Sermon on Advent

Sermon on Advent

After thanksgiving, it is natural to get into the Christmas spirit.  The Spirit changes right after Thanksgiving is over.  This is natural.  Over several centuries, we have consecrated this time as Advent.  Mary was pregnant with God, and we are in expectation of the arrival of God himself to pay us a visit.  It is also the expectation of the Second Coming - the Hope of the Messiah to come and save us from our sins.  Spiritually, Advent celebrates both First and Second comings, and this is why even those who are not believers feel the Spirit of Hope and Charity in the air.  

Man is half-god and half-beast.  We must feed our Spiritual side.  This is the time.

Dawn’s Holy Light

As I was driving through Eastern Oklahoma on the way back home after Thanksgiving - it was dark when we left.  But, then it was dawn: the time when light appears, but before sunrise.  This is the state of limbo.  It is expectation that the Holy Sun will rise.  It is embedded in the human DNA to experience Hope during the Dawn.  The orange horizon of Eastern Oklahoma staring toward Missouri was a high Spiritual event of my Thanksgiving travels.  I recalled the piece of poetry I recently read; it had the phrase “Dawn’s Holy Light.”  

This combined with the experience of the orange Eastern Oklahoma horizon made for a sweet spiritual event.

We Pagans

Everyone in the West is a Pagan.  Yes, it is quite a thought.  Nietzsche taught us that we in the West no longer believe in God the same way our ancestors did.  God to us is some distant Deistic designer of the universe or some voodoo-like Pentecostal frenzy of tongue-talking ecstasy.  Neither of these is spiritual in any way, and we have lost God in the process of clinging to either notion.  What we have is paganism.  Nietzsche said that all that matters now is strength and beauty - this is essentially Darwinism, and essentially what our ancient pagan ancestors worshipped.  So, we will worship the beautiful and the strong, and we will abandon that which is weak and not so beautiful.  This is a Lamentation from Nietzsche, and not a cause of celebration.

However, during Advent, even though we are all essentially pagans, we still feel the glimmering light from the centuries of being bathed in the spirit of Advents years past.  Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, we feel the ancient spirit of Advent awaken in our souls, and for a season, we do not act as Pagans, but as brothers and sisters - for a time, at least.  

For a time, we experience the sweetness of the ancient Spirit of Christ - the Holy Spirit - from a former age of Light we no longer often experience.  Faith, Hope, and Charity are alive during the season of Advent.  The Weak and the not-so-beautiful become receivers of Charity.

Faith

Fate drives Pagans.  Faith drives the spirit of Advent.  It is a belief.  It is an imagining that we can conceive, believe, and in some sense bring to reality some portion of this belief.  

Hope

Hope tells is that things can be better.  Faith drives Hope.  We feel this intensely during Advent.

Charity

Caritas is not Love in English, but an assumption about our brothers not based upon cynicism and self-interest, but in the belief that all souls are in need of Salvation, and are grateful for the offering of Salvation.  My brother gave me harsh words yesterday, but it was because he is experiencing stress in his life, and I will forbear this because he is my brother.  This my friends, is the Spirit of Charity.

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So, as we experience this sweetness of Advent, let us experience - if only for a season - what our ancestors experienced as the Holy Spirit.  Remember Dawn’s Holy Light, and remember your brothers in need - bodily needs, mental needs, emotional needs, and spiritual needs. 

Shine a light.  You be the Dawn.  You be the Sunrise.

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Freddy Martini

Our Fantasies of Cause and Effect

Our Fantasies of Cause and Effect

We tell each other stories.  Did you know that the foundational story of human psychology is Cause and Effect?  Yes, cause and effect is just a story!  Read on for your enlightened enjoyment.  Challenge yourself and your illusions of common sense and you will be more powerful - more enlightened.  Knowledge is power.

You walk into the front door.  Your hand instinctively feels for the wall.  It is dark.  You grope.  The wall - it is still there.  Cold.  Slick.  Finger bump!  Then, you feel it.  You feel the light switch.  You flip the switch.  The light goes on instantly.

This makes perfect sense to us.  Flip a switch, then a light goes on.  Flipping of the switch causes the light to go on.  We do not ever say,  “The light going on causes the flipping of a switch.”  This last statement sounds a bit bizarre to us.  It violates our sense of cause and effect.  It violates our sense of timing where effect always follows cause in our minds - pull the trigger, then gun fires - never “The gun fires and then causes the trigger to be pulled.”

So, what does all this mean for us - we smart people?  You are smart, right?  So, follow me on this adventure into one of our most basic assumptions, and how it may shock us to know that these assumptions are build upon an edifice of sand, styrofoam, and warped plastic trash you may find on the cozy corner of a busy beach in the swamps of Vietnam.  (Where the bloody hell did that image come from???!!!!)

His name is David.  David Hume.  David Hume blasted to shrapnel, smoke and ashes all of our notions of cause and effect.  What did he do and why should we smart people care?  Partially, the answer implies that we have a lot more control of our lives through the use of our minds that we think we have.  We will get back to this point later.  For now, let us examine the foundations of cause and effect in a simple way so anyone can understand.

We perceive a series of sensations.  We perceive a flying brick.  We perceive a glass window.  We perceive the brick strike the window.  We perceive the shattering of the window.  We perceive a broken window.  Thus, a flying brick is followed by a broken window.  We say that  the flying brick caused the broken window.  

What did we perceive?  We perceived a series of sensations followed by other sensations.  Nothing intrinsically forces us to link these sensations.  We cannot even be sure that our memories accurately recall any sensations.  Can we be sure of any sensation we do not experience now?  Our sense impressions are always changing.  What makes us so sure of cause and effect?  The answer, my smart people: nothing.

What is cause and effect, and why is it such a core part of our thinking?  Can we think in any other way?  The answer: no.  Why?

When humans speak to each other in any way, everything is based upon the structure of a story - a narrative.  Stories and narratives have a specific flow, a structure, a way of going from point A to point B in an expected sequence and structure.  What is cause an effect?  It is the foundational form of a story.  It is the simplest story possible.  I flipped the switch and then the light came on.  That is a very simple story.  I showed him the finger (The Bird) and he got pissed off.  Another story.  The scientist applied a voltage, and then, current flowed in the circuit, and the light came on.  Another story, in the same eternal structure.  

We may pause here and ask  the question about Truth.  Does not science tell us what really is going on?  Well, no.  Science largely explains cause and effect, and any observation is based upon a series of sensations, like any other observing.  Our conclusions based upon observations is a story of cause and effect.  

Thus, even science is based upon a story.  Like the Bible.  Like astrology.  Like Shakespeare.  We have a deep human need to have stories - cause and effect.  When we feel we have figured out cause and effect of a particular instance, we feel that we have control over our world.  Perhaps this is an illusion, but we humans cannot live without explanations - stories - cause and effect.  

What does this mean practically?  Let me tell you this, my smart friends: this means power.  It means power over your life.  How?  You can capture any narrative, and then you can change it at will.  Create a new story.  Create a new explanation.  Create a new narrative.  Your life, your reputation, what people know about you, what people say about you - all this is a story.  And, you have the ability to influence and even completely change the narrative.  This is your power.  When you learn the rules of telling stories, and explaining things and cause and effect, you can change the narrative of any story.  This is why during a “scandal” in politics and reporting, political thought leaders put so much emphasis on “controlling the narrative.”  When you control the narrative, you are in control - serious control.  

Think about that for a moment.  What is a reinterpretation of the facts?  It is a story based upon the facts.  Do you like the story?  Does the story benefit you?  If it does not, you can learn to rewrite the narrative.  This, my smart friends is the ultimate power over your life.  You can rewrite your story.  The more plausible the story is the one that wins.  

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So, my friends - my smart friends - change your story and change your life.

Just do it.  Now.

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Freddy Martini

Quotes for Reflection

Quotes for Reflection

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.   —Jean Paul Sartre

How free do we feel?  When we face the existential condition, what is left?  Perhaps we fear there is nothing there, sometimes.  Then we are ready to rediscover ourselves.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.  —Arthur Schopenhauer

The liturgy of life - we reflect the universe in compact form.  Life is a sequence of little stories.  Each story has beginning and end: birth and death.

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.   —Albert Camus

We all know that life, God, evolution - whatever you want to call it - exalts strength and beauty.  It kills weakness and ugliness.  Perhaps it is time we rediscovered the foundations of nature, and adjust our worldview accordingly.

The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.  —Arnold Schwarzenegger

Fading into the wall like a wall flower - is this our fate?  Perhaps for most, but if you are driven, fading into the ocean is the most repulsive idea.  Be the gun - not the holster.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.  —Friedrich Nietzsche

Your enemy is your partner.  To defeat your enemy, you will have to reflect his strategy, in part, in order to defeat him.  Remember this before engaging an enemy: you become like him.  Yin-Yang: things tend to become their opposites.  Opposites tend to reflect one another.

It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do... If you strive to do anything remotely interesting, just expect a small percentage of the population to always find a way to take it personally. F*ck ‘em. There are no statues erected to critics.  — Tim Ferris

Will you be part of the top 20% who have high expectations and standards?  If you are the average of the 5 people you spend time with, what will you do to change this if it is not working out for you?  Courage, it takes courage to say no.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.  —Napoleon Bonaparte

How often do we smart people get caught up in Analysis Paralysis?  We can look around and see successful people who are not very smart - not as smart as we are.  They simply think about a situation, decide, then take action.  They deal with the consequences as they come, and not as they figure them beforehand.  We men of both brains and action need to meditate on this truth a little more often than our action-oriented brothers.

I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.  —Frederick the Great

In the world of serious matters, arguments are nothing.  Action is everything.  You cannot build your reputation on what you plan to do, but on what you have already done.  Arguments happen after the action is already done.  Remember to understand clearly the concept of Fait Accompli.  Some actions cannot be reversed; those who understand this and wield their power at the precise point at the precise moment often win big, and hold their gains.

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.  —Carl von Clausewitz

Tough decisions are tough to make.  If a decision must be made, and we hesitate, we violate the Virtue of Fortitude.  Being kind is not a virtue, but Fortitude is.  Charity has its place, but never at the expense of Fortitude.  Leaders are called to make tough decisions.  Do not become a leader unless you have this level of Fortitude.

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Freddy Martini

Pareto Winning Strategy

Pareto Winning Strategy

The 80/20 Rule is Divine

• 80 percent of the outputs are caused by 20 percent of the inputs.

People have changed their life upon discovering this principle of personal effectiveness.  Tim Ferris in his book, “The Four Hour Workweek,” made a big deal out of the Pareto Principle.  Stephen Covey, the guru of personal effectiveness, called this Quadrant Two, in his popular book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits

Stephen Covey popularized the now famous Matrix with Urgency on the X-axis and Importance on the Y-Axis.  Quadrant One is both Urgent and Important, while Quadrant Two is Important but not Urgent.  He recommends retooling our lives to spend most of our time in Quadrant Two.  Many important but not urgent things often get dropped like relationship building, creativity, recreation, exercise, and planning.  But these things give us the biggest bang for our buck - they are the 20% of inputs that give us the greatest output of 80%.

Pareto 20% causes 80%

Pareto noticed something interesting.  The ration of 20/80 applied in many areas.  80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the population.  80% of your revenues come from only 20% of your customers.  80% of your problems come from 20% of the people you interact with.  Focusing on your top 20% priorities will give you the biggest bang for an 80% return on effects.

Strategy for Success

Tim Ferris in his book, “The Four Hour Workweek,” describes something very similar to the following.  The night before you begin you next day, sit with a notepad and write down all the things you think you are supposed to do for the next few days.  (Do not use a computer or any other electronic device for this task as electronics will distract you and even cause you to write 100 tasks, which is ridiculous.)  Hone down the list to the top 20% that will push you toward your top 3 highest priorities.  Write down only 2 tasks on this piece of paper to do tomorrow.  Do not end your day until these items are complete.  If you do not complete one of these two, perhaps you need to think more carefully about what really is important for that day next time you perform this evaluation.  Take at most 2 hours to perform each task.  Force yourself to complete each task within 2 hours or fewer.  This is Parkinson’s Rule per Tim Ferris.  When you force yourself to perform a task within a limited or even insane amount of time, you cut out the unnecessary fat from the task, leaving only the essential.  Non-essentials are exactly that: not essential!  So, why do non-essential things for work?  Save this time for recreation and relationship time, or study time.

What to Ignore

We are granted 24 hours in a day.  We must spend this limited amount of time on something.  When we choose to spend it on X, we choose not to spend it on Y.  We must understand this clearly.  We cannot do everything we want to do in one day.  We have to focus on things that give us the biggest return on investment - the biggest bang for the buck.  So, ignore people when they say foolish things like “Everything is important!”  No, not everything is important.  The word important suggests priorities, and priorities suggest that our time is better spent on some things rather than other things.  We are capable of filling our schedules with crap - and this happens by default unless we control this process by focusing on our highest priorities.

So, as yourself at least 4 times per day, “What are the top 20% of important things that I should be spending time on?”  Look at your bottom 80% of low priorities and cut them out completely.  Do not hesitate if you want to be a high performer.  Letting unimportant things slide is the more important skill in setting priorities and goals.  Forget the bottom 80%.  Forget it!  Perhaps you may delegate it, but under no circumstance are you to act on the bottom 80% of your priorities.

Focus on your top 20% of priorities and forget the bottom 80%.

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Freddy Martini

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Sunday, October 26, 2014

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I finished the audio book on Steve Jobs.  I am listening to it once more.  It is that good.  Once every few decades a genius changes the way we do things; this genius resets the way we experience and see the world.  I will point out a few things in this essay that struck me personally, listening to the story of this life of extreme triumph and loss.

Travel to India

Jobs wandered to India in his early years.  This voyage had a lasting effect on him.  He mentioned that Indians had a high level of intuition that westerners did not appreciate or use.  He said that he learned that rational thought processes were not the only way to think about things and that intuition was very important - perhaps more important than rational methods.  Jobs would trust his intuition throughout his life, and this was a theme of his that set him apart from other technical leaders.

Calligraphy

At Reed college, Jobs took a class in calligraphy.  This exposed him to the ideas of beauty and how typefaces vary widely and the effect on beauty can be manipulated using different methods.  This was another theme that Apple would have: the use of graphics and bitmapping to integrate many different fonts to dazzle the user with not just technical showmanship, but with beauty.

Gestalt Techniques and End to End Design

Connecting his interest in Zen Buddhism, he was exposed to design techniques that emphasized a holistic approach.  Throughout his life he was obsessed with control over the product so that it would be a completely integrated experience for the user.  The hardware and the software would be tightly integrated, and the physical design had to be infused with beauty and with the care of an artist.  Jobs cared about the art just as much as he cared about the engineering.  He did not want people to be able to get into the hardware or mess around with the software so that things would be disintegrated and messy like the Microsoft approach.  One may think of Jobs’ approach as that of designing a beautiful appliance like a microwave oven; nobody would every think about writing a virus for a microwave oven or modifying its user interface to accept add ons from other manufacturers trying to improve the microwave after it was sold to the end customer.

User Experience

Jobs even wanted to control the user experience down to the opening of the product box.  As anyone who ever purchased Apple products knows, the packaging is perfect.  Every little detail of the cardboard box, the plastic, the shock absorber foam is absolutely perfect - both mechanically and aesthetically.  Opening the box of an Apple product is a ritual.  It is an experience.  It is a sequence of events designed to draw in the customer toward the product as  an artist who has made a painting draws the eyes of the observer, with the additional feature of a dance ritual - a movement toward a marriage of customer and product.

Insanely Great

Jobs wanted his products to not only be good and great, but insanely great.  This means that the user will be dazzled with an integrated work of art and engineering.  It was to be the best of art and technology in a unified whole.  One often thinks of some Japanese quality approached that is often translated into English as “Customer Delight,” but one alternative translation - and perhaps a more important translation - is an idea almost like the word Salvation.  It is as if Jobs was out to save souls: his and his customer’s soul with the marriage of customer to product to the company called Apple.

Change the World

Jobs was not shy about what he was doing.  I think he asked a marketing director candidate working for Pepsi Cola something along these lines, “Do you want to change the world or do you want to continue to sell sugary sodas?”

Reality Distortion Filter

There is a lot of discussion about Jobs’ reality distortion filter.  He was a very charismatic man.  He had a forceful personality.  He was a gifted salesman.  He seriously believed that he would change the world.  He would never have customer focus groups.  He did not think that the customer knew what he wanted.  He was very dramatic in introducing his products to the world and getting his fans very excited about Apple products.  He was extremely convincing.

The irony is that many people thought this was a distortion of reality.  The irony is on all of us.  It is actually the opposite.  We are all stuck in this reality distortion filter.  We are stuck in modes of thoughts and ways of doing things.  We cannot imagine a different way of doing things.  It takes a genius to change our minds and to show us the way.  Steve Jobs clearly perceived reality as it really was.  We are the ones with the Reality Distortion Filter.  We are the blind ones.

He had the eyes, ears, and heart to perceive reality.

He was the genius.  

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Freddy Martini

Human Sacrifice

Advisory: This post is not for the squeamish!

Human Sacrifice

When you change your story, you change your life.  –Freddy Martini

This is a meditation on religion and how it relates to human sacrifice.

The Enemy

If you have normal levels of testosterone, you have wanted to kill someone.  Perhaps some time ago, or perhaps yesterday.  In fact, society has a desire to kill someone.  We all want a scapegoat.  Human nature is designed for warfare.  Factions develop naturally.  When there is peace, this means that the other side has been exterminated, and factions have not risen yet because not enough time has passed.  After one faction exterminates another group, there is a temporary calm and peace after the shock of violence, killing, and sacrifice of the victim. 

Rene Girard has spent a lifetime developing this line of inquiry. 

Factions

We see it every day.  Political factions develop.  Initially, the disagreements are benevolent.  Then they become increasingly bitter, and then eventually turn violent.  Both sides see the other as the cause of their misery, and if they could just kill off the bad guys, all would be well in the world.  Or, so they think. 

Repeating the Story Forever and Ever

The French Revolutionaries thought that killing the King and the nobility would solve all their problems.  The King, you know, was the root of all their misery and those evil nobles took all the money, and the church controlled everyone because they wanted power, and all that.  So, they killed off the nobility, they had their Reign of Terror, chopping off the heads of perhaps 30, 000 people, we are told.  But, of course, we know the rest of the story.  After this, a strongman took over France and increased the violence to a point where France would not recover for over 50 years.  Yes, and then there was the Franco-Prussian War, The Great War, and then the War against Hitler, then the Cold War, then the War on Terror, etc.  History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. 

Emergence of a Tribe

Some argue from an evolutionary perspective that the creation of factions in human nature is the emergence of a separate tribe.  Since we can only know and deal with about 150 people, beyond this point, factions will develop, and eventually war, and then the survivors, if any, will form two new tribes. 

Placing the Blame

Everyone has problems.  We all face death, and we have to struggle to achieve the things we want.  The easy way out – everyone wants to have an easy life, right? – is to blame our problems on someone else.  It is just too easy.  We screw up, we sin, we fail, and we get frustrated with this state of affairs.  It becomes easy to say, “This bad dude is causing all kinds of trouble!  We need to stop him!”  Thus, it all begins.  One faction organizes to fight off the bad guy, whom they have identified as the cause of all their troubles.  Small skirmishes begin.  People begin to kill others.  The bitterness rises as the body count stacks up.  Eventually everyone is so enraged with the enemy who has killed so many of their family and tribesmen, that there is no hope in reconciliation – there is only extermination as the answer since they cannot live with the enemy.  Thus, the drama continues until absolute victory of one side or another.  Then the victors are calm again – for some time.  The violence has shocked them in to a state of numbness. 

The First Solution

Men began the ritual sacrifice of humans to alleviate this pattern of human nature.  If the tribe gathers around the campfire, sings and dances, and emerges into a fury and trance.  Then the young virgin appears.  The men bind the virgin in ropes –they tie her hands and feet.  They place her in the middle of the tribe.  She begs for her life, but the tribe is in a frenzy of sound and dance.  They scream in ecstasy.  The priest places the virgin on the altar.  He raises his sharp knife above her chest.  He holds still for a while as the tribe focuses on the knife and the victim on the altar.  Everyone is beginning to experience the horror and screams of violence at sacrificing such an innocent victim.  The blade comes down, pierces her heart.  She screams and blood flows.  Women and children moan, wail, and weep at the horror of the sacrificial killing.  The family of the virgin is in shock.  The music becomes louder to drown out the pain of the horrific event.  Everyone begins to shout louder and louder in frenzy around the fire.  Many faint.  Some vomit.  After 3 hours, everyone is tired.  They settle down in shock, horror, and numbness from the horrible sacrifice and the frenzy of music dancing and shouting.  

The horror placates their lust for violence for perhaps one year or six months until the next ritual human sacrifice.

The Second Solution

Abraham and his buddies sacrificed the finest animals they could find.  A burnt offering was the ritual cooking of a beast.  The violence of stabbing a beast to death on an altar perhaps alleviated some of the extremes of human sacrifice.  The scapegoat took on all of our sins for one year, until another sacrifice was required.

One can imagine that hunters are already accustomed to the agony of an animal being killed.  One wonders what great leap the offering of the animal would provide for improvements in religions – perhaps the women and children were now exposed to such violence in ritual fashion?  Perhaps the men who did not hunt and kill needed to be reminded too.  Apparently it provided some reprieve for the lust for violence instead of finding some enemy to kill or sacrifice.  One imagines that it would take a lot more killing of animals to equal the horror or one human sacrifice. 

The Christian Solution

The next evolution in providing for a ritual for man to receive forgiveness and grace for sin, and to replace a human scapegoat with something non-human was the sacrifice of God himself for all the sins of Man. 

The Church evolved to the point where bloody images of Christ were everywhere to see.  The full horror of human sacrifice of Christ was encapsulated in the entire liturgy of the Church.  Confession of Sins, Absolution of Sins from the priest, the ritual dedication of the pieces of flesh and blood from the human sacrifice above the altar in a recreation of the Crucifixion, the absolute horror of consumption of human sacrifice with Holy Communion “Take this all of you and eat it – this is my body to be given up for you” – all this met a deep need in humanity for the forgiveness and absolution of sin in addition to human sacrifice for such sins.  If one thinks deeply about the meaning of this ritual and the horrible and magnificent words, “This is the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant!” 

The ultimate form of human sacrifice: the sacrifice of God himself on the bloody altar.  Not only this, but the story does not end in the death of god as the sacrifice for sins, and the death of a god as a scapegoat.  The death of God happens, and then God comes back to life in the Resurrection.  One can imagine why Christianity was a scandal to the pagan world.  Christianity basically claimed that the solution to the sinfulness of man was the sacrifice and killing of God himself, and the death was not really death, because he came back to life!  It is kind of a New Story that says, “We have found a happy ending!”  Everyone “knew” that there is no happy ending, but Christianity made this bold and scandalous claim. 

Of course modern Christianity perhaps no longer scares the crap out of us as it was intended to do, along with the happy ending.  Protestantism in particular has lost the complete sensation of ritual with the classic liturgy with art, incense, sound, and imagery to recreate as much as possible the sensation of a ritual human sacrifice.  Some of the traditional churches have retained some of the sensuous intent like the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Lutherans, and the Anglicans. 

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It seems that for Christianity to work, it has to be scandalous and shocking.  It has to recreate the horror of human sacrifice with the liturgy.  It is not just a matter of “doctrine” or “belief” in a list of crap someone wrote on a Catechism pamphlet.  It must recall the reason the God of the universe had himself killed on a bloody altar.  People must perceive the horror of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a human sacrifice.  People must understand why the “Happy Ending” of the Resurrection is so scandalous and insane to a normal understanding of human nature.

Then, the Phoenix may rise from the ashes, and we can remember what we have forgotten.

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Freddy Martini

Mind-Body Problem

Mind-Body Problem

When you change your story, you change your life.  –Freddy Martini

The Setup

“It is all in your mind.”  “You are just imagining things.”  “You are living in a dream world.”

You have heard it.  You have said it.  And, that, my friends is the danger.

What is Real

It is not a question, “What is real?” but a statement “What is real.”  Since Descartes came on the scene around 500 years ago, this problem has been with us – Je pense; alors, je suis (I think, therefore I am).  It is the Mind in a Vat.  It is the Ghost in the Machine.  It is The Matrix – yes, the famous movie.  How do I know if I am dreaming right now?  How would I know if I were inside the matrix like Neo, Morpheus and Trinity? 

The Problem

You don’t.  You cannot know whether or not you are in The Matrix. 

How do external physical objects get into the mind?  Perhaps through the sensory organs.  And, this creates other problems such as, how much distortion happens when perception passes through the sensory organs.  How much of this woman I perceive in front of me corresponds to something physically out there?  This leads us to Immanuel Kant, and perhaps even to Berkeley.  Do we verify that what we perceive is actually out there?  Well, anything we perceived as “out there” has to be perceived through something, like an eye or an ear, so, no, we cannot get to the difference between what we perceive in the mind and what is “really” out there.

Do unicorns exist?  We may be tempted to say, “No.”  However, there are two problems with this answer.  The first is the Problem of Induction – observations cannot prove propositions – one discovery of a black swan destroys the proposition that all swans are white.  The other problem is the nature of reality.  If I can conceive something, then I can count it as real.  The unicorn is real – it is in my mind, my mind is real, thoughts are real, and thus, this unicorn is real.

What is the answer to this?  You may say I am using my imagination, and that I have never seen a unicorn in reality.  But – slow down – what is real again?  Are the contents of my mind real?  If the answer is yes, then unicorns really exist.  Now, this sounds bizarre, perhaps to some.  But, let us take this one step further into the Philosophy of Mind.

Numbers and Reality

So, the contents of the mind are real, but we are doubtful that we can say that unicorns are real, right?  I mean, this is just for crazy people right?  Well, read on.

The square root of 2.  √2  What is this?  It is a mathematical concept.  I find a number and multiply it times itself and get the number 2.  The square root of 2.  Simple mathematics.  If you are still with me, let us now go one step further.  Is this number real?  Not many would deny the reality of the square root of 2.  However, where does this number exist?  Is this number out there in external reality outside of our minds?  Think carefully about this.  The answer is “no.”  Nobody can point with their finger to something out there in reality called the square root of 2. 

If you are still with me, we have established that there is this real thing called the square root of 2, and it does not exist as a physical object.  It is a mathematical concept – it is a relational concept.  It is just a concept.  It is not an object.  It is not physical.  You cannot perform an experiment to determine the physical characteristics of the square root of two. 

And, if you are still following, we can go one more step into the abyss and declare the same thing about all numbers.  How does this work?  Well, point to me in physical space the number 127.  Nobody can.  Point to me in physical space where I can find the number 5.  You cannot.  Numbers are not physical existents.  Here is the shocking take-away:

Numbers exist only in the Mind 

If you have trouble wrapping your head around this, a little trick to bring you back to the idea is as follows.  Always remember to think about the square root of 2 and try to point to it in the physical world.  That will bring you back to clear thinking about the concept of physical existents versus existents that can only be in the mind.  Try to get this clear in your mind before going further.  When you have this clear in your mind, you are ready to dance on the edge of the abyss!

The Mind Body Problem

If we have no way of connecting something as simple and real as numbers to physical reality, then how do we say that unicorns do not exist?  How can we say that dreams are not real?  How can we separate fantasy from reality?  You have now jumped into the abyss and are now dancing with me in the abyss.  Come join the party.  It is fun down here!  Okay, let us get back to the discussion.

What is it like to see the color red?  Can you perform experiments to determine how I see the color red?  Can you hook up wires to my head and observe how I see red?  Can you hook up wires to my head and observe how I experience a cool fresh glass of pure pristine water?  Can these wires and this equipment determine how this woman sitting at the edge of the bar experiences that elegant taste of Martini in her glass?

No.  Absolutely not.  You cannot get to the interiority of the mind except your own. 

But this interiority - this experience of ours - is absolutely real.  It is often more real than external physical reality.  People with depression can testify to this.

The Problem of Science

Modern science focuses on the Objective – an object external to the subject.  Modern science cannot get to my experience – the Subjective.  However, the Subjective is perhaps even more real than the objects science measures!  When people dismiss things as purely Subjective, they are making a critical and perhaps fatal mistake: the mistake of blindness.  One cannot know the various hues, themes and variations of reality by excluding “Subjective” reality.  The Philosophy of Existentialism has a lot to say about the Subject.

What does science say about the Subject?  Nothing.  Science deals with objects.  It deals with people as Objects.  It deals with emotions, desire, and love as an object of study.  This is where it is incomplete. 

Here is the core issue of science: Science only deals with half of reality: The Objects.  Science cannot deal with the other half of reality: The Subjective.

With a scientific worldview, you are only getting things half right.  You are blinding yourself to most of reality to fit the methodology of investigating physical objects. 

Here is the shocking truth: In the Mind-Body Dichotomy, Science has chosen to look at the Body, and has closed off all investigations of Mind as illegitimate. 

This is where people make a fatal mistake of dismissing religion, literature and art – the other half of human reality.  And, this other half of human reality is where the Soul resides – the identity of who we are, why we are here, and where we go from here, and why we get up in the morning and choose the hard life of Existentialism instead of the easy life of comfort and ease.

Physical science cannot explain Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Napoleon, or Louis XIV, because the Mind – the other half of reality – explains these things, and not physical science.  Where is the equation for Steve Jobs?  What hypothesis can we put forth that produces another Thomas Edison? 

Stories

Humans relate to each other by telling stories.  We pretend to reason with one another and discuss things.  However, in all cases, the things we say must meet a certain expectation.  Think about the English language.  Subject ->Verb –>Object.  Often, western languages are structured for cause and effect relations.  The Subject ->Verb –>Object structure is based upon cause and effect, but also tells a story.  What is cause and effect?  A story.  When I flip a switch and then a light comes on, this is cause and effect, but it is also a story.  When the laws of physics tell us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, it explains cause and effect, but at the same time fitting the narrative of a story.  Even science is a narrative – a story.  We cannot think or communicate outside of narratives and stories.

But stories can be rewritten.  We can write our own stories.  As long as they sound plausible and fit the structure of a story, they work.  The Greek and Roman gods were grand narratives and stories.  The Old and New Testaments are full of stories that have survived the test of time.  These stories are printed on pages, yes, but they only come to life in our minds.  On page, these stories are paper and ink – physical artifacts of no value.  When they enter our minds, they come alive – and give us life in the process.

Your Story

The only thing that matters is what you believe.  You can rewrite a lot of what you are thinking.  Steve Jobs rewrote a lot of our scripts for what we want in interpersonal communications.  You are probably not Steve Jobs, but you can rewrite a lot more of your scripts than you perhaps give yourself credit for.

So, what is your story?  Which stories sustain you?  Which ones give you life? 

Change your narrative – your story – and change your life.

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Freddy Martini