Teachable Dialogue, part I
This derived from a conversation with a friend, Gus, over ze Yahoo chat. I rework it here because I think it's a pretty good summation of much of my personal philosophies and the logical/emotional framework from which I derive most of my day-to-day interactions, romantic or otherwise...
Nick: I have a personal motto, actually: I say it to Topher all the time: "Never trust in the inherent rationality of other human beings."
Gus: interesting
Nick: Do I sound paranoid yet?
Gus: No, you're just a person who's been hurt, and it makes sense to not trust anyone. Ze hedgehog's dilemma...
Nick: It's not about me; me being hurt individually has not much to do with overall trends.
Gus: but it does have a lot to do with how you view those trends. It's all a game of perceptions
Nick: Not necessarily. I'll admit my father has a lot to do with it; not because I was hurt, but because he liked to point out the general viciousness of human history and predict its ultimate demise on that basis (and religion, of course)... It's pattern recognition; the belief that all things are temporary, including civilizations, species and solar systems.
Gus: Right, and the people who you trusted not to hurt you who did anyways? Those just have nothing to do with it...
Nick: Growth emerges, true, but it comes out of destruction, chaos, murder and strife. You should understand something about me; I don't think I'm all that important in the grand scheme of things. No individual is.
Gus: You are though! We all are: we all are masters of our own destiny.
Nick: I argued this with Topher, once, too. He also thinks it's a self-esteem thing.It's not. We are masters of very little - a tiny personal fiefdom which we create around ourselves to avoid having to face the infinite immensity of the universe around us.
Gus: ...But human experience is a collection of these fiefdoms, and for all intents and purposes, the universe is us until we find out otherwise.
Nick: Human experience is the collection of static around a dust mote, floating in an infinite dust cloud...
Gus: Bah! That's just fatalism
Nick: Actually, it's quite freeing. I believe that my choices are the only thing I have, so I cherish them (even the wrong ones).
Gus: they are! They're everything! Why deminish them?
Nick: To me, they are, but I hold no illusions about my importance compared to the sum total of all other things. It's about perspective, right? But this is all a side-track - What I'm trying to say is, I don't think my worldview needs to stem from things that happened to me.
Bad things happened - tough. Lots of worse things happen to lots of better people. Basically, I don't like to think I'm petty enough to project my own little horrors onto the world at large, and judge history by them. If I seem pessimistic about human nature, it stems from human history, from which I also derive my optimism.
I have the choice, in any moment, to try my hardest to transcend ingrained behavior patterns. So do you - and both of us have at some point or other.
Gus: Yes, and that shows just how important our choices are, because we can make that choice.
Nick: Right. So in that, we can agree that your individual choices are important to you -
Gus: and important in general!
Nick: - However, there are billions of people whose choices have nothing to do with you, and over which you inevitably have no control...
Gus: Right...
Nick: ...Hence, your worldview should not derive from your experiences, but from objective analysis and a hearty dose of skepticism; at least, that's my philosophy.
Gus: ...But if we all sit still for predestination, then nothing would ever happen.
Nick: Predestination is as much a scientific quandary as a spiritual one.
Gus: But that's what makes life fun and exciting!
Nick: Fun and exciting, yes, but also incredibly dangerous. I'm not talking "I may get killed" dangerous; I'm talking "civilizations crumble beneath our feet" dangerous: not something any single person is capable of actively worrying about (it's too immense), but not outside the realm of distinct possibilities.
Gus: I can make guesses about their behavior based on their past, sure, but see, I always err on the side of human behavior being unpredictable. I'm not other people
Nick: We're having two different conversations now.
Gus: Then merge them together.
Nick: You're trying to assert that I am the product of my own life, which is true.
Gus: Yes, and that we are all products of our own lives. Otherwise ... there's no responsibility for anything or anyone.
Nick: Responsibility, as such, is fairly arbitrary. I'm trying to assert that history and human patterns exist recognizably, and can be recognized without relying on individual experiences.
Gus: But my point is that's all we have! History is a collection of individual experiences.
Nick: We choose our own moral and ethical codes in each moment, and act accordingly (or not).
Gus: But we still choose.
Nick: Yet history transcends the individual.
Gus: History is a collection of individuals, and of other individual's view of those individuals...
Nick: It's iterative; the individual is affected by history as much as the reverse is true. Whole civilizations act as an organism with little relative consent or recognition between itself and its component parts, just as you are unlikely to ask the cells in your pinkie toe what they think before you take a step.
Gus: Not anymore! Times have changed my friend; we're all connected.
Nick: We're connected, but minuscule.
Gus: see, you're retreating to that.
Nick: How so?
Gus: Our size makes no difference.
Nick: I don't follow.
Gus: We are, relatively speaking, minuscule, but we do not perceive ourselves that way...
Nick: It doesn't matter how we perceive ourselves at this level; I am not apathetic to the individual, but I recognize the vast difference between the person and the society of which the person is a part. Thus, my view of my own philosophical unimportance doesn't stem from low self esteem - it comes from macro-perspective.
Gus: What is society, though, but a collection of individuals?
...
Nick: I care about me, I do.
Gus: I'm not saying you hate yourself.
Nick: No, but you seem to think me having been hurt has something to do with my social perspective. To me this implies pessimism derived from low self-esteem. I am just trying to point out the difference.
Gus: I just think that it's hard to separate your experience from your views, that's all.
Nick: I suppose... If anything, I will say that my personal experiences are probably what cause me to isolate myself from my world-view as much as possible.
Gus: But no one can, because all we have is our experiences.
Nick: I disagree. We also have reason, which I truly believe transcends experience; good neoplatonist that I am.
Gus: But we can only access reason through our experiences.
Nick: Do you define the act of abstract study as personal experience?
Gus: Yes!
Nick: Then, by that definition, a study of humanity can't transcend the fact of learning about it.
Gus: Right.
Nick: However, I still maintain that study can transcend the intrinsically "personal" emotional experiences of love, hate, etc. That said, I do still believe that it is at the very least theoretically possible for reason to transcend experience, say, in a mathematical sense.
Gus: We can't escape the fact that all we have is our experiences; it's that brain in the jar. The matrix conundrum...
Nick: I never bought the Matrix as a concept. It relies on man's obliviousness and irrevocably tight personal emotional orbit. However, I suppose the whole point of the movies was that the Matrix couldn't ever work, because there will always, inevitably be those who look beyond themselves and see the inconsistencies.
Gus: I'd say it revolves around that we only have our flawed experiences to rely on. For example, there is no such thing as a straight line in nature, and yellow is a shared hallucination.
Nick: Sure there is, and yellow is not so abstract as all that...
Gus: Not in 3d space; Yellow does not exist except that we perceive a spectrum of light as yellow.
Nick: yellow is simply a product of light and biology; we all see it as yellow because it is the movement of a light wave/particle at a specific frequency, which our eyes (by nature of evolution) translate in a demonstrably similar way. The frequency is measurable, and so is the eye that absorbs it, and the connection between the eye and the brain that interprets it.
Gus: But we measure it - Heisenberg...
Nick: - Over-used, and never correctly. The reason we can't ever measure both the position and velocity of an electron is that the act of observing it the way we observe it causes it to shift...
Gus: Yes...
Nick: ...and since light is both a particle and a wave, its entire existence theoretically changes, not in some mystical sense of the word. More like pushing a slinky to the side with a pair of binoculars.
End of Part I...
Nick: I have a personal motto, actually: I say it to Topher all the time: "Never trust in the inherent rationality of other human beings."
Gus: interesting
Nick: Do I sound paranoid yet?
Gus: No, you're just a person who's been hurt, and it makes sense to not trust anyone. Ze hedgehog's dilemma...
Nick: It's not about me; me being hurt individually has not much to do with overall trends.
Gus: but it does have a lot to do with how you view those trends. It's all a game of perceptions
Nick: Not necessarily. I'll admit my father has a lot to do with it; not because I was hurt, but because he liked to point out the general viciousness of human history and predict its ultimate demise on that basis (and religion, of course)... It's pattern recognition; the belief that all things are temporary, including civilizations, species and solar systems.
Gus: Right, and the people who you trusted not to hurt you who did anyways? Those just have nothing to do with it...
Nick: Growth emerges, true, but it comes out of destruction, chaos, murder and strife. You should understand something about me; I don't think I'm all that important in the grand scheme of things. No individual is.
Gus: You are though! We all are: we all are masters of our own destiny.
Nick: I argued this with Topher, once, too. He also thinks it's a self-esteem thing.It's not. We are masters of very little - a tiny personal fiefdom which we create around ourselves to avoid having to face the infinite immensity of the universe around us.
Gus: ...But human experience is a collection of these fiefdoms, and for all intents and purposes, the universe is us until we find out otherwise.
Nick: Human experience is the collection of static around a dust mote, floating in an infinite dust cloud...
Gus: Bah! That's just fatalism
Nick: Actually, it's quite freeing. I believe that my choices are the only thing I have, so I cherish them (even the wrong ones).
Gus: they are! They're everything! Why deminish them?
Nick: To me, they are, but I hold no illusions about my importance compared to the sum total of all other things. It's about perspective, right? But this is all a side-track - What I'm trying to say is, I don't think my worldview needs to stem from things that happened to me.
Bad things happened - tough. Lots of worse things happen to lots of better people. Basically, I don't like to think I'm petty enough to project my own little horrors onto the world at large, and judge history by them. If I seem pessimistic about human nature, it stems from human history, from which I also derive my optimism.
I have the choice, in any moment, to try my hardest to transcend ingrained behavior patterns. So do you - and both of us have at some point or other.
Gus: Yes, and that shows just how important our choices are, because we can make that choice.
Nick: Right. So in that, we can agree that your individual choices are important to you -
Gus: and important in general!
Nick: - However, there are billions of people whose choices have nothing to do with you, and over which you inevitably have no control...
Gus: Right...
Nick: ...Hence, your worldview should not derive from your experiences, but from objective analysis and a hearty dose of skepticism; at least, that's my philosophy.
Gus: ...But if we all sit still for predestination, then nothing would ever happen.
Nick: Predestination is as much a scientific quandary as a spiritual one.
Gus: But that's what makes life fun and exciting!
Nick: Fun and exciting, yes, but also incredibly dangerous. I'm not talking "I may get killed" dangerous; I'm talking "civilizations crumble beneath our feet" dangerous: not something any single person is capable of actively worrying about (it's too immense), but not outside the realm of distinct possibilities.
Gus: I can make guesses about their behavior based on their past, sure, but see, I always err on the side of human behavior being unpredictable. I'm not other people
Nick: We're having two different conversations now.
Gus: Then merge them together.
Nick: You're trying to assert that I am the product of my own life, which is true.
Gus: Yes, and that we are all products of our own lives. Otherwise ... there's no responsibility for anything or anyone.
Nick: Responsibility, as such, is fairly arbitrary. I'm trying to assert that history and human patterns exist recognizably, and can be recognized without relying on individual experiences.
Gus: But my point is that's all we have! History is a collection of individual experiences.
Nick: We choose our own moral and ethical codes in each moment, and act accordingly (or not).
Gus: But we still choose.
Nick: Yet history transcends the individual.
Gus: History is a collection of individuals, and of other individual's view of those individuals...
Nick: It's iterative; the individual is affected by history as much as the reverse is true. Whole civilizations act as an organism with little relative consent or recognition between itself and its component parts, just as you are unlikely to ask the cells in your pinkie toe what they think before you take a step.
Gus: Not anymore! Times have changed my friend; we're all connected.
Nick: We're connected, but minuscule.
Gus: see, you're retreating to that.
Nick: How so?
Gus: Our size makes no difference.
Nick: I don't follow.
Gus: We are, relatively speaking, minuscule, but we do not perceive ourselves that way...
Nick: It doesn't matter how we perceive ourselves at this level; I am not apathetic to the individual, but I recognize the vast difference between the person and the society of which the person is a part. Thus, my view of my own philosophical unimportance doesn't stem from low self esteem - it comes from macro-perspective.
Gus: What is society, though, but a collection of individuals?
...
Nick: I care about me, I do.
Gus: I'm not saying you hate yourself.
Nick: No, but you seem to think me having been hurt has something to do with my social perspective. To me this implies pessimism derived from low self-esteem. I am just trying to point out the difference.
Gus: I just think that it's hard to separate your experience from your views, that's all.
Nick: I suppose... If anything, I will say that my personal experiences are probably what cause me to isolate myself from my world-view as much as possible.
Gus: But no one can, because all we have is our experiences.
Nick: I disagree. We also have reason, which I truly believe transcends experience; good neoplatonist that I am.
Gus: But we can only access reason through our experiences.
Nick: Do you define the act of abstract study as personal experience?
Gus: Yes!
Nick: Then, by that definition, a study of humanity can't transcend the fact of learning about it.
Gus: Right.
Nick: However, I still maintain that study can transcend the intrinsically "personal" emotional experiences of love, hate, etc. That said, I do still believe that it is at the very least theoretically possible for reason to transcend experience, say, in a mathematical sense.
Gus: We can't escape the fact that all we have is our experiences; it's that brain in the jar. The matrix conundrum...
Nick: I never bought the Matrix as a concept. It relies on man's obliviousness and irrevocably tight personal emotional orbit. However, I suppose the whole point of the movies was that the Matrix couldn't ever work, because there will always, inevitably be those who look beyond themselves and see the inconsistencies.
Gus: I'd say it revolves around that we only have our flawed experiences to rely on. For example, there is no such thing as a straight line in nature, and yellow is a shared hallucination.
Nick: Sure there is, and yellow is not so abstract as all that...
Gus: Not in 3d space; Yellow does not exist except that we perceive a spectrum of light as yellow.
Nick: yellow is simply a product of light and biology; we all see it as yellow because it is the movement of a light wave/particle at a specific frequency, which our eyes (by nature of evolution) translate in a demonstrably similar way. The frequency is measurable, and so is the eye that absorbs it, and the connection between the eye and the brain that interprets it.
Gus: But we measure it - Heisenberg...
Nick: - Over-used, and never correctly. The reason we can't ever measure both the position and velocity of an electron is that the act of observing it the way we observe it causes it to shift...
Gus: Yes...
Nick: ...and since light is both a particle and a wave, its entire existence theoretically changes, not in some mystical sense of the word. More like pushing a slinky to the side with a pair of binoculars.
End of Part I...