Struggling with Meaninglessness

The Angel and Devil

Buddha said the only path to enlightenment is through meditation because meditation unlocks our mind and allow our consciousness to flow freely. Therefore when we meditate, we should focus on Emptiness/Nothingness. Think about nothing, stop your inner voice or the chatterbox in your head from telling you things and concentrate on empty space. This form of concentration is the highest level of concentration because by default, our mind is already wired from the start to dwell in the past and worry about the future. Therefore, to think of nothing is extremely difficult because it defies the way how the mind is hardwired.

A typical person’s chatterbox is extremely noisy. The voice in your head keep telling you what to do for tomorrow, keep commenting on your colleague’s attitude, keep worrying about next month’s income, keep craving for party and alcohol sessions, keep thinking of ‘how nice if I could turn back time’ and etc. It keeps telling and reminding you of what to do.

Based on my understanding, I divide our human mind into 2 different entities. We basically have the inner voice which creates our Persona a.k.a Alter Ego, and YOU the neutral one. Something like Donald Duck’s with his angel and devil in his head.

The angel and devil in our head are not separate entity, but together, they are one. Depending on situations or circumstances, either the angel or devil will be your dominant force in your head and instruct you on how you should think. The YOU is basically a puppet influenced by these two forces, just like a weak emperor manipulated by his advisers and ministers. I will give you an example.

When we see a man hit the table at a restaurant with anger, our mind will automatically label that person as ‘rude’ or ‘bad tempered’. But wait a minute, we have yet to know the real reason why the man furiously hit the table, but our mind has already determined that he is rude. Where does this thought come from? That’s right, it’s from your ‘devil’ inner voice, your presuppose knowledge, or cached thoughts, whatever you call it. However, if we get to learn that the man’s wife just passed away, we will immediately understand his frustration and by an instant, we start to sympathize with him and will not label his as rude anymore. Our ‘angel’ inner voice has become more dominant now in this situation now.

All these emotional turmoil were not caused by you. It was your inner Angel and Devil who directed how you should think and how your emotion should go. It is as though there’s a system or a structure in your head which acts like a framework for the Angel and Devil to conduct the emotional calculation.

IF A Man Hit The Table In A Restaurant, ACTIVATE Devil’s Voice

THEN Tell Ronn That This Guy Is Rude via Chatterbox

BECAUSE We Are Being Emotionally Threatened By His Aggressive Behaviour

THEREFORE We WIll ‘Cook Reasons’ For Ronn To Avoid Him And Increase Vigilance Against Him

then after learning the real reason …

<INPUT> The Man’s Wife Just Pass Away,

DEACTIVATE Devil’s Voice AND ACTIVATE Angel’s Voice

THEN Tell Ronn That This Guy Is Pitiful via Chatterbox

BECAUSE We Don’t Feel Threatened Anymore

AND We Need To Give Good Impression To The Society

THEREFORE We Will ‘Cook’ Reasons’ For Ronn to Sympathize Him And Console Him To Make Ourselves Look Concerned (Although the Devil doesn’t give a damn about the dead wife).

Buddha, recognizing the concept of Persona and Alter Ego said the only way to escape this ‘suffering’ is to control your mind instead of letting the mind control you.

It is easier said than done because most people will say – ‘Look, I have self control! I will resist the addiction of alcohol, resist the temptation of buying expensive gadgets, and resist my bad habit of procrastination. See, I’m controlling my mind!’ Yes, that indeed show some self control, but not a hint of controlling the mind yet because our desire and emotion is still floating around. It is only when we could totally relinquish and unattached ourselves from desires and emotions then we could proclaim that we have controlled the mind, which at the end, you don’t say ‘I resist’ but to say ‘I understand’. Again, it is not easy for anyone to fully control the mind because it defies the way how our mind is hardwired (with emotions and desires).

Unleash the Suppressed

One day, Ronn pays a visit to Aunty Nnor’s home to meet up with her. Aunty Nnor then cook dinner for him, and in the dining table they have dinner together.

Aunty Nnor : Ronn, how is the food?

Ronn: *takes a scoop and taste the food*

Devil : Yuck! The food is horrible! Ronn, tell her in the face that the food suck so that she could improve her cooking better next time. Do it like a man just like how Gordon Ramsay always do.

Angel : No, Ronn! You can’t be impolite. She spent some effort to cook for you, so you need to show at least a little appreciation.

Devil : Ronn, tell her the food sucks and you will have given a good reason to her to escape this horrible meal for the night. Don’t tell me you gonna finish up this whole pile of crap?

Angel : You have to finish up your food no matter how bad it taste. Or else, she will think that you’re being rude and will not cook for you next time anymore, and that’s not really nice.

Ronn : Yeah, the food is fine. I like it.

Of course, typically there are not so much voices in our head while thinking of a reply as Ronn had in the interaction above. But as I’ve said, our mind appears to have an emotional calculator where every input is calculated in a flash. The mind then basically weigh both side of the argument and you will carry out the action which the more dominant voice commanded. In this scenario, Ronn was influenced by the Angel’s voice and give a politically correct response rather than telling blatant truth as he was afraid of offending Aunty Nnor. Hence, the devil’s voice is suppressed and the angel’s voice became his Persona and Alter Ego. And consciously, or unconsciously, Ronn is just an observer throughout the experience, like a puppet being swayed left and right by the Angel and Devil.

A vice versa situation could also take place where the Devil suppress Ronn’s Angel voice, and the Devil will become Ronn’s alter ego and criticize Aunty Nnor’s cooking like a food critic. (although it is very unlikely as human being are wired to rely on good image and impression to interact and communicate with each other.)

It is pretty clear to me that human being are nothing but just a puppet to the collective neurons, cells created by the force of Evolution for survival and reproduction purposes.

I have digressed long enough, and now I will get back to the main point and explain the question in my previous post on why people seemingly become bad and evil right before achieving the state of Emptiness in meditation. That’s because once you are about to achieve the state of Emptiness, the suppression system will no longer work well. You will indiscriminately unleash all your suppressed words and feelings by the Angel and Devil to other people, without holding back.

The reason why it seems there’s a tendency for people to be more evil is because if we bother to examine our mind, there are more instances where our Angel suppress the Devil in our mind than the other way round. But as I have said, we will unleash these suppressed feelings indiscriminately, just that due to statistics factor, it seems we are more likely to unleash badness than goodness.

For instance:

Mr. A who was abused during his childhood and suppressed the hatred inside him for years will unleash this hatred without holding back when he is about to achieve Emptiness.

Mr. B who has extremely high libido and suppressed his sexual urge for years will unleash his sexual urge without holding back like sex maniac when he is about to achieve Emptiness.

Miss C who has the habit of picking her nose but was suppressed by her family member will unleash back her bad habit without holding back when she is about to achieve Emptiness.

So how do people overcome this problem? The answer is Acceptance – accepting the fact that YOU are the Devil. Accepting the fact that you are capable of doing evil things or walking the wrong path. The problem always begin when people are in denial of their own weakness. Take for example Mr. A. He unleashes his hatred around but at the same he keeps refusing to accept the fact that the Devil is himself. He tried to suppress the feeling of hatred back to this brain, but unfortunately the suppressing system is not working anymore in the state of Emptiness. He is helpless about it and the feeling will be the same as possessed by a Devil. And then he meditates more hoping to cure the problem, but he will only find himself to depress and unleash more and more of his weakness. That’s exactly how a person could turn crazy from deep meditation without being guided by experts. The solution is either he goes all the way to achieve Acceptance in himself or stop meditating all together.

(Now, I begin to understand the reason why Keanu Reeves, who portrayed as the Buddha in the movie Little Buddha, pulled the Devil out of the water and said something along the lines “I was You and You were Me, but now you’re an illusion” before He was Enlightened, which I find pretty hard to understand at first).

So, how the interaction between Aunty Nnor and Ronn will turn out if Ronn is able to control his mind from the Angel and Devil?

Aunty Nnor : Ronn, how is the food?

Ronn : We eat because we’re hungry. It does not matter if the food is good or bad, as long as it fills our stomach healthily, I’m satisfied.

Ronn utter those words without the influence of Angel and Devil. Here, Ronn essentially Understand and Accept that his desire on tasty food is just an illusion. There will no longer be any Angel or Devil’s voices in his head as he has fully controlled them.

The idea of achieving Emptiness is to free ourselves from the grasp of the Angel and Devil inside us and becoming back Ourself. The original YOU. Because when you essentially master the art of Emptiness, and Accept the Devil in YOU, you will realize all the things a typical human being chase – money, glory, fame, change-the-world, love, good impression etc. are nothing but an illusion chased by the Angel and Devil in your head. The real YOU wants nothing but to live contently without any cravings.

As I have said in my previous post, this is what separates animals and human being. Animals live their life purely following the voices in their head and human being, for most part, do the same too. However, we are aware of the existence of these voices and could do something to defy the Angel and Devil in our head.

PS: The Angel and Devil in our head is just a metaphorical way of me explaining how human Persona and Alter Ego work. It’s difficult to draw the line between goodness and badness as usually there are not only two opposing forces but there are perhaps three, four or more forces which creates the complicated thinking structure in our mind. But to keep things as simple as possible, I will just use Angel and Devil to portray two contradicting forces in this essay.

PPS: So, how do a person who meditates know when he/she achieve Emptiness? It is when he is trapped in pure emptiness without a single thought going through in his mind and could not be interfered by external environment like noise. Just like when we are sleeping, mild level of volume mostly likely will not wake us up. Same goes for deep meditation where people will not be distracted by mild level of noise and interruptions.

PPPS: This is how the conversation between Buddha and the Devil in the Little Buddha went:

*Buddha pulled Devil who disguised as Buddha out of the water*

Devil: You who go where no one else will dare .. Will you be my God?

Buddha : Architect, finally I have met you. You will not rebuild your house again.

Devil : But I am your house. And you live in me.

Buddha : O’ lord of my own ego. You are pure illusion. You do not exist. The earth is my witness.

*Devil vanishes*

One evening, I was with my friends to have a drink with them in an open-air eating place. Then, I saw a rainbow and spontaneously, I was drew to it. Noticing my deep observation, one of my friends joined in my observation and promptly said ..

“Isn’t that beautiful? God’s creation is really marvelous…”

By an instant, my immediate reaction was –> (o_O)”!! > ALERT! Hot button engaged!!

I quickly turned on my idle mind and activated my logical reasoning mode and went – If the rainbow, a natural process where sunlight deflects off water droplets thereby creating a spectrum of light, is God’s creation, then by logical consistency, even our feces, a waste matter from our digestive system, should also be God’s creation.

But why is there no Christians or Muslims after defecating, look on their toilet bowl and proclaim emphatically:

‘Praise The Shit’ or ‘Shit is the Greatest’ or ‘Shit is Beautiful, God is a Genius’?

If you think that I was mocking or degrading religion, I can tell you I’m not. I was only talking about some logical consistency. Crediting God with only beautiful things but ignoring the ugly things is not rational thinking. It’s called as Selection Bias. If God indeed created shit, as His obedient followers, we should appreciate how nice shit smells as a sign of acknowledgement to God’s creation. Hence, ‘Praise The Shit’.

Just when I was about to open my mouth to reason out with my dear friend, suddenly something interrupted me – It was my alter ego…

Alter Ego : That’s rude, Ronn. I hereby refuse you to voice out your thoughts.

Ronn : Ah!! Damn you alter ego! How is this rude?

Alter Ego : Because you will sound very offensive, especially to devoted religious people. You will hurt their feelings and they might think you are not respecting them.

Ronn : Hey, I’m merely reasoning out and NOT spreading false beliefs, OK! Can’t you see how he is practicing Selection Bias in crediting God? Truth hurts, no? Being Truthful is not the same as being Rude!

Alter Ego : But it will hurt you more if your friends, including the neutral ones, do not understand your points and then perceive you as rude. Remember, everyone thinks that they are right and everyone also has ‘Ego’ too. There’s a reason why people avoid discussing anything about religion and politics while socializing, because it has the most chances to hurt the self-image.

Ronn : Is my image more important than Truth?

Alter Ego : Then tell me, are you going to commit your whole life championing this cause?

Ronn : No.

Alter Ego : Then either you go on a mission and do something to change the world or else you better shut up. Nobody will take you seriously unless you are being serious. So, in the mean time, act like you’re a well-mannered boy for now.

Ronn : Sheesh, what a superficial world. Again, Being Truthful ≠ Rude!! No wonder the world is getting dumber and dumber because everyone is hiding behind their alter ego all the time.

Alter Ego : You should had expected this since people think with their cached thoughts.

Ronn : You have a good point. So, can I blog about this thought, then?

Alter Ego : I think that’s fine because nobody reads your blog.

Ronn : Truth hurts. *sob*

And so, my alter ego just smiled to my friend and then we continue with our light conversation.

Few months later, which is now, I’m glad that my alter ego has vetoed to stop me from speaking my mind out, thus saving me from unnecessary embarrassment. Along the way, I achieved several realization ..

1. Seeking gratification by reasoning or debating with other people is part of my cached thought. Being agitated by my hot button is also part of my cached thought. Acting as if I’m an Intellectual giant is also a product of my cached thought. It’s only meant to boost my ego – And it’s an illusion. Like a storm cloud, it may look to be powerful and fierce, but if you go near enough to grab it, it is just all mist. It’s an illusion.

2. Before critiquing other people of thinking with cached thought, I must first break free from it or else I’m just being hypocritical.

3. Atheism is meant to be kept to myself, not to be preached. I almost forgot that my ultimate personal goal is to study the way how Life and the World work, not sticking to a belief system (of atheism). To me the Truth is clear – there is no God. So why should I need to seek immediate personal gratification of spreading atheism to a mere few people around me? And I know the most effective way for people to discover the Truth is not through my preaches and persuasion. It is only through self-effort that people can understand it.

4. It’s always in human’s blood to correct injustice, banishing evilness and enlightening the ignorant. The idea of goodness has always been an eternal idealism for human being. However, at the same time, injustice, evilness and ignorance have always been and will always Exist. So, how do you create harmony between idealism and the reality? It is to strike the balance between the two – The Middle Way.

If you want the Truth to stand clear before you, never be ‘for’ or ‘against’. The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is mind’s worst disease. - Jianzhi Sengcan, the third patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China.

Therefore, this will be my last piece of writing on Atheism.

And Thank you, Alter Ego.

I like reading Chinese/Japanese Zen Buddhism short stories or Koans because they are simple yet deeply profound and very meaningful. They are so challenging to read because sometimes when read literally, they bear no meaning at all. Therefore, the only way to understand the moral of the story is to grasp the essence behind it. These stories typically often bring mini-enlightenment to me and brings a little Buddhism wisdom too.

Very nice.

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

The professor kept interrupted and argued with Nan-in on several ideas about Zen when Nan-in was speaking.

Nan-in then stopped speaking and served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "The cup is full. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

More Is Not Enough

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he walked pass a wealthy merchant’s house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!"

Then he became the storm cloud, flooding the fields and villages, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it – a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!"

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

Going with the Flow

A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive.

"I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived."

Not Dead Yet

The Emperor asked Master Gudo,

"What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?"

"How should I know?" replied Gudo.

"Because you are a master," answered the Emperor.

"Yes sir," said Gudo, "but not a dead one."

Obsessed

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out.

"Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"

"Brother," the second monk replied,
"I already set her down on the other side, but you are still carrying her."

Trading Dialogue for Lodging

In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.

A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.

So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.

Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."

"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.

"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.

"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.

"I understand you won the debate."

"Won nothing. I’m going to beat him up."

"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.

"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"

Obedience

The master Bankei’s talks were attended not only by Zen students but by persons of all ranks and sects. He never quoted sutras nor indulged in scholastic dissertations. Instead, his words were spoken directly from his heart to the hearts of his listeners.

His large audiences angered a priest of the Nichiren sect because the adherents had left to hear about Zen. The self-centered Nichiren priest came to the temple, determined to debate with Bankei.

"Hey, Zen teacher!" he called out. "Wait a minute. Whoever respects you will obey what you say, but a man like myself does not respect you. Can you make me obey you?"

"Come up beside me and I will show you," said Bankei.

Proudly the priest pushed his way through the crowd to the teacher.

Bankei smiled. "Come over to my left side."

The priest obeyed.

"No," said Bankei, "we may talk better if you are on the right side. Step over here."

The priest proudly stepped over to the right

"You see," observed Bankei, "you are obeying me and I think you are a very gentle person. Now sit down and listen."

A Parable

Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

No Attachment to Dust

Zengetsu, a Chinese master of the T’ang dynasty, wrote the following advice for his pupils:

Living in the world yet not forming attachments to the dust of the world is the way of a true Zen student.

When witnessing the good action of another encourage yourself to follow his example. Hearing of the mistaken action of another, advise yourself not to emulate it.

To a sincere student, every day is a fortunate day. Time passes but he never lags behind. Neither glory nor shame can move him.

Censure yourself, never another. Do not discuss right and wrong.

Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave an immediate appreciation.

Live with cause and leave results to the great law of the universe. Pass each day in peaceful contemplation.

Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made Yamaoka quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

The Stone Mind

Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.

While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?"

One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind."

"Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."

Learning To Be Silent

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: "Fix those lamps."

The second pupil was surprised to hear the first one talk. "We are not supposed to say a word," he remarked.

"You two are stupid. Why did you talk?" asked the third.

"I am the only one who has not talked," concluded the fourth pupil.

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." – Emo Phillips, comedian.

We all now that all kind of dogs can be trained to be obedient and faithful to their owners. You can teach specific instructions to dogs and also shaping their behaviour. Nevertheless, we should never forget that although we can teach and train dogs, each of every different breed of dog has a different core instinct.

For instance, if I walk on the street and meet a stray Pit Bull Terrier, I know there’s a chance that it may attack me, even if it’s just a small chance (pit bull is the most common breed of dog to attack human). But instead, if I encounter a stray Chihuahua, I know for sure, with 99.999% certainty, that it will never attack me.

Although both Pit Bull and Chihuahua are dogs, their core behaviour and personality are wired differently from the beginning – Basically, different origin of Instinct (powered by Evolution). If between dogs’ behaviour already have such disparity, what more if compared with other species of animal?

The Brain

Animals have different core instincts, unique to every species, or even maybe to sub-species or perhaps up to individual species. But If someone ever ask the question – what’s the one major difference between human being and animals, the answer is clear – Consciousness.

Eliezer has written a very nice short essay about about how the brain thinks, titled – Cached Thoughts. I will briefly summarize what the essay is about (The essay is worth a read, really).

• A typical human brain is only as powerful as a 200Hz computer processor, which is ridiculously weak.
• The trick of how our brain manage to execute and run complicated task with this ‘weak processor’ is through a mechanism called ‘caching’.
• In computing, that’s when you store the results of previous operations and look them up next time, instead of recomputing them from scratch. It works similarly in the human brain too.
• This caching method is extremely useful, as we could analyze and solve problems using past experience or some presuppose knowledge as reference.
• But looking from a conscious mind point of view, cached thoughts have a significant downside too – acting without questioning.

The Instinct

Animals live their lives purely following on their instinct. When they are hungry, they look for food. When they feel threaten, they attack. When they are sleepy, they sleep. All these programmed instincts are already well stored in their cached thoughts and basically, animals act up according to what their brain instruct them depending on circumstances. In other words, animals let the brain to complete the pattern and they will just repeat their routine over and over again.

When a tiger is provoked, its emotion of anger lights up, courtesy of cached thoughts, and the tiger will react and fight back to defend itself. A tiger will not ask questions like “Is this fellow a joke? Bah, I don’t wanna waste my time dealing with this moron”.

They will just bite.

Well, if you think that human being is unique because we do not have such ‘automatic instinct’ because we seems ‘consciously’ able to choose our actions, then you’re wrong – We also do have the same ‘programmed instinct’. And this is the same reason why racism and sexism exist, inferiority complex behaviour is common, tendency to be biased when making argument, office politics, first impression matters, cultural taboos, believing in God and many other things which once rationally thought out, seems pointless or obsolete. Most people simply absorb information from external world and then allow the brain to complete the pattern.

Don’t let your mind complete the pattern!  Think! – Eliezer

Nevertheless, due to our higher consciousness, we could actually realize and question our instinct, and this is what separates human and animal. Human has the capacity to ask the question – “Why did I lost my temper just now? Should I not lost my cool so easily? OK, I will be nice next time.” With this, the next time I’m provoked again, I will suppress my anger and thoughts and restrict my emotions from bursting away. This suppression, over long of period of time will turn to repression. There are also times when people are aware of the shortcoming of their instinct but choose to avoid doing anything about it or helpless about it. eg. depression problems.

(Buddhism called this as ‘animal instinct’ and Buddha said, the only way to get rid or unattached ourselves with this instinct is through vigorous meditation. Only then, we will attain enlightenment, the highest order of consciousness)

When a frog is hopping around to chase a grasshopper, which is also hopping away to escape from the frog, human being will find it amusing to watch this hopping battle on ‘who-can-hop-better’. But it’s kinda sadistic because thinking from the frog and grasshopper point of view it must be an intense experience. One is a hungry beast looking for its first meal of the day and another hopping away from the monster to save itself.

The instinct involved is a matter of life and death for the frog and grasshopper, but for human it’s an amusement simply because we have a higher level of consciousness and could see the humour side of it. However, if this same person get chased by a tiger, his consciousness will revert back to the basic instinct and the first thing he will do is to run away and escape from the monster, just like what the grasshopper did.

On one fine day, I got a mini-Eureka while playing with my Rubik’s cube (which is my daily toy). I realized when I twist one block away, it doesn’t just affect the front face but even the top face, left face, right face and bottom face will all be affected. For instance, based on the diagram on the right, if I turn the white face clockwise, the blue and red face will be messed up along with the other 2 faces on the other side. And this is just a single move. If I move random blocks 4-5 times, the entire cube will be pretty scrambled. In other words, to solve Rubik’s cube you can’t fix it by just looking at one face but you also have to take into consideration of all the other sides/faces. You got to think in 3-Dimensional.

Well, that seems pretty obvious at first. Duh. However, my way of thinking do not stop there. I always look for the ‘Essence’ or ‘Gist’ of whatever that I’ve discovered and then asked myself – ‘How do I apply this Essence to my philosophy?’. I understand that Detail tells you the small picture, but Essence show you the big picture.

So, from the Rubik’s cube, I learned that when solving a complex problem, I can’t just do one-dimensional thinking, but I also have to look from the 2nd and 3rd dimensions point of view to grasp the full picture, hence, multi-dimensional thinking.

“Hit the tree but missed the forest.”

“Hit the tree but missed the forest.” – Unknown.

This is actually not an official proverb but something I came across around 3-4 years ago in a Malaysian blog. And this quote, has then changed the way of how I construct my thought ever since. The idea of this quote is simple yet profound – sometimes, when we try to solve a problem, we might get the small details right but in a bigger picture, it doesn’t apply to the essence of the problem. (For example – the delusion that creationist can dismiss Evolution by attacking macro-evolution). And to solve the big picture problem, we will need multi-dimensional thinking due to its complexity.

Imagine you are going for an adventure to search for the mystical ancient forest – Gugukaka forest, which the location is not known to any man. All you know is that the Gugukaka forest contains Popululu trees, and so you start searching for the forest. One day, after many years of searching, you finally found the Popululu tree, but are you sure that’s Gugukaka forest? You hit tree, but are you sure that’s the right forest? If you claim without any hesitancy that this is the right ancient forest by mere recognizing the one tree, then you are just applying one dimensional thinking.  Perhaps, other forest also do have this Popululu trees, you never know.

To understand whether it is indeed the Gugukaka forest or not, you need to grasp the essence of ‘mystical’ and ‘ancient’. If this is a mystical forest, there should not be many common inhabitants or else it wouldn’t be mystical anymore. If this is an ancient forest, it should be tricky or difficult to find or else everybody would have found this forest and it would not be ancient anymore. Or if I walk along the forest and get roasted by a phoenix or impaled by an unicorn or BBQ’ed by ogres, then I will know right away that this is a mystical forest.

You get the idea.

Atheism

There was a time when I heard someone said ‘I don’t see anything that disprove the existence of God’. Immediately, I told myself silently ‘But I, on the other hand, do not find any evidence which support God’s existence!’. Clearly, a major contradiction happens here. Looking from a simplistic point of view, since these two statements are mutually exclusive, we are basically sharing 50%-50% chances to be correct with our views. In other words, one of us has to be right, and another is downright ignorant.  At the same time I know that when tackling such question, it is not something I can solve by flipping the coin and say I Win! Or stick to my own biased beliefs and say “I’m Right and You’re Wrong!”.. By default, there’s a faith system within our psyche which trigger us to consistently believe that we are right and anyone against our beliefs are wrong. That’s why more often than not, our unconscious priority when getting into argument or debate is to ‘Win’ the argument rather than finding the truth. I’m perfectly aware of that.

Not only that, I also can’t just go and say ‘people who believe in God are idiots and totally wrong in their beliefs’ because not only this is a logical fallacy, but also very one-dimensional thinking. Therefore, I need to argue this case looking from my different dimensions point of view. I will present my argument now, so, read carefully.

In the modern world justice system, we commonly adopt the famous stance – Innocent until proven Guilty. This is not a perfect system because not every criminal who deserve punishment are in jail, but nevertheless, this is the best justice system that we could have. Something equivalent to capitalism in economics – not perfect but the best.

So, basically – You are innocent by default until there are evidences which prove you guilty. In other words, you are ‘nothing’ until evidence prove you to have/be ‘something’. Nothing until proven something.

Therefore, when it comes to arguing God’s existence, the burden of proof is not with the non-believers but with the believers. Because by default, we have to assume that there’s nothing in the sky until proven to have something. Again, this is not the perfect system to argue against mysteries but surely the best we have. ANd it appears that we have zero concrete evidence for God’s existence – Absolutely zero, or else many theologians will rush and hold this evidence to prove to everyone that God exist. But so far, theologians only argue from philosophical point of view or by interpreting doctrines. Therefore, we have to assume that God do not exist, until concretely proven to be so.

OK, hold that thought of ‘Nothing until proven Something’, because I’m now entering to another dimension. Hold tight.

Here I will want to pose a simple question – Assuming that God do exist (Abrahamic’s religion), will it be his intention to want us, all of us the human beings to recognize his existence, accept him, worship him and submit to him? I can safely assume the answer is yes and sending Jesus Christ to earth was one of his intention to do so. Now, here’s my another argument:

A God who created such massive universe and a complex thing called Life must have a great massive amount of intelligence. Let’s call it uber-intelligence. But wouldn’t a God who have uber-intelligence do not have simple common sense (that even me a mere mortal could think off) that if He reveal himself even for just a few seconds to all of us right now, JUST A FEW SECONDS, then once and for all, ONCE AND FOR ALL, there will no longer be any debates of His existence, atheist will cease to exist and you will see myself praying everyday – once and for all. He could also choose to perhaps show us some miracles as evidence, like sending down angels … or healing a lost limb … or splitting the oceans or creating 3 new moons. Whatever. Any form of evidence that even scientists and Richard Dawkins will bow down and have no choice but to say – EVIDENCE!

But we see zero miracles or evidence from God throughout the history. Zero. Now, it appears to me that it’s either there’s no God available to perform miracle or God want to keep people playing the guessing and contemplating game. I have a funny thought that if it is the latter one, then it is as if God is playing a game of Poker with me.

God : Hey mortal, do you believe me if I am to tell you that I have an Ace underneath my card? That will give me triple Aces. I can easily beat your pair 5 and pair Kings.

Man : Yo, I’m not convinced.

God : Oh yeah? All IN! $1000!

Man : *Gasp*

God : Do you believe me now? I advice you to fold. It is foolish to follow and go all-in with me, because you will only end up losing like HELL.

Man : Are you playing psychological games with me? Are you bluffing me?

God : You can try me, young one. You think you have nicer cards? Let me tell you what, my card is better than yours, any time because I’m superior. Now, either you fold and call me the God of Gambler or you can try to go all-in with me which you will certainly lose like HELL.

Man : Oh dear. *dilemma dilemma* But wouldn’t it be much easier if you have just revealed your card, show me your triple Aces and I, once and for all, will fold my cards and call you God of Gambler from today onwards? Or are you really bluffing me?

God : Reveal my cards? No way! I love to play mind games with ya. I like to keep you guessing without giving you any clarity in hints. It’s up to you to judge and interpret my words… bwahahaha~ So if you think I’m, bluffing, why not go all-in with me?

It will take plenty of writings to make this a full blown essay by incorporating topics from psychology, biology, historical and perhaps astronomy to really see the combined big picture of why God’s existence is improbable. But I will leave it short and sweet.

Conclusion: Nothing until proven something. God did not show proofs, therefore there’s nothing.

Certainly, to rebut my argument above using counter-argument like “You never know God’s intention” or “God has no reason to reveal himself” or “God has no reason to comply with your demand” will not help at all because my argument is constructed purely based on logic, step by step, piece by piece, while the rebuttals are faith-based and also, one dimensional.

You can’t compare goldfish with koi-fish .. they are 2 different class breeds.   

(Updated content in brown) 

We can do as we will, but cannot will as we will – Schopenhauer, philosopher.

I have written before that our intelligence is inborn. I have written recently that our moral values, to some extent, is also inborn. Now, how about our personality, behaviour and our beliefs? Are they also inborn? It’s controversial, but my personal answer is yes.

But a mere yes means nothing. I will put fourth various arguments to support why my view is correct. So, digest the essence of my arguments properly. Here we go..

Studies of identical twins who were separated at birth and then tested in adulthood, showed that they have astonishing similarities. And this happened in every pair of identical twins separated at birth in every study, much less so with paternal twins separated at birth. My favourite example is a pair of twins, one of whom was brought up as a Catholic in a Nazi family in Germany, the other was brought up in a Jewish family in Trinidad. When they walked in to the lab in Minnesota, they were wearing identical navy blue shirt with <?> , both of them like to dip butter toast in coffee, both of them kept rubber-band around their wrist, both of them flush the toilet before using it as well as after, and both of them like to surprise people by sneezing in crowded elevator to watch them jump. – Steven Pinker, Cognitive Scientist. (from TED)

[I recommend you to click on the link and watch the video, if you are interested to learn of the delusion of being politically-correct]

This is indeed significant because it implies that if I could be 100% perfectly cloned, thus creating Ronn-B, and this Ronn-B is placed in some tribal village in Africa, chances are that the original Ronn, who lives in Malaysia and Ronn-B  in Africa, will have a very similar personality. I think this is a significant hint that our personality is not really affected by environment but rather, it is somehow fixed.

Influenced by family and friends?

Just observe any family which have 2 or more sons (or 2 daughters) and you will notice many times, the 2 brothers (or 2 sisters) do not share similar personality and behaviour despite being raised by the same parent.  Perhaps, one of them is more ambitious while the another is more laid-back. Or maybe one is more reserved and introverted and another is more outgoing and extroverted.

They were raised in the same home by the same parents for years but why such difference exist? My answer is clear – contrary to popular beliefs, personality and behaviour is not largely learnt from the environment, (though it still play some role) but rather is an inborn one, largely influenced by our genetics.

And you may ask – Isn’t it obvious that the brothers or sisters have different group of friends, hence, different lifestyle? Maybe the older brother’s group of friends are party-goer and outgoing people, and that’s why he too became outgoing  while the younger brother is a geeky guy because he was surrounded by geeky people, therefore creating disparity in personality between the two.

Yes, it is very easy to think what you are today is the product of the environment around you. But what if it is not the environment who chose you but rather you chose the environment? In other words, your close friends are NOT a group of people who you just ‘fatedly encounter during the course of your life’ but it was YOU who, consciously or unconsciously, chose people who you can get along  with your personality or lifestyle comfortably well, mix with them and then label them as ‘close/great/best friends’. While for people you are not really interested with, they will just remain a normal or a hi-bye friend.

Examine your thoughts. Reflect back the earlier chapter of your life and think back on how you chose your close friends and you will realize my words have some essence of truth. You and your best friends must have many things in common, or else, it will be extremely difficult to even become a friend.

If so, what you are today is not really influenced by the environment around you. You are what you are supposed to be, largely determined by your genes, since the day you were born.

The Structure of the Mind

Many months ago, I read an article of a guy who sustained brain damage in an accident. Before the accident, this guy is a typical nice guy – a gentleman, polite and well-mannered. However, after that unfortunate accident, his personality changed due to the damage to his frontal lobe which deals with emotions. He became hot-tempered, impatient (short attention span) and impulsive. He is now an entirely different person.

In other words, this man did not choose to have such personality … it was the brain damage which altered the structure of his brain which had affected his normal emotions and he is now powerless to revert back to his former self.

In another instance,  Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, related a story of hers when she got a stroke several years ago on the left side of her brain. Her entire left hemisphere was totally shut down and guess what happened? She couldn’t recognize alphabets and numbers although she was sure she knows about it. All she saw was some ‘alien symbols’. When on the phone calling for doctor, she only hear gibberish voices like “uh oh uh ah”. As the left hemisphere of her brain was shut down, so as the brain region which deals with language. There’s absolutely nothing she can do about it.

Try to imagine how it is like if you were in her shoes. That will be a really strange experience, isn’t it?

These are the extreme examples of ‘you-can’t-do-anything-with-your-brain’ scenario. But this is true even in lesser extent in the sense of our personality.

Puberty is perhaps the best example to illustrate my point here. First, we have to know that our brain does not stop developing until around mid-20s. Basically, that’s the age where our maturity and intelligence will peak. However, puberty during teenage years is a condition which tell the body that we are now already in adult phase, hence creating a conflict – The body tells the brain that it is already an adult body and fully matured but the brain is still half-way developing! And this is the ultimate reason why teenagers are rebellious by nature and parenting is the most difficult at this period – it’s like an adult trapped in a teenagers’ mind.

Parents will usually teach and give advice to their teenage kids, telling them what is the right thing to do and what is not right to do. But often, many words and advices given went to the left ear and gone out at the right ear. This is because, a typical teenagers brain’s structure is not developed enough to understand the essence of their parent’s message. For instance, they can’t understand why their parents keep insisting that smoking is bad for health when many adults are doing it, therefore in these teenage kids’ mind, smoking can’t be wrong. By letting the brain completing the pattern, they came to the conclusion that they’re right and their parents are wrong because of being old-fashioned and stubborn. This is the result of lacking in ability to see the big pictures – just like the ancient people thought the flat world was the truth until disproven later by sophisticated astronomical techniques and mathematics.

So, this gives a very clear view to us that many times, the experience and wisdom of parents is totally rejected by teenage kids for one ultimate reason – the structure of the developing mind in teenagers do not have such capacity to allow them to see from their parents point of view, hence the rebellious nature.

And for the same reason, I will say religious people couldn’t see atheist’s rational point of view of a world without God because their mind do not allow them to view a world void of divine being. Similarly, you can’t call a crazy guy to calm down, because his mind’s structure will not understand the necessity or purpose of calming down.

In the book God’s Debris by Scott Adams, he said this:

“People think they follow advice but they don’t. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don’t waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.” – Scott Adams.

I find this pretty meaningful because it means that every input we received is subjected to individual interpretation and bias. When your father tells you that “You should study hard and get good results!”, you may heed his advice because you understand the value of education. Or maybe not, because you don’t see any purpose of scoring well in the exam papers. Everyone has an unique internal structure to interpret this ‘information’.

Or perhaps, you study hard because your father threaten to cut down your pocket money if you don’t score well. In this case, this is not a teaching which brings ‘enlightenment’ in your mind but only a form of repression in forcing yourself to study.

What Is The Environment’s Role?

There are people who were raised up in a religious family but doubted religion and became a non-believer in their later life. There are people who were raised up in a non-believing family but chose to become a believer in their later life. There are people who remain a non-believer. There are people who remain a believer.

Why so? In this age of information, isn’t it that we are exposed to the same amount of information on religion and atheism? But why does one group chose this path and another group chose the other one?

Actually, they did not choose. They just went back to the path which their mind wants to belong to -The path which their mind are structured to fit in, the beliefs that they are comfortable with.

From what I can see, the role of the environment is merely playing the Repressing and Boosting game to individuals. I will give you an instance.

Sarah is a typical shy and reserved girl. One day, her friend Jenny decided to introduce some friends who are outgoing to Sarah. After a period of socializing, Sarah seem to became more outgoing and befriend these people.

Here, there are two possibilities of Sarah’s origin of personality.

1. Sarah grown up in a repressed environment (eg. super conservative family) where she didn’t have much opportunity to go socializing with people. Despite Sarah seemingly ‘learnt’ socializing skills, the fact is, she didn’t. She just discovered that her true-self is an outgoing social animal and she completely enjoys the experience. She has now break free from repression.

2. Whatever the environment Sarah grown up at, she is actually a true introverted girl. When she first befriended the people, Sarah boosted her personality just for that occasion, got out of the comfort zone, and went on to socialize with them. However, the fact remains that she is a true introvert, which means in the future, she will feel the same awkwardness feeling when getting to know new friends. 

The word repression may sound like quite an intense emotion. Well, if you think of a killer who is holding a knife and stuck in a dilemma whether or not to murder his victim, then yes, I suppose this degree of repression will be pretty intense. But that’s only the extreme level because we still have to consider the everyday repression which we all experience (but without much questioning).

For example, consider sexual repression. Thousand years ago, pre-marital sex was considered a major taboo and anyone caught engaging such activity will be dealt with heavy punishments (because the country law was fully controlled by religion). However, today as we live in a more secular society, except for certain Islamic country, nobody will get hurt by having pre-marital sex. In some people’s eye, the shift in such culture left a bad impact because it encourages over-openness. But I choose to see it differently – the shift of culture didn’t changed our behaviour, It merely loosen the level of repression in us.

Ethics and Fairness?

One major argument against non-freewill is the so called ‘scary’ thought that if indeed human being do not have free will, therefore people will not take responsible for their actions.

We need to understand that there are two different ways of perceiving the world. One is an idealistic world and another is the reality. Sure, everyone dreams of an utopian world where immorality and injustice are non-existence. Sure, everyone hopes this world will remain peaceful without war. Sure, everyone wants humanity to live on and keep progressing. But all these will remain just an idealism. It is something that we want and hope for, not to be confused with the actual state of the world.

Therefore, to say something which involves the element of deterministic, like for instance, you cannot learn to be more intelligent, it will bound to be controversial because it goes against the idealism of typical human being (most of us will feel insulted if we are labeled stupid). But again, idealism is idealism, reality is reality. If the idea of non-freewill scares you, that’s because it contradicts your ideals and beliefs. The nature or the reality, is always neutral.

Conclusion

When you are lining up in a long queue, it is not right to say – ‘I’m stuck in a long queue’ because, you need to understand that the world do not revolves around you, although it seems like it. Rather, YOU ARE the QUEUE because you, along with many other people, played a part to create the long line of queue. Similarly, we need to throw away the idea that everyone has a rational explanation why they have certain personality, talent, intelligence, beliefs, etc. Free will is an illusion and we have to accept the fact that there are some people who were born luckier and some people born less lucky than the rest. Remember, your genes have more say than your will, hence, we cannot will as we will.

It may seem insignificant at first, but when you shift your perspective from ‘I have thoughts’ to ‘I am the thought’, your whole mind-set of perceiving the reality will change along with it and naturally, you will start to have a better understand of how human being really works.

Few months ago, I came across an article from a random blog – “Are boys smarter than girls in maths?”  Reading from the title alone, I immediately knew that the answer will be a big NO and the author will go on to emphasize equality in both genders. That’s because I know the blog’s author is a very careful person and tend to be politically-correct when it comes to his writing.

After skimming through the essay, his conclusion was indeed a no.

In my opinion, any safe, non-controversial, political correct writings which tend to seek reader’s nod in acceptance are maybe good for conveying knowledge and information, but it will not necessary help people to think critically. Sure, everyone will be happy when you tell them that genders are equal. But again, does appealing to sense of comfort equates to truth?

Now, back to the topic – Are boys really smarter than girls in maths? Below is one of the author’s reference to his essay:

In a new study published recently in Science, Professor Janet Hyde and colleagues may have spotted the first signs of change. They used data from around 7 million US children in 10 US states from grade 2 through to grade 11, routinely gathered as part of a national assessment exercise. They wanted to find out if boys are still performing better than girls at maths.
What they found was that in marked contrast to earlier research, there was little or no difference in maths performance between girls and boys in all of the 10 states. In some states girls performed fractionally better, on average, than boys, and in other states this trend was reversed

Before my refutation, I will first give an analogy. In a 100 meters sprint race, I would dare to say that 50% of the young people in this world could easily finish the race within 30 seconds. But on the other hand, how many people in the world could actually run as fast as Usain Bolt, who just set a world record at 9.69 seconds?

I say, not many.

Same goes for ability in maths. The research is done with grade 2 to grade 11 kids, which in other words, the level of maths is somewhat between basic to intermediate level of maths. Is this level of maths so difficult where boys and girls will show disparity in abilities? We need to know that when it comes to something that involves learning curves, there’s always the diminishing factor – which means a subject gets harder and harder to learn as you go to a higher level.

For example, it is not difficult to improve your running time from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in 100m sprint but to improve the timing from 10 seconds to 9.7 seconds, it is not something everyone can do. And this is what the diminishing factor is all about.

By ignoring the advanced or higher level of maths (in university and scientific world level), this research only gave Prof. Janet Hyde the answer that she wanted – that boys and girls are equal in maths. Or perhaps, she intended to give an ambiguous answer to gender equality by only highlighting “boys and girls” but ignoring “men and women”. Whatever it is, this does not give a complete answer anything pertaining to reality.

And I’m extremely aware that there are many of these half-hearted (or half-minded) experiments around which just give the answer the researches seek rather than finding the truth.

Another instance – the correlation between red wine and the heart. Basically, one research concluded that people who have the habit of drinking red wine tend to have lesser heart problems. So, yes, people who drink red wine do have better heart, but does correlation imply causation? Is red wine indeed a magical potion for your heart?

Or perhaps, people who could afford buying red wine tend to be better off who could also afford proper health care and diet, hence better heart? If so, red wine would just be a symbol of wealth or capability and not a causation.

Any research method which are technically over-simplistic will bound to have flaws or incompleteness. Considering these are funded researches, I’m surprised the research method is not thoroughly investigated and thought out properly. It goes no where when the researcher interpret the result based on his/her own subjective bias rather than judging objectively.

The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.

Yet, if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpture like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own. – Xenophanes, ancient Greek philosopher.

I won’t dare to claim that I’m an expert in the field of religion. But I would just like to summarize what I have generally learnt throughout the past 4 years of the history of religion.

The most early form of religion is Animism, where the ancient people believed that everything in the world, from water to fire, tree, animals, grass, and fruits contain souls and spirits.  It is no surprise why the primitive people were so superstitious during those days. They probably just attained the ability of higher intelligence and everything around them must have looked to be super-mysterious and strange.

Why does it hurt to touch the fire? Why do I need to drink water? How does the tree grow taller and taller by itself? Why do we look so different compared to other animals? Why do fruits turn brown several days after being plucked from the tree? It is very important to understand that the root of religion’s existence is due to human’s inherent thoughts of seeking Cause and Effect. They were seeing the Effects clearly with their eyes but the origin of Causes bewildered them badly. They basically do not have any answers to mysteries.

Not knowing the answers, they concluded that if the nature is so mysterious and they do not know any answer to it, then it must be a deep mystery. There must be something controlling the nature. There must be some little souls in the fruits and trees, animals… and lightning…. and the sun and moon. Everything. Hence, ancient people worship anything which they came across to ‘appease’ these mysterious objects.

Few thousand years later, human being began the art of mastery and started to manipulate the nature to our own benefits. We learned how to light up fire to provide heat. We learned how to do farming (agricultural) and channel water to the farm. Human chopped down trees to build homes. Human starting to have grasp of the nature and utilizing it to our own benefits.

Inevitably, human doubted and questioned Animism and gradually it slowly faded away because it no longer bears any fundamental mysteries. But there were still many mysteries which were unsolved especially things on the sky such as sun, lightning, rain, wind and etc. Those people hypothesizes that Animism couldn’t be right. There must be a higher level of Gods and Deities to complement the higher level of complexities.

Hence, the rise of Polytheism took place in places like Egypt, India, Greece, Rome (Italy), Scandinavia and China. They are all identical – all these countries have became a civilized nations and they started to believed in pagan Gods. Plus, all these Polytheism religions contained stories and tales conveying the role of all the Gods and Goddess. And it is also not short of ‘Politics’ where often you will come across stories of the Good triumph over Evil, The God slaying the Devil which tried to harm humanity and a complex family tree linking all the relationship between Gods and Goddess.

(African and Mesoamerican people on the other hand, who were largely tribal, practiced shamanism which involved rituals and sacrificial).

If you notice these pagan Gods, you will realize all these Gods often represent the nature and also human emotions. Zeus, God of Lightning. Poseidon, God of Sea. Ra, God of Sun. Amun, God of Creation. Pluto, God of Death. Saturn, God of Time. Brahma, God of Creator. Krishna, God of Love. Etc.

As time goes by, scientific advancement in areas like astronomy, mathematics, physics, and philosophy especially by the Greeks shed some doubts on the concept of pagan Gods. Ancient philosophers and scientists believed that the reality ‘makes more sense’ if there’s a coherency in nature instead of looking at them separately. For instance, rain could not happen without water and heat. And without water, flowers and trees will not grow. And if flower and trees do not grow, animals will not have any food to eat. Hence, there must be a form of coherency.

This lead to the idea that, instead of multiple pagan Gods in the sky governing Earth, perhaps there’s only one God who orchestrate the design of the nature? With this, the age of monotheism gave birth to Abrahamic religions which focuses in answering the ultimate mystery that nobody could dissect until 1,800 years later, and also giving a massive improvisation to Polytheism’s version – Where do life and human being came from? 

And so, until today, we are still living in the age of monotheism. Just like polytheism, monotheism religion also tell fables. Isn’t it hypocritical to claim that the Zeus summoning lightning is a myth but the story of Noah’s Ark is the truth when both fable have the same degree of irrationality?

I live in Southeast Asia and I find it quite an amazement to see three neighboring countries – Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines have different official religions. (Malaysia – Islam, Thailand – Buddhism, Philippines – Christianity). Why such situation exist when these three neighboring countries are just few thousand kilometers away from each other? Because historically, Malaysia was once a busy trading port frequently visited by Persian and Turkish traders, while Thailand is the only country in Southeast-Asia which was never occupied by colonial rule, hence repelling the European’s cultural influence and Philippines was occupied by the Spanish.

This actually highlights several important points:

• The belief of religion was purely spread and packed with human’s influence.
• As Xenophanes mentioned, human being created God based on our own image. So, we need to know that every religion was raised based on specific cultural influence.
• For instance, look at the names in the holy books/scriptures. Bible is consist purely of European names, the Quran consist purely of Arab/Middle-Eastern names, Hinduism scriptures consist purely of Indian names. Same goes for societal values.
• You will not find out of place names like .. the Lord Meng Huo or King Murugan in the Bible – That’s because Christianity is originally an European religion, just like Islam which was largely an Arabian religion. You will not see that cow and monkey are sacred animals in the holy books. That’s because these animals are only sacred in India and not in Europe.
• There is not even a single religion in the world which highlights the diversity of people around the world but rather, focusing only on their own people.
• Isn’t it strange and funny that Asians are actually indulging in a religion which is only meant and written for European/Arab people (Christianity and Islam)?

Therefore, based on the trends above, I believe that monotheism religion, sooner or later, will become obsolete as the scientific area advances. Like now, there are already some branches of Christianity which has openly accepted Evolution. Don’t forget, Evolution was fiercely rejected by religion only in the last century ago.

Religion will never go away as, for the mean time, human couldn’t psychologically break away from the Cause-and-Effect-delusion – I can see the Effect but what is the Cause? If I can’t/don’t understand the Cause, therefore it must be a mystery. If it’s a mystery, it must be miraculous or magical and must be the work of divine. Hence, God must exist.

We often, without our awareness, adopt a very self-centric view in perceiving the reality. Many people will go – I’m logical, I’m rational, I’m Intelligent. I can understand this and that. If i don’t understand something, it’s not my fault but the subject’s fault because it is hard to understand. If there is something which is nearly impossible to understand, it’s not because my brain is lousy and couldn’t understand it but rather it must be magical or a miracle. It must be the work of divine power, or else why couldn’t I understand it?

We have to understand that whenever we encounter a mystery, it’s not because the thing is really a mystery. Rather, we have an ignorant mind -We simply do not know. If you could expand your mind, and see the big picture, you will realize religion which preach to believe in God actually is not significant at all to humanity. Individual human’s life span is around 70-90 years old, but compared it to the history of 10,000 years, our life span is nothing. To understand religion, we just can’t look at the history of the past 50-100 years but it is essential to understand the root of religion over several thousand of years.

Human being loves super-heroes in comics and manga. But we can worship them only in our fantasy and imagination. However, in religion, we could actually openly worship this super-hero called God without being labeled as lunatic or crazy … I will be glad to link it as psychological glitch in our mind.

Religion will continue to evolve to keep up with the progress of scientific work. Once there’s a new discovery, some theologian will alter their holy book/scripture interpretation to keep up with the reality. I will not at all be surprised if one day religion evolves to something similar as in the movie Matrix where our God is basically a computer program. Religion’s role is about coping with mysteries and uncertainties, therefore, take away mysteries and uncertainty, there’s no longer any reason for the existence of religion.

That’s why we are not worshipping fire anymore.

Beside that, we must also never forget that before the age of secularism, state religion is pretty common where a nation endorsed religious beliefs and incorporate it as law and code of ethics. What better ways are there to control the masses than rallying them with divine being as a form of motivation, albeit a delusion?

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. – Einstein

For the moment, I will not write anything about our psychological glitch just yet. I feel that there’s a need to address something more important regarding philosophy of morality. I suggest that you read this essay properly and connect all my arguments wisely.

On Free Will

In this TED video, Spencer Wells mentioned that the Neanderthal (human species’ cousin who have already gone extinct) which lives around 60,000 years ago did not evolve much compared with the ancient primates ancestors which lived a million years ago. He referred to this as a ‘long cultural stasis’ due to the lack of revolution in the tools used – these two groups basically were using similar tools over million years! In other words, the intelligence of these primates did not evolve much during these periods.

Now here, I will want to pose two simple questions -

1. Why did the primates which lived approximately one million years ago till 60,000 years ago did not make any significant progress in terms of intellectual advancement?  This should be an interesting question considering human has made such rapid progress and growth over the past 6,000 years alone.

2.  If human had remained stagnant during those years, how did human evolve out of this stagnancy? Then this lead to another question – how did human being discover advanced intellectual techniques such as writing and drawing?

Let’s answer the first question first. Contrary to popular beliefs, intelligence and knowledge is not progressive which increases over time. It’s just like cockroaches which already exist since the dinosaur era – they do not evolve to be more intelligent or creative over these years, perhaps more adaptability, but nothing more. (We need to first throw away the idea that human being is special and gifted with intelligence since the start of the age. We are actually just an animal just like the others to begin with.)

So, how did we evolve out of the stagnancy? Something drastic must have happened during 60,000 which drives a massive Evolution in primates.

Around 50,000 – 60,000 years ago, Spencer Wells remarked of an hypothesis that an extreme weather condition may have driven the primates species close to extinction. There were perhaps around 2,000 of them left. Naturally, this triggered an extreme natural selection where the not-so-intelligent primates will die of not knowing what to do while the smarter ones survived perhaps because they get to invent some tools to withstand the harsh weather condition or they found a way to not to die. After this grueling period, naturally, the surviving ‘intelligent’ gene will propagate to the entire species and remain dominant.

From that onwards, our genetics had gone off on a tangent to a totally new direction. Basically, our intelligence keep evolving to be better and better  in an accelerated evolution.

5,800 years ago, a gene called ASPM undergone an accelerated evolution (after the divergence of human and chimpanzees), causing the rapidly exploding brain size of our ancestors. (Notice that primates and chimpanzees do not have a wide forehead like human being do. Therefore, it is widely believe that our forehead is the area of higher intelligence, hence the superstitious beliefs that the wider forehead you have, the more intelligent you are.). This ASPM variant arose coincident with the spread of agricultural, cities and the first record of written language.

I suppose this discovery is extremely important in bringing up a new dimension of outlook in human intelligence. The first human being who discovered writing did not discover it by sheer learning or some form of discovery. It was his genes which allow him to understand the concept and importance of writing – a higher level of thinking, a higher level of technique.

So ultimately, what’s the point of me bringing up this history of humanity? It’s to point out to you that, to some extent, you have no free will. Because if you bother to dwell into this ‘essence’ or ‘gist’ and then spread it wide in your mind, you will realize a number of so called conventional wisdom are pretty obsolete. Many people always carry a similar delusion with them wherever they go, which is – I can learn this and I can learn that. I can learn to become as great as him, I can learn to become a genius. If you think you can, you can!

It seems to me, the genes have a better say than your own little will.

On intellectual Capacity

Consider this scenario – If I show my cat or dog on how to browse the Internet, do you think my pets will be able to pick up this skill? I know I can keep doing it in front of them for millennia, but I’m sure animals will never understand it.  Why? Because non-human animals do not have such capacity to understand what we are doing. (Same goes when you show arts or drawings to animals). However, if I show a computer or Internet to the people who lives in tribes, village or rural areas, who have minimal exposure to technology, will they eventually understand what Internet is all about? The answer is yes, as proven by Sugata Mitra who discovered that rural Indian people, especially children, taught themselves to understand Internet and English, all by themselves. How could they do it? Because as a human being, they have the ‘capacity’ to understand language and technology even when they have never encountered it before.

All of us, including the animals, are born with a set of genes which already determined from the start the extent of our intellectual capacity. Dogs will not understand art, because it requires higher intelligence which exist outside of its genetic code.

What about geniuses like Einstein? We know that Einstein is a born genius, but nevertheless, he does not have a God-like super intelligence or else he would have solved every single world mystery. And that shows one thing – he is super intelligent, but not great by universal standards and that means, there’s a limit of how intelligent he can be, hence, a capacity. Let me illustrate the capacity below.

We are all born with a certain extent of capacity. The factor which will fill in the level we are at is depending on the environment around us. A typical urban dweller may score an above average intelligence if he has a good quality education, growing up in the right environment or mixing with right people. Perhaps he will be a dumb boy because he lives in an environment which do not appreciate or encourage intelligence. But he will never be able to break the limit to become a genius, unless his genes allow him to be.

Hypothetically speaking, what if Einstein is born in a tribal village in Africa? Will he still exist to be a genius or will he become part of the village idiots? Chances are, he will remain to be a village idiot simply because he is surrounded by only village idiots. Maybe not. Perhaps he could be philosophical thinker, due to extreme curiosity, and question the tribe’s conventional wisdom. Perhaps, he will be the only one who could think out of the box within the tribal community and proceed to revolutionize the entire village. Perhaps, he will just remain a nobody’s village idiot.

The point here is Einstein may become great in this tribal village, or he may not, depending on various circumstances. But he certainly has the tendency or potential to be great because he has the capacity which allow him to achieve it.

So, if you want to go as high or be as great as possible, perhaps somebody like Roger Federer in tennis, the pre-requisite condition is not to train/practice as hard like he does. Rather, you need to have the similar ‘gift’ or the ‘capacity’ that he has. Same goes for other areas whether its sports, arts , music, science, entrepreneurship, etc.

Everyone can achieve a certain level of goodness, but to be great you need to have this gifted capacity.

On Morality

So, in this last part of the essay, I will like to ask a big question – If there’s no free will in Intelligence, in the sense we are bound by the limited capacity to a certain extent, then is there free will in Morality?

Contrary to popular beliefs, human being do not act or make decisions by using rationality, rather we often use our emotions to make decisions (no matter how rational you think you are).

“The brain is like a good lawyer: give any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer,  the human brain wants victory, not truth; and like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.” – Robert Wright

Due to this very same condition, human being are often unconsciously ‘confused’ in the realm of abstract moral values – Why is it morally bad to steal things from your good friends but it is morally good to steal things from, let’s say the rich and greedy landlord (just like Robin Hood did). Thinking rationally, isn’t stealing an immoral act regardless of the circumstances? But no, as mentioned, human being think with emotions first, hence, there’s a tendency for us to subjectively label things as ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’. “Robin Hood is our hero because he robbed the greedy landlords and gave us back our hard-earned money!”

Very emotionally comforting and emotionally ‘justified’ but not at all rational, no?

To know why we behave in such a way, we first need to understand that human being, just like other primates, are social animals. (Different kind of animals live in different ways for the purpose of survival. There are animals which live in colony, some animals are solitude and some live in packs. )

When a group of animals live in a social environment, the most important element is always reciprocity – a relation of mutual dependence. Take back cheating and stealing as an example. Why do we think cheaters are immoral? Because cheaters invest less, but receive equal or more benefits.  And if cheaters are not detected, caught and punished, they will outcompete the non-cheaters and dominate the social community. If cheaters dominate the society, the reciprocity system will crumble. And that’s the end of the purpose of living in social groups.

Hence, looking from evolutionary psychology point of view, disliking the act of cheating is a very innate ability within all of us. But hey, if we inherently dislike the act of cheating, then why do we still tell lies? As I have mentioned, human do not engage in rational thinking but an emotional one. We do not like to be cheated or lied, but it doesn’t mean we will not cheat or lie to the others. Very paradoxical but it is the way how our mind is wired. (This behaviour is actually related to my post Self Deception – Cooking Facts and it will take me one full post to explain how they are linked.)

Plus, if we act rationally all the time within the social construct, chances are we will abandon our parents (too old and tedious to take care off) or partner (looking for a more beautiful and younger partner) or perhaps working with the enemy (may offers more benefits) which is extremely counter-beneficial to the society. Therefore, emotions is essential to glue us within a culture.

I have lost the link to the source, but in one research, it shows that even 1-2 years old children understand the concept of unfairness. How can you teach that unless it is somehow hardwired in our brain, I wonder.

Lastly, let’s again ask a very hypothetical question – Could Hitler have made a choice of not becoming an evil tyrant? Could he chose to be a good guy? Or was he already destined to be an evil dictator?

I will not want to draw any conclusions on this but to leave it up to you to judge. If you need some hints, I hope the little passage below will be able to help you.

But the real wrong turn came later, at the point where someone said, "Hey, how do you know that superintelligence will be moral?  Intelligence has nothing to do with being a good person, you know – that’s what we call wisdom, young prodigy."

And lo, it seemed obvious to the young Eliezer, that this was mere denial.  Certainly, his own painstakingly constructed code of ethics had been put together using his intelligence and resting on his intelligence as a base.  Any fool could see that intelligence had a great deal to do with ethics, morality, and wisdom; just try explaining the Prisoner’s Dilemma to a chimpanzee, right?

Surely, then, superintelligence would necessarily imply supermorality.

(Eliezer Yudkowsky)

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion - Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate Physicist. 

When I was 12 years old, there was a time when I came across a few stray kittens on the roadside. Seeing these little helpless and hungry kittens purring, I took my precious 50 cents and bought some bread to feed them. Thinking back, it’s kinda silly since bread is not a natural diet for cats.

When I was 18, I came across a baby bird on the ground with its leg broken and it just kept chipping. I presume its crying in pain. When I looked up, I saw the mother bird and father bird depressingly looking down at our direction. It clearly fell down from the nest. My first reaction was to carry this baby bird to the closest vet to heal its leg. But I realized there isn’t any nearby. My second thought was, if I can’t help the baby bird, maybe I should use my bottle to crush and end its life so that it doesn’t need to suffer any longer. But I thought perhaps it is too cruel to do it in front of mother bird and father bird. Not knowing what to do, I’d decided to leave it alone.

I kept thinking of the baby bird for the next several hours. In the late evening on the same day, I return to the same spot to see the bird. And its dead. Perhaps its a good thing for the bird but nevertheless, it left me with a moment of sadness.

Back in my teenage days, I wasn’t as actively inquisitive as I am today, therefore I’m sure there isn’t any rational actions behind my encounter with these animals – it’s all emotionally  instinctive. Clearly, altruism plays a big part in our human being’s emotion.

Think of all those small things you did which you do not expect any direct reward or acknowledgement. Like saving a drowning bug in the pond and place it on the ground. Or perhaps you give some coins to the poor beggar on the street. Or helping an old lady who tripped on the road. Or feeding the hungry stray dogs on the street. Or any other deeds which you did that gave you a sense of gratification without expecting any reward or favour back. That’s altruism. And I truly believe, for some reasons, it is innate to human being.

Thus, we need to abolish the notion that morality comes from God and religion. Yes, of course, religion plays a big part in spreading the idea of morality, albeit being hypocritical in some instances. But before I explain what those hypocritical things are all about, first look at these two remarkable quotes below.

‘If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.’ – Albert Einstein, Nobel Laureate Physicist. 

‘Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God’s approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That’s not morality, that’s just sucking up and applepolishing’. – Richard Dawkins, Biologist. 

One of the most ugly arguments from religious people is – If there’s no God, there will be no morality and human being are please to do all sort of evil and this world will become a dark world. Then I will just echo Richard Dawkins answer – so do you mean that you’re doing good things because of sucking up to the God?

Actually, both the argument and reply above are stated from a very extreme point of view. Hence, I do not think it bears any significance or worthwhile thoughts to ponder on. But I guess a garbage argument deserve a garbage reply. Let’s look at other points.

The holy books gave a very simplistic view of human morality saying that human are basically born sinful and we can choose the path of whether to do good or evil in our lifetime. And God list down all the moral values that we should adhere. God defined what is right and what is wrong. And so I was thinking, assuming that the holy book is right, I wonder how the conversation will turn out to be should I get a chance to speak with a Pastor/Priest/Father on this topic…..

Ronn : Is saving life, even if it just an insect’s life is a good moral deed? Like saving a bug from drowning in the pond?

Pastor/Priest/Father : The answer is clear. What do you think?

Ronn : I guess it would be a good moral deed since its a pathetic act to just watch the bug drown and die. I will certainly feel bad and guilty not doing anything to save it from suffering when all I just need to do is to take a stick to lift it away from the water. What do you think?

Pastor/Priest/Father : I think that’s a good answer.

Ronn : But thinking about it logically, even if I save the bug, since it is in the bottom of the ecology’s pyramid food chain, it will eventually be eaten by bird, frog or lizards. It will basically die sooner or later. Plus, the God clearly says in the holy book that human is his special creation while animals are second class life to human. Which means all other animals are inferior to human being. Why do I get some sense of gratification from saving an inferior species like a bug even if I don’t get any direct rewards or acknowledgement from the bug? Why is it a morally good deed to save a bug?

Pastor/Priest/Father: No, I think you get it wrong. Jesus taught us to love and that’s not limited to only human but also including animals. We must spread the love. God knows your good intention when you save the little bug.

Ronn : If we are supposed to love animals, then why religion condone the fact that human being kill animals for their meat? Why is it a morally good deed to prevent suffering by saving the bug but it is also morally okay to slaughter a chicken for its meat? Don’t chicken also value their life and struggle in pain when slaughtered? So what’s exactly morality?

Pastor/Priest/Father: Morality is something defined by God not by us. According to the bible, God created animals and put them under our command. We control their fate and we can choose to love them or eat their meat.

Ronn : For the sake of seeking consistency in religion’s definition of morality, can we love animals yet putting them in our stomach at the same time? Or is there a double standard where we can love some animals like dogs and cats and not love some animals like chicken and cow and put them in our stomach instead? So, it is suppose to make sense and be accepted even if its logically contradicts and void of consistency? How about mosquitoes, the number 1 bio-terrorist in the world which we will never think twice to exterminate. Why do God put something which we will never love on the face of the Earth?

Pastor/Priest/Father: God do not think the same way as we human do. We can never understand his thoughts. We need to keep the faith.

Religion is never short of contradictions, no? That’s exactly what morally hypocritical I’m talking about .Another moral hypocrisy is the point that it says Thou Shalt Not Kill but condoning the act of killing in war (because they are enemies, so the double standard applies).

However, putting the imaginary God and religion aside, this contradiction still applies if perceived from an objective secular point of view.  Why do we feel the emotion of sympathy when we see a dying bird or a drowning bug but yet, we do not feel any remorse or guilt when eating, let’s say chicken meat or beef? Believe me, you just need to watch some videos of how animals are slaughter in big farms or dens to turn yourself a vegetarian overnight. In this sense, ignorance is bliss, really.

But think deeper another level again. Why do we feel so uncomfortable watching an animal getting slaughtered alive but it is okay if we put a piece of cooked meat into our mouth? Unless you’re a professional butcher who has already adapted in slaughtering animals, else chances is that you could not bear watching the gore of animals being killed alive. As it turns out, apparently, it’s a psychological flaw that we have which creates such contradiction. A bug. A glitch. A faulty evolutionary psychology.

I will explain that more in the next post.

Just came back from Bangkok (5 days trip) few days ago. Well, actually it was already almost a week ago, but i was too exhausted by the too-much-non-stop-walking-around-Bangkok-streets, so i gave myself a little permission to rest and be a little lazy inactive in blogging .

I bought a book from Bangkok’s Kinokuniya – The Making Of The Fittest by Sean B. Carroll .  I was weighing my options on buying between this book and another book on physics, but for some reasons, i chose this.

On the very same night, my friend saw this newly brought book of mine and read the first few chapters of it. He then promptly asked me a question which nobody has asked me before – “Ronn, what is Natural Selection?”

I was blank for several seconds not knowing how to answer the question. It’s not because I do not know what it is about. But rather, I was thinking how should I explain such complex scientific process using layman words while effectively conveying the idea of Natural Selection to him.

I’m a pretty perfectionist when it comes to conveying my thoughts – I always try my best to make sure people fully understand my words and ideas. So, I’m sure I will only confuse people who knows nothing about Evolution if I use terms and sentences like ’survival of the fittest’ or ’species keep diverge and descend’ in order to ‘adapt to the environment’.

And so I went on to explain Natural Selections to him by illustrating examples of Darwin’s discovery of finches’ different type of beak due to different type of diet, the shorten elephant’s tusk due to illegal poaching, and also Artificial Selection of domesticated pet like dog, cat, and pigeon. (how human breed colorful patterned fur in these animals).

While on the plane flying back to Malaysia, i recalled back this little experience of mine again, and I was thinking – What’s the best way or method to convey the idea of Evolution to people who knows zero about Evolution? (Just in case if anyone asks me this question in the future, I will not need to go mind-blank for several seconds again).

I realized that giving descriptions and examples (or perhaps analogies) of Evolution alone is never good enough as it is pretty prone to misconception and misinterpretation. It was just like … Survival of the Fittest was innocently linked with Adolf Hitler for no apparent good reasons (genocide is not by any means … natural). Besides that, there’s also reason why not everyone accepts the truth of Evolution – their presuppose thoughts resist any ideas which seem contradictory to their beliefs. They simply can’t see ‘how it could happen’. Hence, the best way to explain Evolution is to ‘awaken’ the mind-set of the people or eliminating certain presupposition pertaining to the reality.

One of the presuppose idea everyone has by default is recognizing things as permanent. I highly suspect this instinctive thought has something to do with Evolutionary Psychology for the sake of humanity survival but I do not know exactly why. (perhaps there is something to do with certainties?) But its true, we always tend to see many things as permanent.

For instance, if I’m born with this look, then I know I will remain with this look for the rest of my life. If this tree produces green leaves, then I know it will only produce green leaves throughout the tree life span. If Shelly passes away, we know she will be gone forever. Most of us are born with 5 fingers, and we know we will not grow another finger without any reasons.

But notice that these ‘permanence’ is just something we could witness in our everyday life. What about things which the duration could stretch beyond our lifetime? Something which takes hundreds, thousands or millions of years to happen?

The truth is, in a bigger scale, impermanence is the reality of life. (Don’t worry if you are confused at this point because Evolution is a pretty counter-intuitive idea to begin with. I will explain why.)

There’s always a reason for any circumstances to take place. Let’s ask a simple question – Why is there such diversity in the Equidae family where we have horse, donkey, zebras and kiangs? Why not the Nature just create one species and fit all? Why does diversity in animal exist?

Same goes for the primates family. There is such a diversity in primates where we have monkey, chimpanzee, baboon, gorilla, orang utan, and *gasp* human, etc. Despite the differences of our looks and features, we do share similar core traits and characteristics. One obvious core trait – we are the only existing animal family which could walk upright.

We always have the tendency to only believe things which go accordance to our ‘common sense’ and perception. Therefore, we tend to think that the mentioned diversity has already exist since the beginning of time because at the back of our head, we always mistakenly think – if indeed the diversity of species was caused by Evolution, then how come I couldn’t see it? If Evolution is true, why couldn’t the crows which lives around my neighbourhood produce non-black colour baby crows? Or perhaps a patterned feathers instead of plain black?

And that’s exactly the mistake of permanence-perception which I’m trying to say. We always believe in permanence by default. To convince ourselves to believe otherwise, we always try to look for drastic changes or mutation in order to believe in Evolution. The subconscious reasoning of us is always - “Evolution says a fish transformed to a land creature many years ago. But the fish in my pond never drastically evolved before! So how could it had happened?”

But the fact is, Evolution works in small and tiny incremental steps which we could hardly notice even if we try to meticulously observe with our eyes.

It is equivalent to yourself spending 15 years standing in front of the mirror 24/7 watching yourself grow. The incremental changes is so tiny that you will barely notice anything. You won’t notice when you grew taller or  when your face structure changed a little.  You can’t observe how your hair grew. You know it happened, but you simply can’t observe it.

However, if you take a picture of yourself when you are 6 years old, another when you are 12 and another when you are 21, compare these pictures and you will then be able to clearly see the differences of your growth stage.

And this is exactly how scientist tries to decode Evolution – by gathering evidence and creating hypothesis.

So why do I say life is impermanent? It is simply because the most fundamental block of our life, our genes, which makes us the way we are, always mutate and changes over time. Mutation does not happen overnight to an individual but only during the process of creating offspring hence the term – diverge and descent.

Another presupposition we have is thinking that we know the reality and environment around us well. But the truth is we know very little about it, at least from historical point of view.

Borrowing Richard Dawkins’ piano analogy, imagine if the piano’s 52 white-note keys, from left to right, is the age of the earth. Human only started to exist right at the last key. And no, it does not occupy the whole key – just half of the last key.

Hence, human being’s existence has only occupied roughly around 0.25% of the entire earth’s history. Which means we do not have a great deal of knowledge knowing what has happened during the earlier 99.75% of the earth history. Thus, scientist could only create hypothesis based on geology and fossils to understand Earth’s history. Perhaps occasionally, there would be an Einsteinien-like scientist proposing outrageous ideas of how the reality works. And this is exactly the function of science.

Once these presupposition and rigid mind-set is replaced with a more precise view of reality, then it would be much easier for people to understand Evolution and comprehend the role of natural selection, mutation, genetic drift and genetic flow in driving the force of Evolution of Life. We would then understand why we are so different from a chimpanzee but yet closely related to each other.

Continuation of the 4-part series of Logical Fallacy .. (Part 1)

• Poisoning The Well

Ronn : Have you read about Evolution before? You will be marveled of how Evolution works.

Nnor : Only an idiot will believe in Evolution. Everyone knows God did it. Don’t you think so?

Ronn : Uh … haha…..

If Ronn insists on believing in Evolution, then in some sense, he acknowledges Nnor’s claim that he is an idiot. Hence, this is a logical ‘trap’ set by Nnor and is fallacious because the claim is only an insult and not constructive enough to be an argument.

Therefore this logical fallacy, Poisoning The Well, is a good smokescreen to make your opponent look foolish with the hope of shifting the attention of people to focus on the insult instead of the validity of the argument. Also, it makes you look witty and confident and perhaps would conceal the fact that you are wrong.

• The Straw Man

Ronn : There’s a research done which shows that boys generally excel better than girls in designing creative arts.

Nnor : That’s nonsense. I know a girl who is internationally-famed in drawing abstract art, so how can you say boys are better than girls in creative arts?

There is a purpose of saying the word ‘generally’. Therefore, it is invalid to take the point to the extreme and justify your argument by creating a straw man and dismissing the generalized statement. A straw man is made so that when you can’t refute your opponent’s argument, you can knock down the straw man instead.

Even today, applause can be gained for ‘refuting’ the theory of evolution. You can set up a straw man and, by knocking it down, give the impression you have ‘refuted’ the theory of evolution. One common straw man fallacy frequently created against Evolution is dismissing the possibility of macro-evolution.  Deniers often  claimed that although there’s plenty of evidence for micro-evolution, there’s very little fossil evidence for macro-evolution (which hypothesize that a species evolved from one species into another eg. fish evolved to reptile), hence the theory of Evolution must be flawed.

Whether, it’s micro-evolution or macro-evolution, they are the same. Both forms of evolution involves the process of natural selection, genetic drift, genetic flow and mutation. The difference between the two are – one take place in a small but observable scale (few months or years; eg cross-breeding cats or dogs) and another is in large and unobservable scale (which takes perhaps thousand or million of years to observe – eg. microorganism evolved to small fishes ).  That’s why, it is easier for deniers to exploit and create a straw man and attack macro-evolution since it’s pretty impossible for human being to keep observing Evolution for million of years.

• Shifting The Burden of Proof

Ronn : A flying dragon must have existed before or else it wouldn’t have became a world wide symbol. Look, many previous empires are using it as an icon on their flag and there were many historical tales about it too.

Nnor : No, i think dragon is just a folklore myth. I don’t think you can ever convincingly prove to anyone that dragon is real.

Ronn : Alright, why not you try to prove and convince me instead that dragon do not exist?

Shifting the burden to the opponent is simply a logical fallacy because Ronn is supposed be the one who supply the reasons why his beliefs are right and credible and not the other way round since he initiated the claim first.

In the back of our mind, we often thought that he who says ‘prove it,’ and he who says ‘prove it isn’t’ are on equal ground. But clearly it’s not.  The one who asks for proof is simply declaring an intention not to accept more than the evidence requires. The other is declaring his intent to assume more than that.

This form of logical fallacy – Shifting The Burden of Proof, will enable you to put forward views for which there is not a shred of evidence like mythical creatures, Santa Clause and … God.

• One Sided Assessment

Ronn : I think marriage is a bad idea. I don’t want to get married.

Nnor : Why not?

Ronn : Because there will be extra responsibilities to my spouse, the loss of my freedom, increasing expenses to purchase new home and car, the cost of rising the children up, and many many more. It’s unbearable!

If marriage is indeed such a horrifying thing to happen, then no one would ever do it. But it happens all the time.

Every single thing we do or event we are involved in always have their pros and cons. Hence, we should judge the overall balance between the pros and cons, not just act according to our personal bias and look only from one side or angle.

Ronn : Why do we get lazy? What does Evolutionary Psychology has anything to do with laziness?

Nnor : Laziness is a way to preserve the body from being overworked and conservation of energy in our body. Our biological body needs preservation and conservation, hence the body has worked hand in hand with our brain to wire laziness in our mind. Human by default, are lazy. The only way to overcome it is motivation or reward and punishment. We need to ‘program’ ourselves with reasons to not become lazy.

Ronn : But wait a minute, conservation of energy? Wouldn’t food production be contradictory with the purpose of laziness? Laziness wants us to eat less food but yet today, we are on the verge of global food shortage.

Nnor : This is a problem with the world culture, not Evolution, but nevertheless i will tell you why. If you watch plenty of Discovery Channel or National Geographic, you will notice that it is not an easy task for carnivore animals to hunt for a meal as it takes plenty of effort to catch a prey. Thus, the brain induce and give pleasure and good feeling plus creating desire as a form of motivation for the hunter to search for food. Due to this, hunting and eating plays a big part in animal’s instinct.

Same goes for human being.

Do you know that before the industrialization age, unless you are really rich, most people eat to live as you will have to spend plenty of effort to rear or hunt animals to eat? However, with the rise of the age of consumerism and commercialization, food has become commercialized and is mass produced. Instead of hunting for cow and chicken which lives naturally and healthily in the jungle, we are eating meat which are chunked out directly from farms. Hence today, human have taken food for granted and strive more on living to eat instead of eating to live.

As i’ve mentioned many times, the subconscious mind and conscious mind interpret things very differently as they speak two different languages. The subconscious mind by default, is still thinking that food is hard to come by, thus still constantly motivating us to eat. However, consciously human being often eat without thinking twice due to the abundance of food, hence obesity became a global issue at the moment. Therefore, what happens in the outside world couldn’t directly affect Evolution.

I do not know, perhaps Evolution is undergoing a way to make us eat less by reducing the pleasure of eating, or perhaps not. I do not know.

Ronn : Why would Evolution will want to reduce the pleasure of eating?

Nnor : The beauty of Evolution is that it always want to strikes the balance. Takr laziness back as example. Evolution wants to preserve the energy in our body hence, discouraging us to overwork our body. But if everyone remains idle and not doing anything, life will not be able to prolong and continue because then, we will be too lazy to eat, socialize and copulate. Remember Buddha’s Middle Way – the balance is the way to life? Therefore, Evolution also introduces boredom, a horrible feeling which most of us dislike (which motivate us to socialize and do activities together) and pleasure, as a form of motivation to get us moving.

Our brain induce pleasure in order to motivate us to eat, socialize, copulate,  getting things which are hard-to-get, and etc. And our mind give out negative pleasure when things are not going the right way. We feel lonely and miserable when we do not have companions around, we feel angry when someone insulted us, we feel dejected when the person we like rejected our love and etc.

Another funny thing about human pleasure and motivation is – there’s a hierarchy. Remember the time when you crave something so badly that you think about it day and night? However once you get it, and after a few days, this craving will slowly fade away and then you will start to crave for something else which is more valuable or hard to get?

Evolution utilizes emotions to guide the survival of life.  Again, it is not by any means perfect at all. Perhaps it is ugly too. But the most important thing is – It Works.

Ronn : So, by your definition, there’s no such thing as laziness but only lack of motivation?

Nnor : No, laziness do exist but from another perspective it is not how the way we think it is. The word lazy we always describe people is something defined by the society and culture, not Evolution or the natural world.

Let’s ask the question – What Is Laziness? How do you define laziness?  Many people will say laziness is the reluctance to do productive work such as studying, doing homework, working, helping people, etc.

When you only play games instead of studying, your parents will call you lazy. When your peers have started working to build up their careers while you remain idle not doing anything, they will call you lazy.

But if you think carefully, this definition of laziness is actually constructed by society. Not everyone is motivated to study. Not everyone is motivated to work. But the society’s structure DEMANDS you to study and work. If you are not contributing to the society, you’re basically lazy.

Think about it, how can you call me lazy when i’m playing games with my computer instead of studying? I’m busy playing PC games! In this sense, i’m not lazy to study, but just lack of motivation to study. However, society has already presuppose and defined that playing PC games is not good while studying is good, and so if you spend more time in front of the computer than with your books, you’re basically lazy.

My point here is simple – we’re always confused and overlap nature’s laziness and human society’s laziness. We tend to have a misconstrued and presuppose view of laziness and always label it as bad but in fact, it is just one of the element which make us the way we are.

Ronn : Don’t you think laziness is bad? Wouldn’t it bad for humanity if everyone is too lazy to study and work?

Nnor : Bad for human civilization but not for humanity. There’s a difference.  As i have said before, Nature do not discriminate what is right and what is wrong. Human society defined all that.

Back to laziness, in order not to be lazy, self-realization is extremely important – to know and define for yourself what’s important and what’s not. When you are pursuing of doing something you’re truly passionate about, you will not feel tired or bored because the mind will give you a burst of energy and constant motivation. You will not see this passion as just another chore or work but something truly important to yourself. This simple human condition had given birth to many psychology and economic model which involves motivation.

Ultimately, it is up to you. Do you want to define laziness by yourself or are you content to let the society to define it for you?

Recognizing and Learning logical fallacy is one big step towards critical thinking. Logical fallacies are basically bad errors in reasoning, hence, flawed. Part 1 out of 4.

• The Relativist Fallacy

Ronn : Belief in Santa Claus are false. There’s no evidence to suggest that they exist, and plenty of evidence that they don’t. So, it does not make sense for you to believe in them.

Nnor : Well, that Santa Claus do exist may not be true for you, but it’s true for me because i believe in it.

What is “it’s true for me” supposed to mean, exactly? Suppose that a man come to you and say ‘I believe that Paris is the capital of Germany’ and insist that he is right, does it mean that he is REALLY right? Suppose that a group of people proclaim that UFO exist, are they really right? Sometimes, we instantly know what the truth is (former example), and many times, we never know (the latter).

When we do not know something, it’s not the problem with the reality or nature. The truth has always been there. Rather, it’s the state of ignorance in our mind. Hence, to understand truth, we need to look very objectively, not subjectively. We always think highly of our personal opinion, but yet our personal bias, opinion or point of view do very little to understand the reality.

• The False Dilemma

Ronn: Either we invade Neverland or we allow Neverland to take over the world.

Nnor: I don’t agree with war. It’s not necessary to solve conflict by using aggression. Besides that, Neverland may not have any intention to attack us at all.

Ronn: Either you are with us or against us. It seems to me you are opposing us and want Neverland to attack us. You’re not patriotic.

It’s common to argue like this : Either A or B. If A is false, therefore B must be right. But sometimes we are presented with argument that insist we have just two mutually exclusive choices – A or B – when in fact there might be wider range of options.

We often see this in Creation vs Evolution arguments on the origin of life. Often, people try to put down sides which they oppose because if Creation/Evolution is wrong then Evolution/Creation must be right.

Imagine if we live in a Matrix world controlled by computer. What will that be – creation or evolution?

• Loaded Words

Ronn: So, how was the tennis match last night?

Nnor: Rafa Nadal was lucky enough to win the first set but Federer played extremely well  and his effort were well rewarded in the second set.

Both equally strong tennis rival, but one was lucky to win a set while the other won because his great effort paid off?

This fallacy is often used by politics and media for propaganda purposes. It is possible to influence the outcome of a judgment by the deliberate use of prejudiced terms or words. Words can be easily manipulated to conjure up an  influence on people to be more favourable or more hostile towards a subject. 

It is common for human being to unleash this form of bias as we often have our own preference or favorite on something.  Imagine a situation when two person got themselves into a debate and both of them insist that they are both right.

Ronn : Why are you so stubborn and keep insisting to implement this flawed idea?

Nnor : No, i’m not stubborn. I’m just firm with my idea. You on the other hand is a pig-headed fool for simply dismissing this wonderful idea.

Whether it is Firm, Stubborn, or Pig-Headed fool, all of them have the same level of meaning…. Just different level of ‘correctness’ and prejudice in the words used.

• Emotional Appeals

Ronn : How can we achieve world peace? What can we do to bring us together?

Nnor: Most of the troubles of this world are caused by people thinking it out, instead of responding naturally with warmth and humanity. We should ignore these facts about Third World dictatorships, and reach out with love in our hearts and treat every single human being as our kin and siblings. We need to start loving and understand each other more.

When emotions becomes the means of deciding the soundness of an argument, this steps over the boundary of good reasoning. While it might be appropriate to show pity to a convicted criminal, it is certainly not sound procedure to let pity affect our judgment of whether he did it or not.

Emotional Appeals do not just limit itself to positive emotions but also negative emotions such as fear. One good example would be CERN’s The Large Hardron Collider.

There were several people who claimed this gigantic machine is dangerous of creating a blackhole and sucking everything on Earth inside it (due to physicist attempting to understand what has happen several seconds after Big Bang). Hence, several petitions were formed to against the construction LHC. A subjectively-imposed fear does not stand side by side with good reasoning.

David Hume put it succinctly, telling us that passion moves us to act, whereas reason directs the course of those actions. Emotion, in other words, motivates us to do things, but reason enables us to calculate what to do.

• The Complex Question

Ronn:  ‘Is your stupidity inborn?’

Nnor : NO! Errr ..  i mean ….

If the answer is Yes , that means he admits that he is stupid. If NO is the answer, he still acknowledge that he is stupid.

When several questions are combined into one, in such a way that a yes-or-no answer is required, the person they are asked of has no chance to give separate replies to each, and the fallacy of the complex question is committed.

Lawyers often deploy this method as a means to confuse witnesses or defendants. Take for example:

Ronn : ‘Why did you make your wife alter her will in your favour? And why did you then go along to the chemist to buy rat poison? Why did you then put it into her coffee, and how did you do it without attracting her attention?’

The complex question is a very effective as a means of introducing the semblance of democracy. It enables you to give people a sense of choice over their destinies. But when you think harder, you will realize the choices are in fact, pretty limited. For instance:

Ronn : Nnor, would you prefer to buy me a new iPhone or a PSP for my birthday?

Nnor : Errrr……………..

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine on the world’s economic system. It all started out when he talked about Milton Friedman’s idea on free market. Friedman believes that the best form of economy is when the government do not intervene with the economy and leave the market completely 100% free. Basically, no welfare, no subsidy, no social services. The market should be left on its own alone, which will result in striving competitions and the ‘invisible hand’ will put everything into places nicely.

And i immediately thought of Karl Marx, the man who opposed free market aka capitalism. Contrarily to popular belief, Karl Marx is not an ‘evil guy’ who spread ‘evil’ ideology (whenever the word communism is mentioned, we automatically think of Karl Marx). Most people do not have clear idea of his philosophies and more importantly, Karl Marx did not established the so called evil communist nations (Lenin, Stalin, Mao). Just because some murderers loves eating apples, it doesn’t mean that every apple lovers are murderers.

Let me share with you briefly how did Marxism begin.

Max Weber, a German sociologist, wrote a thesis (in his work The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) arguing how the rise of Protestantism (with other form of Abrahamic religions) have influenced heavily on the economic institutions throughout the history. You might think – religion had an impact on the economy systems? I must be kidding.

Actually, it is pretty much similar to Steven Levitt’s work in his book Freakonomics, where he argued that there is a correlation between legalized abortions and crime rates – basically, legalizing abortions will reduces crime rates. When i first read the abstract of the topic, i kept wondering how two seemingly unrelated subjects could have influenced each other. But once i read in detail, i immediately got the idea that there are many things in this world which we can’t just use ‘common sense’ to perceive them. After all, common sense is what told the ancient people that the Earth was flat and the Earth is at the center of the universe.

Back to Max Weber’s work, he argued that the emergence of religion has resulted a form of ‘acceptance’ by people that the existence of different social classes is justifiable. If you’re born rich, you’re lucky because it is God’s will. If you’re born poor, you have to accept it because it is also God’s will. Plus, everyone should obey the ruler because he is the God’s representative (or something along the lines). Hence, the serf and feudalism system emerged where the poor people (peasant) work at rich people’s farm (landlord) and everyone is expected to accept this destiny gracefully.

Napoleon Bonaparte, the legendary French leader has once said :

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Rebellious by nature, after reading work from Weber (and also Feuerbach’s work The Essence of Christianity) Karl Marx denounces religion as the ‘opium of the masses’- just like opium, it actively control their will and make people obsessive with it without questioning these beliefs. It is the most destructive force to humanity.  Karl Marx also believes that as long as people project their longings onto God, people would passively accept material conditions and injustice in the real world.

Now, what is this ‘injustice’ Karl Marx was talking about? It is basically the injustice between the rich and poor and the injustice between employer and employee … something which most people will neglect or will accept without questioning. 

Suppose that a girl, let’s call her Kelly, works at a bakery shop. She spends 12 hours a day in the shop baking cakes and the shop will sell the cake at $10 each. Suppose that the shop manage to sell 30 cakes a day, that means the daily revenue will be $300 daily. However, she is only paid $60 daily for her wages ($5 an hour).  The rest of $240 will be kept by the bakery shop owner. This is how capitalism works.

Therefore Karl Marx argued, if Kelly is the one who did all the work for the shop why is she not paid her full value or perhaps sharing profit with the owner of the bakery shop? The owner of the shop afterall, did nothing but only giving instructions on what to do and merely having ownership of the shop. Kelly is the one who did all the hard work.Karl Marx criticized this economic system and called it a form of ‘exploitations’ where the rich people exploit the poor people as modern-time slavery.

Let me explain more about exploitations using back the same bakery shop example. The cake is sold for $10. Suppose the cost for making that cake is $2 and in a fair and square world, the remaining $8 profit (for each cake)should be divided between the owner and Kelly, making it $4 for each person. However, in the capitalism world which is driven by profit, the owner or employer will want to maximize his/her profit. So, how will the owner maximize the profit? By giving a minimum wage to Kelly, which is $5 every hour, and the owner keeps the rest of the profit for himself/herself. If Kelly is not happy with $5 wage, the owner can simply kick Kelly out and find another person who is happy to receive the minimum wage. That’s the ‘cruelty’ perceived by Karl Marx with capitalism.

Karl Marx is extremely critical with the people for accepting this ‘injustice’ by default. Why are owners entitled  to profit derived through our sweat? Because they own the property, we respond. But why should we accept this legal system? Marx asks. Why did we not reject such unfair system? Why do we have to follow the ruling class’  beliefs, laws, culture, religion, morality and patriotism? Since human being is the most fundamental aspect of the economy, shouldn’t the economic system emphasizes on the population? Why do we have to divide and categorize people into so many classes? Can’t we all be a classless society where we are all equal?

This is the most fundamental reasoning of Karl Marx and the essence of Socialism.

 My view.

Capitalism still wins. What Karl Marx did was to point out at the weakness of capitalism. However, reversing weakness does not necessary give you strength. Karl Marx is certainly a fascinating guy with some glowing idea and philosophy of his own. What he missed is he didn’t take account of human’s nature in engaging in competition and our relentless desires to achieve the unachievable (hence invention and innovation). Putting it shortly, human being gets bored easily and we always crave progressions.

It is not difficult to understand the difference between capitalism and socialism. Capitalism focus on individual’s benefits where individuals are motivated by his/her own interest. Socialism focus on collective benefits where individuals are motivated by social, groups or community’s interest.

Since capitalism is so effective, it is pretty self-evident to me that human being are inherently selfish and we always put our self-interest first before the social group or community.