tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89744813756957632742024-03-12T20:19:05.990-05:00Rational AnswersThe Domain of Rational Answers to the Questions that Matter MostCaptain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-24361871397890125772010-10-04T15:31:00.004-05:002010-10-04T15:44:08.440-05:00The GameIts goes by many names including: “politics”, “promotions”, “public relations”, “punditry”, “preaching” and "Pin the Tail on the Stupid". But among players it is simply called “The Game”. The objective is to get ignorant people to believe falsehoods for fun and/or profit (if you’re profiting by telling the truth you’re not playing the Game). The key to success in the Game is the ability to get people to turn off their objective reasoning skills (i.e., to be stupid).<br /><br />In the Game you get points whenever you profit from someone else accepting your baseless propositions as facts. In the same way that most drug dealers know not to “get high on their own supply”; true players know not to internalize anything they say in the context of the Game. Points are awarded in the Game based on a combination of the blatancy of the proposition’s falsity (i.e., the stupidity required to believe it), the number of people who believe it and the depth to which they believe it. The accumulation of points manifests as increases in the player’s worldly influence and wealth.<br /><br />Thanks to the Internet no idea is too stupid (i.e., too egregious a violation of the fundamental laws of logic) to gain traction with some group of marginalized tinfoil hatters. Skilled players try to broaden the distribution of their most preposterous propositions by connecting different groups of believers together using conspiracy theories and then encouraging them to ideologically cross-pollinate. To maximize the depth of penetration of more improbable ideas players typically shape them to be consistent with the personal narratives of their marks. The best players are actually able to convince their marks that believing pure drivel makes them more knowledgeable than everyone who doesn't. Such tactics increase the persistence of an unlikely belief, which in turn increases the chance of it being passed on to other like-minded individuals. As a result, these absurd propositions can provide a solid foundation for building multilevel monuments of idiocy that accumulate huge points in the Game thanks to a multiplier effect.<br /><br />At the periphery of the Game are lurkers who watch it as a harmless, if sometimes mean-spirited, pastime. Lurkers are able to appreciate the subtleties of the Game but are saddled with too much conscience to play it. The less sympathetic lurkers get a perverse enjoyment out of seeing marks proudly brandishing, as signs of their “superior” intelligence, the stupid ideas that active players have pinned on them. Anyone who wonders why more sympathetic lurkers don’t intervene to warn those being played has obviously never tried to separate people from beliefs that are important to them. As bad as the inaction of lurkers may seem to outsiders, it is the professionals who you really should watch out for. The high-end pros in the Game are wielding immense power in society and often pulling down seven and eight figure (USD) annual salaries. This can incentivize them to play a merciless game that is indifferent to any harm they might cause. These players are generally willing to ruin careers, destroy lives, bring down political systems and if necessary wreck economies in their single-minded pursuit of points in an ultimately meaningless game.<br /><br />The Game has been played in one form or another since time immemorial. In its earliest versions it was often synonymous with we now think of as product advertising. While much of the action today is still driven by the movement of goods and services, some truly innovative moves have come out of the news media in their efforts to attract viewers and be regarded as relevant (the media equivalents of wealth and power). Their success in combining news, opinion and entertainment into an addictive concoction that is completely lacking in substance has opened the door to a whole new level of play. And through that door has marched the two major American political parties. The Democratic and Republican Parties have revolutionized the Game in terms of the generation and mass distribution of completely idiotic ideas that a significant percentage of the country believe with all their hearts. As such, the lurker-organized fantasy leagues invariably heat up during the run-up to elections. But be aware that the members of these political parties are by no means the top of the Game hierarchy.<br /><br />In the Game if you are not a player you are probably a mark. The key to avoiding being played is a willingness to question your beliefs. Any belief you have that is based more on your self-image than on empirical evidence from the world around you is, at best, suspect. If you can think of anyone who might be benefiting more from your belief than you are, you have definitely been played. Unfortunately, if you’ve been played by a high-end player, suspecting as much will not provide enough of an incentive to abandon the belief, unless you are also a player. In other words, faced with the choice, a mark will always take the blue pill.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-1170871059549518102010-09-17T10:49:00.004-05:002010-09-17T11:12:44.029-05:00Socialism versus CapitalismBritannica defines socialism as "a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control". It is based on the idea that in the world beyond subsistence farming many people contribute to the production of goods and services, and on the theory that everyone who contributes to the production of something should profit from the revenue it generates, in proportion to the value of their contribution. <br /><br />Socialism goes off the rails when those who determine what represents an "appropriate" distribution of profits allot themselves a disproportionate share simply because they can. This tends to create a bureaucratic class that sustains itself by feeding off the efforts of both the executives and the workers. <br /><br />Capitalism is a system in which "most of the means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets". When everything is in balance it is market forces that determine the appropriate distribution of revenue in a given enterprise. <br /><br />Capitalism begins to run amok as certain private enterprises become powerful enough to be largely immune to market forces in the context of determining compensation. At this point the executives in these enterprises will often overvalue the worth of their contributions, thus depriving their workers. <br /><br />Socialism was a reaction to the excesses of capitalism that in the 19th century produced fabulously wealthy industrialists (the so-called robber barons) supported by impoverished workers. As is often the case the cure for this situation proved to be worse than the disease as socialism in places like the Soviet Union and China produced parasitic bureaucracies that fed voraciously on their entire citizenry.<br /><br />Capitalism tends to promote a greater separation between the top and bottom of a society while socialism tends to promote a smaller separation. This means that in essence capitalism is the more hierarchical system while socialism is the more egalitarian one. <br /><br />From a socialistic perspective capitalism is a system that encourages a tendency for a select few to profit disproportionately from the work of many. From a capitalistic perspective socialism is a system that encourages a tendency for negligible contributors to profit disproportionately from the unique skills of a select few. Both systems persist because both systems have a point.<br /><br />For the foreseeable future most modern societies will cycle back and forth between their capitalistic and socialistic tendencies as the weaknesses of the currently dominant system lead to a public backlash that will push it to the margins for a time as the other system is embraced until its weaknesses become intolerable to the citizens and they bring the first system back. This cycle will only be broken when either the entire system collapses or a new system emerges that encompasses the strengths of socialism and capitalism while addressing their weaknesses. Fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy night.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-57048223242274084662010-06-16T09:11:00.003-05:002010-06-16T09:16:01.927-05:00Knowledge Allergic Information Addiction: Symptoms and TreatmentsThere are at least two significant negative effects of being a knowledge allergic information addict. First it is a self-marginalizing condition since the more its victims emphasize the differences between things the less like anything else they will see themselves as being. In the case of politically extreme knowledge allergic information addicts, this progression works along these lines: “First I used information to marginalize the liberals/conservatives (since I am not one of them and believe they are not good people). Then I used information to marginalize the moderates. Then I used information to marginalize those on my side of the political spectrum who disagree with me on any political issue. Then I used information to marginalize those who agree with me politically but not on other areas. And so on until I was the only right-thinking person left.” Rest assured this progression works beyond the political domain. As this symptom progresses victims increasingly see the world as being populated by opponents united in complex conspiracies against them. <br /><br />A second major debilitating symptom of being a knowledge allergic information addict is that regardless of how much information you amass the world seems, if anything, less comprehensible. In the epistemology described here, complexity reflects the ratio of information to knowledge in the given person’s perspective. This means that the more you focus on the differences between things rather than their similarities, the greater the complexity you will experience around you. For knowledge allergic information addicts this complexity can defy comprehension. This is because complexity is reduced through understanding, which is the conversion of information into knowledge. The basis of understanding is the realization that things are connected by what separates them. For instance, the bricks in a wall are connected by the mortar that separates them. However those who are allergic to knowledge resist their allergen through a symptomatic tendency to not see the connections between things their information separates. As long as this inclination persists understanding of the world around them will continue to elude them. <br /><br />These symptoms incline knowledge allergic information addicts to perceive the world around them as an incomprehensible place full of people who are not like them and so could easily be conspiring against all they hold dear. Needless to say it is difficult to reason with those suffering from this condition about the validity of knowledge that they see as contradicting their interpretation of the world. The longer these informed yet biased perspectives persist, the more deeply they are integrated into their owners’ self-image. This means that the longer a knowledge allergy goes untreated the more its victim will perceive external attempts to help as personal attacks. As such, it is unlikely that a cure could be facilitated through a straightforward rational intervention. <br /><br />There is hope for those afflicted with this disease. Though their minds tend to be closed through self-justifying interpretations of what they already believe, they remain mentally active in their quest for new information to feed their addiction. Their willingness to expose themselves to new data keeps open the possibility that they will eventually encounter mind-expanding insights that lead them to question the foundation of the informational world view that emerged from their condition. Without knowledge to provide cohesion these informational perspectives are generally houses of cards that become flimsier the larger they grow. As a result, the product of this disease eventually becomes the best path to a cure.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-27778533394391161002010-05-18T11:35:00.005-05:002010-05-19T08:33:51.034-05:00Addicted to Information Yet Allergic to KnowledgeThe easy availability of huge volumes of data via the internet has led to an epidemic of information addiction. A growing number of people cannot go an entire day without an information update. In a rational society the desire for more information would normally not be interpreted as a bad thing. Unfortunately this condition is increasingly accompanied by an allergic reaction to relevant knowledge thus undermining the potential value of the information addiction.<br /><br />To understand this condition it is important to first understand what information and knowledge are. Information describes how things are different from each other. For example, information is how we establish that the color orange is redder than the color blue. Knowledge characterizes how things are alike. For instance knowledge establishes that orange, red and blue are colors. Our tendency to use the terms interchangeably is based on the fact that things are connected by that which separates them (e.g., the spectrum that distinguishes colors also connects them). As a result, whether something represents information or knowledge is based on how deeply we interpret it. Since we can only experience contrast, information comes from interpreting our experiences. Knowledge generally comes from interpreting information. Understanding is the conversion of information into knowledge.<br /><br />These days an increasing number of people are obsessed with information. These individuals typically focus on how things are different from them and each other. For instance, in politics when someone offers information that “proves” a sweeping generalization such as, “all liberals are evil” or “all conservatives are stupid” I hear the sniffles of a knowledge allergy. Where such a person does not self identify as evil in the former case or stupid in the latter, this information primarily serves to differentiate and marginalize the subject. It is the inclination of people to deny the knowledge that connects them to the groups they seek to marginalize (e.g., that there are good liberals and intelligent conservatives) that is symptomatic of their knowledge allergies. Chronic sufferers of this condition tend to exhibit symptoms in all areas of discourse, not just the political arena. <br /><br />In the Internet Age knowledge allergic information addicts are typically out scouring the Web to amass stashes of information that supports their beliefs while studiously avoiding knowledge that contradicts them. Unlike victims of the class-based or divinely mandated knowledge prohibitions, today’s knowledge allergic information addicts are in a position to appreciate the utility of information but often lack the capacity to fully process everything that interests them. The sheer volume of information that is literally at their fingertips these days overwhelms their capacity to understand it all. <br /><br />As they accumulate unprocessed information, some people develop a tendency to regard the differences between things as more important than their similarities. This inclination can be exacerbated by the fact that our uniqueness is only meaningful in the context of our informational orientation. As such where we value our uniqueness, we tend to embrace information that casts it in a positive light. But there is a threshold of infatuation with our uniqueness beyond which we interpret knowledge of our similarities to others as a threat to our self-esteem (“I have NOTHING in common with those evil liberals / stupid conservatives”). When zealously informed people cannot remain rational when confronted with such knowledge their addiction to information has triggered a knowledge allergy.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-35764656681217213522010-04-21T16:24:00.005-05:002010-04-21T20:27:55.885-05:00The Washington PrescriptionPeople often complain that the artistic quality of Hollywood feature films has gone down over the years. Those who make this observation typically blame Hollywood for this phenomenon. However, like any free enterprise system, Hollywood produces products that ultimately reflect the demands of its market. Note that in the face of the general perception that its products' artistic quality is sinking, Hollywood's revenues are setting new records each year. Think about this in the context of the current political mess in Washington DC.<br /><br />At the risk of being accused of blaming the victim I maintain that the electorate is responsible for the toxic political environment in Washington DC. The politicians there are well aware of the fact that we have the power to vote them out of office. As such, they act the way they do because it continues to provoke a positive electoral response from us. Arguably, most Washington politicians today are directing more of their efforts towards triggering that response than to actually doing their jobs. <br /><br />Others have argued that the growing influence of deep-pocketed lobbyists is responsible for the current culture in Washington. However, such lobbyists have power in Washington DC primarily because it is still possible to sway enough voters to decide an election through the use of paid political ads. Our relative ignorance of the issues leaves us susceptible to such ads. This means that our political ignorance transfers some of our political power to those who pay for those ads. But we remain the source of that power. The same is true of the growing power of pundits and political entertainers. Being the ultimate power in Washington DC means we are responsible for its current condition.<br /><br />In order for the electorate to have a direct hand in improving the political atmosphere in Washington DC, we must first accept responsibility for its current state. As long as we deny being responsible for this situation, we distance ourselves from the power to fix it. Expecting that things will get better simply by sending different people into the same noxious environment is analogous to that switching from regular to menthol cigarettes to treat your emphysema. <br /><br />To improve the political environment in Washington DC we must each take it upon ourselves raise our level of political discourse. In order to do this, we must allow our personal ideologies to be primarily shaped by our life experiences rather than the talking points of people we like or even admire. We must develop our positions on political issues by analyzing them through the filter of our life experiences, rather than simply accepting or rejecting them based on how they are labeled (typically by people with a vested interest in how we react to them). When we present our political opinions to others we must do so in a manner that demonstrates our intelligence and respects theirs. We must give respectful consideration to divergent political opinions presented to us in this manner (rather than disparagingly dismissing them as partisan crackpottery). <br /><br />As more of us begin to interact in such a manner I maintain that our elected officials will react to the spread of this new reasonable discourse by emulating it, if for no other reason than to avoid losing their jobs. In other words, by becoming a sensible, respectable electorate we can shape sensible, respectable representatives.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-57591405780041467462009-12-03T13:42:00.008-06:002009-12-09T13:02:30.839-06:00Existence and GodExistence is the capacity to be. Obviously everything that exists has the capacity to be. This means that everything that exists is contingent upon this capacity including the capacity itself. Any entity lacking this capacity is impossible. The impossible is that which cannot exist. Anything that cannot exist represents an analytic contradiction. A trivial example of such an entity would be a married bachelor.<br /><br />One of the most profound analytic contradictions is an entity that exists and is both distinguishable from and more fundamental than existence. Such an entity is impossible because for anything to be both more fundamental than and contingent upon existence would be inconsistent with the meanings of the terms fundamental and contingent. The impossibility of all such entities means that the most fundamental thing in existence is existence itself.<br /><br />Those who believe in a certain characterization of the one true God will generally take issue with this conclusion. This is because these believers regard God as the most fundamental entity that exists. This belief is based on their wholehearted embrace of the following propositions:<br /><br />1. God exists<br />2. God is the Supreme Being<br />3. God is the source of every being that is distinguishable from it<br /><br />For the sake of this argument let me define a being as any entity that exists and the Supreme Being as that which exists and is not contingent upon any other being. In other words, the Supreme Being is the most fundamental entity that exists.<br /><br />If God is distinguishable from existence then the Third God Proposition requires God to be the source of existence. However, in the most elementary sense a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for one entity to be the source of another is that the former must be able to exist in the absence of the latter. But it is impossible for anything to exist in the absence of existence. As a result, a God that exists and is distinguishable from existence cannot be the source of existence. This means that for such a God the Third God Proposition false.<br /><br />If we abandon the Third God Proposition and posit that God exists, is distinguishable from existence but is not the source of existence, then God is contingent upon something distinct from it that is not contingent upon it. This would mean that God is not the Supreme Being, which cannot be contingent upon anything other than itself. In other words, if God exists and is distinguishable from existence, then both the Second and Third God Propositions are false. But without these propositions what we are discussing no longer represents the one true God, thus falsifying the First God Proposition. This means that if the God of these propositions is distinguishable from existence, it cannot exist.<br /><br />This does not mean there is no entity for which these God Propositions are true. Note that existence exists, is not contingent upon any other being and all other beings are contingent upon it. In other words, though none of the God Propositions are true of any entity that exists and is distinguishable from existence, they are all true of existence itself. This means that God can exist, be the Supreme Being and be the source of all beings if God is existence.<br /><br />Certain of the theistically inclined contend that God is greater than existence. They typically characterize God as absolute Divinity, Love, Wisdom, Power and Presence. But these properties must exist in order to confer greatness upon God. Yet the premise that they exist means these absolute properties are contingent upon existence, and thus so is any greatness that God would acquire from them. In other words, existence is the source of God’s greatness. This argument is supported by the fact that one of the premises of the original Ontological Argument for the existence of God essentially states that without existence God cannot be the Supreme Being, regardless of its divine properties.<br /><br />The proposition that if God exists, it is contingent upon existence is a logical tautology. This contingent being is at best a demigod unless this contingency is mutual. However, where God and existence are regarded as distinct beings, the proposition that existence is also contingent upon God is a matter of rationally indefensible faith. This faith-based proposition can only be logically supported if God is existence. In other words, from a rational theistic perspective either existence is God or God is not the Supreme Being.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-83178348035700434632009-11-20T13:15:00.004-06:002009-11-23T08:15:09.050-06:00Abusing RationalismRecall that in the broadest sense a rationalist is anyone who is predisposed to believe that all important knowledge is attainable. In this context note that one of the fundamental principles of rational dynamics is that the accumulation of knowledge brings with it greater power. This notion motivates self-centered individuals to seek knowledge for the purpose of increasing their power. In the long run, pursuing such an immature rationalist agenda will cause more problems than it solves. The great threat posed by rationalism is evident in the fact that the scientific and technological breakthroughs it continues to produce are providing increasingly efficient mechanisms for bringing about the end of humanity. <br /><br />In the face of this danger we continue to eagerly embrace rationality. To understand why this is, first note that in more mundane circumstances it can be difficult to differentiate a rationalist from a mystic. But as situations become more challenging it becomes easier to distinguish those responding rationally from those reacting mystically. The rationalist contends that with sufficient time we can accumulate the knowledge to solve any problematic situation, regardless of its complexity. The mystic believes that for problems exceeding a certain scope, the knowledge to solve them either does not exist or resides forever beyond our rational grasp. It is this viewpoint that inclines mystics to appeal to external, often supernatural, agents for assistance with such challenges. This means that given the spectrum of perspectives extending from total rationality at one end to pure mysticism at the other, those adopting the more rationalist outlooks are more self-determined and personally empowered than those embracing more mystical points of view. <br /><br />It is through the application of rationality that we increase our objective understanding of and control over our world. The subjectivity that manifests in the absence of rationality limits the precision with which we can share knowledge and experiences with others. This means that rationality is the most efficient mechanism for building an empirically confirmed consensus of knowledge that is immune to subjective uncertainty. Such a rationally-derived structure reflects the accumulated power of our intellect in that it is the foundation of our most consistent capacity to influence our surroundings. The story of the Tower of Babel is essentially the tale of a mystical God opposing such a program.<br /><br />Appropriate resistance to such a rationalist agenda is based on understanding that increasing rationality does not necessarily correspond to increasing wisdom. As such, there is no guarantee that even the most brilliant rationalist has the maturity to pursue knowledge and accumulate the accompanying power, without also laying the groundwork for our extinction. This is because as long as knowing better does not automatically equate to doing better, we will always be able to think better than we can be. <br /><br />This is the dynamic underlying the fact that, left to their own devices, immature rationalists have a tendency to be indifferent to the negative impact of their pursuits on others. These self-centered rationalists are often inclined to use the power they gain from amassing knowledge, to enrich themselves by exploiting others in ways that limit their victims’ growth. Such oppression represents the essence of evil. <br /><br />To limit the spread of this condition throughout our society we must transition from a quest for the knowledge to subjugate our world, to an altruistic program to discover and fulfill a logical, unifying purpose that is not based on separating ourselves from everything else. The specific nature of this purpose will become evident as we find rational answers to our most important existential questions. These discoveries are the events that will facilitate the cultural transformation that will prevent our rational self-destruction. If we abandon the search for rational existential answers, this crucial social paradigm shift will most likely not occur. <br /><br />In that eventuality, knowledge will become our ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The more we wield its accompanying power to further our own self interests, the more this knowledge will consume that which we should be encouraging to grow. Such ill-conceived choices are typically justified by our sense of self-importance, which expands with our power from a self-centered perspective.<br /><br />In making the fundamental choice to always favor ourselves over others, we become susceptible to the principle of sentient dynamics that is characterized by the adage: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In this context, the power we gain from a self-centered pursuit of a rationalist agenda will lead to an increasingly brutal world in which people increasingly prey on each other until we completely devour ourselves.<br /><br />It is important to realize that if this is to be our fate it will be the result of an abuse of the rationalist program. Our rational self-destruction would not be due to the fact that we went in search of rational answers; it will be because along the way we became lost in our own self-importance and failed to develop wisdom required to safely handle what we discovered.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-80502709623417421912009-11-02T11:06:00.004-06:002009-11-03T12:47:54.660-06:00Tolerating MysticismRecall that in the broadest sense a mystic is anyone who is predisposed to believe there are mysteries that can never be rationally solved. To many rationally-inclined individuals, mysticism represents one of the great ills of our society. They point out that mystics were responsible for many of the greatest atrocities in human history (whether or not Adolph Hitler was a theist he was undeniably a mystic). But the fact that we can appreciate the wrongs done in the name of mysticism does not mean we no longer need it.<br /><br />Early in the evolution of a society its awareness of the existential threats facing it exceeds its knowledge of their basic nature and how to eliminate them. During this period, the society is at risk of being undermined by fear of the unknown. The most common solution to this problem is for sages to develop a belief system that allows the people to push forward through this fear and uncertainty. This mythos provides the culture with certainty based on a belief that its people can influence the unknown to their advantage without ever fully understanding it. This situation often leads to the personification and worship of the Primal Mystery underlying all unknowns. And thus a new religion is born. <br /><br />At about this point in a mystic culture’s history it transfers a portion of its fear of the unknown to the Primal Mystery, which represents the fundamental unknowable. As a result, most of those who worship the Primal Mystery also fear it. This mystical fear serves to keep its subjects from completely giving in to their most selfish instincts. This is why the Primal Mystery, which is the ultimate object of mystical fear, is the basis of morality for most mystics.<br /><br />The mystics’ fear of the Primal Mystery also serves to inhibit their pursuit of knowledge. In the story of the Garden of Eden this fear kept Adam and Eve from initially eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Mystical restrictions on the quest of knowledge often lead to a situation in which a culture’s worshipful fear of the Primal Mystery limits the growth of its people. Such repression represents the essence of evil. To avoid this circumstance a culture must transition from a reverential fear of the Primal Mystery to a purposeful search for the complete connection to the Fundamental Absolute. This Fundamental Absolute is what will survive the solution of the Primal Mystery (i.e., the so-called ‘Death of God’), which is the event that usually facilitates this transition.<br /><br />Has our society reached the point at which mysticism, the customs that sustain our relationship with the Primal Mystery, is doing more harm than good? This question is essentially asking if we are mature enough to resist our self-centered tendencies in the face of the temptations of the fruits of the unbridled pursuit of knowledge, without the influence of a real or imagined supernatural agent. Even if you believe that as an individual, you have the requisite maturity, would you trust the average person around you with the knowledge to reshape the planet? <br /><br />If your answer is ‘no’, then while it may be okay for you to doff your mystic robes, you probably do not want to live in a world where no one who needs to believe in a Primal Mystery is inhibited by fear of it. Even with this fear consider the carnage mystics have caused under the influence of their misinterpretations and misrepresentations of its will. This indicates that at your core you believe it is still necessary for some people to remain mystics, even if you aren’t one of them. This is because most mystics are not mature enough to be freed from their self-limiting viewpoint. As such, even if you no longer share the characteristic beliefs of mystics you still believe the world needs mysticism.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-80299730669213159562009-10-23T10:12:00.009-05:002009-10-23T11:17:46.798-05:00Are You a Secret Mystic?Many of us would like to believe we are rational individuals living in an increasingly rational world in which mysticism is being correspondingly marginalized. Even though you may regard yourself as a fundamentally rational person, you could in fact be a mystic with a predisposition to hinder the advancement of rationality.<br /><br />To understand how this could be, let me first provide some background. Mystics are essentially people inclined to believe there are mysteries that can never be solved. Whether the mystery is religious (“why did God create evil?”), philosophical (“why is there something instead of nothing?”) scientific (“how did life originally emerge from non-living matter?”) or personal (“why can’t I catch a break?”), if you accept that it can never be rationally explained you are a mystic. It is a disposition towards harboring such beliefs that fundamentally defines mystics, not the supernatural powers, arcane knowledge, meditative trances and various magical artifacts that are typically attributed to them. <br /><br />If that is all there is to being a mystic you may wonder what is the harm in it? It might be kind of cool to be able to walk up to strangers at a party and introduce yourself as a mystic; thus implicitly claiming membership in a club that is often characterized as a exclusive, mysterious, powerful and perhaps even a little dangerous. <br /><br />The problem with being a mystic is that it is an inherently self-limiting perspective. The critical factor in being a mystic is a fundamental belief that there are unyielding constraints on what we can rationally comprehend. This means that to be a mystic is to believe there is an absolute limit on the power of rational thought. <br /><br />In accepting this premise mystics typically assert the existence of entities that transcend the boundary of rationality. These mystics recognize that they can never rationally understand these great, yet inherently mysterious beings. This situation eventually leads them to personify and worship, the Primal Mystery underlying everything that resides beyond what they perceive to be the absolute limit of rationality. This perspective characterizes virtually all of today’s religions. The fact that they are founded on the Primal Mystery is why all of our major religions are fundamentally mystical.<br /><br />Ironically, there are people who think that religions have outlived their usefulness and at the same time accept that there are limits to the power of rational thought. Some of these individuals are not merely irreligious, they express open hostility towards religions, yet their mystical disposition is sympathetic to the idea underlying those ‘intolerable’ institutions. This situation is analogous to gay people who speak out against homosexuality. <br /> <br />No matter how rationally antireligious you claim to be, if you are inclined to believe we can never objectively explain what triggered the Big Bang, how consciousness manifests in the brain, why the uncertainty principle works or any other important mystery, then at your core you are a rationality-limiting, religion-sympathizing mystic.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-74353516105307375772009-06-09T08:36:00.004-05:002009-06-09T09:07:30.049-05:00Mind, Consciousness and Self-awarenessIf you are reading this you have a mind. But a consensus has yet to emerge regarding what exactly a mind is. We tend to define the mind in terms of things like consciousness and self-awareness though there is little agreement as to what those phenomena are either. I maintain that in the simplest sense your mind is the convergence of your self-awareness and consciousness. Self-awareness is your perception of what you are and your consciousness is your perception of what you are not.<br /><br />To be conscious an entity must also be self-aware. For example, the computer monitor displaying these words is not conscious of them because it has no sense of itself in the context containing them. In other words, there is no intrinsic component of the monitor can be interpreted by the monitor as representing the monitor displaying the words. By contrast, you are conscious of these words because in addition to interacting with them, you are also aware of yourself interacting with them. This is because there is an intrinsic component of you that is interpreted by you as you reading these words. <br /><br />Self-awareness is the component of your mind that interprets the relationship between the entity reading these words and the being recognizing itself as that entity as a connection. As such, you are both the subject and object of your self-awareness. Consciousness is the component of your mind that interprets the relationship between the object of your self-awareness and these words (and everything else that you are interacting with in some manner) as a separation. <br /><br />Elsewhere I have defined time as the separation between instances of the same being (e.g., the person who started reading this parenthetical and the person who is now finishing it) and space as the separation between instances of different beings (e.g., the opening and closing parentheses surrounding this example). In this context, self-awareness spans time while consciousness spans space.<br /><br />Consciousness represents the boundary of our self-awareness in that it essentially delineates what we are not. Since we are shaped by what we are not, for many of us consciousness is the primary vehicle by which we can understand what we are.<br /><br />In general the mind is a self-aware phenomenon that is self-limited by its consciousness, through which it acquires knowledge of the world around it. In this sense it is evident that though consciousness seems to be ignited in the brain it is not necessarily limited to it anymore than the illumination produced by a neon light is limited to the bulb. <br /><br />Self-awareness is essentially our capacity to see ourselves in beings that influence us (typically our predecessor instances). The more self-aware we are the less of a separation we will perceive from others. Complete self-awareness would allow us to see ourselves as being connected to everything, thus invalidating the concept of "other". <br /><br />Since consciousness is what limits our self-awareness, the less of it we have the more complete our self-awareness will be. Our consciousness keeps our self-awareness from being complete by allowing us to perceive certain entities that shape us as being distinct from us. In other words, our consciousness is the basis of our uniqueness. As a result, one of our primary goals as conscious beings is to transcend our consciousness and become completely self-aware minds that can see ourselves in everything and everything in us.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-47560017061143557332009-02-09T09:07:00.009-06:002009-02-11T16:15:46.342-06:00Teleological DynamicsIn the preceding essay I proposed that we have free will but that in the long run its influence is subsumed by that of teleological determinism. Here I will explain how this form of determinism works and why in the end we are responsible for what it demands of us.<br /><br />Let me start by returning to the proposition that we have free will but its scope is circumscribed by that of teleological determinism. If we accept this to be true it is reasonable to ask if we actually have free will or is there merely a deterministic illusion of it leading us between teleological milestones to our ultimate destiny? <br /><br />To appreciate why I insist it is the former, note that as living, conscious matter we are advancing towards three seemingly divergent destinies. As material beings we are constituents of a physical universe that is taking us with it as it propagates towards its ultimate state of complete temporal equilibrium where all causal interactions cease. As living beings we are component organisms of an arguably universal symbiosis that is taking us with it as it evolves towards its ultimate state of perfect biotic equilibrium in which life is perpetually sustained. As conscious beings we are members of a spiritual union (recall that I define spirit as simply the connection among cooperating minds) that is taking us with it as it advances towards the spiritual equilibrium that is absolute Unity. Our free will is essentially our intrinsic capacity to choose to pursue any one of these destinies and thus potentially resist the pull of the others. In other words, we have actual free will as long as we can still choose to pathologically pursue life-ending temporal equilibrium, selfishly chase biotic immortality or selflessly approach Unity. <br /><br />The destiny at the end of each of these paths teleologically determines the milestones we must traverse to reach it from our current state. For instance, the causal dynamics that play out under the pull of the temporal equilibrium define the material configurations through which we must propagate to get there from our current causal state. The biotic dynamics that play out under the pull of perpetual life define the living states through which we must evolve to get there from our current biological state. And of course, the spiritual dynamics that play out under the pull of absolute Unity define the spiritual states through which we must grow to get there from our current mental state.<br /><br />Biotic dynamics are constrained both causally and teleologically by temporal dynamics. This is evident in that biotic dynamics causally emerged from temporal dynamics and will teleologically end prior to their cessation. By contrast, spiritual dynamics are causally but not necessarily teleologically bound by temporal dynamics. This is because the minds that are the fundamental components of spiritual dynamics causally emerged from temporal dynamics, but their ultimate Unity represents the end of all spiritual, biotic and temporal dynamics. In other words, where absolute Unity exists it transcends all dynamics. This means that Unity takes us beyond perpetual life and the end of causality and thus represents our truly ultimate destiny. This also indicates that two of the teleological milestones along our path to Unity are perpetual life and the end of causality.<br /><br />As an ultimate destiny that is not impossible, Unity must exist somewhere in the realm of possibility. Since absolute Unity is the end state of all possible minds and is comprised of their perfect union, if any mind achieves it then every mind does. It is important to note that in limitless time, everything that can happen does. As such, in the absence of a requirement for time to be finite, absolute Unity is inevitable for all of us.<br /><br />By definition, absolute Unity cannot be differentiated. As such, when we achieve it we do not simply become a part of it, we become Unity in its entirety. This means that in the end we are the entity that is teleologically shaping the deterministic milestones along the path to our ultimate destiny. Recall that where we have free will it shapes our path between these teleological milestones. This means that in the final analysis we both determine where we are going and decide how we get there. In other words, we are totally responsible for the shape of our path to our ultimate destiny.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-21332946500765209662009-02-05T14:49:00.010-06:002009-02-11T12:38:52.891-06:00Free Will versus DeterminismWhether we have free will or are simply dancing meat puppets gyrating to the beat of mindless determinism, is a question that has been debated for centuries. While the consensus has shifted back and forth over time, there is as yet still no definitive answer. I propose a compatibilistic solution that both propositions are true.<br /> <br />To appreciate how this can be consider the analogy of classical versus quantum mechanics in physics. Classical mechanics, in which all effects have definite causes, is completely deterministic. This perspective corresponds to a metaphysical domain in which there is no free will. But in physics the causal determinism of classical mechanics does not extend down to the smallest scale, which is the domain of quantum mechanics. On this level events occur with no deterministic cause. For instance, when an atom emits an alpha particle, it does so spontaneously, not because something caused it do so. This lack of quantum causality is analogous to a metaphysical domain that accommodates free will. These seemingly incompatible physical domains intersect since the effects that emerge from accumulations of uncaused quantum events represent deterministic classical events.<br /><br />The essential difference between this physical analogy and the metaphysical context I am proposing to answer the question of whether we are governed by free will or determinism is that the determinism of the physical system is causal while that of the metaphysical dynamic is teleological, meaning it is shaped by its ultimate effect. The context of my answer provides for the existence of teleological milestones, which represent events that we are deterministically "destined" to experience. In this context our non-deterministic free will can select the specific direction of our incremental steps between these milestones. This means that metaphysically our free will does not determine where we are ultimately going but it can decide how we get there. In other words, we have free will that is effective on smaller scales but becomes increasingly impotent on larger scales. In general, our free will allows us to pursue goals that may defer our destiny but we encounter its limits when we try to elude our fate. <br /> <br />Free will is not simply our power to pursue our goals; it is our intrinsic capacity to choose which, if any of them to pursue. Our goals manifest within us as either needs or desires. The teleological pull of our ultimate destiny is the basis of our needs. On the deterministic level our needs represent our inexorable compulsion to advance towards our final fate, without regard for our uniqueness. We are pulled from the shortest path to our ultimate destiny by our desires, which represent our reactions to our uniqueness. In other words, where we are going shapes our needs and how we get there is shaped by our free will choosing from among our goals. <br /><br />The question of whether we have free will or are controlled by determinism is generally considered in the context of causal determinism. I propose that we begin to transcend this form of determinism when our minds start to respond to the teleological dictates of our destiny. As such, initially the closer we are to the earliest, instinct-driven level of development, the less free will we have. This is because our choices are being made for us by our causally generated biological drives. At the other end of the extreme, as we approach the most mature, selfless level of development our desires are replaced by our teleologically determined needs. Here we also have decreasing free will since we are increasingly inclined to only do what teleologically needs to be done. In other words, we have free will from the time we can choose to either resist or give in to our baser impulses to the point at which we are no longer tempted by them. This indicates that our free will is at its maximum capacity when we are at the midpoint between the influences of causality and teleology where we can most easily choose between them. <br /><br />I maintain that most of us have some degree of free will but it does not decide our ultimate destiny because of the overarching influence of determinism. In my next essay I will delve into the dynamics underlying teleological determinism and illustrate how in the end it all still comes back to us.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-87824034643084071562009-01-18T19:15:00.003-06:002009-02-06T09:24:03.539-06:00Finding My ReligionIn light of the concerns outlined in my previous essay, I do not see a place for me in any one of today’s major religions. I could only belong to a religion that is based on rational ideas, is all-inclusive and is so lacking in structure that it borders on anarchy. <br /><br />At the heart of the today’s major religions there are mystical ideas that supposedly defy rational understanding. The inability of believers to grasp these core concepts without the assistance of intermediaries generally leads to the formation of religious hierarchies that often exploit those at the bottom for the selfish purposes of some at the top. <br /><br />In today’s information rich environment, a religion based on rationality is less likely to form exploitive hierarchies of intermediaries to “the Truth” (though as long as its interpretation of the fundamental truth is incomplete, it would still prone to the formation of potentially divisive schools of thought). To see why this is, note that in non-religious, but rational, academic philosophy there are probably as many schools of thought as there are “great” philosophers. Yet an expert in a given school is not in a position to block a relative neophyte’s path to increased understanding in lieu of some selfish ransom. <br /><br />Rational systems of thought provide intelligent, motivated seekers with a degree of autonomy in their efforts to realize a deeper level of understanding. This self-sufficiency tends to preclude the formation of exploitable hierarchies of dependency.<br /><br />Recall that all religions characterize an ultimate state of spirituality and describe a means of reaching it. What distinguishes an all-inclusive religion is that it sees all paths as eventually leading to the same destiny. As a result, instead of promoting a single path to our final spiritual fate, such a religion endorses all paths. <br /><br />Membership in an all-inclusive religion is based on whether or not an individual is advancing towards the ultimate spiritual state, which the religion insists everyone is. Such a religion ascribes to the precept that since we are all eventually going to reach this state, there is no justifiable motive for abusing and sometimes even killing people based on their belief in how best to get there. Though simple, non-religious compassion compels us to mitigate the negative impact of any inhumane practices that a spiritual path may promote.<br /><br />An all-inclusive religion does not distinguish believers from non-believers in terms of better and worse. As a result, it decreases the likelihood of the former committing atrocities against the latter in the name of the religion. <br /><br />Those who do not choose to follow any of an all-inclusive religion’s current prescriptions for spiritual growth are still considered members. They are simply viewed as exploring different paths to the same ultimate destiny. On significant occasions, individuals on such alternate paths uncover the most extraordinary spiritual insights. These ideas are sometimes needed to extricate a religion from the cycle of dogmatic stagnation that typically manifests when divergent voices are not heard. As a result, these irregular members are valued as a crucial factor in the continued advancement of the religion. <br /><br />At first glance a religion with no hierarchy whatsoever, in which everyone is free to do whatever makes sense to them, seems anarchic. But there is more to such a religion then meets the eye if it follows what has come to be called the open source model. In such a system there is virtually no central governing authority and everyone is free to contribute in whatever way they can; though no one is obliged to do so. The members of such a group are united by a shared vision and enriched lives, not by executive edicts and taxing obligations. <br /><br />Such a religion would be more accurately characterized as socialistically egalitarian. It is worth noting that socialism is based on a selflessness that is consistent with the core tenets of every worthwhile spiritual perspective. As a result, a religion based on this principle represents a step up from the totalitarian oligarchies that predominate these days.<br /><br />Ironically, many of us on what we regard as non-religious paths to deeper spirituality are already members of what could be characterized as a religion that is rational (it makes sense to us), inclusive (we accept everyone else’s the right to pursue their own path to our common ultimate destiny) and egalitarian (we do not require intermediaries and so, there is no dependency hierarchy). Such a religion might not be embraced by those who prefer mysticism, exclusivity and/or structure. But for those of us who favor rationality, inclusiveness and freedom, this irreligious religion is less likely to divide, exploit and abuse humanity.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-26491910625101388032009-01-13T15:00:00.009-06:002009-01-15T08:31:14.316-06:00The Problem of ReligionI am an example of what has become a contemporary cliché in that I regard myself as spiritual but not religious. I define religion as a prescribed set of rites, rituals and beliefs that are supposed to provide moral guidelines to their practitioners, while deepening their spirituality. Though I appreciate the idea of religion in the abstract, I am not a big fan of how it is typically practiced today. The primary benefit I see in our major religions is that they sometimes give comfort to worthwhile people who would otherwise feel spiritually lost. <br /><br />For me personally, the potential spiritual benefits of today’s major religions are simply not worth their secular costs. Since I am not a paragon of morality and spirituality, I have needs that the right religion could conceivably address. But my needs in this area are not great enough to force me to endure or worse, contribute to the difficulties that often manifest in and through religions.<br /><br />As I see it, the problem with today’s religions is that they are generally divisive belief systems that are easily perverted for exploitive and sometimes even more appalling purposes. The divisiveness of religions is based on the manner in which they distinguish true believers from the rest of us. When religions regard infidels and heretics as inherently inferior, the religious capacity for atrocity emerges. This is because once a religion draws the line separating the sacred from the profane (or at best the mundane) between true believers and all others, it implicitly sanctions the former to treat the latter horrifically. Only in a religious context could the oxymoron ‘sanctified atrocity’ make sense.<br /><br />The exploitive nature of religions manifests when they begin to develop hierarchical organizations. Such structures typically emerge when a religion’s core precepts represent arcana that require mystical interpretation. In such belief systems, the deeper your understanding of the founding principles (as subjectively assessed by other profound believers) the higher you are in its hierarchy. This dynamic generally leads to a perception that advancing your position in the religious hierarchy is synonymous with spiritual growth. <br /><br />Once this view becomes commonplace in an organization that distinguishes itself from the secular world (in which spiritual growth is objectively demonstrated), the religion has essentially transformed itself from a spiritual vehicle to a political one. This invariably leads to increasing numbers of people of dubious morality and spirituality rising to leadership positions in the religion. Such leadership can, and with distressing regularity does, selfishly exploit its followers under the guise of promoting their spiritual growth.<br /><br />Be that as it may, I do not subscribe to the cynical belief that religion is the source all human problems in the world. I maintain that it is the perversion of our basic survival instinct into excessive self-centeredness that is the culprit here. I do believe that the nature of religion makes it arguably the greatest mechanism available to us for amplifying the negative impact of our self-centeredness. Ultimately, it is not the existence of religion, but the manner in which it is often structured and practiced that makes it to such a destructive force in our world today.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-82976463726448350812008-12-16T08:55:00.010-06:002008-12-16T10:02:20.406-06:00Love and HappinessThere are some people who seem to always be happy, regardless of how meager their situations appear to the outside observer. There are also people who cannot seem to sustain happiness, no matter how great their lives are perceived to be by others. This dichotomy exists because the inclination towards happiness manifests in different degrees in different people, with little correlation to their circumstances. While some people are born with a consistent tendency to be happy, I maintain that those who feel that their propensity for happiness is insufficient can increase it considerably over the course of their lives.<br /><br />Before I describe how this is done, let me first explain what I mean by happiness. We all believe we know what happiness is since most of us have had bouts of it, regardless of our relative inability to sustain it. But if you ask most people what it means to be happy, you typically get a list of effects and synonyms but rarely a good characterization of the underlying cause. <br /><br />I regard happiness as the appreciation of the absence of need. In this context need is our separation from completeness. At first glance this would seem to indicate that only those who have achieved completeness (the topic of another essay), can be truly happy. But from a deeper perspective it means that happiness is more readily available to those who have greater awareness of their proximity to completeness (or, as is often the case with simpler folk, less awareness of their separation from completeness).<br /><br />Bear in mind that happiness is not our ultimate objective. In general, sustained happiness is simply an indicator that we are near our true objective of completeness. The closer we are to completeness, the fewer needs we have to focus on and so the more likely we are to be happy. Mind you, those who lack a sufficient propensity for happiness will usually just place a greater emphasis on their remaining needs.<br /><br />Viewed this way it looks like it is theoretically possible to be too happy. For those of us who still see ourselves as far from complete, our needs are our primary incentive to grow. As such, if we still have needs but our happiness has us directing our attention away from them, this incentive to grow would no longer be effective, thus potentially retarding our growth.<br /><br />We are protected from this eventuality by our other important incentive to grow. Where need is our negative incentive to grow, our positive incentive to grow is love. Again most of us believe we know what love is since we are of the impression that we have experienced it either directly or indirectly at some point in our lives. But when asked to define love we typically put forth a litany of symptoms, not an explanation of the condition. <br /><br />Love is the empathically induced completeness that we feel through our awareness of our proximity to completeness. In other words, love is the feeling we get from our realization that we are a part of something truly wonderful. The existence of this positive incentive to grow allows those who are both needful and happy to be inclined to grow through their love, which will draw them towards the ultimate source of the completeness they feel.<br /><br />Love is the basis of our propensity to be happy. This means that those who feel they lack the inclination to be happy simply do not have enough love in their lives. Such people are insufficiently aware of their proximity to completeness. <br /><br />To resolve this situation you should first cultivate an awareness of the existence of a state of completeness that transcends all need and is the source of all love in the world. Whether you call this state God, Unity or the peace of perfect equilibrium, the existence of such a state is easy to recognize if you are open to it. <br /><br />Once you accept the existence of this complete state, you can increase your propensity to be happy by nurturing an awareness of your proximity to it. I maintain that each conscious being is separated from this state of completeness by a single thought. The specific nature of this thought is different for each individual. The trick is figuring out what that thought is for you. But in the interim, you can be happier simply knowing how close we all are to the resultant state of completeness.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-25490102434198831102008-12-10T09:24:00.009-06:002008-12-10T10:45:27.745-06:00Experience SystemsThe next generation of data systems on the horizon are Experience Systems. These are systems that sequence content exposures (i.e. events) to form coordinated user experiences. A user experience is a collection of events that are arranged in a particular order to have a specific impact on the user. The distinguishing components of the Experience System architecture are its Profile Manager, Experience Generator and Event Store. <br /><br />The user interface of an Experience System encompasses a Query Generator, Preference Manager and Profile Manager. The Profile Manager gathers much more expansive data on the end user than the Preference Manager. These data elements comprise a detailed psychological profile of the user. Such profiles can be generated by prolonged exposure to a psychological assessment system that on the surface would look like a video game played in a very sophisticated virtual world. <br /><br />This assessment system presents the user with an appropriate narrative under which resides a sophisticated decision tree. The user traverses this tree in the course of “playing the game”. The user’s decisions in the face of a specific sequence of scenarios place her at a particular location on the underlying N-dimensional assessment grid. It is the user’s historical path and current location in this grid that characterizes her profile. The longer the user interacts with the system, the more precisely her profile can be defined. <br /><br />The shape of the space in which the assessment grid resides reflects the capabilities, inclinations and susceptibilities of a user at a given location. The user’s current psychological location, the shape of the space around her (i.e., her psychological inertia) and the spatial and temporal shape of her historical path through the assessment grid (i.e., her psychological momentum) combined with any user-defined goal states, determine the narrative being presented. The assessment system is dynamic in that it updates itself in response to the results achieved by its user community.<br /><br />Experience System queries are requests by the user to reach specified goal states. The Experience Generator accepts these requests and the associated user profile data from the Profile Manager and searches the Event Store for appropriate events that can facilitate the transition. These events can be based on exposure to electronic media such as videos, pictures, audio lectures, music and text. They can also include excursions into the offline world to lecture halls, theaters, museums, exercise facilities, stores, parks, beaches, work places and any other available sites. The Experience Generator sequences the selected events into different experiences and coordinates user access to them via the user interface. These experiences are designed to advance the user towards her goal state. They are generally presented in order of the greatest probability of success.<br /><br />The Event Store is a Content Store that extends into the offline world. Events in the store are rated and cataloged by their potential impact on a given range of user capabilities, inclinations and susceptibilities based on provider assessments (heuristics), empirical data and theoretical extrapolations. Experience Systems manage events that are combined to form Minkowski data spaces that characterize both where and when events occur. <br /><br />When you consider that we have only recently begun to produce Knowledge Systems, the advent of fully functioning Experience Systems is still some time off in our future. But much of the technology that would be required to produce such systems is already available to us. An assessment system with the requisite sophistication has yet to be developed but many its components already exist separately (there may even be a few of prototypes out there). It is only a matter of time before someone puts them together and triggers a major paradigm shift. <br /><br />Experience Systems could easily represent the next generation of entertainment, education and life management technologies. As we continue to exploit the deeper potential of data systems, it is becoming increasingly evident that in lieu of a major scientific breakthrough (e.g., cold fusion, instantaneous teleportation, matter transmutation, etc.), this technology domain will be an increasingly important driver of human activity for the foreseeable future.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-91890198476321303462008-12-09T09:35:00.013-06:002008-12-09T10:33:06.901-06:00The Evolution of Data SystemsUnderlying all of today’s computer applications are Information Systems. Note that information characterizes the separations between entities. Information Systems are based on collections of entities whose types and attributes distinguish them from each other. <br /><br />Information Systems are generally comprised of some form of a Query Generator, a System Integrator and a Data Store. The Query Generator is essentially the user interface that accepts requests for information and displays the result set. The System Integrator is the subsystem that knows what data elements are where and how to access them. The Data Store encompasses the location of every piece of data in the system that the end user could want to see. <br /><br />Information Systems require no knowledge of the user beyond the content of the request being made and her authorization level. As such the layout and actions of its components are largely unaffected by the individual uniqueness of the user. In general, Information Systems manage data elements in a Euclidean (flat) data space. This means that, the logical distance between data elements in an Information System is generally the same for all users. <br /><br />Of late, an increasing number of Knowledge Systems have begun to emerge. Note that knowledge characterizes the connections between entities. The connections between data elements in Knowledge Systems are their metadata, which is essentially data about the data. The distinguishing components of the Knowledge System architecture are its Preference Manager, Search Engine and Content Store. <br /><br />The user interface of a Knowledge System is comprised of a Query Generator and a Preference Manager. The Preference Manager accepts user preference data in the form of demographic data and transaction history. Preference data are utilized by the user interface to customize its layout. The Search Engine uses preference data to shape the Content Store in terms of relevance to a given user. <br /><br />The Content Store contains both fundamental data elements and the metadata that connect them on a more abstract level. The metadata of the Content Store are what distinguish it from a Data Store. Knowledge Systems manage relevance metrics that are used to generate non-Euclidean (curved) data spaces. This means that the logical distance between data elements in a Knowledge System can be the different for different users.<br /><br />Information Systems are currently being engulfed into the history of data systems by the newly emergent Knowledge Systems, which represent the present. But the initial glimmers of the future of data systems are already becoming apparent. This future is the phenomenon known as the Experience System, which builds on the advances produced by the development of Knowledge Systems. The nature of Experience Systems will be the subject of the next essay.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-28540459397589761452008-11-17T08:48:00.012-06:002008-11-17T11:16:26.073-06:00Ideological DynamicsSo which is the superior end of the political ideology spectrum: liberal or conservative? Each is appropriate at a particular point in the history of the state. The ideological needs of a people tend to cycle from one extreme to the other. This is because each political ideology addresses certain of the people’s needs while ignoring others. <br /><br />Liberalism addresses our need for freedom; but in doing so it can ignore our need for security. This is because by not accounting for the worst aspects of human nature liberalism often fails to address the needs of certain segments of the society to be protected from them. In addition, the anarchic tendencies of liberal states can undermine the defining structure of a society.<br /><br />In its effort to manage the worst aspects of human nature conservatism addresses our need for security; but in doing so it can ignore our need for freedom. This is because conservatism attempts to suppress divergence from the cultural normal. But in the process it often suppresses the best aspects of the human nature and as a result conservatism denies certain ideas and avenues of expression that can facilitate the advancement of the culture.<br /><br />When a static ideology is right for the times there is relative equilibrium in the state that is governed by it. But, over time, the needs that are being ignored by that ideology become paramount in the political discourse. As these needs continue to go unaddressed by the leaders of the state, the ideology that was once the source of equilibrium will begin to undermine it. Eventually, the degree of dissonance will exceed the tolerance of the people; leading them to replace their leadership with one that espouses the complementary ideology.<br /><br />During the times of equilibrium produced by an alignment of the needs of the people and ideology of the leaders, the state tends to run in a relatively smooth and efficient operational mode. But the longer the leadership ignores an increasing divergence between their static ideology and the changing needs of the people, the more significant a project it will represent for the leaders to restore political equilibrium. In other words, the longer this growing divergence goes unaddressed the more potentially disruptive the realignment will be.<br /><br />The forces required to reverse this divergence sometimes produce a thrashing condition in which the corrective action overcompensates for the initial delay in addressing the needs of the people and the newly installed ideology veers too far to the other side. This can trigger an ideological recoil in the other direction, which depending on its strength, can cause a bounce back to the other side again and so on until at some point the ideology of the leadership comes back into alignment with the needs of the people. At this point the political system has returned to its equilibrium state.<br /><br />In a bipartisan political system one of the two major political parties will invariably embrace a more conservative ideology while the other will be consistently more liberal. But parties are not required to be bound to a static ideology and members of a given party are even less so. <br /><br />On those rare occasions when the leadership of the political party in charge chooses to transcend static ideology, they can remain in power indefinitely by adapting to changes in the ideological needs of the people. In order to accomplish this, the leaders must be willing to abandon policies and dismantle programs (even those they put in place) that were consistent with the waning side of the ideological cycle and replace them with those that are in keeping with waxing side, which is shaped by the unaddressed needs of the people. To be successful, this leadership must remain attuned to the greatest needs of the people rather than being focused of scoring ideological points.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-40525678005742704322008-11-14T14:30:00.013-06:002008-11-14T15:27:24.208-06:00Political IdeologyFrom a political perspective the conservative and liberal positions represent opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Conservatives are characterized by a fundamental suspicion of human nature that manifests in their tendency to impose limits on the rights of the people. In this context, they generally believe rights should be earned. By contrast, liberals ascribe great value to human nature and so are inclined to maximize the rights of the people. This is because liberals typically believe most rights are innate.<br /><br />People will invariably prefer a situation in which they have more rights over one in which they have fewer. As such, the more their rights are limited, the more oversight will be required to keep the people from circumventing these limits and thus undermining the stability of the encompassing political system. This is why the more conservative systems of government require greater oversight of the people, which usually manifests as more pervasive internal security forces. The underlying principles of liberal states lead them to impose less oversight of the people. As a result, the more liberal a government is the closer it is to anarchy.<br /><br />An interesting juxtaposition of the liberal and conservative positions occurs in the context of corporations. Liberal states have a tendency to treat corporations in the same manner that conservative governments treat the broader population. As such, while they believe that the people should have the maximum rights; liberals also feel that corporations require greater oversight. The latter point implies that liberals judge corporations as deserving fewer rights. It can be argued that this judgment is based on the liberal perception that corporations’ greater capacity to influence society through their economic power provides them with the potential to abridge the rights of the people. In other words, liberals tend to view corporations as a prospective threat to any state-guaranteed rights of the people.<br /><br />By contrast, contemporary conservative states are inclined to treat corporations in the same manner that liberal governments treat individuals. As such, while conservatives believe the people should have fewer rights, they also feel that corporations require less oversight. The latter position indicates that conservatives regard corporations as meriting more rights. This is because conservatives often interpret the relative success of corporations as proof that they have earned more expansive rights. Conservatives are inclined to regard corporations as having transcended the more dubious aspects of human nature. <br /><br />The liberal manner in which conservative governments are inclined to treat corporations and the conservative way that liberal governments often deal with them indicate that today the practitioners of these political ideologies are not as far apart as one might think. By embracing qualified forms of these ideologies, today’s liberals and conservatives each have insight into the other’s position through which they could conceivably work together for the common good.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-46545380587559831312008-11-01T23:08:00.004-05:002008-11-01T23:23:35.469-05:00Remembering the Future IIRemembering the future is less likely to be effective in time-critical situations. This is because, if one of your future memories has a date-specific event in it, and that date passes without the event occurring, this will undermine your disposition and the likelihood of the future you remembered. The primary purpose of this technique is to shape what will happen, but not necessarily when. <br /><br />To effectively remember the future you must be able to accept that events will happen when they can in the context of your disposition. As such, this technique requires a great deal of patience. This sort of patience can be maintained by focusing on small degrees of progress towards the future you are remembering. One way to do this is to analyze noteworthy changes in your life in the context of whether or not they represent progress towards your remembered future. The more you do so, the more you will see that they do.<br /><br />Based on the level of commitment required to make remembering the future work, it should obviously not be used trivially or maliciously. Going through this intricate process to get something that you can obtain by simply deciding to get out of your own way is, at best, inefficient. In addition, since this technique is based on fundamentally changing your disposition, using it maliciously will incline you to become increasingly cruel.<br /><br />Initially it is best to attempt to remember longer-term futures whose narratives benefit others as well. This because it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to make the major changes in your disposition necessary for it to be consistent with a future that is significantly different from what you believe would occur otherwise. Remembering a future that benefits others harnesses their preexisting dispositions towards that future, thus providing you with more opportunities for positive reinforcement. <br /><br />I have a somewhat time dependent set of future memories that benefit everyone. These memories shape the primary narrative of my life. In their context I am in a hospital bed being stabilized before I go home in order to die surrounded by my loved ones. The time dependent aspect of it is that I am either 90, 95 or 99 years old. I am pain-free and completely clear headed as I dwell on the wonderful life I’ve lived. I have made my share of mistakes but it is undeniable that I will be leaving the world a significantly better place than I found it and thus I am completely at peace with my life. I spend much of my remaining time reassuring a multitude of loves ones that things will only get better as a result of what we have accomplished. As I write these words I honestly cannot say for sure whether I am the nonagenarian remembering his past life as the person writing this essay, or am I the writer remembering the end of his life (not unlike Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse Five”). Either way works for me.<br /><br />Remembering the future is my way of controlling the chaos underlying the Butterfly Effect in order to shape significant events in my life. It is also what I do in lieu of prayer when people I care about need more than words of comfort. Beyond the fact that I believe it gives me control over the primary arc of my life, it invariably works for me simply because it provides me with the means of feeling good about the future.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-54452358872621436662008-10-30T10:04:00.009-05:002008-10-30T10:31:58.153-05:00Remembering the FutureRemembering the future is a uniquely effective method of controlling the chaos underlying the Butterfly Effect in order to shape significant events in one's life. This technique involves constructing and living within the context of “memories” of a particular future. In order to be effective these future memories must be simple, realistic and yet vague enough to not be inconsistent with the present. To illustrate how this is done, I will use the example of my developing future memories of the publishing of my currently unpublished manuscript. <br /><br />In my future memories of this event I recall the exhilaration I experienced when I opened the acceptance letter from a publisher after being ignored or rejected repeatedly. I remember the odd combination of gratitude and defensiveness I felt toward my editor who complimented certain passages while criticizing others. I recall some experts saying I’m crazy and others insisting that I’m brilliant. I remember my disappointment in discovering how quickly being on a promotional tour loses its appeal. I recall a clerk working the register at a store I frequent who, upon noticing the name on my credit card and recognizing my face from the dust jacket tells me how my words changed her life. <br /><br />It is obvious that these future memories must not be inconsistent with each other or with the world in which I currently reside. Where there are conflicts these inconsistencies will disrupt the disposition I am trying to shape, thus inhibiting the manifestation of the future that they characterize.<br /><br />Regularly “recalling” and adding to these future memories knits them together into a narrative that over time begins to feel as though it has already happened. Generating and living with such often mundane future memories shapes my present disposition to be consistent with them, while also guiding my actions to sustain that consistency. For instance, whenever I work on my manuscript in the context of my future memories their content often shapes my writing. As such, I often edit passages until I feel, “That’s want I remember writing”.<br /><br />It is important to “recall” your future memories frequently enough for them to shape your disposition and actions but not so often that you become obsessed with the encompassing narrative. If you find yourself disappearing into this narrative you need to take a break from it in order to maintain an appropriate perspective. I find it helps to adopt a stance of dispassionate confidence in the inevitability of this future to avoid obsessive desperation. If you cannot indefinitely maintain such a posture, you should not engage in this exercise.<br /><br />Remembering the future is not a magic lamp that you rub to have a wish granted. It is a technique for generating and sustaining a particular disposition in order to shape our chaotic world to be consistent with it. While it requires a significant level of inner focus, patience and commitment, when done properly it can be remarkably effective.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-11923201880783202782008-10-29T08:56:00.002-05:002008-10-29T09:01:10.978-05:00Controlling the Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is an abstraction that is characterized by the observation that a butterfly flapping its wings in Costa Rica can be the critical factor in producing a typhoon off the coast of India. This idea relates to chaotic systems, such as the global weather system, that are incredibly sensitive to miniscule changes in their initial conditions. As conscious entities we are uniquely qualified to utilize the Butterfly Effect to control and direct momentous changes in the chaotic system that our world. Our capacity to control the chaos underlying the Butterfly Effect is based on our ability to direct our inner focus and simply be patient.<br /><br />A causal system is essentially characterized by how it converts inputs to outputs. The key to controlling such a system is knowing how to generate the inputs required to produce specific outputs. It is generally assumed that chaotic systems are too complex for such knowledge to be available. But this belief does not take into account the premise that what we see around us is ultimately shaped by what we are. In other words, our uniqueness shapes the causal systems that shape our essences. A detailed exposition on why this is true will not fit into this essay (though this concept underlies a viable interpretation of quantum mechanics) and so if you cannot accept this premise you can stop reading this particular essay and you should probably skip the next two as well.<br /><br />If you are still with me note that individuals sometimes become responsible for momentous occurrences through a convergence of events over which they have no control. The primary difference between people who can control such convergences and those who cannot is that the former are disposed to do so while the latter are not. This means that in order to control chaos to orchestrate significant events you need merely shape your disposition accordingly. This is important because your disposition is the inner manifestation of your uniqueness. As such, by shaping your disposition you shape the world around you to reflect it. <br /><br />The fact that we are not all controlling this dynamic indicates that it is much easier to describe than to execute. To appreciate this, imagine what it would take to live up to a commitment to maintain a happy disposition for every second of the next 24 hours. If you manage to get through your next meal before you lose it you are much better than most of us. <br /><br />For us mere mortals, shaping our dispositions is not an act of will so much as appropriately directed inner focus. The technique that has been most effective for me involves concentrating not on the present but on the future. My approach is best characterized as “Remembering the Future”. I will describe what this technique is and how to apply it in my next couple of essays.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-32178557420945544862008-10-17T11:28:00.034-05:002008-10-17T16:46:37.068-05:00Trickle-down Economics in the Global EconomyTrickle-down Economics Theory argues that government efforts to increase the earnings of those at the very top of the economic ladder are the most efficient way to stimulate the domestic economy. This theory is based on the premise that this segment of the society has the greatest capacity to influence the level of economic activity. While the wealthiest individuals and organizations have a disproportionately high potential to impact domestic economic activity, this potential can be undermined by the fact that in a global capitalist economy they also have more options as to where to exercise their financial resources. <br /><br />In general capitalism encourages entities to exercise their financial resources where doing so provides them with the greatest return on their investment. In a global economy this may not always be in their country of residence. As such, where there are financial incentives for the wealthiest to invest their resources overseas, a domestic application of the Trickle-down Economics provides the source for a pump that transfers revenues from the domestic government (ultimately the taxpayer) to foreign markets. <br /><br />Through increasing globalization there are an increasing number of incentives for entities to exercise a portion of their financial resources overseas. The emergence of these overseas financial opportunities decreases a nation’s potential gains from concentrating potential tax revenues in the hands those at the very top of the economic ladder, since they are in the best position to take advantage of such opportunities. <br /><br />By contrast, low and middle income individuals and organizations, which typically are disproportionately less able to influence domestic economic activity, are also less likely to have the means to exploit overseas financial opportunities. As a result, tax breaks and other government incentives provided to this segment of the population are more likely to remain in the domestic economy. <br /><br />At some point, the decreasing probability that the wealthiest will chose to fully exercise their greater gross capacity to influence the domestic economy will reduce their net capacity to do so to a level below that of low and middle income entities. In other words, while those at the very top of the economic ladder will continue to have a greater gross capacity to impact the domestic economy, financial incentives to invest some of their resources overseas can decrease their net domestic influence on the economy to a point where it is less than that of low and middle income financial entities.<br /><br />While it is arguable whether or not the elbow in this curve has already manifested current economic trends are undeniably moving in that direction. This means that government tax policies of developed nations should be adapting to this eventuality. The key to developing such policies is to acknowledge the obsolescence of the simple Trickle-down Economics Theory. <br /><br />Increasing globalization is leading to the emergence of a point of diminishing returns in terms of tax incentives for the wealthiest. Once this threshold emerges, continuing globalization will move it down the economic ladder as more easily exploited overseas financial opportunities manifest. Unconditionally directing potential tax revenues towards those above such a threshold would represent a less efficient means of stimulating the domestic economy than directing those revenues towards entities at the top of the range immediately below this point. The alternative would be to apply appropriate conditions to government incentives directed towards those at the very top of the economic ladder.<br /><br />The appearance of this point of diminishing returns in a national economy is an indicator that financial entities above it represent international enterprises that have economically transcended national boundaries. The simplistic theory of Tickle-down Economics is dangerously obsolete for all such entities. Governments who refuse to acknowledge this conclusion do so at their own financial peril.Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-30660347097890772008-08-11T15:19:00.019-05:002008-08-20T14:07:12.102-05:00Happy 50th Birthday to Me!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIupTR1yDpQLrO7YJTZwGhlJEUZHxaaEzjptq7zvpaDYoQpVviLiNTnervbskn35wqslE5UPstlTLt8hI9vdrNWJ78V8KIxurFfOTmhgsEJISFkzXWFsmAoiDS4qmUcsyo_kDCqMtDk4J7/s1600-h/Birthday+v3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIupTR1yDpQLrO7YJTZwGhlJEUZHxaaEzjptq7zvpaDYoQpVviLiNTnervbskn35wqslE5UPstlTLt8hI9vdrNWJ78V8KIxurFfOTmhgsEJISFkzXWFsmAoiDS4qmUcsyo_kDCqMtDk4J7/s320/Birthday+v3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233649236858342882" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Today is the golden anniversary of my birth. Needless to say, this is a big deal for me and so it has been the basis of a great deal of introspection on my part. I’ve decided to be completely selfish here and share the results of this contemplation as a commemoration of the event.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >The first thing I’ve figured out is that I have an enviable life. I love and am loved by extraordinary people, I have a brilliant mind and at 50 years old I have the body of a super-middleweight contender. And on top of all of that, I absolutely, positively know that I have an ultimate purpose that I am destined to fulfill and which justifies all of the evil and suffering in the world (as do you).<br /><br />I am smart enough to realize that I didn’t do all of this on my own. I have had people in my life at key points along the way whose influences guided me towards the desirable circumstance that is my life. As such, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the people who, for a variety of reasons have special places in my heart (I’m generally going with first names only but you know who you are):</span><br /><ul><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:10;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you, Lorris (grandma) for being the first manifestation of an Immanent God in my life. </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you, Marianne (mama) for taking over where grandma left off (as the New Testament version) and protecting me from my youthful arrogance and impetuosity which the odds said would kill me well before today. </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you, Ann for being the first person in our family to get university degrees and thus show me that it is possible for people from our humble beginnings.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Artie for being “Bo Dean” and “Big Artie”, a reputation that likely kept me from many an ass kicking before I learned to take care of myself.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Artie and Lolo for being cautionary examples</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Darren for removing “the Body of Christ” from your mouth and crunching it like a potato chip after I told you that the nuns said it was sacred (a perfect metaphor for your time in my life).</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Richard for the kick ass genome.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you faculty at Our Lady of the Gardens for not treating me like a freak when you found out what my IQ was.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Gary, Andre, Tony, Phil B, Baby Brother, James, Artis, BG and the rest of the “little boys” in the Gardens for pushing me to be stronger physically and tougher mentally.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Donna for showing me that I could have attractive female friends without needing to have sex with them.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Jeffrey and Jeffery for being people I could talk to about anything.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mr. Packer for being so incompetent at 6th grade math as to make it a self-study course in which I learned I could</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Hazel, Druscilla and Shawnee for being my first crushes.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">I’m sorry Marion for not defending you against the terrible teasing we gave you.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Nathaniel, Tyrone and Stanley for bringing OLG to Mendel.</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Carver for letting me roam your halls while not enrolled there and thus learn how to go anywhere I am not explicitly forbidden to be.<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you to my AG home boys for parting company with me when you started doing drugs.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mr. Moss for demanding more of me academically at a time when I could do better.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]-->Thank you Arthur for "Childhood's End", the first novel I ever had to read that didn't bore the crap out of me</li><li>Thank you Miss Sise for assigning it (and for being my first school boy crush)<br /></li><li><span style="">Thank you Billy and Andy for being my home boys at Mendel Catholic.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you James for the JBs</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Mr. Curtin and Mr. Shields for making me think and write more deeply.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Dale, Mike, Henry and Paul for finishing ahead of me in our class.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Dzado for finishing behind me.</span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you George for the Mothership</span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nate for the Bell Labs Scholarship and admission to IIT.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Chris for bringing some of my class at Mendel to IIT and being my cool roommate.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mark, Danny, Spencer, Cedric, Marc and Wild Dollar Bill for showing me the ropes at IIT.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Harold for being everybody’s anchor.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Herbie, Grover, Ronnie, Hubert, Roy et al for music to study by.</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Stevie for the Key of Life.<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you all of the girls who dumped me by the 6 month mark.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you BSO for some great parties.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mr. Drukarev for reminding me that I actually love learning.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Johnetta for showing me my emotional limits. </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for being attractive and compassionate.</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Greg for making me a comic book addict<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Dr. Kraft for allowing me to see what I could do through senior year and grad school.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you to all of the Asian students who came to me for help in grad school.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Bob for my first real job.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Bill for insisting I could do that job.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mike for taking me under your wing at Bell.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for asking me the questions that led to Rational Answers</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Paul for 'Risky Business'<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Jim for saving me from Schaumburg and bringing me into a great group of people.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Chris, Mark and John for teaching me that at work the rules are not absolute. </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for giving me an appreciation for dance (and for 'Live Nude Dancers').</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Mike and Gary for being my work home boys.</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Buddy for the '46 Defense' and the 1985 season.<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Andrea for asking if I needed help</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Kurt for ‘Breakfast of Champions’</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for Kamaal</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Gail for delivering Kamaal<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Kamaal for making me grow up </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Ameritech for letting me go.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Fusion for picking me up.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Julie for Darwinian consulting, teaching me to juggle and being my favorite boss EVER!</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Carolyn for confounding me.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Marco for showing me I had grown up a bit.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Iris for being smart and not knowing it.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Jody for pushing me to go to the CBOT</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Sandy for being authentic</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Dave for being so much better than your reputation.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for reminding me its okay to use my brain away from the office.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for Akilah</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Gail for delivering Akilah<br /></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Akilah for being wonderful</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Miles for ‘Kind of Blue’</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Ryan for your persistence.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you John for your optimism</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Aaron for being a monstrously cool geek</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Robin being crazy, yet somehow making it work</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]--><span style="">You’re welcome Martin for my suggestion that they make you our boss and thank you for not disappointing me (and for rehiring me later).</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you fellow Web Works / Net Quotient consultants for being a cohort worth going into battle with.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Dan for taking a chance</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Sandy for your generosity</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Alan, Hal, Paresh, Pooja, Sean, Steve and Todd for being the best software development team ever assembled (and some of my absolute favorite people).</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Louisa for being awesome</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Karen for making me think about spirit</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Sandy for allowing me to live vicariously through your exploits </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Nila for challenging me</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Rob for underpaying me and knowing it</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Rob and John for being there </span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Alan for ‘American Beauty’ and the finale of ‘Six Feet Under’</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Drea for your honesty.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""></span></span><span style="">Thank you Karen for your insight.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=";font-family:Symbol;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""><span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="">Thank you Sandy for making time.</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></li><li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="">Thank you BlogNigger for trippin’ (and Karen for pointing him out to me)</span></li><li><span style="">Thank you Allison, Jason and Sarah for giving me hope that the generation between me and my kids will be able to keep those plates spinning.</span></li></ul><span style="">Thank you one and all for helping me become me!!!</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span>Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974481375695763274.post-80104545234341278832008-06-24T15:28:00.001-05:002008-06-24T16:23:55.081-05:00Cool Genius<p class="MsoNormal">Genius is essentially the capacity to perform at greater than four standard deviations above the mean in a worthwhile area of human endeavor. Cool people can be geniuses and geniuses can become cool. But neither is required to be the other. A cool person who is not a genius simply lacks the level of creativity that distinguishes true genius. A genius who is not cool most likely lacks the courage to endure the trial that often characterizes the path to becoming cool. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Geniuses obviously have the creativity and curiosity to set them out on the road to becoming cool. But most uncool geniuses probably balked at the price that circumstances typically demanded of them in order to remain true to their unconventional nature. In other words, the primary difference between a towering genius and a cowering genius is the heart that the latter lacks. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it is humanity’s loss each time a genius chooses to cower rather than tower. We all miss out whenever a brilliant idea remains hidden in a mother’s basement or an unpopular girl’s notebook. So much genius is going unrealized in this increasingly complex time when we need it more than ever.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Geniuses are often made to cower in this culture because conformity today represents joining the herd in pursuit of wealth, fame and/or power. It takes a truly courageous individual to resist the pull of the conventional quest for this unholy trinity. This is especially true among geniuses who have unique abilities that sometimes give them a leg up in this pursuit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, genius is no guarantee of success in amassing wealth, fame and/or power, unless that is the basis of a given individual’s genius. As such, most geniuses who chose to undertake this quixotic quest will eventually wind up cowering unappreciated on the roadside, often complaining about how unfair life is. Ironically, even those who are successful in this pursuit are often left unfulfilled. This is because, in abandoning or compromising their authentic selves in this endeavor, these geniuses rarely achieve their full potential.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What the world needs today are more cool geniuses. We require more brilliant people to eschew the pursuit of wealth, fame and/or power and instead courageously go wherever their genius takes them. We need them to focus on developing their genius to the fullest extent possible, though this may mean a more frugal, more obscure and less influential life than they might otherwise enjoy were they to apply their gifts to the pursuit of the unholy trinity. Once they maximize their potential, we need more of these cool geniuses to dedicate their brilliance to the betterment of those less gifted.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is by no means a thankless job, though at first glance some may see it as such. In fact, it generally represents the most fulfilling life available to a genius. What could be better than being true to yourself and making your greatest possible contribution to the betterment of the world? If your answer involves something that can only be gained via wealth, fame or power, you are probably already lost to us. </p>Captain Rationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832946179896855998noreply@blogger.com0