Reaction to the movie: Pumpkin
It's about a girl from a well-to-do background, living a seemingly perfect life who falls in love with a mentally and physically retarded "challenged athlete". Although it is a nice movie, I must say that it is not realistic. The fact is that I see it over and over again: the rich invariably are limited in their social relations to the rich and the poor are restricted to the poor. You can see this trend throughout history across all societies and cultures. If you start out with a defect, there's just no reason why a person who is normal would choose the defective over the normal which is presumably readily available. Only if a normal relation is not possible will a normal person choose to associate with a handicap but if that is the case, then the normal person is probably not quite "normal" after all for if he was indeed normal, then he would be able to find a normal match. In short, it's a nice movie but in my opinion completely out of touch with reality. There's no reason whatsoever why Carolyn would fall in love with pumpkin!
The movie seems to highlight the euphoric attainment of perfection by anyone who applies himself adequately or simply gets lucky. However, as you already know, we don't believe in this. In our opinion there's no real choice in a person's life. Even if want to imagine that choices are possible, we must understand that the range of choices is extremely narrow compared to the total spectrum of possible choices. For example, a theorist would have said 10 years ago that if I succeeded in departing from Orthodox Judaism and go to college, it would be either a Jewish college such as YU or Touro or it will be a state/city sponsored college like BC/CUNY. Harvard is out of the question and so is the small private school out in Oklahoma. For the guy who lives in Oklahoma, the local college is an extremely likely possibility but BC is out of the question. In both cases it's just not practical for a person to attend certain kinds of colleges just like social and financial status are highly influenced from birth.
Dreaming of grandeur and quick riches is very pleasant and gratifying for some time but it's like Freudian defense mechanisms: it's soothing in the short run but disastrous in the long run. And that's because the person is creating an imaginary world around him, dodging real world issues and failing to develop the necessary skills to deal with those issues. Being realistic is always the best option when it comes to dealing effectively with the situation in the long run and the truth is sometimes painful.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Saturday, May 21, 2005
The Role of Reward and Punishment in Society
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In our society these days it is considered wrong to hit a child. Parents, teachers and educators are taught not to use physical force against children. Why is that?
As we grow up we constantly learn. We learn new skills, we learn proper behavior, and we learn to adopt the right perspective and attitude towards events in our lives. This extensive learning process, which is more important to children than to adults must be goaded. This means that children will not fully exploit their learning potential on their own; we must guide them through the process and sometimes do something to prod them back on the right course. Whatever action we take, we do so for the benefit of the children and insofar as the child is unhappy and disapproving of our action, it is their shortsightedness that leads them to believe that we are acting against their interests. When they grow up, they will realize that our actions during their childhood turned out to have been constructive. If they never come to that realization, then our actions turn out not to have had the proper effect because if the child never comes to consider our action beneficial to them then it is not beneficial to them.
For example: A gold-rusher in 1847 is leaving his relatively secure city life behind and is embarking on the Oregon trail with little provisions. He endures all the hardships of the journey west with the hopes of finding gold and getting rich quickly. If he finds gold and gets rich, then the hardship was all worthwhile; if he doesn't find gold and he doesn't get rich, then the journey was not worthwhile regardless of how we as historians or observers view it. Even if we now say that his journey has turned out to be a benefit to society in general, it is abundantly clear that it was no benefit to the person undergoing the hardships back then unless he found gold and if he could "reverse" his westward journey he would. Likewise, a child must himself come to realize when he grows up that his early "hardships" in the form of punishments and goading have turned out to be beneficial. Otherwise, those action are not beneficial to him regardless of what we think (from an ideal point of view).
Some examples where punishment is clearly wrong according to these criteria.
* The child is not smart enough to learn the desired behavior. Since he won't change anyway, the action turns out to have been in vain. If a person does not recognize the value of gold then you cannot convince him to make the journey westward and the journey cannot possibly be beneficial to him.
* The child could learn the very same behavior through more benign means. Why endure a painful westward journey to find gold if you can find gold in your backyard?
* The child remains resentful about his adverse circumstances for an extended period of time. The gold-rusher expects to get rich quickly. If he doesn't see the benefits soon enough, then it's not worth it even if the benefits materialize eventually (there's only so much that he's willing to sacrifice for the gold).
Remember, punishment is an artificial way of teaching. The natural way of teaching is simply to present the benefits associated with the desired behavior. There's nothing wrong with utilizing this artificial method of teaching as long as it meets the aforementioned criteria: the child is learning in the process, there is no easier way of doing it and the child does not consider it punishment for very long.
-----------------------------------------------
In our society these days it is considered wrong to hit a child. Parents, teachers and educators are taught not to use physical force against children. Why is that?
As we grow up we constantly learn. We learn new skills, we learn proper behavior, and we learn to adopt the right perspective and attitude towards events in our lives. This extensive learning process, which is more important to children than to adults must be goaded. This means that children will not fully exploit their learning potential on their own; we must guide them through the process and sometimes do something to prod them back on the right course. Whatever action we take, we do so for the benefit of the children and insofar as the child is unhappy and disapproving of our action, it is their shortsightedness that leads them to believe that we are acting against their interests. When they grow up, they will realize that our actions during their childhood turned out to have been constructive. If they never come to that realization, then our actions turn out not to have had the proper effect because if the child never comes to consider our action beneficial to them then it is not beneficial to them.
For example: A gold-rusher in 1847 is leaving his relatively secure city life behind and is embarking on the Oregon trail with little provisions. He endures all the hardships of the journey west with the hopes of finding gold and getting rich quickly. If he finds gold and gets rich, then the hardship was all worthwhile; if he doesn't find gold and he doesn't get rich, then the journey was not worthwhile regardless of how we as historians or observers view it. Even if we now say that his journey has turned out to be a benefit to society in general, it is abundantly clear that it was no benefit to the person undergoing the hardships back then unless he found gold and if he could "reverse" his westward journey he would. Likewise, a child must himself come to realize when he grows up that his early "hardships" in the form of punishments and goading have turned out to be beneficial. Otherwise, those action are not beneficial to him regardless of what we think (from an ideal point of view).
Some examples where punishment is clearly wrong according to these criteria.
* The child is not smart enough to learn the desired behavior. Since he won't change anyway, the action turns out to have been in vain. If a person does not recognize the value of gold then you cannot convince him to make the journey westward and the journey cannot possibly be beneficial to him.
* The child could learn the very same behavior through more benign means. Why endure a painful westward journey to find gold if you can find gold in your backyard?
* The child remains resentful about his adverse circumstances for an extended period of time. The gold-rusher expects to get rich quickly. If he doesn't see the benefits soon enough, then it's not worth it even if the benefits materialize eventually (there's only so much that he's willing to sacrifice for the gold).
Remember, punishment is an artificial way of teaching. The natural way of teaching is simply to present the benefits associated with the desired behavior. There's nothing wrong with utilizing this artificial method of teaching as long as it meets the aforementioned criteria: the child is learning in the process, there is no easier way of doing it and the child does not consider it punishment for very long.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Overstimulation
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According to Jean Piaget, cognitive development occurs when our experiences throw our schemes into disequilibrium. We then use assimilation (absorption of new information into our current mindset) and accommodation (modification of our current mindset to be compatible with the new information) to bring our schemes back into equilibrium.
However, psychologists have noted that the "problem of the match" interferes with proper development. Events and learning material have to be stimulating enough to cast our minds into disequilibrium to some extent; otherwise they will be considered boring. On the other hand, if they are overstimulating then we are unable to properly make sense of them or even process those experiences altogether and learning can therefore not take place.
The implications of the matching principle are comprehensive and very applicable to many situations in life. Keep in mind two important rules of thumb: Rule 1: if you are a reasonably intelligent grown-up, you are looking forward to moderate simulations and they are therefore considered to be healthy. Rule 2: a major stimulation is not only unhealthy but it is often not even realistic to look forward to one. Take a simple example: You receive an email that you have won the Sweepstakes and all you have to do is print out the email message, come down to their headquarters and walk out with a cool 10 million dollars. The problem is that you don't remember ever entering any sweepstakes contest and the authentication process also seems too simplistic. Lastly, it just seems too good to be true; was I really randomly chosen out of the millions of contestants? It turns out that these kind of email messages are complete nonsense. They are simply trying to get your attention about some product and thereby enter you into the sweepstakes or they are trying to swindle you out of money or "phish" your information. If I receive such a message, I would usually delete it immediately; I wouldn't even bother reading the entire message unless I've got nothing else to do and I'm just curious to see what it's all about. Why would I not bother? Because it's an overstimulation. Overstimulating events occur extremely rarely in an intelligent person's life and in this particular case it seems to me that this event has never taken place altogether; it is pure fantasy.
Now let's contrast this with a notification I receive that I had won the drawing for the first-prize "bayliner" awarded to all poker players at the Borgata in the month of May 2005. I am totally not expecting to win but I nonetheless consider it a possibility in the back of my mind in accordance with my current "scheme" of the Borgata. Therefore, if I receive such notification, I will readily believe that I did win the bayliner, not just because I'd love to believe that I did but because I can reasonably expect this notification to be real. It is therefore ironic but true that the best fantasy for me to cherish is not the grandest but the most realistic. Since all fantasies have some basis in reality, I would rather think about something that I know could happen if I am extremely lucky than something I know could not possibly happen. I can foresee myself in ten years from now being graduated from college, holding a decent-paying job, having a family and having published a book. These are Utopian goals but they are within grasp. However, if I would think about the possibility of being millionaire, a senator, and a womanizer in ten years from now I would be deluding myself outright and that is counterproductive. Such events are overstimulation and they just won't come to pass no matter how hard I try.
Note that these rules of thumb hold true for the flip side of the coin as well. I can imagine myself in ten years from now having blown all my savings in gambling and having made no social, familial or sexual progress. This is a bleak outlook which is unlikely but possible. But the idea that I will be "starving" for food and that I will not be able to afford my rent in addition to the social problems is just too far-fetched for me to seriously consider it. Such events are "overstimulating" so-to-speak (it's really just the opposite); I am therefore not prepared for them and I see no need or utility to prepare for them.
-----------------
According to Jean Piaget, cognitive development occurs when our experiences throw our schemes into disequilibrium. We then use assimilation (absorption of new information into our current mindset) and accommodation (modification of our current mindset to be compatible with the new information) to bring our schemes back into equilibrium.
However, psychologists have noted that the "problem of the match" interferes with proper development. Events and learning material have to be stimulating enough to cast our minds into disequilibrium to some extent; otherwise they will be considered boring. On the other hand, if they are overstimulating then we are unable to properly make sense of them or even process those experiences altogether and learning can therefore not take place.
The implications of the matching principle are comprehensive and very applicable to many situations in life. Keep in mind two important rules of thumb: Rule 1: if you are a reasonably intelligent grown-up, you are looking forward to moderate simulations and they are therefore considered to be healthy. Rule 2: a major stimulation is not only unhealthy but it is often not even realistic to look forward to one. Take a simple example: You receive an email that you have won the Sweepstakes and all you have to do is print out the email message, come down to their headquarters and walk out with a cool 10 million dollars. The problem is that you don't remember ever entering any sweepstakes contest and the authentication process also seems too simplistic. Lastly, it just seems too good to be true; was I really randomly chosen out of the millions of contestants? It turns out that these kind of email messages are complete nonsense. They are simply trying to get your attention about some product and thereby enter you into the sweepstakes or they are trying to swindle you out of money or "phish" your information. If I receive such a message, I would usually delete it immediately; I wouldn't even bother reading the entire message unless I've got nothing else to do and I'm just curious to see what it's all about. Why would I not bother? Because it's an overstimulation. Overstimulating events occur extremely rarely in an intelligent person's life and in this particular case it seems to me that this event has never taken place altogether; it is pure fantasy.
Now let's contrast this with a notification I receive that I had won the drawing for the first-prize "bayliner" awarded to all poker players at the Borgata in the month of May 2005. I am totally not expecting to win but I nonetheless consider it a possibility in the back of my mind in accordance with my current "scheme" of the Borgata. Therefore, if I receive such notification, I will readily believe that I did win the bayliner, not just because I'd love to believe that I did but because I can reasonably expect this notification to be real. It is therefore ironic but true that the best fantasy for me to cherish is not the grandest but the most realistic. Since all fantasies have some basis in reality, I would rather think about something that I know could happen if I am extremely lucky than something I know could not possibly happen. I can foresee myself in ten years from now being graduated from college, holding a decent-paying job, having a family and having published a book. These are Utopian goals but they are within grasp. However, if I would think about the possibility of being millionaire, a senator, and a womanizer in ten years from now I would be deluding myself outright and that is counterproductive. Such events are overstimulation and they just won't come to pass no matter how hard I try.
Note that these rules of thumb hold true for the flip side of the coin as well. I can imagine myself in ten years from now having blown all my savings in gambling and having made no social, familial or sexual progress. This is a bleak outlook which is unlikely but possible. But the idea that I will be "starving" for food and that I will not be able to afford my rent in addition to the social problems is just too far-fetched for me to seriously consider it. Such events are "overstimulating" so-to-speak (it's really just the opposite); I am therefore not prepared for them and I see no need or utility to prepare for them.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Human Evolution
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The course of human evolution is as follows:
macromolecules combine to form prokarytotic cells.
prokaryotes develop into eukaryotes
individual eukaryotic cells combine to form individual members of a population. Cells are no longer independent; they work in concert with other cells to promote the well-being of the individual through "division of labor". individual wellfare now supersedes the population wellfare. sun energy is utilized to fuel the processes required in order to sustain this highly-complex form of life.
organisms develop moblitiy organs. Mobility greatly increases chances of survival. for the first time, life is manifested in the form of animals as opposed to just plants. (plants are not mobile).
organisms utilize "ready-to-go" sources of energy instead of having to sythesize their energy from the sun; they consume lower, less powerful species of life. division of labor now includes a mouth to consume food and other sensory organs designed to facilitate detection of food. the brain allows the organsim to "process" sensory input and accordingly issue commands to other body organs to.
organisms emigrate from sea to land. No longer restricted to the sea, they can now look for food sources on land. Warm-blooded animals develop.
mammals are distinguished by their mammary glands designed to nourish their young while they experience a highly complex learning process required in order to reach full mammal capacity. The learning process is sort of a mini-evolution during which the child briefly experiences all primitive stages of the organism's evolution. Mammals require a longer developing period and so the young are highly dependent on their parents. They are able to climb trees and/or fly to reach food inaccessible to lower organisms and to avoid danger.
Australopithecus (a hominid species) walks upright. This frees the hands to utilize tools and to carry food for long distances.
Homo features an enlarged brain. Being able to process more complex sensory input quickly and to retain this info in long term memmory is a significant enhancement to survival. Humans have sacrificed other characteristics essential for success such as a strong sense of smell and wings to fly or swim in favor of the increased ability to process information and devise highly complex solutions accordingly, a feature commonly called "intelligence". Homo Sapiens is the most adaptive living species in our solar system and from our observation (that life evolves from the primitive to the more advanced) we can safely infer that we are the most advanced species ever to live in our solar system.
What is our next evolutionary stage and why is it important for us to try to predict it? Having an idead of what the next evolutionary stage will be allows us to prepare and facilitate its realization. The more prepared we are for it mentally the easier it is for us to accept it and move on to the next level of existence.
* enlargement of the brain. There are plenty of resources out there that we can use to enhance our survival but we must be able to figure out how to best utilize those resources and the brain allows us to do just that. Future humans will therefore have a bigger brain relative to the rest of their body.
* bigger body. Hominids have been growing in size ever since and is therefore assumed that this trend will continue.
* ability to walk and run quicker and possibly the adaptation of our hands for flight or other activities. It is remarkable that we are quite a slow-moving species. It seems that we have forgone the development of our legs in favor of brain development. Eventually leg development will catch up.
* ability to read, write and talk faster. There is no question that future humans will be able to perform all three of these vital human tasks more efficiently and that includes doing it faster while expending less energy.
* longevity. We have seen that human life expectancy has increased over the centuries and we therefore assume that this trend will continue.
* longer childhood and adolescence. a longer developmental period by definition means that once we complete the development process we are more adaptive to our environment and it is therefore directly correlated with an enhanced existence, expected in future humans.
* ability to stay awake longer and to eat less frequently. We see that current human infants lack of these abilities but acquire them later in life as they grow up. We therefore assume that we will increase these abilities on the species level as time rolls on.
* visual acuity and versatility. Vision, more than our other senses has recently emerged as a much more important sense relative to other senses. Imagine a person living in the industrial age when physical activity was most important. Given the right technology it is relatively easy to develop work procedures that allow a blind person to perform just as well on the job as the sighted person. Now, in the information age, it all depends on information and since 98% of the information we gather and store in our brain is based on eyesight, it is therefore crucial that we develop better eysight. Better eyesight includes the ability to see in the dark, the ability to see from far away and the ability to read for an extended period of time without tiring the eyes.
*better math skills. Unlike other scientific aptitudes, math is abstract and hypothetical and therefore more distinctly human than other disciplines. As humans we therefore expect to develop this ability further.
------------------
The course of human evolution is as follows:
macromolecules combine to form prokarytotic cells.
prokaryotes develop into eukaryotes
individual eukaryotic cells combine to form individual members of a population. Cells are no longer independent; they work in concert with other cells to promote the well-being of the individual through "division of labor". individual wellfare now supersedes the population wellfare. sun energy is utilized to fuel the processes required in order to sustain this highly-complex form of life.
organisms develop moblitiy organs. Mobility greatly increases chances of survival. for the first time, life is manifested in the form of animals as opposed to just plants. (plants are not mobile).
organisms utilize "ready-to-go" sources of energy instead of having to sythesize their energy from the sun; they consume lower, less powerful species of life. division of labor now includes a mouth to consume food and other sensory organs designed to facilitate detection of food. the brain allows the organsim to "process" sensory input and accordingly issue commands to other body organs to.
organisms emigrate from sea to land. No longer restricted to the sea, they can now look for food sources on land. Warm-blooded animals develop.
mammals are distinguished by their mammary glands designed to nourish their young while they experience a highly complex learning process required in order to reach full mammal capacity. The learning process is sort of a mini-evolution during which the child briefly experiences all primitive stages of the organism's evolution. Mammals require a longer developing period and so the young are highly dependent on their parents. They are able to climb trees and/or fly to reach food inaccessible to lower organisms and to avoid danger.
Australopithecus (a hominid species) walks upright. This frees the hands to utilize tools and to carry food for long distances.
Homo features an enlarged brain. Being able to process more complex sensory input quickly and to retain this info in long term memmory is a significant enhancement to survival. Humans have sacrificed other characteristics essential for success such as a strong sense of smell and wings to fly or swim in favor of the increased ability to process information and devise highly complex solutions accordingly, a feature commonly called "intelligence". Homo Sapiens is the most adaptive living species in our solar system and from our observation (that life evolves from the primitive to the more advanced) we can safely infer that we are the most advanced species ever to live in our solar system.
What is our next evolutionary stage and why is it important for us to try to predict it? Having an idead of what the next evolutionary stage will be allows us to prepare and facilitate its realization. The more prepared we are for it mentally the easier it is for us to accept it and move on to the next level of existence.
* enlargement of the brain. There are plenty of resources out there that we can use to enhance our survival but we must be able to figure out how to best utilize those resources and the brain allows us to do just that. Future humans will therefore have a bigger brain relative to the rest of their body.
* bigger body. Hominids have been growing in size ever since and is therefore assumed that this trend will continue.
* ability to walk and run quicker and possibly the adaptation of our hands for flight or other activities. It is remarkable that we are quite a slow-moving species. It seems that we have forgone the development of our legs in favor of brain development. Eventually leg development will catch up.
* ability to read, write and talk faster. There is no question that future humans will be able to perform all three of these vital human tasks more efficiently and that includes doing it faster while expending less energy.
* longevity. We have seen that human life expectancy has increased over the centuries and we therefore assume that this trend will continue.
* longer childhood and adolescence. a longer developmental period by definition means that once we complete the development process we are more adaptive to our environment and it is therefore directly correlated with an enhanced existence, expected in future humans.
* ability to stay awake longer and to eat less frequently. We see that current human infants lack of these abilities but acquire them later in life as they grow up. We therefore assume that we will increase these abilities on the species level as time rolls on.
* visual acuity and versatility. Vision, more than our other senses has recently emerged as a much more important sense relative to other senses. Imagine a person living in the industrial age when physical activity was most important. Given the right technology it is relatively easy to develop work procedures that allow a blind person to perform just as well on the job as the sighted person. Now, in the information age, it all depends on information and since 98% of the information we gather and store in our brain is based on eyesight, it is therefore crucial that we develop better eysight. Better eyesight includes the ability to see in the dark, the ability to see from far away and the ability to read for an extended period of time without tiring the eyes.
*better math skills. Unlike other scientific aptitudes, math is abstract and hypothetical and therefore more distinctly human than other disciplines. As humans we therefore expect to develop this ability further.
Friday, May 06, 2005
The value of life
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Here's a tough question: If you had to choose between a short but comfortable life or a long but uncomfortable life, which one should you choose?
Answer: the comfortable, short one! This might seem a bit surprising but it's the truth. It is worth sacrificing longevity in order to gain ground in one's "quality of life". This question has come up just several minutes ago when I was about to go to Shoprite to get some sweet baked good, which I know is not good for my health. Yet, I felt an urge for such sweets and I therefore decided that it's worth sacrificing longevity for the benefit of a more pleasurable life. And I will explain:
We all die one day; nobody lives forever. Therefore, focusing excessively on achieving longevity is erroneous because it only delays the inevitable, it does not avert it. If you are going to live longer but those extra years are not going to be of major achievement in accordance with the SAP (survive, adapt, perpetuate) principles, then you have not accomplished much. Our ultimate achievement in our lifetime is NOT measured by the amount of years we have spent alive but it is measured by how much we have contributed to society for eternity. I don't care how small our lifetime contributions to society are, these contributions are forever. They live on after we die and they irreversibly alter the course of society forever.
An individual life should be viewed as a mission. A mission is designed to be accomplished as quick and as best as possible. Thus, if we can accomplish the exact same mission in a shorter lifetime, then the shorter lifetime is the more desirable option because it involves less effort. That, however, is usually not the case. By living longer we have a chance to accomplish more and this is why a longer life is almost always desirable. However, we must keep in mind that the end-goal is not longevity by itself but completion of the mission and therefore we must place "mission achievement" as a first priority over "longevity achievement". Since comfort and pleasure are qualities of life that typically enhance fulfillment of the mission, it is therefore more important to live a comfortable life than it is important to live a long life.
So you ask: doesn't longevity contribute to fulfillment of the mission just as well? The answer is no! An attempt to prolong our life just for the sake of a prolonged life is futile. We are seeking to prolong our life in order to enhance mission achievement but if we don't engage in acts that contribute directly to mission achievement at the present time then the extra years later on in life won't help us.
Thus, if you have an intense urge to eat something unhealthy or to engage in something dangerous and you know that your quality of life will be severely affected negatively if you don't do it, then it is advisable that you sacrifice longevity and security for the sake of achieving a better mission. Ultimately, this is a subjective matter and each individual must make his or her own decision as to whether the inconvenience caused by abstinence is severe enough to warrant the sacrifice of longevity or security.
----------------
----------------
Here's a tough question: If you had to choose between a short but comfortable life or a long but uncomfortable life, which one should you choose?
Answer: the comfortable, short one! This might seem a bit surprising but it's the truth. It is worth sacrificing longevity in order to gain ground in one's "quality of life". This question has come up just several minutes ago when I was about to go to Shoprite to get some sweet baked good, which I know is not good for my health. Yet, I felt an urge for such sweets and I therefore decided that it's worth sacrificing longevity for the benefit of a more pleasurable life. And I will explain:
We all die one day; nobody lives forever. Therefore, focusing excessively on achieving longevity is erroneous because it only delays the inevitable, it does not avert it. If you are going to live longer but those extra years are not going to be of major achievement in accordance with the SAP (survive, adapt, perpetuate) principles, then you have not accomplished much. Our ultimate achievement in our lifetime is NOT measured by the amount of years we have spent alive but it is measured by how much we have contributed to society for eternity. I don't care how small our lifetime contributions to society are, these contributions are forever. They live on after we die and they irreversibly alter the course of society forever.
An individual life should be viewed as a mission. A mission is designed to be accomplished as quick and as best as possible. Thus, if we can accomplish the exact same mission in a shorter lifetime, then the shorter lifetime is the more desirable option because it involves less effort. That, however, is usually not the case. By living longer we have a chance to accomplish more and this is why a longer life is almost always desirable. However, we must keep in mind that the end-goal is not longevity by itself but completion of the mission and therefore we must place "mission achievement" as a first priority over "longevity achievement". Since comfort and pleasure are qualities of life that typically enhance fulfillment of the mission, it is therefore more important to live a comfortable life than it is important to live a long life.
So you ask: doesn't longevity contribute to fulfillment of the mission just as well? The answer is no! An attempt to prolong our life just for the sake of a prolonged life is futile. We are seeking to prolong our life in order to enhance mission achievement but if we don't engage in acts that contribute directly to mission achievement at the present time then the extra years later on in life won't help us.
Thus, if you have an intense urge to eat something unhealthy or to engage in something dangerous and you know that your quality of life will be severely affected negatively if you don't do it, then it is advisable that you sacrifice longevity and security for the sake of achieving a better mission. Ultimately, this is a subjective matter and each individual must make his or her own decision as to whether the inconvenience caused by abstinence is severe enough to warrant the sacrifice of longevity or security.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
The Bulging Waisteline: Why do people overeat?
I look around in the casino, in supermarkets and on the street and I see people who are of average weight, then there are some who are chubby ("overweight") and then there are those who are massive ("obese") and I immediately ask myself: how do these people managepile on that much weight?
While I do agree that there is some genetic factor in obesity, the fact of the matter is that more weight requires more food and we can therefore deduce logically that these people eat more --much more-- than me. And so it's not just an errant gene that influences the person to overeat; rather the person becomes "addicted" to the food by virtue of his or her excessive body mass. Once a person becomes overweight, what is considered overeating to average people becomes regular eating to the obese. But what exactly pulls the trigger?
To answer this, we shall examine animal weight patterns. It is remarkable that we rarely if ever see an obese lion, an overweight cat or a chubby bumble bee. I am surprised that this observation is not more popular; I don't think I have ever read it anywhere but it's a fact nonetheless. And so we therefore see that overeating is somehow associated with some peculiar human characteristic. There is some progressive urge in humans to eat excessively, which -if misapplied- is detrimental rather than beneficial. From what I have observed, the following are advantages of excessive weight:
1. More fats means that the organism has a bigger reserve from which to draw food in a time of need. A bigger and/or fatter organism should in theory be able to withstand a longer fast or a prolonged period of survival on little food.
2. Bigger means stronger. When it comes down to a fight over scarce food resources, the bigger and thus stronger species or the bigger organism within a species will prevail.
3. Bigger means a more stable and resistant life. If a big life is to be destroyed (completely), the individual's constituent parts must be broken apart first. This is how the original life-supporting compound molecules formed such as water (OH2), ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) and later the macromolecules of protein, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids which are the direct forefathers of all life on earth.
4. Even though a bigger organism needs more food to survive, it is easier for it to obtain the necessary food than it is for smaller organisms because it can easilly feed off the little ones as well as off the food available to the little ones. This is true because life in the universe is hierarchical, like a pyramid. The ones at the very bottom of the pyramid, such as autotrophs have no "prepackaged" food. They must synthesize their own food off the sun and that is hard work. They cannot "afford" to grow big because they simply are not capable of feeding such a big organism off the sun or thermal vents in the ocean. Species who are higher up in the ecosystem are more sophisticated and have developed mechanisms that allow them to utilize ("digest") prepackacged food not only in the form of plants but also in the form of lower-level species. Essentially, any species that is below its level in the ecosystem, is up for grabs and this presents an overhwelming abundance of food to the high-level species when compared to the food available to lower level species.
However, the additional requirements demanded by bigger species is a serious liability as well. We should not forget what happened to the Dinsoaurs 65 million years ago. Humans now rule Earth; there are 6 billion humans on Earth but there are only perhaps about 20,000 each among species of similar size to humans such as tigers, bears, lions and dogs. Up until 65 million years ago the Dinsoaurs ruled Earth; they were the biggest, the strongest the most numerous and they populated the entire globe. Our ancestors, the little mammals, were puny and up to the mercy of the Dinsoaurs at that time. But it all came to a decisive end when an asteroid from outer space bombarded our planet and obstructed the sun. The big Dinsoaurs required too much food and were unable to survive in a planet with so little sun and so they all eventually perished. The small mammals were mure adaptivebecause they did not require that much food.
And so, we humans who are the most sophisticated descendants of those early mammals from 65 million years ago, have learned that too big could be more of a liability than an asset. And that is why in the course of millions of evolutionary years we chose not to grow our bodies too big. The brain is the organ that did grow the most relative to its size 65 million years ago because we utilize intelligence (which is generated by the brain) and social collaboration to facilitate survival. We deliberately chose NOT to grow the rest of our bodies and so you see that the elephant, the giraffe, the horse and the camal are all bigger than humans but they are obviously inferior and weaker than us when it comes to getting our way through. We are more adaptive to nature and therefore more prone to survive.
People who overeat are essentially making the same mistake that the dinosaurs made 65 million years ago. The urge to overeat is not fundamentally differnet from the urge the dinosaurs had to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. They knew that bigger means stronger, but what they didn't anticipate is the downside to a massive body:
1. a massive body requires more food. In times when there is a super-long period of scarce food sources, the smaller organism can get away with it more easilly than the big one.
2. a bigger organism spends more time consuming food and is thus wasting time that could be spent on more valuable pursuits. Even if the organism develops a bigger esophagus, it still takes more time and effort for the bigger organism to engage in the act of "eating" than it does for the smaller organism.
I look around in the casino, in supermarkets and on the street and I see people who are of average weight, then there are some who are chubby ("overweight") and then there are those who are massive ("obese") and I immediately ask myself: how do these people managepile on that much weight?
While I do agree that there is some genetic factor in obesity, the fact of the matter is that more weight requires more food and we can therefore deduce logically that these people eat more --much more-- than me. And so it's not just an errant gene that influences the person to overeat; rather the person becomes "addicted" to the food by virtue of his or her excessive body mass. Once a person becomes overweight, what is considered overeating to average people becomes regular eating to the obese. But what exactly pulls the trigger?
To answer this, we shall examine animal weight patterns. It is remarkable that we rarely if ever see an obese lion, an overweight cat or a chubby bumble bee. I am surprised that this observation is not more popular; I don't think I have ever read it anywhere but it's a fact nonetheless. And so we therefore see that overeating is somehow associated with some peculiar human characteristic. There is some progressive urge in humans to eat excessively, which -if misapplied- is detrimental rather than beneficial. From what I have observed, the following are advantages of excessive weight:
1. More fats means that the organism has a bigger reserve from which to draw food in a time of need. A bigger and/or fatter organism should in theory be able to withstand a longer fast or a prolonged period of survival on little food.
2. Bigger means stronger. When it comes down to a fight over scarce food resources, the bigger and thus stronger species or the bigger organism within a species will prevail.
3. Bigger means a more stable and resistant life. If a big life is to be destroyed (completely), the individual's constituent parts must be broken apart first. This is how the original life-supporting compound molecules formed such as water (OH2), ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) and later the macromolecules of protein, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids which are the direct forefathers of all life on earth.
4. Even though a bigger organism needs more food to survive, it is easier for it to obtain the necessary food than it is for smaller organisms because it can easilly feed off the little ones as well as off the food available to the little ones. This is true because life in the universe is hierarchical, like a pyramid. The ones at the very bottom of the pyramid, such as autotrophs have no "prepackaged" food. They must synthesize their own food off the sun and that is hard work. They cannot "afford" to grow big because they simply are not capable of feeding such a big organism off the sun or thermal vents in the ocean. Species who are higher up in the ecosystem are more sophisticated and have developed mechanisms that allow them to utilize ("digest") prepackacged food not only in the form of plants but also in the form of lower-level species. Essentially, any species that is below its level in the ecosystem, is up for grabs and this presents an overhwelming abundance of food to the high-level species when compared to the food available to lower level species.
However, the additional requirements demanded by bigger species is a serious liability as well. We should not forget what happened to the Dinsoaurs 65 million years ago. Humans now rule Earth; there are 6 billion humans on Earth but there are only perhaps about 20,000 each among species of similar size to humans such as tigers, bears, lions and dogs. Up until 65 million years ago the Dinsoaurs ruled Earth; they were the biggest, the strongest the most numerous and they populated the entire globe. Our ancestors, the little mammals, were puny and up to the mercy of the Dinsoaurs at that time. But it all came to a decisive end when an asteroid from outer space bombarded our planet and obstructed the sun. The big Dinsoaurs required too much food and were unable to survive in a planet with so little sun and so they all eventually perished. The small mammals were mure adaptivebecause they did not require that much food.
And so, we humans who are the most sophisticated descendants of those early mammals from 65 million years ago, have learned that too big could be more of a liability than an asset. And that is why in the course of millions of evolutionary years we chose not to grow our bodies too big. The brain is the organ that did grow the most relative to its size 65 million years ago because we utilize intelligence (which is generated by the brain) and social collaboration to facilitate survival. We deliberately chose NOT to grow the rest of our bodies and so you see that the elephant, the giraffe, the horse and the camal are all bigger than humans but they are obviously inferior and weaker than us when it comes to getting our way through. We are more adaptive to nature and therefore more prone to survive.
People who overeat are essentially making the same mistake that the dinosaurs made 65 million years ago. The urge to overeat is not fundamentally differnet from the urge the dinosaurs had to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. They knew that bigger means stronger, but what they didn't anticipate is the downside to a massive body:
1. a massive body requires more food. In times when there is a super-long period of scarce food sources, the smaller organism can get away with it more easilly than the big one.
2. a bigger organism spends more time consuming food and is thus wasting time that could be spent on more valuable pursuits. Even if the organism develops a bigger esophagus, it still takes more time and effort for the bigger organism to engage in the act of "eating" than it does for the smaller organism.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
What Might Have been
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People often speculate on what might have been. What if I had decided to stick it through the US Navy in Apr of 1999? What if 9/11 never took place? What if Hitler died as a baby? What if the Confederacy won the civil war? What if the Hebrews were unable to conquer the land of Canaan? As we move back in time it becomes more and more difficult to speculate on how history would have developed in light of such major hypothetical events (or non-events). The difficulty inherent in this speculation is evidence that the very speculation itself is flawed, because if it were a valid speculation then we should have been able to come to solid conclusions about it just like we can scientifically investigate the past or the natural sciences.
Why is such speculation flawed?
As you should already know, we believe that there is no free will. Just like we have no control over when and how a hurricane will develop or the laws of gravity, we likewise have no control over other people's actions and even our own actions. Control over ourselves is only an illusion!! It's a good illusion, a very constructive illusion, since it induces people to behave responsibly and thus improve our lives and the lives of future generations. But in reality, if we think about it, it doesn't take much to realize that all major decisions that any person or organization makes is based on precedents and biases. President Bush is not a Republican because he "chose" to be a republican; he is republican because his family and upbringing is republican and his business (or former business) interests are best advanced through the republican platform. Likewise, the current Satmar Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum is not Satmar Rebbe because he is the most pious and capable person within the community; one must be foolish to think so. He is Rebbe simple because he is the nephew of the previous Satmar Rebbe. I can give you hundreds of such examples but that's not the object of my discussion here.
The reason I am bringing this doctrine up here is that since there is no choice in human actions or in any of the events that we observe in the universe, the speculation of "what would have been if I had made an alternative choice" is a fruitless attempt because we now KNOW that such a choice was not possible and it's therefore no different than speculating on what human society would be like if we had wings. The fact is we don't have wings and we can't fly. We never had wings and we never will (in the foreseeable future) and thinking about it is therefore pure fantasy.
The decision I made to quit the Navy was carefully deliberated and given the circumstances I was in during that harsh transitional phase of my life, I now KNOW that it was the only feasible option. I don't know so because I have some sophisticated proof. I know so simply because I observe now that I did not choose to stay in the Navy then.
But there's more to this. A major decision (defined as one that involves major change) will never be executed successfully unless there is a major impetus for it. We see this with all the societal revolutions: the French revolution, the American revolution, the Glorious revolution (in England). Roosevelt's "new deal" of the 1930's would have never taken place if not for the Great Depression. Now imagine if some very smart guy came out in 1928 and said: I have analyzed the recent economic trend and I have realized that if society doesn't implement some major social changes, a gigantic depression will occur. Millions of people will lose their houses, farms and jobs. People would have laughed at him. Congress would not have enacted any laws to tackle the issue seriously and life would have continued as usual until the prophecy actually materialized. Then, the smart guy will say: you fools! I told you in advance that all of this would happen. If you had listened to me then you could have avoided all this! What's the answer to this? Since there was no "real" impetus to cause such new-deal-like legislation at the time, such legislation was therefore not possible. That status-quo rule prevails: life remains the same until a major force causes some change.
Therefore, even if I did make a mistake by quitting the Navy, which may very well be the case, I didn't have the "major impetus" necessary to convince me to stay and staying was therefore not an option just like new-deal-legislation was not an option before the Great Depression. In other words: I was simply "not ready" for the Navy at the time and I couldn't hasten the pace of the Great Rebellion any more than I had already done.
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People often speculate on what might have been. What if I had decided to stick it through the US Navy in Apr of 1999? What if 9/11 never took place? What if Hitler died as a baby? What if the Confederacy won the civil war? What if the Hebrews were unable to conquer the land of Canaan? As we move back in time it becomes more and more difficult to speculate on how history would have developed in light of such major hypothetical events (or non-events). The difficulty inherent in this speculation is evidence that the very speculation itself is flawed, because if it were a valid speculation then we should have been able to come to solid conclusions about it just like we can scientifically investigate the past or the natural sciences.
Why is such speculation flawed?
As you should already know, we believe that there is no free will. Just like we have no control over when and how a hurricane will develop or the laws of gravity, we likewise have no control over other people's actions and even our own actions. Control over ourselves is only an illusion!! It's a good illusion, a very constructive illusion, since it induces people to behave responsibly and thus improve our lives and the lives of future generations. But in reality, if we think about it, it doesn't take much to realize that all major decisions that any person or organization makes is based on precedents and biases. President Bush is not a Republican because he "chose" to be a republican; he is republican because his family and upbringing is republican and his business (or former business) interests are best advanced through the republican platform. Likewise, the current Satmar Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum is not Satmar Rebbe because he is the most pious and capable person within the community; one must be foolish to think so. He is Rebbe simple because he is the nephew of the previous Satmar Rebbe. I can give you hundreds of such examples but that's not the object of my discussion here.
The reason I am bringing this doctrine up here is that since there is no choice in human actions or in any of the events that we observe in the universe, the speculation of "what would have been if I had made an alternative choice" is a fruitless attempt because we now KNOW that such a choice was not possible and it's therefore no different than speculating on what human society would be like if we had wings. The fact is we don't have wings and we can't fly. We never had wings and we never will (in the foreseeable future) and thinking about it is therefore pure fantasy.
The decision I made to quit the Navy was carefully deliberated and given the circumstances I was in during that harsh transitional phase of my life, I now KNOW that it was the only feasible option. I don't know so because I have some sophisticated proof. I know so simply because I observe now that I did not choose to stay in the Navy then.
But there's more to this. A major decision (defined as one that involves major change) will never be executed successfully unless there is a major impetus for it. We see this with all the societal revolutions: the French revolution, the American revolution, the Glorious revolution (in England). Roosevelt's "new deal" of the 1930's would have never taken place if not for the Great Depression. Now imagine if some very smart guy came out in 1928 and said: I have analyzed the recent economic trend and I have realized that if society doesn't implement some major social changes, a gigantic depression will occur. Millions of people will lose their houses, farms and jobs. People would have laughed at him. Congress would not have enacted any laws to tackle the issue seriously and life would have continued as usual until the prophecy actually materialized. Then, the smart guy will say: you fools! I told you in advance that all of this would happen. If you had listened to me then you could have avoided all this! What's the answer to this? Since there was no "real" impetus to cause such new-deal-like legislation at the time, such legislation was therefore not possible. That status-quo rule prevails: life remains the same until a major force causes some change.
Therefore, even if I did make a mistake by quitting the Navy, which may very well be the case, I didn't have the "major impetus" necessary to convince me to stay and staying was therefore not an option just like new-deal-legislation was not an option before the Great Depression. In other words: I was simply "not ready" for the Navy at the time and I couldn't hasten the pace of the Great Rebellion any more than I had already done.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
The Purpose of Life
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The purpose of life is not fundamentally different than the purpose of any other naturally occurring chemical bonds. A chlorine atom has seven valence electrons and a sodium atom has one valence electron. Both elements have ten lower-energy-level electrons for a total of 17 and 11 electrons respectively. When the two atoms meet, they join in holy matrimony in accordance with the "octet rule": atoms tend to establish completely full outer energy levels containing eight electrons. The chlorine atom gains an electron from the sodium atom and becomes negatively charged Cl- and the sodium atom loses an electron becoming positively charged Na+. The two atoms form an ionic bond and the result is sodium chloride, or "salt". Why do these atoms bond together? Because the ionic bond offers a more efficient and stable existence for BOTH atoms. If these atoms are to be destroyed, then the ionic bond must be broken first. The ionic bond is thus a form of existence that is more prone to survive. This simple compound, in turn, seeks to form a more complex form by combining with other elements and compounds such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to create molecules. Simple molecules combine to form even more complex organic systems such as the macromolecules carbohydrate, protein, lipid and nucleic acid. The more complex the system the greater the chances of survival for that system and thus for all the individual constituents that make up the system. Therefore, life forms as a result of the individual hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus atoms seeking to combine with other atoms to enhance their collective chances of survival.
We are chemical machines: machines do not "choose" to perform the work assigned to them and neither do we. We are assigned certain tasks in our lifetime that we need to accomplish. These tasks mostly involve improving our state of existence by responding to environmental stimuli and evolving favorably. Once done we pass similar tasks on to our offspring and we perish. We die because the chemical processes required to sustain life are so intense and demanding that it is impossible for a single organism to undergo them forever. The organism therefore develops a complex code (DNA) that instructs the new embryo how to replicate the parent life form and thus maintain its existence. And so the purpose of life is not to serve God, to accumulate wealth or to have sex. There is only one true purpose in life and that is survival, adaptation and reproduction: what we call SAP (survive, adapt, perpetuate).
So you ask, if life is the perfect form of existence, why haven't all oxygen, carbon and hydrogen atoms combined to create life forms? Well, you might as well ask, if humans are the optimal form of life, then why don't all life forms develop into humans? Let's ask an even more obvious question: If A college education results in a a higher standard of living, then why don't all humans go through college? They don't go through college because of financial, emotional or intellectual constraints. They all "want" to go through college but they are not all able to. Ultimately, the more "fit" humans will go through college and thus increase their survival chances and the less fit will not go through college, not because they resent college but because they have failed!!! And one failure leads to the next: now that they don't have a college education, they don't have a stable, well-paying job and so they are more prone to crime and this domino effect goes on and on. There will be many more failures than successes. Similarly, not all organisms are fit enough to develop into humans although if they could they would all love and do anything to live the life of a human. All carbon and oxygen in the universe would love to combine in life-forming chemical processes but only very few are able to. This is just how the nature of everything in the universe is: There are always many more lower forms of matter than there are higher forms of matter. This is so not only because the lower forms did not "make it" but their existence is also vital in order for the higher forms to exist. In humans, for example, we are unable to survive by feeding off the sun directly like autotrophs; we are heterotrophs and feed off plants and animals. We thus require a multitude of lower forms of life in order for us to survive. Likewise, it can be said that our solar system "requires" many dead stars in order for it to exist as a life-bearing star and this rule applies to all forms of existence: The higher, complex form of existence requires a huge base of primitive, simple forms of matter in order for it to exist.
Most animals are perceived as non-intelligent. They certainly do not have the capability of asking questions about the origin and purpose of the universe like we are doing here. However, we do know that whatever the animal does, it does for its own survival and it is not capable of choosing what to do or cease to perform the daily routines required for survival. And therefore we must conclude that humans are not fundamentally different. We are forced to do whatever is necessary for us survive; there is no free will and whatever we think or discuss -no matter how abstract we might think it is- we do so for the sole purpose of survival. When I am discussing the purpose of life in this article here, I am driven to do so by a natural instinct of curiosity, for the purpose of survival. I am also extremely interested in the study of biology, chemistry, physics, human history and the biography of Albert Einstein, but I am not interested in the details of the life of a specific dinosaur who lived 75 million years ago. Why? Because the biography of Einstein is important for human survival but the biography of the dinosaur who lived 75 million years ago is much less so.
The rule is simple and straightforward: We will only and we are able only, to perceive with our senses and think with our minds perceptions and thoughts that contribute to our survival. Concepts that are not related sufficiently to our survival are "blocked" from our mind and we will never be able to comprehend them, no matter how hard we try. This is why we cannot detect the full spectrum of light with our eyes and we are unable to understand what the universe was like before the Big Bang or what it will be like after the Big Crunch. In fact, we don't even know whether the universe will continue expanding forever or it will come to a halt and start contracting. These concepts are so far away from us in time and distance that they are beyond the limits of our minds.
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The purpose of life is not fundamentally different than the purpose of any other naturally occurring chemical bonds. A chlorine atom has seven valence electrons and a sodium atom has one valence electron. Both elements have ten lower-energy-level electrons for a total of 17 and 11 electrons respectively. When the two atoms meet, they join in holy matrimony in accordance with the "octet rule": atoms tend to establish completely full outer energy levels containing eight electrons. The chlorine atom gains an electron from the sodium atom and becomes negatively charged Cl- and the sodium atom loses an electron becoming positively charged Na+. The two atoms form an ionic bond and the result is sodium chloride, or "salt". Why do these atoms bond together? Because the ionic bond offers a more efficient and stable existence for BOTH atoms. If these atoms are to be destroyed, then the ionic bond must be broken first. The ionic bond is thus a form of existence that is more prone to survive. This simple compound, in turn, seeks to form a more complex form by combining with other elements and compounds such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to create molecules. Simple molecules combine to form even more complex organic systems such as the macromolecules carbohydrate, protein, lipid and nucleic acid. The more complex the system the greater the chances of survival for that system and thus for all the individual constituents that make up the system. Therefore, life forms as a result of the individual hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus atoms seeking to combine with other atoms to enhance their collective chances of survival.
We are chemical machines: machines do not "choose" to perform the work assigned to them and neither do we. We are assigned certain tasks in our lifetime that we need to accomplish. These tasks mostly involve improving our state of existence by responding to environmental stimuli and evolving favorably. Once done we pass similar tasks on to our offspring and we perish. We die because the chemical processes required to sustain life are so intense and demanding that it is impossible for a single organism to undergo them forever. The organism therefore develops a complex code (DNA) that instructs the new embryo how to replicate the parent life form and thus maintain its existence. And so the purpose of life is not to serve God, to accumulate wealth or to have sex. There is only one true purpose in life and that is survival, adaptation and reproduction: what we call SAP (survive, adapt, perpetuate).
So you ask, if life is the perfect form of existence, why haven't all oxygen, carbon and hydrogen atoms combined to create life forms? Well, you might as well ask, if humans are the optimal form of life, then why don't all life forms develop into humans? Let's ask an even more obvious question: If A college education results in a a higher standard of living, then why don't all humans go through college? They don't go through college because of financial, emotional or intellectual constraints. They all "want" to go through college but they are not all able to. Ultimately, the more "fit" humans will go through college and thus increase their survival chances and the less fit will not go through college, not because they resent college but because they have failed!!! And one failure leads to the next: now that they don't have a college education, they don't have a stable, well-paying job and so they are more prone to crime and this domino effect goes on and on. There will be many more failures than successes. Similarly, not all organisms are fit enough to develop into humans although if they could they would all love and do anything to live the life of a human. All carbon and oxygen in the universe would love to combine in life-forming chemical processes but only very few are able to. This is just how the nature of everything in the universe is: There are always many more lower forms of matter than there are higher forms of matter. This is so not only because the lower forms did not "make it" but their existence is also vital in order for the higher forms to exist. In humans, for example, we are unable to survive by feeding off the sun directly like autotrophs; we are heterotrophs and feed off plants and animals. We thus require a multitude of lower forms of life in order for us to survive. Likewise, it can be said that our solar system "requires" many dead stars in order for it to exist as a life-bearing star and this rule applies to all forms of existence: The higher, complex form of existence requires a huge base of primitive, simple forms of matter in order for it to exist.
Most animals are perceived as non-intelligent. They certainly do not have the capability of asking questions about the origin and purpose of the universe like we are doing here. However, we do know that whatever the animal does, it does for its own survival and it is not capable of choosing what to do or cease to perform the daily routines required for survival. And therefore we must conclude that humans are not fundamentally different. We are forced to do whatever is necessary for us survive; there is no free will and whatever we think or discuss -no matter how abstract we might think it is- we do so for the sole purpose of survival. When I am discussing the purpose of life in this article here, I am driven to do so by a natural instinct of curiosity, for the purpose of survival. I am also extremely interested in the study of biology, chemistry, physics, human history and the biography of Albert Einstein, but I am not interested in the details of the life of a specific dinosaur who lived 75 million years ago. Why? Because the biography of Einstein is important for human survival but the biography of the dinosaur who lived 75 million years ago is much less so.
The rule is simple and straightforward: We will only and we are able only, to perceive with our senses and think with our minds perceptions and thoughts that contribute to our survival. Concepts that are not related sufficiently to our survival are "blocked" from our mind and we will never be able to comprehend them, no matter how hard we try. This is why we cannot detect the full spectrum of light with our eyes and we are unable to understand what the universe was like before the Big Bang or what it will be like after the Big Crunch. In fact, we don't even know whether the universe will continue expanding forever or it will come to a halt and start contracting. These concepts are so far away from us in time and distance that they are beyond the limits of our minds.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Monday, February 14, 2005
Why is religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) fallacious?
I grew up in an Ultra Orthodox Jewish community and I have experienced the rigors of fundamental religious practice first-hand throughout my childhood and teenage years. After 16 or so, I started to ask many questions, I was trying to understand why I should or should not do certain things and why I should believe in certain religious principles or events. I had every motive to confirm the validity of my religion: fit into the community, keep my existing friends, be respected as a "talmid hakham" (Talmudic scholar) and receive financial and social support from family and friends. On the other hand, I had everything to lose by abandoning my religion! Yet, I have found that religious practice is so misleading and counterproductive that these forces could not overcome my immense contempt towards religion once it reared its ugly head in full view.
prophecy- All three religions believe that God has revealed his command or admonishment to humans by communicating with one or more prophets. This supposedly is the basis of all religions: Do or do not do so and so because such is god's will; the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. The problem is that there is no evidence to support the claim that God has ever revealed himself as a distinct being and "spoke" to anyone. In the Christian and Islamic religions, no one claimed to have witnessed the revelation of god to Jesus or Muhammad and there is no proof whatsoever that it ever occurred.
Only in the Jewish religion (which incidentally is the basis for the other western religions) is there a claim that the nation witnessed the revelation of god to Moses at mount Sinai.
"On the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain and a very powerful sound of the Shofar and the entire people in the camp shuddered... And the Sinai mountain was full of smoke because Yehovah had descended upon it in the fire and the smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the entire mountain shuddered exceedingly. The sound of the Shofar grew continually stronger, Moses would speak and god would respond to him with a sound... And god spoke all these statements saying: I am Yehovah your god...".
It is obvious from this account that Moses was the one actually speaking the words "I am Yehovah your god...". It says openly "Moses would speak and god would respond to him with a sound" which refers to the sound of the Shofar (mentioned in the beginning of the verse), which presumably was a response signal from god confirming that Moses is authentically relaying his word.
And so, even though there were supposedly 600,000 people present in the camp during "Matan Torah" (the issuance of torah) none of these people witnessed god actually speaking to Moses. God's presence was only in the form of fire, thunder and lightning and his confirmation of Moses' prophecy was in the form of the sound of the Shofar. To me lightning is lightning, thunder is thunder, fire is fire and Shofar is Shofar but none of these phenomena are supernatural and none of these phenomena indicate the presence of god or the prophecy of god. Therefore, the account of matan torah could be quite accurate in all aspects except for the fact that it was "god responding to Moses with a sound". This is a subjective interpretation of the event by gullible observers and it was therefore included in the account as fact but the only fact is that a sound of Shofar was heard, which I believe to have come from a human and not from god (am I not also entitled to interpret this event?).
And so we see that even Judaism's claim of the presence of many witnesses to god's prophecy is invalid. There were many witnesses to an event that SEEMED to indicate god's presence and the broadcast of god's word to people who are inclined to believe so but there is no absolute evidence that God was actually involved in this event.
None of the prophecies of other religions or the numerous other prophecies by Moses and Hebrew prophets of later generations have been witnessed by others and there is no artifactual evidence that god has ever spoken to them.
miracles- In the bible there are numerous accounts of miracles that occurred in various ages. Miracles are supposed to be a sign of god to humans that he is charge and that we should heed his voice. In the first supposed revelation of Yehovah to Moses (Exodus 4:1) "Moses responded and said: but they will not believe in me and they will not heed my voice, for they will say: Yehovah did not appear to you. Yehovah said to him: what is that in in your hand? he said: a staff. He said: cast it on the ground. He cast it on the ground and it turned into a snake and Moses fled from it. Yehovah said: extend your arm and grasp its tail and Moses extended his arm and grasped it and it turned into a staff in his palm, so that they will believe that Yehovah has appeared to you, the god of their forefathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob". God then then taught Moses two more "signs" (making his had leprous and turning river water into blood) that will induce the people to believe that Yehovah the god of their forefathers has appeared to him in a prophetic vision and that he is relaying the word of god to them.
The account that includes the abovementioned three signs is not only an account of Moses's very first prophetic vision but it's also an account of the very first miracle ever mentioned in the bible. It is no coincidence that they both occurred simultaneously, because the miracles were needed to support Moses's claim that god appeared to him. If he cannot perform any miracles, then any impostor can come along and claim to be relaying the word of god. The miracle is "proof" that god has spoken to him.
Later in the chapter it is told that "Moses and Aharon went and gathered all the elders of the children of Israel and Aharon spoke all the words that Yehovah had spoken to Moses and he (Moses) performed the signs in the sight of the people". "The people" here must refer to the elders mentioned earlier, for the entire people had never been gathered for this event and so only the elders witnessed the signs which supposedly confirmed that Moses is speaking in the name of god.
But let's examine these miracles a bit closer. Moses casts his staff to the ground and then (only after it reaches the ground) it turns into a snake. Moses places his hand in his bosom and only then does it become leprous. Moses pours water to the ground and only after it reaches the ground does it become blood. It is obviously much more miraculous for these events to have occurred suddenly: The staff turns into a snake while he is holding it, the hand becomes leprous while in full view and the water turns into blood in mid air, but they didn't occur this way. Therefore, even if we believe in the overall occurrence of these events, we might dispute the miraculousness of these events. There may have been a snake already there hidden in the sands of the desert but these old people were not paying attention to it, the elders were paying attention to the staff. Moses casts the staff to the ground which simultaneously buries it in the dust and startles the snake; the snake tries to run away and its presence is therefore revealed and it seems as if the snake has just been "created" out of a staff. Moses places his hand in his bosom where some chemical concoction is hidden that makes the hand seem leprous. He then places it in his bosom again, this time removing the chemical or whatever had been applied to the hand. Moses pours water from the river to the ground and then some blood or red coloring is added to it and so the water seems to be blood.
If I would be watching these "signs" happening at a circus, I would be convinced that it's magic. Even if believed that god exists and that miracles are possible, I would still not conclude that these events are miraculous, for I had witnessed displays of magic before very similar to these three signs but I have never witnessed any miracle and therefore logically I would attribute these events to conventional magic -at most- and not to a miracle, which has never been observed in modern western civilization. So when we read stories like these in the bible, if we are predisposed to believe in miracles then we will indeed interpret them as miracles just like our ancestors did. But if we approach them from an objective standpoint, then we will first seek to explain these events in ways that conform to the everyday laws of physics, which we have never ever witnessed being violated. Only if and when we exhaust all other possible explanations, will we conclude that it must be a miracle.
Some people even think that the Ten Plagues were miraculous but that is not the case at all; all ten events were natural events that appear in nature periodically. Maybe the fact that these events all occurred in such a short time frame within a relatively small geographic area, makes them seem more miraculous than they should seem. The fact of the matter is that none of the Ten Plagues -even as told in the bible- violate any laws of physics. It is ironic but true that the three signs discussed earlier are the "proto-miracles" and they are also the only major miracles ever mentioned in the Torah. The problem is that only the elders witnessed these events and that these events could have been simple acts of magic.
One more major even that I should discuss here is "Kriyas Yam Suf" (splitting of the red sea). Some theologians believe this to have been the grandest miracle that has ever occurred, for it was witnessed and experienced by the entire nation of Israel. The problem is that it was no miracle at all. "Moses stretched out his arm over the sea and Yehovah moved the sea with a strong east wind all night long and he turned the sea into frost and the water split. The children of Israel came within the sea on dry land and the water was a wall for them on their right and on their left". It is obvious from this account that the sea water froze as a result of the cold night and the strong wind. The ice then developed cracks, which is conceivably a natural event, and the Israelites found one sufficiently wide crack in the ice to allow them to pass on solid ground through the ice safely (passing on the ice is dangerous because the ice can easily break apart from the weight and people would drown). In the morning, the sun warmed up the ice and it started melting away while the Egyptians were passing through. This situation was exacerbated because the wheels of the Egyptian chariots had previously been damaged and so the Egyptians had a very hard time making it through the sea. By the time noon came around the ice had melted away and the Egyptians thus drowned in the sea.
I am not making up this story; this is how it is told in the book of Exodus (14:21). Splitting of the red sea as told in the bible does not even seem to have been a miracle. Obviously, the Israelites took it as a supreme intervention on their behalf and that is why they composed a special song to Yehovah for this major rescue. But when we read the account 3,000 years later and analyze it from a purely objective standpoint, we see no miracle at all.
And so we come to the conclusion that miracles have never occurred in the past, just like we have never witnessed any miracles in our current, modern civilization. Miracles are in the minds -and in the minds only- of primitive people who are not aware of science and do not understand the complexities of nature. To them, if anything unusual or unexpected occurs, it is a miracle and it comes from god. To us, that very same event is not unexpected and it is explained by science.
God's commandments - In every religion there are commands and prohibitions (mitzvas aseh and mitzvas lo saseh) issued by god to mankind or to a specific people. These are standing orders from god. They do not have an expiration date and there's no built-in way in the system to repeal these laws. But let's examine these laws a bit closer.
If you look at the laws of the Old Testament, you notice that there generally isn't anything bizarre about them. The laws are there for the benefit of society just like modern secular laws. City of refuge for killers, prohibition against usury, fining an animal thief by having him pay four or five times what he stole, helping a fellow unload the merchandise off a crouching donkey, acceptance of a "sojourner" (ger) and many more laws like these are designated as "between man and his fellow" (ben adam lachavero) and they are all based on common sense. Other laws, like those pertaining to animal sacrifices and cleanliness (including dietary laws) are designated as "between man and god (ben adam lamakom) and their meaning and purpose is not as easily understood, nor can they be derived from common sense. Nonetheless, every single law in the Torah, down to the very smallest detail has a logical explanation and reason. The laws of animal sacrifices are based on long-standing traditions and the need to appease god with wholesome, pure sacrifices in order to ensure the continuity of success. Dietary laws are probably based on a traditional perception of impurity and uncleanliness in those animals that were prohibited.
Therefore, these laws are very similar to modern secular laws in the sense that there is a beneficial purpose to society in observing these laws, which is obvious to everyone; there is no hidden agenda behind them. But, there is one big difference: secular laws are made by people and are extremely fluid; as the needs and circumstances of the people change, so do the laws. Religious laws supposedly are the word of god and they do not change. But the more that we try to stick to the religious laws, the more we realize that we are forced to discard them in favor of modern man-made laws that are more in sync with the modern day.
For example: "If a man shall steal an ox or a goat and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five cattle in place of the ox and four sheep in place of the sheep". The problem is that there are no cattle or sheep around in the cities where most thefts take place and I don't think that many -if any- people have been caught stealing cattle or sheep in recent years. This law is therefore not very relevant these days. The same is true about the command to help a fellow unload the burden of a crouching donkey: donkeys are no longer used for hauling goods and even if they are, I doubt that you will ever encounter a "crouching donkey".
So what we need to do is rewrite the laws in forms that are more in sync with modern ways of life: If you see a fellow driving an overloaded minivan, you shall help him unload the merchandise. We can go through the entire bible and rewrite all the laws this way, but we still won't have a perfect code of law because many modern problems will not be addressed there. What about the tax code? what about USFDA regulations? what about NTSB travel procedures? What about OSHA health precautions. We won't be able to survive as a society without these laws and regulations and even if we revise and reinterpret the bible as best we can, we still won't find any laws pertaining to these matters. Logically, therefore, the best way to go about developing a modern code of law is simply by discarding the outdated code altogether and starting from scratch and in light of the latest scientific discoveries. So in the new code, there will be laws about punishing auto theft, not sheep and cattle theft. There will be restrictions on the production/consumption of poisonous or contaminated food and advice against eating cholesterol and sugar but not against eating pig meat or horse meat which has proven to be no different than meat from "kosher" animals.
My point is that since we ultimately see that religious code is based on logic and tradition anyway, why stick to an outdated form of logic and to an obsolete tradition? The same god that presumably commanded us to do so and so 3,000 years, doesn't he want us to behave more modernly in a modern era? I think that he does! and that is why my lifestyle is perfectly compatible with the religious lifestyle of an Israelite 3,000 years ago. He lived in an age when people believed in spirits and the need to appease the spirits with animal sacrifices and so they did. I live in an age where people believe in the laws of chemistry and physics and the need to do something concrete -based on scientific observations of cause and effect- to sustain life and so I do (or at least I should do).
I grew up in an Ultra Orthodox Jewish community and I have experienced the rigors of fundamental religious practice first-hand throughout my childhood and teenage years. After 16 or so, I started to ask many questions, I was trying to understand why I should or should not do certain things and why I should believe in certain religious principles or events. I had every motive to confirm the validity of my religion: fit into the community, keep my existing friends, be respected as a "talmid hakham" (Talmudic scholar) and receive financial and social support from family and friends. On the other hand, I had everything to lose by abandoning my religion! Yet, I have found that religious practice is so misleading and counterproductive that these forces could not overcome my immense contempt towards religion once it reared its ugly head in full view.
prophecy- All three religions believe that God has revealed his command or admonishment to humans by communicating with one or more prophets. This supposedly is the basis of all religions: Do or do not do so and so because such is god's will; the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. The problem is that there is no evidence to support the claim that God has ever revealed himself as a distinct being and "spoke" to anyone. In the Christian and Islamic religions, no one claimed to have witnessed the revelation of god to Jesus or Muhammad and there is no proof whatsoever that it ever occurred.
Only in the Jewish religion (which incidentally is the basis for the other western religions) is there a claim that the nation witnessed the revelation of god to Moses at mount Sinai.
"On the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain and a very powerful sound of the Shofar and the entire people in the camp shuddered... And the Sinai mountain was full of smoke because Yehovah had descended upon it in the fire and the smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the entire mountain shuddered exceedingly. The sound of the Shofar grew continually stronger, Moses would speak and god would respond to him with a sound... And god spoke all these statements saying: I am Yehovah your god...".
It is obvious from this account that Moses was the one actually speaking the words "I am Yehovah your god...". It says openly "Moses would speak and god would respond to him with a sound" which refers to the sound of the Shofar (mentioned in the beginning of the verse), which presumably was a response signal from god confirming that Moses is authentically relaying his word.
And so, even though there were supposedly 600,000 people present in the camp during "Matan Torah" (the issuance of torah) none of these people witnessed god actually speaking to Moses. God's presence was only in the form of fire, thunder and lightning and his confirmation of Moses' prophecy was in the form of the sound of the Shofar. To me lightning is lightning, thunder is thunder, fire is fire and Shofar is Shofar but none of these phenomena are supernatural and none of these phenomena indicate the presence of god or the prophecy of god. Therefore, the account of matan torah could be quite accurate in all aspects except for the fact that it was "god responding to Moses with a sound". This is a subjective interpretation of the event by gullible observers and it was therefore included in the account as fact but the only fact is that a sound of Shofar was heard, which I believe to have come from a human and not from god (am I not also entitled to interpret this event?).
And so we see that even Judaism's claim of the presence of many witnesses to god's prophecy is invalid. There were many witnesses to an event that SEEMED to indicate god's presence and the broadcast of god's word to people who are inclined to believe so but there is no absolute evidence that God was actually involved in this event.
None of the prophecies of other religions or the numerous other prophecies by Moses and Hebrew prophets of later generations have been witnessed by others and there is no artifactual evidence that god has ever spoken to them.
miracles- In the bible there are numerous accounts of miracles that occurred in various ages. Miracles are supposed to be a sign of god to humans that he is charge and that we should heed his voice. In the first supposed revelation of Yehovah to Moses (Exodus 4:1) "Moses responded and said: but they will not believe in me and they will not heed my voice, for they will say: Yehovah did not appear to you. Yehovah said to him: what is that in in your hand? he said: a staff. He said: cast it on the ground. He cast it on the ground and it turned into a snake and Moses fled from it. Yehovah said: extend your arm and grasp its tail and Moses extended his arm and grasped it and it turned into a staff in his palm, so that they will believe that Yehovah has appeared to you, the god of their forefathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob". God then then taught Moses two more "signs" (making his had leprous and turning river water into blood) that will induce the people to believe that Yehovah the god of their forefathers has appeared to him in a prophetic vision and that he is relaying the word of god to them.
The account that includes the abovementioned three signs is not only an account of Moses's very first prophetic vision but it's also an account of the very first miracle ever mentioned in the bible. It is no coincidence that they both occurred simultaneously, because the miracles were needed to support Moses's claim that god appeared to him. If he cannot perform any miracles, then any impostor can come along and claim to be relaying the word of god. The miracle is "proof" that god has spoken to him.
Later in the chapter it is told that "Moses and Aharon went and gathered all the elders of the children of Israel and Aharon spoke all the words that Yehovah had spoken to Moses and he (Moses) performed the signs in the sight of the people". "The people" here must refer to the elders mentioned earlier, for the entire people had never been gathered for this event and so only the elders witnessed the signs which supposedly confirmed that Moses is speaking in the name of god.
But let's examine these miracles a bit closer. Moses casts his staff to the ground and then (only after it reaches the ground) it turns into a snake. Moses places his hand in his bosom and only then does it become leprous. Moses pours water to the ground and only after it reaches the ground does it become blood. It is obviously much more miraculous for these events to have occurred suddenly: The staff turns into a snake while he is holding it, the hand becomes leprous while in full view and the water turns into blood in mid air, but they didn't occur this way. Therefore, even if we believe in the overall occurrence of these events, we might dispute the miraculousness of these events. There may have been a snake already there hidden in the sands of the desert but these old people were not paying attention to it, the elders were paying attention to the staff. Moses casts the staff to the ground which simultaneously buries it in the dust and startles the snake; the snake tries to run away and its presence is therefore revealed and it seems as if the snake has just been "created" out of a staff. Moses places his hand in his bosom where some chemical concoction is hidden that makes the hand seem leprous. He then places it in his bosom again, this time removing the chemical or whatever had been applied to the hand. Moses pours water from the river to the ground and then some blood or red coloring is added to it and so the water seems to be blood.
If I would be watching these "signs" happening at a circus, I would be convinced that it's magic. Even if believed that god exists and that miracles are possible, I would still not conclude that these events are miraculous, for I had witnessed displays of magic before very similar to these three signs but I have never witnessed any miracle and therefore logically I would attribute these events to conventional magic -at most- and not to a miracle, which has never been observed in modern western civilization. So when we read stories like these in the bible, if we are predisposed to believe in miracles then we will indeed interpret them as miracles just like our ancestors did. But if we approach them from an objective standpoint, then we will first seek to explain these events in ways that conform to the everyday laws of physics, which we have never ever witnessed being violated. Only if and when we exhaust all other possible explanations, will we conclude that it must be a miracle.
Some people even think that the Ten Plagues were miraculous but that is not the case at all; all ten events were natural events that appear in nature periodically. Maybe the fact that these events all occurred in such a short time frame within a relatively small geographic area, makes them seem more miraculous than they should seem. The fact of the matter is that none of the Ten Plagues -even as told in the bible- violate any laws of physics. It is ironic but true that the three signs discussed earlier are the "proto-miracles" and they are also the only major miracles ever mentioned in the Torah. The problem is that only the elders witnessed these events and that these events could have been simple acts of magic.
One more major even that I should discuss here is "Kriyas Yam Suf" (splitting of the red sea). Some theologians believe this to have been the grandest miracle that has ever occurred, for it was witnessed and experienced by the entire nation of Israel. The problem is that it was no miracle at all. "Moses stretched out his arm over the sea and Yehovah moved the sea with a strong east wind all night long and he turned the sea into frost and the water split. The children of Israel came within the sea on dry land and the water was a wall for them on their right and on their left". It is obvious from this account that the sea water froze as a result of the cold night and the strong wind. The ice then developed cracks, which is conceivably a natural event, and the Israelites found one sufficiently wide crack in the ice to allow them to pass on solid ground through the ice safely (passing on the ice is dangerous because the ice can easily break apart from the weight and people would drown). In the morning, the sun warmed up the ice and it started melting away while the Egyptians were passing through. This situation was exacerbated because the wheels of the Egyptian chariots had previously been damaged and so the Egyptians had a very hard time making it through the sea. By the time noon came around the ice had melted away and the Egyptians thus drowned in the sea.
I am not making up this story; this is how it is told in the book of Exodus (14:21). Splitting of the red sea as told in the bible does not even seem to have been a miracle. Obviously, the Israelites took it as a supreme intervention on their behalf and that is why they composed a special song to Yehovah for this major rescue. But when we read the account 3,000 years later and analyze it from a purely objective standpoint, we see no miracle at all.
And so we come to the conclusion that miracles have never occurred in the past, just like we have never witnessed any miracles in our current, modern civilization. Miracles are in the minds -and in the minds only- of primitive people who are not aware of science and do not understand the complexities of nature. To them, if anything unusual or unexpected occurs, it is a miracle and it comes from god. To us, that very same event is not unexpected and it is explained by science.
God's commandments - In every religion there are commands and prohibitions (mitzvas aseh and mitzvas lo saseh) issued by god to mankind or to a specific people. These are standing orders from god. They do not have an expiration date and there's no built-in way in the system to repeal these laws. But let's examine these laws a bit closer.
If you look at the laws of the Old Testament, you notice that there generally isn't anything bizarre about them. The laws are there for the benefit of society just like modern secular laws. City of refuge for killers, prohibition against usury, fining an animal thief by having him pay four or five times what he stole, helping a fellow unload the merchandise off a crouching donkey, acceptance of a "sojourner" (ger) and many more laws like these are designated as "between man and his fellow" (ben adam lachavero) and they are all based on common sense. Other laws, like those pertaining to animal sacrifices and cleanliness (including dietary laws) are designated as "between man and god (ben adam lamakom) and their meaning and purpose is not as easily understood, nor can they be derived from common sense. Nonetheless, every single law in the Torah, down to the very smallest detail has a logical explanation and reason. The laws of animal sacrifices are based on long-standing traditions and the need to appease god with wholesome, pure sacrifices in order to ensure the continuity of success. Dietary laws are probably based on a traditional perception of impurity and uncleanliness in those animals that were prohibited.
Therefore, these laws are very similar to modern secular laws in the sense that there is a beneficial purpose to society in observing these laws, which is obvious to everyone; there is no hidden agenda behind them. But, there is one big difference: secular laws are made by people and are extremely fluid; as the needs and circumstances of the people change, so do the laws. Religious laws supposedly are the word of god and they do not change. But the more that we try to stick to the religious laws, the more we realize that we are forced to discard them in favor of modern man-made laws that are more in sync with the modern day.
For example: "If a man shall steal an ox or a goat and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five cattle in place of the ox and four sheep in place of the sheep". The problem is that there are no cattle or sheep around in the cities where most thefts take place and I don't think that many -if any- people have been caught stealing cattle or sheep in recent years. This law is therefore not very relevant these days. The same is true about the command to help a fellow unload the burden of a crouching donkey: donkeys are no longer used for hauling goods and even if they are, I doubt that you will ever encounter a "crouching donkey".
So what we need to do is rewrite the laws in forms that are more in sync with modern ways of life: If you see a fellow driving an overloaded minivan, you shall help him unload the merchandise. We can go through the entire bible and rewrite all the laws this way, but we still won't have a perfect code of law because many modern problems will not be addressed there. What about the tax code? what about USFDA regulations? what about NTSB travel procedures? What about OSHA health precautions. We won't be able to survive as a society without these laws and regulations and even if we revise and reinterpret the bible as best we can, we still won't find any laws pertaining to these matters. Logically, therefore, the best way to go about developing a modern code of law is simply by discarding the outdated code altogether and starting from scratch and in light of the latest scientific discoveries. So in the new code, there will be laws about punishing auto theft, not sheep and cattle theft. There will be restrictions on the production/consumption of poisonous or contaminated food and advice against eating cholesterol and sugar but not against eating pig meat or horse meat which has proven to be no different than meat from "kosher" animals.
My point is that since we ultimately see that religious code is based on logic and tradition anyway, why stick to an outdated form of logic and to an obsolete tradition? The same god that presumably commanded us to do so and so 3,000 years, doesn't he want us to behave more modernly in a modern era? I think that he does! and that is why my lifestyle is perfectly compatible with the religious lifestyle of an Israelite 3,000 years ago. He lived in an age when people believed in spirits and the need to appease the spirits with animal sacrifices and so they did. I live in an age where people believe in the laws of chemistry and physics and the need to do something concrete -based on scientific observations of cause and effect- to sustain life and so I do (or at least I should do).
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Do we exist for the universe or does the universe exist for us?
This is a tough philosophical question that has previously been pondered by many. Today I read in the book "Hyperspace, our final frontier" that according to some interpretations "reality does not exist unless it is observed by intelligent beings. In this (weird) argument, the laws of physics have to be what they are so that we can exist, so that we can notice what the laws of physics are and make them real."
I don't really understand what they are saying and I don't see the logic behind this argument. I think that what they are saying is that reality is in our mind ONLY and if reality is not perceived by intelligent beings, it is as if it does not exist at all. However, this is an extremely erroneous argument because it runs contrary to the factual evidence about how our brains developed (evolutionarily) and function. We know that the brain is optimized for controlling aspects of our life that contribute to our survival, period! That's the beginning and that's the end! Our brain is NOT optimized for abstract thoughts. If I am sitting here and writing about a philosophical matter that has no recognizable contribution to my survival, it is because the cause and effect chain here is extremely lengthy and complicated. It is hard for us to see how it contributes to my survival but I do know nonetheless that it does because I know that I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I have established this from my various readings, experiences and observations: I know that whatever living organisms do, they do for their own survival and this encompasses everything they do.
Therefore, whatever we think in our minds and perceive with our senses, we do so in order to enhance our survival, NOT in order to perceive the real state of reality. This is why there are certain things in life that we will never fully understand. Do we understand what "eternity" means or what "infinity" means? absolutely not! These words conjure up ideas in our mind but they cannot be defined because to do so we must always imagine a time after the last point of time and a number after the last number. We could spend our entire lives thinking about this and our task would barely have begun. So when you look around and see things in three dimensions and you have a sense of time, it is because this perception is crucial for your survival that you have developed such a perception over millions of evolutionary years. Since it is not important for human brains to fully understand what eternity is, we don't.
I have already expressed my opinion on a similar topic and I will say it here again: Humans and life in general is merely a form of expression by nature. We don't exist as a distinct species separate from other natural beings such as hydrogen atoms, molecules of water, a clump of metal in the shape of a scissor and the star Alpha Centauri. All of these entities are just part of a whole being called "nature" and nature expresses itself in different ways in different times. Sometimes a star is born, sometimes a meteorite crashes into earth, sometimes a human baby is born and sometimes a car accident occurs and destroys human life. These are all expressions of nature and these events cause changes in matter and ultimately in life over the long run. We will almost certainly not exist as the homo sapien species in 50 million years from now but neither will our legacy be erased. We will probably evolve into a new species that is more adaptable and more suited for survival just as our ape-like ancestors evolved into humans. So the same natural force that dictates that humans shall be around in the third millennium, dictates that humans shall not be around in the thousandth millennium and it is impossible for us to interfere with this. Evolution is not something we can fight, just like we cannot choose to stop breathing. We are NOT here on this planet on our own free will; we are forced into life, we are forced to make some positive contribution to society (and ultimately to overall nature) during our lifetime and then we are forced to die. Sounds similar to slavery? Yeah, that's pretty much what it is!
And we therefore see that the universe does not need us. Instead the universe "uses" us like a device, a means to achieve a long-term goal. If life on earth were suddenly completely destroyed, nature would start our from scratch again just like if you exit your house and notice that you forgot your car keys, you return, grab the keys and exit again. It caused a minor delay and inconvenience but the overall scheme of things hasn't changed and you're not going to be late for work because of this. Similarly, even if all the accomplishments ever achieved by life on earth over billions of years was suddenly destroyed, the universe would still exist and it would go on and about almost as if the destruction it had never occurred. Eventually, a planet teeming with life will re-emerge -if not in our solar system then in some other star system.
At first, this news is a bit discouraging. All that we have worked for can be disposed of so easily and whimsically by nature? Is there no justice? Imagine if you were a contractor and every time you complete a big construction project costing millions of dollars and many weeks of strenuous effort, it is then destroyed in an instant by some force of nature and there's nothing you can do about it! You try again, but it is destroyed again at the very end, and it keeps happening again and again. You would -no doubt- be furious and you might even commit suicide. The feeling of helplessness and injustice is one of the most distressing and unnerving feelings that a human can experience.
Fortunately, though, there is order in the universe and this last-minute-destruction scenario is only hypothetical. In reality, whenever something goes wrong, there's a reason why it did go wrong and there's usually something we can learn from it so that we can prevent such a catastrophe from recurring. This is why we "investigate" a space shuttle or aircraft crash. We investigate the 9/11 terrorist attack and we recognize the factors that allowed the disaster to happen and we make personal investigations into why minor inconveniences occur in our daily lives. As a result of these investigations we learn to prevent such incidents from recurring and these disasters have therefore not occurred in vain! There is law and order in the very existence of chaos, since it is used as a tool to make us stronger, like a vaccine against illness.
Therefore, if the hypothetical becomes reality and all life on our planet is suddenly destroyed, it still would not be in vain because our life would have been a useful experiment by nature as it evolves over the years. The newer life forms that will develop in the aftermath will naturally be more immune to such a disaster. More importantly, life itself would be different. There won't be starfish, crocodiles and dinosaurs, rather there will be a starfish' (starfish prime), crocodile' and dinosaur'. It's a different kind of fish and croc. Our life experience only turns out to have been a waste if the exact kind of life is replicated later. If the post-disaster life is different -and this will inevitably be the case- then we are unique and we have not toiled in vain; rather, our life would then be viewed as having been a prerequisite to the new life.
In summary, we do everything we do for the purpose of our own survival and that is how it ought to be, but nature has grander plans and we are only a tiny component of the grand plan. Still, if we do not invest our utmost effort to survive and adapt to the environment, then we won't exist for long and the grand plan won't come to fruition. This is why nature demands from us one and only one thing: Survive! When I talk about the SAP principle (survive, adapt, perpetuate) it's really all about survival because the "progress" we are making is gauged by how much more it contributes to our survival and "perpetuate" is nearly synonymous with "survive". In fact, "progress" stripped to its core is all about adaptation, because there will always be a force of nature that initiated the events that eventually caused progress to occur. So when we are making progress and reform, we are essentially "adapting" to nature.
This is a tough philosophical question that has previously been pondered by many. Today I read in the book "Hyperspace, our final frontier" that according to some interpretations "reality does not exist unless it is observed by intelligent beings. In this (weird) argument, the laws of physics have to be what they are so that we can exist, so that we can notice what the laws of physics are and make them real."
I don't really understand what they are saying and I don't see the logic behind this argument. I think that what they are saying is that reality is in our mind ONLY and if reality is not perceived by intelligent beings, it is as if it does not exist at all. However, this is an extremely erroneous argument because it runs contrary to the factual evidence about how our brains developed (evolutionarily) and function. We know that the brain is optimized for controlling aspects of our life that contribute to our survival, period! That's the beginning and that's the end! Our brain is NOT optimized for abstract thoughts. If I am sitting here and writing about a philosophical matter that has no recognizable contribution to my survival, it is because the cause and effect chain here is extremely lengthy and complicated. It is hard for us to see how it contributes to my survival but I do know nonetheless that it does because I know that I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I have established this from my various readings, experiences and observations: I know that whatever living organisms do, they do for their own survival and this encompasses everything they do.
Therefore, whatever we think in our minds and perceive with our senses, we do so in order to enhance our survival, NOT in order to perceive the real state of reality. This is why there are certain things in life that we will never fully understand. Do we understand what "eternity" means or what "infinity" means? absolutely not! These words conjure up ideas in our mind but they cannot be defined because to do so we must always imagine a time after the last point of time and a number after the last number. We could spend our entire lives thinking about this and our task would barely have begun. So when you look around and see things in three dimensions and you have a sense of time, it is because this perception is crucial for your survival that you have developed such a perception over millions of evolutionary years. Since it is not important for human brains to fully understand what eternity is, we don't.
I have already expressed my opinion on a similar topic and I will say it here again: Humans and life in general is merely a form of expression by nature. We don't exist as a distinct species separate from other natural beings such as hydrogen atoms, molecules of water, a clump of metal in the shape of a scissor and the star Alpha Centauri. All of these entities are just part of a whole being called "nature" and nature expresses itself in different ways in different times. Sometimes a star is born, sometimes a meteorite crashes into earth, sometimes a human baby is born and sometimes a car accident occurs and destroys human life. These are all expressions of nature and these events cause changes in matter and ultimately in life over the long run. We will almost certainly not exist as the homo sapien species in 50 million years from now but neither will our legacy be erased. We will probably evolve into a new species that is more adaptable and more suited for survival just as our ape-like ancestors evolved into humans. So the same natural force that dictates that humans shall be around in the third millennium, dictates that humans shall not be around in the thousandth millennium and it is impossible for us to interfere with this. Evolution is not something we can fight, just like we cannot choose to stop breathing. We are NOT here on this planet on our own free will; we are forced into life, we are forced to make some positive contribution to society (and ultimately to overall nature) during our lifetime and then we are forced to die. Sounds similar to slavery? Yeah, that's pretty much what it is!
And we therefore see that the universe does not need us. Instead the universe "uses" us like a device, a means to achieve a long-term goal. If life on earth were suddenly completely destroyed, nature would start our from scratch again just like if you exit your house and notice that you forgot your car keys, you return, grab the keys and exit again. It caused a minor delay and inconvenience but the overall scheme of things hasn't changed and you're not going to be late for work because of this. Similarly, even if all the accomplishments ever achieved by life on earth over billions of years was suddenly destroyed, the universe would still exist and it would go on and about almost as if the destruction it had never occurred. Eventually, a planet teeming with life will re-emerge -if not in our solar system then in some other star system.
At first, this news is a bit discouraging. All that we have worked for can be disposed of so easily and whimsically by nature? Is there no justice? Imagine if you were a contractor and every time you complete a big construction project costing millions of dollars and many weeks of strenuous effort, it is then destroyed in an instant by some force of nature and there's nothing you can do about it! You try again, but it is destroyed again at the very end, and it keeps happening again and again. You would -no doubt- be furious and you might even commit suicide. The feeling of helplessness and injustice is one of the most distressing and unnerving feelings that a human can experience.
Fortunately, though, there is order in the universe and this last-minute-destruction scenario is only hypothetical. In reality, whenever something goes wrong, there's a reason why it did go wrong and there's usually something we can learn from it so that we can prevent such a catastrophe from recurring. This is why we "investigate" a space shuttle or aircraft crash. We investigate the 9/11 terrorist attack and we recognize the factors that allowed the disaster to happen and we make personal investigations into why minor inconveniences occur in our daily lives. As a result of these investigations we learn to prevent such incidents from recurring and these disasters have therefore not occurred in vain! There is law and order in the very existence of chaos, since it is used as a tool to make us stronger, like a vaccine against illness.
Therefore, if the hypothetical becomes reality and all life on our planet is suddenly destroyed, it still would not be in vain because our life would have been a useful experiment by nature as it evolves over the years. The newer life forms that will develop in the aftermath will naturally be more immune to such a disaster. More importantly, life itself would be different. There won't be starfish, crocodiles and dinosaurs, rather there will be a starfish' (starfish prime), crocodile' and dinosaur'. It's a different kind of fish and croc. Our life experience only turns out to have been a waste if the exact kind of life is replicated later. If the post-disaster life is different -and this will inevitably be the case- then we are unique and we have not toiled in vain; rather, our life would then be viewed as having been a prerequisite to the new life.
In summary, we do everything we do for the purpose of our own survival and that is how it ought to be, but nature has grander plans and we are only a tiny component of the grand plan. Still, if we do not invest our utmost effort to survive and adapt to the environment, then we won't exist for long and the grand plan won't come to fruition. This is why nature demands from us one and only one thing: Survive! When I talk about the SAP principle (survive, adapt, perpetuate) it's really all about survival because the "progress" we are making is gauged by how much more it contributes to our survival and "perpetuate" is nearly synonymous with "survive". In fact, "progress" stripped to its core is all about adaptation, because there will always be a force of nature that initiated the events that eventually caused progress to occur. So when we are making progress and reform, we are essentially "adapting" to nature.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
The value of money
--------------------
What are the most important goals in Western life? Power, sex and money! This phrase is often cited as summarizing the ultimate goal of the average Westerner living in the 21st century. "Power" means not just the power to dictate how things should be such as "I'd like to have this particular kind of car, this particular kind of food, this particular woman and I want the temperature in my house to be precisely 77.4 degrees" but it also includes the feeling of power and importance that people strive to attain. We crave "recognition"; we want people to know that we around and that we have accomplished something. In fact, most accomplishments in human history would never have been achieved if the individual who achieved it did not expect a "recognition" reward in return. The recognition reward is sometimes expressed only in money, but more often it's a lot more than money. It might be an Oscar, WSOP title, naming of a technology or product after its inventor or simply being famous and knowing that where ever he goes people look up to him and admire him. So basically we're saying that fame and glory are also included in the "power" category.
Then we have food and sex. Food and sex are the two most pleasurable and -incidentally- vital physical functions of human life. We eat and fuck because we love it, we enjoy it tremendously. We also know that these acts are important for survival; but it happens to be that they are also very pleasurable and that's what primarily motivates us to do it.
And lastly, there is money. Money is the key to everything else in life. With money, there is no limit to what one can obtain since virtually anything that exists on this planet is obtainable with the right amount of money. Personally, if someone was was willing to give me 100 thousand dollars, I'd be very happy to hand over to him ALL of my possessions and start over from scratch. I don't think my possessions are worth that much to anyone but I am trying to illustrate how anything can be bought with money even something that seems not to be on sale.
In reality, though, money, unlike the previous two goals, is not an end by itself. If you had all the money in the world but you had an incurable disease and the doctors are saying that you only have one more day to live, all of this money is useless to you because no matter how hard you try you won't be able to do do much with your money in one day and once the day is gone the money is gone too; you can't take it with you to the grave. Or, if you had a billion dollars but you were convicted of a crime and you are about to be incarcerated for the rest of your life without the possibility of parole, what would you with all the money? So we see that money is not by definition happiness. Money facilitates happiness but if it is not utilized properly or if the situation is just not right for the money to be utilized at all, then it is essentially being wasted.
The "real" goals in life or just the first two: Power and sex. Power includes all the desirable emotional and intellectual aspects of life and sex includes all the physical desirable aspects of life. Money is pursued because we all know that the more money we have, the more power and sex we are capable of having. But the word "capable" is crucial here: there is a skill involved in the conversion of money into sex or power. If you don't know how to do it, then you end up wasting the money and your lifelong pursuit has been in vain!
Wealth Inflation - relative value of money
-------------------------------------------
I have $35,00 in cash and bonds. Combined with other liquid assets, let's assume that I am worth $40,000. If I walk down the street under average circumstances and I see a quarter, I might bend down to pick it up but I will not bend down to pick up a dime and I think that most people in my wealth range won't either. How many dimes do I own? 400,000.
According to this scale, it stands to reason that someone who is worth $40,000,000 or more shouldn't bend down to pick up a hundred dollar bill. Now you might say, "well that's stupid, you can get so much with a 100 dollars and all you have to do is just bend down and pick it up, it takes just a second!" but this is NOT a valid argument. Why? Because the value of money is relative. Just like a dollar used to be buy you a lot more in the 1920's than it buys you now, the value of a dollar to the millionaire is less than the value of a dollar to the average person. The millionaire sees a dollar in a different light; to him a 20 dollar bill is just too little to be bothered with. The potential difference that this 20 dollar bill can make in his life is just not big enough for him to warrant an act as simple and easy as bending down and picking it up. This is not my imagination or an exaggeration. If I had $40,000,000 I would not pick up a 20 dollar bill and possibly not even a 100 dollar bill, just like I would surely not pick up a dime in my present economic state.
Another example of wealth inflation can be illustrated by this: A CEO who earns $400,000 goes to the car dealership and is quoted $80,000 for the Mercedes. A city sanitation worker who earns $40,000 goes to the same dealership and is quoted $50,000 for the Mercedes. This is very often the case simply because the car dealership is trying to get the most for the car and they can easily convince the CEO to pay $80,000 but the sanitation worker can just not afford that much. The CEO thinks that he's really earning 360 grand more than the sanitation worker, but he's not!! If we assume that he's paying higher prices for the very same products that the sanitation worker consumes, then his entire "edge" achieved through the hard work that lead to the CEO position and its hefty salary, has now evaporated into this air. Now in real life, it is not quite so. A bigger salary usually translates into excess money. But it does not HAVE to be the case. If you mismanage the money, you get ripped off or you simply do not have the ability to enjoy the excess money properly, then you are not enjoying life any more than the $40,000 sanitation worker!!
It's all in the mind!!! Happiness is not measured by quantities of money. Happiness is a state of mind and although money facilitates such state, poor people who utilize other resources can achieve the same level of happiness (by means of the power and sexual achievements mentioned above) as the wealthy guy and even more! Imagine if someone invented a machine that is attached to the mind and simulates an wealthy extravagant lifestyle. You decide how much you're willing to spend for this experience and accordingly the machine operator will put you on a simulated life program for the rest of your life! No need to undergo the actual risks involved in real life. In "simulife" you think that you're experiencing real life; you can't tell the difference. Wouldn't you agree to undergo this kind of living? There's no reason why you shouldn't since the experience seems exactly as a real life experience. So we see from this that it's all in the mind. We need to program our minds to enjoy life and be happy. If we can program our minds properly, then all the money in the world will not achieve what the right program will.
The right Program for Pleasurable Living
------------------------------------------
What is the right program?
First off, we must understand what our goals in life really are. Trust me when I tell you that there' s nothing more pleasurable in life than achieving your ultimate goal. The problem is that the ultimate goal is elusive. We don't know what the ultimate goal is. We change careers, we change opinions, we change sexual partners and that is perfectly fine because life is a journey though a long chain of trails and errors. We are not created perfect and we never will be perfect but we must set before ourselves some simple but mountain-fast goals and everything else in life should be viewed as "serving" the one goal.
What is the ultimate goal? After much thought on this topic I have recently come up with "SAP" which stands for Survive Advance Perpetuate. Food serves the survival step. Some accomplishment which augments and advances our survival is the second step. And finally we need to perpetuate ourselves and whatever we have achieved in life; otherwise it has all been in vain. And that's why we need to record or write down our accomplishments for generations to come and we need to reproduce so that the human species continues to exist.
Just like it is pleasurable to eat and fuck and undergo many other common pleasurable experiences which are conducive to SAP, one must likewise understand the more deeper and subtle aspects of SAP. Sometimes, the pleasure is not immediate and the advantage inherent in a given act is not apparent, but if you know that this act is conducive to SAP, then you also know that you are living the life of a millionaire. Remember, all the money the millionaire has is only there to further aid him in the execution of SAP, so the actual execution is even more important and you should "program" your mind to enjoy such an act. Let me repeat: pleasure is in the mind and the mind is programmable. You don't need money to experience the pleasure, you just need to have the right state of mind and you will achieve that by knowing that what you're doing is noble: you are engaged in SAP.
Common, daily acts that form the basis of SAP
----------------------------------------------
Survive - you must engage in activities that are required fro your survival. You need to breath, est, sleep, drive carefully, defend yourself physically against an attack etc.
Advance - the real meaning of advance is to reach the "ultimate goal". However, as stated earlier, we don't know what the ultimate goal is or how to achieve it. But we do know what the intermediate goals are which will eventually lead to the ultimate goal. Just like a driver driving down the road does not need to see the end of the road in order to reach it; he does not even have to know what the end of the road looks like. All he needs to do is see within a hundred feet ahead of him and make it his intermediate goal to reach the point in the road that is a hundred feet ahead of him. If he will continue doing this, he will eventually reach the end of the road and he must have confidence in himself that he will.
The ultimate goal is the achievement of a much more enhanced state of existence and constant change is therefore required in order to one day reach that goal. Think about a simple, small, positive change that you can make in your life.
If you don't speak English well, learn English.
If you are in high school or college, study.
If you are employed, think about ways to move up the ladder to a more important position, which is likely to produce more change (don't worry, it'll probably pay more and be more exciting as well).
If you are overweight or experience some other curable ailment, engage in whatever is necessary to cure the illness.
If you own a business, look for ways to advance the business is a meaningful, productive way. For example, if you're selling within the USA only, try to expand to foreign countries. If you are not carrying certain products, think of ways that you can start carrying those products profitably.
If you are a manufacturer, products MUST be advanced constantly and be on the cutting edge; otherwise you will lose out to the competition. I think that the necessity for "advance" is very obvious in the field.
If you are in a Yeshiva or any other theological educational institution, study your religion well and think of ways to understand the true meaning of your religion.
I, myslef, am only 26 years old but I have had various different goals in the past 20 years:
age 12: study the gemara rashi tosfos well so that I can understand and participate in grown-up conversations on the topic.
age 14: "iyun" cannot be right because it delves too deeply into a given topic without ever to have even touched on various other Talmudical sections. Also, Iyun is too much concerned with flamboyant "pilpul" and does not strive to understand the true meaning of the Talmud. The Bais Mayer revolt has begun.
age 16: the conclusion to the Bais Mayer revolt is the decision to leave the Pilpul of BM to the Pshat and and bulk-learning emphasis of Chebin in Israel.
age 17: Talmud alone is insufficient. I must study Tanach and Mishnayos well because Talmud is based on these preceding religious texts. Also, what is the true meaning of Avodas Hashem? What is the reason for all the mitzvos and aveiros prescribed by the Torah? Why is the jewish religion superior to other religions and practices and how can I prove it?
age 18: Wall comes crumbling down. A new secular world is discovered and I am studying secular material seriously for the first time in my life. I am gobbling up new information ferociously.
age 19: Irreconcilable differences: Ultra-Orthodoxy is primitive and false. There's no logical basis to any of its ideas and practices. It's just a remnant of the dark ages. final decision is made to "rebel" and go to YU and later the Navy.
age 20: My first extra-orthodox occupation as a sailor in the US Navy has failed miserably. I seek to establish a job and career in the civilian world.
age 21: I am pursuing a college career in computer science at Brooklyn College and I am holding on to a night job at Adorama. I am also looking for a girl.
age 23: College hasn't really worked out, but I am focusing on a new job because the abuse taken at the current job is unbearable. I move to IAN and then DDR. Poker career begins.
age 24: I am seeking a college degree through TTI while I am also looking to move out of Brooklyn and possibly get a different job elsewhere. search for a girl continues
age 26: I finally move to Lakewood and I hold on to the DDR job remotely. I am looking to write a poker book and a new flurry of intellectual activity begins in Astronomy. search for a girl continues.
As you can see, at every point in my life thus far there have been some very specific goals as well as general goals (such as having an adequate job and playing poker profitably).
Perpetuate - Whatever change is made, must be perpetuated. This is why we procreate and produce offspring and we record various aspects of life on camera, on film and on paper.
--------------------
What are the most important goals in Western life? Power, sex and money! This phrase is often cited as summarizing the ultimate goal of the average Westerner living in the 21st century. "Power" means not just the power to dictate how things should be such as "I'd like to have this particular kind of car, this particular kind of food, this particular woman and I want the temperature in my house to be precisely 77.4 degrees" but it also includes the feeling of power and importance that people strive to attain. We crave "recognition"; we want people to know that we around and that we have accomplished something. In fact, most accomplishments in human history would never have been achieved if the individual who achieved it did not expect a "recognition" reward in return. The recognition reward is sometimes expressed only in money, but more often it's a lot more than money. It might be an Oscar, WSOP title, naming of a technology or product after its inventor or simply being famous and knowing that where ever he goes people look up to him and admire him. So basically we're saying that fame and glory are also included in the "power" category.
Then we have food and sex. Food and sex are the two most pleasurable and -incidentally- vital physical functions of human life. We eat and fuck because we love it, we enjoy it tremendously. We also know that these acts are important for survival; but it happens to be that they are also very pleasurable and that's what primarily motivates us to do it.
And lastly, there is money. Money is the key to everything else in life. With money, there is no limit to what one can obtain since virtually anything that exists on this planet is obtainable with the right amount of money. Personally, if someone was was willing to give me 100 thousand dollars, I'd be very happy to hand over to him ALL of my possessions and start over from scratch. I don't think my possessions are worth that much to anyone but I am trying to illustrate how anything can be bought with money even something that seems not to be on sale.
In reality, though, money, unlike the previous two goals, is not an end by itself. If you had all the money in the world but you had an incurable disease and the doctors are saying that you only have one more day to live, all of this money is useless to you because no matter how hard you try you won't be able to do do much with your money in one day and once the day is gone the money is gone too; you can't take it with you to the grave. Or, if you had a billion dollars but you were convicted of a crime and you are about to be incarcerated for the rest of your life without the possibility of parole, what would you with all the money? So we see that money is not by definition happiness. Money facilitates happiness but if it is not utilized properly or if the situation is just not right for the money to be utilized at all, then it is essentially being wasted.
The "real" goals in life or just the first two: Power and sex. Power includes all the desirable emotional and intellectual aspects of life and sex includes all the physical desirable aspects of life. Money is pursued because we all know that the more money we have, the more power and sex we are capable of having. But the word "capable" is crucial here: there is a skill involved in the conversion of money into sex or power. If you don't know how to do it, then you end up wasting the money and your lifelong pursuit has been in vain!
Wealth Inflation - relative value of money
-------------------------------------------
I have $35,00 in cash and bonds. Combined with other liquid assets, let's assume that I am worth $40,000. If I walk down the street under average circumstances and I see a quarter, I might bend down to pick it up but I will not bend down to pick up a dime and I think that most people in my wealth range won't either. How many dimes do I own? 400,000.
According to this scale, it stands to reason that someone who is worth $40,000,000 or more shouldn't bend down to pick up a hundred dollar bill. Now you might say, "well that's stupid, you can get so much with a 100 dollars and all you have to do is just bend down and pick it up, it takes just a second!" but this is NOT a valid argument. Why? Because the value of money is relative. Just like a dollar used to be buy you a lot more in the 1920's than it buys you now, the value of a dollar to the millionaire is less than the value of a dollar to the average person. The millionaire sees a dollar in a different light; to him a 20 dollar bill is just too little to be bothered with. The potential difference that this 20 dollar bill can make in his life is just not big enough for him to warrant an act as simple and easy as bending down and picking it up. This is not my imagination or an exaggeration. If I had $40,000,000 I would not pick up a 20 dollar bill and possibly not even a 100 dollar bill, just like I would surely not pick up a dime in my present economic state.
Another example of wealth inflation can be illustrated by this: A CEO who earns $400,000 goes to the car dealership and is quoted $80,000 for the Mercedes. A city sanitation worker who earns $40,000 goes to the same dealership and is quoted $50,000 for the Mercedes. This is very often the case simply because the car dealership is trying to get the most for the car and they can easily convince the CEO to pay $80,000 but the sanitation worker can just not afford that much. The CEO thinks that he's really earning 360 grand more than the sanitation worker, but he's not!! If we assume that he's paying higher prices for the very same products that the sanitation worker consumes, then his entire "edge" achieved through the hard work that lead to the CEO position and its hefty salary, has now evaporated into this air. Now in real life, it is not quite so. A bigger salary usually translates into excess money. But it does not HAVE to be the case. If you mismanage the money, you get ripped off or you simply do not have the ability to enjoy the excess money properly, then you are not enjoying life any more than the $40,000 sanitation worker!!
It's all in the mind!!! Happiness is not measured by quantities of money. Happiness is a state of mind and although money facilitates such state, poor people who utilize other resources can achieve the same level of happiness (by means of the power and sexual achievements mentioned above) as the wealthy guy and even more! Imagine if someone invented a machine that is attached to the mind and simulates an wealthy extravagant lifestyle. You decide how much you're willing to spend for this experience and accordingly the machine operator will put you on a simulated life program for the rest of your life! No need to undergo the actual risks involved in real life. In "simulife" you think that you're experiencing real life; you can't tell the difference. Wouldn't you agree to undergo this kind of living? There's no reason why you shouldn't since the experience seems exactly as a real life experience. So we see from this that it's all in the mind. We need to program our minds to enjoy life and be happy. If we can program our minds properly, then all the money in the world will not achieve what the right program will.
The right Program for Pleasurable Living
------------------------------------------
What is the right program?
First off, we must understand what our goals in life really are. Trust me when I tell you that there' s nothing more pleasurable in life than achieving your ultimate goal. The problem is that the ultimate goal is elusive. We don't know what the ultimate goal is. We change careers, we change opinions, we change sexual partners and that is perfectly fine because life is a journey though a long chain of trails and errors. We are not created perfect and we never will be perfect but we must set before ourselves some simple but mountain-fast goals and everything else in life should be viewed as "serving" the one goal.
What is the ultimate goal? After much thought on this topic I have recently come up with "SAP" which stands for Survive Advance Perpetuate. Food serves the survival step. Some accomplishment which augments and advances our survival is the second step. And finally we need to perpetuate ourselves and whatever we have achieved in life; otherwise it has all been in vain. And that's why we need to record or write down our accomplishments for generations to come and we need to reproduce so that the human species continues to exist.
Just like it is pleasurable to eat and fuck and undergo many other common pleasurable experiences which are conducive to SAP, one must likewise understand the more deeper and subtle aspects of SAP. Sometimes, the pleasure is not immediate and the advantage inherent in a given act is not apparent, but if you know that this act is conducive to SAP, then you also know that you are living the life of a millionaire. Remember, all the money the millionaire has is only there to further aid him in the execution of SAP, so the actual execution is even more important and you should "program" your mind to enjoy such an act. Let me repeat: pleasure is in the mind and the mind is programmable. You don't need money to experience the pleasure, you just need to have the right state of mind and you will achieve that by knowing that what you're doing is noble: you are engaged in SAP.
Common, daily acts that form the basis of SAP
----------------------------------------------
Survive - you must engage in activities that are required fro your survival. You need to breath, est, sleep, drive carefully, defend yourself physically against an attack etc.
Advance - the real meaning of advance is to reach the "ultimate goal". However, as stated earlier, we don't know what the ultimate goal is or how to achieve it. But we do know what the intermediate goals are which will eventually lead to the ultimate goal. Just like a driver driving down the road does not need to see the end of the road in order to reach it; he does not even have to know what the end of the road looks like. All he needs to do is see within a hundred feet ahead of him and make it his intermediate goal to reach the point in the road that is a hundred feet ahead of him. If he will continue doing this, he will eventually reach the end of the road and he must have confidence in himself that he will.
The ultimate goal is the achievement of a much more enhanced state of existence and constant change is therefore required in order to one day reach that goal. Think about a simple, small, positive change that you can make in your life.
If you don't speak English well, learn English.
If you are in high school or college, study.
If you are employed, think about ways to move up the ladder to a more important position, which is likely to produce more change (don't worry, it'll probably pay more and be more exciting as well).
If you are overweight or experience some other curable ailment, engage in whatever is necessary to cure the illness.
If you own a business, look for ways to advance the business is a meaningful, productive way. For example, if you're selling within the USA only, try to expand to foreign countries. If you are not carrying certain products, think of ways that you can start carrying those products profitably.
If you are a manufacturer, products MUST be advanced constantly and be on the cutting edge; otherwise you will lose out to the competition. I think that the necessity for "advance" is very obvious in the field.
If you are in a Yeshiva or any other theological educational institution, study your religion well and think of ways to understand the true meaning of your religion.
I, myslef, am only 26 years old but I have had various different goals in the past 20 years:
age 12: study the gemara rashi tosfos well so that I can understand and participate in grown-up conversations on the topic.
age 14: "iyun" cannot be right because it delves too deeply into a given topic without ever to have even touched on various other Talmudical sections. Also, Iyun is too much concerned with flamboyant "pilpul" and does not strive to understand the true meaning of the Talmud. The Bais Mayer revolt has begun.
age 16: the conclusion to the Bais Mayer revolt is the decision to leave the Pilpul of BM to the Pshat and and bulk-learning emphasis of Chebin in Israel.
age 17: Talmud alone is insufficient. I must study Tanach and Mishnayos well because Talmud is based on these preceding religious texts. Also, what is the true meaning of Avodas Hashem? What is the reason for all the mitzvos and aveiros prescribed by the Torah? Why is the jewish religion superior to other religions and practices and how can I prove it?
age 18: Wall comes crumbling down. A new secular world is discovered and I am studying secular material seriously for the first time in my life. I am gobbling up new information ferociously.
age 19: Irreconcilable differences: Ultra-Orthodoxy is primitive and false. There's no logical basis to any of its ideas and practices. It's just a remnant of the dark ages. final decision is made to "rebel" and go to YU and later the Navy.
age 20: My first extra-orthodox occupation as a sailor in the US Navy has failed miserably. I seek to establish a job and career in the civilian world.
age 21: I am pursuing a college career in computer science at Brooklyn College and I am holding on to a night job at Adorama. I am also looking for a girl.
age 23: College hasn't really worked out, but I am focusing on a new job because the abuse taken at the current job is unbearable. I move to IAN and then DDR. Poker career begins.
age 24: I am seeking a college degree through TTI while I am also looking to move out of Brooklyn and possibly get a different job elsewhere. search for a girl continues
age 26: I finally move to Lakewood and I hold on to the DDR job remotely. I am looking to write a poker book and a new flurry of intellectual activity begins in Astronomy. search for a girl continues.
As you can see, at every point in my life thus far there have been some very specific goals as well as general goals (such as having an adequate job and playing poker profitably).
Perpetuate - Whatever change is made, must be perpetuated. This is why we procreate and produce offspring and we record various aspects of life on camera, on film and on paper.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Holocaust
---------------
The Jewish Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis during WWII was a tremendous blow to the Jews as a people and religion. One of the fundamental tenets of Judaism is that Jews are god's chosen people. Jews traditionally believe that they are special and different from all the other nations. They are smarter, more righteous and -if they follow god's will- more prosperous as well. This them is mentioned many times in the Bible "for god has chosen you to be a prized nation to him..." and it has been maintained throughout the days of temple and later in Diaspora. How do we reconcile the "favorite nation" status will all the humiliation and suffering experienced in the last 2,000 years? Simple! We have sinned and god is punishing us just like a dad slaps his little son a little, just enough to stir him in the right direction and teach him not to do wrong again. We believe that our 2,000-year-long suffering is only temporary and eventually we will be redeemed by the Messiah and our dignity and prosperity restored.
Okay, so that explains why the middle-age-era Jewish peasant or surf was tortured by the christian lord and the Jewish merchant peddled towns laboriously just to eke out enough money to barely survive and was then forced to give half of it away in taxes. And that might also explain some of the other more severe persecutions such as the Crusades. But what about the Holocaust? A father might slap his child on the back as punishment but will he choke him to death? If we are god's chosen people, how and why would god ever allow such a massive and tremendous blow to happen to us, the destruction of one-third of our nation in less than five years in the most brutal and sadistic ways imaginable. Many holocaust survivors have simply lost their faith in god as a result of the holocaust. It just doesn't make any sense; god cannot be looking after us and love us if atrocities like this can materialize.
They have an extremely valid argument and I agree that this is solid ground for dismissal of the "chosen nation" idea. But in reality the Holocaust is far more complicated than this. We must strive to understand what really lies behind the Holocaust. What motivated the Germans to commit these atrocious crimes? why did they hate the Jews so much and why were the Jews do defenseless?
Let's rewind back all the way to the days of when Christianity was created as a distinct religion. Christianity is NOT an independent religion when compared to Judaism. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism; in fact it's a "reformation" of Judaism. Jesus and his small group of Jewish followers sought to "reform" the Jewish movement in the closing days of the second temple. His teachings were revolutionary. He said that people are not judged by how many animal sacrifices they bring to the temple or by ritual baths ("Mikveh") or by a host of other technical acts that were strongly emphasized by the Rabbi's in that generation. Jesus said that it's all in the heart and it's the intent that is much more important than the act. There's no need to go up to the corrupt Jerusalem in order to get god's attention. You can get god's attention right at home by helping each other and following the righteous path.
His disdain of the traditional Rabbinical emphasis on the temple and a host of other Jewish laws is what made him an outcast. His teachings were denounced as heretical and his followers ostracized. Although his original intent was NOT to start a new religion or even a religious movement within Judaism, the eventual spin-off of his movement into Christianity was pretty much inevitable. His teachings were just too revolutionary for the time and the Jews simply were not willing to go along with it. Since the movement, by its very essence sought to de-emphasize technical acts and emphasize good will and intent instead, it therefore naturally attracted gentiles who were not allowed entry into rabbinical Judaism and were unwilling to commit to all the details of rabbinical Judaism.
The new movement spread like wildfire! What was the movement? It was a Jewish reform movement called Christianity. The traditional, rabbinical Jews soon became the minority and they were outnumbered by a movement that was being laughed at just several years ago. The Jews had failed!!! They did not realize that it was a reform a movement; they thought that it was just another crazy movement that will evaporate and disappear in time. But Christianity had a gigantic future in store. It was destined to conquer the world and inspire western cultural life for thousands of years to come. Rabbinical Jews thought that they were failing him, but instead failed themselves! We now know that by holding on to traditional Judaism we held on to bigotry, fundamentalism and unwillingness to adapt. I'm not saying that early Christians were any better. In fact, early Christians were less educated than Jews. Jews are the "Am Hasefer" (Nation of the book); we as a nation have always been literate, while other nations were largely illiterate in these days. Yet, Christianity as a religion is a leap forward over its Jewish counterpart and we know this now in year 2005.
The Holocaust is a manifestation of the pent-up urge in every reform movement to destroy the conservative movement. Now I must note, that a conservative movement is typically more violent against a reform movement that a reform is against the conservative. That's because the reformists understand the vantage point of those who were left behind but those who were left behind do not understand what it's like to live in the modern world and they are therefore naturally more adamantly opposed to it. However in the case of Judaism vs Christianity, the Jews had their hands tied throughout the middle ages. They were largely outnumbered and were just happy to be able to maintain their conservative religious outlook and outdated religious practices. Trying to prevent or fight Christianity was something they could not even afford to dream of.
Christians throughout the middle ages very much resented the Jewish tenacity and attempted in various ways to convert them to Christianity. They did NOT do this because they hated them; on the contrary. Jews hate Christians because Christians are revolutionaries and seem to be trying to turn their world upside down. Christians, however, do not hate Jews. They just want to "enlighten" them so that they too could enjoy the benefits of a more modern religion. When the Christians fought in the crusades, they did did so with the intent of spreading the gospel and converting Jews and others to Christianity. Their primary intent was NOT to kill, whereas the professed intent of all major victors in battles of previous ages -including the battles of the Israelites against the Canaanites- was to kill and destroy the enemy.
I know, Jews were not given a chance to accept Christianity and escape the Holocaust. But that's because there is an extremely important principle that one must understand and that is: An opportunity for progress will become available once, twice, trice and maybe four times or more but there will come a point where the opportunity is lost and when it is lost, it is lost forever and ever and ever and ever. Unlike in the movies, where skirmishes amongst love objects rarely are permanent, in real life these skirmishes are sometimes permanent. It depends on whether the right party seizes the opportunity at the right time and place and seeks reconciliation and forgiveness. After thousands of years of ingrained hatred of gentiles and refusal to reform, it was too late!! Even those Jews who did manage to reform in earlier years were included in the collective punishment, although to a somewhat lesser extent.
Following are the lines of the movie "Chasing Amy". Bob is explaining how he found out that his girlfriend once had a threesome before they got together and he therefore broke up with her. "I wasn't disgusted with her, I was afraid. That moment I felt small, like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level... never be enough for her or something like that. But, what I did not get is, she did not care, she wasn't looking for that guy anymore, she was looking for me, for the Bob. But by the time I figured this all out it was too late, she moved on and all I had to show for was some foolish pride which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I KNOW that now. but... I pushed her away. And so I've spent every day since then Chasing Amy."
---------------
The Jewish Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis during WWII was a tremendous blow to the Jews as a people and religion. One of the fundamental tenets of Judaism is that Jews are god's chosen people. Jews traditionally believe that they are special and different from all the other nations. They are smarter, more righteous and -if they follow god's will- more prosperous as well. This them is mentioned many times in the Bible "for god has chosen you to be a prized nation to him..." and it has been maintained throughout the days of temple and later in Diaspora. How do we reconcile the "favorite nation" status will all the humiliation and suffering experienced in the last 2,000 years? Simple! We have sinned and god is punishing us just like a dad slaps his little son a little, just enough to stir him in the right direction and teach him not to do wrong again. We believe that our 2,000-year-long suffering is only temporary and eventually we will be redeemed by the Messiah and our dignity and prosperity restored.
Okay, so that explains why the middle-age-era Jewish peasant or surf was tortured by the christian lord and the Jewish merchant peddled towns laboriously just to eke out enough money to barely survive and was then forced to give half of it away in taxes. And that might also explain some of the other more severe persecutions such as the Crusades. But what about the Holocaust? A father might slap his child on the back as punishment but will he choke him to death? If we are god's chosen people, how and why would god ever allow such a massive and tremendous blow to happen to us, the destruction of one-third of our nation in less than five years in the most brutal and sadistic ways imaginable. Many holocaust survivors have simply lost their faith in god as a result of the holocaust. It just doesn't make any sense; god cannot be looking after us and love us if atrocities like this can materialize.
They have an extremely valid argument and I agree that this is solid ground for dismissal of the "chosen nation" idea. But in reality the Holocaust is far more complicated than this. We must strive to understand what really lies behind the Holocaust. What motivated the Germans to commit these atrocious crimes? why did they hate the Jews so much and why were the Jews do defenseless?
Let's rewind back all the way to the days of when Christianity was created as a distinct religion. Christianity is NOT an independent religion when compared to Judaism. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism; in fact it's a "reformation" of Judaism. Jesus and his small group of Jewish followers sought to "reform" the Jewish movement in the closing days of the second temple. His teachings were revolutionary. He said that people are not judged by how many animal sacrifices they bring to the temple or by ritual baths ("Mikveh") or by a host of other technical acts that were strongly emphasized by the Rabbi's in that generation. Jesus said that it's all in the heart and it's the intent that is much more important than the act. There's no need to go up to the corrupt Jerusalem in order to get god's attention. You can get god's attention right at home by helping each other and following the righteous path.
His disdain of the traditional Rabbinical emphasis on the temple and a host of other Jewish laws is what made him an outcast. His teachings were denounced as heretical and his followers ostracized. Although his original intent was NOT to start a new religion or even a religious movement within Judaism, the eventual spin-off of his movement into Christianity was pretty much inevitable. His teachings were just too revolutionary for the time and the Jews simply were not willing to go along with it. Since the movement, by its very essence sought to de-emphasize technical acts and emphasize good will and intent instead, it therefore naturally attracted gentiles who were not allowed entry into rabbinical Judaism and were unwilling to commit to all the details of rabbinical Judaism.
The new movement spread like wildfire! What was the movement? It was a Jewish reform movement called Christianity. The traditional, rabbinical Jews soon became the minority and they were outnumbered by a movement that was being laughed at just several years ago. The Jews had failed!!! They did not realize that it was a reform a movement; they thought that it was just another crazy movement that will evaporate and disappear in time. But Christianity had a gigantic future in store. It was destined to conquer the world and inspire western cultural life for thousands of years to come. Rabbinical Jews thought that they were failing him, but instead failed themselves! We now know that by holding on to traditional Judaism we held on to bigotry, fundamentalism and unwillingness to adapt. I'm not saying that early Christians were any better. In fact, early Christians were less educated than Jews. Jews are the "Am Hasefer" (Nation of the book); we as a nation have always been literate, while other nations were largely illiterate in these days. Yet, Christianity as a religion is a leap forward over its Jewish counterpart and we know this now in year 2005.
The Holocaust is a manifestation of the pent-up urge in every reform movement to destroy the conservative movement. Now I must note, that a conservative movement is typically more violent against a reform movement that a reform is against the conservative. That's because the reformists understand the vantage point of those who were left behind but those who were left behind do not understand what it's like to live in the modern world and they are therefore naturally more adamantly opposed to it. However in the case of Judaism vs Christianity, the Jews had their hands tied throughout the middle ages. They were largely outnumbered and were just happy to be able to maintain their conservative religious outlook and outdated religious practices. Trying to prevent or fight Christianity was something they could not even afford to dream of.
Christians throughout the middle ages very much resented the Jewish tenacity and attempted in various ways to convert them to Christianity. They did NOT do this because they hated them; on the contrary. Jews hate Christians because Christians are revolutionaries and seem to be trying to turn their world upside down. Christians, however, do not hate Jews. They just want to "enlighten" them so that they too could enjoy the benefits of a more modern religion. When the Christians fought in the crusades, they did did so with the intent of spreading the gospel and converting Jews and others to Christianity. Their primary intent was NOT to kill, whereas the professed intent of all major victors in battles of previous ages -including the battles of the Israelites against the Canaanites- was to kill and destroy the enemy.
I know, Jews were not given a chance to accept Christianity and escape the Holocaust. But that's because there is an extremely important principle that one must understand and that is: An opportunity for progress will become available once, twice, trice and maybe four times or more but there will come a point where the opportunity is lost and when it is lost, it is lost forever and ever and ever and ever. Unlike in the movies, where skirmishes amongst love objects rarely are permanent, in real life these skirmishes are sometimes permanent. It depends on whether the right party seizes the opportunity at the right time and place and seeks reconciliation and forgiveness. After thousands of years of ingrained hatred of gentiles and refusal to reform, it was too late!! Even those Jews who did manage to reform in earlier years were included in the collective punishment, although to a somewhat lesser extent.
Following are the lines of the movie "Chasing Amy". Bob is explaining how he found out that his girlfriend once had a threesome before they got together and he therefore broke up with her. "I wasn't disgusted with her, I was afraid. That moment I felt small, like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level... never be enough for her or something like that. But, what I did not get is, she did not care, she wasn't looking for that guy anymore, she was looking for me, for the Bob. But by the time I figured this all out it was too late, she moved on and all I had to show for was some foolish pride which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I KNOW that now. but... I pushed her away. And so I've spent every day since then Chasing Amy."
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