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!

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!  

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?

Is truth still relevant?

Last week I went to a philosopher's cafe where the discussion is about whether we should still teach our children to tell the truth.

The doubt arises from our more "relaxed" attitude today to sticking to only the truth in dealing with others.

There are the social graces of white washing in order to not hurt other people's feelings, always telling the hostess what a great time you had at their party regardless of your actual experience.

Or take the more serious example of an army officer having to tell a soldier's mother that her son died in action.  Should the officer tell the mother that her son was heroic and did not die in pain regardless of the truth?  What is the point of increasing the mother's sorrow with facts that have already happened and cannot be changed?

Then there is the famous example of the murderer at the door demanding to know whether you are hiding the target of his anger when you are. 

Perhaps we should act more to minimize harm, maximize good, even at the sacrifice of truthfulness.

So do we teach our children to not always tell the truth?

That is an impossible position as without truth, none of the above examples can work.  Untruths can only be useful if we are truthful almost all the time.

In a society where lying is so widespread, skepticism grows and makes communication meaningless. Even these examples with good intentions will be useless if lying is prevalent.

So untruths are exceptions that only work if the rule is adhere to most, or almost all the time. 

For children feeling their way through social life, they must learn the rule first and have a moral framework before dipping into the complex world or exceptions and moral considerations in the overall scheme of things.

But what of the beaming hostess that was so encouraged by your positive comments that you get invited over and over again to her boring parties?

Would it be better off for the dead soldier's mother to be so outraged by the truth that she started to take antiwar protest actions and prevented future wars and save other mother's children?

What if the murderer at the door has a just cause to get to the person you are sheltering?

Untruths are Band-Aid solutions that raise issues in the long term.

Some may say that in the long term we are all dead while others may lament the inadequacies of one short term solution to the next. 

We are wandering randomly if going only from one short term solution to the next without any long term goals or direction.

But then, there is no long term if the short term actions cripple us or kill us.  There is no long term if we do not survive the short term.

Balancing this is not easily taught to children.  Best start with the simple rules and framework and let the inevitable complications pile on.

The Purpose of life

There was a discussion in North Vancouver about the purpose of life.


While there already is a post here before about the meaning of life, the topic is so broad that the discussion can go many ways.

Someone suggested that the purpose of life was previously defined by religion.  God made us and the purpose of human life is to serve God and to do what God wanted us to do. 

However, since the Reformation, there was the change to more self reflection rather than to listen to the church and with enlightenment; the secular influence put the God given purpose in question.

It is now up to us to figure out what we are here for.

As individuals, we can look at maximizing our pleasure in our lives, making the most of our time in this world, do something of significance.

However, the question of "what is the purpose of my life" is different from "what is the purpose of human life".

A person who deliberately considered what are the pressing problems in this world, how it can be solved, then map out the steps required to do it, and then embark on a course following these steps, is living a life completely different then someone who live for the pleasure of the moment with no thought for tomorrow.

While whether the one life is better than the other is a value judgement, we can at least accept that the first one is more purposeful and productive.




Martin, the moderator, suggested that another way at looking at the purpose of life is what makes life significant.  We tend to want significance in our lives.

Is this a matter of personal pride? Or wanting approval and praise from others?

Maybe it is because we value our time on this earth and we do not want to waste it and therefore look for something significant to do so that we can have something to show for our life when we are at our death bed.

Children do not seem to question the purpose of life.

Is it possible that as we grow, we get involved in the complexities of what it takes to get something done and become constantly entangled in working towards goals that are further down the road?  That we convince ourselves that delay gratification is the necessary sacrifice to achieve those goals?

All of a sudden we found ourselves continually doing things we don't necessarily wanted to do and then ask the question, what is the purpose of life?

May be the question is invalid.  It is nonsensical to ask what is the purpose of a dog's life, or a tiger's life, or that of any other animals.  They are just there evolved from their ancestors millions of years ago and so how are we any different?

Envy and jealousy

Mano had his cafe on envy and jealousy last night.

The two terms have been used interchangeably in recent times and both are related to our reaction to other people's possessions, abilities, or circumstances.

Jealousy (particularly in the case of a jealous lover) is more to do with the fear of losing someone who we are already with.  While envy is typically of wanting or coveting what others has that we do not have.

Both can be summed up as the reaction to a perceived inequality in how we are treated. The main word here is "perceived" which is by us and controlled by us.

Can we control our envy? Convince ourselves that our perception of inequality should be changed, then move on to change it and not be envious anymore?

Another way of looking at it is entitlement.  In older societies where the class system is more set, the lower classes were not envious of the upper class as there was not a feeling of entitlement there.

However, with modern society where we are told that we have equal opportunities and we can be whatever we want to be, it is much easier to become envious of other people's better circumstances. 

The negative connotation of envy is likely associated with the inferiority we feel when we see other people being better off.  Will we still be envious or jealous if we are more confident of ourselves?

Some people at the meeting said that with age and experience come confidence and they feel less envy and jealousy as they got older and more at peace with themselves.

But then envy is a motivator to do better.  Nothing like seeing other people's achievements to spur one on, to emulate and to surpass.

Should young people be content when they are at the growth stage of their life and careers?

A more positive but just as potent motivator is admiration.  Rather than emphasizing on what we don't have or lack, let's concentrate on being impressed with the world outside of us.

Gerald wonders how we can be more appreciative of what we already have. Some suggested mindfulness as a way of getting out of the "rat race" of chasing after ever changing carrots dangling in front of us to think of what we already have.


Mindfulness is a big topic on its own.  However, I am always reminding myself of how seamlessly we tend to push routine things into our unconscious and that our mind is always on what is changing, new, exciting, or tragic.  There is nothing like getting out of our routine to see how much goes on in our unconscious motions.  Travel and being away from our familiar surroundings is one way to bring some of these back from the unconscious back to front and center when we come home.

There was also the interesting thought that scarcity must play some part in envy and jealousy.  No one will be envious if they live in abundance and can help themselves to whatever others already have. 



 

6/12/2013 Sex addiction

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will discuss sex addiction.

In the last few years, famous personalities who have been exposed with having extramarital affairs have later on declared that they have an addiction to sex, apologized and had gone to treatment for the condition.

However, sex addiction is not included in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  This is in spite of criticism of the DSM update over the years have included more and more conditions as disorders.

Googling "sex addiction" shows many offers of clinics to rehabilitate the condition.  There is also a sex addiction anonymous which lists the following description:

"Sometimes an addict has trouble with just one unwanted behavior, sometimes with many. A large number of sex addicts say their unhealthy use of sex has been a progressive process. It may have started with an addiction to masturbation, pornography (either printed or electronic), or a relationship, but over the years progressed to increasingly dangerous behaviors."

http://saavancouver.org/index.html (look under "what is a sex addict")

What is an "unwanted behavior"?  Is my preference for garlic foods a problem because someone do not like the smell of garlic?

What is "unhealthy use of sex"?  Is having sex for recreation and not for procreation unhealthy?

Is masturbation now a sign of sexual addiction?

Perhaps an audio versions of erotica is okay since printed or electronic versions may be classed as material as starting point for sex addiction? Definition of pornography?

Relationship - seems obvious that sex outside of marriage must be part of sex addiction?

Dangerous behaviors - when does behavior becomes dangerous?

It may seem that I may be overly skeptical here in picking at their description and making the point that it seems vague.  Look then to the solution for this addiction (the 12 steps referenced in the "how" for the same website) which they claim to be tried and true......


Step One: We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behaviour — that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step Seven: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sex addicts and to practice these principles in our lives.

Seems like we need god to decide whether we are addicted to sex or not. 

It also seems dangerously easy to judge anyone to be a sex addict or worse, some proclaimed spokesman for god may do the judging.

Perhaps clinics are making good money on this and celebrities are finding a way to claim it to be a "medical condition" that they can recuperate from?

Contrast all this with the equally difficult to define issue of  "female sexual arousal disorder" on the other side.  It is in the DSM version V as a disorder but feminist groups have criticize it as an attempt by pharmaceutical companies to make money selling drugs to remedy a condition that does not exists.
 
What is "normal"?  

For a couple who is having difficulty with differing level of sexual interest among the two, is the male having a sex addiction problem or the female having a sexual arousal disorder?

May be god can have a word with the psychiatrist and work this out.