That quote has the self-referential quality of a Douglas Hofstadter construct and the subtlety of a Zen koan. It reminds me of Socrates explaining his wisdom: he knows that he doesn't know, as oppose to the fools who think they do. Some ancient variations from Sanskrit and Chinese got it wrong, claiming "he who knows, and knows that he knows is wise; follow him". Sounds like dictation from the king.
The human brain craves certainty. We want leaders who know. Socrates questioned authority and was executed for corrupting young minds.
But certainty is the enemy of understanding. The principle of impermanence trumps certainty. Yesterday's certainties turn into tomorrow's jokes. It used to be so obvious that everything revolves around our flat earth and was made by god so we could play like his children, and earth is our kindergarten except when we eat to much fruit from the tree of knowledge.
Those of faith may interpret the quote to suggest that with age, youthful egoism gives way to spiritual wisdom. The arrogant tools of scientific inquiry are seen as limited. What is unlimited is opening to the infinite revelations of transcendent being, a continual surrender to something bigger than the delusions of self-hood, the desire for a permanent, absolute truth.
Those of science may see the irony of the word "believe" and will get the hint; science is not a belief system. However, professional scientists can be guilty of blind faith in their own specialized system, and have little time or patience for anything judged to be nonsense. Skepticism serves science well, but only after there is a believable foundation to build on. Seldom is the foundation re-examined; that would be a waste of time and energy, and could drive a brain mad. Science makes the a priori claim that there is nothing so exciting as a proof that the foundation needs to be re-built, but many real human scientists don't seem to act that way.
When your foundation eventually crumbles, do you experience suffering or bliss? Is it possible to avoid the suffering by remaining detached from all foundations? Will your loved ones care to be with with you if you attain a high level of detachment from them? Will you be able to practice medicine if you doubt the techniques? Will you survive if you don't care? I remain skeptical about excessive detachment; seems like an attachment. The Chinese Book of Changes noted how things have a way of changing into their opposite when they become too extreme.
Some may see the quote as getting back to the fundamental form of pure skepticism. I'm not so sure anymore, about anything whatsoever, except for one subjective certainty: I have a consciousness that comes and goes, and behind that consciousness is a vast complex of subtle connections with everything unconscious, and with everything that has been and now is, including all life and all humanity. These connections drive my consciousness from one state to the next.
With an act of will, my consciousness can be focused. Sometimes, when my will seems free, I freely focus my consciousness on the tragedy of the impermanence of consciousness itself, and this fills me with a sorrowful compassion for all consciousness everywhere, and this compassion exists beyond skepticism.
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used to be me
the golden age: 1.618 years old
10/21/09
Greek and Sanskrit, oh my!
The day after I started this blog, I got some friendly feedback that my use of Greek and Sanskrit letters in the header was obscure and maybe pretentious. Ironic. "I strive for simplicity and clarity" - that exact phrase is actually on my resume.
I claim no classical scholarship. My resume's education section declares I am an autodidact, which is a fancy way of admitting that my teacher was ignorant but curious. If I sound like a polymath, it is only because I ask so many questions, I'm bound to remember some of the more beautiful answers. But like the game where the child keeps asking "why" after every partial answer, answers soon run into the dead zone of human ignorance.
The big questions remain unanswered. I can't even prove whether reality is really real or just some simulation, nor whether that distinction is ultimately useful. I can't define "consciousness" in a way where I feel complete about it. I can't even remember the exact same thing twice.
The principle of impermanence means my brain is measurably different at the atomic level moment to moment. Memory is the partial recreation of a complex mental state, and no two mental states can be identical. It is well known that most people have some important memories that have degenerated into utter confabulations, yet the people remain convinced they are remembering correctly, even when shown contradictory journals in their own handwriting.
I love the look and feel of these beautiful Greek and Sanskrit letters. I am an amateur who plays with metaphor, and these letters are also germane. I play with the idea that Heraclitus, who is still famous for his doctrine of "change is central to the universe", is no longer recognized by his own actual name: Ηράκλειτος. I play with an ancient and beautiful language that has mostly died out after being perhaps the first to label impermanence a fundamental principle: अनित्य
If you read my header again, visualize me laughing at the irony of it all, and at the same time, crying over the tragic impermanence of our individual human existences.
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I claim no classical scholarship. My resume's education section declares I am an autodidact, which is a fancy way of admitting that my teacher was ignorant but curious. If I sound like a polymath, it is only because I ask so many questions, I'm bound to remember some of the more beautiful answers. But like the game where the child keeps asking "why" after every partial answer, answers soon run into the dead zone of human ignorance.
The big questions remain unanswered. I can't even prove whether reality is really real or just some simulation, nor whether that distinction is ultimately useful. I can't define "consciousness" in a way where I feel complete about it. I can't even remember the exact same thing twice.
The principle of impermanence means my brain is measurably different at the atomic level moment to moment. Memory is the partial recreation of a complex mental state, and no two mental states can be identical. It is well known that most people have some important memories that have degenerated into utter confabulations, yet the people remain convinced they are remembering correctly, even when shown contradictory journals in their own handwriting.
I love the look and feel of these beautiful Greek and Sanskrit letters. I am an amateur who plays with metaphor, and these letters are also germane. I play with the idea that Heraclitus, who is still famous for his doctrine of "change is central to the universe", is no longer recognized by his own actual name: Ηράκλειτος. I play with an ancient and beautiful language that has mostly died out after being perhaps the first to label impermanence a fundamental principle: अनित्य
If you read my header again, visualize me laughing at the irony of it all, and at the same time, crying over the tragic impermanence of our individual human existences.
---
10/19/09
When Worlds Collide
Today, astronomers announced the discovery of 32 more extrasolar planets, bringing the known count to over 400. The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher program is just looking in our own galaxy. Anyone who's heard Carl Sagan knows there are hundreds of billions of suns in our own milky way, and hundreds of billions of other entire galaxies far far away. Surely, there is intelligent life out there. The alternative, that humans are it, seems unthinkable.
There are known examples of colliding galaxies. Imagine an intelligent, technologically advanced species within such a doomed space. Leaving the collision and seeking another galaxy is prohibited by the speed of light. What would be the intelligent response? Meditate on the principle of impermanence on a cosmic scale?
Bringing it back down to earth, many humans refuse to believe in evolution, so it is not surprising many also reject the scientific evidence that we may be doomed. Unlike the case of the colliding galaxies, our doom is tiny; one supposedly intelligent species on one little planet around one medium sun. Maybe not even the species; just civilization as we know it.
People argue that cycles are natural. The earth warms up, the earth cools down. Species come, species go, but life will find a way. Why should we try to meddle in forces that are beyond us?
Because we can. Because we already are, only in the wrong direction. We have met the enemy and it is us. It didn't have to be this way, and maybe, with proper actions, it doesn't have to continue.
Consider this. Carbon dioxide is to the earth's climate as a master hormone is to our body. A team at the University of Cambridge developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past. The discovery of 4.4 million year old Ardi supports the timeline that merges our species with an early branch of chimpanzee around 6 million years ago. Tie it all together: until now, our species has never experienced life on earth with anything near the current level of CO2. You'd have to go back at least 15 million years to see 387 parts per million, our current level, a level that has just happened since the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the level was 280 parts per million.
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
The earth will do fine. Life will find a way. Our species might even emerge from calamity, and evolve further. But haven't we evolved enough to be able to see the near future? It is a rise in CO2 and the growing effect this will have. We're probably responsible. Even if we are blameless, we know how to change it. We know how to plan and design and prepare. This is not some case of colliding galaxies. We don't have to just sit back and await the rapture. Our species may be impermanent, but let's not go extinct just when we are finally starting to understand reality. Consciousness is still a big mystery, but it is clearly a tragedy to lose it forever.
“When faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.“ - Heinlein
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There are known examples of colliding galaxies. Imagine an intelligent, technologically advanced species within such a doomed space. Leaving the collision and seeking another galaxy is prohibited by the speed of light. What would be the intelligent response? Meditate on the principle of impermanence on a cosmic scale?
Bringing it back down to earth, many humans refuse to believe in evolution, so it is not surprising many also reject the scientific evidence that we may be doomed. Unlike the case of the colliding galaxies, our doom is tiny; one supposedly intelligent species on one little planet around one medium sun. Maybe not even the species; just civilization as we know it.
People argue that cycles are natural. The earth warms up, the earth cools down. Species come, species go, but life will find a way. Why should we try to meddle in forces that are beyond us?
Because we can. Because we already are, only in the wrong direction. We have met the enemy and it is us. It didn't have to be this way, and maybe, with proper actions, it doesn't have to continue.
Consider this. Carbon dioxide is to the earth's climate as a master hormone is to our body. A team at the University of Cambridge developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past. The discovery of 4.4 million year old Ardi supports the timeline that merges our species with an early branch of chimpanzee around 6 million years ago. Tie it all together: until now, our species has never experienced life on earth with anything near the current level of CO2. You'd have to go back at least 15 million years to see 387 parts per million, our current level, a level that has just happened since the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the level was 280 parts per million.
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
The earth will do fine. Life will find a way. Our species might even emerge from calamity, and evolve further. But haven't we evolved enough to be able to see the near future? It is a rise in CO2 and the growing effect this will have. We're probably responsible. Even if we are blameless, we know how to change it. We know how to plan and design and prepare. This is not some case of colliding galaxies. We don't have to just sit back and await the rapture. Our species may be impermanent, but let's not go extinct just when we are finally starting to understand reality. Consciousness is still a big mystery, but it is clearly a tragedy to lose it forever.
“When faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.“ - Heinlein
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