Is man so important as to be the center of his own attention? If so, why?
Is there another way to be? If so, what?
Is there another way to be? If so, what?
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
In or Out?
Was recently talking about the Higgs boson and what it seemed to indicate about the Big Bang. I gushed that the only way to think about it was as an act of conscious intention, an act of creation. My friend responded by asking "so what." How does that help us live now? That was a good question.
If the Big Bang was a conscious act of creation, if the universe in which we live was "engineered" to be a home for life and consciousness, what was the meaning of the act and what does it say to us today?
First of all let me say that I do not believe in "God." After thousands of years of human history, that concept is too loaded with unhelpful freight. Indeed, I don't "believe" in anything as an act of faith. Rather I follow Saint Thomas in following reason until it can go no farther. At that point, the finger is pointing at God. Or as Plato saw it, we can never describe the Good, we can only perceive the world in its light.
However, quantum physics and relativity present us with a deep understanding of the universe. We can trace back the expanding cosmos we see now to a moment in time and a place in space - the Big Bang - that in fact created time and space. We can paint a picture of the elementary particles that fill the universe in the form of matter and energy. We can understand gravity as a bending of spacetime. We can explain the entire material world of our day-to-day existence. That our understanding is incomplete - gravity cannot fit into the Standard Model yet, we cannot so far explain dark matter or dark energy and we have no explanation of consciousness - does not impact on all that modern science has so far allowed us to understand and do.
So we tend largely to allow the question of what it all means and where it comes from to hang in the air. Just one of life's mysteries, the answer to which is beyond our reach and really not essential.
Nevertheless, for some, unless there is a meaning, a reason, life may seem rather pointless.
Following Aquinas and using Occam's Razor, I've come to believe that the Big Bang was the result of a conscious act, an act we'll never understand the mechanics of on this side of the veil. How something is created from nothing and where the agent of that creation comes from, that defines the outlines of the essential meaning of "God." But one can think about the "why's."
Being a conscious being, we can at least hypothesize about why. We can, for example, wonder about how it would be to be everything and eternal, the one thing that is and neverchanging. Lonely and bored? Finally coming to the point of dumping oneself into an act of creation that created a stage for consciousness to inhabit space and time in pieces, to fill each fragment and create many from one? Think about a universe filled with 100's of billions of planets that support various forms of life. Uncountable numbers of individual consciousnesses each looking out on Others? No one lonely anymore and not at all boring.
And this bring me to the answer to my friend. The whole point of creation is to experience fully the many splendored world we occupy for our allotted time. Not everyone needs this answer. Some instinctively inhabit their lives fully. But some cannot help but see humanity as full of folly and much of what passes for news as pointless, evil or just epiphenomenal. For us, it is worth realizing that the point of the universe may be that it exists, and so do we, for the shear experience of it. It is all important, we are all important, our lives and loves are all important, our acts and efforts are all important because that it why the universe was created. Nothing is epiphenomenal or beside the point because the point is us.
If this is the case, then it is besides the point not to be fully engaged in all that life presents to us, not to strive to understand and act in the best way we know how. Our "duty" then is to try to make this ride as enjoyable as we can for everyone. To seek beauty, to do good and to have fun. Fun was almost surely lacking before the Big Bang.
The choice is to be all in or to be all out. To be engaged in everything or take no real interest in anything. Freud called this choice one between Eros (love) and Thanatos (death). Choosing the later would be a real waste. To be or not to be.
If the Big Bang was a conscious act of creation, if the universe in which we live was "engineered" to be a home for life and consciousness, what was the meaning of the act and what does it say to us today?
First of all let me say that I do not believe in "God." After thousands of years of human history, that concept is too loaded with unhelpful freight. Indeed, I don't "believe" in anything as an act of faith. Rather I follow Saint Thomas in following reason until it can go no farther. At that point, the finger is pointing at God. Or as Plato saw it, we can never describe the Good, we can only perceive the world in its light.
However, quantum physics and relativity present us with a deep understanding of the universe. We can trace back the expanding cosmos we see now to a moment in time and a place in space - the Big Bang - that in fact created time and space. We can paint a picture of the elementary particles that fill the universe in the form of matter and energy. We can understand gravity as a bending of spacetime. We can explain the entire material world of our day-to-day existence. That our understanding is incomplete - gravity cannot fit into the Standard Model yet, we cannot so far explain dark matter or dark energy and we have no explanation of consciousness - does not impact on all that modern science has so far allowed us to understand and do.
So we tend largely to allow the question of what it all means and where it comes from to hang in the air. Just one of life's mysteries, the answer to which is beyond our reach and really not essential.
Nevertheless, for some, unless there is a meaning, a reason, life may seem rather pointless.
Following Aquinas and using Occam's Razor, I've come to believe that the Big Bang was the result of a conscious act, an act we'll never understand the mechanics of on this side of the veil. How something is created from nothing and where the agent of that creation comes from, that defines the outlines of the essential meaning of "God." But one can think about the "why's."
Being a conscious being, we can at least hypothesize about why. We can, for example, wonder about how it would be to be everything and eternal, the one thing that is and neverchanging. Lonely and bored? Finally coming to the point of dumping oneself into an act of creation that created a stage for consciousness to inhabit space and time in pieces, to fill each fragment and create many from one? Think about a universe filled with 100's of billions of planets that support various forms of life. Uncountable numbers of individual consciousnesses each looking out on Others? No one lonely anymore and not at all boring.
And this bring me to the answer to my friend. The whole point of creation is to experience fully the many splendored world we occupy for our allotted time. Not everyone needs this answer. Some instinctively inhabit their lives fully. But some cannot help but see humanity as full of folly and much of what passes for news as pointless, evil or just epiphenomenal. For us, it is worth realizing that the point of the universe may be that it exists, and so do we, for the shear experience of it. It is all important, we are all important, our lives and loves are all important, our acts and efforts are all important because that it why the universe was created. Nothing is epiphenomenal or beside the point because the point is us.
If this is the case, then it is besides the point not to be fully engaged in all that life presents to us, not to strive to understand and act in the best way we know how. Our "duty" then is to try to make this ride as enjoyable as we can for everyone. To seek beauty, to do good and to have fun. Fun was almost surely lacking before the Big Bang.
The choice is to be all in or to be all out. To be engaged in everything or take no real interest in anything. Freud called this choice one between Eros (love) and Thanatos (death). Choosing the later would be a real waste. To be or not to be.
Monday, August 6, 2012
The Higgs and Creation
The "discovery" of the Higgs boson in July was hailed by many - finally, the "God" particle - and understood, assimilated into our understanding of the universe and creation by who? To the community of physicists, it seemed to "explain" the universe, why it is here, why it is something rather than just eternally careening photons of energy.
In an excellent piece in ScienceNews, Tom Siegfried offers one of the most lucid explanations of what the Higgs is all about. It's not so much the particle as the Higgs field itself. In the first trillionth second or so after the Big Bang, everything was the same non-thing, speeding around at the speed of light. Then the expanding universe cooled enough for the Higgs field to manifest itself. When it did, it caught some of those careening non-things in its net. The Higgs field slowed these down, subjected them to resistance, made them move as if they were plowing through a field of thick molasses. They experienced inertia - thereby gaining mass - and became things, the elemental particles of which matter is made. The others that were not affected by the Higgs field continued on their way as photons traveling at the speed of light. The Higgs field, in other words, called forth from light the material universe. Pretty cool, eh?
And there's more to it. When the Higgs manifested itself with the (relative) cooling of the universe, there sprang up not just one kind of particle but a whole menagerie of them. Each kind affected by the Higgs field to a different degree, therefore having differing masses. Without this differentiation, there would be no real physics or chemistry. Therefore no suns, planets or life. In other words, from the moment of the Big Bang whatever was in the expanding blob of energy that was the universe was already imprinted with that which would be manifested as all the kinds of particles and forces of which we know (and probably some we don't know as yet). The moment the Higgs field grabbed them, they became what they were to be.
This is quite a lot to consider. But still there is more. None of this so far explains gravity, dark matter or dark energy. What about particles with mass also leads to gravity being able to warp time and space? Where are the particles with mass - though apparently very little individually, as if barely caught by Higgs - that make up dark matter? And what is that energy that seems to operate on large scales counter to gravity? What is that dark energy all about anyway?
One can say that we are like dogs in relation to the works of man when we try to grasp what it all means. Dogs just don't have the capacity to understand man or how we create the world they live in. And we can't really understand why something exists rather than nothing. Chalk it up to ramdoness, just fluctuations in the vacuum.
But this bears further thought. What can we say about creation? 1. It happened. 2. It apparently happened according to laws written into the act - or moment, if you're shy - that would determine what manifested and when. 3. It produced a universe that allowed the development of life and manifestation of consciousness.
My Dad was a truck driver and never graduated grammar school. He'd look up at the night sky and ask me how I could believe it's just accidental.
A lawful act of creation would imply what? Or as God said to Job:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding....
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone?
In an excellent piece in ScienceNews, Tom Siegfried offers one of the most lucid explanations of what the Higgs is all about. It's not so much the particle as the Higgs field itself. In the first trillionth second or so after the Big Bang, everything was the same non-thing, speeding around at the speed of light. Then the expanding universe cooled enough for the Higgs field to manifest itself. When it did, it caught some of those careening non-things in its net. The Higgs field slowed these down, subjected them to resistance, made them move as if they were plowing through a field of thick molasses. They experienced inertia - thereby gaining mass - and became things, the elemental particles of which matter is made. The others that were not affected by the Higgs field continued on their way as photons traveling at the speed of light. The Higgs field, in other words, called forth from light the material universe. Pretty cool, eh?
And there's more to it. When the Higgs manifested itself with the (relative) cooling of the universe, there sprang up not just one kind of particle but a whole menagerie of them. Each kind affected by the Higgs field to a different degree, therefore having differing masses. Without this differentiation, there would be no real physics or chemistry. Therefore no suns, planets or life. In other words, from the moment of the Big Bang whatever was in the expanding blob of energy that was the universe was already imprinted with that which would be manifested as all the kinds of particles and forces of which we know (and probably some we don't know as yet). The moment the Higgs field grabbed them, they became what they were to be.
This is quite a lot to consider. But still there is more. None of this so far explains gravity, dark matter or dark energy. What about particles with mass also leads to gravity being able to warp time and space? Where are the particles with mass - though apparently very little individually, as if barely caught by Higgs - that make up dark matter? And what is that energy that seems to operate on large scales counter to gravity? What is that dark energy all about anyway?
One can say that we are like dogs in relation to the works of man when we try to grasp what it all means. Dogs just don't have the capacity to understand man or how we create the world they live in. And we can't really understand why something exists rather than nothing. Chalk it up to ramdoness, just fluctuations in the vacuum.
But this bears further thought. What can we say about creation? 1. It happened. 2. It apparently happened according to laws written into the act - or moment, if you're shy - that would determine what manifested and when. 3. It produced a universe that allowed the development of life and manifestation of consciousness.
My Dad was a truck driver and never graduated grammar school. He'd look up at the night sky and ask me how I could believe it's just accidental.
A lawful act of creation would imply what? Or as God said to Job:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding....
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
No Alternative to Capitalism Except Democratic Captitalism
All life is an effort at
self-replication. Species that succeed survive and evolve. Those
that don't enter the fossil record. All higher forms of life are
driven by two elemental instincts, sex
and self-preservation. (The former may often overcome the later but
that's another issue.)
In human beings, these two
drives are experienced as lust – and its “higher” form, love –
and the chase after the means of survival – in modern life, money. Capitalism feeds
off both of these – indeed combines them – and provides a wide
range of products and services in return. (Look at how many
combinations of human desire are served by social media such as
Facebook and Twitter.) The struggle for the legal tender takes two
gross forms in modern capitalist economies: the selling of labor and
the reaping of profits by those who control any particular means of
production. Capitalism requires both (at least as long as some
people are needed to produce and run the machines that increasingly
have taken over production).
We all seek more money than we
currently have, in part from necessity but as much to provide us with
a sense of security. We want to survive today and also tomorrow and
the day after. We never know when enough might not be enough so we keep
wanting more. Seeking riches is simply the highest manifestation of
the drive for self-preservation. No other economic system so deeply
satisfies this need than capitalism.
Capitalism is a complete economic
system. It directly serves the human hunger for more and more
and provides the means to satisfy that hunger. It does this through
utilizing the division of labor that arises from the various forms of inequality –
those which exist by nature, those that derive from human
prejudices and vagaries and those that result from the workings of the capitalist system itself. Put
simply, some people work to survive and some reap profit from the
work (often including their own).
There seems no real alternative to
capitalism because it works directly off of our two most basic
drives. Many – most of the world's religions as well as Marx,
Luddites, socialists, romantics, nihilists etc – have bemoaned this
or looked for alternatives. But there seems no other way to organize
an efficient, growing economy than through private ownership and a
free market. State control and social ownership have no instinctual basis in human nature and don't work in practice.
The problem arises because capitalism
is amoral and by itself produces unfair and unjust
outcomes. The belief in some invisible hand that somehow
makes it all come out right is an outdated religious notion that
flies in the face of our actual experience.
The issue of morality and justice comes
into it because humans do not live as monads but as members of
society. We cannot survive as individuals outside society. The
stability of society, any society, depends on a degree of social
cohesion sufficient to keep it from breaking down into an Hobbesian state
of nature. Government alone – however much a Leviathan – cannot
provide sufficient efficient cohesion. Political dictatorship is
incompatible with long-term economic prosperity, it dams the flow of
individual freedom that drives the innovation that a capitalist
economy requires to avoid stagnation. A widespread experience of the
fairness and justice of how the economy functions is the only sound
basis for social cohesion in a capitalist society. In other words, capitalism must be tempered sufficiently to provide a common sense of
“ownership” or it becomes disruptive.
Capitalism must therefore be regulated
for its – and our – own good. Such regulation must somehow
represent everyone the system serves. It must therefore be
democratic. Only through the functioning of democratic governance
can the necessary element of fairness and justice be introduced in a
way that serves everyone's efforts at self-preservation. Regulating
a capitalist economy – placing limits and requirements on private
ownership and market activities – by collective decisions taken
through democratic means is the only alternative to capitalism.
There seems no other.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Reading Ulysses
Just finished reading James Joyce's Ulysses. Figured it was about time. Read it on my Kindle using a free version downloaded from the Gutenberg Project. Tried the free Amazon version but it was incomplete.
I'm not a "Joycean." And although I am traveling to Ireland shortly, I will not seek to follow Leopold Bloom's tracks through Dublin. There was lots in the book that I didn't get, allusions to Dublin and local/Irish events, some of the untranslated text, some of the words Joyce used or coined. Sometimes, I couldn't follow what was going on. But none of this really mattered. What Joyce managed to do in his 265,000 words was simply astonishing and wonderful. Through his various techniques - most notably perhaps his stream-of-consciousness rendering of Bloom's wanderings and fantasies - is to convey a human being from the inside. Over the hundreds of pages taking place in one long day, Bloom springs up in your apprehension as a full-formed presence, like a living flame in your mind. His being is laid bare, his thoughts - free flowing and disjointed as are our own - his deepest fantasies and fears, his knowing efforts to avoid painful truths, his obsessions, his efforts to make sense of the world he perceives, his pleasures, his relationships with other, everything we reveal to and hide from the outside world. Bloom becomes a friend - despite his hidden recesses he is quite likable - that you miss when the book ends. In a bit less space, Joyce also bring you inside a projection of a younger self - Stephen Dedalus - on the day the book takes place - June 16, 1904 - and Bloom's wife Molly.
Shakespeare was the English language master of the social setting and dynamics, of the deep psychology of power, of eternal conflicts. Joyce was the master of the individual person and Ulysses a truly marvelous book.
Lines I've plucked from reading Ulysses can be found here by searching on "Joyce."
I'm not a "Joycean." And although I am traveling to Ireland shortly, I will not seek to follow Leopold Bloom's tracks through Dublin. There was lots in the book that I didn't get, allusions to Dublin and local/Irish events, some of the untranslated text, some of the words Joyce used or coined. Sometimes, I couldn't follow what was going on. But none of this really mattered. What Joyce managed to do in his 265,000 words was simply astonishing and wonderful. Through his various techniques - most notably perhaps his stream-of-consciousness rendering of Bloom's wanderings and fantasies - is to convey a human being from the inside. Over the hundreds of pages taking place in one long day, Bloom springs up in your apprehension as a full-formed presence, like a living flame in your mind. His being is laid bare, his thoughts - free flowing and disjointed as are our own - his deepest fantasies and fears, his knowing efforts to avoid painful truths, his obsessions, his efforts to make sense of the world he perceives, his pleasures, his relationships with other, everything we reveal to and hide from the outside world. Bloom becomes a friend - despite his hidden recesses he is quite likable - that you miss when the book ends. In a bit less space, Joyce also bring you inside a projection of a younger self - Stephen Dedalus - on the day the book takes place - June 16, 1904 - and Bloom's wife Molly.
Shakespeare was the English language master of the social setting and dynamics, of the deep psychology of power, of eternal conflicts. Joyce was the master of the individual person and Ulysses a truly marvelous book.
Lines I've plucked from reading Ulysses can be found here by searching on "Joyce."
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Time to Found the Foundation?
Seventy years ago, Isaac Asimov's fictional character Hari Seldon invented the "science of psychohistory." Psychohistory was a mathematical approach to predict and shape the future by influencing the course of events through manipulating the probabilistic laws of mass action. A form of "mathematical sociology" modeled on mathematical economics, Seldon based psychohistory on his "discovery" that there existed formula and equations that could encapsulate societal dynamics and provide solutions to problems. He used it to seek to manage the long term history of a human society that had spread throughout our Galaxy. He foresaw a time of cyclical disintegration and sought to use his "science" and the two "Foundations" founded upon it to use the equations to tweak events and reduce the time of recovery.
Paul Krugman claims that his discovery of the fictional mathematical history is what led him to study economics. Indeed, "psychohistory" shares the economist assumption that society moves in cycles and that good times alternate with bad ones. Like economics, Seldon's science could be used to try to extend the good and shorten the bad. There was also a deeper tie between the two, the view that the best economy - and the society it was based upon - worked through the central mechanisms of individual choice and freedom in a free market of exchange.
Democracy and capitalism do seem to be the most effective way to maximize social and economic good in the long run. Any society that limits either - that doesn't have both - will sooner or later limit its own ability to sustain itself. In other words - in this optimistic view - democracy combined with free market capitalism are mutually re-enforcing and sure to win over all competitors in the long run. The short run may be another matter. And as Seldon foresaw, the short run may last a long time.
I mention all this because it occurs to me that the key element of Asimov's fictional science - as it is for economics - is the assumption that there are formulas for understanding what is happening to us, predicting the future and undertaking actions to manage that future. In other words, there are solutions to the complex equations that are determining events. Furthermore, these solutions have as their aim - if not their immediate means - perfecting implementation of democratic governance and free market exchange. Though economics traditionally postulated an "invisible hand," since Keynes it has been understood that a "free market" does not mean an untended one. It is also understood that total government control of an economy is not efficient. The best solution seems to require the intersection of democratic government and free markets, where the good of the whole society as determined by the body of citizens impacts the actions and interactions of individuals and groups seeking to maximize their own benefit.
So the question becomes, are there formula or possibly even equations for analyzing our evolving global society as the fictional Seldon foresaw? Should we stop arguing about climate change, ideology, history and everything else and instead start looking for ways to identify and manage the trends and the likely futures we can foresee? Is it time to found the Foundation?
Paul Krugman claims that his discovery of the fictional mathematical history is what led him to study economics. Indeed, "psychohistory" shares the economist assumption that society moves in cycles and that good times alternate with bad ones. Like economics, Seldon's science could be used to try to extend the good and shorten the bad. There was also a deeper tie between the two, the view that the best economy - and the society it was based upon - worked through the central mechanisms of individual choice and freedom in a free market of exchange.
Democracy and capitalism do seem to be the most effective way to maximize social and economic good in the long run. Any society that limits either - that doesn't have both - will sooner or later limit its own ability to sustain itself. In other words - in this optimistic view - democracy combined with free market capitalism are mutually re-enforcing and sure to win over all competitors in the long run. The short run may be another matter. And as Seldon foresaw, the short run may last a long time.
I mention all this because it occurs to me that the key element of Asimov's fictional science - as it is for economics - is the assumption that there are formulas for understanding what is happening to us, predicting the future and undertaking actions to manage that future. In other words, there are solutions to the complex equations that are determining events. Furthermore, these solutions have as their aim - if not their immediate means - perfecting implementation of democratic governance and free market exchange. Though economics traditionally postulated an "invisible hand," since Keynes it has been understood that a "free market" does not mean an untended one. It is also understood that total government control of an economy is not efficient. The best solution seems to require the intersection of democratic government and free markets, where the good of the whole society as determined by the body of citizens impacts the actions and interactions of individuals and groups seeking to maximize their own benefit.
So the question becomes, are there formula or possibly even equations for analyzing our evolving global society as the fictional Seldon foresaw? Should we stop arguing about climate change, ideology, history and everything else and instead start looking for ways to identify and manage the trends and the likely futures we can foresee? Is it time to found the Foundation?
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Photo Homage to the C&O Canal
In 1753, Lt. Col. George Washington was sent to see if he could talk the French out of a fort they had constructed in what is now western Pennsylvania near Lake Erie. He was rebuffed. He returned to the area in 1754 to try to dislodge the French from their new Fort Dusquesne at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, where the two form the Ohio River at what is now Pittsburgh. On the way there, he encountered the Ohiopyle rapids on the Youghiogheny River. He could not go further by boat.
Washington remembered this years later when he envisioned a canal from Ohio to the Potomac to allow transport by water to and from the new American West. He founded the Potowmack Company in 1785 to improve navigation along the river. In 1824, the company passed its rights to the Chesapeake and Ohio Company, which started building the Canal up from Washington in 1828. It reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850 but was by then already facing competition from the railroads. Plans to push on to Pittsburgh were abandoned but the C&O functioned as it was until 1924, 170 years after Washington first saw the possible water route west.
President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps began rehabilitating the Canal during the Great Depression and today it's a National Park. We in the DC area live with this treasure. Many people visit some part of the 185 miles of the trail. I've biked it or parts several times over the years, the latest in May as the second part of a trip down the original canal path from Pittsburgh. It's a great park and really nice to hike and bike. Here follows a homage of pictures I've taken through the seasons.
Leaving from Cumberland, Maryland
Exiting the Paw Paw Tunnel
Overgrown
At Hancock, Maryland
Along the Canal and through the woods
Some locks still work
Around Mile 40
Locks 2 and 3 in Georgetown
The Ignoble End
Washington remembered this years later when he envisioned a canal from Ohio to the Potomac to allow transport by water to and from the new American West. He founded the Potowmack Company in 1785 to improve navigation along the river. In 1824, the company passed its rights to the Chesapeake and Ohio Company, which started building the Canal up from Washington in 1828. It reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850 but was by then already facing competition from the railroads. Plans to push on to Pittsburgh were abandoned but the C&O functioned as it was until 1924, 170 years after Washington first saw the possible water route west.
President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps began rehabilitating the Canal during the Great Depression and today it's a National Park. We in the DC area live with this treasure. Many people visit some part of the 185 miles of the trail. I've biked it or parts several times over the years, the latest in May as the second part of a trip down the original canal path from Pittsburgh. It's a great park and really nice to hike and bike. Here follows a homage of pictures I've taken through the seasons.
Leaving from Cumberland, Maryland
Exiting the Paw Paw Tunnel
Overgrown
At Hancock, Maryland
Along the Canal and through the woods
Some locks still work
Around Mile 40
Locks 2 and 3 in Georgetown
The Ignoble End
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