31.5.12

Descartes' Error - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Descartes' Error (rationality requires emotional input. ) - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
Original paperback edition cover
Author(s)	António Damásio
Publication date	1994
ISBN	978-0-399-13894-2

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain is a book by neurologist Antonio R. Damasio presenting the author's "somatic marker hypothesis", a proposed mechanism by which emotions guide (or bias) behavior and decision-making, and positing that rationality requires emotional input. In part a treatment of the mind/body dualism question, the book argues that René Descartes' "error" was the dualist separation of mind and body, rationality and emotion.

The embodied mind: somatic markers

'Damasio argues in his well-known book that it is wrong to think that only minds think. The body and our emotions have a key role in the way we think and in rational decision-making'.^[1] Since, in his words, 'the body...contributes a content that is part and parcel of the workings of the normal mind', it follows that 'the mind is embodied, in the full sense of the term, not just embrained'.^[2]
Damasio's theory stresses 'the crucial role of feeling in navigating the endless stream of life's personal decisions....The intuitive signals that guide us in these moments come in the form of limbic-driven surges from the viscera that Damasio calls "somatic markers" - literally, gut feelings'.^[3] Listening to your gut reactions, 'the somatic marker...may lead you to reject, immediately, the negative course of action and thus...allows you to choose from among fewer alternatives '.^[4]

The concept of self

In Descartes' Error, Damasio also explored the way 'the neural basis of the self' as I see it, resides with the continuous activation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography....The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of the individual's body'.^[5]
From these two sets, Damasio would later develop his concept of the hierarchy of consciousness, including the protoself, core consciousness, and extended consciousness - Stern's verbal self.

Wider influence

Damasio's book is widely acknowledged to be a 'work with far-reaching implications for understanding mental life'.^[6] Partly in consequence, there is 'at present introduced by literature such as Damasio's Descartes' Error...a trend to include (or rather rehabilitate) the body and its movement into the research of the social and behavioral sciences'.^[7]
In literature too 'it is Damasio who seems to be the key inspiration behind the dismantling of the emotion/reason dichotomy'.^[8]

Criticism

Damasio uses Phineas Gage and other brain-damage cases to argue that rationality stems from emotion, and that emotion stems from bodily senses. However, the book's presentation of Gage's history and symptoms has been criticized as fictionalized.^[9] Others object that in using Descartes' name Damasio was knowingly or unknowingly employing a straw man; and that in fact 'the post-Cartesian medical tradition was well aware of the role of emotions in thinking'.^[10]

Publication data

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Putnam Publishing, 1994, hardcover: ISBN 0-399-13894-3
- Harper Perennial, 1995 paperback: ISBN 0-380-72647-5
- Penguin, 2005 paperback reprint: ISBN 0-14-303622-X

References

^ Henrik Lagerlund ed., Forming the Mind (2010) p. 15
^ Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error (London 1996) p. 226 and p. 118
^ Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (London 1996) p. 53
^ Damasio, p. 173
^ Damasio, p. 238-9
^ Goleman, p. 27
^ Stephanie L. Brooke, Creative Arts Therapy Manual (2006) p. 110
^ Dominic Head, Ian McEwan <2007) p. 133
^ See:
- Macmillan, M. (2000). An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-13363-6. pp.118-9, 331-2.
- Macmillan, M. (2008). "Phineas Gage – Unravelling the myth The Psychologist (British Psychological Society), 21(9): 828–831, 830-1".
^ Lagerlund, p. 15

The Cluster B Personality Disorders

What Are the Cluster B Personality Disorders?

From Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD, former About.com Guide

Updated February 28, 2011

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) lists borderline personality disorder (BPD) among the Cluster B personality disorders. Personality disorders are psychological conditions that begin in adolescence or early adulthood, continue over many years, and cause a great deal of distress. Personality disorders also can often interfere with a person's ability to enjoy life or achieve fulfillment in relationships, work or school.

What Are the Cluster B Personality Disorders?

There are four Cluster B personality disorders: antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic. The DSM-IV views these as a subset of personality disorders that are characterized by dramatic, emotional or erratic behavior. The Cluster B personality disorders are also the most common of the DSM-IV personality disorders.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

According to DSM-IV, antisocial personality disorder is a “pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in early childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”
People with antisocial personality disorder have been described as lacking empathy (or the ability to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” to understand their feelings), and they may often be deceitful or break the law. Antisocial personality disorder is also associated with impulsive behavior, aggression (such as repeated physical assaults), disregard for their own or other’s safety, irresponsible behavior, and lack of remorse.

Borderline Personality Disorder

BPD is associated with specific problems in interpersonal relationships, self-image, emotions, behaviors, and thinking. People with BPD tend to have intense relationships characterized by a lot of conflict, arguments and break-ups. They also have difficulties related to the stability of their identity or sense of self. They report many "ups and downs" in how they feel about themselves. Individuals with BPD may say that they feel as if they are on an emotional roller coaster, with very quick shifts in mood (for example, going from feeling OK to feeling extremely down or blue within a few minutes).
BPD is associated with a tendency to engage in risky behaviors, such as going on shopping sprees, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol or abusing drugs, engaging in promiscuous sex, binge eating, or self-harming.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance. People with narcissistic personality disorder often believe that they are “special,” require excessive attention, take advantage of others, lack empathy, and are described by others as arrogant.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

The central features of histrionic personality disorder are intense expressions of emotion and excessive attention-seeking behavior. People with histrionic personality disorder often seek out attention and are uncomfortable when others are receiving attention. They may often engage in seductive or sexually promiscuous behavior, or use their physical appearance to draw attention to themselves. They also may demonstrate rapidly shifting emotions and express emotion in a very dramatic fashion.
_Source:
_{American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR Fourth Edition. American Psychiatric Association: 2000.}

BPD Related Conditions

What is BPD? Confused?Skip the list of symptoms. Learn what BPD is really about.dalkeithpress.com
Dr Nadia BoscagliaPsychologist with Medicare Rebates Ph: 0431696148, Coburg & Brunswickwww.nadiathepsychologist.com
Calcium DeficiencyLow in Calcium? It's never too early or too late for Caltrate.www.Caltrate.com.au

Psychiatric TextbooksEssential reference books & guides for students and professionals.www.appi.org

29.5.12

Harmonia Philosophica - Author: Spiros Kakos

Harmonia Philosophica (english) « Harmonia Philosophica

Author: Spiros Kakos

Credo quia absurdum [5]

I believe because it is illogical

We all look at the same one reality with the same tools. However we almost never agree. Why is that?

The answer I give in this article is that we just use different words to describe the same things, or see the same thing from different point of view. As Parmenidis said, the “IS” is one and that same “IS” is what we all try to approach and explain. A unification of all opinions looks as the best way to look at it…

For example, the world can be eternal (as Heracletus said), but at the same time have a First Cause (as Aristotle said) the Absolute Infinite that was first discovered by Georg Cantor and actually contains all “lower-level” infinites. We could be indeed constrained within the existence of the world that exists (as Sartre said), but given the fact that the world is infinite that constraint is not a constraint at all. Mathematics can indeed contain universal truths, but their expression may be imperfect due to the imperfections of humans. Evolution could happen due to natural selection, but maybe that selection has a purpose after all.And humans helping other people who are meant to die is simply the most direct hint that the theory of evolution is not the answer to everything. We may be lifeless sets of electrons and protons, but it is the life-giving force of Henri-Louis Bergson that gives us the strength to deny our own existence.

Faith is based on logic analysis while logic is based on faith to some axiomatic truths. And these a-priori truths are nothing more than the inner wishes of logic.No big philosophical question has been answered by anyone. The continuous quest for answers is what has value. Science is one of the tools we have to reach the truth, and not a perfecto tool that is. Nor is logic. Let us not forget that greatest scientific break thoughts have been based on illogical bursts of inspiration based on instinct and intuition.

Delawere indians cannot refer to a “thing” as it exists on its own, but only in the context of a specific situation. In that way they do not have a word for “snow”, but they do have words to say “yesterday it snowed” or “the ground is covered with snow”. [1] Who tells us that our language, with so many Platonic dogmas embedded in it, is more “correct” than that language”? Nuer indians do not have the notion of “time” in their language as we do. Maybe if we learned from these different perspectives, we wouldn’t need thousands of years for Godel to come and tell us that time may be just an illusion. [2][3][4][5] Scientism, materialism, idealism, theism, atheism, not one of these philosophies has answered all questions.We must use all of them and not be dogmatically stick to just one.The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution, as Paul K. Feyerabendonce said in”Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge” (1975).

Logic is based on axioms, which some claim that they are based on data from our senses. But sometimes the results of logic go against what our senses tell us. Honey is sweet, but people with icterus taste it as bitter. What is the “reality” after all?Who’s reality is more “valid”?

All these antinomies show us what we cannot see because of our stuborness to use right-wrong disctinction: that the world is “ONE”. As Parmenides said, there is not “right” and “wrong” – something cannot “not be” right. The distinction between “real” and “not real” may after all be insufficient to explain the true reality of our world. And remember that one has to be “logical” to understand a logical argument, but what kind of credibility does an argument has if it can persuade only people who are already trained to accept it? Logic kills fantasy, and we must remember that it is the latter which has been the source of all great human progress during history. Human kind cannot stand the teachings madness and death can give and that is why the boundaries of madness where always defined by the state authorities and not by any objective criterion.

Men give their lives for some higher ideas. Maybe their heart knows something that their logic canot even glipse at?

Every day we try to drive ourselfs higher than our material body, like mad men we strive to create in fields that modern materialistic science canot even see – poetry which you cannot understand fascinates you, like your Sein (The ONE Sein) which you canot see pushes you to something more meaninglinfull and of higher essense than your Da-Sein. All of our cells change, but we remain the same. Our Sein seems to be independent of the matter which nevertheless consitutes our Da-Sein. Children listen at their teachers for years and only after they have learned to think as their teacher do, do we let them think “freely”. But how “free” can they be then? Western medicine tells us that its medicines are “better”, but what about the medicines Indians used for thousands of years? They were banned not after careful examination, but after the white people simply wished to state their superiority to other races.

How “free” can modern Western medicine be, when it is dictated by pharmaceuticals that control governments, states and even the EU? Is health “better” that sickness? What about parents who wish their children to get sick so as to develop antibodies? What about people who were always isolated from microbes and then died on the first time they encountered one? Our bodies – because of “too much health” – have begun attacking their own selves thus increasing the autoimmune diseases greatly. Maybe health AND sickness is the better way to live… Nothing “right” or “wrong”. Just one world and one reality…

Those who believe in scientism want more “control” over nature and reality. But what is “control” for? What do they want to control? Would someone like to BE controlled? Would someone like to control his feeling, to be able to start and stop loving someone else by just pushing a “button” inside him? And if more “control” is the main goal, why not follow the path of people with faith in a God, who because of that faith are in a state where they feel and “live” a life of complete control overy everything? Which control is more “valid”? Those who believe in scientism think that the lack of “data” and “information” is the great problem science will solve and – thus – save humankind of its problems. But none of the most important issues humans face are related to lack of information, as the Ecumenical Patriarch

Bartholomew correctly points out: The important problems of humans today are related to lack of trust, love, patience, understanding…

Man has to awaken to wonder – and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

How can someone fly if all he has been taught is how to crawl? A genius is the most illogical creature – every single great breakthrough in science was based on great illogical leaps of faith. Logic is a great tool, but sometimes it becomes synonym to the “status quo” of the way people think during a time period if history. And in that case you cannot progress if you think “logically”…

If you believe something “because it is logical” then you are nothing more than a slave to the current axioms of your time.

For thousands of years we thought as “right” the axioms stating that “negative number times a negative number provides a positive number as a result” or that “there is only one parallel line we can draw from a point outside a line”. But when we thought to question these “truths” we suddenly “discovered” the imaginary numbers of the non-Eucledian geometries. And we were startled to see that these new “weird” theories had practical implications.

We should be startled though: the truth is as “true” as we think it is.

Logic dictates that in order to “prove” something you must complete your syllogism. But can a syllogism be completed? No. The infinite number of causes that leads to the First Cause is what makes certain that a logical syllogism can never be completed. What generates our “certainty” that a syllogism can be completed? Faith? Antinomies and paradoxes seem to be embedded in everything, even the most pure mathematical logic. We should accept their existence, embrace their nature and trust what we believe if we want to “understand” the cosmos as it “is”… After all who verifies that our faith in the axioms of logic are correct?

Why not be illogical as Zenon and Democritus? Why not be illogical as Einstein and Newton? Newton found his idea of gravity as “so absurd that I do not think anyone will believe it”. [6]But we did believe it… Maybe we should start believing things we consider as non-logical? Maybe as G.K. Chesterton once said, “

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason“.

All science is based on the axiom that a proposition can be either true or false.

de omnibus dubitandum est

However there are substantial evidence indicating that a logical proposition can be true and false at the same time [dialethism]![7] Consider for example the logical proposition “this proposition is false”. Is it false? If yes, then it is true. Is it true? If yes, then it is false.Logic is so illogical that can drive someone into the conclusion that his logic is wrong… If I say “you are right” and what you have said is that “I am wrong”, then who is right after all? Knowthat the antinomies exist and do not try to “understand” them.

As Shestov geniously states, to “understand” is not the same as to “know”. [8] If you try to understand something you actually try to fit it into your current way of thinking, thus alteting it in a way that you loose the “truth” in it. And let us remember that in the ancient times of Homer the notion of “illogical” did not even exist. Everything that was said was part of “Logos”. [9] Only after 2,500 years of civilization have made some “truths” embedded in our brain as “correct” have we started to believe in fictious contradictions like “logical” – “illogical”…

If a crazy person tells you he is crazy, would you believe him? If you dream of something illogical, will you question your logic or your dream?

God may be dead as Nietsche said, but only if Man is dead too, as Adorno postulated… We may be free to decide as Sartre said, and this freedom could have its basis on the natural laws… The world may be eternal, but that may have given the probability of the existence of a God the chance to manifest itself. And God may see us arguing for this and that while He drinks his decaf coffee… Because even He cannot escape the antinomies…

A priori truths may be embedded into our brain, but only experience can help us know them. A posteriori truths may be the result of logic, but that logic has to be based on some non-”a posteriori” truths. Logic cannot look at itself without the danger of antinomies popping out, but the things which refer only to themselfs are the only “real” things, as Kant said.

We may be the only beings in nature conscious of the mortality of our DaSein, but all-wise nature may have given us this tragic knowledge only because we can bear with such knowledge due to the immortality of our spirit (Sein).

Man may be meant to rule the Earth, but only in harmony with the other species. And harmony in theory and in praxis can be obtained only with “primitive” thinking, beyond any dogmatism. This primitive thinking – if and when conquered be humans – will be the more advanced conquest we have ever made. As Oedipus represents the hyperbole in questioning (Levi Strauss), we may have to behave like Persival and be silent for things we cannot “see” (Wittgenstein). We have gained much with “logic”, but even more with “illogical” thinking.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein

We all discuss with each other. However Schrödinger said that we all perceive only ONE consciousness: our “own”. We can never be aware of the consciousness of others. Could that mean that there is actually only ONE consciousness in the world? [10] And that single consciousness could be the real source of the Carl Jung’s collective unconscious…

Primitive people of the caves had a more pure thought, which was not influenced by theories for the artificial definition of “true” of “false”. Primitive people thought and believed that life does not end with physical death. Primitive people thought more freely – they did not have thousands of years of civilization behind them to talk on their behalf. Primitive people thought that life does not end with death, since they were not taught the (artificial?) idea of “time” on which all pseudo-philosophy of “existence/non-existence” is based. Maybe things we cannot easily define, do not actually exist. I exist now in Kythera on the year 2010. No matter how much “time” passes, I will still exist in Kythera on the year 2010…

Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux

“The complete freedom and independence of vision of primeval art has never since been attained… In our sense there was no up and no down, no above and no below … Nor was there a clear distinction and separation of one object from another – witness the continuous use of superimposition – nor rules of related size and scale. Gigantic bulls of the Magdalenian era could stand alongside tiny deer from Aurignacian times, as around the dome of Lascaux… All was displayed within an eternal present, the perpetual flow of today, yesterday, and tomorrow ” [Source: ARAS free sample - http://search.aras.org/record.aspx?ARASNUM=1Cb.501]

At the time before Socrates in Greece, the idea that things “change” was a topic of discussion between philosophers and not a matter solved. And it is very important to remember that when one opinion prevails, it has a tremendous effect on the future – thus making it profoundly vital for everyone to question everything over and over again… When we understand that the more recent information ir not necessarily more “valid” than the older ones [Levi Strauss], we will learn many things we have “forgotten”… How can a thing be changed without losing its identity? Perhaps things do not change eventually, said Parmenides.

The cells which constitute our body as humans are changed several times during our lives. How do we know that we are who we think we are? Is there a “reality” beyond what we see? Finally the theory of Democritus and Leukippos (according to which things are changing) prevailed over the theory of Parmenides, and that has defined profoundly our scientific thinking ever since. Is that what is actually happening though? [22]

Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc. (OSF) has created a genetically modified apple that does not brown after being cut. [11][12] Is an apple that does not turn brown after being cut an apple?
What are the characterisitcs an apple has? How many characteristics of an apple can we change before we stop talking about “apples”? Are things really different or is the world ONE as Parmenides said? What actually is “is” ? What makes something what it “is” ? If we change one characteristic of something, is that something the “same” ? Yes? What if we change two characteristics? Do we still have the “same” thing? If we change all characteristics of normal “apples” as we know them now, in 2010, will they still be “apples”? Imagine the same questions for humans and your mind can blow up… If all of our body cells change continuously – even the cells of our brain [13][14][15][16] – are we still the “same” person? If yes, what about the change called “death”? Is that also a small “characteristics change” in our body and existence? Do we still remain humans, as apples that do not brown are still “apples” ? [17]

How can something “change”, if change means that it is not the same “thing” anymore?
Moreover, many physicists have begun formulating theories in which the concept of time does not exist. [18][11] Godel had even found a solution to the equations of general theory of relativity in which time t is deleted. Ultimately is it not true that time is an entirely artificial construct? Is it not true that what we make as the passge of time is merely the movement of the colck figures?

If things like the concept of “change” and “time” do not exist then what could be the meaning of “Death”, since death is based on those concepts? [20]

And as the ” What does it take to believe in Death ” series of articles in the Harmonia Philosophica portal suggests, there things which you have to believe in order to uphold “mortality” as true are much more than the things you have to believe in order to hold “immortality” as the norm…

If something is an apple and then turns into an organge, then maybe it was never an apple and it was never an orange – the most probable is that it is something else which can simply turn into an apple or an orange…

Believing in the uttermost power of one or the other philosophical theory or scientific theory could be well “founded” some years ago. But in the face of recent discoveries of Godel, Russel and others it is really hard to “believe” in the *truth* of anything else than the world itself. We must understand that philosophy is not fast food (another great antinomy of our time). We cannot simply choose the theory of our liking and deny the fact that every theory is based and tries to describe the SAME reality. We must cook all ingredients carefully in order to have a good result…

Logos is the child of our civilization, not the other way around (Durkheim, Mauss). And as Levi Strauss found out, the “σημαίνον” can easily switch places with the “σημαινόμενον”: the child becomes a parent after only one generation. How many times has our child – Logic – been a parent to things that we try to test if they are “true” based on their own parent? Aristotle defined Logos as something which can revel or conceal (απο-καλύπτει or επι-καλύπτει) things. And Heidegger geniously pointed out that the latter (the concealing function of Logos) is something we must look at carefully…

If every philosopher has logical arguments to what he says, then maybe the extreme – no matter how unlikely – is the solution: that everyone is right.

Maybe we should go back in time to find answers to the great questions. Because when it comes to The question of “reality”, the more old the answer is the more valid it seems, as Heidegger says. To question is good, but only if the right question is asked.

And as Impresionists once upon a time tried to forget how to paint in order to paint, we must try to forget how to think in order to really think …

Note from the author

The Greek text (can be found here) presents more examples in its effort to unify all philosophical theories under the same umbrella and more analysis on why being illogical could be the most logical thing to do… In any case, you can contact me directly (via email or comments in this page) to ask anything you want.

Bibliography

1. Στους αντίποδες του ορθολογισμού, Λεβ Σεστώφ, εκδόσεις Printa.
2. 10 επίκαιροι διάλογοι με τους Προσωκρατικούς, Κωνσταντίνος Βαμβακάς, εκδόσεις Σαββάλας.
3. Άκου ανθρωπάκο, Wilhelm Reich, εκδόσεις Ιαμβλιχός.
4. Heidegger, George Steiner, Fontana Press, 1978.
5. Farewell to Reason, Paul K. Feyerabend, 1987, ISBN 0-86091-184-5, ISBN 0-86091-896-3.
6. The meaning and limits of exact science (Sinn und Grenzen der exakten Wissenschaft), Max Planck.
7. Nature and the Greeks, Erwin Schroedinger, εκδόσεις Τραυλός.
8. Η ανθρώπινη κατάσταση, Χάννα Αρέντ, εκδόσεις Γνώση.
9. Η εικόνα της φύσης στη σύγχρονη φυσική, Werner Heisenberg, εκδόσεις Σάκκουλα.
10. Περί της αθανασίας του ανθρώπου, Williams James, εκδόσεις Printa.
11. Η Μοναδολογία [La Monadologie], Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, εκδόσεις Εκκρεμές.
12. Η ιστορία της τρέλας, Μισέλ Φουκώ, εκδόσεις Ηριδανός.
13. Λογικομίξ (Logicomix), Απόστολος Δοξιάδης ( http://www.logicomix.com ).
14. Το Παράδοξο, Doris Olin, εκδόσεις Οκτώ, Αθήνα, 2007.
15. Φρήντριχ Σίλλερ, Περί της Αισθητικής Παιδείας του Ανθρώπου σε μια σειρά επιστολών.
16. Kierkegaard – Shestov – Feyerabend…

Religion-Science Philosophy articles series

What does it take to believe in death? « Harmonia Philosophica

Prologue

This text is an article-in-progress that tries to show how many philosophical dogmas are under the (common) belief that “death” actually exists. The parts of the article are first published in the Harmonia Philosophica philosophy portal and can be found there.

Part 1 [2010-12-05]

Many people talk about “immortality” and try to show why the human soul is not destroyed after the death of the physical body. Many people try to articulate arguments in favor of the idea that an “immortal” spirit exist, which continues to “be” even after the physical brain stops functioning. However those discussions and efforts are based on the wrong presumption that “immortality” is what has to be proved, and not “death”.

Many people today take many things for granted. Our time is characterized by an arrogant belief in a materialistic point of view for everything, according to which only what modern physics and chemistry claims to be true is actually true. The opinions of philosophers – and especially of those who lived many years ago – are not taken into account by many. However things are not so simple.

In order to believe in “death”, i.e. in the complete extinction of the human spirit after the physical body stops functioning, you must believe in a series of dogmas that are still under debate between philosophers. In order to believe in “death”, you must believe in the existence of differences between objects (something with which Parmenides would disagree), you must believe in the existence of the notion of “change” (something with which Zenon and Parmenides would disagree), you have to believe in the existence of the notion of “time” (something with which even many modern scientists would disagree)…

Part II [2010-12-17]

I. The concept of Change

What does it mean for something or someone to “change”? How can something change? If it changes, doesn’t it become a different “something”? How can we change every second, but still remain the same person? The most simple questions are the hardest ones. What is evident seems to hold the key to the most serious underlying dogmas that define our thought… If death is also a change we undergo, why do we think that change results in something so drastic as…complete extinction? As I said in the The Extinct Fish that Reappeared Philosophy Wire, everything is a matter of definion. And we should re-examine our definitions if we want to really mature spiritually. If we cannot really tell how something can actually “change”, then maybe the simplest childish answer that comes to our mind is the correct one: things do not change!

Part III [2010-12-19]

II. The concept of Identity

Besides the belief in the notion of Change we analyzed in the 2nd Part, believing in the notion of death (in a way that means the complete extinction of our body and spirit from the world) also requires someone to believe in the notion of “Identity” as well. To believe that someone is dead means that you believe you can actually tell when this someone is himself and when he has seized being himself, i.e. when he has “died”. When someone dies we understand he has changed and he is not who we knew he was: he does not talk, he does play, he does not interact the way he did (the false belief in the notion of Time will be analyzed in the next part, so we can still use past and present tense here). When we think we “know” someone we attribute to him certain characteristics. We know a friend of us is who he is becase he talks in a specific way.

But what if he changes the way he talks? Will he not be the same? We know he is the same because he thinks in a certain way – in “his” way. But what if he changes his way of thinking? Will he not be the same? Whe know he is the same because he has a specific birth mark on is arm. But that if he removes that? Will he not be the same? We know the is the same because he has specific hair. But what is he changes them? Will he not be the same? We know he is the same because he has a specific set of cells in his organism as all individuals do. But human cells are continuously replaced (even the cells in our brain), about six (6) times during our whole lifetime. Are we not the same after the changes in our cells? We know someone is the same because he lives.

But what if he stops living? Is he not the same anymore? Dying is part of who we are and “knowing” someone means knowing his death as well. The point is, that we do not have a specific ways to know when someone is someone and not someone else! We cannot tell the identity of someone (or something) and we certainly do not have specific ways to tell when someone has stopped being! The limits we set with respect to the “identity” of a person are not based on something solid.

The simple phrase “he has died” implies that we know those limits, while in reality those limits do not even exist…

Epilogue

All antinomies that mathematics or modern science discovers, are based on things we take for granted but we should not. After exploring some things we must have as axioms in order to believe in death, the most basic being the notion of “Change” and the notion of “Time”, we must now move on… And we can do that only by denying all “truths” that we now think “are”, we can only do that if we are irrational. Because “rationality” is based on axioms and only by discarding all axioms can someone reach the truth (if it even exists and this word is not another “axiom” we believe in).

Truth is related to “Being” and anything like “being based on axioms” is far away from its real essense. We must base our conclusions on what we “know” and not on what we “understand” (see Harmonia Philosophica [English]for the difference between those and how all antinomies can be merged philosophically into One Reality). And what we know is that we “are”. Where did the idea that we will sometime “stop being” come from? Because certainly noone “not being” could come that tip us off. And certainly noone had any experience of “not being” so as to formulate and spread the idea… Where did we learn of things that “are not”? Because certainly no person could have experience of such a thing… And certainly noone can think of something that is “not”… So where did the notion of “death” come from? In the past, primitive people burried their dead and put food with the bodies. They “knew” that life did not end with death. In the past, alchemists “knew” that everyting had a living force in it. It is important to know and understand that the distinction between “living organisms” and “things” was made on the years of Kepler by the “new” science of the days: mathematics could be applied for the first time so as to predict the movement of planets, but in order to do that a great assumption should be made.

An assumption so great and so fundamendal, that actually changed the way we think for ever. The assumption was “simple”: there *must* exist “living things” and “non-living things”, with mathematics being applied only to the latter. This defined almost everything from thereon. Ask a modern physicist to find “man” in the Universe and he will have a hard time. Because the “Universe” is a complex set of things – there is no room for humans with consciousness in it… Ask a modern biologist to explain to you the difference between particles organized into living matter and particles forming a “non-living” object. He will have a hard time explaining, because a model which is defined as void of consciousnesss, cannot suddently “discover” consciousness…

Bohr characterized Pauli’s theory for the fourth quantum number as “crazy” and by that he meant “correct” (see “Yung, Pauli – The phsychoanalyzer, the physicist and number 137″). The best way out of a dead-end is to stop seeing the dead-end, as a crazy person would do. As William James said, “what we want to think is what is”. And what we have hard time explaining may have a simple solution: maybe the distinction we cannot explain does not even exist… Is it a coincidence that everything related to “not being” cannot be explained easily? Time, change, the problem of identity, the problem of life…

Everything is hard to explain. Everything is hard to define. But yet, our very being is dependent on those ideas… Pythagoras talked about Harmonia and one cannot find harmonia if he believes in things that entail the “end of being”. What “is” cannot suddently “stop being” and vice versa, without destroying harmonia… As philosophy turned into exact science, humans turned into objects. We must stop believing we are mere objects if we are to fulfill our destiny as humans.

When in a Universe void of consciousness, consciousness appears as a candle in the dark, one can stick to the fact that this light will someday fade out. But this is a very shortsighted view… Another one might stick to the fact that this candle came from somewhere, produced its flame from an energy that surrounds the cosmos and shed its light everywhere… How can such a candle die out? We must try to just listen and go with the music of the cosmos, rather than trying to “understand” everything…

28.5.12

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read......

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn – Alvin Toffle | Custom Training and eLearning Blog

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn – Alvin Toffle

Posted by RK Prasad, Co-Founder & CEO

Wed, Sep 09, 2009 @ 06:13 AM
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We know Alvin Toffler as a sociologist, writer and a futurist, not as a learning expert. It is said that this quote is from his book, “Rethinking the Future.” As I haven’t read it, I really don’t know the context of this quotation. But I think his definition of the illiterate makes us ponder. It also reminds us of a quotation by Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines unlearn as “1: to put out of one’s knowledge or memory, 2: to undo the effect of: discard the habit of”.

There is so much we unlearn without much effort. Knowledge not often revised, skills not regularly practiced and beliefs shattered by contradictory experience are all day-to-day examples of unlearning.

But what about a situation where person’s knowledge, skills and beliefs serve him well and is therefore reinforced? How can he unlearn them in the face of a superior learning, which will serve him better?

In a company where I worked, head office staff used to call long distance to collect current sales figures from branch offices spread across the country. Email was introduced to increase efficiency and reduce cost. Although adequate training was conducted on email, the phone bills never came down substantially. The reason – people continued to use the phone to find out if the emails were sent or received!

Another more personal example of unlearning, a habit, is quitting smoking. I too quit smoking some years ago. I remember trying everything under the sky – sticking patches, chewing gum, counseling…nothing helped. One day, suddenly, without any apparent reason my urge to light up just wasn’t there. I unlearned but I don’t know how

We learn as much as we unlearn. I am sure you will agree that one’s existing knowledge is one great hindrance to future learning. That brings me to my questions

Is there a formal process for unlearning? Can we just plainly unlearn knowledge, skills and attitudes? Or can we unlearn only when we discover a substitute behavior or skill?

How useful it would be for both organizations and individuals if they master unlearning! Imagine organizations casting away ineffective and inefficient processes and methods effortlessly so that they do not hinder learning better ones.

Can organizations conduct “unlearning programs”? If so, how can we facilitate unlearning? Can we think of having an unlearning module before we start a learning module so that we can clear the old hindering structures before we build a brand new one?

Thank you for reading my blog and look forward to your comments and opinions.

RK Prasad

CEO

Books I’ve finished recently | Derek Sivers

Books | Derek Sivers

Entrepreneur, programmer, avid student of life. I make useful things, and share what I learn.

Books I’ve finished recently

Tiny summary but detailed notes for each. Use the ISBN number to find it from your local library or anywhere else. This page will constantly update as I read more, so bookmark it if you want to check back in a few months.