Are delusions good for us?

Last night we discussed delusions at the Ideas Cafe.  Whether ignorance is really bliss, whether we should indulge ourselves, using temporary illusions to escape from the burdens of real life.

Dan quoted wikipedia's definition of delusion as a pathological condition. "A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence."

We were more interested in the daily usage of the word rather than the psychiatric clinical condition so we started talking about false believes and illusions rather than using the word delusion itself.

The next term to define is "fact".  While a lot of us would see it as something like a believe that have agreed with observations in the physical world,  Mano suggested that fact is a belief that we have not been able to find false.

The philosophers in the group moved to an animated discussion of truth, coherence theory, and a few other terms that were inaccessible to us plain folks.

Dan offered that our thought process is one of forming a hypothesis (belief), testing that hypothesis, and using that hypothesis as a basis for our actions. In real life, we never get to completely prove the hypothesis before we need it to determine our actions so it is a continual process of verifying the hypothesis and depending on the best state of hypothesis that we have.

These hypothesis form the basis of our belief system or our knowledge base.  Our belief system is the decision engine where we put in input consists of our observations and ideas and provide output as to what action we should take or conclusions we should draw.

If our belief system is wrong, we will take wrong actions or come to wrong conclusions.

We identified a number of categories to divide belief into:

1.  Those that are trivial. If it is wrong, not much would come of it.

2.  Those that are highly interconnected and form the basis or other believes.  Far reaching understanding such as theory of evolution is the basis for a lot of other believes.  Therefore, if evolution turns out to be not true, quite a few other believes will also have to change.

3.  Those passed on to us by authority, likely true, but not always

Partly because we started our life with believes from our parents and other elders to start with, we never get to test our believes systematically. We infer from our observations as to whether it is consistent with what our believes would have predicted.  Therefore feeding back the accuracy of our believes applies to clusters of believes.

Mano also pointed out that the term "ignorance is bliss" tends to be used in a negative sense to describe people who are not in the know, rather than promoting ignorance as a preferred way of life.

However, if bliss is described in terms of a state of perfection, then ignorance or "letting go" is required to shield off the practical world for this perfection to happen.

Therefore bliss cannot happen for any extended period of time and then only with the mental filter to hold things off for the time being.

But we still lie to our kids about the existence of Santa Claus, that they will get presents from this overweight fellow through the chimney.  Is it because we think that kids should remain at this blissful state of childhood for as long as possible?

Ignorance is bliss may not be the way we should conduct our lives but we love our kids and we want them this way.  Strange.

Conscience, where is it from?

Last evening we discussed the source of conscience at the Ideas Cafe.

There was consensus that empathy and seeing the victim's perspective have a lot to do with triggering our conscience, making us feel guilty if we do not follow our conscience.

Very often, our conscience come into play when we find ourselves at odds between choosing something that is more convenient or advantageous to ourselves but may disadvantage or harm the other party in some way.  We can look at it as our self interest versus interests for the social group that we are in.

It seems better for our social group if we help other members of the group even at a cost or risk to our own well being.

Conscience also seems to be more prominent when the other party being disadvantaged is a person rather than a non human such as a store. Stores have greeters to put a face to the store to discourage shop lifters and it is less likely for shoplifters to steal if they know the store owner as a good person.

We want acceptance from people we like and respect.

Conscience is an emotion related response and as such is similar to anger and fear.  These emotions come on fast, trigger us to take immediate action without really knowing the exact details of why or what else should be done.  This leads to speculation that it is based in the amygdala, maybe we should consider handling our conscience the same way we handle other emotions. 

People going through anger management training are told that whenever they feel anger, they should slow down, count to ten, just to give enough time for their analytical prefrontal cortex part of the brain come in to analyze the situation before taking action.

Perhaps a similar response to seeing an abandoned baby seal is in order? Even though we may feel that we should be doing something, apparently the baby seal may not be "abandoned" but that the mother seal is watching and will indeed abandon the baby if we intercept to "help"?

The difficulty is the balance of acting out of conscience versus analysis. 

Should we always jump into the water to help a drowning person when our conscience urge us to? Will we unwittingly become the reason for other people to try to help us and ended up with a lot more people involved in the tragedy?

But our conscience is for many people their moral compass.  If it feels right, it is.

The discussion also wondered why people behave differently in riots and mobs and seems to loose their conscience in those situations.  The speculation is that the new social group of the riot excludes others and no one is empathising with the store owners or other property owners who are being hurt. After all, they are not there or have no face at that time.  But there may also be the element that our conscience is shaped by what others may think of us when they find out what we have done.  In this case, the "others" for that moment are the other rioters and they all seem to be condoning and encouraging the riotous acts.

Someone once told me that if we are wrestling with our conscience, imagine that our actions is going to go on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper.  Would we still do it?

Let our social group be our judge.

Of course, conscience must also be rooted in our upbringing and the social order that we are in.  We pick up what is "normal" and "good" social behavior from our parents and role models around us when we grow up.

So our conscience is likely a constant moving value system formed by our experience of how the social group we belong to will judge the situation. This is a fast and unconscious judgement that will likely meet the approval of the social group we value.

But we generally belong to several different social groups at any one time and these groups exert their influence on us, shaping our judgment and responses to events.

The fast acting aspect has the advantage of quick response but also restricts the consideration to the immediate rather than the longer term or secondary effects of the action.

So, next time conscience calls, maybe we should think about which social group that we belong to may judge us harshly, and also what secondary or longer term effect of our intended action may be?

Prostitution, an act between consenting adults

We had an interesting discussion about prostitution at last night's Ideas Cafe.

We were not so much discussing the legality of prostitution but more about the source of stigma society associate with prostitution and the origin of some of our attitudes towards sex.

Both Shula and Rafi felt sex is no different than other bodily needs like the need for food.  We can have sex with someone we love and that would be like having a meal and good conversation with someone you love.  This will be quite different than the experience of getting a fast food meal just to satisfy hunger.  People should be able to have the same choice with sex as they do with food.

Bruce said that while we talked about consenting adults, prostitution inevitably involved unsavory elements like pimps who draw underage girls into the business with drugs.  These girls get to hate their customers and yet have to demean themselves to keep servicing these customers.

Shula felt that this is the result of the criminal element much like what is happening to illegal drugs. Where prostitution is legal and protected, it should be no different than other jobs where some workers also do not like their customers.

Bob said that he had heard people in prostitution saying their profession being not that different than stay at home housewives years ago before it became common for both spouses to go out to work.

Christiana said that she is taking a course in developmental psychology now and that women's behaviour by definition has to be shaped by the need for eighteen years of child raising when having sex for procreation. She was brought up by conservative parents who told her to not let go of her virginity easily as it is a precious thing.

Christiana also mentioned that she knows someone who is a stripper who enjoys the attraction she gets and the easy living she can make compared to other jobs. It fits the high school career days message of do what you like as a career.

Bruce also brought up the point that as social animals, we need intimacy and also can only handle a limited number of social connections without feeling the lack of intimacy in large groups.  Shula and Rafi said that having multiple sex partners are still within the limited social connections described.  It is no different than having a family of ten or more siblings in the older days and the siblings still relate to each other compared to the typical two per family today.

Rafi's final argument is that we should not be setting laws just to protect a small number of people at the margins while infringing the freedom of the masses.  

I can see Shula and Rafi's arguments but I can also see the difficulty of changing long established social norms and the complications that this new attitude towards sex will bring. However, our attitude towards gender differences, sexual orientation, and even our acceptance of gambling casinos continues to change.

The discussion brought out the fundamental change in the function of sex for procreation to sex for recreation. Decades after the birth control pill, we are still dealing with the adjustments. Shula and Rafi's point is that being parents and being sex partners are two different things.

Can our society make that change?

Morality without god?

Continuing on thoughts of atheists as well as John Lennox's book on the religious side, are we capable of being moral without god?

The atheists claims that religion cherry picks what they want for morality and attribute it as coming from god.

The religious claims that science can do a lot towards explaining the physical world but is completely inappropriate when it comes to establishing what is good or evil.

The atheists claims that good people do good things and bad people do bad things, only religion can cause good people to do bad things.  Their examples are the 9/11 hijackers who are university educated people thinking they are serving the Islamic god and the crusaders thinking they are serving the christian god.  They were all killing for a religious cause.

The religious claims that atheists dictators like Stalin and Mao killed thousands.

Here, the atheists rebuttal is that Stalin and Mao did not kill because of atheism but they were bad people doing bad things,  not good atheists killing in the name of atheism as the crusaders and 9/11 hijackers.

From Lennox book, I can now see that the religious claim is not that Stalin and Mao kill on theist issues but actually that it is the lack of god as the cosmic policeman and guardian of morals that led Stalin and Mao to commit their killings.  If atheism is widely accepted, then more Stalin and Mao types may be emboldened to commit killings with the idea that there is no god to punish them and no final judgment that they have to answer for.

It seem obvious that even if there is a god, Stalin and Mao were not convinced that they have to face judgment. So advancing atheism would not have made a difference there, but would it encourage more Stalin and Mao like dictators?

High minded atheists believe we should be moral for humanity's sake rather than because there is a god to make them moral.  But even they lock their doors and live in a society where there is law enforcement to keep them safe.  Not just the trust of others to behave morally like them.

Does wanting a benevolent supernatural god make it so?

Even if having an all knowing god and policeman is good for us, it does not mean this god exists.  Stalin and Mao knows this.  We may use Santa Claus to motivate a young child to behave but none of us would expect this to work on Stalin and Mao.

Should we continuing deluding ourselves with an adult version of Santa Claus in the hope of stopping more future Stalins and Maos?

Wishing just does not make it so.

Human behavior covers a wide range.  There are highly moral and independent among us as well as selfish individuals trying to take advantage of others or the system when not monitored.  We need policeman and enforcers to handle these selfish individuals but the policeman themselves need to be monitored by society as a whole.  Moral leaders can distinguish themselves with their thoughts and opinions by the democratic public.

As to whether we need a god to be a source of our morals, the Chinese and other Asian countries have had a long history of sourcing their morals and cultural values from Confucius teachings.  His disciples never claimed him to be a deity, but here is enough acceptance and government support to make this the basis of social morals for a large portions of the world population for thousands of years.

True, there is still ancestor worship for those who want special favours from the heavens but the social moral code is set on a scholar's thinking.

We can debate as to whether Confucius teachings are the right basis for morals but the example of morality without god is already shown.

It can be done,  we can have morals without a supernatural god.

Faith

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others have been branded the "new atheists" by the religious side.  These new atheists are directly challenging religion's place in our thinking and their established position in our society as well as our acceptance of their claims.

The new atheists assertion is that religion rely on faith from their followers to accept what religion teaches them.  To the atheists,  faith is defined as "belief without evidence" whereas the scientific approach is always evidence based and science is always ready to update its thinking when new evidence differs with the current scientific theory.

I was recently given a book written by John Lennox who argues from the religious side against the new atheists. Lennox even quoted Mark Twain saying that "Faith is believing what you know ain't true".

However, through Lennox, I can see the religious argument that we all need faith. 

Lennox argues that science's so call evidence based approach rely on one fundamental assumption that there is order in this world and that the world as we experienced today and before will continue to behave as it has in the past. 

While the sun seems to rise every morning in our experience, there is actually no proof or basis to claim that it will continue to do so tomorrow.  Therefore we, and indeed, even scientists, are relying on faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. They can repeat their experiments to confirm their theories but there is no guarantee that the next time they perform the experiment, it will give the same results.

From a completely different source, Nassim Taleb, the author of "The Black Swan" and predictor of the 2008 financial crisis, talked about not being able to confirm a theory by doing more experiments.  We can look at any number of white swans and not conclusively say that all swans are white.  But one sighting of a black swan will dispute the white swan theory.

Similarly, Taleb talked about what we can learn from the turkey:

"Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race.......On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanks giving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief."

(I understand that Taleb got this from Bertrand Russell who used a chicken for his example.)

This is typically the problem of knowledge by induction.  There may be traps that we do not yet know until we come up to it.

Therefore Lennox concluded that even the atheists need faith to carry on with their lives.  They are just denying this as we all take for granted the faith of expecting the earth to go on as it always had.

I can see Lennox's point.

However, we do have to recognize that we do not strap ourselves down to our beds every night in case we somehow lose gravity while we sleep and we ended up flying off our beds.

Between the black and white of having or not having faith, there is the gray area of conducting our life based on the probable.

Having faith that gravity will exert itself in the next second seems to me a much better bet than expecting the water to turn into wine in the next second or have manna dropping from heaven. 

Life is not about black and white but more the weighing of the probabilities.

Besides, we tend to give science a bad name for revising what they claim previous.  It is important to realise that science have not actually changed anything in terms of how things are but only in how we understanding of it.  Our understanding is constantly being updated as we know more.

It is like getting closer and closer to a destination when we travel, we get more and more detail.  What seemed like a dessert from afar may actually have lush oasis as we get closer.

It almost seem to me that we need two different words for faith.  One for expecting things to continue as the scientist and atheists assume and a different word for believing in miracles and other rare or nonexistent happenings. 

The atheists claim from David Hume is that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or evidence" before one can believe the eye witness or the messenger still stands for me.

Spirituality

We discussed spirituality at a cafe last night.

There was a number of definitions thrown around as to what spirituality is.  I find it difficult to define spirituality in terms such as "energy", "spirit", "soul" as these terms in themselves are illusive and difficult to grasp so definitions built on these terms are also illusive.

Even putting spirituality as something that gives our life meaning becomes difficult as we try to debate what is the "meaning" for life.

So I am back to my understanding of spirituality as an emotional feeling that there is a bigger design, or even a supernatural being behind what we are observing.  That there is something we don't quite understand happening behind what may be rather superficially simple. 

Vivianne mention events that are coincidental, or synchronicity in timing arousing our suspicion of this bigger scheme behind things.  Magnificent vistas such as sunrise, sunsets, clouds parting after a storm, also make us wonder if something or someone is responsible for this.

Steve mentioned that spiritual feelings are intensely personal and it becomes less and less so when shared or compared with others, especially those who may not share the same views.

This may be why a lot of people these days claim to be spiritual but not religious.  They feel the possible existence of a supernatural being to explain what they are feeling but this personal version of the supernatural being does not quite fit the model proposed by any of the established religions.

If we accept that humans are
1. curious,
2. tends to use their past experience to build models and form explanations of what they observe in the present,
3. likes to use these models to predict future events,

then it follows that coincidence and impressive images begs explanations of some kind.

Sometimes, they hit it right. 

Other times, the real reason require much more observations and experimentation to get to the real reason.

It is so obvious that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. No wonder it took a long time to figure out that it is the earth that revolves around the sun.

It is so obvious that water flows down when not contained, of course the earth has to be flat to hold that water and so we won't fall off.

But we can't wait.  We want that reason now.

Emotional responses are our quick take of the situation, then a judgement of whether it is a good or bad situation.  We need this in the amygdala  part of our brain to make a quick decision to fight or flee.

Fast response is preferred over considered deliberation for this.

Spirituality is our emotional response to something we want to explain, and we feel that we are close to an explanation.

The gods must be responsible for the bad weather as ancient Greek sailors would have to think.  Not until we have the telegraph when we can get timely weather information from locations close by that a storm is coming do we understand that weather systems actually move around and not localised just to punish some poor soul.

Something as colossal as earthquakes and floods must be commanded by the gods. Even in modern times we have some religious people blaming these natural disasters on people not behaving.

That is the other part about us, we want to impart intentions to what we see. Bob thinks Mary is not returning his call because she is upset with him when it could be that the phone is not working, she is busy, or any number of other reasons. We seem to want intention as the first explanation. We even personalise "mother earth" so as to get some intention on how the earth reacts.

Is it possible that spirituality is just our emotional quick response to coincidences and impressive vistas, and that these responses require cold hard analysis rather than a quick answer (that can be so satisfying but wrong?)

For the people who continue to believe that natural disasters are an act of god, they are condemning god to be a merciless being as it is not possible for that god to make sure all the people hurt by that disaster is worthy of the suffering inflicted.

And for those who feel spiritual but not religious, they are forming their own model of the supernatural to explain what they observe. It is so subjective and personal that many adjustments are required to fit this model to established religion that the adjusted model no longer relates to the persons emotions.

Is this the reason why there are so many versions of the christian god?

Personal models can be ideal and not subject to reality or other people's spiritual models.  Religion needs to accommodate the common features of most people's spiritual models and inevitably, not appeal to some others.  The fact that religion claims to be the truth also makes it difficult to adjust to changing times.  Truths are not suppose to change with time.

Accommodating all these spiritual models and explaining today's events with 2000 year or older "truths" is not a task that I envy.

Money

Last night we discussed money, the root of all evil?

I was going to discuss greed and how it may be different from ambition. 

We talked a bit about altruism, balancing the priority of achieving personal independence versus helping others.

However, the discussion quickly moved to reactions to government bailouts of the economic crisis, how money no longer connects to producing what we need in life and consumerism that is leading to the rapid depletion of our resources.

Gerhardt mentioned that as a child, he had to help his father with farm work, how he could see food being produced and there was sense in work and money.  Later on, as he worked in the computer field and had share options, he saw his assets swing wildly with stock market valuations of his shares and his computer efforts no longer gave him the connectedness he had with his childhood farm work.

He called the financial problems two years ago as voodoo economics where everyone was chasing after some mathematical formula with no visible improvement to the benefit for the world.  Everyone was out there to try to take advantage of someone else until the whole system falls apart and the government was forced to bail out the financial system with everyone's money while the financial industry continue to distribute big bonuses.

Rafi acknowledged that with experience we can now see that the US financial system should have had more regulation.  However, the US system is still the most efficient system around.  This efficiency may need to be compromised with regulation to provide more stability or to reduce the disparity between the high and low income earners but these are all choices we have to make.

Both Shula and Rafi pointed out that mathematics represent reality and financial derivatives serve a real purpose in our economy.

Dan pointed out that we are all involved in this and we also need to recognize our part in this.  He used the example that when he buys insurance, he usually do not read the pages of fine print that goes with the insurance policy.  Strictly speaking,  it is his negligence for not doing so when he finds that he is not covered because of some of the conditions described in the fine print.

So when mortgages were given to people who obviously could not afford it but were counting on rising house prices to bail them out,  should the home buyer or the government that push for more home ownership have some responsibility?  We all blame the mortgage lenders for lending indiscriminately, but in a free society where we are all responsible for our decisions, do we have some responsibility for defaulting on something we cannot afford?

This is were it occurred to me on defining how much regulation we need for a free enterprise society.  Regulation is required where it is impractical for the participants to determine the risks involved in the agreement they make.

So we need to regulate banks and insurance companies because we do not want to have to make a full study of the financial health of these entities as to whether they can honor their obligations before we deposit our money with them or buy an insurance policy from them.  It is not practical for us to do "due diligence" on them and continue to do it while we have money deposited with them or an insurance policy from them.  That amount of care belongs to investing stock in these companies but not as a customer of these companies.

Commerce will grind to a halt if we have to do this kind of "due diligence" before using their services.  So even though we generally operate on a "buyer beware" free society, regulation is required to protect customers as well as to facilitate commerce.

More regulation offers more protection but also makes the regulated company all behave the same and stops them from doing innovative variations without additional risks as the nature of regulation is to not do anything that is different.

The combination of complexity that lull us into deferring our responsibility to others, the drive to more efficiency through less regulation, and the initial wild profits from an inflating housing bubble all contributed to us ending in a spot called the financial crisis.

Complexity is here to stay.  We better figure out how to handle it.

Charmed life

This past Wednesday, we discussed the idea of a "charmed life".

Wikipedia sourced the term from Shakespeare's Macbeth,  describing someone with a charmed life as someone who seems to be protected by a magic spell or "charm"; nothing bad happens to this person and he/she seems to be bestowed with luck all the time.

In a more contemporary context, we may refer to someone who seems to have everything taken cared off in their life and live what seems to be a very good life to the rest of us.  Examples sited at the meeting are the British royals, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton, etc.  The common theme seems to be someone who was born into a lucky situation or fortunate to be born with talent.

However, upon further discussion,  it became evident that none of these people are living a carefree happy life, that maybe the charmed life belong to the fairy tales and snow white would be a good example.

Therefore, the term "charmed life" perhaps is more used by people who are envious of the seeming fortune of others and is actually a pejorative term, neglecting the challenge and difficulties that these "charmed life" people face and belittling the effort they have put into their roles.

Rafi pointed out the interesting point that Tiger Woods had to live up to the morals we expected of him while we do not expect the same morals from Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Have we been unfair to Tiger? Perhaps Tiger should have cast himself in a more maverick role?

The discussion somehow moved to the term "ignorance is bliss".  Knowing more frequently turn us more fearful and worried about our situation.  Children seems to be more carefree and happy than adults.

Some said that it is always better to know more and there is no case for ignorance.

Are we affected negatively by new information because we overreact to the it and that we should tamper it down?  Therefore we should not be overly fearful about getting on a plane just because there was a plane crash somewhere else the day before?

The relevance to the "charmed life" is that children is happier because they are protected by the parents and therefore they live a "charmed life", protected by the parents' spell (worry, care).  If only we have our guardian angel looking after us, we can also be carefree, ignorant, and happy.

In other words, we can afford to enjoy the bliss of ignorance if we are protected (or charmed) by others.

Is that what makes religion attractive?  That there is a god out there protecting the devout.  All that is required is to believe and stay free from the complexities of the real world?

Discussing happiness naturally turned to what makes us happy and how we can measure it.  My friend Michael from Toronto offered a concept from psychiatry in identifying sources of happiness through the acronym PERMA.  It stands for Passion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement.

A person is happy when he is passionate about something, engaged in what he is doing, enjoy good relationship with others, finds meaning in life, and feel that he has achievements he is satisfied with.

This explains why people are actually happy during wartime.

They have no choice but be passionate about fighting off their aggressor, engaged in the important task of defending their country. They have good camaraderie with their fellow freedom fighters that they go through battle with, find meaning in their lives because they are protecting the motherland for their children, all the time savouring the victories they achieved along the way.

The modern well to do society simply lack these challenges that engage and provide meaning.

What is your PERMA?

Ageing

I was at a Simon Fraser University philosopher's cafe last night about ageing.

It seems that we cannot talk about ageing without lamenting about how things are changing so fast, how the computer has changed our lives in such a short time, and how can older people ever connect with the younger generation.

There was also some expression of how the western culture do not respect the older members in society and how they are seen as a burden rather than a source of wisdom.

In the midst of discussing how to stay relevant and connected to the younger generation,  there were also expressions of loneliness for the old and how our modern society may have the institutions to care for our physical health but lack the cultural values to assist our emotional health.

Some thoughts from the discussion.

1.  The fast pace of change. While it is true that the rate of change as measured by any conventional yardstick have been fast and moving ever faster,  my guess is that this is because computers, internet, and better communications have enabled us to progress faster.  So from the standpoint of the effort required to keep up with the change, it may not be that much more than before.  It does mean that we have to keep up with the new tools and systems.  Those still using hand tools will have trouble keeping up with people using power tools but the power tool users may not be expanding much more effort to produce the larger volume of products compared to the hand tool users.

2.  Age can be counted by the amount of time since we were born.  Experience and wisdom are acquired over time through mindful observation and contemplation.  A 60 year old is probably more likely to be wiser than a 50 year old but age is at most a measurement of odds and not a definitive indicator of wisdom and deserving respect. Demanding respect through old age alone is not sufficient especially to the young.

3.  There was talk in the discussion that respect for the elder and the noble class have deteriorated since the first world war when the army generals and officers were obviously making big mistakes causing unnecessary casualties.  I think that the way knowledge is being passed on may have something to do with the decreasing respect for age and authority.  In the old days of apprenticeship with a master, the apprentice learn from doing and copying the master.  It is difficult for the apprentice to know how much more he has to learn from the master and the master naturally had respect as he is the sole source of the knowledge. The master represents all there is to know in that particular field.  As knowledge is gradually documented in books and students have access through experts far away through books,  their immediate teacher no longer command the same respect as the master over the apprentice.  Today, with internet search and Wikipedia at our finger tips,  we can see someone may know more than we do, but we can also see that they do not know a lot more.  Therefore, the respect continue to fade.

4.  The analogy in "branding" is interesting.  People start buying name brand sport shoes because the shoes felt comfortable but they did not initially know why.  As they started to see the significance of arch support, resilient soles, and breathable top sides, they started considering other brand of sport shoes.  In other words, they are gradually becoming knowledgeable about sport shoes themselves and no longer rely on the brand name as their assurance of quality or sport shoe expertise.  We rely on brands when we do not fully know what it is that makes the branded products good.  Just like an apprentice rely on the master because the apprentice do not have all of the master's knowledge and do not know where the master's knowledge ends.  With reference books and the internet search options, it seems easy enough for ourselves to be knowledgeable if we spend the effort.  Therefore, we no longer rely as much on reputation or brands, whether it is the old world master, the reputable retail store, or the so call "experts".


Finally, I think older people assume that they know better because they have been around longer and may even demand or expect respect due to their age.  What is overlooked here is that respect is earned and bestowed by others.  The more one demands it, the less it will be awarded.

The most important thing in life is balance, how is balance measured?

Last night we had an interesting discussion about the topic of balance in life.

My original thought was to address the work, family, personal time type juggling that a lot of people, especially women face these days.  However, Gerry thought the discussion was going to be about harmony, balance in art and nature. For Gerry, nature, good art are examples of good balance.  It is difficult to pinpoint but perhaps it is one of those things where we know when we see it. The problem here is that "balance" is used to describe almost everything natural and good to the point that we cannot figure out what balance is.

Mano thought that the word balance is now overused in oriental mysticism to describe something good without knowing or being nailed down to what it is.  Perhaps proportioning better describe the work life split we sometimes find so difficult to draw a line on.

Through the discussion,  it occurred to me that when people distress over work-life balance, they are actually trying to optimise or try to get the most they can in achieving career and personal success. The pursuit of the optimum or trying to maximize one's time or energy is always an inherently dangerous thing to do.  It implies that there is only a very narrow target that one would be satisfied which in turn means one will be disappointed most of the time.

This is all the more difficult due to the impossible task of trying to foretell the fruitfulness of one's investment in one's efforts towards work or personal life.

So claiming that there is a "balance" in the work-personal life compromise is really an illusion as this perfect balance can only be set with hindsight and often with regret of what "should have been done".

It is likely that through inevitable comparison with others at work and personal life situations we feel that we ought to do better in either or both of these area.  Not the hard nose compromising exercise as implied by the word "balance".  We want it all, not the compromise.

Bruce raise the idea of whether people like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are "in balance" as they go through the difficult stages of their lives.  They seem to be above the social pressure that was forced on them and we do not think of them as someone who would wonder if their life is in balance.

This implies that it is clear vision of their goals and their attitude that help them fight off the crushing social pressure from the outside.

Perhaps it is clear goal and positive attitude that will get us out of this optimising, compromising regretting state, worrying whether we could have gotten more if we had just spent our time and energy in a wiser, better proportion. In grand causes like those for King and Mandela, the job is never done, any progress is good progress, so there is no regrets.

Mano object to comparison to figures like King and Mandela as that is just not how we live our lives.  It leads us to feel we are losers compared to these giants and that is not the case.  It is not the proper comparison bar.

While I agree with Mano on this, the interesting thing is that King and Mandela's jobs are never done while we tend to envision end goals for our careers and personal lives.  Regrets come from falling short of these goals.

Therefore,  while it is good to have targets to aim for, we should also be thankful for what we have achieved. To have contentment versus the nagging consciousness of tasks left undone and territories to conquer.

Maybe this is the "balance" we should be looking for when looking at our lives, the balance of contentment versus challenges to come.

There just is no simple answer is there?

While we were discussing balance, somehow we also talked about group dynamics in bullying. Gerry thought that besides the bully and the victim,  there is usually a rescuer.

Bruce said he learned from a seminar that there is usually the bully, the victim, and the bystander.  The bystander is actually helping the bully through inaction and the bully gets emboldened by this inaction.  Therefore the bystander's position is way more important than the bystander thinks.

All in all, an interesting evening discussion.

Religion in the 21st century

I went to a Simon Fraser University philosopher's cafe discussion on religion in Maple Ridge this evening.

The moderator Larry Green started off the discussion with what he thinks are the three characteristic of religion:

1.  That it offers a personal god for people to relate to, to appeal to, and to feel that someone is looking after them.

2.  That religion establishes a stable social order (the 10 commandments) by telling people how to behave.

3.  That it provides something that is sacred.  By that Larry meant something that is out of the understanding of our earthly world and something that we are not expected to know and cannot know.

Adam said that religion provides a sense of purpose for us.  Will felt that this purpose can be badly placed as in the case of the terrorist for 9/11.  Will also mentioned Christopher Hitchen's point that human society have been operating for thousands of years before Moses came down the mountain with the tablets.  There cannot be a society full of rape, murder, and stealing before the ten commandments as the social group will simply not last with that chaos.  Therefore religion is using what is already accepted as good social practice and turned it into the commandments.

Some thought that atheists are just as dogmatic and have faith in science instead of religion.

Will reminded us that the definition of faith is to believe without evidence, and trust is the expectation of future behaviour based on past experience.  Using science and logic as a method and procedure is based on observation and evidence.  If the evidence do not support the current scientific understanding,  then science based think will change to an explanation that will include the new evidence.  This is therefore the opposite of faith.

Religion is necessarily dogmatic in that it claims to know everything because god knows everything.  Therefore,  it is impossible for religion to change its position if it knows it was right all along.  For a previous pope to condemn Galileo and for the last pope to pardon him means one of the popes got it wrong.  If this means they are not dogmatic, it also means we cannot trust the judgement from the pope as the can no longer claim they are always right as they are the messengers of god.

Science start off not knowing and base knowing on observation and how it fit theories proposed. If new observations do not fit the existing theory, the theory is revised to include the new observation,  therefore science is not dogmatic as it is always changing as more evidence is gathered.

Some mentioned the good things that religion has given us such as the Salvation Army and other charitable organizations that have help the disadvantaged.  But there are also non religious charitable organizations doing good.  Good people do good things,  bad people do bad things.  Religion uses the incentive of heaven and the threat of hell to make less good people do good things.  But religion also use those incentives as reason for good people to do bad things such as the crusade, or converting others to their faith.

There is also the talk of the consoling aspect of religion,  that in times of trouble,  it is good to know that there is a god to look up to for help to get through the tough times.

The trouble is,  didn't god have something to do with the bad things happening?  Didn't he caused it to happen?  If it was the work of the devil, why did god allowed it?  If god was testing our will,  will appealing to him do any good?

Larry's three points on religion and Will's quote of Hitchens on social order before Moses and the 10 commandments make me think of the following comparison.

Imagine we are back in the second grade and playing in the playground.  There was a bully among our group and for him,  might is right.  The social order is based on the bully's might and the group survived, though perhaps uncomfortably.

One of the group members though comes forward and say that he has a brother in sixth grade and his older brother told him that the group should not listen to the bully but should follow a different set of rules as told by this sixth grader.  The bully was controlled on the threat of the sixth grader coming on his younger brother's bidding.  Besides, the rest of the second graders were also getting bolder because of this and though the bully can take each of them on,  he is hesitant to take them all on at once.

All the second graders now feel that there is a new better social order as the power is a bit more spread out than when the bully was the rule and that through one of them,  they can look to the sixth grader for protection and advise.

It is not necessary for the sixth grader to show up,  just the thought of the existence of this protector and the reinforcing comments from the leader was enough to build confidence among the second graders and console them when things don't work out.

They believe that some day,  they will individually get a chance to meet the sixth grader who, according to the leader, knows all about what is going on.  So they better all behave according to the rules set out by the leader.

Sixth grade is so far beyond second grade that it is impossible for the second graders to know the ways of the sixth grader.  It is sacred.

Maybe the leader of the second graders did not have a brother in sixth grade but made it up in order to control the bully and become the leader.

Maybe the leader dreamt or was deluded into thinking he had a brother in sixth grade.

It turned out that sixth grade is indeed different than second grade,  but not that much.

Mean while,  in the next school and playground,  a similar scene is played out, but the leader of the second graders has several brothers in higher grades and they have different specialities that the second graders can go to for advice.......

The two groups of grade twos met at a field trip and they both claim that their grade six protector(s) is(are) more powerful than the other group's and that theirs is the one with the true sacred powers and a fight erupted between the two groups, both confident that their own sixth grade protectors will show up to beat the other side up.

How much further should I go with this????

Are we out of the second grade yet?

Why do we hate?

This evening we discussed the sources of hatred and how we can deal with it.

Mark started the discussion by differentiating repulsion from hate.  Repulsion and attraction are human biological responses with indifference in the centre.  Hate requires a social component.  We can be repulsed by cockroaches and bad food but we hate some one of a different social group.

Mano further expanded this by saying there is a difference between our earth and our world,  one being physical and biological while the other is our social construct.  Mano further believes that hate is a characteristic that is easy for humans to fall into and we need to guard against that.  It is also something that is nurtured and reinforced until it becomes acceptable without scrutiny within our own social group.

Bruce thinks that the cure to neutralise hate is education but Shula felt that hate is an emotional rather than a rational response so it is not easy for rationality to overcome this negative emotion.

Rafi sited various examples of racial hatred that existed in society where the target of the hatred is a very small number in the society and most members of the society have not met or knew any member of this small targeted group.

A lot of the hatred are in handed down traditional attitudes, jokes, practices that are accepted but not questioned.

Political leaders may take advantage of hate as a way of mobilizing the population but the propensity has to be there to start off with.

Mano suggested that one way to recognise hatred being perpetrated by someone is to see if emotional buttons are being pressed by their claims and the content of facts versus implied but not proven conclusions.

There was a lot of discussion about us versus them or the "other" and that hatred of others is sometimes used to build a tighter social group among the "us".  Does this means that we will always have a tendency to find and hate the "other" since we want to build our social group?

Bruce felt that conversations and discussions with the "other" is what will neutralise hatred.  We often avoid communicating with our "enemies" and never get to find out the common ground we have with them.

Joseph thought that social media is breaking down the stereo types in society and minimizing the distance in communicating with people from other parts of the world.

What came out of the discussion for me is that it is easier to promote hatred than trust as hatred is based on suspicion and speculation where as trust requires repeated demonstrations of considerations for others.  Therefore we need to recognise this imbalance in cognition and put suspicion based theories under a much harsher light.  Don't let our fears of the unfamiliar (therefore suspicion) get the better of us.  Recognise that our emotional response needs to be verified by rationality.

Great discussion!

Cosmetic surgery, why is it acceptable to cure but not to enhance?

Last Wednesday,  we had a discussion about our society's attitude towards cosmetic surgery.

Cosmetic surgery started during the world wars when people were disfigured by burns and war wounds and there was a great need to help people get back to normal lives and integrate into everyday society.

Since then,  the enhancement side of cosmetic surgery became a branch and business on their very own.  Celebrities and people in the entertainment business who regard their public persona as their most valuable asset feel the need and benefit of enhancing their appearance to help and maintain their professional lives.

The public at large however, still feel that cosmetic surgery is "unnatural".  That it is needed to repair disfigurement but somewhat vain to enhance.

Unfortunately,  I was not able to get people at the Ideas Cafe to agree that we feel uneasy about cosmetic surgery.  The group felt that whatever people want to do is their business and we should not pass judgement on their preferences.  The most we can say is that they are not spending their money wisely if some other aspect of their lives are deprived in some way because of spending money in cosmetic surgery or if they are taking undue health risk because of cosmetic surgery.

Dan did express a feeling that he found himself not trusting the judgement of a man with a "bad hair job".  Perhaps cosmetic surgery is one marker of a person's values and their decision making.

What was also interesting was that no one found it unusual about the example of a woman faced with breast reconstruction after a mastectomy from breast cancer, that she chooses a "better shape and size" than before. We may as well make it better while we are at it, but to enhance something before it is "broken" is a different matter.

I was therefore not able to explore the nuance of presenting a better appearance through cosmetic surgery when we obviously are attracted to people who are better looking.

On a similar plane, we accept make up as part of our social lives.  We may even feel that ladies who do not wear make up for an important occasion may not be taking the occasion seriously.

How do we feel about someone who is wearing "too much" make up?  How much is too much?

Perhaps the right amount of make up is when people notice the good looks but not aware that make up is involved.

Maybe that would apply with cosmetic surgery as well,  that it should seem natural and not man made.

In other words,  the deception needs to be well executed and not noticed.

Viewed this way,  it is like white lies and other "social graces",  we know it happens, we know it lubricates and smooths the social transactions,  and we leave it there. We assume the best and do not probe beyond.

We do not ask if someone's beautiful photograph is air brushed to remove blemishes, we let ourselves be carried along in the deception that there really are natural born immaculate beauties in Hollywood with enduring youth and unbelievable figures.

I understand that cosmetic surgery is very popular in Brazil and people discuss it openly as part of health care.  The poorer classes sees it as small luxuries for themselves and also as a way to possibly break out of their class through beauty as often shown on soap operas on TV.  

A different level of deception acceptance?

Aren't humans wonderfully interesting?

Hierarchy in art

To start off with, let's define art so that we have a common starting point.

In general, art is something that makes our senses take notice and evoke an emotional response in us.  Art is generally skillfully and creatively done so that the end result often impresses us as beautiful in a way we may not have thought of before.

 

I proposed this general definition of art without referene to any medium so that we can discuss how various forms of art may compare with each other and ultimately,  how video games fit in as an art form.  This topic was proposed by Paolo who felt strongly that video games as an art form is no lesser than any other form such as movies.

 

The discussion group immediately took issue with my definition.  Some think that we should not exclude ugly art as beauty is a subjective judgment and therefore anything that evokes an emotional response is art.

 

Mano also suggest that in order to define something as art, we must be able to say others are not art.  If everything is art,  then nothing is.

 

Dan wonders if a beautiful piece of drift wood can be art as no one made it and it is a result of the randomness of nature.  This ties in with those who think that art needs to be created by some one with intention.  So God created the driftwood and believers can consider the driftwood as art but athiests are missing out on a lot of naturally created art but only see them as beautiful objects???

 

What if the spectator interprets the art differently than what the creater had in mind?

 

Bob suggested that art is a fuzzy set which means that there are some things that we know definitely as art but there are other items that are less certain as we drift towards the fuzzy boundaries of what is or is not art.  Therefore we can cite examples of art and not art but there is a lot of grey in between.

 

One of the other properties of art suggested by some is that it stands the test of time.  Paolo felt strongly that this is not a legitimate measure.  Are classical music really better or are we culturally influenced from birth that this is "good" music?  Paolo wonders if Shakespear would be as outstanding in our esteem if we were not all exposed to it as part of most school programs.  Is it the exposure that formed our taste or is Shakespear truly a stand out on its own?

 

Bruce cites the example of Blake as a poet who was ahead of his time and only later did the population caught up with him and appreciate him.  This seems to imply that our taste changes like fashion.  We can be slightly ahead of the crowd and be fashionable but too far ahead and we risk being an outcast.

 

Paolo said that he thought of the topic because someone who agreed with him about a certain video game being a beautiful art piece wondered why it is not made into a movie.  To Paolo, the video game is a worthy art form on its own and movies are not any better art form.

 

What occured to me though is that video games are primarily something to engage the player.  The player takes on a role and interact with the game and other players.  This changes the traditional notion of art as something that we experience through seeing, hearing, or combination of both.

 

The player involvement in the game changed the nature of th experience to something more akin to sports. 

 

We marvel at some of the top soccer and hockey players on how they can come up with new moves and strategies to outplay their opponents.  Yet even the sport spectator do not consider these great moves as art even though it engages the spectator and the player to love the sport.

 

Is sport not an art form if it evokes such emotions out of sport fans and they decribe the moves as a thing of beauty?  Seems to fit the definition perfectly.

 

My thinking is that we are simply bounded by tradition of what art is without ever trying to define it properly.

 

If we consider aspects of sport and games (is creative chess move an art?) as art, then video games as an art form both in the creation and playing will be more natural to us.

Cognitive component to love

Is love purely emotional or is there a cognitive and rational part?

Last night we discuss this diverse topic.

In the initial stages of meeting a mate, can we rationally go down a checklist, narrow our choices, find the ideal candidate, and then develop the emotional attachment?  Or is it more like "falling in love", then do a rational check (or justification!)

As a point of comparison, Mano thinks that we are different from other animals in that we are aware of the future and the past and that we also love while other animals don't.

Do animals love?  RJ said that from his rancher experience,  wolves are very loyal to their mates, do not have sex with wolves other than their partners, and do not switch social packs.  Thus the "lone wolf" label to describe those wolves who do not join other social packs after their mates have died.  Interestingly enough, RJ thinks that dogs, who came from wolves, are promiscuous because humans encouraged it to be so that the humans can breed the strains that humans want.

Gerald thinks that as a baby,  we were initially only aware of the present,  as we grow, we become aware of the past and the future.  Together with language which allow us to describe our situation,  we are able to look at ourselves and have introspection. Love becomes richer and more complex than just an attraction of the sexes and the longer relationship also deeper meaning than just being part of a social pact.

We also acknowledge the significance of first impressions on emotions and attractions.  How do we form these fast first impressions?  Are they accurate and can we rely on them?

Since first impressions are "intuitive", "subconscious", it is difficult to analyse.  One possibility is that our past experience creates standard categories for us to make sense of life and the people we meet.  When we meet someone for the first time,  we "intuitively" slot this stranger to someone we know so that we can quickly assess the situation.  By this explanation, first impressions will depend on our life experience, if we have been bitten by a dog before,  our first impression of a dog will be quite different than someone who had experienced dogs as loving pets.

Our conceptions of the person we are trying to love may also be different than the person.  We can be loving our conception of our intended mates only to find out later that they are not as we think they are.  We had fallen in love with what we want, not what we had.

We also discussed "matured love" as referenced from Erich Fromm. It described a relationship that is not about the self but more about the pleasure arising from giving of the self to the other. http://www.philosophynow.org/issue85/Is_Love_An_Art

But not all giving relationships are necessarily healthy.  Respect and appreciation from the receiver seems a necessary part of a mature loving relationship versus a dependent relationship where the giving is taken for granted.

Can we love everyone versus just our partner, our family, our friends, and immediate circles around us?  Some said yes while others disagree.  Here, it is the meaning of the word love that is in question.  Do we mean love to be a giving and kind attitude that we hold or is it an intimate emotional relationship we have with some one.  We cannot have both meanings in the same word.

What about love with multiple partners?  Why is it that parents can have multiple children and love them all but our society frowns on multi-partner life styles such as the poly-amorous? If you love someone and want the best for them, would it not include more people that they like to be with as well?

My own thinking here is that intimacy is a time consuming and passionate issue,  multiple partners simply dilutes this intimacy and time constraints stops the theoretical possibility of having everything there is to be had. There just isn't the engagement and emotional sharing in a multi partnership arrangement as there is with a monogamous one.

Why is it uncomfortable to talk about sex?

Tonight at the Ideas Cafe, we had a great discussion about our attitude towards sex and why we are uncomfortable talking about it.

Both Shula and Mano mentioned that part of the reason may be that our sex organs are close to our waste organs and as children growing up,  we were taught that our waste organs are dirty and our sex organs may become dirty by association.

Lisa said that it is all about context.  That we should not be uncomfortable about discussion sexual education with children or talk about sex when there is a reason to. It is just not the time and place to talk about it in general conversation before we get to know someone well.

We compared to discussing sex with discussing food.  How we can openly discuss good food preparation but do not discuss improving our sex techniques.

Shula also mentioned that there is a parallel with food in that with very religious Jews,  they do not use the word "pork" as something they do not eat but refer to it as "white meat".  The word "pork" is too unmentionable to them much like some of us who do not want to use words like penis and vagina but substitute it with other words instead.

Gerry said that sex is sacred between two people in love and it is a feeling that defies description.  To discuss it is to demean it and to reduce it to a pleasure experience is desecrating the experience.  There is no word or description that can adequately describe it.

Raffi and Shula disagree in that anything we can attempt to describe with language is on its way to describing the feeling and experience.  It may not completely describe it but we have to try and to figure out what is inadequate.  To not do it is to give over to the religious authorities and to give up on trying to understand something.

There were various examples of different cultures that have different sexual rituals than ours illustrating that our attitude towards sex is rooted in our culture.

At the very least, we should be able to discuss sex more openly so that we can all improve our experience.  Joseph mentioned that this is not an issue with the younger generation and that there is no performance anxiety of not talking about sex for fear of not measuring up.

There was discussion of the changing social attitudes towards sex.  How some years ago, it was not possible for one of the married partners to complain about being raped, how it was illegal to have interracial sex before, and certain sex acts were prohibited.

Rafi mentioned that sex is too strong a motivator to be passed over by organised religion and political leaders.  It is difficult to control food as the masses need it everyday but sex is something that can be suppressed and manipulated to the advantage of those in power.

Most at the cafe feels that we will become more and more comfortable talking about sex and that attitude will continue to change to make it more acceptable.  Shula said prostitutes should be made therapists and have proper training for therapy as there is obviously a demand for their services.

The same applies to pornography and drugs.

My take from the cafe is that the more we talk about it the more comfortable we will be about it and will demystify it.  While Gerry has a point about love making sex a more spiritual experience, that also make sex more of an unapproachable topic that defies understanding.  We need both the technique and feeling.

There was discussion monogamy versus polyandrous relationships and how they arguably have their good points but that is for another cafe. 

Somehow, I feel like I am not capturing the lively spirit at the cafe.  Feel free to add comments as I must be leaving quite a few things out.

Outsourcing the military

Yesterday we discussed the considerations for outsourcing the military.

There are arguments for outsourcing government services to improve efficiency.  Why not the military?

Summary of the ideas;

1.  We already outsource parts of the military,  they buy trucks and equipment instead of making it all themselves.  They use civilians to construct military buildings even though they have their own engineers who can build bridges.  So they already outsource to some degree.  We may be more talking about the soldiers who actually carry out combat duties, the ones who put their lives at risk.

2.  When a country move from mandatory conscription to a voluntary army,  the combat duty is already "outsourced" to professional soldiers instead of military service being part of civic duty.  These professional soldiers sign on to take the place of other citizens in return for the pay and benefits offered by the military.

3.  Outsourcing the military detach military action too much from political decisions.  It is easier to send an "outsourced" military to action overseas but a conscripted defense force is much more motivated to protect their country as it is their own land but would hesitate to intervene a foreign situation.

4.  The military serve to deter outside aggression by just being there.  Having a military at the ready on standby with active patrol duty signals to a potential aggressor that they are up against a difficult task when invading.  Having a big war chest with ready funds to hire mercenaries don't quite achieve the same affect.

5.  Military action involve situations where the scope of work is ill defined.  This makes it difficult to contract the task to some other entity.  Contracting out is better suited to well defined work with agreed objectives.

6.  The military have special rules of conduct in war which civilian contractors are not obligated to.  This led to the example of torture by outsourced  contractors.  Whether the military intentionally use contracting out to distance themselves from these undesirable practices, the laws needs to be changed to cover the contractors as well and the contractors needs to be under the same obligations.

7.  Loyalty is a big factor and the French foreign Legend use French officers even though the soldiers are paid foreigners and it is only used for action outside of France.

8.  While the ancient Greeks take pride in looking at military service as part of civic responsibility,  we also have to keep in mind that they are land owners protecting their own land and not everyone have a vote.  Therefore the make up of civic voting group is not the same as it is today.

9.  Outsourced contractors may have a conflict of interest in wanting to prolong a war or promote conflict in order to generate more business for themselves.

10.  Constantly training to be ready is the military's routine.  Is it possible to place our nation's trust on some outside contractor to maintain this readiness?  Perhaps while they are maintaining the same readiness for a possible future enemy?

In the end, morale and motivation is a big part of military action. War is also about dealing with an enemy that may not follow rules.  All this makes it a difficult issue to define for outsourcing.  Once bits of it is defined, it can be outsourced.  Should the military outsource the manufacturing of their own bullets? I would say yes as it seems like a defined issue.  Should the military outsource its intelligence gathering?  I would say no as it seems a fluid issue with a lot of judgment calls required. 

Consenting adults and personal freedom

Our liberal society and our conception of personal freedom leads us to believe that anything is permissible so long as it is between consenting adults.

Trudeau's famous saying in the '60s of "government have no business in the bedroom of the nation" legitimized consenting adult behavior in privacy as outside of the business of others and therefore government.

Rather than providing a conduct of behavior, our laws are now mainly involved in the protection of children, minorities, and parties who cannot properly give or withhold consent.

What examples do you have that involve behavior or things that should be legitimately banned even among consenting adults?

One example is that what is agreeable between two consenting adults may have implications to other adults whose permissions were not asked for or granted.  

An employer cannot hire someone at less than minimum wage even if the worker agrees to work for less than minimum wage because it affects other jobseekers who wants to be protected by the minimum wage legislation.  

Individual citizens cannot agree to break a society's laws just because they disagree with the law legitimized by the majority of society.

Or maybe the actions of two consenting adults have what environmentalist call externalities, implications on future generations who cannot participate in the consent process.  We cannot agree to pollute a lake that unborn generations have to clean up later on and yet have no consenting participation for this decision.

What about prostitution or variations there off?  

What about exploitation ?

Is an exchange among consenting adults always a "fair exchange" ?

Of course, anything we do have affect on others.  It is impossible to do something without some affect on others around us.  

So does it mean that we always have more adult consent to sort after other than the immediate parties involved?  

This will make a mockery of the concept of personal freedom if there is nothing we can do that does not affect others and our "freedom" is always at the mercy of other people's "consent"

Perhaps there is a way we can draw the line on our personal freedom versus how our action affect others.  Where do we draw this line?

Maybe we do not need to get the consent of the grocery clerk every time we see a grocery sale because we can assume that it is not at the sacrifice of their job for us to get the sale.  But what if it is?  Should we still take the sale and keep the clerk's job as not related to the sale offered?

How do we identify who should be considered as stake holders in any transaction?

Does prostitution involve the consent of only the prostitute and the customer?  What about the customer's spouse? What about the neighbors where the prostitute carry on his/her business? The landlord who rented the facilities? The employer of the customer who wants to project a decent corporate citizen image? The community organization that the customer belong to who do not want any scandal to discredit the organization?

We are having our Ideas Cafe discussion this Wednesday and we will see whether we are actually as "free" as we think we are.

Why should life or societies be fair? What is driving fairness?

We had an interesting discussion about fairness last night at the New Westminster Ideas Cafe.

Is fairness subjective and relative to the observer?  It would seem that way given the example from Shula about the perspective of the driver versus the pedestrian and how each think the other should behave.  The interesting point is that when the driver gets out of the car to walk and the pedestrian gets into the car to drive, it does not take long for them to change their perspective to their new identities.

This rapid change in view point brings the two perspectives in consideration and remind us how much we change when we change our perspectives.

Fairness then involve understanding the two or more sides of the situation and the compromises that inevitably is required for these sides to coexist.

Even with these perspectives, and the understanding of these perspectives,  there can still be several points of compromise that can be reasonably "fair" positions.  These can be arrived at from different considerations such as waiting time of the pedestrian versus the driver, safety of the pedestrian, stop and go of the vehicle etc.

Fairness is therefore a concept that is superior to equal treatment in one dimension only but tries to encompass other considerations to arrive at an overall equitable situation for all parties.

RJ mentioned that the courts do not want to address "fairness" but strive for equality under the law.  The legal system therefore is our attempt to strive for fairness but we will have to settle for equality in particular matters.

Why do we esteem fairness as a desirable trait for our society? Perhaps against our evolutionary self interest to give up some of our benefits to share with others in the name of fairness?

One possibility is that we all want to live and be part of a social group that is fair. Partly because we may be on the other side of this fairness evaluation someday and therefore investing in fairness today by sharing may benefit us later on.  The other part is that self interest is a lonely pursuit and against our social nature to be accepted and valued by others of our social group.

Shula reminded us that we are unfair when it comes to treatment of our children versus other children.  We all want the best there is for our children.  We still teach them to share with other children but we treat our children better.

This unfair treatment extends to other social boundaries beyond our families to our immediate neighbourhood, our city, our province, our country etc.  There is always an unfair bias to our social group and this fairness line gradually shifts as our social group definition gets bigger.

Therefore, it seems that we have these two competing considerations of self interest versus group interest.

We like to be part of a stable social group but that stability is promoted at the expense of some of our self interest.

This compromise of self interest versus group interest continues on to interest of the social group we are currently in versus the social group that is immediately outside of our current group.

For people living outside of the Vancouver area, is it fair to have the province spend money on the Winter Olympics ?

I am sure that they would rather have money spent in their area but they would also like to be in a province that had raised its image because of the Olympics.

Is it fair to have paid sick leave when some people are sick more often than others? Abuses aside, it is much easier to say yes if the sick person happens to be a close friend or relative than a stranger.

Again, we have made progress in understanding fairness but only to find that there is much more to be discovered!

Political correctness

We had an interesting discussion yesterday and today about political correctness.  What is it?  Who sets it?

Wikipedia attribute the origins of political correctness (p.c. in short) with the feminist movement in the 70s.  We have all witness the changing of language such as chairman to chairwoman, to chairperson, and now to chair.

Language frames our thinking and terms carry other meanings besides the main intended one.  Sometimes, terms also carry negative baggage from old attitudes that needs to be changed and new terms facilitate that.

Shula said that changing terms is only superficial, it is the thinking that needs to change.

Mano said that the last 50 to 100 years have seen more social change than the centuries before it and p.c. represents the transitional stage before our attitudes and value systems settle into a new equilibrium.  As an example he cites how woman chose their married names from the husband's family name to keeping their own maiden name, to hyphenated name, to new word consisting part of each family name, and maybe to something else.  Like the change from chairman to chair, p.c. represents the state of social acceptance of each new step.

Eventually, society reaches a point where an acceptable term or attitude is reached and our attention is diverted to some other area that draws our attention.

P.c. is also used by the conservatives to complain about not being able to talk about some of the things permissible in the past for fear of offending sensibilities of parts of society. Using the term p.c. sarcastically is the conservatives way of attacking the change.

So p.c. is used by the weak in society to promote a new attitude and value system.  If this idea takes hold and there is enough support, the proponents can claim that it is the new main stream and label those not conforming as politically incorrect.

It takes courage to initially promote a new idea and convince others that they should adopt this.  At a certain point when there is enough support for this and the movement becomes mainstream, a bandwagon effect happens.

The people who join later are more like bandwagon followers than courageous early adopters. It is now the people who oppose this movement that needs courage to speak against it and risk being run over by the band wagon (and mob).

Dan mentioned that he behaves differently within the various social group that he participate in.  There are unspoken controversial topics for each group and for harmony, these topics are avoided.  This is not p.c., just the way we socialize and get along with the people around us.

However, as the group size grows to societies, the term p.c. seems to apply to these controversial issues.

How do we know when p.c. have gone too far?

Comedians and satirists are always ready to make fun of p.c.

Eventually, the rise of a new social concept relies on the sympathy and support of the masses.  The privileged have to be convinced that they should give up power to those who are underprivileged up till then.

Whether it is an appeal to their sense of justice, fairness, or that the society as a whole will be better off with the new attitude,  the privileged class complies and p.c. is now mainstream and no longer demand attention.

What about issues that was starting to be politically correct but did not manage to change social attitudes later on?  Somehow I cannot think of an example just this minute.

Let me know when you think of one!

Should we admire an artist or athlete for their talent or their effort?

We had a great discussion in the North Vancouver Ideas Cafe tonight.

Shula started off with the first point that it is the result that we admire, not so much of the reason as to whether it is talent or hard work.  We appreciate good music and inspiring athletic performance on its own.

But what about Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, who had to overcome extraordinary obstacles.  It is their persevering over these obstacles that is the object of admiration, not the result of crossing the finish line.

Mano pointed out that we do not need to look at things on an either/or exclusive of each other basis.  We can admire someone for both their talent and their effort or a combination of both.  We can also admire the end result on its own regardless of how it was achieved.

As the discussion went on, it became clear that the word "admire" is rather loose with several meanings. It can mean appreciation, recognition of extraordinary accomplishment, or just liking something that is good to look at, and to know.

Rafi pointed out that good looking people are known to get further ahead in society with less effort.  It is similar to talent.

But then again, even the predisposition to work hard may also be a trait we are born with;  in which case the desire to work hard to accomplish is no different than talent and beauty?

Blair thinks that hard work can only get so far, especially with something creative like music.  However, he would still rather hire a hard worker over someone who is talented.

Leagh agreed that talent is not important as being dependable and hardworking for most jobs.  However, as the discussion continues, it became apparent that there may be jobs where creativity is more important than being dependable and hardworking.  It is just that the vast majority of jobs are better served by the hard worker.

Poets are a good example of creativity over hard work.

Steve Nash is an example of a successful basketball player in spite of not being a very tall person.  Michael Jordan is an example of a tall basketball player who is successful not only because he is tall.

So we can admire the end result, the effort, the will, the normalcy of the artist or athlete in spite of their success.

We can also admire ordinary people doing their task against stiff challenges with little recognition from others.

But the admiration tends to come from something extraordinary and over our expectations.  It is hard to admire people doing routine tasks such as making toast or boiling water (unless some challenging situation which makes this exceptional).

What we should not admire is the herd behavior of what is "popular" for no other reason than other people like it.  This then branch off into a discussion of how to appreciate art and music that we do not currently appreciate.  Is this an "acquire taste" that we should train ourself? or is our taste correct in judging it bad art no matter how many other people like it?

Topic for another day!

Angry Atheists

Shula moderated the Wednesday SFU philosophy cafe about the new wave of militant atheists.  Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Danial Dennet have done much to bring atheism to the main stage so that atheists can feel comfortable coming out of the closet.

While most in the group are non religious,  there were a few who spoke for the religious side.

It is always quite personal when it comes down to religion.

However,  the points I got out of the discussion was

1.  For the average person not involved in academic scientific research,  it is just as much an act of faith to trust scientist as it is to trust religion.  It comes down to who they choose to trust because they do not know enough about science to see the scientific inquiry process in action.

2.  Science itself is affected by human weakness like herd mentality and lack of independent thinking.  There is definite favoritism involved in the publishing of papers and choice of research area as well as "accepted opinion".

3.  Some attribute religion for the great art and culture in human history but Hitchens and Dawkins, the atheists would attribute it to the great wealth of the church over the ages and artists have a choice of working for the church or the monarch but not too many other people until the Venetian bankers came along.  Michealangelo better walk the churches' line to paint what is appropriate for the church.

4.  The religious side also attribute our morality from the bible and other religious teachings.  This is where Hitchens and Dawkins point out all the other horrible episodes of slavery, unequal treatment of women, killing of the enemies etc to show that we have been just picking parts of the bible that fits our morals.  Besides, the Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, and other cultures have their moral code either before the new testament or independent of it.

5.  While the religious texts do treat matters of morality, codes of behavior, and meaning of life which science does not,  the objection is that it is a prescription without discussion or explanation.  So it addresses the subject but do not shed any more light on it.

I think the biggest difference is that religion approach life from a know it all position because the supreme being know it all and we are suppose to listen and follow.

Therefore, the important thing in religion is finding the right authority to listen to. Which supreme being, if there is one, is the one we should listen to?

The scientific inquiry method and philosophical discussions starts from a position of ignorance and build knowledge from observations, logic, and repeat experiments. The path of discovery is filled with disagreements, setbacks, and new discoveries that contradicts previous findings.

And we never know how much more there is to discover.

We don't have to trust Newton or Socrates, we only have to repeat their experiments, or examine the logic of their arguments.  Even if they both turned out to be fakes and they stole their ideas from someone else,  it is their ideas that matter, not the person.

With religion, the choice of god is everything. Whether it is the Greek gods, the Christian, Jewish, or Islamic god, or the Hindu god,  it is the deity that promise to provide the answers.

Whether there is a god or not,  the religious approach certainly discourage independent thought and promote following without question.

Dawkins thinks we should not bring up children in only the religion of their parents but that children should be encouraged to think independently as well as be told about other religions as well as atheist perspectives so that they can make an independent choice when they grow up.

I would agree.

Why do we gossip?

We had an interesting discussion Wednesday evening about gossip and this continued on in our first time North Vancouver Ideas Cafe on Thursday. 

There seem to be several variations of what is gossip. 

While I always thought of gossip as involving some sharing of secrets and often of a negative nature,  a lot of people think gossip can be positive and also that it can be just conversation and small talk.

One of the definitions in my dictionary is that gossip is a conversation exchange without passing too much information......Then what is the point?

It is a typical male response as we males tend to be goal oriented.  Now I see that gossip and conversation is not just about exchanging information but often more about socializing.  It is about making people feel comfortable with each other,  exploring whether they should talk about something more personal to get into a closer circle with the other person.

As to the sharing of secrets side of gossip,  the secrets invoke drama, excitment, and a proposal of trust to the receiver of this shared secret.  There is no greater social experience than sharing a common endeaver with another person and sharing a secret is a close second to that.

Bruce mentioned that 160 students is an optimal size for a school and that schools with more students need to take special efforts to improve coesion to stop the school from breaking up into factions. 

This triggered my thinking that gossip is part of how a social group forms and grows and how smaller subgroups start forming within a bigger group that is loosing its grip on its members.

The sharing of confidences builds bonds among individuals sharing the secret and start making them feel that they have kinship with each other.

Ricki and Colleen said that they would not feel any closer to people who propose sharing other secrets with them as these gossipers are obviously not to be trusted. 

Just like a lier that said he no longer lies,  how do we know that a gossiper will not spread gossip about us as well?

That is very logical but the appeal of gossip is to the emotions, not logic.

Then, there is the gossip column in the newspapers.  It is characterised by the reporting of social news that do not seem to have any real consequence to the welfare of the general citizen.  Joseph said that this is an effort to make readers have a feeling of community, that they read about people they may know, making them feel they belong to the community.

It is what makes people feel a small town is friendlier than a city, where people know each other - where people gossip about someone you actually know.

Of course there is the preoccupation with the detail lives of the celebrities.  Some thinks that this is a form of open gossip.  The general public have a relationship with the celebrities through TV, film, music, and media.  Gossip about celebrities' private lives make the public that much closer to the celebrities.

RJ commented that gossip in which the gossiper puts down their target is a classic indication of lack of self esteem of the gossiper and the gossiper is trying to elevate his/her own position by "social downward comparison" (a new term I learn from Joseph).  Any psychology person out there who may care to comment?

I have gained a new respect for small talk.

Fear in decision making

Last night, at the Ideas Cafe, we discussed how fear played in our decision making.

As usual, I learned some interesting ideas while the discussion moved in various directions.

I had thought of the topic as it seems to me a lot of times we decide on the basis of least harm done out of the options we have rather than the most good achieved.  The attack ads in an election is a good example of this and buying something on the basis that it is least likely to break or cause maintenance issues is another.

Mano thinks it is just being practical to buy things based on it not breaking or being able to return it.  But if that is the reason for not buying something that is newer, better, or different, then is being practical just an excuse for fearful of take a chance?

Mano also mentioned the Barry Goldwater election back in the 60s when the other side used an advertisement of a child pulling out petals from a flower that then turned into the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb.  This is the other side's way of saying we cannot trust Barry Goldwater with the power of a president and the responsibility of to use or not to use nuclear weapons.  The advertisement was only used briefly but the image stuck.

Fear works more with older, conservative decision makers and can be used to confuse the situation so that the decision is not based on the overall picture but concentrated on avoiding a particular fear.

Shula thinks that fear is an emotional response to trigger fight or flight and therefore tends to be a fast reacting but not always resulting in a logical decision outcome.  With training, soldiers, fire fighters and other workers facing fearful situations can be trained to make better decisions rather than follow the emotional reaction.

Rafi made the point that we need to be imaginative to be fearful.  A less imaginative person cannot see what bad situations one can get into.  It may be the reason why younger people are less fearful because they have experienced less negative experiences in life and do not imagine the various negative scenarios.

Mark said courage is required to conquer or suppress our fears. We had a discussion on what constitute a courageous act.  Is it measured by exceeding normal modes of risk taking or would personal attempts to get over the fear of heights, flying, or crossing the road also be considered courageous.  Maybe it needs to achieve a useful end for taking that risk.

Fear and worry in decision making are similar but perhaps differ in degree.  The language is mixed here and sometimes confusing "I am afraid that..."expresses a worry.

Of course there were discussion of the political manipulation by using fear and that perhaps we should not trust groups that use fear to convince decision making as it unfairly concentrate on a narrow aspect of the choice selection.

Rafi also mentioned that fear is more prominent when we decide on issues we are not familiar with. We do not know or understand the whole situation and therefore we decide on the safest option.  Shula pointed out that doctors are fearful of medical scenarios that their patients do not know of.  Is that really fear or is it just language being use to say they know of negative outcomes that the patients do not know?

Christiana said that fear of heights is an innate response as babies have been measured to have a higher heart beat when placed on an elevated clear platform versus an opaque one.

Good fear is the response that concentrates our attention and get us out of a dangerous situation quickly.

Bad fear is irrational response of something that is not immediately harmful and also divert our attention from the overall picture at hand, concentrating only on one aspect.

Therefore, when we feel fear and we don't instinctively save ourselves, our rational side should ask if we really need to make a quick decision and if not, should we bring in other factors beyond what is right in front of us  into consideration.

Don't bring your rational side in when you are about to fall down the stairs, grab the handrail instead.

Don't be afraid of what can go wrong in choosing careers, one does not know what good as well as bad things can happen until actually in it.