The very wide field of philosophy
This needs wider recognition:
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”
From Gall’s Law on Wikipedia.
Thanks to Geir & Jonas @ Telemark Fylkeskommune for bringing this law to my attention.
I believe we have an inherent drive, a purpose. Any purpose.
A purpose needs a game. A game needs a purpose.
Without barriers, there is no drive and without a drive there is no life.
Life is fueled by accomplishment. The overcoming of barriers toward a purpose we create yields a sense of mastery, of accomplishment.
When we fulfill purposes, we create new purposes to achieve. As we realize purposes, our life becomes more accomplished, more perfected. And comfort sets in.
Johnny wants to become a physician, have a luxurious home, a great marriage and two wonderful kids. He goes through years of education, dates girls, becomes a doctor and marries Miss Right. They get two lovely kids. He’s a wonderful father and they adore him. They live in a fantastic house and life is full of comfort. Now what?
With more perfection and comfort, less purposes and excitement remains. There is freedom with less barriers and adventure, less drive and direction. There is less to live for. At that point a person can slumber in apathy or revolt by creating less positive adventures – like self-inflicted pains, drugs or criminality. Johnny starts drinking and beats Miss Right left and right. He gambles and loses the house.
What happens with individuals have parallels in societies and the World at large.
We see the dangers of comfort in our decadent Western world much like the Romans experienced in their conquered world. As our world grows less dangerous and comfort and freedom sets in, we will create new dangers to topple, or we can slide into apathy to have dangers mounting while we slumber. With less wars, population growth tapering off and with criminality rates going down, we may have to rely on global warming or artificial intelligence to keep us busy. Because perfecting society with security to iron out any possibility of terrorism will only create more comfort and less life.
Maybe the need for adventure is why we don’t see any advance alien civilizations. Maybe they bored themselves into apathy or did some crazy shit as a counter-reaction to the increasing comfort and lull.
If you can look past the terrible special effects and the cute retro scenery, this episode of Space 1999 captures the dangers of comfort in a neat way:
What should we do to have a decent game to come back to?
I upgraded my article On Will to reflect new research – including the mention of cognitive dissonance and my latest definition of free will as “cause without reason”. There are more references added and several smaller corrections and enhancements.
Enjoy 🙂
This article is now hosted and updated on GitHub.
The remarkable John Cleese is spot on again:
Transcript:
I’m offended every day. For example, the British newspapers every day offend me with their laziness, their nastiness, and their inaccuracy, but I’m not going to expect someone to stop that happening; I just simply speak out about it. Sometimes when people are offended they want — you can just come in and say, “Right, stop that.” to whoever it is offending them. And, of course, as a former chairman of the BBC one said, “There are some people who I would wish to offend.” And I think there’s truth in that too. So the idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to. And a fellow who I helped write two books about psychology and psychiatry was a renowned psychiatrist in London called Robin Skynner said something very interesting to me. He said, “If people can’t control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people’s behavior.” And when you’re around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what’s going to upset them next. And that’s why I’ve been warned recently don’t to go to most university campuses because the political correctness has been taken from being a good idea, which is let’s not be mean in particular to people who are not able to look after themselves very well — that’s a good idea — to the point where any kind of criticism or any individual or group could be labeled cruel.
And the whole point about humor, the whole point about comedy, and believe you me I thought about this, is that all comedy is critical. Even if you make a very inclusive joke like how would you make God laugh? Answer: Tell him your plans. Now that’s about the human condition; it’s not excluding anyone. It’s saying we all have all these plans, which probably won’t come and isn’t it funny how we still believe they’re going to happen. So that’s a very inclusive joke. It’s still critical. All humor is critical. If you start to say, “We mustn’t; we mustn’t criticize or offend them,” then humor is gone. With humor goes a sense of proportion. And then as far as I’m concerned, you’re living in 1984.
What could be the consequences of shifting responsibility for something oneself has done over to something or someone else?
Please share your answers and views 🙂
Update 2016-02-04: With the good comments received on this, I have one conclusion that is relevant to the Scientology Bubble:
There may be many factors why we see so many OTs in the Church of Scientology that remains so blind, get into trouble in life and generally does not have any marked positive impact on society. But I propose that one significant reason is that from OT 3 and up, OTs are indoctrinated into the belief that what is wrong with them is not of their own doing. It is the doing of “entities” (spirits) attached to their bodies and messing up their lives. I firmly believe that one is responsible for one’s own thoughts and emotions and that life will gradually slide into the ditch when one habitually shifts responsibility for one’s own thoughts and emotions over to someone else. Especially when those someone elses are figments of a “guru’s” imagination. I believe Hubbard was a pussy that didn’t take responsibility for his own life and tried to get his congregation to agree that his troubles were not his own. Much like Miscavige.
A definition, perhaps fundamental, of Free Will could be “cause without prior cause” – or the equivalent, “cause without reason”.
Freedom is not primarily gained by creating stability, but rather through tolerance for instability.
Found this on that Internetz. Had to throw it out here.
I just updated my LinkedIn summary. Here’s the new intro:
Geir Isene – Helping people fail
In order to improve, you need to succeed and learn from your successes. But you can learn even more from your failures. Don’t let your striving for success, doing your best and finding the perfect solution stop you from trying and failing and learning even more. Fear of failing can be the biggest obstacle to advancement. You should habitually go outside your comfort zone. Allowing yourself to fail is not enough. Actually failing is required. I help people fail.
Here is one take on why:
Geir Isene - uncut 