Posts Tagged ‘Philosophy’

Thinking in Singular

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

I think a lot of confusion in thinking and discussing comes from failing to recognize one crucial requirement for having clarity: singular. What I mean by this is that it is absolutely clear what we are talking about, a single thing, clearly defined and described AS SUCH, without vagueness and room for guessing around. Otherwise we’re trying to “focus” on two or more things at once and that is no focus at all.

The effect of such lack of focus or clarity is that we basically don’t know what we’re talking about and end up making judgments that are terribly at odds with reality. Yet this ends up leading our action in false hope for desired positive results. Focusing on singular and thinking in singular rather than plural, is a key to precise thinking.

This came to me when I was trying to explain why I don’t believe in the existence of a “collective” in reality and thus why I don’t believe in “collective rights”. The argument is that the “collective” is in fact solely a mental abstraction describing multitude or plural. Two or more human beings can then be described as a collective. Two or more trees can be described as a collective (and synonymously a “forest”, another similar mental concept) and two or more cells can be described as a collective (or synonymously a multicellular organism).

As such this mental abstraction is similar to numbers. The only difference between saying “collective” and saying a number like “4″ is that in the former you don’t specify exactly how many, merely that there are more than one (plural) whereas in the latter you’re specifying how many. But a number 4 itself doesn’t exist in reality. Looking at 4 people you see “4″ in your head merely because you have the mental capacity to count. If you didn’t then you wouldn’t have the mental concept of “4″ to use in your description of what you see. Same goes with the concept of a “collective”. You see “more than one”.

But does a collective actually exist in reality? This isn’t the same question as the question “do individuals referred to by “4 people” exist or “do cells referred to as an “organism” exist”. It is a question like “do 4 people exist as an individual” or “does a forest exist as a tree” or “does an organism exist as a cell” or “does a molecul exist as an atom” and so on.

The formula is: Does a plural of X exist as a singular X where X is equal? The answer is always inevitably negative because it is:

A plural of trees cannot be a tree, it can be an individual forest. A plural of cells cannot be a cell, but it can be an individual organism. A plural of atoms cannot be an atom, but it can be an individual molecule. A plural of human beings cannot be a human being, but an individual society, for lack of a better term, or something else that we as human beings cannot from our vantage point exactly determine, or perhaps nothing at all; end of line as far as that type of form is concerned.

So when it comes to the concept of a collective it may be an useful abstraction sometimes, but it is clear that a collective of X cannot have the properties of X and itself is not X. It instead becomes something else that is again itself individual; unique. Or nothing else. This is why it makes absolutely no sense to think in terms of there being a human “collective” for the good of which individuals should sacrifice expecting that this good would somehow trickle down to more good for all.

Additionally, the object of focus can never be anything other than individual, singular. Even when trying to somehow point to a “collective” that exists in reality we end up describing “it” as “it”, a singular thing, thus further validating the individualism rather than “collectivism” of its nature or at least showing ourselves unable to, when we actually begin thinking with such precision, actually pin point the “collective” in reality when some voluntaryist challenges: “Show me the collective, where is it?”.

Granted, both “plural” and “singular” are mental abstractions, but it is pretty obvious that we cannot refer to anything in reality without going through the abstraction of a singular, even when we wish to refer to a “collective”. In other words, the only way to directly describe things in reality is through singular, not plural.

So it would appear that both our minds and the reality itself is naturally wired as individualistic rather than collectivist. There are merely multiple levels, one being fundamental to another which is fundamental to a yet another and so on possibly indefinitely, but an individual thing always comes first and it’s “collective”, as we would mentally describe it, only ends up creating another individual thing.

Collectivist is murky thinking. There is no precision in an argument which has collectives as its variables.

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Scratching the Surface of the New Understanding

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

I have just read a book “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattle which likely influenced Napoleon Hill, the author of “Think and Grow Rich” which I’ve read and praised earlier.

I have to praise this one too and without hesitation I can recommend it to everyone looking for constructive insights on how exactly to attain wealth and success, especially since it’s just 66 pages long.

“The Science of Getting Rich” is what also largely influenced The Secret, a popular movie from 2006 that popularized the concept of “The Law of Attraction”, albeit such a term isn’t found in the actual book.

That said, just like “Think and Grow Rich”, this book greatly resonates with me. I can see the logic in them and I can see exactly how applying philosophies expressed in these books can lead one to success. Think and Grow Rich especially has a pretty solid mount of evidence in support of the positively transformational power of its ideas as many successful and wealthy people reportedly cite that book as being a major influence to their success.

I can also say that it certainly made me a lot more likely to succeed as I can with absolute confidence say that in part thanks to these books I am far more confident about myself and far more daring. I have transformed and solidified my view of failure as part of success, of limitations as primarily mental and self-imposed, of wealth creation as a noble rather than morally reprehensible goal, and so on.

Yet I am still somewhat uneasy, or at least, I am eager to express something that I feel could make the philosophies presented in these books more complete, and put them deeper within a rational and scientific context. There are two reasons for this.

Confusion over The Law of Attraction (and The Secret)

As much as I could say that “The Secret” movie brought philosophies of these books to the masses I would say that it perverted them or dumbed them down to the point at which pretty much the only thing an average person could get from it is that “I can get whatever I wish in my mind by the simple act of wishing”. And I can see how can these philosophies be brought down to this incredible oversimplification. The fact that they zeroed in to this term “Law of Attraction” which immediately implies that the core of the idea is attraction, not action, doesn’t help at all.

Yet both Wallace Wattle and Napoleon Hill emphasized the importance of taking action. Even the movie itself, The Secret, glossed over this briefly, but insufficiently.

That said, Wallace did pretty much say that strongly envisioning something you desire in your mind and being grateful for getting it even before you actually get it (in order to affirm your absolute belief in that you will get it) will directly cause a chain of events independent of your physical action that will make the thing you desire to be attracted to you. In a nutshell, this guy believed in the Law of Attraction.

However, this is what leads me to the second reason of my “uneasiness”. He uses terms which CAN be interpreted in a different way where a different light is cast on the whole “attraction” business and where thought itself doesn’t necessarily have to be considered a direct cause of your getting what you desire. In essence, the whole action-reaction chain that ensues once you form the desire filled and confident thought in your mind may be slightly different than what most readers of Wallace and perhaps even Wallace himself, is led to believe.

This would be a result of our limited understanding of that which we are, through these ideas, beginning to discover. The ways in which we are describing it are still inefficient and insufficient to precisely pin point the exact science in question. Due to the amount of people that succeed by applying these ideas it seems plausible that we ARE looking at a glimpse of truth rather than a fallacy, but due to the limited understanding, we may be getting some of the crucial details wrong, which is the case regarding “The Secret” and “Law of Attraction”.

Thoughts, energy and action-reaction chains

First of all, it is currently scientifically understood that all matter in existence comes down to energy. When an object, no matter how big or how small, is inert, it has potential energy, albeit on a more fundamental level it is never inert so inertion is relative to the observer. When the same object becomes active it converts its potential energy to kinetic energy. And due to the conservation of energy law energy is never actually destroyed or “spent away”; it’s simply converted from one form to another.

It is then conceivable that physical forms of shape could also be considered as specific forms of energy, of potential energy if anything. Wallace Wattle talks about “formless substance” and this is where it appears that energy fits right in. But then we enter the realm of thought. Wattle also describes this as “formless substance that thinks“.

If formless substance is energy then the question is can energy think? If everything in existence is fundamentally energy though then human beings and other thinking life forms are energy as well in which case through them energy can and does indeed think. Observing what happens in our brains when we think does reveal that our thoughts are in effect just a complex stream of impulses, of energy!

But the concept of “formless substance that thinks” seems to imply that energy thinks regardless of whether it holds a form of a thinking life form or not, in which case a tree thinks itself into existence as a tree, a rock thinks itself into an existence as a rock and so on. Can this be?

Well, to answer this would require defining “thought” and this again refers me to the observation of thoughts as streams of energy in which case thought is nothing but a patter of energy flows. Thoughts then ARE energy. Thoughts then could be considered a fundamental building block of everything in existence.

In that case by the very virtue of being, a tree thinks. The only difference between a tree that thinks itself into existence and a human that thinks itself into existence is that a human is aware of his thoughts whereas a tree isn’t, giving a human the power to transform his thoughts and therefore himself and direction of his growth whereas the tree just “instinctively” grows according to parameters established by itself and the rest of the thinking reality.

So where does law of attraction or its rebuttal as it were fit in?

Well, it implies a very specific thing. It infers from the above realizations, provided that LOA supporters have these realizations, a particular action-reaction chain without actually seeing any empirical or logical consistency evidence of such an action-reaction chain occurring. It infers that because we are all made of thought-energy that our envisioning a particular image strongly somehow materializes this image into a physical equivalent. But what basis do they have for concluding this? This is NOT a necessary conclusion of everything being consisted of thought-energy and it ignores the many intricate ways in which thought-energy actually flows or interacts with that which it constantly creates.

So even if all of the above is true, that everything is consisted of thought-energy thinking itself to existence, it doesn’t necessarily follow that I can think something else aside of me and my actions into existence, something that on a macro scale never actually interacts with me. I think this is all coming from a gross misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of the laws which actually govern “thinking”, that is, a process by which thought-energy shapes itself into forms we see around ourselves, and the universe at large.

What we CAN conclude based on actual evidence though is that a thought can cause an act and that therefore one indeed cannot achieve anything before previously envisioning that something in the mind. The efficiency of any given act in its ability to bring us closer to the achievement of our goal is directly dependent on our understanding of the action-reaction chains which are necessary to achieve it. Most of us probably still use crude methods and do things which we might not necessary have to do, that are superfluous to our goals, but we’re still learning.

Theoretically though it is possible that as we begin learning more and more about precise action-reaction chains involved in how everything comes into being (or in other words the process by which thought-energy creates) we MAY be able to by the power of our mind alone replicate things we envision out of thin air, by arranging our thoughts in such a way to create an energy impulse that arranges molecules of air surrounding us into whatever we have envisioned.

But we’re likely a very long way there and still have plenty to learn.

In conclusion, I think that it is worth considering what was written in “Think and Grow Rich” and “The Science of Getting Rich” as it IS evidently changing people’s lives for the better. I think that they are scratching the surface of a new understanding that may soon become a real science. The fact that they sometimes sound almost mystical or add what appear to be superfluous conclusions (like law of attraction) merely reflects the limitedness of their understanding of the actual source of the ideas they have through their thinking and observing discovered, not that these are ideas are completely false.

So let’s keep exploring this and evolving.

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The solution to the Israel/Gaza war.

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

In face of yesterday’s global protests against Israeli attack on Gaza I found an article that puts things into an alternative perspective: “The Hollow Sound of Anti-Israel Protests”. It seems to justify Israeli attack on Gaza and portray Israeli strategy as the more positive one, which is something I don’t quite agree with, but it does point out an apparent lack of innocence on part of Hamas, which continuously espouses violent ways of solving the problem, apparently involving obliteration of all Jews.

I of course blame both the Israeli government and Hamas, for both are in fact terrorist mafias whom see violence as an acceptable way of solving perceived problems. Everything else is just a variation on the theme. Israeli forcefully imposes it’s fantasy of “jurisdiction” on to private palestinian property owners in a continuous campaign of terror. Hamas then imposes itself as the so called protector of these same palestinians, whether they asked for it or not, and then goes to bomb Israeli people and yet again provoke a violent response. And this goes on and on and would go on until either all israeli in the area or all palestinians, or at least members of Hamas, are obliterated. The way these people think about solutions, the only real solution is genocide.

Neither are the average palestinian and israeli people all that innocent, for their belief in violence as a sometimes morally justified way of solving problems is what fuels both Hamas and Israeli. If people stopped believing in violence without compromise, and therefore stopped believing in their governments as coercive entities, there would hardly be anyone left to wage a war. To stop believing in violent solutions is to open your eyes to all of the ways in which the problem can be settled peacefully.

And in fact, since to stop believing in all violence means to stop believing into such bullshit as jurisdiction, public property and collectivism, a big part of the whole problem would disappear by itself. There is then no border or claimed territories to bicker over. There are only individuals and their private property. Some of them may call themselves palestinian and others Israeli, but even that ceases to matter as much as it did.

The belief in violence as an acceptable way of dealing with those with whom you have a dispute with is the fundamental cause of all war, including this one. Complete rejection of this belief is the only solution. Voluntaryism.

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The Day Earth Stood Still

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

I’ve just watched The Day Earth Stood Still in the cinema. I enjoyed the movie, and of course, played with my own thoughts while watching… I sometimes have dark thoughts, almost wishing for a catastrophe, a cataclysm, or at least an imminent threat of one, so peculiar and global that it truly makes the whole world stop.

On closer inspection I never wish for destruction or death, but I still wish something induced people to stop for once in their lives, stop like they’ve never stopped, took a step back from where they were and saw it, saw themselves and the world around them from a different perspective and ask themselves some hard questions they’ve previously been taught and induced to avoid.

I believe that most people, however, do feel that something is in our future that is so significant that it will reshape the world as we know it. Most religions claim to predict it. Certain scientists expect it. Movie industry and culture likes to play with spectacular scenarios of what it might be. And every decade there are movements of people believing a special year is coming, and a special day, the current obsession being around 2012 (unsurprisingly, the movie industry is planning to cash in on this by launching a same named movie: 2012). It’s like most individuals of our humanity have some sort of a inexplicable premonition, in form of an urge to wonder about and expect something….

Looking at the world and how quickly it has been changing in the last century lends further credibility to such mysterious expectations. Two world wars, industrial revolutions, global economic upsurges and depressions, continuing globalization and unprecedented evolution of technology and knowledge… Our world is changing constantly, and at accelerating rates. And it feels like this acceleration must lead towards something.. we may hit the wall or cross a threshold.

The best point that can be extracted from the movie, one which also marked the most significant thought left at its ending is that we change on the precipice, when pushed to the very edge of our current paradigm in fear that we will either perish or face the darkness of the unknown.

I believe something is coming, but I don’t know nor will pretend to know what. Many will swarm to tell me “It’s Jesus!”, “It’s the singularity!”, “It’s Planet X”, “It’s an asteroid!”. You entertain yourself with those best guesses. I’ll wait and see, and meanwhile be who I am and on a mission that I send myself to. Do what is right, no matter what the future holds. And I will remember that only I can say what is right for me.

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In Search of The Ultimate Project (of my life)

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Life can be pretty crazy. Some people might say I have no life or that I have missed so much of what life has to offer, but the thing is; it is not their life, it is mine. There is no rule that says that I should compare, weigh and measure my life according to the standards and scales of other people, unless I accept this as a rule.

So with all of the scales thrown off what’s left is only myself and the whole universe around me, not just the physical universe, but the universe of ideas, my memeverse, one from which understanding of the physical comes from too.

Occasionally I feel like I’m on the brink of some spectacular realization, but it keeps eluding me. Somehow, though, I believe the day is coming when I will find it. I am learning to be more patient with myself, be more observant of my emotions, reactions, failures and successes and thus more prone to evolution.

I had this feeling just tonight. It’s like I’m seeing the dots which are part of the bigger picture, but I cannot yet quite connect them.

Some of those dots are:

- I own two awesome domain names: memenode.com and memeverse.com. Somehow that seems significant.

- I have a bit of a fascination with the concept of memes and otherwise like to live in a free form mental world…

- I like free thinking and free form philosophy.

- I like virtual online worlds and gaming, yet I’m not a regulard nor “hard core” gamer.

- I like high tech and software, the freer (libre) the better.

- I am a passionate voluntaryist who believes in emergent order, free markets and total individualism.

- I am emotional, sensitive and easily inspired and moved.

And I feel like there is a thread binding all of the above things into one, a thread which if I discover may become a seed of my life’s work, the most revolutionary, most profitable and most exciting and motivating project I have ever done.

This is because I believe that all of my interests (likes, tendencies, beliefs) are all pieces of the puzzle that is my self and it is my self that is seeking to do things that will lead it to ultimate success. So I don’t quite dismiss certain interests just because they don’t fit the current paradigm. I sometimes worry about activities which right now seem like waste of time, but other times wonder; the fact I have them means they are part of my self and if it’s my self that needs to succeed than that self must include those interests. Therefore perhaps instead of trying to shut some of them down, I should observe, listen, effectively listening to myself and searching for the links between all of them – that elusive thread.

I will have to be thinking about this.

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“This is John Galt speaking…”

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

After being referred by a friend who is reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand to a speech made by a character in the novel called “John Galt” I’ve searched and ultimately stumbled on this series of videos which present an incredible dramatization of John Galt’s speech. For the sake of viewing convenience and because I think it contains so many ideas that I desperately wish the world of people to hear I’ve embedded all parts of the series made so far below. :)

Ayn Rand is usually credited as the originator of the philosophy of objectivism and had a lot to do with promoting the ideas of capitalism. She was not a voluntaryist which is evident from a brief part of this series where her character John Galt speaks of the proper role of government being only to defend against initiation of force, which is effectively the minarchist view (as close as one gets to voluntaryism without still entirely rejecting the idea of needing a coercive monopoly for anything). I don’t believe there needs to be a coercive monopoly on defense because that would mean forcing all who would want to compete in providing this service out of the market therefore making those who are supposed to merely defend against initiation of force, THE initiators of force themselves.

And while I’m at the few disagreements that I have with Rand, I have to mention I’m not entirely confident about objectivism either, at least according to my limited understanding of it as what seems to be a rather absolutist view of reality that might leave too little room for subjectivism. On the other hand I can come up with no real criticism for anything that is said in the Galt’s speech presented in the videos below as far as the philosophy goes and I realize that my acceptance of subjectivism goes only to the extent of accounting for the fact that each of us may perceive reality in somewhat different ways, have different preferences and so on.

In either case I can find no disagreement to the assertion that a human individual, his or her nature and belonging life, liberty and property are the beginning of all exploration. Before you can know the universe around you, it helps to know yourself and dare to be yourself without clearly self-nullifying delusions getting in the way, much of which is greatly explained below. So I’ll quit my babble and encourage you to click that big play button below. Give it a chance, you might just be hooked to go with it to the last part. I’ll update the post as the author uploads new parts.

Enjoy and.. think.


Part 1.


Part 2.


Part 3 & 4.


Part 5.


Part 6.


Part 7.


Part 8.


Part 9.


Part 10.


Part 12. (he skipped a number it seems)


Part 13.


Part 14 (with spoilers!).


Part 15.


Part 16.


Part 17.

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Imagining ourselves out of existence

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Human’s capability of imagination is at the same time an enormous blessing and an enormous curse. Just as it makes us creative and empowers our continuous advancement and evolution it could serve to doom ourselves out of existence.

The former refers to all of the inventions and technologies that humans have developed which couldn’t have been done without imagination. This is where cultural elements like science fiction play a role. You first have to imagine, envision, entertain the mind before you can make it real. However, in the process of making it real you have to deal with reality and separate the concepts which correspond to it from those which do not, which is done through the scientific process; examining empirical evidence (or lack of it) and logical consistency.

Unfortunately, this process is completely ignored when it comes to certain concepts and this is leading towards destruction.

One such concept is the concept of “government”. Another is a concept of “country”. Both in fact have no basis in reality whatsoever, yet millions upon millions of people hold them to be facts as hard as the concept of a rock you can hold in your hands. “Government” is viewed as an organization which is somehow special, noble, generally benevolent, serving the people and because of this endowed with a monopoly on violenent power, the power to initiate force to compell obedience to its sacred rules and to steal in order to pay for its noble job in a “country” or “society”.

This ridiculous idea goes back to ancient times when governments, then called kings or queens, have been considered as endowed with this noble role by the gods themselves. No further questioning was necessary when you imagine and believe as real the concept of god. You’ll readily imagine and believe as real any other concept which is supported by the one of god.

Today, god was replaced by the concepf of “the people”. It is “the people” which endow the government the right to govern by force, through an incredible yet on further examination fully self-contradictory process called “democracy”. Yet again, if people believe in such a thing as “the people” or “country” or “society” (which are often synonymous) they easily accept other false concepts based on it.

But none of it is real. None of it exists.

The collective does not exist without an individual. What is a “country”? Who are “the people”? What is a “society”? And ultimately what is “the government”? Do they really exist as what most individuals conceptualized them as?

No they don’t.

They are illusions.

“Country” implies that a land marked by some lines drawn on the map has some sort of a mysterious soul, a life of its own, something to be served and protected and something which is, through some strange elusive process linked with the people living on that piece of Earth. It’s hard to describe it when you try because it’s a complete and total delusion. It doesn’t really exist. When you hear politicians say things like “serve the country” or “protect this country” or “country first” what the hell are they referring to?

You may say “the people” or “society”, but that would be jumping from one illusion on to another. When you think these terms through it’s obvious they refer to groups of individuals. Why then are these terms being used as if they refer to something that is more than just groups of individuals, as if they have a soul of their own as if “the people” or “society” refers to something that is separate from the individuals?

There’s no answer except; to keep you deluded, to keep you sacrificing your own individual self in the name of these gods, gods called “the people”, “country”, “society” etc., to keep you subjected to violence and make you ask for more, because that’s the way it has to be. Something deep in you tells you that you don’t like it, making you always strive for lesser taxes, more freedom etc., but you don’t realize that you’re merely begging for the rape you’re being subjected to from being a little gentler.

You’re still being raped though.

And all because you believe in this religion called “the government”, this incredible delusion.

In reality, however, there are only individuals, nothing but individuals. Groups of individuals are still individuals, only ones interacting with each other. Once this is completely realized the idea that one has to sacrifice for this “greater whole” called “country” or “society” starts to look awkward and illogical, because.. what is this greater whole if there are only individuals? And how can sacrificing myself for this greater whole be better for all of us if everyone is being sacrificed at the same time? Isn’t it that at best this process only brings us back to where we started, except with a loss of time and energy? What’s the point, then?

There’s no point, except to enrich those who happen to be the beneficiaries of holding you in this mental delusion, those who happen to be the ones dictating who is to sacrifice how much, and being handsomely paid for this “noble” role given to them by the “the people” god, paid by that which you sacrificed or let them steal from you.

But that’s not quite what you believed was supposed to happen is it? Of course it isn’t. What you expected was not realistic, it was not possible. If there are only individuals and sacrificing all individuals for the so called greater good which only ends up being the good of the currently ruling elite doesn’t actually help the good of all, then the whole proposition falls flat on its face. The concept of government as a noble organization endowed by god or “the people” becomes invalid and impossible.

The only alternative that remains is for invididuals that are left standing once the clouds of delusion have been cleared away to take back control over their own self and be the god and government to themselves, as they truly are. Then the only form of order that can exist without destroying you and other individuals as a matter of norm emerges naturally.

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