NY Times: Philosophy’s Western Bias
Excellent opinion piece by Justin E. H. Smith: Philosophy’s Western Bias
Monday, June 4, 2012
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Bertrand Russell's Famous Table
"Suppose that, with your eyes shut, you let your finger-tip press against a hard table. What is really happening? Although you think you are touching the table, no electron or proton in your finger ever really touches an electron or proton in the table, because this would develop an infinite force. " --Russell
As I mentioned in an earlier post on Intuition, our day-to-day tendency to classify the persons, places, and things that we encounter leads us to make assumptions that, upon close examination, turn out to be self-contradictory and even grossly misplaced.
Bertrand Russell's famous table discussion serves as an example of how our unquestioning acceptance of the physical nature of objects reveals an even deeper misunderstanding of subtler, more complex, and infinitely more important aspects of ourselves, the world we inhabit, and the invisible forces of cause and effect that impact our every experience.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the perception that occurs in our brains as we attempt to classify information received via our senses is not that same as the reality that stimulates those senses. This is true both of our perception of the physical world and, by extension, nature and of the ultimate intelligence that controls all things.
"To say that you see a star when you see the light that has come from it is no more correct than to say that you see New Zealand when you see a New Zealander in London."
To the reasonable person, a particular table might appear to have certain indisputable characteristics: it is brown, it is hard-surfaced, it is apparently old. However, the brownness of the table is certainly a simple matter of how the light at a particular time of day reflects off the specific pigment of the stain applied to the table and is perceived by the aforementioned reasonable person. Only another person positioned at exactly the same spot as the first at the exact time of day, with the very same degree of sensitivity to light would see the table the same way. A person with the visual condition called Daltonism would perceive the color of the table differently, as would a creature with the trichromatic color vision of a bee. Not one of these interpretations would be right or wrong. Light waves that reflect from an object would be interpreted one way by the human eye, another way by a bee, and a third way by a scientific instrument. The degree of brownness might change from mid-morning to late evening. The table is not, in fact, brown. We perceive brownness from the light reflected from the table.
"It is extrordinarily difficult to divest ourselves of the belief that the physical world is the world we perceive by sight and touch."
Along the same lines, what we perceive as a table would appear to be something differently entirely if we were microscopic in size and found ourselves somehow among the atoms that form the object. That the size and shape of the structure would be invisible from us is not to say that we are merely unable to see it. Our view at that moment is just as legitimate as the view of the reasonable observer mentioned earlier. These two views of the same so-called object again demonstrate that what we thought of as a table is simply one interpretation.
Continuing, the apparent durable or long-lasting nature of the table is relative to the perception of a human being typically destined to exist on this earth for perhaps a period of seventy to eighty years. If we were discussing a melting ice cube rather than a table, we might say that it would exist as an ice cube for perhaps a half hour on a warm day. This interpretation would affect our assessment of the ice cube and its value to us. If my glass of punch is warm, then I'd better use the ice cube before it melts. As opposed to the table, I'd better not become emotionally attached to the ice cube because it's not going to be around for long. However, to the mayfly, with a lifespan as short as five minutes, if in fact the mayfly would have thoughts about the ice cube, he might interpret it as a colossal glacier that lasts for six lifetimes.
However silly that thought, there is a consequential conclusion to this line of thinking. The body is a bundle of sensations. That multiple people cannot have exactly the same interpretation of an object, due to differences in the way light waves, sound waves, smells, and the other physical sensations -- not to mention the more subtle intellectual and emotional stimuli -- are interpreted, begs the question: What in fact is real about the world around us?
Ignorant face value acceptance of what was perceived to be the physical world by the medieval church is what put the physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Galileo, whom Stephen Hawking called "perhaps more than any other single person, responsible for the birth of modern science," under house arrest for the final ten years of his life, as punishment by the Catholic church for writing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. If we ourselves misinterpret the nature of the physical objects before our very eyes, what are the odds that we're accurately assessing another person's expression or tone of voice or what is really being said? How are we to understand the larger, clearly more important questions of our times and of all time? These are the questions of philosophy.
"When you press, repulsions are set up between parts of your finger and parts of the table. The repulsion consists of electrical forces, which set up in the nerves a current whose nature is not very definitely known. This current runs into the brain, and there has effects which, so far as the physiologist is concerned, are almost wholly conjectural...the knowledge we derive from physics is so abstract that we are not warranted in saying that what goes on in the physical world is...intrinsically...what we know through our own experiences. "
As I mentioned in an earlier post on Intuition, our day-to-day tendency to classify the persons, places, and things that we encounter leads us to make assumptions that, upon close examination, turn out to be self-contradictory and even grossly misplaced.
Bertrand Russell's famous table discussion serves as an example of how our unquestioning acceptance of the physical nature of objects reveals an even deeper misunderstanding of subtler, more complex, and infinitely more important aspects of ourselves, the world we inhabit, and the invisible forces of cause and effect that impact our every experience.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the perception that occurs in our brains as we attempt to classify information received via our senses is not that same as the reality that stimulates those senses. This is true both of our perception of the physical world and, by extension, nature and of the ultimate intelligence that controls all things.
"To say that you see a star when you see the light that has come from it is no more correct than to say that you see New Zealand when you see a New Zealander in London."
To the reasonable person, a particular table might appear to have certain indisputable characteristics: it is brown, it is hard-surfaced, it is apparently old. However, the brownness of the table is certainly a simple matter of how the light at a particular time of day reflects off the specific pigment of the stain applied to the table and is perceived by the aforementioned reasonable person. Only another person positioned at exactly the same spot as the first at the exact time of day, with the very same degree of sensitivity to light would see the table the same way. A person with the visual condition called Daltonism would perceive the color of the table differently, as would a creature with the trichromatic color vision of a bee. Not one of these interpretations would be right or wrong. Light waves that reflect from an object would be interpreted one way by the human eye, another way by a bee, and a third way by a scientific instrument. The degree of brownness might change from mid-morning to late evening. The table is not, in fact, brown. We perceive brownness from the light reflected from the table.
"It is extrordinarily difficult to divest ourselves of the belief that the physical world is the world we perceive by sight and touch."
Along the same lines, what we perceive as a table would appear to be something differently entirely if we were microscopic in size and found ourselves somehow among the atoms that form the object. That the size and shape of the structure would be invisible from us is not to say that we are merely unable to see it. Our view at that moment is just as legitimate as the view of the reasonable observer mentioned earlier. These two views of the same so-called object again demonstrate that what we thought of as a table is simply one interpretation.
Continuing, the apparent durable or long-lasting nature of the table is relative to the perception of a human being typically destined to exist on this earth for perhaps a period of seventy to eighty years. If we were discussing a melting ice cube rather than a table, we might say that it would exist as an ice cube for perhaps a half hour on a warm day. This interpretation would affect our assessment of the ice cube and its value to us. If my glass of punch is warm, then I'd better use the ice cube before it melts. As opposed to the table, I'd better not become emotionally attached to the ice cube because it's not going to be around for long. However, to the mayfly, with a lifespan as short as five minutes, if in fact the mayfly would have thoughts about the ice cube, he might interpret it as a colossal glacier that lasts for six lifetimes.
However silly that thought, there is a consequential conclusion to this line of thinking. The body is a bundle of sensations. That multiple people cannot have exactly the same interpretation of an object, due to differences in the way light waves, sound waves, smells, and the other physical sensations -- not to mention the more subtle intellectual and emotional stimuli -- are interpreted, begs the question: What in fact is real about the world around us?
Ignorant face value acceptance of what was perceived to be the physical world by the medieval church is what put the physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Galileo, whom Stephen Hawking called "perhaps more than any other single person, responsible for the birth of modern science," under house arrest for the final ten years of his life, as punishment by the Catholic church for writing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. If we ourselves misinterpret the nature of the physical objects before our very eyes, what are the odds that we're accurately assessing another person's expression or tone of voice or what is really being said? How are we to understand the larger, clearly more important questions of our times and of all time? These are the questions of philosophy.
"When you press, repulsions are set up between parts of your finger and parts of the table. The repulsion consists of electrical forces, which set up in the nerves a current whose nature is not very definitely known. This current runs into the brain, and there has effects which, so far as the physiologist is concerned, are almost wholly conjectural...the knowledge we derive from physics is so abstract that we are not warranted in saying that what goes on in the physical world is...intrinsically...what we know through our own experiences. "
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Profound Secret Inside of You
The one thing that appears to be missing to a large degree from most of our lives is an awareness of the deeper self. How is it that the members of the one species given this apparent consciousness and self-awareness flit from one idea or task to another throughout the day like bees pollinating snapdragons, driven by useless compulsions, without one deep thought ever coming to mind?
The answer is that it is the default nature of the mind to jump from one task to another, focusing only in time of emergency, and then fixating only on the urgent issue at hand. At a certain level, it's the most efficient use of our intellectual resources. We efficiently classify knowledge, forming patterns that serve us well in most cases by providing default responses to known scenarios. The problem is that in relying so much on default thought patterns, we utilize our intellect barely more than the minimum degree necessary to avoid catastrophe, rarely stepping back to pay attention to the larger story, to the unseen forces and macro patterns operating behind the scenes, including everything that makes you who you are and causes you to do the things you do. Most people live their entire without ever even noticing, never mind addressing, this flaw of ours.
To become increasingly conscious of the authentic self, it's necessary to gradually calm this monkey mind, as it is known in Eastern philosophies. Americans have traditionally been industrious but we work harder than ever in today's economy (those with jobs, at least), and we have all the kids' activities to manage. A lot is expected of us and we're so consumed by the desire to satisfy those expectations that we dedicate almost no time to meditation and contemplation. It's a shame because consciously or not, one of our highest goals is the search for meaning, yet the way we spin so furiously in these hamster wheels we pretty much preclude the possibility of ever realizing that the answer was within ourselves all along.
Learn to meditate. You know how the solution to a complex problem escapes you no matter how diligently you pursue it, and then you go to sleep only to wake up with an answer or have it hit you in the shower? Or how you can't remember a name or a word until you leave it for a while, and then it comes on its own? On a larger scale we need to do a reset from time to time and stop the insanity. The mind is usually so busy that there's no other way to get it to break out of its patterns.
Aside from providing some calmness, a reality-based perspective on life, and a more philosophical approach to stress, quiet contemplation can reveal a layered yet miraculously developed you, deep inside, that you might hardly have been aware of during "the fog of war," when you were distracted by daily goings-on. I won't discuss meditation techniques in this post, and different approaches work for different people, but look into it on your own. Google "how to meditate" or get a book recommended by someone you respect. Progress is slow. It's something you can do for a lifetime without coming to full realization. But after a lifetime, you will certainly have come much closer to full actualization than you would have without it. Think of it as exercise for the soul, like a lifetime of jogging for the spirit. It's not easy, but reaching the end of your days without having met the most important person in your life would be simply tragic.
The answer is that it is the default nature of the mind to jump from one task to another, focusing only in time of emergency, and then fixating only on the urgent issue at hand. At a certain level, it's the most efficient use of our intellectual resources. We efficiently classify knowledge, forming patterns that serve us well in most cases by providing default responses to known scenarios. The problem is that in relying so much on default thought patterns, we utilize our intellect barely more than the minimum degree necessary to avoid catastrophe, rarely stepping back to pay attention to the larger story, to the unseen forces and macro patterns operating behind the scenes, including everything that makes you who you are and causes you to do the things you do. Most people live their entire without ever even noticing, never mind addressing, this flaw of ours.
To become increasingly conscious of the authentic self, it's necessary to gradually calm this monkey mind, as it is known in Eastern philosophies. Americans have traditionally been industrious but we work harder than ever in today's economy (those with jobs, at least), and we have all the kids' activities to manage. A lot is expected of us and we're so consumed by the desire to satisfy those expectations that we dedicate almost no time to meditation and contemplation. It's a shame because consciously or not, one of our highest goals is the search for meaning, yet the way we spin so furiously in these hamster wheels we pretty much preclude the possibility of ever realizing that the answer was within ourselves all along.
Learn to meditate. You know how the solution to a complex problem escapes you no matter how diligently you pursue it, and then you go to sleep only to wake up with an answer or have it hit you in the shower? Or how you can't remember a name or a word until you leave it for a while, and then it comes on its own? On a larger scale we need to do a reset from time to time and stop the insanity. The mind is usually so busy that there's no other way to get it to break out of its patterns.
Aside from providing some calmness, a reality-based perspective on life, and a more philosophical approach to stress, quiet contemplation can reveal a layered yet miraculously developed you, deep inside, that you might hardly have been aware of during "the fog of war," when you were distracted by daily goings-on. I won't discuss meditation techniques in this post, and different approaches work for different people, but look into it on your own. Google "how to meditate" or get a book recommended by someone you respect. Progress is slow. It's something you can do for a lifetime without coming to full realization. But after a lifetime, you will certainly have come much closer to full actualization than you would have without it. Think of it as exercise for the soul, like a lifetime of jogging for the spirit. It's not easy, but reaching the end of your days without having met the most important person in your life would be simply tragic.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Siren Song of Intuition
Gut reaction. Innate knowledge. Instinct. Sixth sense. Precognition. Predisposition. Impulse. Feeling.
As compelling as the concept of intuition might seem to the reasonable individual, it is by definition the ability to acquire knowledge without the use of mental analysis. For reasons that we will explore briefly herein, intuition is held in higher esteem than an accurate common-sense appraisal of the facts as perceived by the physical senses. It is the source of beliefs that we cannot rationally justify. It involves no deliberate review of pros and cons, no disciplined progression from hypothesis to conclusion, no thrust and parry of challenge and defense to weed out a poorly-reasoned conclusion. Instead, it is highly influenced by bias and leads the individual along a circular path of non-logic: Trust in intuition is substantiated by -- you guessed it -- intuition.
Intuition is the result of the pattern-matching or classification process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. We wouldn't survive for long as a species if we had to re-learn physics each time we walked out in front of a car. The quality of intuition is highly dependent on such accumulated knowledge and developed wisdom in a specific area. But it is also affected by our upbringing and by fear-based interpretations of past emotional pains or anticipated future pain, by blows to the ego and by pride.
Intuition leads the holder of a belief to irrationally yet often passionately suppose that the hypothesis is legitimate, prematurely precluding both dialog with holders of opposing viewpoints and further research or skeptical self-analysis. One with no track record of excellent decision making is led to feel wiser than individuals better accomplished in perhaps every measurable area. Intuition explains why one who might have been borderline incompetent at everything he ever tried nevertheless feels that he knows best when it comes to politics or religion or any area of disagreement with counterparts holding opposing positions.
As it is based on feelings more than on fact, intuition leaves the subject with the impression that it is related to a spiritual component, as if it is the result of a combination of earthly knowledge and a higher or divine knowledge, thereby strengthening defective convictions. It's a self-serving, face-saving, ego-building characteristic of our personalities. Hey, my premise really makes no sense at all, but I just have such a strong feeling that it's right. It must be a message from God.
This feeling-based decision-making is why horrible relationships that end in divorce once felt "so right". It's why individuals often take incredible risks with virtually no chance of reward. Faulty pattern-matching is responsible for conscious or subconscious ethnic stereotyping and racial profiling. All this would be simply tragic if the consequences were not so potentially grave. In fact, this flaw of ours poses one of the greatest dangers to the survival of the species. It is why peace-loving, supposedly Christ-like people vote for and support war, including one that was born when God whispered in the ear of a certain U.S. President. It's why men are guided by irrational and supernatural story lines that lead them to blow one another up. It's been an unfortunate tendency in every age, a potentially fatal one for the entire species in the era of weapons of mass destruction.
What can I do? We are never going to be perfect, but a good goal for a lifetime would be to try and be more honest with ourselves. Begin by admitting that you are -- as we all are -- more biased than you are fair. Study yourself. Try and understand why you believe as you do. Try to honestly explore every side of an argument. Lose the ego. Practice humility. Practice sincere, genuine empathy. Strive for more cooperation and less confrontation. Contemplation really is our highest calling. Reflexive gut reaction is the opposite of that. Stop and think before you speak. Let the other person speak. And pay attention.
Peace,
Jim
As compelling as the concept of intuition might seem to the reasonable individual, it is by definition the ability to acquire knowledge without the use of mental analysis. For reasons that we will explore briefly herein, intuition is held in higher esteem than an accurate common-sense appraisal of the facts as perceived by the physical senses. It is the source of beliefs that we cannot rationally justify. It involves no deliberate review of pros and cons, no disciplined progression from hypothesis to conclusion, no thrust and parry of challenge and defense to weed out a poorly-reasoned conclusion. Instead, it is highly influenced by bias and leads the individual along a circular path of non-logic: Trust in intuition is substantiated by -- you guessed it -- intuition.
Intuition is the result of the pattern-matching or classification process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. We wouldn't survive for long as a species if we had to re-learn physics each time we walked out in front of a car. The quality of intuition is highly dependent on such accumulated knowledge and developed wisdom in a specific area. But it is also affected by our upbringing and by fear-based interpretations of past emotional pains or anticipated future pain, by blows to the ego and by pride.
Intuition leads the holder of a belief to irrationally yet often passionately suppose that the hypothesis is legitimate, prematurely precluding both dialog with holders of opposing viewpoints and further research or skeptical self-analysis. One with no track record of excellent decision making is led to feel wiser than individuals better accomplished in perhaps every measurable area. Intuition explains why one who might have been borderline incompetent at everything he ever tried nevertheless feels that he knows best when it comes to politics or religion or any area of disagreement with counterparts holding opposing positions.
As it is based on feelings more than on fact, intuition leaves the subject with the impression that it is related to a spiritual component, as if it is the result of a combination of earthly knowledge and a higher or divine knowledge, thereby strengthening defective convictions. It's a self-serving, face-saving, ego-building characteristic of our personalities. Hey, my premise really makes no sense at all, but I just have such a strong feeling that it's right. It must be a message from God.
This feeling-based decision-making is why horrible relationships that end in divorce once felt "so right". It's why individuals often take incredible risks with virtually no chance of reward. Faulty pattern-matching is responsible for conscious or subconscious ethnic stereotyping and racial profiling. All this would be simply tragic if the consequences were not so potentially grave. In fact, this flaw of ours poses one of the greatest dangers to the survival of the species. It is why peace-loving, supposedly Christ-like people vote for and support war, including one that was born when God whispered in the ear of a certain U.S. President. It's why men are guided by irrational and supernatural story lines that lead them to blow one another up. It's been an unfortunate tendency in every age, a potentially fatal one for the entire species in the era of weapons of mass destruction.
What can I do? We are never going to be perfect, but a good goal for a lifetime would be to try and be more honest with ourselves. Begin by admitting that you are -- as we all are -- more biased than you are fair. Study yourself. Try and understand why you believe as you do. Try to honestly explore every side of an argument. Lose the ego. Practice humility. Practice sincere, genuine empathy. Strive for more cooperation and less confrontation. Contemplation really is our highest calling. Reflexive gut reaction is the opposite of that. Stop and think before you speak. Let the other person speak. And pay attention.
Peace,
Jim
Friday, January 22, 2010
The collective pessimism and the need for discipline
On the one hand, most people that I have asked say that they would like to "have" more self-discipline, as if it were a quality that by some divine whim is or is not genetically bestowed on an individual. We approach that general wish the way we approach the specific desire to lose weight, for example: as a goal that we believe intellectually that we want, but not as one that we have internalized to the degree that we have seriously begun to work toward it.
Our increasingly short-term mentality reflects a growing national pessimism. We would rather take the happiness we can get now because, consciously or not, we're not sure it will be there for the taking in the long term. In May of 1975, the personal saving rate in the United States was 14.6 per cent. By April of 2008 (prior to the impact of the Financial Crisis of 2007), it had fallen to 0.8 per cent[1]. As we drifted away from our historic future orientation, I don't believe that it's a coincidence that the body weight of the typical American increased dramatically during that same time period[2]. We have become a nation of undisciplined gluttons, with no appreciation for the value of long-term gratification. A nation of children, regressing rather than maturing, hoping and even expecting that things will somehow work out. Or not. Whatever.
We made charge-card purchases when we didn't have the cash. We bought homes with balloon mortgages. We elected leaders who borrowed unprecedented sums from our own children and grandchildren in order to finance wild spending sprees, and we ran our households the same way, as if tomorrow would never come. The apparent diminished optimism responsible for this short-sightedness is unfortunate, because short-term gratification means less gratification.
As we compete for limited jobs, even the modest goal of making a living is a greater challenge than it has been in decades. And beyond that, the more ambitious a goal, the more difficult it is to attain, obviously. If a particular goal were easy, everyone would have attained it, making it by definition: not an ambitious goal. The ordinary individual aspires to extraordinary achievements. Only the results are typically ordinary, not the original dream. What went wrong?
I assume that, as a reasonably normal individual, your goals are not ordinary. For that reason, they aren't going to be easy to attain. The easy approach that we've been taking isn't going to get you where you want to be. This is going to be tough. It's going to take self-discipline.
If little labour, little are our gains:
Man's fortunes are according to his pains.[3]
The "no pain, no gain" mentality is what makes champions of athletes and bodybuilders. "Feel the burn!" Kenyan runners racing in Europe and the United States sometimes return to East Africa mid-season because the soft lifestyle here causes them to gain weight. From my experience, when it's time to make a decision about what task to tackle next, or about a strategy, or at any figurative fork in the road, the more difficult path has almost always yielded superior results. When I've taken the easy path or made an undisciplined choice, things generally turned out poorly, to the degree that I wished I could return for a do-over. But there aren't many second chances. Read about Bill Gates' path to success. Read Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule[4]. Take a class rather than study on your own. Walk rather than ride. And while you're at it, think rather than listen to your iPod!
Remember: Short-term gratification means less gratification. Long-term gratification means more gratification. Do it because you want more!
1U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis
2Ogden CL, Fryar CD,Carroll MD, Flegal KM. Mean bodyweight,height,and body mass index, United States 1960–2002. Advance data from vital and health statistics; no347. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics.2004. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf
3 Herrick, Robert; Alfred Pollardi, ed. (1898). The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2. London: Lawrence & Bullen. Vol. 2, 66 & 320.
4 Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (Amazon)
Our increasingly short-term mentality reflects a growing national pessimism. We would rather take the happiness we can get now because, consciously or not, we're not sure it will be there for the taking in the long term. In May of 1975, the personal saving rate in the United States was 14.6 per cent. By April of 2008 (prior to the impact of the Financial Crisis of 2007), it had fallen to 0.8 per cent[1]. As we drifted away from our historic future orientation, I don't believe that it's a coincidence that the body weight of the typical American increased dramatically during that same time period[2]. We have become a nation of undisciplined gluttons, with no appreciation for the value of long-term gratification. A nation of children, regressing rather than maturing, hoping and even expecting that things will somehow work out. Or not. Whatever.
We made charge-card purchases when we didn't have the cash. We bought homes with balloon mortgages. We elected leaders who borrowed unprecedented sums from our own children and grandchildren in order to finance wild spending sprees, and we ran our households the same way, as if tomorrow would never come. The apparent diminished optimism responsible for this short-sightedness is unfortunate, because short-term gratification means less gratification.
As we compete for limited jobs, even the modest goal of making a living is a greater challenge than it has been in decades. And beyond that, the more ambitious a goal, the more difficult it is to attain, obviously. If a particular goal were easy, everyone would have attained it, making it by definition: not an ambitious goal. The ordinary individual aspires to extraordinary achievements. Only the results are typically ordinary, not the original dream. What went wrong?
I assume that, as a reasonably normal individual, your goals are not ordinary. For that reason, they aren't going to be easy to attain. The easy approach that we've been taking isn't going to get you where you want to be. This is going to be tough. It's going to take self-discipline.
If little labour, little are our gains:
Man's fortunes are according to his pains.[3]
The "no pain, no gain" mentality is what makes champions of athletes and bodybuilders. "Feel the burn!" Kenyan runners racing in Europe and the United States sometimes return to East Africa mid-season because the soft lifestyle here causes them to gain weight. From my experience, when it's time to make a decision about what task to tackle next, or about a strategy, or at any figurative fork in the road, the more difficult path has almost always yielded superior results. When I've taken the easy path or made an undisciplined choice, things generally turned out poorly, to the degree that I wished I could return for a do-over. But there aren't many second chances. Read about Bill Gates' path to success. Read Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule[4]. Take a class rather than study on your own. Walk rather than ride. And while you're at it, think rather than listen to your iPod!
Remember: Short-term gratification means less gratification. Long-term gratification means more gratification. Do it because you want more!
1U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis
2Ogden CL, Fryar CD,Carroll MD, Flegal KM. Mean bodyweight,height,and body mass index, United States 1960–2002. Advance data from vital and health statistics; no347. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics.2004. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf
3 Herrick, Robert; Alfred Pollardi, ed. (1898). The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2. London: Lawrence & Bullen. Vol. 2, 66 & 320.
4 Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (Amazon)
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Problems of Philosophy
If you've ever accused yourself of thinking too much, read Bertrand Russell; whether or not one agrees with his premises and conclusions, even if one believes that the wooden table exists, Russell's thirst for knowledge about knowledge and his analytical style are inspirational and provocative.
The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
Critical Notices: Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912) by Bernard Bosanquet
Wikipedia: The Problems of Philosophy
The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
Critical Notices: Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912) by Bernard Bosanquet
Wikipedia: The Problems of Philosophy
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Facing the Truth
It's ironic that even the enlightened philosopher can be limited by the yearnings of the egoic mind and blinded by lessons inherited rather than learned. Out of humility, I hesitate to appear to criticize renowned and accomplished thinkers, but from my experience an intense focus on an area of expertise can occasionally make it nearly impossible to accept something that even the diligent lay observer can see as clear as day.
In his insightful guide to spiritual enlightenment The Power of Now, Eckhard Tolle writes eloquently of "...an inward journey that will take you ever more deeply into the realm of great stillness and peace, yet also of great power and vibrant life. At first, you may only get fleeting glimpses of it, but through them you will begin to realize that you are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between birth and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be conceived of or spoken of -- yet I am speaking of it now. I am speaking of it not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can know it for yourself."
I believe in meditation; and I believe that contemplation is our highest activity. Cogito, ergo sum. Disciplined meditation has in fact revealed a vast inner self to which I was more or less oblivious when I was younger. And it's indisputable that we humans are in fact born from the physical artifacts of a larger organism, to which we return said borrowed materials upon our passing. And it's not unreasonable to view ourselves as individual components of a force that could be thought of as a collective intelligence that is greater than humanity. But to assign sacredness to that intelligence, which is really just nature (which surely does not consider itself sacred), or to imply that we are more than meaningless fragments in the grand scheme, is to fall victim to counterproductive tendencies that have dogged mankind at least since the earliest days of recorded civilization.
If history has taught us anything, it is that we are wired to assign supernatural explanations to things we don't understand, explanations we embrace doggedly until each is inevitably proven to be false. The fact that we find something to be awesome says everything about the limitations of our intellect and nothing about the object; apart from the human mind, the quality of awesomeness does not exist in nature.
It's also easy to understand how we have evolved to value human life above nearly all else. A species that didn't fight single-mindedly for its survival would not have ended up at the top of the food chain as we have (so far). As a result of that evolution, we believe that we are the most important beings in the Universe. We dream of an afterlife and of a connection to a sacred intelligence.
The good news is that information is all around us. We learn from every single thing we see, hear, and smell, and from everyone around us. Believe what is real. Pardon my French, but don't make shit up. The truth is always best, even when it inconveniently does not lead us where we yearn to go. It's far better to discipline ourselves to believe in and then to embrace what is real. Why would we strive for more than this inherently wondrous and wonderful life that has been bequeathed to us?
Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now
René Descartes
In his insightful guide to spiritual enlightenment The Power of Now, Eckhard Tolle writes eloquently of "...an inward journey that will take you ever more deeply into the realm of great stillness and peace, yet also of great power and vibrant life. At first, you may only get fleeting glimpses of it, but through them you will begin to realize that you are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between birth and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be conceived of or spoken of -- yet I am speaking of it now. I am speaking of it not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can know it for yourself."
I believe in meditation; and I believe that contemplation is our highest activity. Cogito, ergo sum. Disciplined meditation has in fact revealed a vast inner self to which I was more or less oblivious when I was younger. And it's indisputable that we humans are in fact born from the physical artifacts of a larger organism, to which we return said borrowed materials upon our passing. And it's not unreasonable to view ourselves as individual components of a force that could be thought of as a collective intelligence that is greater than humanity. But to assign sacredness to that intelligence, which is really just nature (which surely does not consider itself sacred), or to imply that we are more than meaningless fragments in the grand scheme, is to fall victim to counterproductive tendencies that have dogged mankind at least since the earliest days of recorded civilization.
If history has taught us anything, it is that we are wired to assign supernatural explanations to things we don't understand, explanations we embrace doggedly until each is inevitably proven to be false. The fact that we find something to be awesome says everything about the limitations of our intellect and nothing about the object; apart from the human mind, the quality of awesomeness does not exist in nature.
It's also easy to understand how we have evolved to value human life above nearly all else. A species that didn't fight single-mindedly for its survival would not have ended up at the top of the food chain as we have (so far). As a result of that evolution, we believe that we are the most important beings in the Universe. We dream of an afterlife and of a connection to a sacred intelligence.
The good news is that information is all around us. We learn from every single thing we see, hear, and smell, and from everyone around us. Believe what is real. Pardon my French, but don't make shit up. The truth is always best, even when it inconveniently does not lead us where we yearn to go. It's far better to discipline ourselves to believe in and then to embrace what is real. Why would we strive for more than this inherently wondrous and wonderful life that has been bequeathed to us?
Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now
René Descartes
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