on humanism and environmental crisis

Posts tagged ‘evolution mechanism’

Subjective, objective – which is which?

I am interested in human intelligence as it evolved from the animal intelligence. What are our abilities and our constraints? Looking into the past, into the nature of our world, who did what?  Which part is done by animals: colors, for sure?  Fear and pleasure, certainly? But reality??

The brain of mammals, our ancestors, is huge, compared with other animals, and is mostly consisting of neurons handling sensory perceptions and the interpretation of the perceptions in the view of survival/ adaptation benefits.  Attached to this behemoth are the ganglia ( we call them “old brain” but for the mammal, they are actually new), the neural centers responsible for the emotions. The animal “tries” to figure out constantly what is going on and if so, what to do. When a lion attacks, the sensory data combine with behavior menu and emotional impulses like fear and hunger.  We associate these actions, like emotions or feelings with the events going on inside us, in the head, in the chest, or heart, but with the animals, they are obviously ” out there”, as a part of the animal’s environment.

So, animal brain creates real world  with the brain which works on instincts and emotions? This does not make any sense. How that type of the brain can create solid objects, trees, antelopes etc.  Also, to confuse things even more, we think about the emotions and feelings as subjective, but subjective is related to reflective thinking and the robust self, while the animals just do not have the necessary brain structures (or minimal).

It looks like the split between subjective and objective is the part of the development of the human mind, and therefore is artificial. What’s worse that the new, invented part is an objective part.

Well, let’s put some order into this mess, an upside down order that is. When we build, as infants, our world around us we do not develop the “permanence of the objects”. We develop the world of impermanence. It is the world which we call the subjectivity, the one which changes, it resides in our “mind” or even “heart”, it is related to the development of self and reflective thinking. The brain we use to develop this new human quality is the newest part of the brain- prefrontal areas, verbal areas, the empathic brain. Animals do not have it, or have very little of it.

On the other hand, young human infant’s brain is like animal’s:  literal, permanent and real. It has no good feel for time- this comes much later. Her world occurs outside, feels objective and real and its complexity depends on the complexity of the animal (or the age- level of the development of the infant.) For the low complexity organisms even if feels real- the only world they have- it is very different than our reality.

The concept of dimensions, for example, develops one by one ( a simple bacteria detecting ony concentration of the chemical, i.e. distance, i.e. one dimension, E.coli can orient itself and has buding of tri-dimensional sensory). These realities, “Umwelts” (Uexküll) consist of gradually increasing number of elements and interactions and are built for survival, that is the organism’s niche. ( the idea that the world and the niche is the same deserves separate attention, no?- not I and thou but I and my niche!)

It seems that the objective world is just the evolutionary construct of the subjective experiences of our ancestors. As their ability to socialize and communicate increased they built something more sophisticated than bee’s beehive: the whole virtual shared world, our objectivity. How far back this construct reaches?  It reaches further and further back, as our understanding broadens, our science reaches deeper into cosmos and time and consciousness.

Our objective world is shared with the member of the species. Our sharing is vastly superior than animal’s world because of social connections via language and culture. Animals sharing is limited to social adaptive traits. So the lion and antelope do not see the same tree, even two antelopes see only as much of a “tree” as evolutionary minimally necessary.

This, when you think about it, puts all reality concepts upside-down and the consequences are mindblowing.

Category:

Evolutionary Reality, Explicit and implicit worldview, free will, human nature, nature of reality, phenomenology, Worldview Owner's Manual

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Lunch with Derrida ( Human Nature Grilled)

It seems that philosophy has been obsessed with human nature since the beginning of time. And, as times and philosophy change, so does the concept of human nature.
From Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) “Nichomachean Ethics” to Hume’s “A Treatise of Human Nature” (1738) human nature means just the way we understand and know the World, which includes all- ontology, axiology, praxeology, and epistemology. For Darwin (The Descent of Man- 1871) human nature is mostly about how we differ from the monkey, and how we came to have common ancestors. By the way, it looks that, the humanity is getting over this offensive detail of our nature. For E.O.Wilson ( On Human Nature-1971) it is about humans with their qualities to form the pinnacle of the evolutionary and the sociobiological process. For Chomsky, human nature represents an innate neurobiological structure responsible for the development of language. For me, human nature is all the above, but most importantly I see a human being as the evolutionary marvel, able to reflect on him- or herself, and to consciously build a personal world around and with the free will – own life.
This concept was discussed in the domains of biology, history, evolution, theology, and sociology and now the postmodernists want to take it away from us? Derrida in “Differance” denies the importance of humans interest in their history or biology. Absurdly, he preaches the absolute supremacy of text which, he thinks, means everything- but as there is no meaning- so ultimately- it means nothing. He says: “Differance is neither a word nor a concept. In it , however, we shall see the juncture-rather than summation-of what has been most decisively inscribed in the thought of what is conveniently call our “epoch”: the difference of forces in Nietzsche, Saussure’s principle of semiological difference, etc, etc”. (p130, I could not find a better quote). Of course, postmodernists question human nature but also the subject, truth, and moral standards. It is difficult to argue if the person you want to argue with, questions the argument itself, the process of arguing and the existence of the opponent.
Michel Foucault as the social historian and phenomenologist is less radical:
“It was not by studying human nature that linguists discovered the laws of consonant mutation, or Freud the principles of the analysis of dreams, or cultural anthropologists the structure of myths. In the history of knowledge, the notion of human nature seems to me mainly to have played the role of an epistemological indicator to designate certain types of discourse in relation to or in opposition to theology or biology or history. I would find it difficult to see in this a scientific concept.” (1971 debate, excerpts). And, actually, I agree with him about human nature being “an intellectual tool” rather than a biological or moral entity. During their famous debate, Noam Chomsky tried to defend the notion of human nature and pointed to the quality of creativity as the basic, innate human faculty responsible for the creation of the language, which made the culture and civilization possible.
For Foucault the forces behind human civilization are not personal, he sees discoveries and the changes as the inevitable result of societal progress. According to him human nature is just a “shopping list of science.”; humans can not not create anything, until the mechanism of the economy, politics, and psychological development of masses made it possible.
In my opinion, we should keep exploring the concept of human nature. With the progress in global education, improved critical thinking, people have become more and more individualistic, making their own decisions. The awareness of our cultural and sociobiological heritage, of our qualities and capacities for good and evil is very important in this age of the planetary crisis.
Human nature might be not a real thing, but as with the crisis in religious dogmas we are searching for origins of good, it would be useful to recognize the common origins of our character and values, pan-human brotherhood. And postmodernism is of not much of help, may be only by giving us the list of values one can question and telling us what humanity is not.

For myself, I would like to know that I can figure out my place in the world and my plan for action, conscious, deliberate and passionate action. This will be my human nature. And I wish that the people around me would do the same.
Or, would they rather go to lunch with Derrida???

Category:

Explicit and implicit worldview, human nature, Humanism, nature of reality, Worldview Owner's Manual

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Big Question #10: What is the role of evolution?

Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one’s intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! This is, therefore, the motto of the enlightenment…

 Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

“We are what we are, we see what we see, and we know what we know, because of the evolution and according to the evolution.  Any scientific or philosophical discussion ignoring evolution is naive and lame. ” -Me

Subquestions and everyday relevance

  • Why things change?
  • Is there a trend?
  • Is there a purpose?
  • Can human mind evolve?
  • Is the history, the civilization, the Universe in its nature linear or circular?
  • How is this question relevant to our everyday life?

(It is not, you can live happily without being bothered by the idea of the evolution.)

How to work on the answer to Question #10

That is the only Big Question, which is not the part of the classical, unanswerable, basic questions of the mankind.  Adding this question to our list was partly personal, as I have studied evolution for the last 30 years, but beyond the personal, I think, the evolutionary look at the world is the part of any rational worldview.

 Examples of answers:

Ann Marshall: “To keep things interesting for God”

Linda Gambill: “To nudge us to look at the little sticker on the windshield that reminds us to change the oil.”

View more answers on Philozophy.com

Psychotherapy

Many our problems stem from the fact that we are so dreadfully close to them. They just sit in front of our fat noses and we can not see anything beyond them. Evolutionary thinking gives you a broader perspective. Modern human is also called homo historicus, as the species which has the history. But we can now look deeper and broader than history, we can look into the history of life on Earth, into cosmic space, into subatomic world, into time itself. Won’t it feel good?

 

An Interview

Well, the planned interview is not coming. I wanted to talk to Clement Vidal, a Belgian philosopher who wrote about the future worlds, evolution, worldview, and complexity. Here is my letter:

“Dear Clement, I read with the great interest your article about the worldview. I think you created the monster! You single handed created a new branch of philosophy; the philosophy of the worldview, with its own methodology, history and a purpose. this is great, this is needed. The people have a lot of difficulties when it comes  to creating the personal explicit worldview. But, I think, this work is rewarding, and the world would be a better place if more people work on it. It is why I and my daughter Sophia created Philozophy.com. Now I am writing a companion paper called “Worldview Owner’s Manual”. I am trying to shift from the attempts to improve on Aristotle, do unanswerable answers, towards something like savoir vivre  in the broad and literary sense ( I mean after one figured out how to hold the fork), something useful and beneficial for the participant. In the first part,  I am discussing the general issues, like what is the worldview and why one should write it down, etc. In the second part, there are 13 short chapters each for one of our Big Questions. At the end of each chapter, there is a “guest’s interview, an essay or a worldview story”. Again, rather than pure philosophy, I prefer personal insight or story.  The length varies- 1 to even 5 or more pages.

Some of the chapters are finished (need editing badly), some need badly to be written.
All this you can find on my blog evolutionandmeandyou.com under Worldview Owner’s Manual and in posts. Big Question # 10 is “What is the role of evolution?” I would be honored if you’d write something to finish that chapter because you are the best. But you are probably too busy to do it. So maybe I could call you and interview you on this subject (15-20 min), transcribe it the best I can and with your permission and approval, stick it there? Tom”.
He did not answer, so to avoid an empty page in this book I had to write something.
One of the best books I read about evolution is Adam Frank’s “About time”. It shows how human culture and the way of life parallel scientific discoveries. It is 158 years since Darwin’s famous book was published. Since then the view of the world slowly transforming, life forms disappearing, new ones appearing creating the magnificent tree of life connected and explained like never before is seeping into our brains, our culture and our language. It is not that it is difficult to understand what Darwin was saying. It is that every generation in our global culture slowly sinks deeper and deeper in the evolutionary understanding of the world. Scientific discoveries like the fireworks lit the road of the slow process of changing peoples minds, every generation a little bit further.
The genetics is now household concept, the dating of fossils, the background radiation, nuclear energy, and weapons- all these have no sense whatsoever without evolution. And yet more than 50% of Americans do not accept evolution. So fundamental is the role of evolution, it requires, often subconsciously, to rebuilt your vision of the universe and of ourselves from the ground up. The similar process occurred in our implicit sense of cosmos. The Earth was always stable, solid and unchangeable( even if balancing on the Great Turtle) with the Sun and Heavens looking benevolently from above. Then, slowly, over the last five centuries, the Earth moved, then the Planets, then the Suns and Galaxies and Universes swirling around us madly with deeper and deeper disregard for little bi-pedals. Similarly, we saw ourselves as unchangeable, as part of the family, we wanted our children to live better, but we saw our lives tougher than good old days of our parents and ancestors. With the invention of the history, we, for the first time, saw that the old times could have been quite different, maybe not so good. But surely the people were the same! Then, we, slowly again, started to worry about the other cultures about the “primitives” and “aborigines” and then Darwin shocked us with his crazy theory. Now we have to digest that our intelligence changed, from cave man to present, so will it change again in the future. We have to digest that our sensory mechanism changed, we see different things than the animals. According to neuroscience, our emotional and social brain changed.  And now how about a spiritual brain, how about the sense of reality,  the sense of freedom and individuality, All because of these prefrontals and reflective thinking and this obnoxious and annoying SELF…. After a century and a half, we just started to seriously grapple with this evolutionary worldview transformation, I guess we need to ask Millenials?

Category:

Evolutionary Reality, Explicit and implicit worldview, human nature, nature of reality, Worldview Owner's Manual

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Humanists and Extrahumanists

 

         Let’s stop dividing people into theists and atheists. By referencing something, we automatically validate it, it is why the term “atheism” is self-destructing, as one describes oneself by the term denoting the absence of god while one does not believe god exists! For me the term “atheist” is meaningless.

        The term humanist is the best- better than naturalist, atheist, freethinker, etc.- it is species-specific, solid and logical. It should be an “umbrella” term, similarly like theists (or extrahumanists)  have their religions, cults, and sects.  Let’s talk about  humanists and extrahumanists.

          Humanists are the people who see the source of the goodness and morality inside the nature of human being. This nature was build for eons by evolution, later modified by culture and endless tapestry of the earth’s civilizations. It includes all the instincts and wisdom of our ancestors, the heroes, the kings and the prophets, down to everybody’s  dad and mom. Everybody contributed and now it is our time to carry on.

 

           Extrahumanists are the people who see the source of the morality and ethics in a message from an intelligence higher than humans, actually infinitely higher.  This source, they believe,  is beyond evolution created human mind, it is all powerful God or gods, or aliens, or Heavens, or just unknown Order or Force permeating all the Universe. By definition and by design, this intelligence, which is the source of scriptures and their moral messages, is beyond the capacity of the human brain to comprehend, so its nature and its reasoning are unknown; they are the subject of faith and speculations. Scriptures tell the faithful what to do, but they give very few details about the origins of the message, say why we should not work on Sunday, or Friday or Saturday (depending on the God). And, again according to the extrahumanists, humans should not even attempt to completely figure all this out, they would not be able to understand it. So the extrahumanists are assured (or assure themselves) that that higher intelligence will take care of them, and maybe even of us poor humanists. They will listen to the message of the Lord, act accordingly, and go to heaven. Naturally, historically and ethnically, different sources or deities suggest different things to do. No surprise. On the mythical and ethnic level, these suggestions may be locally and temporally quite beneficial for the faithful, but may be very unpopular for the rest of humanity. These mythologies and rituals, while often beautiful and sentimental, also tend to become, by and by, pretty ridiculous and embarrassing as the times change.

         It might appear that there is the attitude which do not fit either of the two groups. Some scientists and other materialists just refuse to engage into philosophy. They are out to discover the laws or the things in the world leaving the philosophical quibble to the lowly humanities. If pressed, they usually agree that they assume some order in nature. Obviously, we do not know, will never know everything, but what we know is built by the animal, and then human intelligence, therefore they are humanists by default.

 

          Defining somebody’s worldview by pointing to what he or she does not believe, does not make any sense.  As a humanist, I have plenty of ideas to explore, beliefs and doubts, but it is useless to discuss things which do not exist. So do not call me a-theist, as I am not calling you a-humanist. Like in the restaurant, it would be odd to concentrate discussion on the dishes we will not order, or are not even on the menu. Anyway, the content of the message is the most important, the ethics and the values, while the quibble about the source may be irrelevant. It seems that across all religions and spiritual systems, the more contemplative the training, the deeper the level, the more barriers fall away and all the messages become the same. Perhaps it is  because their origin is the core of the human nature.

           Exploring these messages, including mythology and wisdom of all religions and philosophies, examining the human nature with the human mind not only discovers the unifying goodness and beauty but creates it (ie, goodness & beauty) in the process. Like, searching for the meaning of life makes it meaningful, or, according to modern phenomenologists – “living is making sense”.

Category:

Humanism, nature of reality, What will happen to the mankind

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What we need to unlearn

What do we need to unlearn

By 2050 and maybe sooner the humans need to unlearn a few things:

  1. some people are yours and others are different kind
  2. if things are unfair you can try use force
  3. money makes you safer
  4. poor people are dangerous
  5. people of your kind make you safer, the more of them the better
  6. dying is always sad and bad
  7. conversation about quality of life is a taboo
  8. we are free to have any weapon we want
  9. we are free to teach children anything we want
  10. we are free to buy whatever we want
  11. the more you play the happier you are
  12. in danger you can always call your God and you feel better
  13. if an experience is deeply personal and moving you call it religious

and learn few things:

  1. how to share our worlds, what we know and what we have and what we do.
  2. how to teach children about families and learning
  3. how to create strong families
  4. that the friendship produces cooperation , but not other way around
  5. how to create strong friendships
  6. how to create democracies, local and global

If we are ok by 2050- think of this as a Houdini escape.

Early Hominids, Hunter-gatherers, I think they are the inventors of the friendship. This new type of the relationship was beyond the power structure of the wolves’ pack. It was a skill highly beneficial for the group’s well being, learned during the childhood and the adolescence, sinking in the genetic code during the last million years. The friendship is the kind of love which is non kinship related, non- sexual, and non- spiritual, but it rewards the participants with most of pleasures, the gratification and fulfilments of love . It is centered on the cooperation.

The cooperation make friendship fun and the friendship makes cooperation fun. We need a renaissance of the friendship- the only way out.

My friend and teacher, Dr. Guo thinks there is no crisis- the same circular history in 5000 year history of China.

It seems that 3 billions of people in Far East believe in the circular history, so there is no worry, 1 billion Muslim believe that they will conquer the rest, so there is no worry, 1 billion Westerners believe that, if the Disaster comes, they will survive because of money and technology, so there is no worry, others are weak and poor and few so their opinion does not count.

I think there is crisis. I think it was always there together with the solution.

Early hominids started proto-civilisation with the development of the complexity of the nervous system reflecting the complexity of the society, with the metaphors, language and technology.

It took many civilizations to grow and fold, many cultures to flourish, and die, involving more and more of the population and resources.

Kurt Johnson believes that in the core of the deepest mystical exploration all religions are the same. With his idea of the Interspirituality all boundaries will fall away : religions, nationalism, racism, maybe others? It is good that these guys, the enlightened mystics, the monks, the meditators are there, better few dozen than nobody, but what about the rest of us?

Also it is amazing and wonderful if to these guys , each appropriate god is saying the same thing. It is interesting from the neuroscience point of view. But for this revelation they still rely on the message from god. We are relieved that the message for them is “love, love, blah blah, no violence, compassion, etc”, but why, and for how long? We do not understand god, can not guess him, so anytime and anyplace,  maybe tomorrow , or to other guys he or she will say “what would Jesus bomb?”.

Turn on your TV and see if my idea is purely theoretical….

So the religions, by following and relying on the god’s message, are intrinsically toxic and evil.

All these wonderful, best people, my brother Piotrus, my late Mom, Andrew Harvey and Dalai Lama, they all build walls. They allow the bombing (God bless USA) and beheading (Allah Akbar), because- “we just do what our god tells us to do” and “ it is clearly written”, and “ we swear on the scriptures, we are right”. And we can not tell them, “you are wrong, you uncouth primitives”, because these wonderful people, together with Kurt Johnson, are saying exactly the same thing!

Our only chance is that the last million years have build-in the critical thinking, the reflective thinking and the ability to be friend, in our core nature ( the kinship and cooperation are in our genes, that’s for sure, the ants and E.O. Wilson confirm it ). Or, I am wrong, an optimist and utopian, one million years is pretty short time for the evolution and other “survival” traits of fear and greed and seeking power and mate are stronger….

And, frightening as it is, all these latter traits are the base for the development of spirituality and religions!

Category:

What will happen to the mankind

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Aside

TER (towards evolutionary reality)- the concepts of time and explicitness

Many complicated concept are greatly simplified and demystified.

The time.

The Universe is still. It is such  and such, mathematically pure and complete.

It is completely implicit, no communications, no axioms, conventions, paradigms.

As I am trying to understand it , I am doing it in the way my mind allows me to do it.

I am naming , making sense, categorising, communicating.

This creates my Universe, the only reality I can get.

I have been creating this and learning about this reality since birth.

Now, almost 70 year old, I believe that that process is common for all beings.

All beings who have nervous system,  create their Universes with the a marked degree of explicitness.

It is possible to prove this by examining their nervous system and find  some description of the reality or understanding.

As we would use our mind for this investigations, we’d find that even very primitive  beings

would “use’ two categories very familiar for us.

1. good-bad category

2. Level of intensity category.

Both of them contain the concept of time in them:

1. “Good” means – live longer- means- bigger number of behaviors/ experiences/ choices/units of understanding/ chances to multiply between birth and death.

2. “Intensity” divides immediately into the energy concentration, distance( space) and time.

This will tell how many of these behaviors can be packed between birth and death.

So, so simple- this is the origin and nature of time in the intellicentrism. Without doing something, without understanding, making sense of something what is time good for.

Remember: there is no Nobody Universe!

The explicitness.

Simple behaviors/experiences/units of understanding shift from implicit to explicit rapidly.

In one pocket you have 2 dollars and in other also 2. Your being 4 dollars worth is completely implicit. Then , ka-boom- you pulled them out – everybody sees 4 dollars, or you just say “ I have 4 dollars” or  just 2+2= 4. or you scribble this on the blackboard- whatever you do – the shift to explicit is rapid and complete. The communication is full across very broad social spectrum. At least most humans , excluding the infants and imbecils, will get it. You feel kind of strange- implicit- then you think- I know , I am hungry!- more explicit, but except for you and your wife, nobody knows. Then you shout”I am hungry”, then you tweet it to the whole Universe, then additionally you gesture ‘ mangiare, mangiare”- more and more explicit. But the concept is more complex and communication less complete, less explicit. (see also “implicit and explicit worldviews”)

With the evolutionary march of complexity, the level of the explicity is very important. The animal’s expression of its life purpose  is mostly implicit- it is the sum of its behaviors experienced by its parents, mates , offsprings and the rest of the social group. Very, very few of these behaviors have the characteristics of communication, even fewer , of the metaphor.

But still, the nervous system has the ability to mushroom complexity relatively easily by increase of explicity, that the other systems of the nature just have no chance. The development of the metaphor, then language, then the culture, then reflective thinking, is so energetically cheap that the rest of the all life systems(eyes, necks, crocodiles, birds and monkeys, civilizations, et caetera, et caetera ) practically stop evolving.

Also, most of the systems have clear evolutionary constrains:

the neck can be only so long – see giraffe’s dilemma,

the brain can be only so large- see pelvic dilemma,

the  population can be only so large- see Malthus, or year 2050 dilemma.

But explicity? Can you see the limits of the depth of communication, closiness of relationships, or how much you understand or love? And all of these with the shift of the hierarchy of the few synapses and a smile.

Written

on July 8, 2014

Would Jesus like TER?

 

Would Jesus like TER (towards evolutionary reality)

I think so, and Buddha would for sure.

 

Basic principles of the evo-real worldview:

 

1.In my worldview the material reality is dominated by or dependent to immaterial ideas. For example:my catholic catechism: “the world was created from nothing for us to experience and enjoy”.

or Howard Thurman: “ Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

or Roald Dahl: “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”.

 

2. All beings (past, present and future)  live in same world, they share same reality.

 

3. The Science needs to be compatible with our understanding and the worldview. We can not anymore afford “agreement on disagreement” or “taking the religion with the grain of salt’ or “wink of the eye”. The science without philosophy have ruined our culture and our planet over the last 500 years of the hypocritic truce. We have to reverse it and it is not a moment too soon. The TEO is scientific idealism.

 

4. .The concept of “my Universe”  or “the way I see the evolution of the function of the brain”, is absolutely central for my understanding of the world, my feelings and my purpose.

 

5. I relate to you, to you, to you, my Mom, to you my Father as a mirror image to seeing myself, this understanding me or the evolutionary me. So, this is me and you. Yes, you. The more we know each other, the better friends we’d become. One on one. As soon as we create “us” it is because of fear of “them”.

6. My Universe , which I have been building since conception, consists of the experience/ information taken from beings I have related to, directly or indirectly. My universe also contributes to the universes of these beings. Obviously, my Universe is my project, my purpose, my legacy and my immortality.

 

7. When I die, nothing much will change. I will continue to be part of the Universe of these beings. It brings responsibility, purpose but also great lightness.

 

8.TER-kind of exaggerated existentialism- is weird, counter-intuitive and radical.  Even me, who invented it, and dwells in it for ages,. sometimes I believe in it, and everything seems to “click” in harmony, and sometimes the routine and convention takes over, then I doubt and want to give up.

 

 

Category:

Evolutionary Reality, Explicit and implicit worldview, free will, nature of reality

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TER (towards evolutionary reality) and free will

Our beloved science describes the world better and better. Every day this or that puzzle is solved and the mechanism underlying world’s workings explained.

This includes human behavior- which means our actions.

If science explained it- were our decisions just an illusion of the free will?

Maybe not completely, science doesn’t know everything… yet. But, the smarter we get,  is the amount of the free will shrinking?

Or, while subjectively, we feel like we decide, but really, really- is it not all determined by the complex world machinery? Or some other Omnipotence?

TER, with the mechanisms of the evolution as the underlying principles, is not a new science. It is difficult to call it philosophy- it is too simple, it is kind of attitude or mental trick. But it is very dramatic and counterintuitive, it actually shatters basic common sense.

According to TER, every animal, including humans, with birth , starts building its own universe. It uses its genetics,  instincts, the perception and  the interaction with other animals to build its world. It is the only reality the nervous system can build- with evolutionary constrains- solid and reliable- best for survival.

In human , which is a hypersocial species, the input of others is immense and tightly woven with personal learning. My universe is mine but also my parents’, brothers, friends,

ancestors, teachers, leaders, artists, also monkeys, fish and sponges.

What’s dramatic and truly mind-boggling is, that there is no Nobody’s Universe.

Just mine and yours, and yours and yours- everybody’s Universes  mixed.


There is no division into subjectivity and objectivity. My Universe is real, scientific and built by me. There is no free will questions and problems. I keep building it to be happy and to make you happy, this is my pride and responsibility and concern. In the evolutionary objectivity the free will exist by definition, no matter how much will be “explained’ by science.

The foreboding world-machinery with its predeterminism is snugly tucked inside my worldview and my actions and my figuring things out continuously shift my reality.

Category:

Evolutionary Reality, free will, nature of reality

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Towards Evolutionary Reality. Basic concepts.

Towards Evolutionary Reality. Basic concepts

The TER is about my universe. So the first assumption is that your universe is similar enough to mine, so the concepts of my universe are relevant for you.

My universe is the one I created and built since my birth And I am still learning about that universe more and more and I am learning also about the process of building it.

I trust that what I learn is true- but to the degree, as the picture changes all the time.

Of course some parts change more, other less, still other seems to be “so true’, that they can not possibly change.

Also some parts are conscious, some not, some I know and remember about, others I do not know or I forgot  them.

During the process of figuring out my Universe I use my Mind.  It looks that this is the name I use to put together  all my figuring out faculties. This is all very vague and seem to be culturally and civilisation- dependant, but generally different parts of my universe correspond to different parts of my Mind. The Consciousness and Unconsciousness correspond to the conscious and unconscious universes of mine.

The perception usually attaches to the real, material world, the thinking produces intellectual universe, the soul- the connection to the divine and the immortal, etc, etc…

Most of my universe I learned from others-the ancestors,  the parents, the teachers, the books, and now- from Google. All this material has ultimately identical origin- from somebody else’s universe, which is built and structured very similarly to mine .

One of the most profound teachings I learned about my Universe is related to the evolution.

It helps me to understand such difficult concepts like energy, time and space.

I see myself as an evolution-created creature trying to figure out my Universe. I think it is an evolved form of the “attempt to survive”.

It is what all animals do , all the time. They are trying to figure out their  Universe in the attempt to survive. The behaviors promoting this goal have inbuilt pleasure incentive, doing otherwise produces pain.

Each of them has its Mind , which directs the behavior.

Now with going back in time, the discussion become linguistically tricky. We shift the names according to the animal’s complexity. For the caveman the”mind” is ok, but for the bat?

All it has (dr.Nagel, au secours!) is the perception, some memory and the instinct.

I believe, that all three are forms of the behavior.

The instinct contains the behaviors genetically and epigenetically selected by evolution, these neural networks should include the metabolism, motor patterns, neurotransmitters flow (“feelings”) and perception system settings and data.

The memory has behaviors from the past, successful and not- the learning history.

The perception has the same behavioral content except it is connected with the neural network denoting “present time” and “near future” combined with “positive planned outcome”.

If we look deeper into, say, bacteria- the same pattern will work, but simpler.

So simple, that maybe can be tested and proved or disproved.

This is an interesting way of thinking – kind of evolutionary form of

cartesian reductionism.  Instead of breaking the matter into smaller and simpler pieces in order to understand the whole thing, one goes back in the evolutionary time examining simpler and simpler organisms.

It uses our understanding of the evolutionary process.

1. the evolution improves efficiency with tiny steps, it can not shift/exchange a principle or a basic mechanism.

2. all we see are winning behaviors, losers died away, if we see “loser” it means that the evolutionary behavior boundaries were poorly understood.  The behaviors go across the organism, organs or the culture. These are our boundaries invented by us to help to understand, not the evolution’s .

3. The time, the evolution, the complexity and the entropy has the same “arrow”, why?, our process of the understanding has the opposite. These concepts helped us to understand and organise the universe, while reaching further and further in space and time with our science.

The biocentrism postulates that the life created matter. This is revolutionary, this is fantastic. What is most extraordinary that Dr. Lanza and others before and after him, developed the idea on the base of the understanding of quantum physics.

I got it through the understanding of the evolution.

Heylighen, Clement and Gershenson with their complexity science and systems theory are very close to it.

Goswami and Meher Baba with their spiritual paths are practically saying the same.

Still, it is so preposterous, nobody pays any attention.

Basic concepts of the TER are biological. Not philosophical( like Kant’s) not mathematical or physical, not thermodynamical or experiential or spiritual. Biological and secondarily- social.

I am me, and not you, but your experience is like mine. This is this and that is that. And not otherwise around.

And this is my Universe, not yours, not my Mom’s, not my grandson’s.

It is not  the Universe I saw as a baby, or as an embryo. Not the bat’s Universe.

When I and a bat are in the same cave , we both see real cave, completely different,  two perfect, hard realities in the same time, the same place.

Do we need to worry that when we both (the bat and I) leave the cave , it disappears? And which one is left as Nobody’s cave.

It looks how I see it. It lays inside my understanding. It is true, it is one, it is real.

It is not an illusion, the illusion implies the existence of the second world behind , the real one.

So, it is similar to the biocentrism, but not exactly the same.

It is not that the life crated matter.

Neither life , nor the matter are independent or even prominent entities in my understanding,

The matter of scientists it is just play of words, you can not touch it, the relationships between the forces, complexity and the energy.The matter of normal people is the trick of the senses invented 400 million years ago , somewhere  about the Cambrian Explosion.

The evolutionary algorithm works independently of the matter and life.

When I was conceived,  the complexity, the time and the energy/space started as me.

I guess, the same happened to the first one- my imagination sees this process extended and stretched for billions of years- more and more of the first one, of the first live organism , of the first conscious one, of the first me.

So there is my universe, and I believe there is your universe, but I do not think there is Nobody’s Universe.

It is not the life that created it, not the consciousness, these are biological concepts.While the basic assumptions of the TER are biological.( or “organic”) the “flip” is not biological, I am not discovering any biological properties, this is philosophical, it is my understanding that created it. So my universe is not in my head, it is conceptual, it is everywhere, reaching back to the immobile, pre- time, pre-energy the mathematical universe of possibility.

It is preposterous , but the implications are practical. (see: “TER- how to act”).

1.1.2014

The Evolution explains the origins and the function of the nervous system.

In the pre- NS world, the interplay between the environment and the organism determines the survival. With increased complexity of the organism the repertoire of the adaptive reactions increased both in spatial and in the temporal realms.

In pre-NS world the changes of the environment and organisms adaptive reactions are random.

To relate these environment’s  changes to organism’s action you need the behavior.

The behavior includes the information about the environment’s changes (the niche) the ways to remember them , organisms action and the way to remember it. Intent/ reward system is also included very early. These information processing “ need” “ pushed”  the development of the nervous system.

So, as I understand this, the content of the organism’s nervous system are these information pieces or neural networks organised in systems  being actually behaviors.This is organism’s Universe with the intent/reward system unifying them into an agent, (in more complex organisms it become “I” or consciousness)

These Universes overlap , as the experiences overlap, depending on the complexity and socialization  of the organism. This is so simple , especially comparing to the Quantum- everything world. Well, with the Human World it is slightly more complicated , as we are v.v. complex and v.v. hypersocial- so we created from those overlapping experiences this Nobody’s Universe, we call real.

To summarize:

As a “modern human” I automatically divide the experiences into two types.

One world is my subjectivity, my inside World. There, my mental faculties can distinguish different  parts : my perceptions, my feelings, my memories, my beliefs, my consciousness.

The other world is the outside World .

The animals  have mostly outside world- their reality. The higher animals have more memory and emotions, but a simple worm- only outside, real, true, worm- independent World. Of course our worm is deeply wrong- her primitive nervous system tells her : eat, stop, go, eat- what kind of world it is?

Well, as a 2 week old embryo, I was not much smarter, even as a baby, the world was simple and unified : eat, stop, sleep, cry…

Then my mental faculties, around 6 to 8 month of age made the split: inside vs outside.

I believe it is only one world. My universe- real, and perceived  by different mental faculties like pictures in a kaleidoscope-the dreams, the forests, the angels, the angers, Plato and my daughters- then my brain will ( partly unconsciously) sort this out. It will use multiple filters- usability, reliability, probability, categories, personal experience etc.

I believe your Universe is similar, and Sox’s my cat’s and the simple worm’s.

And there is no Nobody’s World.

The consequences of this theory I described in “TER how to act” in my blog.

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Evolutionary Reality, Uncategorized

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Evolutionary Algorithm

I have been talking to Peter Brown about Beinhocker book “The Origins of Wealth” . They say “variation, amplification, selection”.

Amplification is first and only premise, variation and and selection are computer settings, in vivo they are the results of the evolution.

    Amplification means that you get more and more of the same thing.

“The same thing” concept clarification is absolutely crucial.

19th century England was all about “species” and “organisms”, and 20th century computer models followed.

The TEO (Toward Evolutionary Objectivity – this is my theory, you can read about it elsewhere ) drops this, it sounds slightly Buddhist, but the substrate of the evolution is a cluster of attributes which “amplify” together.

Additionally, and this is not Buddhist any more, this cluster or aggregate, or system is not “out there”, is not part of the “nature”. In our evolutionary process of understanding the world, our ancestors ( animals ) created these clusters In their perception brains, according to usefulness- so now we ( humans) named them- for example- “fish” or “finger” or “weather” or “anger”.

In TEO they are called behaviors. The behavior can have elaborate description, like what was the princesses’ dress made of and who was the taylor, or simple description, like “bacterium swims towards the sugar gradient”. Every behavior consists of its components- the simpler behaviors- down to the subatomic spin.

Now: Any cluster of behaviors which amplify /multiply, makes more of the same thing- is the subject of the evolution. It veel evolve!

In our universe ( our understanding)  the amplification means “in time”.

“In time” means, increase entropy, means it follows II law of thermodynamics.

Would the system be perfect it would amplify endlessly.

But not in our Universe. We are granular, energy-uneven .

Most simply- the cluster will cease to amplify together- fine- it dies- it breaks down- entropy is up with time, complexity’s down- more chaos.

But, against all odds- other systems will continue- then- not being perfect- one of the components will occur in two  versions. The one which amplifies better- will slow down the energy gradient- will be smarter, more complex- soon the other one is bye bye gone.

Of course, the greatest invention of the evolution is the system which keeps amplifying -nearly perfect- the nuclear acids’ code- leading to the organism.

So, the algorithm is simpler than I thought, just keep amplifying.

The variation and the selection are the results , are inevitable, not a part of the evolutionary algorithm, but needed to be programmed for the computer model to tick…

The amplification, to be evolutionary relevant, has to have a substrate which is able to continue the process of multiplication. The examples are : simple carbonic acid cycle, the crystals in the oversaturated solution. Girls Preparatory School.The substrate contains the information to continue the production of the more of the substrate.

But this is not enough.

The substrate has to contain the information how to make a new factory of the substrate. Or at least a part of it. Examples ? simple strain of the nucleic acids. Mating rituals in animals. Storytelling behavior in humans. Parenting.

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Evolutionary Reality, The Worldview Internet Game

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