We have to break it apart and put it back again. We need to know what is made out of, how each little bit works, how it influences every other bit of the whole and how it is influenced by every bit of the whole. We do that with the knowledge that it works only if all is put back together again. Nothing is obsolete. Everything is needed no matter how inconspicuous, how insignificant it might appear to our senses, to our awareness, to our consciousness. It can only act as a whole.
And in the process we build our consciousness up.
Friday 21 December 2007
Thursday 20 December 2007
Poverty? Why?
The whole theme of poverty reminds me of the development of a chaotic system, or any such system presumed as chaotic by any individual, evading awareness, baffling consciousness on the grounds of the enormous complexity ensued due to the increased multiplicity of agents in a system, to remind myself of John Holland. It is bound to appear chaotic because of the complexity arising.
When I come across in the internet of websites that experiment with Mandelbrot or Julia sets, their creators give you the opportunity to change the final image, by changing the range of a few parametres. The final image changes completely. The point is that, as the final image of a mathematical structure can be toggled by the change of a few parametres, the same goes for social systems too. These toggled up parametres change the final arrangement in the system. Parameters which for social systems represent the norms societies adhere by.
Toggle up the parametres norms and you get a different system. A big part of these parametres, being monetary parametres that have influenced and modified the accepted norms, sanctioned by society. And though you do not know how the system will develop, you can have an idea to where the system is going to.
Using indicators to assess where the system has gone after changing the parametres. Indicators such as crime, juvenile delinquency, or any other relevant criteria within the social 'space', in that particular instance.
How the whole system arrangement would change if one crucial parameter, like monetisation is replaced, or a drastic change to it, is introduced.
The whole deployment is complicated, need to be thought of, in every aspect but necessity demands to think primarily of the gross details of the thought. It is the guiding lines that matter foremost.
Wasted lives why?
Lost ... what for?
They are talking about poverty and already they assume it is inevitable. Why? It is all down to what has been accepted as a norm and think the concept of poverty in the context that creates.
What do you mean about norm?
A rule that is socially enforced. Social sanctioning is what distinguishes norms from other cultural products or social constructions such as meaning and values. Norms and normlessness are thought to affect a wide variety of aspects in human behaviour.
You can not prescribe how life events will unfold. Determine the outcome, before they even had the chance starting the process. It is predicting not determining the outcome. But what can be set is, to provide the path, the context within which, life events are expected to unfold. Individuals invest in life events, time, efforts, dedication, hope, their whole being might be drained in the process. At the end what matters, is the effect on what individuals have invested in an unfolding life event more than the life event itself. They might have achieved a goal but at what cost, what human cost.
The life event itself as it is prescribed by the norms should be secondary in importance, to the qualities participating individuals invest.
Why individuals accept their predicament so abstractedly?
Nothing can be enforced in a society if the individuals in that society are against it. No laws, no norms, no moral code can prevail if that norm, law, moral code is not emanating from within the individuals, has not got its source and inspiration out of the consciousness of the individuals.
That is how I wonder why individuals accept their predicament so fatalistically. Social norms can also be viewed as statements that regulate behavior and act as informal social controls. They are usually based on some degree of consensus and are enforced through social sanctions.
It is the frame out of all the possible frames that you can not escape from. This frame tells you what your position is and defines poverty status. Frames, social structures, they are defined by prevalent concepts about human activities.
The frame is responsible for the poverty status. If you change the frame you will alter the poverty status too.
What defines that frame? What defines the boundaries?
The combined activities of the human individuals.
What kind of boundaries you are talking about? A frame must have boundaries.
These are monetary boundaries defined by the needs of their participants and the incoming monies to satisfy these needs.
When I come across in the internet of websites that experiment with Mandelbrot or Julia sets, their creators give you the opportunity to change the final image, by changing the range of a few parametres. The final image changes completely. The point is that, as the final image of a mathematical structure can be toggled by the change of a few parametres, the same goes for social systems too. These toggled up parametres change the final arrangement in the system. Parameters which for social systems represent the norms societies adhere by.
Toggle up the parametres norms and you get a different system. A big part of these parametres, being monetary parametres that have influenced and modified the accepted norms, sanctioned by society. And though you do not know how the system will develop, you can have an idea to where the system is going to.
Using indicators to assess where the system has gone after changing the parametres. Indicators such as crime, juvenile delinquency, or any other relevant criteria within the social 'space', in that particular instance.
How the whole system arrangement would change if one crucial parameter, like monetisation is replaced, or a drastic change to it, is introduced.
The whole deployment is complicated, need to be thought of, in every aspect but necessity demands to think primarily of the gross details of the thought. It is the guiding lines that matter foremost.
Wasted lives why?
Lost ... what for?
They are talking about poverty and already they assume it is inevitable. Why? It is all down to what has been accepted as a norm and think the concept of poverty in the context that creates.
What do you mean about norm?
A rule that is socially enforced. Social sanctioning is what distinguishes norms from other cultural products or social constructions such as meaning and values. Norms and normlessness are thought to affect a wide variety of aspects in human behaviour.
You can not prescribe how life events will unfold. Determine the outcome, before they even had the chance starting the process. It is predicting not determining the outcome. But what can be set is, to provide the path, the context within which, life events are expected to unfold. Individuals invest in life events, time, efforts, dedication, hope, their whole being might be drained in the process. At the end what matters, is the effect on what individuals have invested in an unfolding life event more than the life event itself. They might have achieved a goal but at what cost, what human cost.
The life event itself as it is prescribed by the norms should be secondary in importance, to the qualities participating individuals invest.
Why individuals accept their predicament so abstractedly?
Nothing can be enforced in a society if the individuals in that society are against it. No laws, no norms, no moral code can prevail if that norm, law, moral code is not emanating from within the individuals, has not got its source and inspiration out of the consciousness of the individuals.
That is how I wonder why individuals accept their predicament so fatalistically. Social norms can also be viewed as statements that regulate behavior and act as informal social controls. They are usually based on some degree of consensus and are enforced through social sanctions.
It is the frame out of all the possible frames that you can not escape from. This frame tells you what your position is and defines poverty status. Frames, social structures, they are defined by prevalent concepts about human activities.
The frame is responsible for the poverty status. If you change the frame you will alter the poverty status too.
What defines that frame? What defines the boundaries?
The combined activities of the human individuals.
What kind of boundaries you are talking about? A frame must have boundaries.
These are monetary boundaries defined by the needs of their participants and the incoming monies to satisfy these needs.
Labels:
abolish money,
monetisation
Wednesday 19 December 2007
Mental phenomena. Questions in need for an answer:
How could any real progress be achieved towards solving the mysteries of how mental phenomena fit in with the physical universe?
Do we need some important changes in our picture of physical reality?
A picture of physical reality that includes and explains mental phenomena.
Can physics provide a theory of consciousness?
Physical laws that describe the mental phenomenon of consciousness as a physical function.
Is quantum mechanics relevant to understanding consciousness?
Can we explain the mental phenomenon of consciousness as a result of quantum functions?
Can we imagine a theory in which "consciousness" finds some place within the purely physical descriptions of the world?
Is a self or "I" necessary for consciousness or can consciousness exist independently of selves?
If the mental phenomenon of consciousness is a physical phenomenon and we have explained it, we can then visualise how an act of consciousness can be performed without being associated with an "I", a self.
Do we need an expanded science which includes subjective experience to understand human consciousness?
Since subjective experience is the base of the mental phenomenon of consciousness, subjective experience should be the field that science should include in order to be able to provide an explanation of consciousness as a physical process.
What are the attributes of subjective experience that science can deal with?
Any investigation for any subject of knowledge starts by evoking on our subjective experience first, then we feel compelled to assume an objective stance to make sure that what we experience, is what others experience. To verify its occurrence, the reasons for its occurrence, to accumulate subjective reasonings and built a body of evidence, we behave showing a lack of faith on our own reasoning, our own subjective experience. We do not trust our own subjective experience and in the process we loose perspective. In order to become objective we forget our own subjective experience, to the point that we treat our own subjective experience as an illusion, and try to assimilate our subjective experience into a collective objective experience, the whole process becoming a statistical exercise.
Must a new science that we perhaps need, be so different from the science of today that the evoke and explain issues with regard to mentality may finally find natural explanations?.
Do we need some important changes in our picture of physical reality?
A picture of physical reality that includes and explains mental phenomena.
Can physics provide a theory of consciousness?
Physical laws that describe the mental phenomenon of consciousness as a physical function.
Is quantum mechanics relevant to understanding consciousness?
Can we explain the mental phenomenon of consciousness as a result of quantum functions?
Can we imagine a theory in which "consciousness" finds some place within the purely physical descriptions of the world?
Is a self or "I" necessary for consciousness or can consciousness exist independently of selves?
If the mental phenomenon of consciousness is a physical phenomenon and we have explained it, we can then visualise how an act of consciousness can be performed without being associated with an "I", a self.
Do we need an expanded science which includes subjective experience to understand human consciousness?
Since subjective experience is the base of the mental phenomenon of consciousness, subjective experience should be the field that science should include in order to be able to provide an explanation of consciousness as a physical process.
What are the attributes of subjective experience that science can deal with?
Any investigation for any subject of knowledge starts by evoking on our subjective experience first, then we feel compelled to assume an objective stance to make sure that what we experience, is what others experience. To verify its occurrence, the reasons for its occurrence, to accumulate subjective reasonings and built a body of evidence, we behave showing a lack of faith on our own reasoning, our own subjective experience. We do not trust our own subjective experience and in the process we loose perspective. In order to become objective we forget our own subjective experience, to the point that we treat our own subjective experience as an illusion, and try to assimilate our subjective experience into a collective objective experience, the whole process becoming a statistical exercise.
Must a new science that we perhaps need, be so different from the science of today that the evoke and explain issues with regard to mentality may finally find natural explanations?.
Tuesday 11 December 2007
Western civilisation a travesty of darwinian laws
Darwinian laws taken to extremes that never in nature have appeared at all. In nature, survival, as it is practiced commonly, no tiger no lion or any other predator, puts aside or kills, whatever its own survival needs do not require. Humans do. In order to do that they surpass nature's simple laws. I wonder what weird concept of fittest this distorted exercise of darwinian laws try to prove?
Humanity has achieved its goal of survival. It has tamed and maimed nature in the process. Humanity as a whole can feed and nourish the entire earth's population. When you hear about famines and disasters you wonder why this is happening. You wonder why it is left upon charities to provide remedies, that amount to aspirins prescribed to treat a devastating disease, treat the symptoms and not the cause and instead eradicate the disease in its roots.
Sterile monetisation, that's what it is.
Humanity has achieved its goal of survival. It has tamed and maimed nature in the process. Humanity as a whole can feed and nourish the entire earth's population. When you hear about famines and disasters you wonder why this is happening. You wonder why it is left upon charities to provide remedies, that amount to aspirins prescribed to treat a devastating disease, treat the symptoms and not the cause and instead eradicate the disease in its roots.
Sterile monetisation, that's what it is.
Wednesday 5 December 2007
A functional way to look at concepts and consciousness is fickle
What the mind understands (makes out) and what the brain sees are two different things. Allan Snyder gives a thorough approach.
"Our unconscious mind takes the flood of information and simplifies and categorises it into manageable and useful packages. Where it sees lines and patterns of dark and shade, our conscious mind might know it is a horse. We know that, because our brain has learned all about horses, has experienced what makes something a horse rather than a dog or a table, and has formed a concept and a mental image."
So a concept the package of all the lines and patterns of dark and shade accompanied with a mental image and a word. All that flow of information, the lines, the light, the motion; a rich bed of mathematical processes, the product of sophisticated mathematical operations to be reduced to a mere concept, a word and an image. And this process goes on myriads of times, in myriad individuals around the world.
What else I wonder has not been included in that tiny little bit of information that is conveyed to our consciousness? Why do we hold our consciousness to such high esteem? I see no reason.
Allan Snyder quotes
"it's a very efficient way for our minds to work".
How can it be efficient when a lot of information has been lost.
"It allows us to spot things quickly, to name them and communicate the ideas".
I could only imagine how it would have been if our consciousness could respond with the speed our brain records events around us.
But I do not need to imagine it. Allan Snyder's research focus on the extraordinary mental abilities of individuals with savant syndrome. Reports that
"savants experience only raw sensory information, and their precise drawings are a reflection of that. The reason most people can't draw like that is because of the way their minds extract meaning. Once the brain forms a concept, it inhibits the conscious mind from becoming aware of the details that created the concept in the first place. So instead of drawing what you see, you draw what you know".
Our consciousness manipulate the content of our experience. It does not let us reach a deeper level.
Consciousness is fickle. And whoever boasts about the thinking prowess, intelligence and rationality possessed within his skull is fickle too.
Consciousness misleads us. There is another level in our brain's infrastructure that is more efficient, that we can reach and we should draw our power from. Instead of going after frivolous trivial unworthy pursuits in our lives, we should strive to unleash that power within us. Let us put our consciousness down for a worthwhile task.
"Our unconscious mind takes the flood of information and simplifies and categorises it into manageable and useful packages. Where it sees lines and patterns of dark and shade, our conscious mind might know it is a horse. We know that, because our brain has learned all about horses, has experienced what makes something a horse rather than a dog or a table, and has formed a concept and a mental image."
So a concept the package of all the lines and patterns of dark and shade accompanied with a mental image and a word. All that flow of information, the lines, the light, the motion; a rich bed of mathematical processes, the product of sophisticated mathematical operations to be reduced to a mere concept, a word and an image. And this process goes on myriads of times, in myriad individuals around the world.
What else I wonder has not been included in that tiny little bit of information that is conveyed to our consciousness? Why do we hold our consciousness to such high esteem? I see no reason.
Allan Snyder quotes
"it's a very efficient way for our minds to work".
How can it be efficient when a lot of information has been lost.
"It allows us to spot things quickly, to name them and communicate the ideas".
I could only imagine how it would have been if our consciousness could respond with the speed our brain records events around us.
But I do not need to imagine it. Allan Snyder's research focus on the extraordinary mental abilities of individuals with savant syndrome. Reports that
"savants experience only raw sensory information, and their precise drawings are a reflection of that. The reason most people can't draw like that is because of the way their minds extract meaning. Once the brain forms a concept, it inhibits the conscious mind from becoming aware of the details that created the concept in the first place. So instead of drawing what you see, you draw what you know".
Our consciousness manipulate the content of our experience. It does not let us reach a deeper level.
Consciousness is fickle. And whoever boasts about the thinking prowess, intelligence and rationality possessed within his skull is fickle too.
Consciousness misleads us. There is another level in our brain's infrastructure that is more efficient, that we can reach and we should draw our power from. Instead of going after frivolous trivial unworthy pursuits in our lives, we should strive to unleash that power within us. Let us put our consciousness down for a worthwhile task.
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