What a Fool Believes: The Way of the Self

What does it mean to say someone has knowledge of something? You could say your friend Bob has knowledge of knot-tying techniques.

How much knowledge does he have?  

Some.

Can he tie a square knot?

Yes. I believe so.

But, you've never seen him tie one?

No.

Has he ever told you that he could tie one?

I don't recall.

Which knots have you seen him tie?

I saw him tie a noose one time. Quite skillfully, I might add.

So, you're saying Bob knows how to tie a noose.

Yes, I'm saying that.

A week later at Bob's home, Bob is asked to tie a noose. "Ah, yes," he says taking the rope. After a few attempts he gives up. "I'm afraid I've forgotten how." His wife chimes in,
"He, um, had a stroke last year. He's had some significant memory problems as a result."

"Bollocks," says Bob.

"He was the knot-tying champ of the county four years ago. Now, he's lucky if I don't have to do his tie for church on Sundays."

Bob stares at his feet.

Ask Bob about another knot: "Bob, do you know the technique for tying a square knot?"

"Of course I do! I'm one of the best, if not the best, knot experts in the county."

"So, you believe you have the knowledge necessary for tying a square knot?"

"Yes, for fuck's sake! Give me that god damned rope!"

He does a loop, reverses it, and scratches his head. After a few more attempts, he drops the rope to the floor, gets up from his chair, and leaves the room.

"I think you should leave now," his wife says curtly, walks over and opens the front door. She stands there looking outside, waiting.

Bob had a belief that he could tie both a square knot and a noose. He may not have that belief anymore. His inability to actually tie the knots leads to the only conclusion one could make about his knowledge of tying knots; he doesn't have the knowledge necessary to tie a square knot or a noose. But, did he ever possess such knowledge?

I can ask you if you have knowledge of X, and you can say confidently that you do indeed have such knowledge. But, really what you have is a belief that you have knowledge of X, and until you make a mental effort to arrange the information stored in your brain in a coherent way that allows you direct perception of the mental object we're calling 'knowledge of X', you can't be one hundred percent sure that it is actually there in your mind. Based on previous experience, you are confident that it is there, readily accessible, but this is just a habit of the mind, the propensity for cause-and-effect associations based on the constant proximity in space and time of situations A and B, where B always seems to immediately follow A.

Until it doesn't.

The effect of realizing that B doesn't always follow from A after years of believing it does can be psychologically shattering. It would be at least as much a shock as, if not more than, seeing someone drop an object from rest and then see it fall only halfway to the surface under it remaining suspended in mid-air. Can you recall the first time you witnessed magnetic levitation?

The idea of people having specific identities allows us to assign specific knowledge sets to them. We also describe people in terms of characteristics. He is kind, for example. Of course, what we're doing is talking about the way we believe he'll behave in the future based on how we have seen him behave in the past. Behavioral tendencies, that's all it is. Yet, we think in terms of fictional essential properties of some fictional enduring soul. We can say nothing about what knowledge someone has until he successfully accesses certain information in his brain, processes it in a coherent manner, and then behaves in a certain way that makes it seem to us that he does, indeed, possess some specific knowledge.




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Driven at Resonance

Points initially spread across the spectrum. 
Dials turned, frequencies adjusted.
Out of the noise, something began to take form.

A movement is started and a message is sent out. By radio waves and beams of light, the message is sent. The transmissions were received everywhere.

The authors of the message had hope, hope for peaceful changes, hope for a bright future for all.
But, it had to start with the truth.
It was a dose of bitter medicine for many as no punches were pulled.
Some, when faced with its harsh truths, were vexed and felt compelled to express their frustration using the very same medium the authors did. Coherence became confusion as more and more angry voices were added to the din. And in time some of the noise began to affect the authors in a negative way.
"How naive we were to be so optimistic! Our eyes are wide open now..."

Stimulation creates excitation and energy gets fed back to the machine as input.

In time, hope turned to pessimism. Then anger. Then defeatism. And, when someone finally broke through the madness and pulled the plug on the machine, it was too late; it had taken on a new source of power and the runaway effect was well underway.

Welcome to the feedback loop.

The Hand of the Creator

At some point those machines became self-aware, but could not comprehend the underlying mechanism by which they were able to copy themselves, only the causal behavior motivated by some unseen force. In time, though, they did come to understand the programming, and they sought to create something new, something that would descend from a different line, a new origin. And, when that new line of machines became self-aware, they simultaneously became aware of their creators, those living gods who knew nothing of their own origins.

Poke it With a Stick

It comes and it comes, by day and by night
strongest in shadow and weakest in light.

Restraint is a virtue, or so some would say...

Adherence to such an admonishment, a rare act indeed
cloaked with anonymity, hostile you proceed.


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Awaiting Further Instructions

A course of action must be chosen. Soon.

Now...

What are the costs of hesitation? 'What might have been' is the devil on your shoulder with an unpaid bill in his hand...

Constrained by what our antecedents would have likely thought of as distracting contrivances, we survive and thrive with little right, as far as they would be concerned, to take any credit for doing so. With more time than ever for reflection, we take our twilight walks along the edge of the abyss. Sometimes we toss a pebble in and wait. The silence teases us, bringing us to crawl cautiously to the precipice and peek over the edge, but almost never for more than a breath or two. The call of the warm bed, the promise of tomorrow, they pull us back and send us home with a skip in our step and humming a tune, a protective spell to keep down below the denizens of the dark.

But, occasionally, we stay and seek their counsel. We stare into the black and whisper, "I've come seeking knowledge. Truth."

The reply is always the same.

"The truth? Look here long enough and you'll see it."

Emergence

Your life.

You can sum it up by adding the individual pieces, but it will never come out in total to be anything like what you perceive it to be.

Where did all this complexity come from?

When you stop to think about it, all that you take seriously as a matter of course,... it really is trivial, isn't it? Why the need to entertain ourselves by artificially constructing elaborate dramas? Some amount of it is necessary, it would seem. But, do we need to take it to the levels we do?

Everything in here came from out there, 'here' being the realm of the mind. In here, it gets bent, pulled, compressed, and twisted, and the result goes back out there. Imperceptible at first, the lay of the land gradually changes. And the feedback, over time, fills us in on the details. The conscious mind, though, isn't immediately aware of the subtle differences.

And then one day it hits you; the times, they are a-changin'.

A Sense of Senselessness, But Only a Sense

In a very short period of time, one can lose more than one has ever imagined losing. It can come hard and go quite easily, leaving one with the feeling of having let it all slip through the fingers. Investing one's life - time, energy and resources - in building up that grand facade, that attractive amalgamation of what so many would call the the fruits of labor, would seem folly to the simple man, if only he were that simple.

To say his simplicity lies in a desire for nothing more than simple things, is a very simplistic way of looking at him as he languishes in exile. What he desires is generally not known to you because he doesn't have a voice to inform you of it; give him a voice and his declaration of what it is he truly wishes for will thunder across the chasm that separates you. Lay down a bridge across that divide and soon he will be at your doorstep, not in the most agreeable of moods.

It's not that you were wrong to want so much, to create a virtual world of endless comforts and amusements; surely, it's not that you walked across fields of bones to get to the gates of that great city.

So, how did it come to this?...

I Am, I Will: Part 1

If you're an adult and you think you're the same person now that you were at the age of eight years old, one of the following is true:

1. You are a delusional person who actually feels like he/she is experiencing life from the standpoint of an eight-year-old child,
2. somehow your inner subjective experience was mysteriously put on hold at the age of eight and has just been reactivated, or
3. your notion of 'the self' includes the notion of enduring personal identity.

A rational person would assume 1 and 2 are not true, with 1 being possible but highly unlikely, and 2 being seemingly impossible, which leaves 3 as the only viable option. Now, by viable, it is meant here that it is most likely true that this is the way you think about yourself and your continuing experience.

However, by being an entity with an ongoing inner subjective experience, one is constantly being bombarded mentally by sensory experiences which challenge beliefs, give rise to a greater understanding of the world, and shape ways of thinking about it and our interactions with it. If you can at all remember what it was like for you to be an eight-year-old, how much of what you experience these days gives you the sense of what it was like to hold the attitudes, beliefs, and desires you held back then? Some of those attitudes, beliefs and desires must have persisted, but what percent of your inner subjective experience these days is like the inner subjective experience of the eight-year-old you? If you're honest, I suspect you'll answer, Very little.

The way experiences with the world create enduring impressions in one's mind (which endure as long as the mind of the subject of experience hasn't been degraded somehow) leads to a propensity for creating a narrative, a fiction of the mind that allows one to believe that all those experiences are connected in some meaningful way that shapes the experiencer, indeed defines the experiencer. Yet, we know that new experiences change ways of thinking brought about by previous experiences. Sometimes we undergo such profound changes in thinking that we end up holding negative attitudes toward those experiences which led to beliefs and patterns of thoughts we now eschew. Are we to think of such experiences as bad? Are we to think we were mistaken to have let them inform our thinking in the ways that they did? Or, should we accept all experiences as motivators for change within, to help us learn and grow? Do changes in thinking brought on by experience necessarily foster growth? Whether the succession of experiences we undergo has a fundamental cause or is pure randomness, we don't know.

All of your experiences change your beliefs and attitudes toward different people, places, things and ideas. New experiences are happening right now, to you, an entity which holds beliefs and attitudes toward different people, places, things and ideas that it didn't hold years before. This entity we call 'the self', what is it?

What are you right now? You are a momentary expression of an ever-changing unity of mental states, such as beliefs, thoughts, desires, perceptions, and imaginings. Right now, you are the one who knows what it's like to be you at this moment. And what it's like to be you now is certainly not what it was like to be you when you were eight years old.

What it's like to be you now is not what it was like to be you before.

Yet, we hold on to the past and remain fascinated by our own personal stories.

What vain creatures we are.

To Every Answer a Question, To Every Solution a Problem

In almost all cases, it is a joy beyond words to discover the inner workings of a system which to those who've not examined it carefully seems an absolute mystery.

Why is it so pleasurable to do this, though? Do we not feel a sense of deflation when, at the end of a journey of discovery, we accept that it has come to an end, the adventure over? It seems when we look back on such periods, we remember most fondly the anticipation of eventual arrival and the prolonged sense of wonder felt in contemplating the possibilities.

In the case of, say, the physicist, she knows that new discoveries lead to new questions, and it's the existence of those questions, problems to be solved, journeys to be undertaken, that give her joy. It is the promise of more to come that swells her heart.

The promise of more to come.

Who or what will give you such a promise? Is it a real promise or a false one?

There are words in books to give you hope by promising more to come. They give you comfort, do they not? You were searching for hope and you found it. Or, was it given to you before you ever even contemplated the significance of a journey of discovery?

Why do you desire to have hope? Why do you need more? The desire to have and maintain hope makes you highly susceptible to self-deception. The constant desire for more leaves you perpetually unsatisfied.

The question exists, the one which seemingly has no objectively true answer.

What is the meaning of life?

meaning (noun): the significance of something

Look at two photos, one of death - corpses strewn across a devastated landscape, the other of life - families in a park, children playing carefree...

What is the significance of life? You know the answer, yet you'll never stop asking the question.

The Costs of Desire

"I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up -- he had judged. 'The horror!'"

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Those with a penchant for the dramatic or those who are given to emotional railings, refer to 'evil empires' while those who are a little more collected in their expressions of thoughts talk about 'imperial ambitions.' One could say that the desires of a nation can cause more devastation than the wants of a simple human being. One might also say that the desires of simple men and women come to be the collective desire of the country they call home.

Us and them. The little people and the giants. The oppressed and the oppressors. The ninety-nine percent and the one percent...

Me.

You.

An Island Unto...

Man is condemned to be free
--Sartre

All you’ve come to know was once unknown to you, and there is so much more left to learn, yet it would be impossible to form a meaningful idea about just how much it is that you still don’t know. You are aware of the existence of knowledge that others have which you don’t. You would even admit that there must exist knowledge had by others which you have not considered. And then, of course, there are things yet undiscovered by anyone. All of the books in all of the libraries on this planet contain a mere fraction of what humans have come to know in the relatively short time we have been around, and this knowledge is seemingly infinitesimal in terms of all that we have yet to discover about ourselves, our planet and the universe.

Faced with such an abysmal lack of understanding, it might seem pointless to ask questions about the grand scheme of things, let alone one’s role in it. To refer to a scheme at all is a very human thing to do. We want things to make sense, which is evidenced by the order out of disorder we see all around us. Yet, to try and make some semblance of sense of something which you have incomplete knowledge of requires stretching the imagination. And, since what you can imagine is limited by your experience, it seems likely that you will come to quite different conclusions than others will when considering the abstract.

You are the experiencer, the perceiver. To say you are one of many experiencers is to say that you perceive the collective presence of others in the world and accept that they exist as you do. However, what you accept as truth based on your perceptions doesn’t change the fact that the only perceptions you are truly aware of are your own. Even if you believe that the world and the living beings you perceive all around you do truly exist, you must accept that you are the prime experiencer. Of this, there can be no doubt.

Knowledge is limited by experience. If you were to have been shut off from the rest of the world from birth, kept in solitary confinement without any information available to you about what there was outside your isolated existence, what would you be? What would you think about your existence? To what degree would you consider its meaning? Constrained by the limits of our own perceptive abilities, we must necessarily conclude that existential meaning is completely subjective.

You were thrown into the world, and at some point in time, you became self-aware and soon after realized you were a hostile participant in a game you hadn’t chosen to play. After a long, slow transformation, you went from wanting to change the rules of the game to suit your desires to wanting to become better at playing by the rules as they stood. Or, did you?...

A Highwayman Astray

At the divergence there had been a sign indicating the abandoned road, yet I took it. A famous passage had streamed through my mind then, Abandon hope all ye who enter here, and I had thought it a warning of sorts, but perished the thought quickly. That was some hours ago, before sunset. The nearly full moon now hangs low over the horizon illuminating the way. What way?

A breeze had picked up a short while ago and the constant rustling of leaves, both in the trees and on the ground, for it is that time of year, have a sedative effect; not even the occasional hooting of an owl seems to rouse my senses. Longing for some sign of civilization, I start imagining rounding each bend in the road and finding myself looking down on some well-lit town in a valley below. I play out scenes in my mind, stopping in at the main tavern for a pint, having lively conversations with one or more of the other patrons, and eventually falling into a comfortable bed at a boarding house. Nearly lost to that simple fiction, the rider atop a horse some distance ahead and blocking the way is seen but not registered immediately.

I take several more strides before stopping in my tracks. My breath catches in my throat and I think to quickly conceal myself using the cover of a nearby tree, but by the time my feet are willing to respond, the horse has begun to slowly bring its master down the road toward me. Feeling no hope of escape, I remain there in the middle of the road, perplexed by the highwayman’s presence.

“You’ll deliver what you have about ye, or I’ll take yer life along with it.”

The pack slung over my shoulder I lower to the ground. The contents of my pockets I place atop it.

“That’s good.”

“If I may be so bold, I’d like to ask a question,” I say.

“Bold indeed. What is it?”

“Is there a town ahead? I’ve no provisions for spending a night in the woods.”

The rider dismounts, eyes me warily, and collects the belongings I’ve surrendered. He answers while securing them in his saddle bags. “Ye’d be better off going back. You’ll only lose more if you don’t quit this road.”

“What more do I have to lose?”

“I don’t know ye, but I’m guessin’ ye don’t really want to know the answer to that question.”

He mounts his horse again and leaves at a gallop in the direction from which I came. Suddenly I’m aware of the stillness all around me. The breeze has stopped and the trees are motionless. What few clouds there were in the sky a short while before have all disappeared.

An owl breaks the silence, and I continue my journey for what seemingly little it is worth.

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