I was at the Meetup yesterday facilitating one of the tables.
We discuss how most of us are "addicted" to certainty and becomes unglued when uncertainty strikes.
There are so many ways this topic can branch into that at first we were talking about how the certainty of our own knowledge blocks us from learning more (we already know!) and from seeing other perspectives.
There were quotes from Bertrand Russell, Erich Fromm to this effect.
It seems we generally want to be able to wrap an issue up as "settled" and put it away so that we can handle something else.
Leaving issues open is to have loose ends everywhere potentially requiring our attention. It is unsettling, and it makes it hard for us to proceed with confidence in our actions.
But then the other interesting thing that emerged in the discussion was that we tend to think of uncertainty in the negative. Talking about uncertainty generally suggests that things are taking a turn for the worse, we do not consider a surprisingly good turn of events as an uncertainty.
Is this just our conservative nature? The evolutionary result of pessimist being more prepared for bad events?
The addiction to certainty is really our fear of the unknown and unpredictable.
The YouTube videos linked in the reference material for the meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEEpOVUtr0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFRwhJEOos&feature=player_embedded
want us to embrace uncertainty.
It is true that some of us have a tendency to run off with our imagination on how things can get and quickly spiral down to the worst of the worst case scenarios. The optimist amongst us tends to get push aside as naive.
But as the videos pointed out, crying "unfair", "why is this happening to me", "why are things going according to plan" when uncertainty strikes is obviously not productive. Best to concentrate on the current situation, take advantage of the unexpected and deal with what needs to be done.
There is also a video of a Buddhist monk on the same topic. How we should accept what is happening. Change our plans to suit what just happened rather than trying to force our way through. He even advocated that politicians should not make any promises or should only promise with provisions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pswsVGVdISY&feature=player_embedded
Here, I have to say that the complexity of our society comes into play. It is difficult to do anything substantial in our society without the cooperation of many stake holders who all have certain expectations of outcomes for the project.
It is difficult for a builder encountering foundation soil problems to just say he will adjust the building to suit. There is the owner who expects the building for a certain use, the bank who expects the building to be worth a certain amount in order to grant the mortgage, all kinds or other sub-contractors who are expecting certain building costs for the original intended building.
In other words, all substantial projects require detail planning to minimize uncertainties and it is always difficult when things do not go according to plan.
Do we dare to imagine a complete cultural shift someday when society in general does not mind government deviating from budgets and promises? That the same government will exceed our expectations as often as not meeting it?
In other words, it is complicated.
We can all benefit from the positive thinking advocated by the videos, and I wait patiently for the society paradigm shift.
We need more Buddhists among us.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Meeting on identity protection versus freedom of speech on the internet
We had our meeting a few days ago on internet freedom versus reckless identity smears on the internet.
Cyber bullying was raised as the predominate issue and how teenagers cannot get away from the continuous cruel comments on Facebook and the preoccupation with counting the number of "likes" on people's comments even if they are cruel comments.
Some said they will never get on Facebook.
Richard proposed that we should look at each of the application providers as the equivalent of a state or country that we treat the physical world.
Every application provider has their rules of how they want to control their content just like every country have their laws on how their nationals can behave under their laws.
Facebook will stop a post upon a complaint and investigate. YouTube will not show any pornographic videos, and so on.
While all the application providers strive to be as "free" as they can make it, there are rules of privacy and engagement involved.
We decide to join each of these cyber groups by using them with implicit agreement and knowledge of their operations.
From this perspective, we have the freedom to choose which cyber "country" with its rules to join, much easier than having to emigrate from one country to immigrate into another just to change the rules of the game.
We also have the freedom to join multiple application providers with different identities although more and more there is a trend to verify the physical human behind these identities and place more importance to those where a human can be confirmed.
This perspective is also expressed in Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen's book "The New Digital Age" (The Ideas Book Club current book) where they predict that the virtual population will outnumber the population of the earth in the next decade.
But what of all the scams and lies floating around? Where is the policeman?
Dan thinks there is a business case for someone to set up a for profit enterprise with the express purpose to checking out the authenticity of information on the internet. Kind of a consumers report type organization helping consumers to separate the good products from the bad.
Dan also thinks that in a crowd sourcing type of community like the internet, it is up to all of us to speak up when we see inappropriate content. Much like the bullying cases where the bully gets bolder because the bystanders do not step in, if we do not take on the lairs on the internet, the silence will give them credibility.
No one wants the controlled environment such as in China where the state controls the content on the internet and have walls to stop their citizens from accessing Wikipedia, pornography, and other content that the state deems inappropriate.
I can remember the early days of the internet when AOL take the position that their content is filtered and "safe" as a reason why people should get on line through them rather than just the completely open access through other providers.
History have shown that just about all of us prefer the open access. We just have to deal with judging the content ourselves some other way.
Bullying and character assassination have been around before the internet. Like a lubricant and enabler, the internet made everything easier and faster, including the bad stuff.
Our habits and attitudes have not changed fast enough to keep pace with the change and the cyber criminals have been able to take advantage of border limitations of law enforcement agencies and our habit to believe what we see in print.
http://www.factcheck.org/ is a website that supposedly checks on claims by politician. Maybe we need more websites like this to help us deal with the internet?
If you know of other websites that can help us verify content and sources on the internet, please share them with us. We need to promote truth and dispel myths if crowd sourcing is going to work!
Cyber bullying was raised as the predominate issue and how teenagers cannot get away from the continuous cruel comments on Facebook and the preoccupation with counting the number of "likes" on people's comments even if they are cruel comments.
Some said they will never get on Facebook.
Richard proposed that we should look at each of the application providers as the equivalent of a state or country that we treat the physical world.
Every application provider has their rules of how they want to control their content just like every country have their laws on how their nationals can behave under their laws.
Facebook will stop a post upon a complaint and investigate. YouTube will not show any pornographic videos, and so on.
While all the application providers strive to be as "free" as they can make it, there are rules of privacy and engagement involved.
We decide to join each of these cyber groups by using them with implicit agreement and knowledge of their operations.
From this perspective, we have the freedom to choose which cyber "country" with its rules to join, much easier than having to emigrate from one country to immigrate into another just to change the rules of the game.
We also have the freedom to join multiple application providers with different identities although more and more there is a trend to verify the physical human behind these identities and place more importance to those where a human can be confirmed.
This perspective is also expressed in Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen's book "The New Digital Age" (The Ideas Book Club current book) where they predict that the virtual population will outnumber the population of the earth in the next decade.
But what of all the scams and lies floating around? Where is the policeman?
Dan thinks there is a business case for someone to set up a for profit enterprise with the express purpose to checking out the authenticity of information on the internet. Kind of a consumers report type organization helping consumers to separate the good products from the bad.
Dan also thinks that in a crowd sourcing type of community like the internet, it is up to all of us to speak up when we see inappropriate content. Much like the bullying cases where the bully gets bolder because the bystanders do not step in, if we do not take on the lairs on the internet, the silence will give them credibility.
No one wants the controlled environment such as in China where the state controls the content on the internet and have walls to stop their citizens from accessing Wikipedia, pornography, and other content that the state deems inappropriate.
I can remember the early days of the internet when AOL take the position that their content is filtered and "safe" as a reason why people should get on line through them rather than just the completely open access through other providers.
History have shown that just about all of us prefer the open access. We just have to deal with judging the content ourselves some other way.
Bullying and character assassination have been around before the internet. Like a lubricant and enabler, the internet made everything easier and faster, including the bad stuff.
Our habits and attitudes have not changed fast enough to keep pace with the change and the cyber criminals have been able to take advantage of border limitations of law enforcement agencies and our habit to believe what we see in print.
http://www.factcheck.org/ is a website that supposedly checks on claims by politician. Maybe we need more websites like this to help us deal with the internet?
If you know of other websites that can help us verify content and sources on the internet, please share them with us. We need to promote truth and dispel myths if crowd sourcing is going to work!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
9/25/2013 Identity protection versus freedom of speech
This coming Wednesday at the Idea's Cafe, we will be discussing identity protection versus freedom of speech on the internet.
Bruce told me about the story of a teacher whose reputation is ruined by his ex-girlfriend's cyber stalking. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/teacher-powerless-to-stop-ex-girlfriend-s-cyberstalking-1.1314610
It seems that there are lots of examples of previous love interests going on the internet to get even with their ex lover for being dumped.
Or the various examples of cyber bullying where private pictures have been posted on the net.
Then there is the news item of Yelp suing Vancouver man for submitting fake reviews http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/20/yelp-sues-vancouver-man-f_n_3965610.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada
According to Yelp, not only is this person paying others to submit false reviews to bolster businesses being reviewed, this person actually have the audacity to threaten Yelp with creating further fake reviews unless Yelp pay up.
Yelp is seeking a legal order for the internet provider to turn over the person's name and address.
We all know that the internet is the wild wild west and not to trust everything there.
But what about freedom of speech?
What about people who wanted to put in positive reviews for a business because of a genuine positive experience with that business?
What about the neighborhood watch that wanted to alert people of dangerous criminals that have now been released from prison and living in their area?
May be even an ex lover warning other people to stay away from a predatory lover?
Not only can we not count on governments to referee because the internet cross borders, it is hard to imagine anyone who can be the ultimate arbiters for content as diverse as found on the internet.
Social media and the search engine giants are staying away from anything remotely like censorship for fear of upsetting their participants.
Governments like China do a good job of blocking what they deem undesirable for their citizens but not many outside the country would prefer that to the uncensored internet.
Yet a free for all internet ultimately damages its own credibility.
Even if we bring in some form of world court on libel action, we still have issues with ex lover's posting their ex boyfriend or girlfriend's private photos as permission was granted before their relationships grew sour.
As to the protection of the identity of the internet provider's client, when should the internet provider turn over that information? What if the person is doing their false reviews while connected through a free internet connection at the local cafe?
Maybe real freedom is not as good as a restrained environment?
But what kind of restraint and by who?
It seems that there are lots of examples of previous love interests going on the internet to get even with their ex lover for being dumped.
Or the various examples of cyber bullying where private pictures have been posted on the net.
Then there is the news item of Yelp suing Vancouver man for submitting fake reviews http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/20/yelp-sues-vancouver-man-f_n_3965610.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada
Yelp is seeking a legal order for the internet provider to turn over the person's name and address.
We all know that the internet is the wild wild west and not to trust everything there.
But what about freedom of speech?
What about people who wanted to put in positive reviews for a business because of a genuine positive experience with that business?
What about the neighborhood watch that wanted to alert people of dangerous criminals that have now been released from prison and living in their area?
May be even an ex lover warning other people to stay away from a predatory lover?
Not only can we not count on governments to referee because the internet cross borders, it is hard to imagine anyone who can be the ultimate arbiters for content as diverse as found on the internet.
Social media and the search engine giants are staying away from anything remotely like censorship for fear of upsetting their participants.
Governments like China do a good job of blocking what they deem undesirable for their citizens but not many outside the country would prefer that to the uncensored internet.
Even if we bring in some form of world court on libel action, we still have issues with ex lover's posting their ex boyfriend or girlfriend's private photos as permission was granted before their relationships grew sour.
As to the protection of the identity of the internet provider's client, when should the internet provider turn over that information? What if the person is doing their false reviews while connected through a free internet connection at the local cafe?
Maybe real freedom is not as good as a restrained environment?
But what kind of restraint and by who?
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Meeting on "why should I listen to your "stupid" opinion?
Mano had his philosopher's cafe in New Westminster on Wednesday.
A number of interesting points came out of the discussion.
Most people wanted to be accommodating, taking the view that it is always possible that no matter how "stupid" an opinion is, we should listen to it in case there is something more to it than meets the eye initially.
Mano mentioned the two meanings to the word respect.
We can respect someone's opinion because we want to extend reasonable accommodation to another fellow human being.
The other meaning of respect is that we have been impressed with this person's previous demonstration of intelligence and therefore place more importance to what he has to say about the subject.
The first respect is out of courtesy to other beings while the second notion of respect is earned.
There was also the suggestion that we best separate the opinion itself from the person expressing it; to evaluate the idea on its own merits.
However, we can't help but carry a score card for efficiency sake so that we know how much attention to pay to someone based on what their previous statements were like.
People also seem to adopt opinion and positions. Once agreed and expressed, this adopted position becomes entangled with the person's pride and the temptation to defend it rather than to listen to contrary opinions take over.
However, I suspect that Mano's original intention for this topic is not so much as to how we listen and accept "stupid" opinion from others but how we can determine that the opinion is of no value and can be discarded.
He put out examples of conspiracy theories such as the suggestion that we never went on the moon and that the whole moon exploration footage was acted out in a studio somewhere. Or that the US war in Iraq was orchestrated by Obama to..........
These far out opinions and ideas are so unbelievable that they simply are not worth our time and consideration and we should have some way to rule them out.
Mano suggested "filters".
By that I think he meant that with our life experience we gradually form reasonable ways of determining the credibility of a narrative or opinion.
Whether it is based on the background of the person proposing the idea, or how the idea will agree with other known facts or physical behavior, we can judge whether the idea is plausible or outlandish.
Or we can check with other trusted sources to verify aspects of the opinion or narrative for consistency.
I agree that this is a practical way of dealing with everyday events but unfortunately it will also rule out the "black swan" exceptions.
If we have not ever seen a black swan but only white ones, it is all too easy for us to not trust accounts of black swans.
All the "filters" of the people believing in a flat earth will find the current spherical earth theory to be ridiculous.
I am reminded of the popularity of stereo amplifiers in the '70s and '80s to come with high frequency filters to filter out hiss from record player noise from dust on records and low frequency filters to filter out rumble from the motor noise on record players.
These filters were only found on the audio amplifiers that were representing themselves as the "high end" stereo equipment.
The really good stereo amplifiers have not filters at all.
The high fidelity connoisseurs would rather spend effort cleaning their records and fixing their record players to eliminate the hiss and rumble rather than filter it out afterwards because the filters also filter out high and low frequency sounds of the music that they wanted to hear.
So "filters" are efficient and effective in a lot of cases but unfortunately, they can also block out the occasional truth.
Thereafter, we no longer know what the real music is like and our notion of good music is affected by our filters which makes it even more difficult for us to appreciate real music.
So what are we to do?
Be accommodating to a lot of nonsense just in case there is a black swan in there?
Be efficient and filter out the nonsense and let the occasional truth float up through others with less stringent filters?
As always, there is no definite answer or else life will be too boring!
A number of interesting points came out of the discussion.
Most people wanted to be accommodating, taking the view that it is always possible that no matter how "stupid" an opinion is, we should listen to it in case there is something more to it than meets the eye initially.
Mano mentioned the two meanings to the word respect.
We can respect someone's opinion because we want to extend reasonable accommodation to another fellow human being.
The other meaning of respect is that we have been impressed with this person's previous demonstration of intelligence and therefore place more importance to what he has to say about the subject.
The first respect is out of courtesy to other beings while the second notion of respect is earned.
There was also the suggestion that we best separate the opinion itself from the person expressing it; to evaluate the idea on its own merits.
However, we can't help but carry a score card for efficiency sake so that we know how much attention to pay to someone based on what their previous statements were like.
People also seem to adopt opinion and positions. Once agreed and expressed, this adopted position becomes entangled with the person's pride and the temptation to defend it rather than to listen to contrary opinions take over.
However, I suspect that Mano's original intention for this topic is not so much as to how we listen and accept "stupid" opinion from others but how we can determine that the opinion is of no value and can be discarded.
He put out examples of conspiracy theories such as the suggestion that we never went on the moon and that the whole moon exploration footage was acted out in a studio somewhere. Or that the US war in Iraq was orchestrated by Obama to..........
These far out opinions and ideas are so unbelievable that they simply are not worth our time and consideration and we should have some way to rule them out.
Mano suggested "filters".
By that I think he meant that with our life experience we gradually form reasonable ways of determining the credibility of a narrative or opinion.
Whether it is based on the background of the person proposing the idea, or how the idea will agree with other known facts or physical behavior, we can judge whether the idea is plausible or outlandish.
Or we can check with other trusted sources to verify aspects of the opinion or narrative for consistency.
I agree that this is a practical way of dealing with everyday events but unfortunately it will also rule out the "black swan" exceptions.
If we have not ever seen a black swan but only white ones, it is all too easy for us to not trust accounts of black swans.
All the "filters" of the people believing in a flat earth will find the current spherical earth theory to be ridiculous.
I am reminded of the popularity of stereo amplifiers in the '70s and '80s to come with high frequency filters to filter out hiss from record player noise from dust on records and low frequency filters to filter out rumble from the motor noise on record players.
These filters were only found on the audio amplifiers that were representing themselves as the "high end" stereo equipment.
The really good stereo amplifiers have not filters at all.
The high fidelity connoisseurs would rather spend effort cleaning their records and fixing their record players to eliminate the hiss and rumble rather than filter it out afterwards because the filters also filter out high and low frequency sounds of the music that they wanted to hear.
So "filters" are efficient and effective in a lot of cases but unfortunately, they can also block out the occasional truth.
Thereafter, we no longer know what the real music is like and our notion of good music is affected by our filters which makes it even more difficult for us to appreciate real music.
So what are we to do?
Be accommodating to a lot of nonsense just in case there is a black swan in there?
Be efficient and filter out the nonsense and let the occasional truth float up through others with less stringent filters?
As always, there is no definite answer or else life will be too boring!
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Meeting on mindfulness, uses and abuses of attention
I am not familiar with the Buddhist concept of mindfulness and so I was not surprised that I did not gave fair treatment of the term in my last blog before this meeting.
Was hoping that someone will enlighten me about mindfulness and I was really glad that Sandra came to the meeting and filled in some of the missing concepts.
My take from Sandra's explanation is that mindfulness in Buddhism involve letting go of judgment of the situation, accepting what is happening, detach oneself so that one can see what is happening without the bias and coloring from our previous experiences and preconceptions.
When we reached emptiness while being aware of our thoughts drifting by, we do not own it, judge it, name it (judging is involved in naming) or try to explain it, we may then be able to see what we were not able to see before.
Another way of looking at this is that we put so much of routine and familiar occurrences in our subconscious that we are not aware of it judging and contextualizing what we are observing.
Eye witness to car accidents are known to fill in details they did not see with their "mind's eye".
I am still not sure I have grasped the full concept of mindfulness yet but at least I feel I am making progress.
We also discussed how our minds seems to be moving from thought to thought in a serial fashion triggered by the last thought or observation. We cannot assume that we will always move back to evaluate whether what we are about to do is part of an overall optimized solution.
Richard pointed out the significance of naming and word usage. The act of naming something seems to make it more understandable and acceptable even though no further knowledge have been gained.
The choice of a word out of a number of similar words with slightly different shade of meaning automatically place judgement on the situation being described.
It was great to get into discussing ideas again after the summer break. Thanks to all the participants for a lively exchange!
Was hoping that someone will enlighten me about mindfulness and I was really glad that Sandra came to the meeting and filled in some of the missing concepts.
My take from Sandra's explanation is that mindfulness in Buddhism involve letting go of judgment of the situation, accepting what is happening, detach oneself so that one can see what is happening without the bias and coloring from our previous experiences and preconceptions.
When we reached emptiness while being aware of our thoughts drifting by, we do not own it, judge it, name it (judging is involved in naming) or try to explain it, we may then be able to see what we were not able to see before.
Another way of looking at this is that we put so much of routine and familiar occurrences in our subconscious that we are not aware of it judging and contextualizing what we are observing.
Eye witness to car accidents are known to fill in details they did not see with their "mind's eye".
I am still not sure I have grasped the full concept of mindfulness yet but at least I feel I am making progress.
We also discussed how our minds seems to be moving from thought to thought in a serial fashion triggered by the last thought or observation. We cannot assume that we will always move back to evaluate whether what we are about to do is part of an overall optimized solution.
Richard pointed out the significance of naming and word usage. The act of naming something seems to make it more understandable and acceptable even though no further knowledge have been gained.
The choice of a word out of a number of similar words with slightly different shade of meaning automatically place judgement on the situation being described.
It was great to get into discussing ideas again after the summer break. Thanks to all the participants for a lively exchange!
Monday, September 2, 2013
Sept 11, 2013 Mindfulness, the uses and abuses of attention
The typical ideal modern life is to be always up to date with what is happening around us, our social circles and our communities.
We are also to learn lessons from our past activities as well as plan for the future.
This expectation of all knowing is fueled by modern appliances of cell phones, computers, social media and all manner of communications.
When the fax machine came on the scene, we complained that we can no longer rely on the excuse that "the reply is in the mail". There was the lament that we were reacting to news and information on the spot and that we are no longer giving considered opinions.
Now with social media, not only do we give immediate reactions, we are doing it to total strangers.
The antidote most often cited for this multitasking, attention spreading trend is "mindfulness".
Be aware of the moment, let go of the past and put the future aside for the moment. Just concentrate on the now and what is around us.
With mindfulness, we see what we have been missing while rushing around and we should be absorbing the depth of experience right here, right now.
What can be wrong with that?
But can we always live for the moment and have no purpose or care for tomorrow? Can we really live every day as if it is the last day of our lives and then do it again the next day and the day after?
What about our love ones and precious relationships, can we live for the moment without any care for their's or other's well being?
Are we not going to learn from our past experiences, good or bad, and be a better person tomorrow?
So, is mindfulness of the present a dead end to growth, relationships, and moving forward? A selfish act?
The other parallel phrase is the need to "smell the roses" along the way. How does this work with concentrating our efforts towards our goal?
We all know that goal setting works wonders in achieving something. There is nothing like focusing and single-mindedness to get individuals and teams reach amazing ends.
How do we "smell the roses" while concentrate on our goals, be mindful of the implications of what we are doing, and do good for humanity all at the same time???
There recently was an incident of shark attack in Maui, Hawaii, resulting in the death of a German tourist. The newspapers report a growth of "shark incidents" in recent times there. Still, there are millions and millions of tourist visits each year and most, if not all, participate in activities in the water. Is it not realistic to accept a few shark incidents out of this massive amount of water activity?But can we enter the waters in Maui without wondering about sharks near by?
What about cars, we know car accidents can kill. We know that it is a major cause of injury and fatalities and yet we happily drive around and take motor transportation of all sorts.
Is our attention being overly drawn to sharks in Maui but completely ignoring the dangers of driving?
How can we better direct our attention so that we use it well and not to create undue fear in us?
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