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.