defeat criminals, protect the innocent (and sometimes the not quite innocent, when they need it) and gradually grow more powerful and famous over the course of this practice. So it kind of reinforces traditional values.  In the words of one of the scripted bystanders on the streets of Paragon City: “Forget those postmodernist deconstructionists! Itland is a real hero, plain and simple.” OK, the “simple” part may not be my favorite, but still.

Now as my life is moving toward its final exam (not that I am in the least hurry!!), I find a little less time for gaming than I used to. And that means my visits to City of Heroes have been quite irregular and mostly short. This suits me: When I play the same game for too long, I become kind of immersed in it and it begins to invade my real life with flashback moments and such distractions. And generally a feeling of emptiness after hours of playing. I don’t want that to happen.

But this weekend was double XP weekend, in which the rewards of virtue are doubled – both the experience points and the influence. So this makes it easy to make rapid progress on a character. I took advantage of this and played a lot this weekend.

I did not ask myself seriously why I would want to make rapid progress in a game I now only play sporadically. It is not like I actually need to do that. The fact that there was a reward took precedence over the fact that I did not need the reward.

This is really the same motivation that makes a lot of women go wild when there are sales. If things are on sale, they temporarily forget that they don’t actually need (and perhaps not even want) the thing. “But it was on sale!”

A voice in my head says something similar exists for sexual temptations. Perhaps it is a general human trait. Certainly it combines with greed to make a good scam. The typical Nigeria scam is based on the notion that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Once you start getting one each week, they are a lot less tempting. ^_^

So I ask my heart to learn from this mistake, although it would have been better to learn without mistake. At least you can learn from mine!

Partly free will

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Rihoko in a towel on the bathroom scales.

Snacks and students. We apologize for any other temptations that may occur, but hopefully this journal entry will help you get a more realistic perspective on it. (Also, I actually watched the anime where this picture comes from, and she did not drop the towel.)

In my previous post, I argued that our will must in principle be free, or there would be no point in doing anything or assigning meaning to things others do. (In fact, we probably do assign too much meaning, especially to some people. But more about that soon.)

Now, saying that our will is free in principle is very different from saying that we always do what we will. That depends on something much more tricky, namely resolving who “we” are. The general notion that the human mind is like a pearl, made of the same stuff all the way through, is not supported by observation. (OK, there are some people whose mind is like a pearl: Small and simple. I don’t think any of these are reading this.)

As I said in passing: We are not alone in our head. You may certainly think so, but that only leaves you with a concept of self that is either at odds with itself or running from one position to the other constantly. All of these are valid viewpoints, and just as good as saying we are not alone in our head, I think. Possibly better, if the other phrase creeps you out. Then again, a little bit of creep may be a good thing. As it is, we tend to have a terribly naive view of what goes on in the human mind. Bitter fruits follow from this.

One concept I have mentioned from time to time is the difference between “hot” and “cold” states of mind. Cold states of mind (I rather consider them lukewarm) are the ordinary relaxed situation where everything is familiar and in control. (OK, that may not be ordinary to all, but I hope it is fairly common.) In this situation, we tend to think we are in control of our own body and mental faculties, as they say.  Memory, imagination, logic and so on.

The “hot” states of mind are those associated with primal emotions, such as fear, anger, lust and (surprisingly) disgust. In these states of mind, we view the world in a completely different light. While we may still be in control of our body, the “we” that is in control is not the usual “we”. Rather it has entirely different priorities and sees things quite differently.

One famous experiment is to ask people whether they are willing to put a live earthworm in their mouth for a reasonable amount of money. Not enough to live happily ever after, but worth a few hours work perhaps. A pretty large number of people will agree to this when the deal is talked about in a relaxed office setting framed by bookshelves etc. But once the worm is actually wriggling in front of you, only approximately 5% of the population can actually overcome their disgust. (These 5% are probably dangerous people, but that is beside the point today.)

Another interesting scenario that is not used in research for obvious reasons is sexual intercourse. Generally speaking, a sexually inexperienced woman has a hard time voluntarily going through with sexual intercourse under most circumstance. This problem is in our culture usually overcome with alcohol. Conversely, a sexually experienced man has a hard time NOT going through with intercourse if he has first started in that direction, and this causes even much more problems. (Also, alcohol does not help for that, except in extreme quantities!)

Anger and fear are states of mind even children are familiar with. And unfortunately, adults often react in much the same way as children in these situations, despite their very sincere promises to the contrary before the situation arose. The sincerity when in a “cold” state of mind is not faked, but it is also not particularly closely related to what you will actually do once you get into a “hot” state of mind.

One study showed that a complete stranger in the corresponding hot state was better able to predict a person’s behavior than the person themselves had been while in the cool state of mind.

And that only covers the sudden, intense challenges. There is also the creeping temptation challenge, the eroding of willpower through a long period of moderate temptation.

Here again test subjects (read: students) are available. For temptations are usually used snacks, such as chocolate.  Before the experiment, the test subjects and the researchers make an agreement that the test subject will not eat the snacks, usually with some reward being offered for fortitude. However, if the student is left with the snack long enough, the probability of snacking gradually rises toward 100%. It never quite reaches it (since starving students is illegal) but it keeps climbing. It is not possible to know in advance when a particular test subject will cave in, but when you run hundreds of them through the test, you get a curve that repeats nicely with the next large batch of volunteers. Even though each individually has free will, in practice we can predict how many of them won’t use it! Just not who.

Of course, in a manner of speaking the snackers do use their free will: They voluntarily choose to eat the snacks rather than get the reward. But their decision at the time is largely independent on their decision before (or after) the deed.

Having more than one temptation at the same time makes it harder to resist each of them. If the students get to play computer games, it is easier for them to abstain from snacks; if they have games around but aren’t allowed to play, it becomes harder to resist the snacks than if there were no games in sight in the first place.

Willpower can be built over time, luckily. Unfortunately, it can also be eroded over time.

But perhaps the most important thing we can do in this regard is to build habits. Habits are cobwebs at first, chains at last, as the saying goes. It is pretty easy to understand that if you are a couch potato, you cannot just get up one day and run a marathon. But in the same way, there lies a lot of work behind a life where people can resist temptations or the strong impulses of fear, anger, lust or disgust. Beginning with what is doable and sustainable is the key, unless you have some kind of divine intervention (or human companions that can keep guard over you at all times). Just like there are thousands of barely used exercise bikes in the basements and sheds of first-world nations, so there are thousands of discarded New Year’s Resolutions. If each of these had been taken in use slowly, gradually, cautiously, they might have had more success.

Of course, I don’t mean to diss divine intervention. I’m all for that. But unless you have a pretty close relationship with the Divine, you should probably have a Plan B as well. Just saying.

 

 

Two types of genius

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Even an idiot will achieve greatness if they just think, and read, and write, and listen, and keep doing this year after year. Of course, getting an idiot to listen in the first place is usually the problem!

I want to write some more about the different between genius and genius, or between intelligence and intelligence, since it is important and I myself did not understand it when I was young. As I would have wished others to do unto me, so I should now do unto others.

I grew up thinking that intelligence was basically the raw processing power of the brain, as measured by modern multi-type IQ tests. There is indeed such a “general intelligence”, as well as a number of more specialized talents that may be called intelligence. And the upper end of the IQ scale is labeled “genius”, an already well known word.

A brain with a powerful processing ability can accomplish much, when assigned to a task suitable for it. (This varies somewhat with talents, but there are many tasks that are suitable for general intelligence.) Our modern “information society” depends to a large degree on the work of smart people, most of them specializing in fairly narrow fields. The more the minds adapt to that particular field, and the field adapts to the people who work there, the more effective they become.

It is really amazing what wonders we are surrounded by today. For instance, I have a computer in my shirt pocket that has higher screen resolution than the computer on which I used to play Daggerfall during the early years of this journal! And it also holds a library of books, all in my shirt pocket, while being able to play any of millions of songs stored elsewhere in the world. The combined might of genius is awe-inspiring. I want you to hear this from me.

Because what I will say next may seem (falsely) to contradict the above. I will talk about a different form of genius, a different form of intelligence. We could call it “cultural intelligence” as opposed to “neural intelligence”. While the neural intelligence becomes stronger by concentrating more and more into detail, the cultural intelligence grows by expanding into an ever broader view. While the first form of intelligence takes us deeper and deeper into matters, the second lifts us up to see ourselves and our world as if from a higher place.

By calling the first and commonly defined intelligence “neural” (not neutral!) I mean that it is defined by its limit which is the brain’s capacity for processing information at a certain speed, which varies from person to person. As the person becomes attuned to his work and the other way around, we come closer and closer to this limit, and the law of diminishing return sets in, never quite grinding to a halt but slowing ever more.

The other form of intelligence, however, presents the exact opposite kind of curve, the exponential curve (known in my generation from the population graph and more recently in the growth of computing power in the world, which rises faster and faster until nearly vertical). The speed at which the “cultural genius” of a person grows may be limited by their neural intelligence among other things, but it just follows the same curve at a more cautious pace from the start. Given enough time it will still reach its rapid climb. The one thing that stops it in the dedicated genius is the natural expiration date of the brain, or other vital organs should they fail first. If such a person lives to old age keeping their wits, there almost seem to be no bounds.

Again, while the neural genius is fed by specialization, the cultural genius is fed by expansion, by taking on ever new knowledge, new experiences, new modes of thinking. For the engineer, learning a new language in the middle of life is a distraction; for the philosopher, it is more like a necessity.

In reality, it is possible to some extent to combine these, to be a philosopher engineer. But this is rare and probably a constant battle. Such a person is extremely powerful (at least potentially), but also extremely rare. I would think the late Steve Jobs, for instance, would fall in this category. A fascinating life but not one free from conflict.

Now as for the ordinary person, we have more or less of the native, neural intelligence. I used to have quite a bit of it, although I am sure it has shrunk some over the last decade or two.  But if you don’t, there is no reason to give up and sit down in front of the TV with a sixpack of beer. The amazing thing is that the second form of intelligence is still available.

You may be a slow reader, and may need to read a book six times to really grasp it, while I usually get by with one. But like in the fable of the hare and the tortoise, steady does it. If you take care of your health and live to a decently old age, the knowledge that builds up inside you will start to gain “compound interest”, as everything you learn will raise the value of everything you already know. Eventually, almost everything will remind you of something else. Like the final phase of a jigsaw puzzle, the things that made no sense suddenly light up and find their place.

Let me stress this again: The path of “cultural intelligence” is open for even the most ordinary, as long as you have the will and the patience to pursue it. Hold on to it and don’t give up, and all you need is time. In ages gone by, these people were called “sages”, or “wise old men” and “wise women”, and highly respected. In our age, the blinding speed of progress driven by neural intelligence may seem to overshadow this. But the truth is that there will always be many who need the help of the sages. And let us not forget that this path is its own reward: The ever growing brightness and the astounding view as your mind rises higher, this is a joy that cannot be bought for gold or praises. Please, consider it.