Monday, May 23, 2011
What Now?
So why exactly is it so important that I live this life correctly--or at all? Why would I even care to try and determine what "correctly" actually is? I mean, doesn't that require me to figure out if knowing that is even possible?
Life is that which seeks to preserve its state.
If reincarnation is real, and we presume that the odds are in favor of life on other worlds somehow in the vast universe, then shouldn't we expect to be reincarnated on a completely different planet? Do our souls somehow have the limitation of requiring a carbon-based, oxygen breathing vehicle to inhabit?
Once a soul is released, is there something really so unpleasant about being disembodied that we rush to get into new bodies that can be hurt or get sick?
Maybe when we're dead, there's an authority after all. But maybe it's not God, maybe it's a "Council of Human Souls" which, in the same way political groups do on Earth, compel souls to behave in certain ways.
Which is to say, we can never escape the worst of this life. We can never be OK by ourselves.
Life is that which seeks to preserve its state.
If reincarnation is real, and we presume that the odds are in favor of life on other worlds somehow in the vast universe, then shouldn't we expect to be reincarnated on a completely different planet? Do our souls somehow have the limitation of requiring a carbon-based, oxygen breathing vehicle to inhabit?
Once a soul is released, is there something really so unpleasant about being disembodied that we rush to get into new bodies that can be hurt or get sick?
Maybe when we're dead, there's an authority after all. But maybe it's not God, maybe it's a "Council of Human Souls" which, in the same way political groups do on Earth, compel souls to behave in certain ways.
Which is to say, we can never escape the worst of this life. We can never be OK by ourselves.
Human DNA
another furious debate is about the seeming anti-darwinism of altruism. i stick by my purely darwinist explanation of it, but i sometimes like to think there's a supra-genetic imperative that has guided the development of our behavior.
the basic concept is that you work to see your dna go on another generation, so that it can go again, etc. (why should that even be? no real reason. it's just that the ones that didn't think that way died.) but i think that people also have a deep imperative to preserve HUMAN dna.
in fact, i wonder how much of evolution can be re-stated as pursuing the propagation of human dna itself, yours or someone else's. each one of us is really a collection of cells and microbes working in cooperation to keep our own "condo" up and running. what's so weird about thinking that humans actually feel like a mound of cells of one body? it's not a new idea, that we're all "one", but it's unusual to consider it not in a functional or spiritual sense, but in a literal sense.
and it explains a lot of behavior. altruism is not indirect survival, it is direct survival. when thousands of people are killed in a tsunami or earthquake miles away, it kind of bothers us.
do a thought experiment: imagine we've come down to a time where there's only ten people left on earth. won't you feel just that much more dedicated to making sure someone survives?
i think the darwin explanation should be amended to say, "i will do what it takes to make sure human dna survives, preferably my own."
the basic concept is that you work to see your dna go on another generation, so that it can go again, etc. (why should that even be? no real reason. it's just that the ones that didn't think that way died.) but i think that people also have a deep imperative to preserve HUMAN dna.
in fact, i wonder how much of evolution can be re-stated as pursuing the propagation of human dna itself, yours or someone else's. each one of us is really a collection of cells and microbes working in cooperation to keep our own "condo" up and running. what's so weird about thinking that humans actually feel like a mound of cells of one body? it's not a new idea, that we're all "one", but it's unusual to consider it not in a functional or spiritual sense, but in a literal sense.
and it explains a lot of behavior. altruism is not indirect survival, it is direct survival. when thousands of people are killed in a tsunami or earthquake miles away, it kind of bothers us.
do a thought experiment: imagine we've come down to a time where there's only ten people left on earth. won't you feel just that much more dedicated to making sure someone survives?
i think the darwin explanation should be amended to say, "i will do what it takes to make sure human dna survives, preferably my own."
Weight of Experience
it occurs to me that most people regard their experience in a way that's kind of foreign to me now.
people say, "oh, i want to see paris!" or "i want to ski the alps!" or get a girlfriend.
people are always lustily fantasizing about potential experience. but experience converts instantly into memory. i'd say that very likely 99.999...% of experience is memory, if not more.
yet people take about the imperative of experiencing something as if they will enjoy remembering them in the leisure of their own death.
turns out i'm not totally anhedonic--i've noticed that i seem to enjoy some things more than others. but i always have the same reaction: that's over for good now. it doesn't matter at all.
when it happens, it will seem like the very next minute from now: you'll die. and not only are there very few new-agey theosophical types that think our memories survive death, but religions are strangely indeterminate on this idea. odd religions, like mormons, believe they'll spend eternity with their families. but they're in the minority.
even hindus and buddhists who believe in reincarnation say you can be reincarnated as anything, so what good are human memories to a squirrel?
enjoyment is purely genetically psychological, the most obvious example being orgasm.
people grow up with this deep sense that life is worth living just because it's life, which makes no sense at all, it's like defining a banana as "a banana-like thing".
people say, "oh, i want to see paris!" or "i want to ski the alps!" or get a girlfriend.
people are always lustily fantasizing about potential experience. but experience converts instantly into memory. i'd say that very likely 99.999...% of experience is memory, if not more.
yet people take about the imperative of experiencing something as if they will enjoy remembering them in the leisure of their own death.
turns out i'm not totally anhedonic--i've noticed that i seem to enjoy some things more than others. but i always have the same reaction: that's over for good now. it doesn't matter at all.
when it happens, it will seem like the very next minute from now: you'll die. and not only are there very few new-agey theosophical types that think our memories survive death, but religions are strangely indeterminate on this idea. odd religions, like mormons, believe they'll spend eternity with their families. but they're in the minority.
even hindus and buddhists who believe in reincarnation say you can be reincarnated as anything, so what good are human memories to a squirrel?
enjoyment is purely genetically psychological, the most obvious example being orgasm.
people grow up with this deep sense that life is worth living just because it's life, which makes no sense at all, it's like defining a banana as "a banana-like thing".
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Paradox of Isolation in Mass Society
People are genetically hard-wired to connect with other people. This urge is so strong that if you and me are the only ones on a desert island, we're automatically best friends.
As the population goes up, so do the choices. The fewer the people, the less picky anyone can afford to be. If you live in a village of 30, and one of you is obnoxious, well, you just have to put up with it. But if the population gets to 300, you're less inclined to tolerate this. If the population goes up to 30,000, you're less likely to tolerate even minor defects you perceive in others.
This inevitably leads to a troublesome conundrum, the effects of which we see all around us in modern mass society. We seek to be with other people, but since there are so many options, we get pickier. In a city of 500,000, you just eliminate people who are too young or too old, or maybe people from different backgrounds or of a different economic stratum. Or because of political differences, even racial differences.
At a certain point you become thwarted: with so many options you develop the expectation that you can find someone without critically objectionable characteristics. So you're more likely to reject people for trivial reasons, e.g. this guy doesn't even like the Beatles!
Thus we end up with the weird paradox of people having difficulty finding people to be with even as they're surrounded by thousands of them. Because remember, even if you find someone you can accept, there's no guarantee they're going to accept YOU.
Lonely in an ocean of people. It doesn't make sense, but it seems to happen.
As the population goes up, so do the choices. The fewer the people, the less picky anyone can afford to be. If you live in a village of 30, and one of you is obnoxious, well, you just have to put up with it. But if the population gets to 300, you're less inclined to tolerate this. If the population goes up to 30,000, you're less likely to tolerate even minor defects you perceive in others.
This inevitably leads to a troublesome conundrum, the effects of which we see all around us in modern mass society. We seek to be with other people, but since there are so many options, we get pickier. In a city of 500,000, you just eliminate people who are too young or too old, or maybe people from different backgrounds or of a different economic stratum. Or because of political differences, even racial differences.
At a certain point you become thwarted: with so many options you develop the expectation that you can find someone without critically objectionable characteristics. So you're more likely to reject people for trivial reasons, e.g. this guy doesn't even like the Beatles!
Thus we end up with the weird paradox of people having difficulty finding people to be with even as they're surrounded by thousands of them. Because remember, even if you find someone you can accept, there's no guarantee they're going to accept YOU.
Lonely in an ocean of people. It doesn't make sense, but it seems to happen.
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