Every scientist knows that the characteristics of the measuring instrument influences the results obtained. Each instrument has its own particular way of distorting the "reality" it measures and, if you do not compensate for this, errors creep into the results.
Similarly, our brain has its own "measurement" characteristics and we need to know its limitations if we are to compensate for its distortions of the reality it senses. Philosophy helps us to do this by examining the differences between physical reality and the image of physical reality that our brain creates for us. This gives rise to what is called the identity problem as described in the following story, familiar to philosophy students.
When Theseus, a famous Greek warrior, died his ship was preserved in the town square. As its planks rotted these were replaced. Eventually all the planks were replaced and we are asked to answer the question, "Is the ship with all new planks still Theseus's ship?
If you think this question is difficult consider the following addition. All the rotting planks that were removed from the ship were preserved and an enthusiast reassembled them. Which of the two ships is Theseus's ship?
This story draws attention to the way our brain works. Our brain creates a simple simulation of the physical reality that our senses report on. This simulation is informationally sparse, it is made up of a minimum set of "bits" of information and merely represents the physical reality that our senses tell us exists in the external world. (We are tempted to think that what we see "is" reality, but it can only be a simple representation of that reality.)
Each of us creates a simple simulation of external reality and we use our senses to keep our individual simulations synchronized with the physical world. If asked, each of us would describe a different image of Theseus's ship, none of these would be Theseus's ship as that is a physical thing while our images are not physical.
Because there cannot be a one to one mapping between physical reality and our simulations of physical reality, each of us naturally develops a different simulation (impression) of physical reality.
Our brains create the simulations that we perceive to be our external reality. This is a wonderful facility, but has serious limitations as these simulations have to be very simple representations of the realities they represent. They cannot even approach the complexity of the external world they represent. So when we seek the "truth" about say, "the situation in Iran," we are bound to fail as we only have the capacity to simulate some small aspect of that situation and this cannot represent "the truth."
Our simulations must be heavily influenced by the information we get, so if the news reports we hear are always talking about war, we naturally create a simulation of a world at war.
This is an error. Of the 6 Billion people in the world, a very small percentage are engaged in armed conflict. Almost the whole world is peacefully engaged in constructive pursuits almost all of the time, yet we are encouraged, by news reports, to think that it is in a state of conflict.
We need to break the cycle of fear creating conflict thaqt creates more fear that creates more conflict. Understanding the way we think and how we respond to fear are tools that can empower each of us to do this for ourselves.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Fear is the Devil
Fear is universal, everyone feels it, everyone reacts to it. Religions seek to manage it, but mostly fail and become purveyors of fear.
When levels of fear in the society are low, we demonstrate the positive side of our nature and become generous and kind, but when threatened we very easily become selfish and cruel. This is a human characteristic that we must accept and work into our self understanding.
Christians seek to promote good behavior by threat. They seek to influence the community to be "good" by condemning "bad" behavior, painting a picture of everlasting suffering for those that exhibit this "bad" behavior. In doing this the Church is exhibiting a typical human fear response. Just as human beings are "bad" when they are cruel, the Church is "bad" when it is cruel. Christians are shooting themselves in the foot by building their religion's response to threat around a typical human fear response.
When we invent gods and other spiritual beings we give them human characteristics. We need to do this in order to be able to relate to them. The Christian Old Testament God was was made to demonstrate anger and fear - typical human fear responses, but this characterization had limitations. People tend to copy their leaders and if the leader is a tyrant who drowns the world on a whim, this gives licence to his followers to do the same within their domain. This is not a good image to maintain if you want to influence people to be "good."
Jesus invented a new image of God. His followers then evolved this image to encompass all the positive human characteristics so this new God could be the example of how people should behave. They also changed the image of the devil, making him the personification of evil and giving him all the negative human characteristics. Our fear responses feature prominently, as the Devil is selfish, greedy, jealous, cruel, domineering, etc. - all the behaviors we exhibit when we are bent on self preservation (as opposed to preservation of the community) are included as characteristics of the Devil.
This separation was a good start, but instead of continuing in this vein they made a mess by combining the Old Testament and the New Testament. Perhaps circumstances did not permit the ambitious plans of the Christians to be brought to fruition and they had to settle for a compromise. From today's perspective the compromise is obvious and devastating, but the original idea behind the separation still has merit.
Coming out of this, it is apparent that the Devil represents Fear. It can possess you and influence you to do "evil" things. You can feel its influence with every threat. It is true, the Devil is within us, because Fear is the Devil.
When levels of fear in the society are low, we demonstrate the positive side of our nature and become generous and kind, but when threatened we very easily become selfish and cruel. This is a human characteristic that we must accept and work into our self understanding.
Christians seek to promote good behavior by threat. They seek to influence the community to be "good" by condemning "bad" behavior, painting a picture of everlasting suffering for those that exhibit this "bad" behavior. In doing this the Church is exhibiting a typical human fear response. Just as human beings are "bad" when they are cruel, the Church is "bad" when it is cruel. Christians are shooting themselves in the foot by building their religion's response to threat around a typical human fear response.
When we invent gods and other spiritual beings we give them human characteristics. We need to do this in order to be able to relate to them. The Christian Old Testament God was was made to demonstrate anger and fear - typical human fear responses, but this characterization had limitations. People tend to copy their leaders and if the leader is a tyrant who drowns the world on a whim, this gives licence to his followers to do the same within their domain. This is not a good image to maintain if you want to influence people to be "good."
Jesus invented a new image of God. His followers then evolved this image to encompass all the positive human characteristics so this new God could be the example of how people should behave. They also changed the image of the devil, making him the personification of evil and giving him all the negative human characteristics. Our fear responses feature prominently, as the Devil is selfish, greedy, jealous, cruel, domineering, etc. - all the behaviors we exhibit when we are bent on self preservation (as opposed to preservation of the community) are included as characteristics of the Devil.
This separation was a good start, but instead of continuing in this vein they made a mess by combining the Old Testament and the New Testament. Perhaps circumstances did not permit the ambitious plans of the Christians to be brought to fruition and they had to settle for a compromise. From today's perspective the compromise is obvious and devastating, but the original idea behind the separation still has merit.
Coming out of this, it is apparent that the Devil represents Fear. It can possess you and influence you to do "evil" things. You can feel its influence with every threat. It is true, the Devil is within us, because Fear is the Devil.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Fear and Aggression
Fear is one of the four letter words that we try to avoid. While other emotions are socially acceptable, fear is not. "Don't be frightened, be brave," sums up our approach to fear. We want to hide it, pretend it does not exist, drive it away, cover it with other emotions. But it does not work.
The blindness that is created by this approach to fear makes us insensitive to our own condition. It blocks our understanding of this very important emotion. As a result we do not connect fear to aggression. When we ask the question, "What causes aggression?" the answers we get seldom include the real reason, "aggression is caused by fear."
Psychologists tell us that there are two responses to fear. We either fight, or we run away. These are closely tied to our survival instincts and we can easily appreciate that our survival depends on making the correct choice. It is easy to run, but if we do this too often we get branded as a coward and others take advantage of us. Even in modern society we have to demonstrate that we are willing to fight if we want to earn the respect of our community.
Our social constructs encourage the fight response to fear, while blinding us to the fact that this is a fear response. We can appreciate why this is done. Put simply, we see the need to champion aggression as we think this is essential for our continued survival in a hostile world. In our zeal to champion aggression, we disconnect this from fear. Aggression then becomes something we can cultivate as a "good" social characteristic while fear is branded as "bad" and discouraged.
Yet we all recognize that we must find ways to avoid fighting, as fighting destroys the societies that we are trying to create. We would all like to live in more "friendly" societies as these provide a much higher quality of life, but we don't seem to know how to achieve this.
George Bush's response to 9/11 was to fight - this was/is a fear response. The 9/11 attack itself was driven by fear, yet nowhere in the analysis of these events will you find this connection.
What would happen if we re-established the connection between fear and aggression in our social consciousness? If people who are inclined to be aggressive understood that they were demonstrating fear by being aggressive, would this influence them to be less aggressive?
This is one of the many issues relating to fear that I plan to explore in this blog.
The blindness that is created by this approach to fear makes us insensitive to our own condition. It blocks our understanding of this very important emotion. As a result we do not connect fear to aggression. When we ask the question, "What causes aggression?" the answers we get seldom include the real reason, "aggression is caused by fear."
Psychologists tell us that there are two responses to fear. We either fight, or we run away. These are closely tied to our survival instincts and we can easily appreciate that our survival depends on making the correct choice. It is easy to run, but if we do this too often we get branded as a coward and others take advantage of us. Even in modern society we have to demonstrate that we are willing to fight if we want to earn the respect of our community.
Our social constructs encourage the fight response to fear, while blinding us to the fact that this is a fear response. We can appreciate why this is done. Put simply, we see the need to champion aggression as we think this is essential for our continued survival in a hostile world. In our zeal to champion aggression, we disconnect this from fear. Aggression then becomes something we can cultivate as a "good" social characteristic while fear is branded as "bad" and discouraged.
Yet we all recognize that we must find ways to avoid fighting, as fighting destroys the societies that we are trying to create. We would all like to live in more "friendly" societies as these provide a much higher quality of life, but we don't seem to know how to achieve this.
George Bush's response to 9/11 was to fight - this was/is a fear response. The 9/11 attack itself was driven by fear, yet nowhere in the analysis of these events will you find this connection.
What would happen if we re-established the connection between fear and aggression in our social consciousness? If people who are inclined to be aggressive understood that they were demonstrating fear by being aggressive, would this influence them to be less aggressive?
This is one of the many issues relating to fear that I plan to explore in this blog.
Monday, January 8, 2007
About Me
After a career in electrical engineering and business, during which I became very interested in what motivates people I suddenly realized that fear was the main motivator for many people. So I researched the topic and wrote a book called the Fear Factor. The research showed how important fear is and how it shapes people and societies. I continue to develop the topic, hence this Blog.
Sailing is my sport. I have been a competitive sailor for a long time mainly sailing on a Barbadian build yacht called Count Down and a Beneteau 10m called Bruggadung, participating in regattas from Tobago to St. Maarten. Competitive sailing lead to an interest in handicapping and I became a measure and then the Chief Measurer for the Caribbean Rating Rule for several years.
I owned a Morgan OI 41 for 15 years and sailed through the Caribbean.
I also developed an interest in philosophy and after doing much reading, I did a M.Phil in philosophy at the Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Wrote a thesis, "The Metaphysics of Information." This was completed in 2005, but I plan to continue studying this subject in the near future.
My wife, June works with me at TMR Sales & Service Ltd. in Barbados. Daughter Jehanne is in Latvia bringing up her two children and my son Andrew is at Reading doing his PhD in Plant Genetics.
Sailing is my sport. I have been a competitive sailor for a long time mainly sailing on a Barbadian build yacht called Count Down and a Beneteau 10m called Bruggadung, participating in regattas from Tobago to St. Maarten. Competitive sailing lead to an interest in handicapping and I became a measure and then the Chief Measurer for the Caribbean Rating Rule for several years.
I owned a Morgan OI 41 for 15 years and sailed through the Caribbean.
I also developed an interest in philosophy and after doing much reading, I did a M.Phil in philosophy at the Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Wrote a thesis, "The Metaphysics of Information." This was completed in 2005, but I plan to continue studying this subject in the near future.
My wife, June works with me at TMR Sales & Service Ltd. in Barbados. Daughter Jehanne is in Latvia bringing up her two children and my son Andrew is at Reading doing his PhD in Plant Genetics.
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