If Bill Gates had been born in 1492, would he have founded Microsoft?
If Adolph Hitler had sold a few more paintings, would he have been so interested in politics?
If Pope John Paul II had been born in Saudi Arabia instead of Poland, would he have been Christian?
If that awful thing hadn't occurred when you were young, would you be as wonderful as you are now?
If you had been shipwrecked on a desert island last month, would you be reading this?
If you hadn't missed that bus, could you have been run over by a taxi?
Is there such a thing as a self-made man or woman?
2011-09-27
2011-09-25
Personality Fragments
How do you decide what to think or do next?
Let's remember that action precedes consciousness (as I discussed in the article about that topic). Thus, the actual decision to think or act is not conscious. You can become aware of it having happened, of course. Your mind can even be configured to preview actions (as in “think before you speak”), but this is not the natural or default way for your brain to work. Unless you are exceedingly neurotic and hypervigilant most of your decisions will tend to take place in the natural way.
If you do something repeatedly, that action becomes internalized. For example, when you were a child it took a lot of thought to tie your shoelaces. Now, though, you don't need to think about it at all; the action has become internalized. To put it another way: you no longer bother to be conscious of the action.
This does not mean you are completely oblivious, of course. If somebody asks, “Did you tie your shoelaces?” you will usually remember having done so. Not always, of course! Sometimes someone will say, “Did you remember to lock the front door?” or “Did you turn off the stove?” and you will have no recollection whatsoever. In such cases the action was so automatic that your mind allowed other actions to dominate your attention. The memory of the action might be in your brain somewhere, but you simply cannot assemble enough of the context of the action to remember having done it.
Independent Yet Coordinated
Please recall that the mind (along with the brain) is made up of billions of independent neurons. These work in a coordinated fashion, but they are nonetheless individual cells. The mind is, in essence, a massively parallel computer made up of billions of processors. These processors are arranged into functional groupings (for language, vision, smell, emotional labelling and so on). These groupings operate asynchronously.
Consider this statement: “I saw the apple; I thought I'd like an apple; and so I picked it and then ate it.” We may remember our actions this way, but this is a vast over-simplification because while this sequence was occuring so were many other mental processes. For example, after seeing the apple your eyes may have glanced around while your mind was considering whether or not to eat it. If, during those moments of consideration, you saw a lion, the process would have been interrupted. You would not complete your apple-oriented thoughts before responding to the threat!
It should be obvious, then, that the mind does many things simultaneously. It should also be obvious that its activities can be at odds with each other — “Do I consider the lion or the apple?” — and a choice must occur.
Most choices in our lives are far less exciting than avoiding lion attacks. We might have to choose between an apple or a pear. Do we vote for this candidate or that? Do we smile at this person or not? Which of these 17 television shows do we watch, or should we do something else altogether?
Deep within the mind these choices take place. And the mind can be lazy about it. If we usually choose an apple over a pear, we will tend to do so again. There are good evolutionary reasons why we take these shortcuts: if a decision does not seem to matter much, why waste energy on it?
Choosing an apple instead of a pear is fairly simple. But what about complex issues? Do I compliment the boss on his new tie? Do I spend money on new tires for my car or risk using them for another month?
Our minds choose the actions of our lives from a maelstrom of alternatives. Different people have different patterns of choosing. These patterns are a big part of what we call their personality. Some people will tend to choose in a selfish way. Others seem to choose from a mix of 90% logic and 10% compassion. And so on.
Competing Fragments
There are countless ways to describe personality, but the key issue I wish to highlight now is that choices arise from numerous alternatives within the person. These competing alternatives are what I call “personality fragments.”
When your brain is faced with a decision these personality fragments all jostle around. One of these “wins” according to various criteria — though this does not mean that there is a central “choosing organ”! Habitual actions (like choosing an apple because you always have done so) will have an advantage, but there can be exceptions for various reasons.
Now recall that action precedes consciousness. Once the choice is made and the action takes place, your mind has to catch up to what just occurred. Now comes the process of rationalizing the choice:
Alice asks, “Why did you eat that apple?”
Bob replies, “Because apples are healthy!”
Bob is almost certainly fooling himself. He may indeed believe that apples are healthy, but it is highly unlikely that his explanation is complete or even identifies the main reason for the choice. The actual process of choosing is so far from his consciousness that he cannot accurately explain why he chose as he did. So he rationalizes.
We never know the full story of why we choose as we do. Bob may prefer apples because they remind him of a fine year during his childhood when he lived in an orchard. But he might never admit this because he has never bothered to notice the connection.
Because we cannot see the interaction of personality fragments our entire lives are fictions we make up after the fact. What we tell ourselves about our motives will always be incomplete. We can, of course, meditate deeply and obtain some additional insight into our choices. But we will never know the entire truth.
If our lives are fictions, what happens when we start to believe those fictions are true? Is this not the ground upon which ego grows? And once the ego flourishes, will the rationalizations not bend to accomodate the beliefs the ego has established as fact?
Can we see ourselves as something other than what we imagine we are? Perhaps we can, provided we recall that we didn't actually know in the first place.
Let's remember that action precedes consciousness (as I discussed in the article about that topic). Thus, the actual decision to think or act is not conscious. You can become aware of it having happened, of course. Your mind can even be configured to preview actions (as in “think before you speak”), but this is not the natural or default way for your brain to work. Unless you are exceedingly neurotic and hypervigilant most of your decisions will tend to take place in the natural way.
If you do something repeatedly, that action becomes internalized. For example, when you were a child it took a lot of thought to tie your shoelaces. Now, though, you don't need to think about it at all; the action has become internalized. To put it another way: you no longer bother to be conscious of the action.
This does not mean you are completely oblivious, of course. If somebody asks, “Did you tie your shoelaces?” you will usually remember having done so. Not always, of course! Sometimes someone will say, “Did you remember to lock the front door?” or “Did you turn off the stove?” and you will have no recollection whatsoever. In such cases the action was so automatic that your mind allowed other actions to dominate your attention. The memory of the action might be in your brain somewhere, but you simply cannot assemble enough of the context of the action to remember having done it.
Independent Yet Coordinated
Please recall that the mind (along with the brain) is made up of billions of independent neurons. These work in a coordinated fashion, but they are nonetheless individual cells. The mind is, in essence, a massively parallel computer made up of billions of processors. These processors are arranged into functional groupings (for language, vision, smell, emotional labelling and so on). These groupings operate asynchronously.
Consider this statement: “I saw the apple; I thought I'd like an apple; and so I picked it and then ate it.” We may remember our actions this way, but this is a vast over-simplification because while this sequence was occuring so were many other mental processes. For example, after seeing the apple your eyes may have glanced around while your mind was considering whether or not to eat it. If, during those moments of consideration, you saw a lion, the process would have been interrupted. You would not complete your apple-oriented thoughts before responding to the threat!
It should be obvious, then, that the mind does many things simultaneously. It should also be obvious that its activities can be at odds with each other — “Do I consider the lion or the apple?” — and a choice must occur.
Most choices in our lives are far less exciting than avoiding lion attacks. We might have to choose between an apple or a pear. Do we vote for this candidate or that? Do we smile at this person or not? Which of these 17 television shows do we watch, or should we do something else altogether?
Deep within the mind these choices take place. And the mind can be lazy about it. If we usually choose an apple over a pear, we will tend to do so again. There are good evolutionary reasons why we take these shortcuts: if a decision does not seem to matter much, why waste energy on it?
Choosing an apple instead of a pear is fairly simple. But what about complex issues? Do I compliment the boss on his new tie? Do I spend money on new tires for my car or risk using them for another month?
Our minds choose the actions of our lives from a maelstrom of alternatives. Different people have different patterns of choosing. These patterns are a big part of what we call their personality. Some people will tend to choose in a selfish way. Others seem to choose from a mix of 90% logic and 10% compassion. And so on.
Competing Fragments
There are countless ways to describe personality, but the key issue I wish to highlight now is that choices arise from numerous alternatives within the person. These competing alternatives are what I call “personality fragments.”
When your brain is faced with a decision these personality fragments all jostle around. One of these “wins” according to various criteria — though this does not mean that there is a central “choosing organ”! Habitual actions (like choosing an apple because you always have done so) will have an advantage, but there can be exceptions for various reasons.
Now recall that action precedes consciousness. Once the choice is made and the action takes place, your mind has to catch up to what just occurred. Now comes the process of rationalizing the choice:
Alice asks, “Why did you eat that apple?”
Bob replies, “Because apples are healthy!”
Bob is almost certainly fooling himself. He may indeed believe that apples are healthy, but it is highly unlikely that his explanation is complete or even identifies the main reason for the choice. The actual process of choosing is so far from his consciousness that he cannot accurately explain why he chose as he did. So he rationalizes.
We never know the full story of why we choose as we do. Bob may prefer apples because they remind him of a fine year during his childhood when he lived in an orchard. But he might never admit this because he has never bothered to notice the connection.
Because we cannot see the interaction of personality fragments our entire lives are fictions we make up after the fact. What we tell ourselves about our motives will always be incomplete. We can, of course, meditate deeply and obtain some additional insight into our choices. But we will never know the entire truth.
If our lives are fictions, what happens when we start to believe those fictions are true? Is this not the ground upon which ego grows? And once the ego flourishes, will the rationalizations not bend to accomodate the beliefs the ego has established as fact?
Can we see ourselves as something other than what we imagine we are? Perhaps we can, provided we recall that we didn't actually know in the first place.
2011-09-24
A Bunch of Stuff Happening
This is space.
This is time.
This is matter.
This is energy.
This is gravity.
This is information.
This is the universe being.
This is a Planck unit of distance.
This is a nanometer.
This is a meter.
This is a kilometer, light year, parsec.
This is a gigaparsec.
This is the universe all around.
This is a Planck unit of time.
This is a nanosecond.
This is a second, minute, hour.
This is a day, month, year, century, millenium.
This is an age, epoch, period, era, eon.
This is a supereon.
This is the universe so far.
This is a sub-atomic particle interacting.
This is an atom interacting.
This is a molecule interacting.
This is a cell interacting.
This is a brain interacting.
This is a human interacting.
This is a culture interacting.
This is human culture interacting.
This is a biological niche interacting.
This is a planet interacting.
This is the universe acting.
This is me.
This is you.
This is us.
This is this and also that.
This is the universe creating.
This is time.
This is matter.
This is energy.
This is gravity.
This is information.
This is the universe being.
This is a Planck unit of distance.
This is a nanometer.
This is a meter.
This is a kilometer, light year, parsec.
This is a gigaparsec.
This is the universe all around.
This is a Planck unit of time.
This is a nanosecond.
This is a second, minute, hour.
This is a day, month, year, century, millenium.
This is an age, epoch, period, era, eon.
This is a supereon.
This is the universe so far.
This is a sub-atomic particle interacting.
This is an atom interacting.
This is a molecule interacting.
This is a cell interacting.
This is a brain interacting.
This is a human interacting.
This is a culture interacting.
This is human culture interacting.
This is a biological niche interacting.
This is a planet interacting.
This is the universe acting.
This is me.
This is you.
This is us.
This is this and also that.
This is the universe creating.
2011-09-23
Death Ain't So Bad (Update)
Consider two phenomena in the history of humanity: the Stanford Prison Experiment and the nearly inexplicable behavior of the German people during the 1930's and early 1940's. Low points like these demonstrate even better than the high points that the individual is an expression of a larger gestalt and that individuality is over-rated.
Perhaps, for balance, I should mention a high point, too. Okay, consider the global tide of enthusiasm for love during the 1960's. It swept people along while it lasted, though its lack of staying power rather shows that it was not based on a coherent message. Nonetheless, those years also demonstrated that the individual will tend to reflect the gestalt — my highly conservative stepmother actually bought me a groovy Nehru jacket! — and that the uniqueness of individuality is over-estimated. To put it another way: we're not as separate as we might imagine we are.
I wrote about these matters during the 1980's in an article entitled Death Ain't So Bad. Since then I have been scanning scientific literature and the internet looking for scholarly treatment of this perspective. There are bits and pieces of it here and there. I see echoes of it in the writings on James Lovelock's Gaia perspective. There are writings that approach the idea on web sites dealing with memetics. But Gaia is a meme, and even the notion of “memes” is a meme. As a result, it seems to me, individuals who are enthralled with those memes tend to miss the bigger picture as it applies to them specifically.
And why would we expect anything different? Our culture (that is, our current collection of favoured memes) is predicated on the idea that we are stand-alone individuals. Yes, even Japan during the 1940's. In addition, our entire system of law is construed by some to depend on the assumption that we are individuals in this sense. You can't punish society for creating a monster, can you? Even if it did. (America, I'm looking at you. You too, Iraq. And so on, planet.)
Is this such a big deal? Does it matter? Well, one could argue that understanding how things work is always a good thing. But I have a different argument.
Mainstream religion has long dominated humanity by offering people a way out of death. Whether it deals with heaven or reincarnation, death is not presented as the final act. Science has not been so gentle with our feelings.
On the other hand, if we see ourselves as expressions of that which is larger (human culture at one level, the universe at another) then we see that only part of the system is ceasing to move forward. That which created you continues, even if your consciousness does not. And as I've previously suggested in this blog, consciousness may be nothing but a transcription process that evolution bestowed upon us because it helped us survive. We make it very personal, of course, but our conceptions can be tweaked by seeing a larger context. (Okay, now you can consider Japan in the 1940's.)
In other words, I am suggesting that we have an alternative, comforting, non-religious way to look at death.
Alas, such a suggestion is an idea. And ideas mutate. What starts as a non-religious idea can acquire fanatical adherents who want it to dominate its natural subtrate of replication (i.e. human minds). In other words, even a non-religious idea can spawn zealotry. Consider the American anti-communism fervor of the 1950's if you want an example of this!
Still, we're getting to know memes better and better. Maybe one day we'll find ourselves using them intelligently instead of having them use us. That's a self-referential feedback loop my mind cannot encompass; I spot at least one category error. But for a topic like this it's best to end of a positive note. I have a sense there's an uncodified writing meme about that.
(Man, this is badly written. Too bad I have to write all this out in a hurry.)
Perhaps, for balance, I should mention a high point, too. Okay, consider the global tide of enthusiasm for love during the 1960's. It swept people along while it lasted, though its lack of staying power rather shows that it was not based on a coherent message. Nonetheless, those years also demonstrated that the individual will tend to reflect the gestalt — my highly conservative stepmother actually bought me a groovy Nehru jacket! — and that the uniqueness of individuality is over-estimated. To put it another way: we're not as separate as we might imagine we are.
I wrote about these matters during the 1980's in an article entitled Death Ain't So Bad. Since then I have been scanning scientific literature and the internet looking for scholarly treatment of this perspective. There are bits and pieces of it here and there. I see echoes of it in the writings on James Lovelock's Gaia perspective. There are writings that approach the idea on web sites dealing with memetics. But Gaia is a meme, and even the notion of “memes” is a meme. As a result, it seems to me, individuals who are enthralled with those memes tend to miss the bigger picture as it applies to them specifically.
And why would we expect anything different? Our culture (that is, our current collection of favoured memes) is predicated on the idea that we are stand-alone individuals. Yes, even Japan during the 1940's. In addition, our entire system of law is construed by some to depend on the assumption that we are individuals in this sense. You can't punish society for creating a monster, can you? Even if it did. (America, I'm looking at you. You too, Iraq. And so on, planet.)
Is this such a big deal? Does it matter? Well, one could argue that understanding how things work is always a good thing. But I have a different argument.
Mainstream religion has long dominated humanity by offering people a way out of death. Whether it deals with heaven or reincarnation, death is not presented as the final act. Science has not been so gentle with our feelings.
On the other hand, if we see ourselves as expressions of that which is larger (human culture at one level, the universe at another) then we see that only part of the system is ceasing to move forward. That which created you continues, even if your consciousness does not. And as I've previously suggested in this blog, consciousness may be nothing but a transcription process that evolution bestowed upon us because it helped us survive. We make it very personal, of course, but our conceptions can be tweaked by seeing a larger context. (Okay, now you can consider Japan in the 1940's.)
In other words, I am suggesting that we have an alternative, comforting, non-religious way to look at death.
Alas, such a suggestion is an idea. And ideas mutate. What starts as a non-religious idea can acquire fanatical adherents who want it to dominate its natural subtrate of replication (i.e. human minds). In other words, even a non-religious idea can spawn zealotry. Consider the American anti-communism fervor of the 1950's if you want an example of this!
Still, we're getting to know memes better and better. Maybe one day we'll find ourselves using them intelligently instead of having them use us. That's a self-referential feedback loop my mind cannot encompass; I spot at least one category error. But for a topic like this it's best to end of a positive note. I have a sense there's an uncodified writing meme about that.
(Man, this is badly written. Too bad I have to write all this out in a hurry.)
2011-09-22
Tiactino Epilogue
Until you have read the article Tiactino and arrived at a realization about its subject, please do not read the rest of this epilogue — please stop here.
—————
This epilogue will be short and may seem incomplete. I will not spell things out for you. It's far better if you fill in the blanks yourself.
In the Tiactino article we discussed how we can see the world through a veil of models cobbled together from our memory of our experiences. The world ceases to be fully real to us, though until we wake up to Tiactino we scarcely notice this, or if we do notice we do not consider it significant.
Our models can tell us “facts” that are wrong. We may assume we cannot do certain things, even though we can. We might be operating with restrictions that are years out of date, or weren't accurate in the first place. If our models are used habitually they might never get assessed against reality.
Those are a few of the issues with the mental models we make. Now consider what we do with models other people give to us. Are those your eyes you're seeing through? This is a copy; this is not original.
—————
This epilogue will be short and may seem incomplete. I will not spell things out for you. It's far better if you fill in the blanks yourself.
In the Tiactino article we discussed how we can see the world through a veil of models cobbled together from our memory of our experiences. The world ceases to be fully real to us, though until we wake up to Tiactino we scarcely notice this, or if we do notice we do not consider it significant.
Our models can tell us “facts” that are wrong. We may assume we cannot do certain things, even though we can. We might be operating with restrictions that are years out of date, or weren't accurate in the first place. If our models are used habitually they might never get assessed against reality.
Those are a few of the issues with the mental models we make. Now consider what we do with models other people give to us. Are those your eyes you're seeing through? This is a copy; this is not original.
Tiactino
In December 2006, after my eight-month-long contemplative Sabattical had finally borne fruit, I became fascinated by this statement:
This is a copy; this is not original.
There seemed to be something nearly mystical about that sentence, which I will refer to hereafter as Tiactino. At the time I did not appreciate how much ground Tiactino covers, but in this article I will review some of my discoveries about it.
Tiactino could be called a concept. That is to say, I could explain to you what it means. But that is trivial; you can probably figure out most of that without me.
The important aspect of Tiactino is what I might call the non-concept of it. That is to say, its important aspect is the mental actions it points to and excludes, none of which are concerned with understanding the actual sentence. Indeed, the literal meaning of the sentence points directly away from that which I am attempting to illuminate.
I apologize if all that sounds confusing. Let me also tell you that I've heard the non-concept explained by various sages and gurus, and they've been far less clear. I can sympathize with their challenge; this is nearly impossible to talk about because it deals with the internal churnings of the mind. So mere explanations are inadequate and extremely misleading. I must demonstrate in such a way that you find yourself in the state of mind to which Tiactino is pointing.
Ready to go? Okay, let's continue.
During my Sabbatical people sometimes asked me what I was seeking. I'd tell them that I was “Looking For Reality”. Yes, I said it With Capital Letters. I didn't actually know what it meant, though. All I knew was that I needed to do it. And the non-concept of Tiactino turned out to be part of the answer.
To move towards the non-concept, let me ask you to consider this question:
How much of what we perceive is really new, and how much is second-hand?
You are reading this article on the assumption that I wrote it and that it represents my thoughts. But this is a copy on your computer screen, not the original work. It could have been altered. It seems that I'm typing this sentence here but did I actually type it or did somebody else hack into the copy and rassle frazzle beep?
Okay, that was silly, but I hope it woke you up a bit so you're ready for the more serious examples. Because in a way this is all about being awake.
Proofs of Non-Concept
In your imagination, walk out the front door of your home and look around. What do you see in your mind's eye? The neighborhood, of course. How many times have you seen it? A hundred times? A thousand, perhaps? How about a million? Would you believe ...
less than ten?
Look: I asked you to see it in your mind's eye. If you can do that, then obviously you can mentally model your neighborhood quite well. If you actually walk outside and look around, will you be seeing the actual neighborhood or your model? I say that each time you go outside you're not really seeing what's there.
If you want proof, I have it. At least, I can prove it to some people by asking them to recall a particular kind of mental experience. I do not know how many people have had this experience, but I've come to suspect that it is quite common. Here's how to set it up ...
Go on a long trip, away from your neighborhood. Drive a long, long way away — hundreds of miles — to an unfamiliar area. Take in the view. Stop for a meal. See the sights in a distant town. Then head back home. Don't forget to admire the scenery!
When you return to your neighborhood, it will look strangely different — both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. If you've ever noticed this phenomenon, you may have wondered why it happens. Well, here's why:
It looks different because you're looking at it the way you looked at the unfamiliar town. Your long trip has temporarily broken your mind out of the habit of scanning your neighborhood by looking at a few key landmarks.
You are, in fact, seeing the neighborhood for the first time. Again.
I hope you recognize the mental phenomenon I described above, because it can wake you up to the meaning of, the non-concept of, Tiactino.
Most of the time we live in a world of copies. We eat a sandwich, but it's not a new sandwich. It's an old sandwich because we've eaten countless sandwiches in our lives. This is just another one of those. This is nothing new. This is a copy; this is not original.
We hear the sound of a bird outside. But we don't hear it the way we did when we were four years old. It's just a bird! Just another bird. This is a copy; this is not original.
We get a hug from a loved one. Our mind is elsewhere. Hugs are nice, but we've had lots of hugs. This is a copy; this is not original.
We read an article that gives a series of examples and we start to skim ahead. We get the point. It's all obvious, now. We don't need yet another example. This is a copy; this is not original. We fully expect that we won't miss anything important. We might be wrong.
Where is Your Attention Now?
If you pay attention to what your mind is doing, you may start to notice that it is short-changing you. Instead of delivering fresh, new experiences you are getting predigested experiences instead.
There are countless facets to this phenomenon. I'll give a few examples below.
We label objects, people, events, and more to compress their reality into a word and/or phrase and/or image and/or feeling and/or notion. (And so on.) Having done so, we cease to fully experience their reality. (This is how prejudice and bigotry operate, obviously, but that's just the tip of the iceberg named Tiactino.)
We become accustomed to a particular activity and it ceases to amuse us. We continue doing it, hoping to get back the original thrill, but now we're modeling the process as we do it. It's no longer new; it can no longer deliver the original joy. Rusty old amusement! Tiactino!
We listen to a political debate and hear the Bad Guys spewing their usual nonsense. Who cares? There's no need to listen carefully. Let's just pick up on one error and the rest will be the same old thing. Tiactino.
We read article after article, but we don't hear what is being said, because it's just one more article by one more kook. We believe we already know what reality is, so why bother looking at it? Tiactino.
A friend meets you on the street and asks, “Did you get a haircut or something?” You inform him that you now wear glasses. Tiactino, buddy! Wake up! He looks at you as if for the first time. He appears to notice the glasses.
Some people out there will know precisely what I am talking about. It's hard to explain, but they will recognize it clearly from what I've written above. Then there are those who will think they recognize it but merely understand. Their moment will come! And, of course, some people will think this is rubbish.
If and when you get what Tiactino is pointing at, you'll know with certainty what I'm talking about. You won't merely agree that I'm correct; I'll be irrelevant because you'll know. You won't need me at all. And then you can start to reconnect with reality, as I did in December 2006 ... after decades of stupefaction.
This is a copy; this is not original.
There seemed to be something nearly mystical about that sentence, which I will refer to hereafter as Tiactino. At the time I did not appreciate how much ground Tiactino covers, but in this article I will review some of my discoveries about it.
Tiactino could be called a concept. That is to say, I could explain to you what it means. But that is trivial; you can probably figure out most of that without me.
The important aspect of Tiactino is what I might call the non-concept of it. That is to say, its important aspect is the mental actions it points to and excludes, none of which are concerned with understanding the actual sentence. Indeed, the literal meaning of the sentence points directly away from that which I am attempting to illuminate.
I apologize if all that sounds confusing. Let me also tell you that I've heard the non-concept explained by various sages and gurus, and they've been far less clear. I can sympathize with their challenge; this is nearly impossible to talk about because it deals with the internal churnings of the mind. So mere explanations are inadequate and extremely misleading. I must demonstrate in such a way that you find yourself in the state of mind to which Tiactino is pointing.
Ready to go? Okay, let's continue.
During my Sabbatical people sometimes asked me what I was seeking. I'd tell them that I was “Looking For Reality”. Yes, I said it With Capital Letters. I didn't actually know what it meant, though. All I knew was that I needed to do it. And the non-concept of Tiactino turned out to be part of the answer.
To move towards the non-concept, let me ask you to consider this question:
How much of what we perceive is really new, and how much is second-hand?
You are reading this article on the assumption that I wrote it and that it represents my thoughts. But this is a copy on your computer screen, not the original work. It could have been altered. It seems that I'm typing this sentence here but did I actually type it or did somebody else hack into the copy and rassle frazzle beep?
Okay, that was silly, but I hope it woke you up a bit so you're ready for the more serious examples. Because in a way this is all about being awake.
Proofs of Non-Concept
In your imagination, walk out the front door of your home and look around. What do you see in your mind's eye? The neighborhood, of course. How many times have you seen it? A hundred times? A thousand, perhaps? How about a million? Would you believe ...
less than ten?
Look: I asked you to see it in your mind's eye. If you can do that, then obviously you can mentally model your neighborhood quite well. If you actually walk outside and look around, will you be seeing the actual neighborhood or your model? I say that each time you go outside you're not really seeing what's there.
If you want proof, I have it. At least, I can prove it to some people by asking them to recall a particular kind of mental experience. I do not know how many people have had this experience, but I've come to suspect that it is quite common. Here's how to set it up ...
Go on a long trip, away from your neighborhood. Drive a long, long way away — hundreds of miles — to an unfamiliar area. Take in the view. Stop for a meal. See the sights in a distant town. Then head back home. Don't forget to admire the scenery!
When you return to your neighborhood, it will look strangely different — both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. If you've ever noticed this phenomenon, you may have wondered why it happens. Well, here's why:
It looks different because you're looking at it the way you looked at the unfamiliar town. Your long trip has temporarily broken your mind out of the habit of scanning your neighborhood by looking at a few key landmarks.
You are, in fact, seeing the neighborhood for the first time. Again.
I hope you recognize the mental phenomenon I described above, because it can wake you up to the meaning of, the non-concept of, Tiactino.
Most of the time we live in a world of copies. We eat a sandwich, but it's not a new sandwich. It's an old sandwich because we've eaten countless sandwiches in our lives. This is just another one of those. This is nothing new. This is a copy; this is not original.
We hear the sound of a bird outside. But we don't hear it the way we did when we were four years old. It's just a bird! Just another bird. This is a copy; this is not original.
We get a hug from a loved one. Our mind is elsewhere. Hugs are nice, but we've had lots of hugs. This is a copy; this is not original.
We read an article that gives a series of examples and we start to skim ahead. We get the point. It's all obvious, now. We don't need yet another example. This is a copy; this is not original. We fully expect that we won't miss anything important. We might be wrong.
Where is Your Attention Now?
If you pay attention to what your mind is doing, you may start to notice that it is short-changing you. Instead of delivering fresh, new experiences you are getting predigested experiences instead.
There are countless facets to this phenomenon. I'll give a few examples below.
We label objects, people, events, and more to compress their reality into a word and/or phrase and/or image and/or feeling and/or notion. (And so on.) Having done so, we cease to fully experience their reality. (This is how prejudice and bigotry operate, obviously, but that's just the tip of the iceberg named Tiactino.)
We become accustomed to a particular activity and it ceases to amuse us. We continue doing it, hoping to get back the original thrill, but now we're modeling the process as we do it. It's no longer new; it can no longer deliver the original joy. Rusty old amusement! Tiactino!
We listen to a political debate and hear the Bad Guys spewing their usual nonsense. Who cares? There's no need to listen carefully. Let's just pick up on one error and the rest will be the same old thing. Tiactino.
We read article after article, but we don't hear what is being said, because it's just one more article by one more kook. We believe we already know what reality is, so why bother looking at it? Tiactino.
A friend meets you on the street and asks, “Did you get a haircut or something?” You inform him that you now wear glasses. Tiactino, buddy! Wake up! He looks at you as if for the first time. He appears to notice the glasses.
Some people out there will know precisely what I am talking about. It's hard to explain, but they will recognize it clearly from what I've written above. Then there are those who will think they recognize it but merely understand. Their moment will come! And, of course, some people will think this is rubbish.
If and when you get what Tiactino is pointing at, you'll know with certainty what I'm talking about. You won't merely agree that I'm correct; I'll be irrelevant because you'll know. You won't need me at all. And then you can start to reconnect with reality, as I did in December 2006 ... after decades of stupefaction.
2011-09-20
The Self Meme
I received the following question from a reader:
Is the self really a meme? .... The self can exist without culture. Animals [can] have a representation of self in their nervous systems.
This is an excellent question!
Representations of Self
The correspondent is correct that animals represent themselves in their brains. A cat can survey the distance between furniture and window, visibly prepare to make the jump, then execute it flawlessly. Somewhere inside the cat there was a model that comprised all the elements of that jump.
Some people may not appreciate how wonderful it is that cats can do this. Yet I remember, with the clarity of a photograph, a moment twenty years ago when I watched a cat jump. A realization hit me: if a cat uses mental representations, then what about a mouse? What about an insect? A clam? At what level of complexity does representation come in? And what can representation and modeling teach us about the evolution of mental mechanisms and software?
The minds of humans appear more complex than those of mice or cats. For example, we not only have models of our body and other elements in the environment but we also have models of those models. We can close our eyes and imagine a jump between two ledges that exist only in our imagination. In so doing we feel little or no reference to anything physical.
In such imaginings we can also imagine that which is obviously false. We can imagine being able to “jump tall buildings in a single bound” (as the fictional Superman is able to do).
Is there an evolutionary advantage to this kind of mental activity? Daydreaming about super strength might seem like a waste of time. Nonetheless, holding in mind a false model of the self can be useful, as it allows us to ask “what if” questions for far-future planning. “What if I worked up to running 15 miles a day? Would I live longer?” To the best of my knowledge there are no non-human animals that are capable of this kind of thought.
It is, in fact, a bit misleading to call this “a false model”. It might be better to call it a speculative model. At least, it is speculative provided we remember that it is imaginary. If, on the other hand, we start believing that our own models are real, then it is worth being reminded that they are not.
The “self meme” I mentioned earlier is wrapped up in this process of speculation about what could be. The ability to do this is not, in my view, hard-wired. In my opinion, the idea of modeling false selves arose alongside language, which was itself a set of memetic accretions. (I do not dispute that our genome has altered to favour language skills.)
Seductive Models
At this point, let us make the following observation:
The more accurate a model, the more useful it can be.
This may seem self-evident, but it is not hard-wired into us. To some extent we discover it for ourselves, but as we are raised we are repeatedly taught to think more “clearly” to take advantage of the fact that a higher-resolution model will serve us better. But is this actually a case of thinking more clearly?
Ideally, yes. In practice, not always. The higher the resolution of a model, the easier it is to mix it up with reality. This can backfire on us.
For example, you may become so familiar with a good friend that you can simulate conversations with him or her in your head. You know them so well that you can model them with great fidelity. The drawback to this is that in real life, when face to face with your friend, you can end up talking to the model rather than the real person. (This can create a feedback loop of self-fulfilling expectations, but that's a matter for another article.)
This confusion can also happen with our models of ourselves. We can form images of what we are and end up treating them like reality. Consider the woman who says, “I am a Republican!” or the man who says, “I eat rare meat like a real man!” Meme-based models such as “Republican” and “real man” can turn into illusions if a person believes they are real things.
To generalize the foregoing, let me make two observations:
We can be seduced into treating imaginary objects like real objects.
The way humans treat models of self can be considered a meme.
We are taught attitudes towards our selves, such as “You are special!” But while these can be useful within the context of our culture, they are objectively false. You are not really all that special, nor are you separate from all reality in the way that most people have been taught into believing.
The idea that these illusions about self could be true can be called “the self meme”. That is to say, at some point in the history of humanity we began believing that our models were really us and we started teaching that misconception to our children.
At the core of the self meme is the idea that what we are taught about ourselves can be just as valid as what we observe of our own accord. This may be a convenient idea, but it is, ultimately, false.
Is the self really a meme? .... The self can exist without culture. Animals [can] have a representation of self in their nervous systems.
This is an excellent question!
Representations of Self
The correspondent is correct that animals represent themselves in their brains. A cat can survey the distance between furniture and window, visibly prepare to make the jump, then execute it flawlessly. Somewhere inside the cat there was a model that comprised all the elements of that jump.
Some people may not appreciate how wonderful it is that cats can do this. Yet I remember, with the clarity of a photograph, a moment twenty years ago when I watched a cat jump. A realization hit me: if a cat uses mental representations, then what about a mouse? What about an insect? A clam? At what level of complexity does representation come in? And what can representation and modeling teach us about the evolution of mental mechanisms and software?
The minds of humans appear more complex than those of mice or cats. For example, we not only have models of our body and other elements in the environment but we also have models of those models. We can close our eyes and imagine a jump between two ledges that exist only in our imagination. In so doing we feel little or no reference to anything physical.
In such imaginings we can also imagine that which is obviously false. We can imagine being able to “jump tall buildings in a single bound” (as the fictional Superman is able to do).
Is there an evolutionary advantage to this kind of mental activity? Daydreaming about super strength might seem like a waste of time. Nonetheless, holding in mind a false model of the self can be useful, as it allows us to ask “what if” questions for far-future planning. “What if I worked up to running 15 miles a day? Would I live longer?” To the best of my knowledge there are no non-human animals that are capable of this kind of thought.
It is, in fact, a bit misleading to call this “a false model”. It might be better to call it a speculative model. At least, it is speculative provided we remember that it is imaginary. If, on the other hand, we start believing that our own models are real, then it is worth being reminded that they are not.
The “self meme” I mentioned earlier is wrapped up in this process of speculation about what could be. The ability to do this is not, in my view, hard-wired. In my opinion, the idea of modeling false selves arose alongside language, which was itself a set of memetic accretions. (I do not dispute that our genome has altered to favour language skills.)
Seductive Models
At this point, let us make the following observation:
The more accurate a model, the more useful it can be.
This may seem self-evident, but it is not hard-wired into us. To some extent we discover it for ourselves, but as we are raised we are repeatedly taught to think more “clearly” to take advantage of the fact that a higher-resolution model will serve us better. But is this actually a case of thinking more clearly?
Ideally, yes. In practice, not always. The higher the resolution of a model, the easier it is to mix it up with reality. This can backfire on us.
For example, you may become so familiar with a good friend that you can simulate conversations with him or her in your head. You know them so well that you can model them with great fidelity. The drawback to this is that in real life, when face to face with your friend, you can end up talking to the model rather than the real person. (This can create a feedback loop of self-fulfilling expectations, but that's a matter for another article.)
This confusion can also happen with our models of ourselves. We can form images of what we are and end up treating them like reality. Consider the woman who says, “I am a Republican!” or the man who says, “I eat rare meat like a real man!” Meme-based models such as “Republican” and “real man” can turn into illusions if a person believes they are real things.
To generalize the foregoing, let me make two observations:
We can be seduced into treating imaginary objects like real objects.
The way humans treat models of self can be considered a meme.
We are taught attitudes towards our selves, such as “You are special!” But while these can be useful within the context of our culture, they are objectively false. You are not really all that special, nor are you separate from all reality in the way that most people have been taught into believing.
The idea that these illusions about self could be true can be called “the self meme”. That is to say, at some point in the history of humanity we began believing that our models were really us and we started teaching that misconception to our children.
At the core of the self meme is the idea that what we are taught about ourselves can be just as valid as what we observe of our own accord. This may be a convenient idea, but it is, ultimately, false.
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