"Without a map of our natural and social world - a picture of the world and of one's place in it that is structured and has inner cohesion - human beings would be confused and unable to act purposefully and consistently, for there would be no way of orienting oneself, of finding a fixed point that permits one to organize all the impressions that impinge upon each individual."
I came across this quote the other day while I was writing something else. Several days later I'm still thinking about it. Needs must I blog, so that the thoughts will go away.
Believe it or not, I've never attempted to comprehensively describe how my world-map has changed as a result of thinking in 5-dimensions. A world-map, as described in the above quote, contains more than one's understanding of the laws of physical phenomena. It also contains orienting values and overarching goals that one can access when trying to determine a course of action. It's that 'values and goals' part that I haven't really tackled yet. This is partly because when you assert the primacy of a particular set of values or goals, you risk being seen as less objective or impartial than you should be when dealing with matters of science.
So be it. What I have done was never really objective science as much as it was a mapping of my subjective internal experiences. If that leads to a theory that can some day be validated by objective data, my hopes will have been realized. If not, then this is just more fodder for my science-fiction writing career. ;)
But back to values and goals... I'll put down what I can, with no illusions that I can be completely objective about what guides or motivates me.
I think the most noticeable differences in my world-map reflect the differences in the way I see time. If the past is not fixed, and/or one can select a universe that reflects specific conditions from the past, then the past ceases to be as big of a source of worry or concern. Similarly, if the future is a set of possible outcomes (and there's always a set), then you are never worrying about the future. You are only worrying about the probable future. More than anything, it is what is happening now that matters. In this particular 5-dimensional perspective, what's happening now - including what's happening only in your head - is altering (however slightly) the probabilities associated with each future outcome.
Of course the past can still be used to make useful predictions about the future, and we couldn't function without doing so, but I've come to realize that using a specific event from the past to make a decision about an action now is not as useful as assessing the current situation in light of multiple interpretations of its relationship to the past. (Wow, that was a long sentence, and a somewhat convoluted thought...) Considering multiple interpretations of the relationship between past and present circumstances, and deciding how to act upon such an option-space of relationships, will ultimately bring out your optimistic or pessimistic tendencies. Both tendencies have functionality in determining outcome states, and you'll figure these out as you explore a 5-dimensional perspective.
From the same stories I just cited, you can see where the value status of material things changes in 5 dimensions. If a pizza, book, or on-sale dress is only a universe away, and I know how to get to that universe at any time, then the acquisition of that item now is only valuable if it fills a specific need that I have now. Don't get me wrong - I have hundreds of books waiting to be read. I hoard them against a great catastrophe wherein I might die of boredom. I do not claim to be the living embodiment of the set of values that I can articulate. But I do think that my values have generally shifted away from 'objects for status' and 'objects as a hedge against the future and/or link to the past', and towards 'objects for immediate use'. (Except for the books again. People I respect generally read a lot of books and have a lot of books. I can't tell you that possessing books is not, for me, in some way about status.)
Right now I'm starting to feel slightly ridiculous for writing this post. I'll shift to 'goals' for a moment to see if that helps. My motivations to do things (other than fulfill basic needs) are largely intrinsic. Perhaps they always were, or perhaps this reflects my changed perception of the nature of external motivators. Or, if you want to plumb the depths of psychology even further, you can suggest that I have a need for control (or the illusion of control) that underlies both my theory of 5 dimensions and my perception that I am intrinsically-motivated. ;)
Either way, I have goals that reflect the desire for self-mastery. Selecting an outcome requires the ability to master thoughts, emotions, and expectations. And while moment-to-moment experience is largely not a factor of conscious selection, thoughts and emotions set the general 'direction' of your trajectory (if you will permit me to sound excessively NewAge-y and non-scientific for just a moment), so mastering them can have a broader impact on the quality of the outcomes that you experience. Mastery of thought and emotion is also valuable in many other (more mundane) aspects of daily life, including interpersonal relationships and overall state of health, so it's worth your time, even if you think a 5-dimensional perspective is so much mushroom fertilizer. ;)
My other overarching goal is to learn. As biological organisms, we seem to be incapable of not learning, where learning is defined as 'modification with experience.' Perhaps it's my scholar-status bias again that makes me want to conclude that learning is the ultimate purpose, and should therefore be embraced as an overarching goal. Then again, since we can't avoid learning at its most basic level, perhaps I can be permitted a modicum of leeway in my subjective perception of its importance. ;)
Three paragraphs later and I'm still feeling as though this whole endeavor has overtones of 'pompous', so I think I'll stop for now. Until the next time I am possessed by thoughts I must explore, namaste.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
"In every journey, the traveller must ask 'Was the right path taken?'... Those who watch the track too closely often fail to see where the path leads them."
Yesterday, in a moment of irritation, I chose the universe where the answer to a question was 'No' instead of 'Yes'. I did it consciously, because I knew that the answer was likely to be 'Yes', and I didn't want to deal with what followed a 'Yes' answer.
In your 4-dimensional world, you don't believe that such a thing is possible, and therefore I did nothing wrong. Run along then.
In a 5-dimensional world, there are questions... Did I simply alter my own trajectory through the smear/multiverse by steering myself towards the outcome I wanted? Or did my actions have a substantive effect on the other party?
If I simply altered my own trajectory, then, again, I have done nothing wrong. My choice to select that particular outcome may or may not impact my subsequent ability to make similar choices, but the morality of my decision to choose an outcome is a non-issue by any traditional code of right and wrong, as my decision did not affect someone else.
However, if I argue that the essence of observers and their observations is somehow linked together, and consensus reality reflects a summing together of those influences, then I must accept that my decision did affect someone else, and we then face a myriad of questions as to the morality of my action.
Arguing from this perspective assumes that every observer of an outcome exerts some influence on the outcome that is selected, though perhaps this influence is unequally distributed among the observers. If all observers remain unaware of their ability to influence the outcome, then again, no question of morality exists, as no one is intentionally acting on this knowledge. If one or more of the observers is aware and can make a conscious attempt to influence the outcome (and we're only discussing a non-local influence right now), then a question of relative power arises. An aware observer may or may not be the strongest agent in the selection of a particular outcome. But their awareness of their ability to consciously act puts an additional burden of responsibility upon them when faced with an opportunity to act.
By what ethics should an aware observer be bound when consciously acting to select a particular outcome? I touched on this briefly in earlier writings, but I always intended to explore the foundations of that ethic further, as it seems to come from people who have the most experience in consciously selecting outcomes. Though not explicitly stated in that particular ethical principle, the consensus seems to be that acting to suppress another person's free will harms that person, and therefore should be avoided.
How does this relate to my relative ability to select an outcome? As an aware observer who can, hypothetically, exercise a stronger influence upon the selection of the final state/outcome, am I admonished to refrain from doing so because my influence may suppress that of another person? Are we justified in equating the influence that a particular observer brings to bear on the process of state selection with his/her will?
That's an important question that warrants further exploration.
Yesterday, in a moment of irritation, I chose the universe where the answer to a question was 'No' instead of 'Yes'. I did it consciously, because I knew that the answer was likely to be 'Yes', and I didn't want to deal with what followed a 'Yes' answer.
In your 4-dimensional world, you don't believe that such a thing is possible, and therefore I did nothing wrong. Run along then.
In a 5-dimensional world, there are questions... Did I simply alter my own trajectory through the smear/multiverse by steering myself towards the outcome I wanted? Or did my actions have a substantive effect on the other party?
If I simply altered my own trajectory, then, again, I have done nothing wrong. My choice to select that particular outcome may or may not impact my subsequent ability to make similar choices, but the morality of my decision to choose an outcome is a non-issue by any traditional code of right and wrong, as my decision did not affect someone else.
However, if I argue that the essence of observers and their observations is somehow linked together, and consensus reality reflects a summing together of those influences, then I must accept that my decision did affect someone else, and we then face a myriad of questions as to the morality of my action.
Arguing from this perspective assumes that every observer of an outcome exerts some influence on the outcome that is selected, though perhaps this influence is unequally distributed among the observers. If all observers remain unaware of their ability to influence the outcome, then again, no question of morality exists, as no one is intentionally acting on this knowledge. If one or more of the observers is aware and can make a conscious attempt to influence the outcome (and we're only discussing a non-local influence right now), then a question of relative power arises. An aware observer may or may not be the strongest agent in the selection of a particular outcome. But their awareness of their ability to consciously act puts an additional burden of responsibility upon them when faced with an opportunity to act.
By what ethics should an aware observer be bound when consciously acting to select a particular outcome? I touched on this briefly in earlier writings, but I always intended to explore the foundations of that ethic further, as it seems to come from people who have the most experience in consciously selecting outcomes. Though not explicitly stated in that particular ethical principle, the consensus seems to be that acting to suppress another person's free will harms that person, and therefore should be avoided.
How does this relate to my relative ability to select an outcome? As an aware observer who can, hypothetically, exercise a stronger influence upon the selection of the final state/outcome, am I admonished to refrain from doing so because my influence may suppress that of another person? Are we justified in equating the influence that a particular observer brings to bear on the process of state selection with his/her will?
That's an important question that warrants further exploration.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Reading the Enemy's Mind
"Fight for the decrease of human alienation, the decrease of loneliness; make this struggle more important to you than the saving of a single life, even your own."
Factoring Humanity ended with the overmind of humankind making contact with the overmind of the alien race. The simultaneous awareness of 'I am not alone' was transmitted throughout the collective unconscious of humanity and brought about an almost instantaneous reduction in violence and hatred. Wishful thinking, or an accurate projection of how the intimate awareness of other minds can change a person's perceptions and behaviors?
What if we could read each other's minds? All of us, not just some of us who may or may not be delusional. ;) Let's ignore for the moment questions about whether this advancement would be biological or technological in origin.
If you had the ability to forge a connection to even one other mind, what would you notice? And how would your thoughts alter if you knew someone could access them? Speaking generally, I'll make the following predictions about what you'd find...
1) The 'sameness' of human emotions supercedes factors such as chronological age, gender and race. Emotions that are tied to culturally-driven values may differ in frequency, but the experience of shame, insecurity, or arrogance transcends the circumstances that prompted that instance of emotion. Likewise, the need for love and the need to be understood are universal.
2) The ability to feel the hurt - psychological or physical - that has been inflicted on the other person would cause you to rethink how your actions or thoughts might injure another person. You would find that you do more to bring happiness to other people because the feedback enhances your own mental state. You would also do more to alleviate the suffer of others when you see it, because you would be less afraid of being taken advantage of and more able to identify the specific need that is causing the suffering.
3) Your brain would adapt to process and prioritize this new stream of information much as it currently processes information from the conventional senses. Information that is pertinent to your survival/well-being would demand your attention, but for the most part you wouldn't know all the details of what another person is thinking.
4) Translation would be the biggest problem. You would need to integrate the incoming data with your existing knowledge structures in order to make it useful, so a person's highly-technical thoughts may be grasped by you only in more general terms.
5) Reciprocity of contact would promote more efforts to understand and appreciate the other person. After all, who wants contact with someone you can't stand? Likewise, if such a mode of communication were wide-spread, very few people would choose to isolate themselves from it, and they would adapt accordingly to the need for thought/emotion control that such contact requires.
6) Reading another person's mind requires the ability to internalize (temporarily at least) value and knowledge structures that may radically differ from your own. To the person whose mind you are reading, these are the valid operating systems. If these systems of knowledge and belief differ radically from your own, you will at least gain an appreciation of the variance in human thinking. This would generally be followed by an increase in tolerance for others and a decrease in the amount of purely dogmatic belief that one can sustain.
7) A cultural shift would take place to ensure that no person would be permitted to engage in large-scale telepathic contact without first having a stable personal identity. Likewise, those seeking contact with other minds would cultivate their own minds so that such contact with others would be an enjoyable and beneficial exchange. (Considering the prevalence of 'identity crisis', and the cultural shift away from wanting to have a cultivated mind that we currently seem to be experiencing, I say 'Bring it on!')
Factoring Humanity ended with the overmind of humankind making contact with the overmind of the alien race. The simultaneous awareness of 'I am not alone' was transmitted throughout the collective unconscious of humanity and brought about an almost instantaneous reduction in violence and hatred. Wishful thinking, or an accurate projection of how the intimate awareness of other minds can change a person's perceptions and behaviors?
What if we could read each other's minds? All of us, not just some of us who may or may not be delusional. ;) Let's ignore for the moment questions about whether this advancement would be biological or technological in origin.
If you had the ability to forge a connection to even one other mind, what would you notice? And how would your thoughts alter if you knew someone could access them? Speaking generally, I'll make the following predictions about what you'd find...
1) The 'sameness' of human emotions supercedes factors such as chronological age, gender and race. Emotions that are tied to culturally-driven values may differ in frequency, but the experience of shame, insecurity, or arrogance transcends the circumstances that prompted that instance of emotion. Likewise, the need for love and the need to be understood are universal.
2) The ability to feel the hurt - psychological or physical - that has been inflicted on the other person would cause you to rethink how your actions or thoughts might injure another person. You would find that you do more to bring happiness to other people because the feedback enhances your own mental state. You would also do more to alleviate the suffer of others when you see it, because you would be less afraid of being taken advantage of and more able to identify the specific need that is causing the suffering.
3) Your brain would adapt to process and prioritize this new stream of information much as it currently processes information from the conventional senses. Information that is pertinent to your survival/well-being would demand your attention, but for the most part you wouldn't know all the details of what another person is thinking.
4) Translation would be the biggest problem. You would need to integrate the incoming data with your existing knowledge structures in order to make it useful, so a person's highly-technical thoughts may be grasped by you only in more general terms.
5) Reciprocity of contact would promote more efforts to understand and appreciate the other person. After all, who wants contact with someone you can't stand? Likewise, if such a mode of communication were wide-spread, very few people would choose to isolate themselves from it, and they would adapt accordingly to the need for thought/emotion control that such contact requires.
6) Reading another person's mind requires the ability to internalize (temporarily at least) value and knowledge structures that may radically differ from your own. To the person whose mind you are reading, these are the valid operating systems. If these systems of knowledge and belief differ radically from your own, you will at least gain an appreciation of the variance in human thinking. This would generally be followed by an increase in tolerance for others and a decrease in the amount of purely dogmatic belief that one can sustain.
7) A cultural shift would take place to ensure that no person would be permitted to engage in large-scale telepathic contact without first having a stable personal identity. Likewise, those seeking contact with other minds would cultivate their own minds so that such contact with others would be an enjoyable and beneficial exchange. (Considering the prevalence of 'identity crisis', and the cultural shift away from wanting to have a cultivated mind that we currently seem to be experiencing, I say 'Bring it on!')
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Factoring Humanity
"That's long been one of the problems in quantum mechanics: why do the observations of a single observer create a concrete reality for everyone simultaneously? The answer, of course, is that everyone is part of the overmind, so the observation made by one person is the observation made by all people - indeed, quantum mechanics requires the overmind in order to work."
You have to love fiction that can accurately and intelligently discuss Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose, Jung's work and additional dimensions.
While the dynamics of multiple-observer interactions may be relatively easy to describe from the multiple subjective perspectives, the construct(s) upon which these interactions take place and shape observable reality are virtually unknown. This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to 5-dimensional modelling with interacting and mutually-constraining observers. Of course, many aspects of the model could still be tested without any knowledge of the constructs that underlie their functionality. But definitive answers to the bigger philosophical questions demand more knowledge of substrate of a 5-dimensional existence.
Factoring Humanity suggests that an additional spatial dimension is what enables access to the overmind - a construct similar to Jung's collective unconscious. Naturally, in Factoring Humanity, we are given this knowledge and the means to access the overmind from aliens. (This in no way detracts from the compelling portrayals of the major human characters and their personal storylines.) Believe it or not, I had great difficulty visualizing a hypercube or a tesseract while reading the book. This should tell you that I have no great vision of a 5-dimensional construct for my model either. Part of the problem is that our observable reality has 4 obvious dimensions. The fifth dimension of experience is not immediately observable when you look out into the world. Much like the dimension of time, which requires the ability to notice change, the dimension of probability requires the ability to notice correlations and degrees of overlap among perceptual and mental data sets.
Time is a dimension of our experience because we have the ability to store previous observations and compare them to our current experience. Without this ability, our awareness of time would be lost and we would undoubtedly model 'reality' quite differently.
Does adding a fifth dimension of experience push us closer or further from having an accurate model of the substrate of our existence?
You have to love fiction that can accurately and intelligently discuss Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose, Jung's work and additional dimensions.
While the dynamics of multiple-observer interactions may be relatively easy to describe from the multiple subjective perspectives, the construct(s) upon which these interactions take place and shape observable reality are virtually unknown. This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to 5-dimensional modelling with interacting and mutually-constraining observers. Of course, many aspects of the model could still be tested without any knowledge of the constructs that underlie their functionality. But definitive answers to the bigger philosophical questions demand more knowledge of substrate of a 5-dimensional existence.
Factoring Humanity suggests that an additional spatial dimension is what enables access to the overmind - a construct similar to Jung's collective unconscious. Naturally, in Factoring Humanity, we are given this knowledge and the means to access the overmind from aliens. (This in no way detracts from the compelling portrayals of the major human characters and their personal storylines.) Believe it or not, I had great difficulty visualizing a hypercube or a tesseract while reading the book. This should tell you that I have no great vision of a 5-dimensional construct for my model either. Part of the problem is that our observable reality has 4 obvious dimensions. The fifth dimension of experience is not immediately observable when you look out into the world. Much like the dimension of time, which requires the ability to notice change, the dimension of probability requires the ability to notice correlations and degrees of overlap among perceptual and mental data sets.
Time is a dimension of our experience because we have the ability to store previous observations and compare them to our current experience. Without this ability, our awareness of time would be lost and we would undoubtedly model 'reality' quite differently.
Does adding a fifth dimension of experience push us closer or further from having an accurate model of the substrate of our existence?
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Origin
"Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it"
In the relative quiet of these days, I find that I have a few more things to say before I am willing to consider this particular blogo-venture complete.
Among all the questions that demand answers from this way of modelling reality, one question I find particularly intriguing is the question of our entry into this experience. What we were/are (if anything) before entering human consciousness is of less concern to me than the questions about where and how the beginning of the trajectory of our consciousness is determined. Of course, without a more-complete understanding of the nature of consciousness, these questions cannot be answered with certainty, but they are worth examining nonetheless.
For example... At what point is the substrate of our consciousness advanced enough to act as an agent in the selection of outcomes? I am reminded of a study on baby chicks and other animals that were able to influence a random number generator so that target systems behaved in a way that benefited the animals. This suggests that even a human infant's consciousness may play some role in the selection of states. Could a fetus similarly impact a randomly-controlled system, provided it were able to interact with such a system? At what age could a fetus begin to exert an independent effect upon such a system?
Along the same lines, one might ask any number of questions about the optimal conditions of consciousness (COC) from which a noticeable influence upon random system might be obtained. Answering any of these questions requires, of course, that the question of multiple observers be settled definitively. (For what it's worth, and though it may leave me vulnerable to charges of ignoring a competing hypothesis, I believe, for various reasons, that the final model must be one that describes and accounts for multiple-observer interactions.) If our experience of this universe is a culmination of the effects of multiple observers, then our individual ability to choose outcomes may be severely limited at points of suboptimal COC.
There is a question of time as well. A 5-dimensional model is expected to exhibit signs of 'time' flowing in both directions. Does influence in the process of state selection flow into the past as well as into the subjective future? Can all that is significant to a single consciousness during its duration be derived from parsing a bi-directional temporal flow of influence? (This would be the best way to demonstrate the validity of the solipsistic perspective.)
And in considering the ultimate question of origin, it is amazing to me that more hasn't been said about how influence flowing backwards in time may play the leading role in determining how the conditions for this universe and our entry into it were created/selected...
In the relative quiet of these days, I find that I have a few more things to say before I am willing to consider this particular blogo-venture complete.
Among all the questions that demand answers from this way of modelling reality, one question I find particularly intriguing is the question of our entry into this experience. What we were/are (if anything) before entering human consciousness is of less concern to me than the questions about where and how the beginning of the trajectory of our consciousness is determined. Of course, without a more-complete understanding of the nature of consciousness, these questions cannot be answered with certainty, but they are worth examining nonetheless.
For example... At what point is the substrate of our consciousness advanced enough to act as an agent in the selection of outcomes? I am reminded of a study on baby chicks and other animals that were able to influence a random number generator so that target systems behaved in a way that benefited the animals. This suggests that even a human infant's consciousness may play some role in the selection of states. Could a fetus similarly impact a randomly-controlled system, provided it were able to interact with such a system? At what age could a fetus begin to exert an independent effect upon such a system?
Along the same lines, one might ask any number of questions about the optimal conditions of consciousness (COC) from which a noticeable influence upon random system might be obtained. Answering any of these questions requires, of course, that the question of multiple observers be settled definitively. (For what it's worth, and though it may leave me vulnerable to charges of ignoring a competing hypothesis, I believe, for various reasons, that the final model must be one that describes and accounts for multiple-observer interactions.) If our experience of this universe is a culmination of the effects of multiple observers, then our individual ability to choose outcomes may be severely limited at points of suboptimal COC.
There is a question of time as well. A 5-dimensional model is expected to exhibit signs of 'time' flowing in both directions. Does influence in the process of state selection flow into the past as well as into the subjective future? Can all that is significant to a single consciousness during its duration be derived from parsing a bi-directional temporal flow of influence? (This would be the best way to demonstrate the validity of the solipsistic perspective.)
And in considering the ultimate question of origin, it is amazing to me that more hasn't been said about how influence flowing backwards in time may play the leading role in determining how the conditions for this universe and our entry into it were created/selected...
Shadows of the Mind
"By understanding the Self, all this universe is known."
When confronted with the idea that the selection of this universe represents a choice, I am also confronted with all that is painful in the universe, and forced to ponder questions about the meaning of all the suffering in this world.
If my conscious experience is self-contained - that is, if I am not subject to any constraints put upon the states that I observe by other observers - then how do I explain the existence of pain and suffering (my own and that of others) in my experience? Is the suffering I see in others simply a shadow of some level of my own suffering? I do not suggest that this is an excuse to become indifferent to suffering, especially the suffering of others. Indeed, if this solipsistic vision of reality is correct, then the observation of suffering may only go away upon engaging both the internal forces that propelled me to this particular universe, and the external manifestation of suffering. Perhaps the internal forces that pushed me to a place where I am suffering or I observe suffering may only be understood and mitigated by engaging the external manifestation in attempts to alleviate the suffering.
If, however, I accept a model wherein state selection is function of multiple observers, then I wonder how it is that we have not evolved into a state where we can collectively select better outcomes... I wonder if it is possible to attain such a point in the evolution of our species, or if we will remain constrained by factors yet unknown. In either case, we cannot become indifferent to suffering simply because we view ourselves as powerless to stop it completely.
In Buddhism, suffering is considered one of the three marks of existence. It is suggested that awareness of the impermanent, codependent nature of observed reality is a means to alleviate one's own suffering, but I have a hard time believing that simple awareness on my part has a material impact on the suffering of others. Seeking to alleviate the suffering of others is consistently viewed across all major religious and mystical belief systems as being the mark of having attained the ultimate state of being/awareness...
"Having realized his own self as the Self, a person becomes selfless... This is the highest mystery."
This suggests to me that the suffering that I observe in others is indeed, in part, a shadow of my own mind. It also suggests that this type of selflessness/altruism is selfishness of a sort, for once you have opened yourself to understanding how it is that you participate in the selection of the states that you observe, you cannot escape a feeling of responsibility for what you find.
When confronted with the idea that the selection of this universe represents a choice, I am also confronted with all that is painful in the universe, and forced to ponder questions about the meaning of all the suffering in this world.
If my conscious experience is self-contained - that is, if I am not subject to any constraints put upon the states that I observe by other observers - then how do I explain the existence of pain and suffering (my own and that of others) in my experience? Is the suffering I see in others simply a shadow of some level of my own suffering? I do not suggest that this is an excuse to become indifferent to suffering, especially the suffering of others. Indeed, if this solipsistic vision of reality is correct, then the observation of suffering may only go away upon engaging both the internal forces that propelled me to this particular universe, and the external manifestation of suffering. Perhaps the internal forces that pushed me to a place where I am suffering or I observe suffering may only be understood and mitigated by engaging the external manifestation in attempts to alleviate the suffering.
If, however, I accept a model wherein state selection is function of multiple observers, then I wonder how it is that we have not evolved into a state where we can collectively select better outcomes... I wonder if it is possible to attain such a point in the evolution of our species, or if we will remain constrained by factors yet unknown. In either case, we cannot become indifferent to suffering simply because we view ourselves as powerless to stop it completely.
In Buddhism, suffering is considered one of the three marks of existence. It is suggested that awareness of the impermanent, codependent nature of observed reality is a means to alleviate one's own suffering, but I have a hard time believing that simple awareness on my part has a material impact on the suffering of others. Seeking to alleviate the suffering of others is consistently viewed across all major religious and mystical belief systems as being the mark of having attained the ultimate state of being/awareness...
"Having realized his own self as the Self, a person becomes selfless... This is the highest mystery."
This suggests to me that the suffering that I observe in others is indeed, in part, a shadow of my own mind. It also suggests that this type of selflessness/altruism is selfishness of a sort, for once you have opened yourself to understanding how it is that you participate in the selection of the states that you observe, you cannot escape a feeling of responsibility for what you find.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Degrees of Freedom
"You cannot come to know the depths of the purpose of your life, however, if you are not willing to release those parts of your life that are no longer necessary."
For some time now it has seemed as though blogging on this idea has run its course. I've said what I have to say, and while I continue to work on these ideas, I find that blogging without direct feedback is more distracting than helpful. It's time to do some more in-depth work, and to cultivate functional offline partnerships.
It was never my intention to do this work live, online and in real-time. My philosophical and scientific ideas will undoubtedly change over time, so recording them here and now is simply recording a snapshot or what I was thinking during that weird period in my life when I blogged.
Blogging has been an interesting experience, in no small part for the data it has provided on detecting the influence of other observers. Thanks for reading what I've written, and for putting up with any discontinuities that you may have observed. That I blogged for this long was due largely to some of the people that I've gotten to know along the way. ;)
My hope is that in releasing myself from this format of writing, I'll be able to find other ways to express what I'm thinking. (Preferably some intricate math; yeah, I know.) I hope to gain back a few degrees of freedom in my experiences as well. Right now I find myself reduced to thinking about things in blog-able terms. The experience is never as intense or meaningful as it could be if one part of your brain is always thinking about how it will become a story that you can tell.
Perhaps there are a few topics that I haven't sufficiantly addressed. Most likely this is because I do not feel that my own thoughts on the subject are sufficiently formed. Check back with me after I've had the chance to do some more research.
For some time now it has seemed as though blogging on this idea has run its course. I've said what I have to say, and while I continue to work on these ideas, I find that blogging without direct feedback is more distracting than helpful. It's time to do some more in-depth work, and to cultivate functional offline partnerships.
It was never my intention to do this work live, online and in real-time. My philosophical and scientific ideas will undoubtedly change over time, so recording them here and now is simply recording a snapshot or what I was thinking during that weird period in my life when I blogged.
Blogging has been an interesting experience, in no small part for the data it has provided on detecting the influence of other observers. Thanks for reading what I've written, and for putting up with any discontinuities that you may have observed. That I blogged for this long was due largely to some of the people that I've gotten to know along the way. ;)
My hope is that in releasing myself from this format of writing, I'll be able to find other ways to express what I'm thinking. (Preferably some intricate math; yeah, I know.) I hope to gain back a few degrees of freedom in my experiences as well. Right now I find myself reduced to thinking about things in blog-able terms. The experience is never as intense or meaningful as it could be if one part of your brain is always thinking about how it will become a story that you can tell.
Perhaps there are a few topics that I haven't sufficiantly addressed. Most likely this is because I do not feel that my own thoughts on the subject are sufficiently formed. Check back with me after I've had the chance to do some more research.
