Under The Sun

2012
by

S. M. Kristofferson

For travellers.

Pocket Edition

www.lulu.com/kristo

Copyright Steven Mark Kristofferson 2012 All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-557-52087-9

Preface
Thank you for opening this book. Works, like children, go their own way they say, so each essay in this collection is intended to speak for itself, incidentally contributing to a bigger picture. Essays on like themes are grouped together and there is considerable variation between and within these groups. So by all means browse the Contents list. I should also declare that this is not an academic work and hence is not endowed with citations. But in doing so, I gratefully confess that it has benefitted deeply from what I have gleaned over a lifetime, both directly and indirectly, from many sages and pages; from smiling ghosts who point the way. And in that spirit, these essays do not assume any prior knowledge of philosophy either, or rely upon any authority from the past. Each aims to uncloud the complex using simple transparent reasoning to assist readers to form their own considered view. Finally, I must warn the reader that although the questions that these essays attempt to address are
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profoundly important, their conclusions are not, perhaps, as pleasing as one would like. They are, however, conclusions that I think we can live with, under the sun. S.M.K. 28 February 2012

Contents
Mystery Toolmakers The Tree of Knowledge One Gothic, Easy on the Gargoyles Mind Over Matter An I for an I Teapots, Algebra & Other Mysteries Capuchino Triangle Angle Angular! Stairway to Heaven Birdman Destiny Clockwork to Chaos A Day at the Fate The Dice Man Rolleth Freedom's Just Another Word The Shape of Destiny The Force The Gloved Finger Rosebud Opposites Attract Like is Drawn to Like The Dance of the Spheres: Spotting Causality Lost in Space 70 79 85 93 99 107 112 118 121 126 130 139
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9 15 24 27 36 40 48 52 60 67

Androids in Love Does Humanity Have a Mission? Geography & Us History & Us Plastic Man God Starry Night True Believers Body and Soul The Tao Diorama The Gita Xmas Message Riders of the Spring Xmas in July The Devils in the Detail Demythologising God The Museum of Religious Curiosities The Problem of Scale Is God of the Universe? Seduction Siddhartha A Fair Go Supernatural Transactions: a Protocol for Sceptics The Game Plane

142 148 151 154 161

166 169 174 183 188 190 198 203 209 214 219 223 226 232 239 243 247 250 256

Meaning The Incredible Shrinking Man Lights, Camera, Action! Successful Living for Small Lives Superman is Dead Three Pillars of Humility Times Like This The Vibe Mortality Armistice Day The Good, The Bad and the Happy The Right Stuff The Big Picture Liberty or Life Easy Rider Defiance Forgiveness Encircled Beyond Wishing Thanks for the Memory Cloud Call Travel Tips About the Author 264 270 275 280 287 291 294 298 302 304 311 320 323 328 331 339 344 349 351 353 355 361

Mystery

Reality is the mask of mystery

Toolmakers
My dad was a practical person and he taught me to be practical, too. He was trained as a mechanic by the military and worked in air-sea rescue in WW2. That was in the New Guinea campaign, retrieving people, the living and the dead, from the surface of the sea and the shallow seabed. Fishers of men. They didnt have much in the way of equipment or spares to work with; their vessel had been an enemy barge and was fitted out and maintained using whatever they could scrounge and fabricate. Toolmakers. I remember the day he taught me how to identify mechanical problems with my bike by putting the tip of a screwdriver to the surface of various areas of the engine and listen at the handle end, like a stethoscope. I guess we people tend to be pretty practical dont we? I guess all life is. However, people are said to be toolmakers par excellence. We were at our dawn and we are still. Solutions tend to be more complicated now, though. Gone are the days when we solved the problem of hunger by means of a basket or spear. Nowadays we first have to decide whether to undertake a task ourselves or to outsource it to specialists and concentrate on something else.
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And if we do decide to invest in our own tools we still have to think about various options. Should we use the same kind of tool weve been using in the past? Or maybe there are other tools on offer so we could try something different? Then again, if none of them is quite right for the job we might be able to make up something better suited either by acquiring different components and plugging them together, or even making some from scratch. Ideas can be tools, too. The ultimate software. In fact theyre what we use most, not just in the home and workplace but in rich broad life. Big ideas like politics, religion and philosophy. And we approach investment in them in much the same way. We go with the familiar, or pick some packaged alternative, or maybe get creative and mix and make. So now one can be politically Conservative with Liberal leanings or a Christian with a Buddhist slant. Of course, the more we get into mix and make solutions the less we may be able to outsource. With an established package of ideas we can generally leave it to experts to sort out the details of our creed and keep it up to date. Simple. But if we do want to mix and make, how should we go about it? Well, one approach is to accept existing sets of ideas and make adjustments. I
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guess thats how most modern religions began: Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The other way is to start with a blank virtual sheet. They say people have to believe in something but that doesnt mean we have to believe in anything, does it? So now we might think about some key basic ideas that we feel we really cant do without. These will be supposedly self evident things that cant be proved because if we could then the more basic things we used in the proof should be the real fundamental ideas on our sheet. These select basic ideas would then serve as axioms from which we might logically arrive at other ideas; like Euclid did in geometry. I must say that this approach has a lot of attraction in terms of transparency and avoiding error. It works best when weve done a good job of identifying all the axioms we need without contradictions or overlap. Superfluous stuff should be avoided, too. I doubt that anything true, apart from some tautologies, is really superfluous to broad understanding but it might be trivial or irrelevant to understanding one aspect of the world, so best leave it out and keep that deck uncluttered, not forgetting that the meaning of the deck lies also in the ship. Anyway, a bit of reflection and trial and error

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correction will be needed for this task and a bit of prior reading is always wise. Contradictory axioms will tend to generate absurd results later on, and missing ones will show up when we think of something we reckon is true that cant be derived from the others. Overlap can be tougher to spot but were being practical not perfect so we can live with some inefficiency. Most of us arent going to approach this as a formal task at all, were just going to get things roughly sorted in our head. And were not relying on this approach to the extent that it becomes a theoretical strait-jacket for all belief. The main thing is to become aware of what were really prepared to accept as being fundamental and then to ensure that our other beliefs at least fit with that, even if theres a little subjective elaboration. Or possibly a lot of artistic elaboration but hopefully we are conscious of it. Personally, I like to keep it simple. By way of example, Im reminded of Descartes, I think therefore I am. This insight enabled him to ground belief in something with rational confidence even though it was just the existence of his mind. But he couldnt get further than that without some other beliefs because everything beyond the existence of his mind, including its ideas about the world, could just be illusory. He
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decided that God would not deceive him about such things so he could reasonably rely upon his senses. Yes, thats right, he also believed in God, a perfect being whom he could trust and thought he could justify by proof. Well, this is all very abstract and philosophical but I dont have a proof of God and even if I did things can still get messy pretty quickly as we move into the world of the senses and beyond. We practical people are going to write some messy things on our sheet of paper, too. Not just objectively verified or verifiable facts but things we believe because of personal experience or because they sound reasonable in context or are from credible sources. Our mind is full of such knowledge and it would be a very barren vessel without it. But Descartes was absolutely right about the need to proceed carefully. We may be practical but we still want quality because what we put on our hypothetical sheet may later be used to draw important conclusions and support higher ideas. We mustnt get carried away, though. Whatever we include should have some doubt attached to it; we should be prepared to reject it and what we have derived from it, later on. Thats actually the hard bit because we become so attached to old things, dont we?

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Naturally, all this takes time and therell be ongoing maintenance. But maybe you like that kind of challenge? Of being a do-it-yourself kind of person in the home of your ideas. Big ideas, to work with and add more meaning to mortal life

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The Tree of Knowledge

Lets begin clearing our mental worksheet using the metaphor of the Tree of Knowledge (ToK) to explore certain issues concerning knowledge of all forms; starting with the Tree of Knowledge featured in the biblical garden of Eden. You may recall that this ToK, according to Genesis, was the beginning of our woes on Earth. Some things, it is said, we were forbidden to know. But then our mythological ancestors ate the fruit and that was that. Blame Adam. Blame Eve. Blame Satan. No, on second thoughts, Satan wasn't actually there, so blame the snake. That's right, there's no mention of Satan in Genesis. That's a much later theological idea. In theology, which is really at the heart of old knowledge, there still seems to be a ToK out there, with fruit that we shouldnt taste. Take Satan for example. If you're the sort of scholar who looks outside the revered text of your religion for theological knowledge, who is prepared to eat what others think forbidden, you may notice that Satan as an idea is not actually an insight of the Abrahamic religions at all but
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seems to have popped into Judaism and then Christianity through the influence of Persian religion. Recall that Judah was conquered by, and its nobility exiled to, Babylon around 600 years BC. After a few generations, however, the Persians, who were now Zoroastrians, then conquered Babylon by cleverly diverting the river Euphrates that ran through the city and entering via the river bed. How do you stop an enemy like that? I guess you dont. Now, the king of the Persians, Cyrus, was a pretty smart bloke who understood the importance of a little flexibility for successful tyranny, and so allowed the exiled Jews in Babylon to not only return to Jerusalem but to rebuild their temple as well. It was this beneficial Persian connection which provided a channel for the influence of Persian thought on Judaism. The idea of devils, demons serving evil, is just one of those important imported ideas that subsequently shaped all Abrahamic faiths. And then, a couple of centuries later, when Persia was in a more relaxed mood, the Greeks burst onto the scene and Christianity picked up bits of their mythology about the underworld, too. Not that foreign influence ended there, for after them, the Romans marched into town. In
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fact, one of the earliest references to the devil in the bible is the appearance of Lucifer in Isaiah (originally written at the time of the Persian conquest). But Lucifer is actually a Roman word (Latin for morning star) that was introduced into Isaiah during the Christian era! That's one way to summon him, I guess. So anyway, if you're trying to avoid forbidden fruit by sticking to the literal truth of an early sacred work, just be wary about what you're signing up to by doing without the benefits of hindsight. Is this the new forbidden fruit? We sometimes also find the ToK metaphor used in the context of classifying branches of knowledge. No mention of forbidden fruit here, nor of any fruit, it's the tree as a framework that matters. A French encyclopaedia released in 1751 included such an illustrative Tree of Knowledge in its frontispiece, classifying knowledge into primary branches of Memory (e.g. history), Reason (e.g. science and philosophy) and Imagination (the arts), with further sub-branches into subcategories. That the ToK is now viewed in a positive light as a tool to help us acquire knowledge is, I think, a sign that the Western world was changing - and that pretty much produced the world we're still in: the modern world (with or without the "post" prefix).
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But I like to think of Tok differently, as a metaphor for a limit of what we don't and can't know. That is, I like to look at where the fingers of the tree try and yet fail to reach further into the sky. In time, some branches may extend a bit more but the sky will never be conquered. For me, there's a maximum current ToK and a maximum potential ToK silhouetted against the unconcerned sky. Perhaps that is what is really forbidden to mortals? Certainly, as we shall see, its off limits. One of these important limits in physics is called the uncertainty principle (or indeterminacy principle). Physics at the subatomic level is forced forever to discover without certainty because the act of just looking itself actually changes what is being looked at and there is just no getting away from that fact. Try shining a torch in the dark; that light is a bunch of photons and what you see depends on some bouncing back from what you see. Okay? So if you decide to get into subatomic physics, you had better study a bit about statistics, too, as you'll need to start talking in terms of probabilities rather than certainties. There's an interesting philosophical story to this limitation, too. When physicists discovered this a century ago, some of them reasoned that if we
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can't be certain about things we should just embrace randomness as a real phenomenon there was a kind of fashionable philosophy around the time that considered this to be a positive move. Anyway, Einstein told them to get real about all this and just accept probability for practical reasons without chucking away the idea that things happen because of underlying causes, even if we don't and may never understand what those causes are. God does not play dice, he said. And I'm with him. For, if God did play dice, I for one (make that at least two with Einstein) wouldn't bet against Her. I reckon that somehow She'd know what was going to happen, so it wouldn't really be a fair game of chance after all, even if some scientists thought it must be. Besides, why make up a new factor called randomness when you can fall back on old fashioned ignorance, which will always be amongst us? But in any case, probability at the subatomic level is one of those limits to knowledge. Some branches of the ToK will never get longer because of it. Now I think that there are also more general limits to mortal knowledge that are somehow more profound. As a great philosopher and theologian once said, everything ends in mystery
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(omnia exeunt in mysterium). Let's check these limits out. Suppose you want to explain "why" some event in the universe has happened? Like a toothache. Ouch! You start by identifying an immediate cause, then you wonder what brought that cause about, so you look at the stage before that, i.e. at the cause of the immediate cause. And so on, like why am I made like that?. Really, to get a full explanation for the event, you should keep tracing these prior causes, moving out along the limb of the ToK until you run out of branch. Hey! it's a long way down there - better stop now. If this doesn't happen for any other reason, like the uncertainty principle, it will nevertheless happen when you reach the instant after the beginning of the universe, before which all our laws break down. We just have no way of going earlier than that. And if one asks a question about the nature of the universe, i.e. a "what" question, immense practical and theoretical problems arise. Currently, physicists estimate that 96 percent of the universe is comprised of dark matter (28%) and dark energy (68%), which is to say, we don't know what it is. And if we study the composition of the 4 percent that we are familiar with, we run into the uncertainty problem we
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talked about above. Furthermore, we don't yet have a unified theory that explains how the various forces in the universe work. What we have are separate theories, or partial explanations, if you like. The most popular attempt to unify these partial explanations involves hypothesising infinitesimally small vibrating bits called strings together with at least several more hidden dimensions of space (we commonly think in terms of 3 plus time). It seems doubtful whether such a theory could ever be substantiated by science. There are other theories thrown up by the equations that we are trying to reconcile, but even if we find one that works, it will likely involve other basic concepts or assumptions that are once more tantalisingly out of reach. Similarly, if we attempt a "where" question, e.g. try to locate ourselves in space, we can start like that famous example with our conventional postal address, then move out to specify the planet, the galaxy and so on but we will have to stop when we reach the limit of the observable universe (determined by the paths of light). And where is that? And what is space, this mysterious rich medium that can be bent, expand and is tied to time?

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Asking a "when" question will pose similar problems because time is relative and has its limits, too. Moreover, philosophers have long known that, because all perception takes place in the mind, we cannot be sure that there is anything objective out there at all. Even the brain that we think generates the mind, might not be there. Everything we know is really a mental concept. Dr Samuel Johnson, that clever dictionary bloke, once rejected this scepticism by kicking an immoveable stone, declaring, I refute it thus. Of course, though, he hadnt, as the whole experiment could have just taken place in his head. But you have to admire the attempt. These days, one hears people talk more about levels of ignorance (something, a friend reminds me, that Socrates once raised). For example, there are things that we don't know, and things that we don't even know that we don't know. I read recently of work by some people at a local university, proposing ways of managing such ignorance through strategies. Three big ones are: getting others to look at a problem; exposing an area of knowledge to different disciplines (e.g. reviewing theology using modern science, linguistics and history); and thoroughly questioning all assumptions. Sounds good to me.
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But we will still eventually run out of limbs, wont we? Mortal knowledge: neat but incomplete. It's pretty humbling when you think of the Tree of Knowledge like that. We can, and I think should, make our tree bigger, but all the temptation driven motivation in the world will never give us a God's eye view.

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One Gothic, Easy on the Gargoyles

I was listening to the Rocky Horror Picture Show recently, a present from my daughter, and it struck me that Rocky is my earliest recollection of gothic rock n roll; more comedic than much of the new stuff but with a dark edge just the same. Others may have a better definition of Gothicism, but I just think of it as believing that theres something strange lurking beneath the veneer of our rational world. And I can go with that alright. Reality is the mask of mystery. In Rocky Horror, as you may know, we find an incredibly innocent Brad & Janet, assisted by the really rational Dr Scott, confronting some extremely sexually challenging Goths from the galaxy of Transylvania. And with something very interesting on the Frankenfurtian slab, too. Alas, I never saw the stage production, even though it was showing only a few hundred metres down the road. I always meant to go but I guess I was more interested in rational things at the time, like understanding Das Kapital, that formidable analysis of economics and society by
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Marx, which, ironically, seems almost gothic itself now. But I did get to see Rocky at the flicks a few years later. Great stuff. Hot Patootie bless my soul, I really love that rock n roll. Richard O'Brien Im not sure if rock and roll was gothic before that, although it has always had a voodoo side, hasnt it? But the modern gothic movement in art and literature goes back a couple of centuries, and was not without its critics at the time; people who justly saw it as threatening the place of reason and established virtue. But strange things may be generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. Jane Austen I love that quote. And Im a big fan of reason, too. For reason can save lives like Gothicism cant. And when things go wrong, as they are now in a fair chunk of this world, if not for the world itself, its not because of too much reason, just the opposite in fact. But like I said, Im also a fan of mystery. Ultimately, it does seem that there is something unknowable out there. What I dont go for is the human tendency to intellectualise the mysterious

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in a way that likely misconception, not less.

results

in

more

Take that old duality of good and evil. Its the kind of thing we all relied upon before we had better answers, before we knew, for example, that behind every different mind is a personality born of genetics and experience. Its cause and effect that makes us do what we do not devils. The real mystery is more profound than that. So lets put the inquisitions and exorcisms behind us and listen to the sociologists and psychologists a bit more. Thats what I reckon, anyway. Not forgetting aesthetics, though. Struth, I dont mind a gargoyle in its proper place. They can be rippers of things. If you see anything mysterious or unusual, just enjoy it while you can. Leunig Nice.

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Mind Over Matter

This topic has cropped up several times over the past year or two of my life, both in this virtual world and in the 'real' world, too. And actually, that distinction between the virtual and the real world is the topic. I've touched on it before, but more, I think, needs to be said. We're going to come at it from the virtual side, which is traditional for this question. The virtual view is represented by a theory called solipsism {from the Latin solus (alone) and ipse (self)}. I like all the esses in that word, solipsism, it sort of slides around in your mouth. Anyway, it's just tech talk for some ideas you've probably had yourself; namely that we can't in fact know anything about the outside world or even whether there is an outside world. All we can be sure of is that there are ideas in our mind. I was going to say 'head' but you see the problem: it's outside too. Because perception really is a mental activity it's pretty hard to disagree with the unknowability bit. So I am really a dreamer. And maybe you're another one? Reality may not be real.
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But those who take the extra step and think that this mental universe centred on the self is in fact the only universe are the true solipsists, and they're the ones who interest me. Let me add that theyre a pretty rational crowd, too, at least in my mind, because supposing that there is a real world in addition to the world of ideas amounts to making an additional assumption, which is something we shouldn't do unless it is really necessary. Unnecessary assumptions should be cut away using our philosophical razor, as a thinker named Occam once said. Just as Einstein once said that we should simplify everything as much as possible, but no further. So how far can we go? Is it possible to do without external reality? I don't think we can say it's impossible to do without external reality, but we should check to see if doing away with it altogether would conflict with any other views we think might be true or are maybe even fundamentally important to our being. If so, we might say that while we could, perhaps, do without it, on balance it seems better to leave it in. Like breakfast. Take mortality for example. I'm not the first person to think that it's hard to believe in my
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mortality if the universe is only in my head. For there would be nothing outside that could kill me and I should be able to live forever, just by thinking about it. Perhaps I can, but I'm pretty convinced that my body is aging just like a mortal's would. So maybe I'm a pessimist, but I agree with the Dr who observed that the world is a bloody dangerous place and we'll be lucky to get out of it alive. Thus, although I accept the unknowability of the outside world, I wouldn't go so far as to say it isn't there entirely. Something must be there to make me mortal. Something greater than my dreaming. Perhaps a greater dreaming with me in it. A greater mind which embraces mine, too. A great Creative Thinker. And maybe Her dreaming also includes you. Alas I'm not the first person to think this either, so fame continues to elude me. Hence, if we stick to this dreaming option we are still not really alone, God may be a logical necessity, after all the corollary of our virtual existence and mortality. But apart from that big one, are there any practical implications of believing that there is or isn't an external real world? Im talking about an external world of non God things now, the common place external world that we tend to
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take for granted. On the whole, the answer seems to be: not really. We would still have to struggle through our virtual life, dealing with virtual problems in the dreaming, making virtual friends and perhaps even some virtual enemies, too. However, in one of my virtual discussions someone observed that in the solipsist's world there is a greater incentive to love one's neighbour because everyone is actually a part of you, or me, I should say. So to injure them would be to injure myself. I had to think about this and agree that there are people in my head, some politicians for example, whom I don't really care for that much but think should be treated ethically. However, I dont think I should love them just because they are in there and, perhaps, are even needed. Love is a bit different from ethics and I don't think we should love everyone. Forgive, yes. Help, perhaps. But love, no. That's reserved for those few special characters, real or otherwise. And I'm comfortable with that side of virtual selfishness. We might also think that if everything is mind we could do some fantastic stuff just by thinking about it. It might be possible to truly alter 'outcomes' solely through reflection, because the
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ratio of mind over matter would be infinite. I like that possibility and it would fit in well with the old notion about the power of a mustard grain of faith. But I have my doubts because in my dreaming there are strong grounds for believing in the mathematics of chance. And gravity. And mortality etc. I guess that could be because the Great Thinker has put some virtual rules into my dreaming. You can try this thought power if you like but, as I havent yet encountered someone who has been able to systematically change their circumstances just by willful thought, I wouldnt expect success. By all means think positively, though, as experiments have shown that you'll be more likely to succeed in life, anyway, because you'll be more open to the opportunities around you. I've got to work more on that myself. So lets take stock. Where has this line of thinking taken us? Id say that it argues against believing in anything out there except in a greater dreaming, assuming that I am mortal. If the universe could be made out of ideas, why make it out of anything else? But besides providing stronger grounds for believing in the Great Thinker, it doesnt make any difference in practice, unless you find by a trial of faith that you can move mountains.

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Now comes a warning: philosophy can be hazardous to health. It turns out that there is one reason for believing in the outside a world, not a philosophical one but a medical one. Be wary of living in your virtual head too much as it can be very disturbing. Ive read of people who have suffered terribly from their dissociation with reality. What saved one individual in the end was a sense of touch, just rubbing knuckles on a wall helped. So if you can touch, and especially if you have someone special you can touch, be thankful, ok? Or maybe you have a cat to pat? Perhaps there isnt anything but God out there, but unless youre very strong, dont live with that idea. Keep it in the back of your head so you dont get too carried away with the world but appreciate the warm tangible side of life as well. Now I want to introduce a new word: subjectivity, for that notion that everything we know is in our head. Even if there is a real objective world out there were still stuck with subjectivity because, as previously noted, we perceive that objective world with our minds so we cant be sure that we have any true knowledge of it. So our perceived world view is still subjective.

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People talk of subjectivity as though it is a take it or leave it idea. Things are subjective or objective. But really its more of a relative thing. It is subjective but you can be more or less subjective depending on your assumptions. I would say that the idea that there is no objective reality out there is extreme subjectivity, more so than the idea that our perception is virtual but that there is a real world out there. And I would go further and say that if we believe there is a world out there, some of our knowledge of it is more subjective than other bits of it. Most of that knowledge is very subjective, like what I personally experienced on my holiday or how I felt when I heard my favourite song today. On the other hand, what I might conclude from a scientific verifiable experiment is less subjective. If we go along with the idea of an objective external world, I think we need to be aware of these things and give greater credence to less subjective sources of knowledge. Personal experience is tricky because it is not always verifiable and we can easily delude ourselves. I saw a lot of this as a psychiatric nurse when I was a young man and it has a very sad effect on peoples lives.

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So I don't think that one perception of 'reality' is necessarily as good as another (which was a popular view in the 1970's). It is up to a point but things can also get unhelpfully different. Unhealthily different. And our best defence against error here seems to me to use what reason we have critically. Does the event fit with other valued views? What else might account for it? And so on. We are each of us subjective rulers of our lives but a wise ruler listens to good advice. And to good information. Which I think is a good place to finish. So my advice is to be aware of the extremely subjective position but dont make your home there. Sure, enjoy your own subjective view of reality and appreciate other perspectives but also value knowledge gained objectively. Art can make lives and Science can save them. Theres no need to promote one over the other. Sure this means acceptance of an outside world to some degree and this involves making an assumption or two more than is philosophically efficient; but I think that Occam and Einstein would forgive us our humanity. Besides, that less efficient belief could even turn out to be right or roughly right. Hey, its not a perfect world and that goes for perception, too.
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And, finally, dont forget to think positively and to stay in touch

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An I for an I
Its funny how we dont really talk about ideas, about the phenomenon of ideas, I mean. Sure, there is some formal theory out there about language, concepts, propositions and stuff, but lets talk casually in an everyday sort of way and see where that takes us. Of course, life doesnt need ideas, it can and does respond in other ways to get along. But I guess ideas give us and other species an edge, or maybe we give ideas an edge? It seems like we play with ideas and that ideas play with us. In fact, its hard to know where ideas end and we beings begin. And as we grow or circumstances change, ideas grow or change with us. New ones take their turn at the wheel. Cool ideas, ambitious ideas, responsible ideas. Where do we get them? From others and other experiences, I guess; including our experience of us, like when hormones kick in. So experience is the key to getting good ideas going; we dont want our kids associating with bad ideas do we? Not with that crowd. So we think about the home, the neighbourhood,
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school, clubs, religion, books, what theyre watching on TV; and virtual stuff, of course. Parenting, the ultimate challenge. Growing up well is often about ideas. Ideas come before drugs and employment. Ideas come before war and peace. So we have to speak to them first. Its not trendy but, based on my parenting experience, I do believe in the need for some censorship, mainly for the young. Theres a lot of bad stuff out there. Of course, a little education goes further than a truck load of proscription, so thats always a good place to start. And I believe in subsidising good ideas, like education, science and the arts. Investing in these ideas yields better ideas further down the line. Unfortunately, though, we apes and our governments are a bit on the short sighted side so we tend to underspend on them. Its worth remembering that. While its tough working out how far to go in inhibiting bad or encouraging good ideas, I think we have to make an effort in extreme cases. Freedom is a great ideal but we have universally found that well enforced laws are also needed on the ground. Not that you want a dictator making decisions like that. Yes, there have been enlightened
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despots but even they throw in a few ideas that are conveniently favourable to them, just to keep people in their place. Right? And democracies have to be careful about censorship and stuff as well since there are always power plays underway involving the old and the new or the strong and the weak often the old and the strong are the same, arent they? Entrenched. Now the food of ideas is information. An I for an I. Good decisions need good information and good ideas, speaking more generally, do, too. Even anarchists I read as a young man believed in that. Good information is like science over myth. Like truth over error and lies. And its the beginning of dreams that actually could come true. So I believe in sensibly regulating advertising. People need good information if markets are to work well and, lets face it, advertising isnt always designed to do that, is it? As we all know, however, we dont always have to believe in truth. A little delusion can sometimes help us get through the day; especially those dark days, or years. And everyone likes a story, right? The operative word is fun. Generally, though, its good to know the facts. Blessed are the statisticians.

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And we dont just need information about what we see around us, we need to know about distant stuff, too. Distance is like a dark power that needs to be overcome. It can silence screams and make suffering invisible. It can hide brooding problems until its too late to act. And it can harbour lurking villains. So blessed are the historians, the journalists, and the scientifically curious. And blessed are those that look far ahead. Keep telling us what you see, guys. Like about the planet. Maybe eventually well get the idea.

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Teapots, Algebra and Other Mysteries

Lets explore mystery, not a particular mystery but mystery itself; and how we humans respond to it. No pictures can guide us here, Im afraid, as that would be too obvious. Just words and a pinch of algebra, because maths is not just about numbers, you know, it can help us think in words, too. True. There's no need to worry, though. I know that for many of us schools out forever, so well just do a bit of basic algebra for fun 101. Trust me... First, you might recall that algebra uses things called variables, usually denoted by letters like x and y. Lets use these two letters as well. Variables are handy because we can work with them without actually knowing whats inside. Just like people. Secondly, algebra often involves equations. These are just statements that say stuff about the variables. For example, suppose we let y stand for my boss's salary and x stand for my own pitiful gleanings. Then the equation y = 2x,

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informs us that my boss receives twice as much money as I do! The thing to notice here is not the lamentable relativities involved, but the fact that we cannot tell from this single equation what those two incomes actually are. For that, we need another equation telling us what is actually inside either x or y. Then we can know what is in the other one. Ok? For example, say, x = $20,000. Now we can know what my boss's income is, too. But you'll have to work that out for yourself. I don't like to think about it as Im now retired and the troubles of today, as they say, are enough. Although this example is simple, it actually reveals an important principle. Thats often the way, isnt it? The simple truths are the most profound ones. In this case, we notice that we have two variables involved and that we needed two equations to solve them. Hmmm. Does that mean if we had three variables that we would need three equations to get to the bottom of things? Yep, it does! And thats our principle: we need to have as many different equations as there are variables if a problem is to be solved. Remember that bit.

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And it turns out that if we are short by only one equation, there will be an infinite number of possible solutions, not just the one unique solution, or truth, that we would like. For example, look back at the equation y = 2x and you will see that, without a second equation, it will be true for an infinite number of x values and an infinite number of y values, so long as y is twice as big as the corresponding x. That's why we needed to know that x was equal to $20,000. That's why we needed that second equation. Now we can know the underlying truth about what is actually in x and y, rather than just the truth about their relativity. I guess you could say that our second equation moved us from a relative truth to an absolute one. Neat. Remember this bit, too. If we are just one equation short, there is no unique solution but rather an infinite number. Ok? Now, an important thing to reflect on is that in philosophy and its cousin, theology, we are often in this same algebraic circumstance, where we have more variables to answer than equations to work with. It's like we're living inside a giant teapot and are trying to work out what it's like on the outside. How can we know that the teapot has a handle, is decorated with an exquisite design, and that the lid has a knob on top? Some questions are just too big for us, arent they?
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And that's what it's like trying to work out if the universe is just a dream, or, regardless of whether it is a dream or not, if God is behind it all. There's just not enough information around for us to deal with the variables in these questions. We're short of an equation or two. Like the way we feel before breakfast. But that doesnt stop us from supposing, does it? Ill bet that this big hole is to let air in. And so many truly wise people, some celebrated and some long forgotten ghosts, have had just such a go; bless them all, the long and the short and the tall. For wise people looking at big questions say a lot of wise things along the way, which can be very edifying. And what they come up with as an answer often helps too, by exposing the implications of preferring one story to another, enabling us to see if one approach is consistent with other beliefs we dearly hold. If you cant be right you might as well be consistent! Where would civilisation be without consistency? But no one really knows or can know what the outside of the teapot really looks like. The truth is hidden in an incomprehensible infinity of options. And what is worse is that, while we may have a picture that is consistent with our own broader set of beliefs, it will likely be inconsistent with
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someone elses solution. Because thats what happens when we have more equations than variables in our algebra. We get contradictions. We cant have x=20 and x=15 at the same time. You have to pick one. And different people tend to pick different things. Thats called subjectivity. Its part of what humans like to be. We get these contradictions because if we have all the information that is needed to yield a unique solution, including extra information that is relevant but different to what we already have must muck things up. It has to. So there can only be exactly as many different equations as there are variables to get to the truth. No more and no less. That's how it is in algebra and that's how it is when we look at all the wise things people have said about any mystery, like God. Anyway, the bottom line is that when it comes to the mysterious exterior of teapots, one should not believe all of what is said by all. One might believe all of what is said by one, though my preference is to believe some of what is said by some, because no one has a monopoly on wisdom. But most religions go for that second, all of one option. For while many religions consider
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themselves inclusive in the sense of being open to all, they are generally exclusive in the sense that they assert that only they offer the real and necessary truth to all; and that only what they are saying now is true, too, rather than what they said in the past, as well. Because religions are all changing just like the rest of the universe and the all of one option cant allow the past and the present to be both equally right. But we can, if we take a less exclusive view; they can be similarly relevant to different people, and incompletely right, it seems to me. Most of the time, the religion that people follow is decided by long held cultural beliefs or by the beliefs of their recent conquerors. Sometimes it is argued that this is okay theologically because, say, a culture was meant to be conquered; that God must have permitted this dominance of view because it is right. Perhaps all those books left out of the bible, for example, wouldn't have been left out if they were right, too? But this is dangerous logical ground for the all of oners. For if we argue that whatever currently prevails is right, we get back to our contradictions again, as, following this line of thought, all competing religions would also have been permitted by God as being exclusively right because these various views all prevail in
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some region or other around our little globe. However, this variety is okay by me as I think that each of those religions which endure tend to say enough of what is right to be helpful in the person / God relationship sense for those people concerned. Thats the some of some view that I take. As for the missing bit, well, I prefer mystery to misconception, so my approach is a minimalist one.

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The Church of Sky

I saw a great church, too great for me, I mused beneath a shady tree. But then I wondered was it great at all? Does God require roof and wall? For what cathedral can touch the sky? What art exceeds the artist's eye? What bishop comprehends Creation's start? What dogma guides better than a simple heart? So I have made my church the church of sky With nothing between my God and I. Come share it with me, if you will, We gather not upon a hill.

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Capuchino
Have you ever seen that Russian movie based on a Kafka story, Metamorphosis, about a young man who was a conformist executive one day and a cockroach the next? He still looked like a man but now preferred to scuttle around the bedroom on his stomach, wiggling his fingers and toes energetically and making neat little didi-didi sounds with his tongue. Initially, it looked like he suffered from a mental condition but the surreal nature of the story really hit home when he began to slide about the walls and ceiling, sometimes peering out the window at the strange world below. The lives of his parents and sister living with him were understandably traumatised and stigmatised by this. But happiness for them finally came when he died like a bug on the floor. Amazing creatures, cockroaches, as are the humans that can make and appreciate a story and film like that. We selfs who stare into our valley and ponder values and being in the landscape below.

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Yesterday I saw an unreal documentary about capuchin monkeys. There they were in the jungle, crushing nuts using a smooth rock as a hammer and a large flat rock as an anvil. The anvil even had different grooves in it to suit different size nuts. The smooth rocks used as hammers had been gathered from a river, kilometres away. And the nuts were harvested elsewhere, too, having first been stripped of their fibrous coating and left for weeks to dry in the sun so they could be cracked more easily. When gathering these dried nuts, the capuchins would also strip some new ones (after tapping them to see which ones were ripe) so there would be no interruption in supply. Some stock goes out and some goes in. Basically, they had invested in capital and had developed an agricultural, stock control, transport and production system. Capuchins also have a strong sense of justice, enabling them to trust each other to the extent that they can engage in exchanges involving repayment at a later date. Wow! I'll bet the conscious experience of being a capuchin is pretty much like ours, and can imagine myself now, squatting on a cliff edge under the sun, surveying and pondering their home landscape below. I dont think were really that much
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smarter than them, despite our measurement scales. Its just that we got the jump on them with the ability to understand stuff like triangles and are now pretty full of ourselves. Life, and intelligent life the more so, is just incredible, though, isn't it? But it seems that the greatest scientific puzzle is not how it came to be on Earth, but how the universe is, in fact, so life friendly. Perhaps you've already heard that one of the interesting issues in cosmology is how finely tuned many variables in the universe seem to be to the preconditions for life: the Goldilocks Enigma. Tiny variations in many variables would really rule life out. If forces binding protons and neutrons were slightly more or less there would be no carbon production in stars we and other life forms are carbon based. If gravity had a slightly different value there'd be no planets. If electrons had a slightly different charge or neutrons a slightly different mass, there'd be no chemistry. Well, that's what the experts say. Of course, what's interesting about this is how such an improbable set of circumstances came about. Why did something as amazing as life find, like Goldilocks, that things were just right? The two main 'explanations' appear to be that
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there are actually a great many different universes (pocket universes they're called) so basically the precise friendly values would likely hold for one of them and that one is ours. Yay! The other is that some kind of conscious force, a Creator, actually set it up that way. I'm sure you'll agree that both these answers to the Goldilocks puzzle raise other profound issues and further questions, so there's no final answer to the ultimate mystery of everything in either case. Still, it is good to gaze. And, as Eastern philosophers have said, maybe the conscious gazing of cockroaches is good, too? Hmmm Didi-didi....

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Triangle Angle Angular!

Well I guess you can see that I'm not much of a draughtsman, but I wanted to talk about triangles today, because they're so neat; and a picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so I had a go. But dont worry, Im going to throw in a thousand words, too. Just to be on the safe side. Arent you the lucky one? Specifically, I want to talk about right angle triangles. They're the ones that have a ninety degree angle like the one I've drawn above on the left. The other angles can be anything so long as all three angles add up to 180 degrees, because that's a rule with triangles. You
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remember that, right? Don't worry, that's just a rhetorical question. You don't have to fess up here. Just nod now and then. Very good... Anyhow, the one I've drawn has two 45 degree angles plus the ninety degree one, which adds up to 180 degrees, so we're in business! There are lots of cool things about geometric shapes like triangles and squares and one of these is the way you can scale them up by increasing all the sides by the same factor, say double them, and the angles will stay the same. What this also means is that the relationship between the sides will always be the same for the same angles. For example, in my right angle triangle with that 45 degree angle, the vertical side is one unit in length and the horizontal side is one unit long, too. So the relationship of these two sides, the vertical side relative to the horizontal is 1 (i.e. 1 divided by 1 equals 1, ok?). And every right angle triangle with a 45 degree angle will have this ratio of 1 for these two sides. If another one, for example, had a vertical side 133 units, then its horizontal side would have to be 133 units long as well. But if the vertical side is longer than the horizontal side, say 1.5 times longer, than the angle in that corner wouldn't be 45 degrees it would be steeper, in this case, it would be 56
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degrees. I know this because people have already worked out these relationships between sides and angles for right angled triangles, so you can just look them up, or use a special calculator. But you could do it yourself by drawing heaps of right angle triangles, as big or small as you like, measuring their sides and angles using your kid's geometry set, then calculating the ratios of the various sides for each angle and writing it down in a table. See, there's always something interesting to do on a rainy day. Trigonometry for fun. It could come in handy, too. Suppose the sun comes out after the rain and you want to build a pyramid out of mud bricks. Your yard must look like mine. Well, you'll probably find that one with a base angle of around 45 degrees will stay up nicely. So looking up your rainy day table you see that the height should be equal to half the pyramid's base (because if you look at a pyramid from the side it's made up of two right angle triangles, joined by their vertical sides). So now you just have to think about how tall you want it, and you automatically know how wide it should be. Simple. Well, you better get on with it then. And no slacking off until it's done. While 45 degrees is good, once you start getting up towards 55 degrees, things get a bit risky. So
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stay away from that vertical to horizontal ratio of 1.5 that I mentioned. In fact, there's a famous bent pyramid built by order of King Sneferu (I love that name), which starts out over 50 degrees and midway up changes back to a bit less than 45 degrees. Some people say it was because another one over the 50 degree mark fell over while they were building the bent one, so they cut back the angle a bit, just to be on the safe side. And some say it was done that way because Sneferu just liked that bent look. I guess that's history for you, we don't know everything, do we? There's plenty of other neat things you can do with trigonometry, like find out what latitude you're on by looking at the angle of the sun above the horizon. But we won't go into that, just take my word for it or nod again, like you already know. Excellent! And it isn't just trigonometry where right angle triangles come in handy, they're how we also tackle all those problems about change. And the universe thrives upon change. Trees grow, planets fairly zip along, radioactive elements decay, beards go grey. Some people say that one day there won't be any more change. It will all be still. But that's a very long way off and, in my view, we don't really know enough about the
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place to be sure of that yet. 'Struth, we don't even know what the place is really made of; you know, the really small bits. And nearly all the stuff out there is currently just called dark energy or dark matter because we haven't got a clue what it is. For example, some people say dark matter is small funny stuff and some say it isn't funny matter at all, it's funny gravity. The more cagey ones are saying it could be both. So don't worry about it. Here, have another cuppa and look on the bright side. Maybe it'll all be over before you know it. Let's have a gander at the second diagram while you're still here. Looks like a hill, doesnt it? Suppose it is, then. Notice how the side gradually gets steeper, and then starts to level out again at the top? The steepness is changing. That's the universe alright. I doubt whether there's a straight line in it, even light beams curve, they reckon. But we digress. Ive go to stop doing that. You can see from this diagram how we can measure the steepness of this hill at any point by using right angle triangles which have their slopey side (the hypotenuse in tech talk) just touching the curve (making a tangent, which, by the way, actually means touch, as in tangible). Anyway, I've drawn a couple of these triangles,
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one showing how the slope is gentle at the bottom, and another steeper one further up. And what angle is this steeper one? Yes, 56 degrees! Who got it? So many nods! Yes, we know that it's 56 degrees because the ratio of the vertical side to the horizontal one is 1.5. So don't try walking up there unless you zigzag a lot, or you're a goat, like that one I saw on top of a tall hill when I was riding about the other day. The way this drought is going, there's a lot of good sheep country turning into goat pasture now. Something about global warming, some say. So change isn't always for the best, is it? This picture of a hill could also represent something else about the universe, say a graph of a tree's height over time. At first it's just a tiny seedling but as it gets older (going left to right) the tree gets taller until, on the extreme right, it's fully grown. Maybe our goat is cooling down underneath it. Good one, mate. Now the slope of the triangles touching various points on this graph would represent how fast the tree is growing at those points in time. That ratio of 1.5 to 1, for example, could mean that it's growing at a rate of 1.5 centimetres per month at that particular point in time, depending on what units of time and length you were using

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when you made the graph. Gee, aren't you the active one? Notice I'm not talking degrees anymore. I'm just using the ratio of the vertical to horizontal sides of the triangle to describe its slope instead, because that's all I need to. People sometimes talk about road gradients like that don't they? They don't say it's 45 degree rise, they say it's a 1 in 1 grade, or something like that. It's just another way of describing steepness. But the main point is, we're still talking triangles with right angles in them. Only now, we've moved away from trigonometry and into a whole new field of maths called calculus, invented thousands of years later. Wow! We're really getting along, arent we? Calculus is the maths of change. Like I said, it's about growth, decay, speed (the change in distance over time), acceleration (the change in speed over time), the changing steepness of hills, and so on. All is flux, as a bloke called Heraclitus once said (I had to Google that). But whether you're building a pyramid or estimating the rate at which the universe is expanding, it's all about right angle triangles. These simple things are teaching us heaps. Some people reckon that one day using such tools we'll fully understand the universe and so be like
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gods. Personally, I don't think our little triangles will take us quite that far, although our egos might get there, as they usually run a bit ahead, dont they?

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Stairway to Heaven
You've probably noticed how most religions culminate in an infinity, like a deity or bliss. So infinity has been around a long time, hasn't it? I understand that Hinduism was the first religion to contemplate and classify infinity into various types, a bit like what we do now, in fact; which is what this essay is all about. We're even going to do an infinity experiment, something incredibly simple yet weird, verrry weird, with three 'r's. And if you don't agree about that, well cancel the SETI project and take me to your leader as you're suspiciously too smart to be one of us. Ok, we've just covered one reason for infinity, as a sort of vanishing point for religion, but why else do we need it? That's right, it's really handy for dealing with humungous scientific questions like: is the universe finite or infinite in the dimensions of space and time? However many there may turn out to be.... But even if the universe is really finite in all of these dimensions, it turns out that we still need the idea of infinity to focus on ordinary stuff all
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around us, and to make sense of it. I expect you've noticed how digital cameras keep getting more and more megapixels everyday, so we can get better pics, or buy more cameras. In fact, if you want to get a perfect picture, one with no gaps between the coloured dots, you're going to need an infinite number of pixels. Don't worry, I expect those cameras will turn up in the shops some time soon. Anyway, it's the same deal if you're looking at the world with your mind. If space and / or time are continuous, with no gaps, then there must be an infinite number of points out there; an infinite number of infinitesimally small pixels. So there's a third use for infinity: continuity. Even age old stuff like geometry relies upon it. That's why they say there are an infinite number of points on a line. Maybe you learnt that in school. But here's something that could be news: the infinity of points on a short line is the same as the infinity of points on a long line, the longest line you can imagine you can imagine. True. And as you would be a mug to just take my word for it, here's that simple experiment you've been waiting for. Oh boy oh boy. No, Wilkins, we won't be using the Bunsen burners today.

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The first and hardest bit is to draw a right angled triangle. Sound technical? Nah. You just start by drawing an L then join the tips of this letter together to get your triangle. Ok? Looking good, kids. Now check out the vertical side of your triangle (you know, the upright bit of the L). Imagine sliding it across to the right, and stop when you're half way across the triangle. Good. Let's take a break, we don't want to overdo things, do we? Alright, now while you're catching your breath, notice how the upright is touching the horizontal side, just like before, only in the middle, and that it is also cutting through the middle of the slopey side. It's a bit like you meant to draw a good triangle but were a bit slapdash about it and put the vertical side in the wrong place. Oops. However, it's actually more interesting than that. Observe how the vertical line is touching a single point on each of the other two sides, like it did at the beginning but now halfway along their length. Got it? Ok, when you're ready, let's finish the experiment by sliding the upright further along until you get right to the end, i.e. to the very tip of the right hand side of the triangle. Great. You can relax now. It's all over. See, it was simple, after all.
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But look what you've done in the process? You've managed to move a vertical line through every point of the short and long lines simultaneously, touching only one point on each line at a time, as you moved through each of these two infinities. Wowee! Congratulations, you have just proved that the infinity of points in a short line is the same as the infinity of points in a long line! Think about it. You must have, as in each instant of moving the upright side you only touched one point on each of the other sides, one side short and the other one long, and you did that for the whole journey. So therefore they must have the same number of infinitesimally small points in them? It only stands to reason. Yes? Isn't that great? I reckon you haven't lived till you've done that one, and there's probably nothing weirder in the whole universe if you ask me, with the possible exception of the platypus. And that would be pretty hard to beat, eh. This infinity of points in a line of any length is actually part of a family of infinities of the same order that comprise the second step of our three step stairway to heaven. Now, getting to the bottom of things, we will find that the first step is the infinity of whole
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numbers (1,2,3,4,5 etc). And included in this family are other infinities like the infinity of odd numbers (1,3,5, etc) and the infinity of even numbers (2,4,6 etc). Notice that this means that the infinity of even numbers isn't less than the infinity of all the whole numbers! There's that weirdness again. You can prove it quite simply. If you multiply one number by something, you get a new number but it is still just one number, right? Like 3 is a number, and three multiplied two is 6. But you still only have one number, 6 instead of 3. So now let's multiply each of the whole numbers by 2. Guess what, now you have all the even numbers, and, just like before, there are the same number of them as of the whole numbers you started with. Ok? So whole numbers and even numbers have the same infinity. And if the infinity of even numbers is the same as the infinity of whole numbers, then surely the infinity of odd numbers must be the same, too? Yep. And at the top, in the third step of the stairway, is the infinity of squiggly lines. True! Take a bow squiggly. That's the really big one in the infinity stakes. Try drawing a few of them and you'll get an idea of the innumerable variety available and, of course, have some fun at the
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same time. See, your mum was right: there's always something interesting to do if you put your mind to it. Wilkins, put those matches away! I don't know, kids today. The other funny thing about infinity is how it affects maths. It turns out that you really need to know what kind of infinity you're dealing with when you do your infinity homework. It doesn't matter with addition, though, because if you start off with anything humungous and add to it, well, it's still going to be humungous isn't it? And similarly, multiplication is fine because multiplying by something is the same as adding it up that many times. Multiplying 2 by 6, for example, is the same as adding up 2 some 6 times. Whew. It does matter, though, and how! for subtraction and for the related process of division. For example, you know how if you divide a number by itself you get 1. Let's try it, 3 divided by 3 is, hmmm, 1 divided by 1, which is, yes, 1. However, if you divide infinity by infinity the result depends on what you mean by infinity on both the top and the bottom of the dividing line. Say you're dividing the infinity of points on a line by the infinity of whole numbers, well, you'll get infinity as your answer, not 1. Thats because the infinity of points in a line is a higher
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order infinity than the infinity of whole numbers. They just arent on the same wavelength, you know? But if you do it the other way round, and divide the infinity of whole numbers by the infinity of points on a line, all you'll get for your trouble is zero, zilch, nil, nought and nothing. It appears that you can't fit a big infinity into a smaller infinity, even if you sit on the lid, which seems quite sensible but kind of crazy, too. So be on your toes when you're dealing with infinity because it's not really a number. It's more like a word really, one that can mean different things; different big things! Well, I hope you don't want your money back on that weirdness promise because, looking down, the stairway still looks pretty weird to me, and I don't want to be different. But be that as it may, what, I wonder, is on the other side of this door?

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Birdman
A friend recently sent me a paper examining the geometric skills of birds, which are such great navigators. Basically, the researchers wondered whether birds had high level geometry skills, the kind that can handle an abstract geometric concept like midpoint. Now midpoint may not sound very abstract but it is, because when we say that we will meet someone at a midway point between, say, home and the city or between two towns, we arent specifying distance and compass bearings but are speaking in a more conceptual way dividing a conceptual line. And I think also now of the Midway Islands that are named because they are halfway between North America and Asia (or halfway between Greenwich and Greenwich, being on the opposite side of the world to it) where that decisive carrier battle was fought in WW2. We might even meet someone halfway in negotiations. Its an important and high level geometric concept. Sure. So the researchers decided to first try and teach a bird to find food located between two stones placed at various distances and then, secondly,
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to test them by seeing if they could find food located at the midpoint of stones that were placed differently to those used in training. What they found was that a bird was fairly successful if the test scenario was close to one of the training scenarios, in respect of both distance and direction, but that searching errors increased if the stones were located at distances that were significantly shorter than the shortest training scenario, or longer than the longest one, or if the orientation of the stones in the test was quite different to that used in training, say East-West rather than North South. These results suggest that the bird concerned hadnt got the general idea of a midpoint at all but was trying to match the test problem to the nearest training scenario, which only worked where there was some reasonable correspondence between them. Practical but limiting. I must say that I was a bit disappointed in this finding. But then, thinking more generally, I began to see the lighter side of it, too. For when the stones are moved, how often are we confused? Thats me, alright. Birdman.

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Destiny

Everyone is governed by cause and effect but the wise are advised by it.

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Clockwork to Chaos
Today we're going on a magical mystery tour. But not in a bus. No way. Today we shall be intrepid travellers, clinging to the tail of a rather determined pendulum as it swings its way through an arc from one zenith to the other. We will begin gently, however, in a nice secure place in an ordinary realm, where one day is reassuringly more or less like the next. Then we will plunge downwards over revolutionary barricades into a state of anarchy, discovering method in madness, before soaring upwards into a storm of chaos. But dont be afraid, Ill be with you all the while and promise to keep you safe. Now the ordinary world turns out to be much like our pendulum itself. Easy. Not just any pendulum, though, for pendulums, like people, can be made to behave very strangely you know. But as I say, not our one. Not George. For George lives in a clock and is very disciplined. He moves in a very measured way from left to right; from tick to tock. And that is his special charm, isnt it? Moreover, so long as we are prepared to wind up the works behind

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him, and tend to their occasional needs, George will serve us faithfully until our dying day. But heres a flash on a whisper. Even George is not as well behaved as he appears to be. True. Theres a bit of deviation even in him. Lets magnify things to see his waywardness at work. Lets remove George with his associated apparatus from the closet of his cabinet, attach a laser pointer to his foot and suspend him from a skyhook way up high. He must be feeling a little insecure right now, but not to worry, the outing will do him good. See, hes really getting into the swing of things, patrolling his territory, just like before. But if we all take our position on a hill below and watch the path of the betraying pointer, we will catch his deviance out. See! The pointer marks not a straight and narrow line, as we might expect it should, but wobbles and strays about, quite wantonly. Why, it looks more like a figure of eight than a straight line; only stretched out, long and lean like the wings of a dragonfly. And every circuit is traced a little differently, so much so that I believe those wings do flap. Lets stand there in the middle where its wings meet and turn up the speed dial a bit. Now it really flies! What a tryer, merrily flapping its little heart out.
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So George isnt so well behaved after all, is he? And one tick is not exactly like the next. But not to worry; after all, we did exaggerate to make our point: change our scale. And when George is back in his cabinet on the ground, it doesnt seem to be a concern at all, with good old loyal George looking very predictable and fit for purpose. But we know now that he isnt perfect, dont we? And if someone like George, a precision instrument of time, strays from the path, what hope is there for the rest of us? Yes, its a wobbly world, alright, full of uncertainty and doubt. Even exactness looks a little rough around the edges and rigidity fair flexes this way and that. And since its hard to know about all that stuff, what things are wobbling and how much, then what is in principle predictable, is in practice, not quite. Well thats a good start, I think. And having begun uncertainly, one wonders what well find next, as our own pendulum attains the vertical, in a twilight zone. But its just a sand pile, you protest. Ah but what sand, though; such nice rough grains, like the sands of time falling from the sky. And what a sand pile it aspires to be. Lets pause a while and watch it grow, moment by moment, grain by grain. Why it rises like a cone above the earth,
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increasing in steepness as it does. What finger is that, dropping each successive grain? Not a mortal one, not mine. But its fascinating to watch how each one tumbles uniquely from the top, ending up who knows where? I certainly dont. Or should that be, uncertainly dont? One settles on this side and one on that. One journeys but a little way and another actually reaches the ground. And what a wonderful slope is emerging, increasingly smooth and steep. But always rougher than you think if you venture up close. Yes, some bits are significantly steeper than others, Im sure. But ho! There goes a little avalanche, slicing a steep bit off. Serves it right, getting ahead of the rest. Yet still the cone climbs. Things are getting a little critical now, I think. They cant go on forever. Something big is going to happen for sure - but the question is: when? Thats the uncertain bit, alright. And then it happens! the greatest avalanche so far. How grand! And that, one suspects, is as steep as things can get. At least these particular things: these little grains of sand. And true enough, further avalanches prove us right. The base must widen if the cone is to gain in height. Steepness is now preserved, forever, if things go on. Thus does order come from anarchy, without a supervising hand, an order to wild things.
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Thats not all there is of interest here either. But to see that, we must now open our tour folders and look in the secret pocket. There it is. Yes, your complimentary certificate: Statistician for a Day. Congratulations! Now lets get down to it: statistics. Everyone pick an avalanche size, big, small, or in betweenish, as you prefer, and count the number of avalanches of that size as they happen, starting now. What fun! Good. Excellent, in fact. And very neat work, too. Ok, you can stop now and pass your sheets up to me here at the top of the pendulum and Ill summarise them in a table, so I get to do some statistics, too. There. Now what do we notice from this? Thats right! Theres a lot of little ones, a middling number of middle sized ones and hardly any big ones at all. In fact, if you do a bit more size counting, precisely grading avalanche sizes, youll find a very nice statistical relationship between the number of avalanches and their size, which actually turns out to be a bit of a Law: with algebra and everything! It puts a smile on an old statisticians face. Oh happy days! And the same thing goes for other kinds of avalanches, too. Like stock market corrections. And earth tremors. Neat. And, whats more, if we look at the texture of a sand piles surface, or
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a graph of stock market prices over time, or a map of geological fault lines, youll find something else thats neat: fractals. A fractal has the same kind of shape from a distance as it does up close real close. Well take a look at them another time as they can teach us something interesting and practical, too. So do you see what weve been up to here? Instead of looking at the bits of a system to predict the unpredictable, were starting to look at the whole thing, and are finding out general stuff, holistic stuff about a system with self organised criticality; or just good old soc for short. Like how some things such as the slope of a cone, when left to themselves, kind of work out in a particular way. In fact, others have found that if we try to intervene too much, we can even foul things up. Like trying to strictly enforce an economic plan from the top. Or lording it over people from a golden throne. Well, you can imagine that if interference is too inflexible then, in time, a really big avalanche might come along and sweep things away; things like an economy or a tyranny or something else that is out of sync with how the constituent elements are heading. Avalanches will have their way.

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And arent we clever, too? Looking at things holistically like that? But the uncertainty is still there isnt it? Only worse. For while we know what forces are determining the outcome, like the friction between our grains, and the speed, punch and location of their impact, its just asking too much of us to predict these kinds of events. The gap between principle and practicability has widened in the land of anarchy. But brace yourself, now, our pendulum is still swinging, carrying us onwards and upwards into the clouds. Feel that? Yes. Turbulence Thats weather for you. Talk about unpredictable. Even with super computers youre lucky if you can guesstimate far ahead. And back in 1961 a bloke called Lorenz didnt really have one of them. Yes, thats right, were talking about the late Professor Lorenz: a very famous guy. Well, he did have a computer, one of those new fangled digital ones, but I guess it struggled a bit because when he had to do another computer run, he decided to run it from halfway, rather than from the beginning, entering a halfway through result from before, to kick it off. That would save the computer some work and time. But instead of entering 0.506127, as he should have, he entered 0.506.
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Well that should be close enough Boy, was he wrong. The result was completely different! Ill bet he checked everything and more than once. But it came down to that: a shortcut that didnt work. And thats how meteorology bumped into deterministic chaos. Wow, it is getting rough! I suppose one of those butterflies must have flapped its wings at the wrong time somewhere. Or maybe it was our dragonfly. Thats the funny thing about chaos. If things are only a little bit different at the start you can end up with anything! Well, not quite anything. Actually, chaos has a habit of heading back towards where it once was, maybe not to a point so much as a path, like our dragonfly wings, swirling round and around a little like the last time things in the system went around wildly. Only our dragonfly was not very wild, was it? If we hadnt magnified things, George would have been on the straight and narrow, eh. But the path of a chaotic system will look very strange indeed. They call that path an attractor you know. How sensible. And it is a strange attractor in the world of chaos. But while there is some kind of order in the shape of this attractor, it isnt the same as, say, the emerging slope of our sand pile. See, unlike soc, a chaotic system is very sensitive to where
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you start. I mean, if sand piles were chaotic and you put a grain wrong, well, Im not sure that I even want to go there. Lets just say that you may not get a cone. Luckily things arent all as chaotic as that. However, a lot of the world is kind of fluid, isnt it? Dynamic and swirly. So I guess theres a fair bit of chaos about. Notwithstanding this, while things are even more uncertain here, they dont call it deterministic chaos for nothing. It is real causes making all this happen, not randomness. Things are pretty iffy, though, as there is complex stuff involved, like moving layers of gas with different temperatures mixing it up at the boundaries, waiting for an unsuspecting dragonfly. So dont expect too much from your local meteorologist. Especially if she takes shortcuts. But then, I suppose they still have to, as computers are never quite big enough, are they? And that concludes our tour for the day. Youd have to say, I think, that its a wonderful universe. Violent - but creatively so. Complex but so elegantly so. How exhausting. Im sure youre all well and truly ready for a cup of tea. I know I am. Hang on to your certificates, wont you? They look neat on the wall. And thanks for being so nice.
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A Day at the Fate

I think most of us have pondered the notion of destiny. Usually people take positions based on intuition or subjective experience. But what I'd like to do over the next couple of essays is take a closer look at what this notion of destiny actually implies, so we can be a bit more rational about our choice. And also because these implications are interesting in themselves. First, let's note that destiny appears to depend upon the principle that at least some events are actually caused by something i.e. that there is something called causality in the universe. That way, the future, including our lives, might at least be partially 'determined' by the past. Secondly, it assumes that not only are some things caused but that there is no such thing as pure randomness at all i.e. that nothing just happens out of the blue without 'cause'. I mean, if there was a bit of randomness about, there could be no necessary connection between the past and the future; there'd always bit a bit of uncaused noise. This notion of randomness is even less obvious than 'cause and effect' and a guy like Einstein had a really big blue with other
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physicists about it a long time ago; their descendants are still arguing. Finally, it assumes that human beings, at least, are not really free, that they don't have free-will. Because if they did, they could make decisions without any prior cause. We would be a source of original cause in the universe and defy the past. We come across this idea in many religious contexts as it holds us accountable for 'sin', and even in some non-religious philosophical contexts; you know, how we could be supermen if we got our act together. That sort of stuff. So this concept is interesting in its own right, too. But for now I'll stick to exploring the basic idea of cause and effect as that's enough for one sitting. Then, in the next couple of essays we'll cover randomness and free-will, making three bites of the cherry in all, and I hope its sweet. So, what really is this cause and effect thing? This is a very fundamental question, and although the answer might seem obvious, that's not good enough for philosophy, which likes to be sure of its ground before building on it; to sort out some first principles, as they say. Or at least, to see if we can.

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Now someone once said that the principle that every effect has a cause is intrinsically true but only because the meaning of the word "cause" implies "effect". That is, the truth in this principle is just a tautology. Think about it. I reckon that's right. So lets get away from semantic truths by cutting out the word "effect" altogether and just talking about causality itself. Now we can sensibly question whether at least some stuff has a cause or whether all the stuff in the universe just happens. For me, the idea of causality is really about connections. The fact that a ball is in one place in one instant is thought to be somehow connected to where it was and what it was doing in the previous instant, as well as to broader circumstances like air pressure etc. So in this view, causality means that things are connected over time. These connections could be in the three spatial dimensions we know and love, which is nice and traditional, or via some currently unknown dimension(s), either way is okay by the principle of causality. Well then, can we "prove" that such connections do exist? That's tough. See, philosophers and scientists are well aware that all scientific laws are really just based on repeated observations that line up, pointing our
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mind in a particular direction. We observe this, then we observe that, we associate the two and make up a law. Voila! I guess we could think of that as theorizing from correlations (Lets explore that word in a later essay as it is a cool idea). Anyway, there is actually a "chance" that a law is not only wrong and will be revised, but that all laws at any point in time are actually really grand misunderstandings; that they are just based on many coincidences. So let's start by accepting that very small possibility and imagine that everything everywhere is really completely unconnected. Oh oh, Im beginning to come apart here. Hang on a sec. Thats better. Now, if everything is unconnected, then what we perceive as causality would just be an illusion. There would be no real force of gravity, for example, it would simply be that the stuff that we call matter just happens to get closer to other matter by coincidence, up till now, that is. Who knows what it might do tomorrow? I've thought about this off and on over the years and it seems to me that this view is like seeing the universe as a movie. It looks like all the action is connected but, really, each frame is separate and the connection we suppose between
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them is merely an illusion created by the projector, a moving magic lantern. But then, even in this very extreme model of the universe, I wonder if we really have got rid of causality after all, or whether there is still a bit stuck in the corner somewhere that we can't get out? And you know, I think there is. Let's look at that projector, with the light and the moving reel making the story go by. Isn't the illusion itself caused by that? Okay, the cause here is not quite the same as all the causes we thought were in the illusion of the movie, the car chase, the seduction, the triumph of good over evil; and we may well feel cheated by the illusion this simple causality created. But it's still a cause even if it's the cause of an illusion, and that is all the principle of causality needs. So, even if the universe is made up of ideas in our head(s), there would still be a projector in our mind(s) causing the dreaming that we call real. Causality lives. Yay! Im not sure if this amounts to an absolute proof, though; Im still thinking about whether an illusion can still be a coincidence. You know, whether the projector and the reel moving could be coincidentally related to the movie display. But I do think its a comfort. An illusion does
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still seem to me to require at least mental causality, which I have trouble getting rid of. You know, you try, you fail, you have another glass of red. And if we have such difficulty eliminating the phenomenon of causality altogether by means of this fairly extreme example, maybe we should just embrace it. After all, we cant really make sense of anything without it; so we couldnt develop effective medicines, grow food, and educate kids. And where would we be without breakfast? Struth! So Im going to accept it on profoundly practical grounds and move on. Besides, if moments are sequenced like frozen frames in a movie and there is no causality to link them even through a projector, there would still be an inevitability even if it isnt what we think of as destiny - for everything though not determined would still be captive, like scenes in a great tapestry of time and space. So we dont get far along the freedom trail by hypothesizing that. But as I hinted earlier in this post, I think we need to take a good look at randomness and freewill before believing in destiny. So its get out the dice and let the gaming begin!

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The Dice Man Rolleth

Perhaps you've heard of the story of a guy who uses dice to determine decisions letting chance decide his future? Actually, I confess that I haven't read it yet but it seemed like a good way into a post on "chance" so I just thought I'd shamelessly exploit that idea. So what does randomness really mean? Well, like many words it can mean various things. I think that when a lot of people say some incident was random they just mean that there were a whole lot of seemingly unrelated and unknown complicated causes behind it. No controversy there in my view, although we will look at that a bit more later. But there is a strict sense of randomness that is more bizarre, the idea that something happens without any cause at all. In this sense, randomness is actually a complete breakdown of causality in the universe. And that's what this essay is about. Is anything really "random", then? Does stuff really just happen?

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If there is, determinism (and fate), the theory that everything is inevitable because of the principle that everything has a cause, would be thoroughly undermined, as some things would just happen without any cause at all. Causality might still operate somewhere but not everywhere, and that bit of randomness would disrupt destiny. Let's return to thinking about the forces involved in the throw of a die. Now at the outset, I would agree that a die throw may well produce an outcome that we cannot in practice predict precisely, because we do not know the interplay of the various forces that will determine that outcome: forces relating to the nature of the throw; the die; the movement of air; physical laws including gravity; and information about the surface upon which the die lands. But while I would concede that these forces are complex, each linked by successive prior causes to the beginning of time, they are still causes arent they? And if we understood them perfectly, presumably we could in fact predict the outcome and actually become the one who broke the bank at Monte Carlo? And similarly, if we replicated the throw exactly, the result would be the same, too.

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Many events that we think of as random seem to fall into this category, which is that first noncontroversial meaning of randomness we encountered earlier. See, I told you we would look at it a bit more. Even the forces that reach into and, indeed, that have formed the very mind of the thrower, though much more complex, might, if one does not believe in free-will, rationally explain the decision of the Dice Man to submit to the cube of destiny. His cast, in this view, was always going to be made and made in that way because of the combined influence of all these internal forces in his brain, mixing in the mist of his mind, forming his personality, hopes and, I expect, level of frustration. But lets leave the complex question of free-will to another essay and work in the assumed 'external' world for the time being. For now, let's accept then that for many events we don't need a mystery called randomness to account for outcomes and can rely, instead, on plain old complexity to explain unpredictability. So, in these cases at least, the mathematics of chance referred to by that beautifully rounded word: probability, would merely describe mortal ignorance of an outcome prior to the event. In which case, probability theory becomes merely a
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tool to help us quantify our expectations of outcomes relating to natural events such as lightning, that toss us about indifferently like dice on a tabletop. But there still remain some events at the limits of science which warrant more reflection. Could they, perhaps, lend deeper meaning to the mathematics of probability? At this point in the analysis of chance we need to distinguish between determinism the philosophical theory that everything is subject to causal law and determinacy a mathematical term relating to the feasibility of finding a solution to a problem from information available to us. They are certainly related terms but they are not equivalent. We should be wary, for example, of thinking that a necessary position of ignorance in the universe because of indeterminacy means that outcomes are not determined by underlying causes. Now let's see if some causes might not only be unknowable but also non-existent. Recall first our tour of fragile systems in an earlier essay Clockwork to Chaos. For example, when we add grains of sand to a pile we cannot be sure about when, precisely, a landslide will occur and so speak in terms of probability. That
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is the indeterminacy bit. However, we can see the increasing fragility of the system as the slope steepens, and sense the tension as a climax approaches. We know that if we continue to add grains to the pile a landslide will occur, in time. That is the determinism bit. Fragility, you see, isn't a truly random phenomenon. It's another example of a complex unpredictable one. Okay, well let's move onto a real chaotic, rather than fragile, phenomenon. Unlike fragile systems, chaotic ones are very sensitive to starting conditions. In the fragile system of a sand pile, it doesn't matter much where we drop the first grain of sand, eventually the sand pile will tend to form a certain slope. But with something as chaotic as the weather, starting conditions are critical. So a butterfly in the Amazon could, indeed, cause a storm over London. But these indeterminate chaotic systems are also deterministic in nature. Meteorologists don't stop studying or modeling the weather because the math is complex and the outcomes imprecise. They use more processing power and more information to improve their models. They know that the numbers and functions are such that they will never be perfect but we and they know that they are on the right track because weather is not
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truly random. Weather is the result of forces present in the universe. So chaotic systems don't seem to be truly random either. They are determined by forces whose outcome can be weird but even the butterfly effect was considered to be a phenomenon of "deterministic chaos" by its discoverer. Well, weve covered quite a bit of ground in search of our random prey without success. But theres another challenge to determinism at the tiny end of the natural world, where probability statements are used to describe subatomic events which are, well, more problematic. So do things 'just happen' on the atomic scale of the universe; do very small things happen without prior cause? Consider, in this context, what is known as the complementarity principle, of which Heisenberg's famous principle of indeterminacy is one instance. Basically, this says that experiments at the atomic level destroy the possibility of learning about some related aspects of the system being studied. That is, merely trying to observe something changes things. Consequently, we can't know everything about the event being studied. We can only talk about their probability. Now really, this
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principle is not saying that those outcomes are not determined. Rather it points to further cause and effect relationships in the universe that frustrate our attempts at observing them. However, while, for this reason, it would seem that we inquiring humans are even more limited than we had thought we were, surely we cannot pin our claim to randomness on principles such as this? I mean, the principle is actually saying that we can't work something out because of the existence of cause and effect; because observation alters outcomes. So that's not really random, is it? It's really an irony of causality. Einstein and others went to a lot of trouble to expose the difference between determinacy and determinism, to convince physicists working with probability that it was just about ignorance not true randomness. God does not play dice, he said. I understand that he also believed that one day physics would be sufficiently developed to have a full causal explanation of the universe. Now this is a more controversial issue and I'm not at all confident about that particular prediction, but I do agree that there is no reason to invent some new mystical quality called randomness when causality, which we still need, and ignorance, which is never in short supply, will do. Why assume more than you have to?
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Oh dear, how mundane. Does this non-random determinism mean that all the mystery and wonder of the universe is forever banished by the 'cool light of reason'? I don't think so. In my younger days I remember being impressed by the mysterious swirling patterns of yellow and orange in a rock cutting by the roadside. Then when someone who better understood geology explained to me how they originated, I expressed disappointment at lost wonder. My educator, however, corrected me. How much more amazing were the great and long forces that shaped and coloured that swirling stone...

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Freedoms Just Another Word

If events are destined, there can be no true randomness, and thats okay by me. At least, thats the conclusion of the previous essay about the Dice Man. But there remains yet another threat to inevitability and destiny: free-will. Because if we are fundamentally free to make decisions then we are a source of causality which is not the effect of prior causes in the universe. That is, we would, ourselves, be original causes. Wow! Of course, that may be true of God, but in this post, I'm only concerned with whether it is true of mortals like us. So let's then ask: are we capable of being an original cause of events in the universe? Are we, and perhaps some other intelligent animals, loose cannons on the deck of determinism? To address this question, let's employ a thought experiment. Let's imagine that someone is replicated, atom by atom, and then that both the original and the indistinguishable replica are confronted with a choice.

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Now at the instant of creation both entities would have the same brain (same knowledge, same tastes, same values and desires etc). So if they were then confronted by the same "choice", would they not make the same decision? I think so. Imagine yourself in this position (being an original and replica). Say you are both asked to make a selection from a breakfast menu at the instant of your replica's creation. Do we really suppose that the two brains would differ in their choice? If not, then they, and we, would not really appear to be free. For our decisions would depend on our material form, the same form creating the same minds which would make the same decisions. In this example we employed an arbitrary choice relating to a breakfast menu. But the example could have been about anything. So the conclusion of the experiment holds for all decisions; it says something about decision making generally. What it is saying is that our form, and the circumstances we find ourselves in, determine our decisions. And as our form is, like our circumstances, derived from prior causes, (e.g. genetics and experience) we cannot really be free agents.

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We are motivated to act by what meets our needs and appeals to our values. Freedom is illusory, our decision to act or not to act is really just one type of inevitable thought. And even if we have a soul, provided that it, too, arises from our natures as a property of our mind then, it, too, as the above thought experiment reveals, exists only in the great web of cause and effect that shapes the brain and hence our mind. If the soul is in some sense separate from us, that might be different. But I have reasons for thinking that is not the case, which I will outline in another essay. For now, let me just say that I can't see such a soul making any decisions when the brain no longer functions, and the more impaired the brain, the more difficult will effective decision making be (depending on what kind of impairment it, alas, suffers). Not surprisingly, this is also consistent with the findings of science. While free-will may be a religious concept, it is not immune to rational inquiry or review and so can be examined scientifically. It is a hypothesis about human decision making and, therefore, is not immune to science based conclusions. And the weight of scientific evidence, whether derived from the study of the individual in
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psychology, or neuroscience, or from broader mass observations in social sciences such as sociology, (e.g. predictors of crime, suicide etc), is that human behaviour, like other animal behaviour, can be understood without reference to mystical concepts. Yes, it is complex, but it is not mystical. Some people have attributed free-will to this complexity. But the view that the complexity of the human brain is such that it has somehow attained a free state, seems neither empirically justified (i.e. by observations from psychology, sociology etc) nor entailed as a logical necessity. It seems to be merely an assertion intended to justify an ancient myth. And if we were free because of the human brain's complexity, then it would seem that we could actually synthesize free-will by, in the future, making an equally complex computer, which would presumably be considered a perverse corollary by free-will proponents. There are a finite number of connections in the human brain. The number of connections between switches in computers, though much less than the human brain at the moment, is growing exponentially. One day, computers will likely be as complex as the human brain and will satisfy biological tests of self awareness
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(remember that we have already taught computers how to learn and that they are on par with humans in the complex game of chess something widely considered impossible 10 years ago because computers were not thought to be "creative"). But fear not, such complexity will not make computers free either. Humans, other life forms, artificially intelligent machines, are all, like the rest of the universe, driven by cause and effect. Now I don't think that our lack of real freedom is something to worry about. We still go on living, learning and fulfilling the promise that is in us. Moreover, I think that an awareness of our limitations actually helps us to better understand ourselves and others. There seem to me to be two key points to bear in mind about cause and effect as it applies to us: 1. Everyone is governed by cause and effect but the wise are advised by it. - A knowledge of inevitability should not make us indifferent to outcomes. Far from it. Because outcomes are determined, we may learn to our profit.

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2. Though everything in life be inevitable, inevitably, the lazy athlete did not win. - Free-will is not something that we need to invent to save ourselves from sloth (or 'fatalism'). Will is a force, even if not free. And our will should be guided by a knowledge of the power of cause and effect (gained, like other knowledge, inevitably). And the bottom line? Well, a moral of the story seems to be that there but for the Grace of God go we. You may have heard that one before

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The Shape of Destiny

Have you ever seen that famous 50's motorcycle film, The Wild Ones, starring Marlon Brando? It's about a lot of things but mostly about Johnny, a real rebel without a cause
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Mildred: What're you rebelling against, Johnny? Johnny: Whaddya got? To be honest, what I probably like most about the film is all those old British bikes roaring around the place. I had one when I was a kid but it only lasted a week. It was a technical problem. Its rider was an idiot. So the psychological side of the film is of interest to me, too. See, Johnny and his gang stand out as being different against the nice normal world of a country town. Not that the townies were all the same, either. In fact, everyone in the film is different when the lens gets in close; but some people, like Johnny, are just a bit more different than most. That's psychology for you. Perhaps you've heard that there's a curve that frequently crops up in psychology studies called the bell curve, which often successfully describes the pattern, or spread, of our human differences. There's a pic of one at the top of this essay. The bell curve describes the fact that research often reveals that most people fall within a narrow spread in the centre and then others who differ get progressively rarer the further away from the centre you get until, at the extremes, the odds of

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finding someone that different are very slim indeed. Lurking behind the bell curve is actually some pretty fancy mathematics called the normal distribution. So when I say most people are near the centre, it turns out that 2 out of 3 people under a bell curve are within one "average" difference from the centre, that about 19 in 20 are within 2 average differences, and that about 99 in a 100 are within 3 average differences. I'd say that Johnny was past 3 somewhere in terms of his behaviour in the film. Or, at least, he'd like to be. This bell curve is not always found exactly but it is there at least 'approximately' in heaps of psychological findings, from the controversial IQ test, to studies of job satisfaction. Youll find the curve elsewhere in nature too but psychology is a big one. So why is that? Well maybe this statistical difference in humans arises because people have free-will, some freely choosing to go one way while others freely choose to go another? But if so, why would this lead to our neat bell curve with its precise mathematical spread? Is there, perhaps, a less mysterious explanation of differences that can also give us the observed statistical result?
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Well, I'm not going to keep you in the dark. The answer is yes, because it's really just about the mathematics of numerous independent 'random' influences on an outcome, like IQ. Now when I use the word random, I don't mean to suggest that there is some strange force called randomness out there as we don't need that mystery either. I just mean that when, say, we toss a coin, a lot of things are happening concerning the shape of the coin, the toss, gravity, the air, and the surface it lands on, which mean it's nearly impossible for us mortals to know where it will land, except 'on average'. And that's what the normal distribution is saying, too. Freud once remarked that anatomy is destiny. He was talking about gender and he had a point. Testosterone has a lot to answer for. But, as I'm sure he knew, you need to consider other issues involving the brain as well, including its experiences throughout life, which modern psychology does. How has genetics structured someone's brain? What is in its memory? What did its owner have for lunch? What drugs or toxins has it been exposed too? Stuff like that. There are many psychological variables behind a person's decision, or attitude, or abilities, and these, of course, vary between people, leading to
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probability distributions which often turn out to be instances of the faithful bell curve. Let's make one of our own just to check. Now we could think of the process of random influences affecting a human mind as being like the act of tossing up a bunch of coins and counting the number of heads that result. Each coin in the bunch is like one variable in the mind and the outcome of that mind for a hypothetical person is like looking at the number of heads that result from the toss. Get the picture? If another mind tosses those coins the results will likely be different, but the outcomes of both tosses will be influenced by the nature of the coin so there will be some pattern to the collective result; you know, a sort of average or typical result. If, for example, a coin is fairly evenly balanced, then about half the coins will tend to come up heads - but not necessarily in any particular toss. But if heaps of people tossed lots of coins and you looked at the results, plotting them on a graph, you'd tend to get a bell curve. Youd get a bell curve if the coin wasnt evenly balanced, too, except the average number of heads would be different. I know this because it's a mathematical law, like 1+1=2. And, unlike scientific laws which might be revised or abandoned, this law will always be
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true because you can derive it by logic rather than observation. But let's try out our random model of the brain and see if it's really true that it will result in the neat bell curve so often found by psychology. Actually, I've done it for you. Yep, I tossed up 8 coins and counted the number of heads that came up (remember there can be 9 outcomes ranging from zero heads to eight heads). Then I did it again, to see how another person's mental process might come up, and then again, until I had tossed up the outcomes for 60 brains. Whew! It was kind of fun, though, wondering if, say, after 7 heads, the last one would be a head, too. Cheap thrills. Or watching how the coins landed, including the odd wild one that made a run for it under a nearby chair. "Come back, Johnny! We miss you, mate!" Then I graphed the results in the second pic pasted above. If you look at it, you can see that we have the symmetry of the bell curve appearing, with an average of between 3 and 4 heads per toss. That leads one to suspect that the coin is not perfectly even in mass distribution and/or air resistance so it's biased a little towards tails. Maybe that's because coins get stamped with a different design on each side. Or this

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apparent bias might just mean that I need to do some more tosses. Actually, I really should do more as extreme values like 8 heads would not be due until a couple of hundred more throws; but I think you get the idea. It would also help if we toss more than 8 coins each time. My guestimate, given the apparent odds of this experiment, is that tossing up around 12 coins or more would give a nice normal curve approximation, even if the coin is biased a bit towards tails, in time. Try it! And why do we get this bell shape? Because there are not many ways to get extreme values and a lot of ways to get middle values. To get 8 heads, for example, every coin must fall as a head. But to get four heads, only four, any four, have to. Okay? Easy peasy. The main thing to understand is that we don't need exotic explanations for our different behaviours because a humdrum one works just fine. It's just about the cumulative effect of differences in various causes determining outcomes in our unique little brains. That's all we need to explain the phenomenon of observed differences in human behaviour, and to account for the elegant bell curve.

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They say the Greeks used to speak of three sisters who determine out fate: Klotho who spins the thread of life; Lakhesis who determines the length of the thread, and Atropos who cuts the thread when the time has come for us to die. Personally, I'm a monotheistic kind of guy, but if we were to use a little colourful mythology to explain fate, I'd suggest the inclusion of a fourth sister, Randomnos, smiling in the shadows, as she plays with a handful of coins. And may she be kind to you.

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The Force
Its very important to have a sense of control over ones life, isnt it? And when people feel that theyve lost that control, things can go badly, for them and for others. They may become demoralised and give up. Or they may attempt to regain that sense of control inappropriately, perhaps violently. So we may see abuse within the home, or aggressive gangs in our streets. The same is also true of nations because we ordinary flawed people are their living substance. Think back to Germany after WW 1: defeated, disenchanted, its economy exhausted and then burdened by war debts imposed by victor nations. So, naturally, its people yearned to re-establish control and, donning impressive uniforms, their leaders goose-stepped over others at home and abroad. Enter WW2. Yes, Germany lost again. But this time, at least in the West, the victors had learnt a lesson. Instead of punishing it, they poured money into reconstruction. And, in time, West Germans began to regain their sense of control in a more

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appropriate and positive way. Full credit to the USA for that initiative. Of course, sometimes the struggle to regain control can be beneficial, as when an exploited colony gains or re-gains its independence. Or a maturing adolescent gets a parents trust. But often things go wrong. So what is really behind this notion of control, then? What does it really mean below the surface? Well, to me it is best viewed in terms of the route taken by causality as it wends through the world. And what matters in relation to the issue were discussing is whether we consider that we are an active part of that route in relation to our aspirations, or whether we feel that were just being kicked around by the rest in some sort of uncaring or sadistic game. Lets look at this causality thing a little more closely. Philosophers have known for a few thousand years now that causality is really a long continuous chain and that when we speak of causes we need to be clear about how far back we mean to go. Take a marble sculpture, they say. What caused it? Was it the chisel acting on marble, the hands behind that tool, or the mind behind the hands, itself shaped by prior causes, by the past. And so on until the beginning of time.
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This sense of personal control seems to me to be mainly about those later links in the chain. The connections between the aspiring or needing mind, the hand, the chisel and the marble. Take away the marble, take away the chisel, or bind the hands and the sculptor has lost that control. Not happy. So personal control is not really about freedom in an intrinsic sense. For the artist has been shaped, too. Everything in that chain (or more properly in that web since causality connects both laterally and longitudinally) is in the grip of cause and effect. But it is about whether and to what extent causality is passing through us, linking aspiration to end. It is the passage of this causality which thrills the artist in the process of work and which subsequently leads to pride in the result of that work. You see what I mean? Now lets apply our cause and effect way of thinking about control on a bigger scale, like we did before. Gaza. Here we have a territory peopled by the families of the dispossessed. They can see their homeland beyond their border but now it is occupied by others. And that border itself is ruthlessly controlled by an outsider, who also separates Gaza from its sibling, the diminished and walled West Bank. Consequently, Gazas tiny enclosed economy
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survives largely on handouts, on foreign aid that this outsider may not even let through. To what extent can people in these circumstances feel that they have control? Not much. So they try to regain it. They dig tunnels, fire rockets at their former homes, and vote for Hamas. But the outsider reacts negatively, destructively, further diminishing the Palestinians sense of control. And other nations nearby look on with distress, and anger. How could they not? Lets look now at the outsider we mentioned, a nation that comprises a people who once also had no control. Remember those goose-steps we talked about? The outsiders can still hear them. They so fill the ears of many that they cannot hear the cries of those over whom they themselves now brutally exert control. Further, this illness, stemming from the trauma of the past, has been indulged and armed, rather than corrected and calmed, by a strong friend on the other side of the globe, a nation which ought to know better. Apparently these bombs constitute foreign aid. And things are not looking good in the hood. The weapons are getting bigger and violence is spreading across the desert. The path of causality needs to get back on track. In Gaza. In
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Palestine. In the Middle East. It needs to pass through, not around, the dispossessed and uncompensated people of Palestine. That much seems clear. There are, of course, doves, as well as hawks, throughout the region. There are on both sides of every conflict. And these doves are important for two reasons. Firstly, they help to moderate aggression to at least some extent during the dark periods. In political causality, public opinion counts. And secondly, they provide the seed from which a just peace may one day grow. So there we have it: control and the path of causality. Important for individuals, for peoples like marginalised indigenous populations, important for nations, and important for the future of the world. Its a big issue. And may the force be through you, serving the good.

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The Gloved Finger

When I was a still a young tyro at uni trying to make sense of geography, our lecturer asked us to reflect on the difference between the scope of his subject and that of his colleagues in the history department. To kick things off, he presented a classical view that history was concerned with knowledge of the past (i.e. over time) and that geography was concerned with the present (i.e. across space). Well, that sounds fine and helpful but, like a lot of obvious ideas, you soon run into trouble applying it because the principle of cause and effect, that gloved finger which glides us unseen between one state and another, operates over space and time together. Its multi-dimensional, like us. Consequently, it isnt really possible to understand anything in the present without looking at the past, too. For example, an economic geographer looking at the structure of a city, you know, analysing where people buy, live, work and so on, really needs to understand the history of that city, too. Oh, so thats why all these warehouses were put here, this land was pretty cheap back then. Well,
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we can expect a few changes now. And, similarly, a physical geographer needs to go way back in time to understand, say, the reasons for the shape of any landscape. Geomorphology: something to get the tongue around. Anyway, the same goes for people. Behaviour is reallly complex, with three ells. Gone are the days when we could simply point the finger at someone and say you did that by free choice, baby, and fully deserve whats coming to you. Ha! No, we left that age of simple innocence and guilt behind us when people starting arguing about nature or nurture. The disjunction or here, unites two causes, and free-will isnt one of them. Now we have to understand things, how they interrelate over space and how things change over time. These days we know that genetics and experience both play a part in how people act and scientists are taking a close look at both, sometimes using what they call longitudinal studies. Thus one might study a group of people over a period of time, noting both their physical characteristics (read genetic code nowadays) and the way and time that they get moved around by that gloved finger, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively and usually a bit of both. Sort of like combining human geography and
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history: taking measurements about different things at various points in time. Neat. Of course, the researchers doing this work dont know everything, but they do find out some important stuff about the people studied, like childhood abuse, criminal histories and so on, perhaps looking for links between these events. So I was very interested to read in New Scientist of criminological research based on longitudinal studies, particularly of one in New Zealand: a terrific country for geomorphology, by the way, with volcanoes and everything. Theres nothing like the smell of sulphur in the morning. Rotorua. Anyway, they were looking at criminal behaviour, which (in the US and UK at least) tends to peak at around 18 years of age for boys and at 14 years for girls, and discovered that you could break these teenage criminals into two groups: (i) Those who basically got mixed up with a bad bunch and tended to grew out of crime in their early twenties; and Those whose anti-social behaviour began at an early age and persisted. This group had biological predispositions to violence which could be identified from

(ii)

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various traits in infancy. Chemical analysis revealed that, for these people, the part of the brain involved in fight or flight response was more active than normal and was subject to less regulation by another part of the brain. So, in the NZ study, while these males account for around 10 percent of males in the population, they accounted for half of violent convictions. And heres an important bit, while their biological predisposition explained some of this criminal behaviour, it was those kids in this group who also experienced abuse and neglect who were much more likely to be convicted of violent offences. I guess its a bit like activating a potential. According to New Scientist, another study in the US identified a subgroup of kids in this early onset group who do not react emotionally at all, sort of the opposite problem, and who score highly in psychopathic tests. It seems that these kids underestimate risk and cant appreciate how it feels for others to suffer. Typically they are risk takers who feel little empathy or guilt. Interestingly, they dont respond much to punishment but do respond to reward. Genetics
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were a much more important factor in this group. The problem here is that without emotional processing you dont properly learn to avoid risk or to feel for others. You want something, you take it. So it looks like were not only a little wiser now but that there are also a few things we could do to make things better for both violent victims and for the victims of their violence. Ive also read of other studies that link trends in atmospheric lead pollution in the west to crime rates (including recent declines). Lead pollution affects the development of our brains. Okay, so criminal behaviour is big ticket item stuff. But the general lessons of causality apply to behaviour at all levels. The gloved finger is always there; when a parent makes a good or bad decision or when you have something surprisingly disagreeable for breakfast. Of course, we are evolved creatures, too, and part of our evolved character is social. But there are limits to our social inclinations. Hence one sees a tendency to support ones own tribe, in contest rather than cooperation with other tribes, especially in times of scarcity or heightened anxiety (making us prone to manipulation by authority through the press).
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Anyway, I look forward to the cricket in summer and make no apology for that. And the bottom line? Well, I guess we should remember that were all part of that real world wide web. Takers, and makers, too. Blame and praise are overrated responses that are empty as far as truth is concerned but which are loaded with emotion. Problems have causes, and we have to be practical about what we do both before they arise and when, alas, damage has been done. Yes, blame and praise can have practical value when used sensibly but lets try to keep an eye on that. More generally, we should also keep a lookout for the many and varied causes affecting ourselves and others. If we understand ourselves, we understand something about others. If we understand others, we understand something about ourselves.

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Rosebud
Lately Ive been trying to recall my earliest childhood memory, which isnt an easy exercise. And even when we think weve found it we cant really be sure because one day some emotion loaded event may trigger the release of another memory that pre-dates it. I think my earliest memory is about being in an isolation ward in a childrens hospital. That may sound sad but actually it was okay in there. And thats partly because of the nurses and partly because my parents had given me this toy. It wasnt just any toy. It was like the toy of toys: a bright red fire-engine made of real tin, with a ladder and tin firemen on the back. And if you got the wheels turning and put it down it went off by itself, under things and into things. Crash! The sad bit came when the time came to leave they wouldnt let me take my fire-engine home. I guess they thought it was an infection risk. Then, many years later, I saw that famous Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane, about the media magnate who had everything but the thing he wanted most. Mysteriously to others, his dying word was Rosebud, which turned out to be a reference to a snow sled he had as a kid; a
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reference to happier days, and perhaps a reference to lost love as well. Im glad I didnt give my fire-engine a name. I do wonder if fireengine deprivation has something to do with my interest in motorcycles, though little tin things that have wheels and go by themselves? I play a bit of guitar sometimes, not well I should add, just picking out melodies by ear. I sure wish I could play more like Jimi Hendrix, though. I like a lot about what he does including the way he uses lingering notes. You can do it electronically but how long a note lingers is influenced by the guitar and the players fingers, too, working together to sustain the vibrations that yield the longing note. Were like vibrating strings, I think. Lots of strings. Like on a really big guitar. And when an experience sets one of our strings in motion the note can play on and on, for a lifetime. Sustain is a really big deal for people, and for other animals as well, because of our highly developed faculty called memory. Even memories we dont know about are vibrating our souls. And changing us. One of the big vibe sources is, of course, other people. We generally dont much appreciate the sustained influence we have on others, and we vary in the extent to which we do. Im not very good at noticing it - but Im a bit better at it now
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than when I was young, so you can appreciate how clueless I was. We people just tend to think of these events as passing discretely by, dont we? The now and the gone. And if we didnt think like that wed behave differently and not always for the better. If we wish evil we might be encouraged by contemplating how much evil we could in fact do. And those at the caring end of the scale might grow shy through heightened sensitivity, which could make things worse all round. No, you dont want overload. Theres a lot to be said for not being too sensitive a dentist. But for most of us, I think, a little more appreciation of sustain would make for better music. And that, in turn, would make for a better world. Take it away, Jimi

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Opposites Attract
I think that often opposites do attract. The interesting thing to me, however, is not this phenomenon itself but rather what happens when they do. There is this philosophical idea, for example, that if someone puts forward one idea, and someone responds with an opposing idea, then by synthesising these opposites we can ascend to some better or higher truth. It has a fancy name: dialectics. Like when someone hanging around a coffee machine says something interesting and the next thing you know someone responds from a different angle. The first comment attracted a response and then everyone had two perspectives to consider; and often theres enough truth in each of them to make something new. So theres some common truth and new truth. It doesnt have to be just two people, of course; the more the merrier, up to a point. And people thinking about the course and future trend of history see applications of this synthesis of opposites in social transformations, too. That is, dialectics applies both to ideas and to human actions. Some have argued that each social form
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contains the reasons for its own destruction and replacement when the seasons change. The key thing here again is ideas. When ideas match the circumstances of the times, things might be expected to be stable but as some circumstances change then new ideas may emerge leading to change in the structure of society; the way feudalism was replaced by something more democratic, for example, as people became frustrated with its inability to deal with an emerging world with new ideas, needs, and, significantly, new classes with greater economic power but little political say. The dialectic between these opposing positions, old and new, resulted in revolutionary change. Ask Louis XVI So this dialectic thing is not only an engine of the creative process but is fundamental to radical social change. Its not like balancing opposites, which is perhaps more Asian, interacting Yin and Yang aspects of the whole, but rather about synthesising opposites into a new form entirely; making a new landscape of ideas or people. Both the Western and Asian concepts of interacting opposites are dynamic in that they can both model changes, but the Western one seems to me to be more revolutionary. Its more step like. I expect that both models have some truth in

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them, though, and might even be synthesised themselves in some interesting way. Hmmm A good thing about democracies is that they provide the dialectic with opportunities to express itself peacefully. Its not generally a good idea to resist the attraction of opposites as that energy tends to build up, so pretty soon you might have a bit more revolution than youd prefer to deal with. Things can kind of get out of hand. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the government of men!" exclaimed Danton, in the shadow of Madame Guillotine. Often the result of a dialectic process is good, producing something better suited to the times, and thats why people make it happen. But it may not always be good. Think Stalin. Actually, I read an interesting anecdote about him recently. It seems that sometimes Stalin would criticise opponents for not considering the dialectic. One day, when someone asked him what dialectic he was referring to, he opened his draw and withdrew a pistol. Comrades, he said, this is the dialectic. I dont know if that story is true but its certainly credible. Anyway, such perverse outcomes are usually associated with an uneven distribution of power coupled with ignorance (hence tyrants attempt to control the press). And when one side has too
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much power, you might get another dialectical response further down the track as opposition to the abuse and inefficiency of that power gathers momentum. We see this dialectic synthesis in religion, too, as religion is also about ideas and people. Thus one might ask whether the protestant reformation, which created new churches and gradually reformed the old one, was a liberal response to the then reactionary and hierarchical Roman Catholic order? Was the past standing in the way of the future? Ask Galileo Religious views in the West are pretty much in transition now, as I see it. A tour of profiles on a social networking site, for example, will reveal that theres a lot of religious scepticism and alternative thinking about. And what, I wonder, will become of that? One thing is certain, change will happen and is happening because the world itself is not standing still. Change, as they say, is the only constant. And history confirms that religion is not exempt from that. I expect there will be variety, too, because people vary, are imaginative and are less inclined these days to adopt a common past. Hopefully, this variety will be accompanied by
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tolerance, as well - not the kind of tolerance that stifles debate but the kind that fosters peaceful dialectic. That way, opposites will be free to attract and create new futures, and we who are old can safely bemoan the new. Free dialectics between equals. It doesnt get much better than that.

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Like is Drawn to Like

So what do we mean here by like? Well, have you ever been in a relationship where each person frequently finds fault with the other? Where youre attracted to someone but are somehow so opposite that you each dont think you are being understood? Actually, though, to some extent, you probably are. But some of the mutual criticism is also unfair because the problem is partly in the seeing, too. I experienced that when I was young and it was like being in some sort of self improvement program; in some ways helpful but, ultimately, very wearing. And, in time, to repeatedly judge a friend is to lose one. But moving a bit closer to the other end of the scale, if you have the chance to get together with someone who not only has the right chemistry but is a bit like minded, you could be in for a sweet thing, baby; especially if your self improvement is more under control. For then youll have a partner you can create with and grow old with, too. Excellent! Thats the kind of like I mean. Not alike physically, or even in terms of personality, but
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rather somewhat alike in perception, values, or likeness of purpose (and you will probably share some of that with each other in time; if you raise a family, for example). Too much of anything can be a problem, of course, so you dont want to be too alike. We can get complacent or go wrong without the dynamic of opposites. In the world of ideas and human events, we sometimes need shaking up; we need the energy of opposites. But theres a time for cooperation, too. One new artist opposing the past is a radical, but two similarly minded radicals, thinking similarly of the future, have the makings of a movement. Now youre talking. Opposites and likeness combined. Recently, for example, I strolled through our national portrait gallery, where one can compare early colonial portraiture with modern works. There was the old stuff, realistic in a dark, very posed and classic kind of way, and later there was this shift to impressionistic and expressionistic works. Wow! Colour and feeling - bringing a new vibrancy and depth of truth to them. And this vibrant approach is still going on in art today because it still works and because it provides a lot of scope for artists to really get into things. Ol!

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I guess that some people happen to pioneer, being right minded in the right time and at the right place, and that others then get the idea and use it to assist them to make their own creative contribution. And so off the world goes. Or rather, off goes one aspect of the world, more in tune with and inspiring other aspects of it. Art, science, philosophy, religion, politics, linked in one great changing landscape, with volcanic peaks, fertile plains and, yes, some deserts, too. We better get on to them, both the metaphorical and the real ones out there. So we need both opposition and likeness to have a really good show and to also have another good show later on in the cycle of Yin and Yang that makes our time, from history to future, a creative whole. Its all creative, the fiery opposites and the warming likeness. Just different phases of the one great tapestry. I guess people have their own preference for participation, though, and may even change sides over time. But hopefully we can see the merits of both, because thats kind of cool. So keep your eyes peeled, my friends, for you never know when a dance of opposites will catch on next, swirling with colour and excitement, as others are drawn in to the ball.

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Will you, wont you, will you, wont you, will you join the dance? Will you, wont you, will you, wont you, wont you join the dance? - Lewis Carroll

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The Dance of the Spheres: Spotting Causality

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As I watch the dancers gliding under the glitter of the revolving mirrored sphere, I wonder about the couples entwined together. How much does each partner really affect the other? How strongly are they involved in the relationship of the dance? Lets look at Ricardo and Angelina, for example, and note their individual scores as awarded by two impartial judges. Lets see if their personal bests and worsts are intimately linked in this nightly ballroom adventure. Can we sensibly score the performance of one independently of the performance of the other? Can we assume that their individual maximum of twenty points, 10 from each judge, is really due only to them and not to the contribution of their respective partner to the person rather than to the relationship of the dance? Nine nights of dancing contribute to our study; nine observations of each of their scores. Lets graph them and see how their paired scores also dance around. There. Each point on our graph reveals Angelinas and Ricardos score on a particular night. The nights are not in calendar order, but are arranged by Angelinas scores from low to high on the x axis, with Ricardos corresponding score apparent from the vertical axis. Pick a
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point, look down and we get Angelinas score. Look across from this point and we get Ricardos. By this simple device we expose the results of nine nights of competitive effort. Interesting. Now as we look at this plot we see that there does indeed seem to be a relationship in their performance. Generally, when one is scoring well so is the other. In fact we can imagine drawing a straight line in the gap between the points from bottom left to upper right. But how reasonable would it be to do that? Lets try and put a number on it; a single simple number and see if we can rate a linear relationship and so speak of it as being strong or weak. Our first task seems to be to measure the degree to which both partners are simultaneously having a good or bad night. Then we can see how they line up on a given night and over the nine nights of the festival. But what then is a good night? I guess we should first see how far each of these scores is above their respective average score for the week, by simply subtracting that average from each nightly score. When we do this we find that Angelinas scores now range from around -4 to + 4 (below and above her average), whereas Ricardos adjusted scores range from around -8

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to +10 above his average. Wow Ricardos scores cover a wide range, dont they? So while this plus or minus score seems like a good idea it doesnt quite go far enough for us because being a couple of points above average is a bigger deal for Angelina than for Ricardo in terms of what she can expect. A particular positive score on this simple relative basis may be a good night for her but might not be that great a night for him. Hmmm. We scratch our heads and wonder what to do about this. We could squeeze Ricardos scores into Angelinas range but what if that wide range of his is just due to one wild score? Maybe we should think in terms of their average range instead? Maybe if we look at the average spread of Ricardos and Angelinas respective scores from the mean we would get a better feel for this variability. Then we could adjust our plus or minus scores by that to even up for expectations? As it happens we can calculate their average spread using a simple standard method and when we do we find that the standard spread (or deviation) of Angelinas score is about 2 points whereas Ricardos is about 6 points above and below the average. Thats a pretty significant difference so we do need to adjust them if we want to talk sensibly about what is a good night
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for both. But rather than squeeze one persons scores into the others range lets just even the playing field by dividing each of their scores by their own standard deviation, in which case Angelinas will come down by about half and Ricardos will come down by a factor of 6. That should do it - and it does. Now theyre all around a couple of points above or below their average so, say, +1 is a fairly good night in anyones language and -1 is a bit disappointing. Excellent. Now were almost done. What weve now got are two sets of scores that provide a common measure of how well each person scored on any given night relative to their average results, so we can now compare them to see if one has a good night when the other one has a good night and so on. Lets attempt to do that. To make the comparison on a given night we decide to multiply their respective scores together so that now instead of two sets of nine scores we just have one combined set of nine. Why multiply? Because we see that if both people have a good night they have a big number and its positive and that if both people have a bad night they have a big number and it is positive, too. What? Yep, its positive because multiplying two negative numbers gives a positive one. Oh yeah. And if they always work
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in opposite directions, one with a good night and one with a bad, profiting from the others misery, we will tend to have big negative numbers. This, of course, is a relationship, too, just not as mutually happy. And if there are a mix of negatives and positives it would be hard to say that theres much of a relationship at all. It indicates inconsistency. So the results of multiplying can be sensibly interpreted, cant they? And this also means that if, say, we then averaged our nine combined numbers we might reasonably expect to get a good idea of the presence and type of any relationship from just that one single number by whether it is positive or negative and by how large it is. Yes? So now we do that and when we average the nine multiplied scores to get one number it is, drum role, +0.9. Hmmm. So what? Well, we note straight away that its positive, so their performance does seem to be linked in the same way, just like the graph says. When one is happy so is the other and when one is disappointed so is the other. But how close to zero is +0.9 on our new scale? Being close to zero would mean a weak relationship wouldnt it because, as we know, plus and minus combined scores will then cancel
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out when we average them. And it turns out that our summary number is in fact quite a long way from zero and pretty close to as high as we can go after all this averaging and adjusting because the result can never be greater than 1 or less than -1. Think of this number as being like the maximum speed of a car built from various bits and that our algebraic bits simply result in a car that has a natural maximum speed of 1 both in forward or reverse. Lets call this indicator of our co-relationship r since everyone actually does. Now an r as high as 0.9 is clearly very strong on this scale and implies that there is a very strong relationship between our two dancers. Even a relationship of 0.5 would be indicative of a moderately strong relationship in the complex causal world in which we humans interact. So many variables interacting on outcomes. Such a result would generate a discernible pattern of dots to our eye. But while this tells us about the relative strength of the relationship, which is what we wanted to know, it doesnt tell us much about the precise nature of that relationship other than of its positive or negative character. To understand more about it; to, say, be able to estimate what one score might be given another we would need to draw in that straight line on our graph we talked about and should really use a formula for
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that line to be exact. However, the good news is that once you have r you are actually well on your way to doing that, too. And maybe one partner is more influential than the other in this relationship; we cant be sure about who is causing what on the basis of this correlation coefficient called r - but if something causal is going on then Angelina and Ricardo are clearly benefiting, which is nice. Most things do tend to interact, dont they? We move the moon and the moon moves us. Also, we have to look out for hidden things. Is there something else lurking in the darkness of the wings causing each of our subjects to move as if they were interacting with each other when really each of them was interacting with this phantom, like puppets on invisible strings? We have to think about stuff like that, dont we? Or maybe it is all just dumb luck though luckily there is a technique to test for chance outcomes like that; to put a probability figure on r. Its great that we have relationship tools like this in our kit, isnt it? For the whole universe is actually full of things dancing together on the vast floor of space, as if in time to some divine cosmic rhythm; dancing to music that great minds of the past once sought to discover
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through the mathematics of harmony: the elusive music of the spheres. I dont think people look for such things now, as we seem to be more practical. And on a related point of keenness, remember that enthusiasm should be managed in a quest for truth because it tends to discover what it wants to find. And not finding is as important as finding for a seeker of the truth. Finally, whew, we should be aware that we need more than mathematics to be sure of any relationships we do discover. We need an explanation for them as well. Like when you show a meteorologist your correlation coefficient for greenhouse gas levels and global temperature and she says that your results stack up closely with what we know about molecules and radiation and other scientific stuff. Thats when you both have a Eureka! moment.

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Lost in Space
When I was a young boy my dad would let me stay up late on Friday nights to watch scary scifi shows which explains a lot. I remember scenes from them even now, including one about parents who had lost their child within their own house. I mean, they could hear it crying behind a wall only there wasnt anyone on the other side. The father then discovered that he could pass his hand and arm through the wall without exiting to the other side. Yes, he had penetrated the fourth dimension of space. I dont remember much more of that episode except that I think the hole was gradually closing and that the lost child was finally rescued just in time I expect. Thats the thing about extra dimensions, they might be there and closed to us so were not really connected. Or, more worryingly, we might be connected to them after all. I dont know if you remember much high school algebra but in mathematics people mostly work with multiple dimensions of the connected sort. And theyre often not about physical space but are rather just abstract ways of handling
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problems with lots of connectedness; connectedness between things that can vary. Lets consider a concrete example of this abstract reasoning. Suppose we want to sell a car and wonder what price it might fetch in the market. So we start thinking about things that might affect its value. Stuff like its age, its physical appearance, its mechanical condition, and its fuel economy, which is increasingly important. Lets see, thats four already. No wait, theres actually five because were looking at market price, too, and how it varies against these other variables. Were looking for correlations that are likely to be causal. Were wondering how market price varies as cars move through the possible spatial ranges of these other variables and, in particular, where our car is located in that combined five dimensional space. Wow! Now an interesting thing about this connectedness and us is that were often quite oblivious to it until something happens, something that makes us want to sell our car, for example. Then we look at it and begin to think about all those times we parked it out in the weather needlessly and of those services we skipped and Oh oh. Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Alternatively, we go straight into denial mode and blame it on the Government.
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Unawareness. I guess this is pretty typical of life, generally. There are many connections, important ones, which we often dont think about because we have to focus on other immediate stuff like getting to work on time. But those hidden dimensions are nevertheless there and one day something important could get lost inside them. Permanently. Like another species. Or us. You can probably think of lots of other connections, too. If youre a religious person you might even think theres a connection with a real greater dimensional something, like God. Anyway, we do need to be aware, more aware, of these many multi-dimensional connections beyond the perceived daily priorities, and of how we affect them, all the while trying not to freak out, for fear is the failure to use the help that reason gives us. I read that in the book of Wisdom somewhere. I guess the person who wrote that a few thousand years ago was thinking about others. And the future. Connectedness. Sometimes I think that theres so much interconnectedness out there that the biggest number there may really be is one. But I guess that doesnt mean it will be good.

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Androids in Love
I once saw a film of a slug skillfully slithering along a razor blade edge. Now imagine a person doing it at speed and you have a Blade Runner, working the edge. The dark sci-fi movie of that name was released a quarter of a century ago, so I've actually seen it! It's based on a book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Think about it. In the movie, the actor Harrison Ford is living on the blade: hunting, and euphemistically 'retiring' replicants. And his latest targets are, in turn, hunting their 'maker' back on Earth. Their plan is to compel the evil genius who designed them to extend their pitifully short lives; lives deliberately abbreviated to a mere four years to limit their exposure to emotionally deepening experiences. Stable personalities are important in the android exploitation game, so a replicant's life begins with a memory implant. It's not easy to pick a replicant, though. That's how good the genetic synthesising is. And maybe Harrison Ford is even one himself, and doesn't know it, which is what I reckon. But
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what's the diff? Everyone feels, everyone dreams and everyone loves. Oh yeah, and everyone thinks as well. As the android said to Descartes: I think therefore I am, too. So what is life, anyway? Whatever it is, we seem to be getting close to making it ourselves. Recently, somebody synthesised a cell. Now, if they can manage to modify cells, as they intend, they'll get a new kind of life. We'll get a new kind of life. It's all bio-chemistry, you see. Sort of like molecular Lego. Another eye, monsieur? As to its natural origins, there's a debate going on right now about whether life kicked off here soon after our planet was made, when there was a bit of water and stuff about, or whether it drifted in from space, maybe on a comet. Anyway, life goes back billions of years and evolved on Earth, under our unique and changing conditions, into interesting things like us! Some people say that evolution through natural selection has pretty much stopped for humans because we've made life too easy for competition to select genes that would confer survival advantages upon our offspring. Where would we be without tools and medication? Others point to some "recent" genetic changes, like the one that allows many adult people
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(mainly outside Asia) to extract more food value from lactose in milk; this change is said to have arisen with the rise of dairy farming. Personally, I think evolution through natural selection probably has slowed down for us, but I do agree with those who say that evolution is still occurring through 'mixing', as people across the globe get together and the genes of their children approach a global average. But what do I know of such things? In any case, you can see how life has been reaching through us, through each form of life, and not necessarily for any particular form, and why it will still "try" to do that if we don't interfere. However, as I've hinted at above in relation to human evolution, we already have interfered. Something fundamental has happened to life in all this time, hasn't it? Yes, life has gotten smart. So smart that we can well imagine that one day we might actually make androids that could also dream like us. Well, a bit like us, enough like us to imagine reducing risks by giving them some select dreams first. It'll take a lot of circuit connections to make a good android but, if nature can put that many in our head, we'll also be able to pack them into something else no bigger than that in due course; assuming that
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our, or some future, civilisation lasts the distance. I hope those connections can theorise though and correlate stuff, too. Yeah. So you don't have to be living to be smart, to be a smart being. And the unthinkable is continually becoming credible. Weird but true stuff is happening, like those robot probes on mars, analysing stuff by themselves and sending their findings back home. Of course, if we want to get into deep, deep space, it won't be practical to write home. Some beings will just have to be out there by themselves and for themselves. Our galaxy, The Milky Way, might fill the night sky but it's only a drop in the cosmic ocean. And even if we partition this little galaxy into heaps of much littler suburbs, and confine all exploration to our own zip code, it would take thousands of years to send a message from one end of the burb to the other at the speed of light. And you can imagine how hard it will be to sustain human life on spaceships that are so slow they make those old messages look flash. We've evolved here, on this nice blue green planet. We can't even directly digest sunshine, except in a sense vitamin D, so we've got to get plants into the act. And that means water and stuff. Not to mention waste products. Sheesh.
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I suppose we could start a couple of colonies in tough isolated spots and wait a few million years for natural selection to make some 'improvements', like low gravity tolerance. Or we could muck around with our genes to speed things up, which seems more likely. Or we could make androids. Even if they won't look like us, we'll probably make them a bit like us in their 'head', as we're inclined to be a bit vain, aren't we? And they would be our children. Let's hope that they don't get upset by that weird body, though, like Frankenstein's sensitive big guy. But that was before memory implants, so no worries! Now these creations might just be assistants at first but you could see how, as in Blade Runner, our intelligent offspring might soon go their own way. And maybe the escapees would eventually make assistants, too. Things less like us but more like them: synthoids, beings who might also, one day, break free. There's plenty of space out there to swim to, baby, if you know how. Go, mate! So there you have it: intelligence having it's own way. Okay, it's a sci-fi dreaming. But you see what I mean? Perhaps the game won't be about 'life' in future. Maybe it'll be about intelligence, conscious intelligence. Perhaps it is now.
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And maybe that's all part of the grand plan. Intelligence is about processing to produce order, isn't it? Well, not on Monday mornings. But order is what words and thoughts are all about: our mind is continually sorting out and through an ocean of chaos. Humans are good at that, amongst other, darker, things. We can, if we get our act together, work against what they call entropy: the tendency for the universe to run down. You have to be pretty smart to tidy up your room. Assuming that you want to. Which reminds me, time's getting away and I have some tidying up to do myself. Where's that vacuum thingummy? It can't have gone far on it's own?

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Does Humanity Have a Mission?

It would nice if we did. I dont think we are really free to chose one in a fundamental sense, because my conclusion is that free-will is a myth. But a mission might have been assigned to humans by their Creator, and we might inevitably choose to follow it. (Note: if you dont believe in serving a Creator or in free-will, well, youll just have to enjoy your ride.) Im not going with the be good until judgement day option though, because after twenty centuries of waiting for the second coming its wearing a bit thin, and also because the world has changed a lot since that story hit home. People in the developed world think more about the future than they did in days when all it meant was another possible disruption to the agricultural cycle. So I'm thinking that maybe there was meant to be a long term future after all. Now if we do have an assigned mission, it would presumably have to suit our talents and, if we are on trend, it could well be discernible from what we are doing now, at least the immediate part of the assignment. My
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experience is that in any significant project the tasks are many, so we mustnt expect to discern the whole challenge from our current circumstances. But we should be able to discern something. For example, we are becoming more empowered technologically and are now able to move out into the wider universe. Moreover, we also know that hanging around this planet is risky and that, in time, probability tends to certainty. If a stray asteroid doesnt destroy us (and possibly life itself) one day, then a burst of gamma radiation from a dying star could. So Im tempted to think we should keep up the global space program side of things. Of course, we don't have to be working on the space program itself to be part of the mission. Its humanity that walked on the moon, a local climax to millennia of endeavour. I guess space exploration and colonisation may ultimately mean exporting our intelligence rather than ourselves, though, as an economy measure. After all, while intelligence seems to serve life in more primitive organisms, as you move up the hierarchy, the relationship does seems to reverse. I guess thats why we have T.V. Hmmm
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Im not sure about doing without my body altogether, though as I do like a good dinner. However, whether we export ourselves into space or not, life and most of us will hopefully still be here on Earth so we must look after this place as a priority, for ourselves and others. Yeah. Well, that seems to be a pretty full mortal mission and enough thinking for today as well so I'm off to the kitchen to look after me. You take care, too, Ok?

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Geography & Us
Events are so pass, arent they? In a blink of an eye they pass us by. History. Oh for something more enduring. Something that can transcend time. Something to anchor us in this ocean of change. Geography. Sure, geography changes, too. Mountains eventually crumble and man made structures like houses fall down by a few percent a year best keep up that maintenance, friend. But even these constructed features of the landscape tend to last long enough to serve as coat hooks for our memories. Long enough for us to associate events with them, refreshing our memories with each revisit. Long ago days at the good old school good old golden rule days. If only that cinema had survived. The streets we wandered, the roads we rode. Watch out or youll miss us baby. Rule breakers. Cool fakers. Territory. We all have it, personally or with our tribe. Or rather, tribes for we have many of them dont we? From neighbourhood to nation, from rugby to religion. Each with its own territorial rights and pregnant with conflict at the borders. Of course, its not only about nostalgia. Geography offers security of the physical kind, too. Shelter.
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Food and fuel. Living space. And it has an aesthetic side additionally contributing to our heartfelt attachment. The important thing, though, is that it has us and that we have it. We sure do. The history of humanity is a history of migration. Often bloody. Conquest drives out established people and draws new people in its wake, oppressing those who remain insiders become outsiders then. Alienation But for we migrants, whether driven or drawn, memories can make it hard to let go. Fortunately, though, every personal history begins with birth, so a second generation is about as long as it takes to make more memories and hook them on our home. Our head soon catches our feet. Yes, old tribal memories can sometimes linger longer if captive to myths and thats because such narratives, especially when frozen into revered books, are features of our landscape, too, and we dont want them to change, either. No, we dont want them rattled by new truths, the more so when those stories are of the self serving kind. In the long run, however, we do tend to move on, fortunately for Africa. A little tourism can be a welcome thing but I doubt whether the real old country would welcome all its descendants back

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now; even an annual pilgrimage would be an environmental disaster. Big time. What is it about pilgrimages? As if one cant connect simply by sitting under a tree, or by a stream, or staring out to sea - or even in a quiet moment at home. But religious tribes must have their own territory, as well. Often we distinguish theirs by the prefix of sacred or holy. A holy land, a sacred site etcetera etcetera. As if God is somehow more there than elsewhere? In which case we better get more of these things. Fast! Alas there have been few additions since the Age of Reason. Why would that be, one wonders? Border disputes are not uncommon here, either. Sometimes different tribes even build sacred buildings on the very same sacred spot, destroying or converting one that someone had built before. Holy-poly! What does this say about us? I guess if were not more careful well take these territorial follies into outer space, too. Weve already put a flag on the moon. Thats geography for you. Geography and us.

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History & Us
Ive been researching my ancestors recently and its been a really interesting journey into the past two turbulent centuries. Sometimes you get enough information to reveal a real story. My efforts in relation to one ancestral line were greatly assisted by some terrific documents unearthed by my cousin Pam, whom I encountered through this project on the net. Included with them was a photo of an old headstone. This essay tells the life stories of the two people buried there. It turns out that Pam and I are descended from two brothers who married two sisters, all of Irish Catholic heritage, making us third cousins twice over. That marriage is interesting in itself, because it says something about the interconnection of the Irish Australian Catholic community in this British colony of Australia in the nineteen century. Im going to talk about the previous generation, though, about the parents of the brothers, about Honorah Heffernan and Edmund Meagher (pronounced Maher). Lets start with Edmund who was older and got here first. Edmund was born in 1813 and was a
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grocer and publican in Tipperary, Ireland. We know from official documents that he could also read and write, so he was clearly middle class. Then, at 23, things went radically wrong when he was arrested for assault and robbery and transported to Australia. Half a year by sea, convict class. This is a curious crime for a small business guy and I wonder if Edmund had a personal daemon. His convict record notes that he had scars on his forehead, hand and ankle. and ten years later, having worked as a convict on farms and been freed, he is once more done for assault and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment with hard labour. Although we dont know the circumstances of these crimes, Edmund is shaping up as a big (6 foot which was tall then) physical kind of guy, if you get my drift. But now things get particularly interesting, after serving one year in prison, Edmund is released for meritorious conduct on the occasion of one of the Turnkeys of the Gaol being attacked by two soldiers. I guess colonial troops could be rough around the edges, too. So he was in yet another fight only this time on the side of the law and thats when his life turns around. In the following year he marries and becomes a solid family man. Edmund finally found something he could lose.
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Enter Honorah, a free settler who was born in Tipperary in 1826 and who emigrated to Australia with her sister in 1841. Her emigration then was very fortunate because four years later Ireland was devastated by the famous potato blight, resulting in a terrible famine which killed a great many people and drove as many again overseas, including to Australia. Thats what they call a push factor, like war, driving people out. Remember those two sisters I mentioned? They descended from that famine driven wave. Now Honorah was only 15 on arrival here but appears to have bumped up her age by 3 years on immigration documents, perhaps to improve her prospects for passage and entry. Cheeky. Even so, those papers note that she would be under the protection of her cousins husband in Sydney. That she had relatives in the colony may have been an important influence on her decision to migrate to Australia. Its associated with pulling factors, offering some security and generating information flows about the new country back to the old, about new opportunities and sunny skies and stuff. The combination of these factors, driving and drawing people, has really spread humanity around, just as its doing today.

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I think these two young women must still have needed a bit of courage, however, to migrate to the end of the world; Australia was far as an Irish lass could go or know. Honorahs occupation was listed as maid and, unusually and like her future husband, she was literate. The colonial administration must have been very interested in this to have systematically recorded the fact. Being so young, it would be 7 years before she marries Edmund in a Sydney church called St Marys, a church which went on to become a great cathedral. Catholicism really got a go on here around then despite the suspicion of the protestant ruling classes that Catholics were on the subversive side because of the political struggle in Ireland; like the situation of Muslims in Western countries now. Their marriage would be for life, as they almost all were back then, and would produce eight children, five surviving infancy, including those two brothers who married two sisters later on. When I say five kids survived, that means, of course, that Honorah and Edmund endured the deaths of three of their kids, a not uncommon experience at the time. Honorah, alas, died prematurely from cancer at the age of 49. Medical science offered no hope for most serious maladies at the time so when
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one was diagnosed the family copped the full no-hope hit. By the way, her youngest son Dennis, my ancestor, was only 10 then. Tell me thats not tragic. Fathers tended not to raise their motherless kids at that time. One option was for them to be raised by relatives of the parents, often on the mothers side. Thats what happened to my father when his mother died young later on; that Irish Australian extended family was still there, run largely by its communicative women, ready to receive him. Although Honorah did have a sister here, I think that Edmund would have gone for the other option of relying on Dennis older sisters to look after the boy; either Ellen who was 25 or Mary who was 23. Thats what my late partner had to do when she was young. I think it may have been Mary who did the honours since Ellen was living in Sydney, whereas Dennis married and died a country boy. He ended up working in the coal mines, chipping away at rock like his dad but rising to shiftman, supervising his fellow miners. Well, I think life was pretty hard for Edmund after that because on Christmas day two years later at the age of 64, Edmund Meagher, Quarryman, died from suicide by throwing himself in the river. Grief for a lost life partner
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can still be around then, along with the trauma from her sickness and death, plus having to battle on alone, especially if Dennis and his sister, now 25, were gone. A triple whammy. Edmund had enjoyed a long life for that era. A man who had survived adolescence even as late as 1881 could only expect to live to 60 and Edmund was 64 in 1877. Moreover, that was a life of arduous physical labour, usually in unsafe conditions so, between that and his age, he would very likely have had one or more chronic conditions: joints, teeth, lungs, back, that would have taken the edge off the good life. Another day in the quarry with no expectation of a pension that wasnt introduced until 1900 must have been a pretty bleak prospect. So I reckon that the big river just down the road from home had called to him more than once over the previous couple of years and that on that lonely holiday he thought over his long eventful life, took a mental tour of his solitary future and decided to call it a day. A dramatic end to a dramatic life. They found his hat floating on the river with a note inside indicating that he was isolated from his family and tired of life. And thats the end of the story of Honorah and Edmund as far as I can make out; the story about the man and the woman reunited in a tidy old
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grave, much tidier than their lives of blood, sweat, joy and tears had been. But I think that if they could see all their descendants now, and how theyd got on, theyd share a modest smile. Only they cant look at us, can they? Weve seen them, however, in our minds. And when we do look back, we can appreciate and learn. Thats history for you. History and us.

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Plastic Man
The other day they finally closed down an old convict era gaol in a town just north of here. In the old days prisoners there were forbidden to speak for the first nine months of their term. Break that rule and you were given a helpful gag, fashioned from wood and leather. Conditioning. Conditioning by punishment often falls upon wild spirits, even now, but its also aimed indirectly at the mild so were all exposed. Its easy to overlook this other important value added purpose but its very common. In my day kids were punished in front of the class; and the Romans crucified people by the side of a road or on a high hill. Of course, we can discourage behaviour by taking something good away as well, like an allowance or some privilege, or even by the denial of love. Besides discouraging behaviour we can encourage it, too, through a reward or by taking away something bad, which is a kind of reward, I guess. This conditioning thing is all about shaping us but its not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes punishment can even harden people or put them
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in a negative camp where they can learn new tricks and make fiendish friends. Rewards can be tricky as well. Maybe that kid didnt want to get a certificate on the stage, maybe they wanted more to belong than to stand above their peers. And paying people for doing something morally good is not necessarily a great idea either. In Central Australian aboriginal society, when a hunter returned with game, no small achievement in the desert, an elder divided the food between the people - the hunter receiving the least desirable portion. Theres social wisdom in an approach like that. Still, we tend to blunder through with a lot of makeshift conditioning and along with it goes a lot of socialising, too. This is a bit different but the two processes get along swimmingly. Symbiotically. Think about all those values and beliefs we just kind of soak up in our family or tribe as we grow into it. Naturally we want to fit in and, really, what else do we know? So our warriors are the bravest. Always have been! Our scholars are the smartest. Hey, we invented smart! And our people were chosen by God. Minorities are often not well served by this process because majorities tend to rule by beliefs as well as laws. Then again, if a minority is powerful enough, it can rule and be cruel, for a while.
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This dynamic duo of conditioning and socialising is incredibly intense, insidiously subtle and powerfully pervasive. Like laundry detergent. Its in our homes, schools, churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Its in the military, factories, offices, stores and the media, like TV. Especially TV. Its not all bad though, is it? In society we need things in common and a lot of that common denominator is also for the individual good. For our and our neighbours good and were all neighbours in this world. Values are important for health and happiness. For meaning. And they help us get through bad stuff, together. We should be on the lookout, though. Its hard but some undesirable shaping can be detected. The existence of perverse outcomes is a clue. The availability of competing ideas and beliefs is another. Despite shaping, theres still a critical person somewhere inside our conditioned socialised selves and it really should be consulted because sometimes the external powers of persuasion are not working for the common good. No. This may be intentional or maybe not; values are necessarily based on yesterdays reality whereas circumstances change and we learn new things, right? Ok there may not be an I in team but surely there should be a me in me. So doubt is important.
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Doubting the promised future, doubting the alleged past. Doubting values and beliefs. And doubting some things more than others, for doubt should be done by degrees. Doubting is the beginning of a journey to alternative ideas and thereafter its our rudder in life and learning. Now besides the headline good and bad stuff were taught or pick up, theres also a lot of in between social shaping stuff of the mostly harmless kind. We can suit ourselves about this to individualise our lives but, as most people dont like rapid change or radical difference, we should be aware that we might not get away with it scot-free. Conservative means to conserve, and old things and old beliefs are very comfortable and reassuring to have around. I like them, too. Or maybe we should be shook up a bit. And even corrected. Maybe a lot. Yeah. So go for it, if youre game. Soon, they say, people will have the potential to be pretty much immortal, accidents aside. If that ever happens, I sure hope human minds remain youthful enough to keep changing when populations are not. Because, young or old, plasticity of mind is important. Not too plastic, though. We need a bit of ballast in our being, too.

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God

Nothing endures like an idea and the greatest idea is God.

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Starry Night
Imagine a star. Not like a real one, but more like a party one, maybe with five points. Now imagine that each point on this star is connected to a point on another star. Okay? And then imagine that these new stars are connected to other stars, and so on until you have filled up your entire imagination with touching stars. Well done! Star patterns: they're interesting, arent they? They have a long history in Islamic architecture, based on geometric knowledge gleaned from the Greeks, who had learned much from the Egyptians, etc. Islamic designers produce many wonderful geometric patters in part because of religious concerns about representations of people. But also because they like them, I guess. Anyway, I think star patterns make a great metaphor. I was thinking recently that we never really know other people. Not just in virtual space but in the 'real' world as well. Were ignorant enough about ourselves but when it comes to others we actually only know the aspect of 'them' that interacts with us. We may
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get close to the fuzzy notion of what someone is, or love may well be blind. And time may tell, but even then we cannot be sure if our later opinion is a clearer perception of what the person has always been or is in fact another flawed perception of what they have since become. Moreover, it seems to me that the aspect of the person which greets us has even been shaped a little by our influence; and vice versa, as we reach towards each other like points in adjacent stars. So each of us may be the seeds of anothers bloom; or a contributing factor to their face of gloom. Sometimes the point of one star advances more than the one of its neighbour, which may even shrink away. So there are differences in the points of connection which different people have with the same neighbour. No one is equally near, or near to the same aspect. And if we could see a face on the tips of these points, confronting expressions between neighbours would reveal the nature of their confronting aspects. Or if we looked at all the faces on the points of just one star we should learn something of its many and various external selves. You know, I think this metaphor could work for religions, too. For religion is essentially, in my view, about our relationship with the Great
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Mystery. So each religion is like a star surrounding one in the middle: the mysterious Divine. And each religion sees but one aspect, one extension of the Great Mystery that has grown towards them, in a form that its believers can comprehend. For the human mind, in general, influences what we see, and then we have our own special cultural spectacles as well, don't we? But the truth is that none of us really understands the star in the middle. What we do see may have value for us, though, for it is a connection with the Divine nonetheless; a unique connection but not an exclusive one, as I see things, anyway. And it seems to me that the Divine may have formed its many apparent aspects, past, present and future, for each of us to partially see, if we have a mind to. Personally, though, while these aspects have value to those who perceive them and may have been intended by the Divine, rather than choose between them I prefer to avoid such elaboration and just try to relate to and accept the Great Mystery behind each of them; that appears to me to be as much as we can really understand.

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True Believers
There are many different facets to our minds, and differences between each of us in the degree to which we manifest them. Lately Ive been thinking about both our critical thinking and our less critical believing aspects. I think that human beings have a natural talent both for critical thinking and for believing; and that these seemingly contrary characteristics often work to our collective advantage provided both talents contribute to the result. In any case, we generally have to deal with the pair because theyre both in our and other peoples heads. Lets look at critical thinking. Were very good at this. Everyday, everywhere human beings are working stuff out. In the home. In the schools. On the farm. In the office and on the factory floor. Problem solving. Understanding cause and effect. We all do it and it keeps us on our toes. Not only do we work out stuff, we even work out how to work out stuff. Like scientific method. Brilliant. Like most abilities our place in the spectrum in this respect is presumably due partly to genetics and partly to learning. Education and practice
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can change us, right? Hence we can all develop what critical faculties we may have, given the opportunity. Being a practical guy, Ive found that a good rule of thumb is to just keep asking why?. And the simple act of asking why? immediately puts us in a more open frame of mind. We also excel in belief. Its like we have to believe in things. Heaps of things. And we seem to believe a lot of stuff more readily than we should. While were receptive to ideas we can over do it if unchecked; which is easily done because psychologists know that most of us usually find it easier to believe than to question something. I suppose thats why we like stories. We can relax and be led wonderfully along. Luckily for the entertainment industry, its very easy for us to suspend disbelief, which may even be our default state. One way to gauge this receptiveness is to take a good hard look at our beliefs. Not your beliefs. We both know that theyre well founded so what would be the point in that? No, I mean look at other peoples beliefs. Thats right. See what I mean? Sometimes we tend to believe the downside and sometimes the upside of what can reasonably be expected. But if movies are any guide, most of us still tend to like a happy ending. And I read
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once that if you want to write a great novel one reliable way is to write about ordinary people struggling against the odds, faltering, suffering but somehow winning through in the end. We all like a bit of hope, dont we? And hope, they say, is inversely related to the probability of success. But really, I think that the best kind of belief in daylight life is true belief; though this is a kind of ideal. In practice, truer belief is its more attainable form. And my reading of the history of ideas is that the best way to get truer belief is to bring our critical thinking and believing aspects together. We need to do this at the personal level, and also at the social level by bringing people from the broad spectrum of critical thinking and believing together in some way even if one party only lives on in books. Nor is this union an unnatural process, as both our critical thinking and believing aspects have truth seeking aspirations in common. They just go about it a bit differently, one more intuitively than the other. In fact, I think that truth seeking is one of the reasons that believing is by nature receptive. If it didnt want to know, it wouldnt believe much at all. Of course, you dont have to do this for everything. Sometimes you just want to have illogical fun. And sometimes you need to hope without someone continually downing you about
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the odds. As if you can do anything about them at this stage? And then there are sometimes when you know youll regret it for the rest of your life if you dont go for that dream now while you can, so you really dont need someone harping on about costs behind your back as you strap on your boots and step out. But usually you do have to bring these aspects together because ignorance often costs dearly and because folly can hurt forever - and not just you. Besides, when we succeed in this union we reap real rewards. True belief is like seeing. Its like getting your own third eye. And living in true belief is about as close to real freedom as mortal minds can get. However, while a union of these faculties is natural there can also be a few problems. For one thing, in order for critical thinking to get something new up and running it often has to confront existing belief, and beliefs can be sticky: they dont necessarily move easily. See, our believing aspects may be receptive but that doesnt mean that theyre fickle. Otherwise, I guess, life would be pretty erratic. Some beliefs can be very stubborn indeed. So critical thinking has to work hard on its communication skills. A case for union has to be clearly made. Even so, its unlikely to be well received immediately as belief tends to be defensive and might dig in, but
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a little persistence leaves an impression and thats the beginning of change. The beginning of the beginning. Secondly, belief tends to be a bit short-sighted. Thats why we need national pension or superannuation plans. And thats why procreation generally loads the pleasure up front and the pain further down the line. So you can see why its not easy getting us to see that we should be believing in something with long term benefits and short term costs. Ask the planet. But it can be done. Beliefs can be changed. Even in religion, where we tend to be especially dogged, change does happen. Thus polytheism has generally yielded to monotheism. How many gods do we need? And blood sacrifice has yielded to more personal forms of service. So be good, alright? And even now, scholars in various fields are asking us to question the old literal truth approach to interpreting ancient texts. Great stuff. So, to truth seekers everywhere, thanks. and true believers

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Body and Soul

The soul is an interesting concept, isnt it? Or perhaps I should say concepts, as there seem to be a great many of them. Although some ideas concerning it have crossed religious boundaries, one culture fertilising another, different religions have nevertheless formed significantly different views of the soul, and different sects within these religions often have different ideas about it, too. Its kind of like we shape the silent soul to fit in with all the other religious ideas we have. Poor soul! Sometimes everything has a soul, sometimes only humans do. Commonly, it survives death, but not necessarily in its previous form. Maybe it has lost some of its identity, or even all of that identity, so you wouldnt know whose soul it was. Sometimes it is reborn quickly, either elsewhere in another world or again in this one. And sometimes rebirth awaits some cosmic event after which it occurs for everyone, who may then be judged and assembled on the left or the right! Sometimes it isnt reborn at all but goes on to a second and final higher existence near or
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far from the Divine light. Or maybe it just journeys to some boring underworld and languishes with a long face along with all those others who have died before. And, interestingly, sometimes it is only reborn if its owner wasnt good enough to be eternally free from troublesome life itself. Then you might need to get reborn a lot, till youre fit to flit. Well, you see what I mean about variety. Typically though, it seems to me that the concept of the soul fulfils three functions. First, it tries to explain the phenomenon of life and /or consciousness. Its weird, this consciousness, isnt it? And how could that end? It is me. It is eternal. Yes? No? Secondly, it helps us deal with the anxiety of oblivion, the prospect of nothingness following death and the degree of loss we feel in mourning others. Solution: there isnt nothing because we have an immortal soul, even if insects dont, which they may. Lastly, it provides an incentive for moral living through some kind of spiritual reward and punishment scheme on an inescapable scale. So dont think youre really going to get away with

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all that sinful stuff just because you can do it down here. Eternity is a long time. I think the second two functions about fear of oblivion and moral accountability are not really reasons that rationally justify belief in the soul itself, even if they are good selling points. Theyre more sort of convenient beliefs, and we must always be wary of convictions that are convenient... Besides, the soul isnt strictly necessary for those ends. At least, not in the context of all faiths. For example, you could still be physically resurrected, God willing, without a soul, provided you actually can live without one. It would just take a creative act and a blueprint from Divine memory. This could be done regardless of whether the universe is real or a dream in the mind of God. One Mozart coming up! And if you can be resurrected you can be punished or rewarded, so moral laws could still be enforced by the Divine for those who need that little extra incentive to behave. But more on this morality issue below. Some people go for this type of physical resurrection option, usually with a soul thrown in for good measure, but Im not arguing for it
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myself as it still seems speculative to me. It could be true but, I mean, what age would you come back as? Given the aging profile of much of the world's population, I suspect that most people now would not be keen on age at death. Thirty five was a good year for me. But I guess you would have to leave this decision to God. I sure wouldnt want that responsibility. You cant please everyone, can you? Now, returning to moral incentive, I havent noticed any tendency for atheists to be less virtuous or altruistic than the rest of us. They devote themselves to, and even die for, social causes, just like religious people. Altruism is part of what it is to be born a human in a human family, I think. Perhaps religion can lead to more zealousness but I think we have seen throughout history that this may not necessarily be a good thing. All in all, as I look around, I think the best assurance of moral living is our natural social tendencies, even given the usual examples of significant worrying deviations from the mean. And the biggest general threat to social cooperation is a scarcity of sustainability. Look around the world now or in difficult times in the past and youll see what I mean. Boy, a lot of kindness goes out the window when food, fuel
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and water are at stake. Vikings may come a knocking uninvited on our doors. And Heaven becomes Valhalla then, in the book of virtue, revised edition. So having summarily dismissed the relevance of these convenient considerations of oblivion and morality for the soul, lets concentrate on the life-force / consciousness issue. Do we still need a concept of the soul nowadays, or is it an ancient legacy that is, maybe, holding us back on the understanding front? Life-force first. Hmmm. I must say that these days I think of life in terms of a sustained chemical process. An organism is a kind of eating, growing, replicating thingy that works on chemistry and physics. It needs a bit of energy from, say, the sun, either directly or previously stored in other chemicals, including that tasty looking morsel next to you. Yum. Then it makes and burns fuel from it so it can do stuff with other stuff it dines on, building block stuff. Some of this work includes making more cells using stringy stuff that acts as a blueprint, stuff which can change a little by mutation from time to time. Hey, nobodys perfect! But a bit of competition will tend to sort that out, in time. Science has made a lot of progress in understanding life and weve already
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synthetically replicated a bacteria by building new DNA from scratch using chemicals. Of course, replicating DNA doesnt require an understanding of how the bits of information it codes function and interact, which is complicated, we just replicate the lot and compare the result with the bacteria we modeled. But our understanding of how this coded information works will gradually increase as we invest more time and effort into genetic research and soon well be making new variants of existing life forms, too. And so on. Maybe we could turn a potential chimp into a human embryo, for example. If so, that would threaten any notion that the soul is only a human phenomenon. Chimps and humans are actually close to a 100% genetic match now; just a few percent different. But what if we were to take the tiny bit of chimp DNA that differs chemically from humans and substitute for it the chemical sequences in human strands. Would we have produced a human being in Gods image then? Well, if we are in Gods image, yes. It could marry, have children (that would share its DNA) and pay off a mortgage. Okay, there is that Frankenstein story about the manufactured man who got out of line. But in the original version, it was
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because he was hideous and rejected by just everyone. If he had found love and acceptance, he would have been alright, I reckon. Which sounds pretty human to me. So would we have made a soul though this laboratory experiment, then? Well, if humans have one, yes. Unless, perhaps the soul was already in the chimp? Okay, then lets start with a mouse or even a chickens DNA instead. We have a lot of genetic overlap with them, too. Or if someone objects that even chickens have a soul then maybe we could skip other life forms and start making human DNA from chemicals like weve done with bacteria. Now, if we should ever do this, and humans have a soul, then presumably we will have made one, too, which doesnt seem right. Does it? So maybe we never had one, after all. Or maybe what we call the soul is more about our mind, which arises from the brain. It would be a soul in the metaphorical sense that we sometimes use, as in that song touched the depths of my very soul. Yeah. This inference of soullessness is not exactly conclusive, I guess, because it is at least possible that the Creator would be watching over our shoulders in the lab, poised to pop a soul into our modified life form the moment its genetic
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content reached some human limit. But this seems to be a rather absurd prospect, doesnt it? I suspect that God would be above that kind of thing. Not me, though. Thatd be a great job. Voila! Anyway, you can see why my conclusion is that souls are not pre-made spiritual things which humans, or life in general, need. We dont need the soul to explain our life force because life is chemistry. We just have to organise the basic ingredients and let it rip. And as for consciousness, well, I think weve come a long way since people thought it was somehow connected with the spiritual nature of, say, a part of the soul called the heart. For the Egyptians, the heart was the most important part of the soul: the seat of our thoughts and emotions. And we still talk like that, dont we? At least in attributing emotions to it. But that kind of heart is really part of our mind, too. We understand that now, even though we sometimes suspend disbelief. Hey, heartbreak is real! In fact, its all about the brain these days, isnt it? Thats the important thing about we Homo sapiens. We can even track the effect of eastern meditation on consciousness by monitoring brain waves. So a lot of people now see it more
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as a therapeutic technique than a religious experience. Want to alter your consciousness the easy way? Take a pill. Want to have that experience which resuscitated people sometimes describe, of letting go and walking towards a light? Try oxygen starvation. It causes a primitive area of our brain to fire up and produce light sensations. You can see its physical source with a brain scan, too. By the way, I think its neat the way dying has been made easier for us through these hallucinations, and I dont really understand yet how evolution could be behind it as there is no obvious survival advantage. But it is still physical and thats the relevant point here. Its not that the brain is consciousness itself but rather that the activity of the brain, a physical organ, produces mental states. Change that activity and the states will change. So, no. I dont think we need the concept of the soul to explain consciousness either. And if we could make a human one day, as in the above thought experiment, we would be creating consciousness, too; consciousness without a soul but, hopefully, not without music.

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The Tao
"He that knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. He that knows not, and knows that he knows not is a pupil. Teach him. He that knows, and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him. He that knows, and knows that he knows is a teacher. Follow him. (Arabic proverb)

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Apart from all the masculine pronouns, this sounds pretty cool, doesnt it? But if you know me, you know that I have my reservations. At least, I think this proverb is open to abuse. I mean, yes, it is useful but, while brevity is the soul of wit, it is also its limitation. Take wisdom, for example. It isnt really a case of knowing or not knowing but rather of how much one knows; somewhere between zilch and Zen. I dont really think the extreme points are occupied. Everyone has some wisdom, and no mortal is really maxed out with the stuff. So, strictly speaking, Im inclined to the view that those who know that they know not are probably the wisest sages after all. And they arent even half way up this particular knowledge ladder. Anyway, fortunately for us, there are many sages of the ages, each with their own insights, so you can pretty much take your pick, or load up on the lot. Oh boy. So many books and minds to consult, including some extremely good ones, who at least seem to know that they know a fair bit. I say seem, because one thing that bothers me is that the best ones often dont say the same thing, do they? Consider the traditional field of wisdom: religion. One wise mind will tell you to believe in God, another to believe also in the son
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of God and yet another that there is no real separate God at all. Struth! And, as I look around the world, I notice that if youre a follower of one of these lines of thought, its likely that your parents were, too. Wisdom, it seems, is often where you find it. Does that mean were credulous? Well, we can be. But I think it mostly means that each of these religions provides people with things that are important. And part of that offering is real wisdom. Theres heaps of it to be reaped from every sacred text. So, apart from texts, how do people get their religious insights anyway? Well, I guess there are a number of popular methods. You can, for example, dance in a trance or yoga your way to bliss. And, of course, theres plain old reflection. I kind of like that one; but not by itself. I also like to listen, learn, and doubt. That last bit is really important because if you dont have a few doubts youll never listen to what the next person has to say and there could be something really interesting that youre missing out on. And, like many people, I really doubt that humanity will ever know The Truth about It. See, I agree with what that old Chinese sage once said: The way that can be trodden is not

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the enduring and unchanging way. Thats the Tao bit. By all means tread, though. As I say, knowledge is relative. And who knows, you just might find / youll get what you need. My conclusion, however, having come this far along a fairly rocky road, is that a pilgrim can do little better than to revere the Great Mystery, keep a weather eye open for the occasional sign, and say the odd prayer. And on that matter of mystery, I hesitate to elaborate. As that Chinese sage also said, Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful. Nicely put, mate. But sages, we need them. We especially need the old tried and tested ones, good people who have also done good things. We should never forget that. Take pre-Islamic Arabia, for example, men were burying daughters alive and prostituting their wives. Not right, guys. And I think a few new sages wouldnt go astray, either, because weve got problems and ideas that are new, too: like a planet to save and missions in space! So as this flawed pilgrim wends his way in a postmodern world, hes also looking for a contemporary sage or two. Hes not asking for
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superheroes, just a few sages, you know? And they neednt be prophets, though every good prophet would be one, just someone with a few new clues who doesnt think they know it all would be fine by me. But someone contemporary, please, wearing a t-shirt, perhaps. Yeah. You know, one of those that says, in big bold letters, Dont follow me / Im lost too. Now that would be cool

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Diorama
Have you ever noticed how we populate our religious landscapes with people? We put animals in there, too, or maybe bits of both in neat composite beings - but people predominate. And the little model people in this diorama, mostly men, can have many roles: gods, buddhas, saints, prophets, patriarchs, popes or even lesser clerics whose words many people unquestioningly follow. Even if someone doesnt want to be in there or to have their picture taken, we still put their name in the scene, make it holy, and maybe hang it on a wall with a verse to prove they were real and wise. As if that was the intended idea? And woe betide anyone who doesnt admire our creation, or who questions the status of one of our little figures. Take it back! we exclaim. So pretty soon theres a scuffle in the playground and the chant of fight! fight! Fight! eagerly goes around. It would be funny if it wasnt so serious. People shouldnt die over dioramas. No. Sure, people are important in religion as in all human endeavours and I can see merit in showing respect. But we must be wary of our
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tendency to make the great we follow even greater than they are. And ancient texts are still worth reading. Yes. But we should bear in mind that the world is changing, too. Some things dont really change, like charity and the need for law, but other things do. We now know that women can contribute beyond the home. That help can serve better than blame. And that ethics concerning the planet need much more focus than theyve had in the past. Stuff like that. So it turns out that truth is not carved in stone after all. Anyway, I didnt bring a diorama to school today. I figure that Ill just stand in front of my empty spot on the table and explain to my teacher that my diorama is the space itself. Because we all need some uncluttered space to help us relate to the Divine, dont you think? Maybe Ill even get away with it. Fingers crossed.

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The Gita
When I was a student poking about India on our Australian summer break, I read a little book called the Bhagavad Gita (Divine Song of God), which I read again recently on a whim and realised how much it had influenced my thinking. Now I'm no expert but, by way of background, Hinduism is a complex ancient religion that incorporates a wide range of practices and beliefs. It's not the product of one teacher or teaching but the sum of many works compiled over about five thousand years. The great number of Hindu deities tends to confuse the uninitiated and has led to misunderstandings in the West. Although it's difficult to put Hinduism into a classification box because of its diversity, I think that many Hindus would consider themselves to be monotheistic, as faith centres on a belief in one great spirit, the Brahman, whose aspects include creation (Brahma not Brahman), preservation (Vishnu) and destruction (Shiva) in the cycle of existence. Really, all the various deities, including these three, are merely forms assumed by the Brahman to facilitate
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access, and it is to Brahman that all worship is ultimately directed. An important and accessible work, the Gita, as it's affectionately known, is a small part of a much greater epic, but it's self contained and pretty much outlines many of the central features of Hindu belief. Like most ancient texts, the date of its origin is a little fuzzy but is put somewhere between 500 BC and 150 BC; say, a few centuries before the New Testament. Essentially, it consists of a dialogue between Krishna and Prince Arjuna, to whom Krishna appears in human form. In Hinduism, Krishna is an incarnation of the preservation aspect of Brahman (ie an avatar of Vishnu), which, believe me, is pretty senior in the scheme of things. So what's this dialogue about? Well, Krishna appears before Arjuna to resolve the latter's doubts on the eve of a great battle (one that really did take place in the ancient world). Arjuna is supposed to lead his followers into a decisive battle to rightfully claim the kingdom, but in doing so he must fight against his own relatives and respected teachers, which is neither easy nor ethical, it seems to him. Moreover, there'll be a great slaughter on both sides and he's not even confident that he would be the best
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ruler if his side won. So he's a pretty good guy this Arjuna bloke. But Krishna isn't having any of that. Theres a just principle at stake about who should rule and Arjuna must do his duty, as all people must, without attaching themselves to outcomes (which are already determined). Besides, all action in Creation is essentially a sacrifice to Krishna (and hence to Brahman), the Will behind all things. Warriors, like everyone else, must do what is required of them. If theyre successful, there will be glory in this world. And if not, there will be reward in the next. (Sounds kind of Norse, that last bit.) Anyway, abstracting from the details, what we have here is a philosophy of renunciation. That is, we must try to achieve outcomes in this world but, if we are to progress spiritually, we must act with a detached attitude, as a duty to our Creator. It's a bit like the Christian view, I think: one does what is right in this world and trusts in God. And like Christian theology, there's also a promise of reward for those who do what is right and for the right reason. That promised reward in the Gita is a kind of heaven, too, a state of bliss in which a person is freed from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth that traps them in this temporal world of ours.
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Those who don't manage to achieve the sublime mental state needed to exit this cycle of life are sentenced to reincarnation, but, happily, with a promotion in their nature if some spiritual progress has been made. See, this is where karma comes in. It's actually about being too attached to the world through, well, desire. If you want to move up and on to eventual freedom, you have to renounce this attachment, you have to rise above it. I guess that attitude could help people cope with suffering, too, couldn't it? Religions often aim to do that. Presumably it is one of the motivations behind their design. As for the battle, Arjuna did fight (but well before the Gita was written), there was a very great slaughter, his clan was victorious, and the future of the Indian subcontinent was changed forever. But was this result actually good or bad? Well, I guess the subtext at this level is that ultimately were in no position to judge. In any case, the great battle that the Gita is really talking about is the battle for Arjuna's soul. And I suppose he won that. Now the Gita is a very influential work, both in the East and the West, and is readily available. The philosophy of renunciation, in particular, lines up well with my personal belief
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in a Creator and with the view that the universe rides on waves of cause and effect that reach into our very minds. Like Shakespeare, I think that everyone has their part to play in the great unfolding drama. So I can appreciate how our actions could be seen to be a kind of sacrifice to the mind behind it all. In fact, I reckon that's a pretty sensible way to understand life. And I also think that, like Arjuna, we must still engage actively in the world; we shouldn't just sit around and wait for the inevitable. For though everything in life be inevitable, inevitably, the lazy athlete did not win. I don't take detachment quite as far as Hindu philosophy, however, because, as a minimalist, I don't feel comfortable with complexities like reincarnation. I just think that if a Creator has made us as human beings, She's not likely to have a problem with us trying to make a reasonable job of being one. And if we can, responsibly, find some genuine human joy along the way, you know through relationships and stuff, that should be fine, too. Shouldn't it? The main detachment bit that I have picked up, though, is the practical notion of the value of being level headed, of being balanced in life and more accepting of the fact that personal outcomes, good and bad, are not all down to me.
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I guess that's a yoga thing, which is also covered in the Gita. Great stuff. But while I have this bit of philosophy in my kit, I have to confess that I've found that it can be quite tricky to apply in real life. In fact, I suck at it. Now another thing that struck me about the Gita as I re-read it recently, is how like the New Testament it is in some areas. Consider these words of the personified God, Krishna, for example: Gita 4:8 "For the salvation of those who are good, for the destruction of evil in men, for the fulfillment of the kingdom of righteousness, I come to this world in the ages that pass." Gita 4:9 "He who knows my birth as God and who knows my sacrifice, when he leaves his mortal body, goes no more from death to death, for he in truth comes to me," Gita 4:11 "In any way that men love me, in that same way they find my love: for many are the paths of men, but they all in the end come to me." The familiar sound of these words made me wonder whether some Hindu thinking made its way over to the middle East. This is just

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speculation by me (and perhaps others, I don't know), and I wouldn't want to offend anyone. But I do think that when we're raised within a particular tradition were apt to think of its great works as being wholly unique inspirations setting us on a path of exclusive righteousness. Yet scholarship increasingly challenges this view. Influences from Greek and Persian thinking have been identified in Christian theology, for example, in notions like the Devil and Hell. And I'd be very surprised if the ideas of a nearby great Hindu civilisation did not also travel westwards via the sandals, ships and saddles that carried people all around the ancient civilised world. Thus the Apostle St. Thomas reportedly travelled to India and established one of the oldest continuing Christian communities in the world in Kerala. And if there was religious traffic from West to East, why not the reverse? Look how Buddhism, a child of Hinduism, has swept through Asia and beyond. Big ideas really get about. Okay, all sacred texts are considered to be divinely inspired. But does that really mean that all the inspiration has to be in one head at one time? Why can't God have worked through many diverse people over the centuries? I mean,
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who first thought of God, anyway? Sure, there are some big names associated with early monotheistic religions; even a pharaoh. But I reckon it probably first occurred to just an ordinary person, sitting quietly under the stars or gazing out at the wide stretched sea. And it's not just profound ideas that can link us but language itself: the factory and warehouse of those ideas. On a journey from Delhi to Dublin, for example, one would encounter many strange and apparently separate tongues all of which belong, in fact, to the same family. So let's be a little bit more conscious of that. And in religion, let's have less of the exclusive stuff and be a bit more tolerant of the different takes we each have on the Great Mystery. Everyone's making a contribution, I reckon. But lets question these different perspectives, too, and see what we can learn. See, I like to think of the different religions as being like flowers in a field. To the beekeeper, all these flowers are important but it's the bees that matter most. Or is that, the work of the bees? Hmmm. Bzzzzz

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Xmas Message
Well, Xmas is, amongst other things, a season for messages, so I thought Id get in on the act. Of course, most messages come from those in high office, you know, people with podiums or pulpits; and good on them. But this one is just from me, an ordinary guy on humbler ground. This is a blessing in disguise, however, because it also means that I can break from tradition and be more adventurous about what I say. Not that I want to offend. Not at all. And as youve made it this far into this book, I trust that you wont be. Like many Xmas messages these days, mine will be ecumenical; that is to say, pretty inclusive of people from both the present and the past. But first, the past. As you may know, Xmas is celebrated on a pagan date covering various cultures from the frozen north to Mediterranean Rome. To the Germanic worshipers of Odin, the Yule feast at this time of year celebrated the returning Sun after the midwinter solstice, as the great wheel of the seasons turned for the good. It was a time for sacrifice, feasting, drinking, and
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maybe even a bit of good natured romping about dressed like a goat. By the way, that word yule is thought to have become the English word jolly and where would Santa Claus be without that? But the precise Xmas date of 25 December owes more to the Roman festival of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus), the Sun having become a God in the late Roman period and the date corresponding with the end of the winter solstice (according to the old Julian Calendar at that time, not our modern one, where it is a few days earlier). The Sun festival actually succeeded an earlier Roman winter solstice festival celebrating the God of Agriculture, Saturn, when, you guessed it, a good time was had by all, even the slaves, who got to poke fun at their masters for being slaves to the luxuries of life. So adopting this date for Christs Mass allowed Christianity not only to eventually usurp the old religious festivals but also allowed Christians everywhere to escape persecution from pagans by celebrating the birth of the Son on a day of more widespread celebration of the Sun. Have you heard that story of how the Celtic cross, with the crucifix superimposed on a circle, represents the primacy of the Son over the Sun? the Irish at that time being sun worshippers and
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St Patrick converting them to Christianity. Maybe its not true, but its a good metaphor for what happened. Well, thats all history now. But before moving on, allow me to say a good word for the ancient sun worshippers. Its not that I agree with them but rather that I can appreciate their point of view. They were aiming for the Divine and they hit the sun; the most wonderfully beneficial and mysterious thing they could see. Remember, they didnt have a clue about what it was as we do now. So, not right my ancestors but well intended and nice try. Okay, now lets look at these various Xmas time celebrations and see what we can learn from them. To me, they all have three things in common: communal joy, a bit of hope, and acknowledgement of the Divine. Which I think says something about us, something good. As for the merit of joyful celebration, its hard to go past what that student of the human condition, Quoheleth had to say: Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with
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him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun. Ecclesiastes 8:15. Oh, and you might want to add a bit of love in there, as well. Its that time of year, too, eh, especially since Jesus of Nazareth. And dont tell me theres no joy in love, while it lasts. Well, there can also be some grief but lets not dwell on that. Then theres hope, which is a good thing, too. For hope is one of the great motivators in life, especially at this time of darkness for my northern friends; you wouldnt want to be without it. No way. Reason doesnt really motivate us, as one might think, although it can help us to make our hopes come true. Id like to note now, though, that hope needs to be balanced. Think of that revolving wheel and look ahead but remember the darkness behind it, too. That way you might appreciate the upturn a little more. Life is hard. Struth, Jesus was crucified for actually doing the right thing! and theres a lot of persecution still going on today. Nor is nature itself ultimately kind. When you think about the victims of disease, famine, accident, predation, war, loss, and struggle, often against the odds, its hard not to feel sorry for all creatures, great and small. Seriously, it is worrying. But while we should be moved and
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affected by empathy, we cant let sorrow stop us in our tracks, can we? Thats where hope kicks in. Cling to it, as we cling to each other, when we can. And finally, lets not forget the Great Mystery. Well, no one knows much about Her. So I hope youll forgive me now for not endorsing any particular vision of the Divine, past, present or what may come further down the line. Thats the main ecumenical bit. The best I think you can do is be aware of it, show a bit of respect and, if youre doing it tough in one of those dark winters of life, ask for a little help. You never know till you try. Id go easy on the blood sacrifices, though. Well, that about covers what I wanted to say. So, in this joyful season, may I now add my mortal hope to yours and others, for the smile of Gods kindness in the coming year. Merry Xmas, Peace and Good Cheer!

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Riders of the Spring

Before retirement, I once had a lunchtime discussion with some young economist colleagues on the question of whether fast-food advertising directed at children should be regulated. They took the view that children had better judgement than adults gave them credit for, so regulation wasnt required. My reply was that we were talking about people who believe that a giant rabbit brings them chocolate Easter eggs. Kids believe many things, dont they? And we parents do, too, but not usually in benevolent giant rabbits. Nice thought, though. For us, Easter is usually religious, mainly Christian but also pagan, and is said to be derived from Eostre the Germanic goddess of spring. Or something like that. In the Christian tradition, it is also a spring festival in the northern hemisphere because the crucifixion of Jesus took place after the Jewish festival of Passover, which occurs in Nissan, the Jewish month of spring. The Passover story is a truly terrible one, the Angel of Death passing over those Jewish houses marked with the blood of a lamb and
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claiming the first born son of the Egyptians. But it is a springtime full moon festival of hope for Jews, because it was this final awful plague that induced Pharaoh to let this enslaved people go. Fact or fiction? Well theres no evidence for it beyond the unseeing silent stars that still shine upon the world today, and those oral traditions which, after a great many centuries, usually confirm as true what is culturally important. And religion is still the heart of most world cultures, as I look around. So thats an important point, I think: the cultural significance of these spring celebrations. Now the precise date of Easter celebrations is a bit controversial because of differences between Jewish and various Christian calendars (in Western and Eastern churches), which are also not quite aligned with current astronomical events. But its still based on the spring equinox. Basically, for Western churches, Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon following 21 March (the equinox in church calendars - and astronomically close enough). Anyway, the important thing is what Easter celebrates, isnt it? But thats a bit more controversial, I think. First of all theres the question of the facts of the Jesus story, and then theres the matter of their interpretation.
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As for the facts, I think most people, Christians and others, would agree that Jesus was real and that he said some terrific things. I especially like the way he moved the religious focus further away from literal law towards an ethical framework, and one based more on empathy and understanding. In doing so, he pulled the ethical rug out from under the legs of a legalistic theological class at the time, at least for a while, which was nice. Then it crept back. Thats official religion, for you. I think most people would also agree that Jesus was crucified, was prepared to put his life on the line to preach, which is an Easter message in itself. However, there is more disagreement over whether he actually did die and was resurrected, or was taken down prematurely and lived on. People note how quick his death was by Roman crucifixion standards, so much so that Governor Pilate was surprised to receive news of it by a Centurion who, we understand, was even a Christian convert. And so on. I can appreciate these objections. It seems more rational to believe them than to believe that a man who had been dead for days could return to life. Ask a coroner. But well never know for sure, the evidence either way is not conclusive, nor is the event verifiable anymore. One might say that we should take a leap of faith. And another might
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reply that gaps in understanding (at least concerning events in this world) are best addressed by bridges of reason. So, yes, controversial. For me, the message is more important than the miracle, and I really like his ethical stuff. But Easter messages traditionally go much further than that. The death of Jesus at the time of Passover, shedding blood like a sacrificial lamb, is loaded with symbolism. And this symbolism was developed by others into an elaborate and beautiful theology after his death, including the view that Jesus died for our sins, to forgive us, to save those who believe. Well, I have some concerns about this. You see, I dont think that people need Divine forgiveness for their sins because the way I see it people cant fundamentally help being what they are and a Creator would know that. The way we parents know, underneath, that our kids cant really help it, either. Blame is a flawed human concept, like guilt and punishment. Societies and parents employ it pragmatically, sometimes to good effect, but the underlying reality, below this social game plane of ours, is very different. What someone chooses or does, depends upon their mind, which depends upon the state of their brain, which
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depends upon genetics and experiences, psychological and chemical. If I were you, I would behave like you. Simple. I would sin like you. I would make mistakes like you. As it is, Im not like you, so I make mistakes like me. I sure do. But we are all fundamentally innocent. The process of our mistake making is complex but the truth involved is quite mundane. And if we work through and from that intellectual baseline, its pretty hard to see why a lamb or spiritual leader should be sacrificed to redeem us for our natural God determined flaws. Thats why I steer away from the traditional Easter theology and stick to ethics. What we need to do, it seems to me, is to first understand ourselves, something that, in various ways, Jesus of Nazareth taught. And when weve done that, we can revisit this forgiveness thing. For when weve achieved that, we can really forgive each other; forgiveness would be a logical necessity, albeit mixed with a little kindness. I hope so, although I dont pretend to be there myself, yet or ever. But thats the idea of it. And now, thinking ahead and getting back to celebrations of hope, if we are due for a Messiah, as many in the Judaeo Christian line of religions believe, I personally hope that shes on
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the green side, as we really need to get a go on there, dont we? And not just for us. So, in the biblical tradition of Easter messages, may I conclude by hoping that the psalm is fulfilled: Be glad, earth and sky! Roar, sea, and every creature in you: rejoice, land, and everything in you! The trees in the forest will shout for joy when the Lord comes to rule the earth. Until then, I hope we make a bit more of an effort ourselves.

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Xmas in July
The traditional belief that Jesus was born of a virgin is under review both within and without the Christian family and what better time than an untraditional Xmas for us to objectively review this traditional Xmas belief? A U.S. Episcopal Bishop thinks that Christianity should shed itself of this and other myths or lose credibility in the modern world. And, perhaps in response to such views, an Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury has said that Christians need not believe in it to actually be Christian. This is a radical shift in theological ground by learned people holding high office about a central Christian tenet, begging greater questions about the prevalence of mythology in modern religion. So lets take a look at it. Some Christians tend to think of the virgin birth as being one of their religions defining characteristics; but if one looks at other religions that pre-date Christianity one sees that the idea is not new and would have been familiar to many learned people throughout ancient Asia. Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, and others were also said to have been divinely conceived, two of the big three having virgin mothers. Perhaps
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they all were, or perhaps none, but it is, of course, a good way of elevating the status of a leader, which is one of the functions of mythology in both religion and politics. Another function of mythology is to offer an explanation for something not otherwise understood and, if one is predisposed to believe that Jesus is the son of God, I guess it could fill that role as well. Its not really necessary for that belief, however, as one can still believe that Jesus was later accepted by God as a son through his sacrifice (the adoptive explanation of his divinity) - so the Archbishops comment about the virgin birth being unnecessary for Christians is actually definitionally sound. Now the first hint of a potential problem with the astounding virgin story is that it seems to be under-reported in the New Testament. The oldest Gospel, Mark, doesnt mention it and neither do the substantial writings of Paul, who was really responsible for establishing Christianity beyond Judaism. Pauls writings predate all the Gospels and he was quite clear in Romans (1:3) that Jesus was a physical descendant of David (the genealogy is through his father Joseph) and that his divinity was shown through his resurrection (ie not his birth). The two books that mention the virgin birth are Matthew and Luke, which are related in content
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and are both based on Mark plus an earlier unknown source of sayings by Jesus simply called Q (from the German Quelle meaning source). To many scholars, Matthews intention in adding a story about the virgin birth to the narrative he sourced from Mark is to identify Jesus as the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophesy (Isaiah 7:14) which speaks of a future saviour called Immanuel, a descendant of David, who will be born of a virgin. Matthew makes no bones about referring explicitly to this quote in the first chapter of his book (Matthew 1:22). However, there are a few problems with Matthews efforts. First, he has to establish that Jesus is a descendant of David, which he does by establishing a genealogical link through his father Joseph. But if his mother was a virgin, does this genealogy of Jesus through Joseph make sense? Not really. Secondly, he is wrong about the prophesy itself because of a simple translation error. You see, he was evidently using a famous Greek translation of the Hebrew bible called the Septuagint (referring to its seventy interpreters) and, unfortunately, this work mistakenly translated the Hebrew word almah (young woman) in Isaiah into the Greek parthenos (virgin). This early mistranslation was
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later perpetuated in English translations prepared by committed Christians though not in my more recent Good News Bible which gets it right: Well then, the Lord himself will give you a sign: a young woman who is pregnant will have a son and will name him Immanuel. So there never was a virgin birth prophesy in Isaiah at all. Well, I guess you can start to see why the theological ground on the virgin birth is shifting, just as it has shifted on many mythological points in the Old and New Testament. Even the patriarchal credentials of Abraham and the truth of the resurrection are being seriously questioned. More generally, I think that we should remember that all of todays great religions are grounded in the ancient past. The modern ones of Islam, Christianity and Buddhism average out at two thousand years old and they are generally founded on the earlier religions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism that are several thousand years old. And so on, as beliefs echo through the landscape of time. Understandably, therefore, they all contain myths composed by poets and well meaning story tellers in prescientific times, subsequently translated into changing languages and circumstances with modifications and errors. Sometimes these myths were self serving and sometimes they
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genuinely attempted to offer an explanation for phenomena that science better explains now. Personally, I am untroubled by this as I think the modern monotheist only needs to believe in the trilogy of God, themselves and prayer. As for others and ethics, we now know that morality is pervasive in cultures and serves a social purpose; atheists also care. Secular or not, caring is part of our social nature. So, as much as I admire Christianitys position on forgiveness and charity, I have to say that religion is not about inter-human relations. Not really. Religion is really about our personal relationship with the Divine.

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The Devils in the Detail

Ever had the feeling that something is going to happen but you dont know what? Well, I think thats an example of a broader principle about how our level of uncertainty of things tends to be greater at the more detailed level. Like maybe youre pretty sure there are aliens but are less sure about their appearance, size and fashion sense. Another more formal principle of uncertainty is that the chance that one uncertain thing will come true is greater than the chance that both it and another unrelated uncertain thing will. For example, if the chance of winning a prize in one lottery is 10%, and of winning a prize in another is 10%, then the chance of winning a prize in both is 1% (i.e.10% of 10%). Verily, life wasnt meant to be easy. Now when we put these ideas together, i.e. of detailed and multiple uncertainties, were talking about stuff like winning not just any prize but first prize in two successive lotteries and, as you can imagine, the odds really start to stack up. Lets apply this thinking to theology.

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Its interesting to see how complex most religions are. Put together over thousands of years, they contain many specific assertions about many different things: divinity; ethics, law; mythological explanations for natural phenomena; cultural rules relating to things like food, etc. Some of these are related to some extent, like ethics and law but theres enough independence in the mix to make the detailed collection of most religions highly improbable without the support of strong evidence. And usually these are presented as sacrosanct, often without explanation so the evidence is slim. One simply must believe and obey them all of them. And the list we sign up to usually depends upon where we were born, too, making our acceptance of the package pretty arbitrary. Shouldnt we be more discerning given the quantity and detail of belief involved? Consider, as an example, the Abrahamic religions named after their common patriarch. The lineages in these religions are one very precise item on the list of beliefs believers sign up to but now we now know that there are big problems with them. The one extending all the way back to Adam and Eve is way too short for one thing. Way to short. And now scholars say that even going back to Abraham is a problem.

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Abraham is said to be the father of Isaac and granddad of Jacob, and a divine blessing derives from him through them. But scholars now say that Abraham wasn't really Isaac's father, after all, nor was Isaac the dad of Jacob. Rather, it seems that these men were the subject of three separate heroic traditions, each one from a different region, and that when the three stories were merged, the three patriarchs were combined into the one genealogy with Abraham, the patriarch of the dominant region, made numero uno. Suppose these scholars of history are right, and I think they are, is this something that should affect our own relationship with the great mystery some call God? I dont see why it should. Sure its a story told by these religions and one used by them, sometimes for political purposes. But if someone believes in God I dont think that the truth about lineages and old time stories associated with them should be of any real relevance. Frankly, the whole Abraham story seems to me to be a bit on the irreligious side anyway in that it smacks of privatising God. This god is really our god and we have a special deal! Its not uncommon for this sort of thing to happen in religions. Those religions with multiple gods sometimes start out as separate
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religions with local private gods and then these get integrated as their cultures do, with some gods promoted over others. And whats good for gods is good for patriarchs, too, I guess. I dont know what it is about numbers and religions, either. Seven is common, as in: 7 days to make the world; the 7 week journey of death; the 7 heavens; the 7 sacraments; the 7 of heads of the beast, etc. One thinks also of 3 as in the Christian and Hindi trinities, and the 3 levels of consciousness. It seems that we like some numbers and feature them in our myths which then gain credibility because of them. Well these complexities of specifics are not for me. Theres something all too human about them. And given the kinds of uncertainty problems accompanying them, I dont wonder at the extent of secularization in the developed world. Old religions are asking too much for new reason and knowledge to bear. Even so, I think history scholars are doing us all a great service in stripping away the old myths and that the consequences of this shouldnt be feared by monotheists. Theres no need to discard the God with the ungodly veneer. And maybe if they keep chipping away then one day well all discover the one God that monotheists all have in common and put an end to a lot of oppression and bloodshed when we do.
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For verily, the devil dwells in the detail.

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Demythologising God
Well, its Easter Sunday, a big event in the Christian calendar: the resurrection of the Son of God. It sounds religiously unique but the old roman world where Christianity grew and flourished was actually accustomed to gods having children, and to worshipping men as Gods, too: elevation to divine status was a privilege of the Caesars. So the supernatural story of a god mating magically with a human to produce an immortal hero with super human powers who eventually ascends to the heavens would have had natural appeal. And a panoply of saints to whom one could also pray was also right down the ancient polytheistic alley. Although it took time for a religion of slaves and women to overcome the prejudices of the powerful, it eventually got its way in the pagan world because of this very story and because of the promise it held out to everyone. The real religious problem, however, was staying true to its monotheistic roots in the process, because Jesus, the apostles and the bible were Jewish right? And Jews are commanded in stone to worship only one God.
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Enter the trinity. This central idea is that three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy spirit exist in the same being. I guess it never occurred to them that God might not actually have any gender since She is a solitary and unique being with no personal need for sexual procreation but thats the way society was then and evidently still is. Ok, Mary is revered as the mother of God but that isnt quite the same thing as being a god like her son and his father. Boys and their dads? The trinity has been pretty controversial over the millennia, particularly at the detailed level concerning what each of these terms might mean and how they are related. Some Christians didnt even think that Jesus was a god. But the general idea was stamped as orthodox by a council in the C4th and is broadly accepted now, especially as dissenting views were considered heresy and no one wants to be a heretic, right? People still argue about the details, though. I guess thats because there can be many ways to make three loose ideas fit. But I must admit, it is kind of neat. You start off with a man called Jesus whose followers proclaim him as the real great God of everything, only there can only be one god they should worship so the old and new one must the same, and thus the new one cant really be new
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and must have been around forever, too, and they must also be tied up with this Holy Spirit thing the bible sometimes talks about - so lets make them all one! Brilliant. Problem solved. However, this triangular connecting device has a very human character to my eyes. And if one must bring geometry into God the circle seems to be a less rickety metaphor. The alpha and the omega without either. Elegant. And doing without the technical structure also means that theres no need to interpret the many different biblical and theological things that may or may not have been said or be true. One God is enough to work with without all that detail, surely? I mean, its still God, even without the fancy trimmings and surely thats enough? Even if there were a trinity, or multidimensional polyhedron of some sort, if theyre all the one then why not just deal with that mysterious one? Why would God be unhappy with a humble position like that? The real mystery isnt the trinity its God Herself. We dont really know anything about Her, and all the treatises in all the libraries of all the religions seem, at the end of the day, to be just the theories of people assuming much.

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Monotheism for me is not about this elaboration at all its about the pure distilled idea. Its something simpler, less contentious and more robust than these established forms. Its like Judaism without self serving promises supposedly made to legendary patriarchs of doubtful provenance. Its like Christianity without a son and saints because somehow God alone seems enough. Its like Islam without a presumed God given right to oppress women and with less resistance to progressive laws. Islam was originally progressive and could be more so again. And as for the payoff of believing, maybe there is, maybe not. The great French thinker and scientist, Blaise Pascal, reckoned that you should treat the decision to believe in God as a bet and you can only really lose or break even by not believing, whereas you can only win or break even by believing. What if the end really is nigh? Well, I can see the sense in this line but its hard to think approve of that kind of motivation. At least, as a sole religious motive. There should be more conviction, dont you think? Anyway, I would hesitate to bet on details, and that is monotheism to me.

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The Museum of Religious Curiosities

Its mysterious beyond our obvious little world, isnt it? Outside this garden of fruits and threats. And upon that canvas of unknowability may be drawn many things. Many Theories. An infinity of them. And not just an ordinary infinity like the infinity of integers but one of the higher order infinities, an infinity of infinities. Thats the potential that vacant space offers us, even if its mind space. And over our few thousands of years of wondering weve made a bit of start, too. We have spirits, and spirit guides, rainbow serpents (a personal favourite), guardian ancestors, souls, daemons, angels, heaven, hell, eternal battles, eternal bliss, lightness, darkness, consciousness, nothingness, demigods, children of gods, genies, blue eyed valkyries and brown eyed houris etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So elaborate. So curious. So creative. And goodness, so many! How is one to choose? May we mix and match? Why not? But I think that really the safest thing is to just pick them up and
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put them away before someone else gets hurt. Not carelessly, but carefully, with a trolley. I load up my red one with the shiny handle and wheel them around to the little museum of religious curiosities. There they stand, one beside the other in neat parade lines, each with a small brass plaque describing them and their artists if known. That way I can enjoy and study them without cluttering up the unknown, and learn a little more about us. After all, they have been important in the past; people have been able to find some kind of connection with the Great Mystery that some call God through them. But less so for more of us these days, because theres so much that is unnecessary and distracting about them, too. So its back to basics for me. Minimalism. Keep it simple. Profound. And a more humble position for humans, which somehow seems appropriate, as we mustnt pretend to know what is not known, must we? Of course, I didnt invent this simplicity. Its quite an old idea. But somehow it got more elaborate over time, too. People started writing things, in stone and on scrolls. Rules and rituals. Genealogies and stories. Promises and predictions which we still patiently await,
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millennium after millennium. Then, with holy books we got holy men, chief holy men, holy buildings, holy places and holy lands, holy saints, holy relics, holy days, holy trinities and a multitude of little libraries loaded with institutional dogma - etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Do we see a pattern here? Well, Im sorry to be the one to say this, but someone has to as were old enough to know: all this is not monotheism. Not really. Its Legoland. So lets put this stuff away, too, and put our creative talents to work elsewhere. Okay? I mean, look at the state of this garden. What an unholy mess. And its not like we didnt do it, is it? Thats right. So lets make a creative start on that. And if were good, we might get the telescope out after dinner. You used to like that and the stars are so bright this time of year. Youd think they were beckoning. Makes you wonder

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The Problem of Scale

Have you ever used one of those great web tools that let you progressively zoom in from an extremely broad scale of the world, in pictures or maps, right down to an extremely fine scale, like individual house blocks. Hey, thats my place! Its terrific the way these zoom layers really link together, isnt it? so the big actually is based on the small. Wouldnt it be great if ideas were like this too? Unfortunately, thats often not the case. In politics, for example, people often bring prejudices to power, like communism or capitalism, with the result that policies about all kinds of stuff, like our foreign relations and indigenous affairs, might not work very well because theyre not based on ground level reality. Then maybe a ground level operator like the eye doctor Fred Hollows comes along and shows just what can be done with very little. This gap between big thinking and small awareness is a really important problem. You could even go to war by mistake! Even in objective areas like physics we still have trouble trying to match big picture ideas like
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gravity with small picture ideas like atomic forces. People are still trying to integrate these theories. I think religion is like that, too. Cultures tend to have these big picture religions that people then have to make work at ground level because, really, religion is not whats in a book its about us as individuals and the mysterious Divine. Its a relationship thing. Anyway, over time, these big picture views get more complicated as they try to cope with fresh understandings and new circumstances. Even approaches to truth change over time so there can be differences between stories once written to convey moral or religious truth with new ways of thinking based on literal truth. So you can get a New and an Old view in the same book, with a lot of theology on the side to try and sort out the story. Eventually people may just see the whole thing as too difficult to accept or unreservedly relate to. And thats a problem Ive seen a lot as I get older. People trying, rejecting, searching, as a friend of mine recently said. And I think that what we searchers basically need is a broad framework we can use to make things work at the scale of the individual. Not too elaborate, as that can create problems; make it hard to
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integrate the fine scale relating to us with the big picture. The broad level should be broad, right? Thats how I came to be a minimalist. I was looking for just the main ideas that I could work within. In case you might be as well, Ive included such a framework below. Notice I said framework, not religion? Thats because religion is more about that relationship thing. Its personal. Now this is only relevant if you already believe in the Divine, okay? Im not arguing that issue here. Like I said, it's personal.

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What is Minimalism?
Minimalism is a simple religious framework based on the principle that the more complex the set of beliefs the more likely it is to reflect the wrong assumptions of the various and often unknown people who have contributed to it (but this does not mean that another religion is necessarily wrong). It is a framework rather than a religion because it sees religion as being about our personal relationship with the Divine, so the minimalist framework aims to provide some uncluttered space for that personal relationship to develop. Religion does not come in a book. 1. At its heart is reverence for a divinity. This is a single being for, as the medieval philosopher William Occam said, why multiply entities (or assumptions) unnecessarily?

We may pray to this divinity for guidance or assistance in serious matters (why shouldn't we?). We should avoid giving attributes (either limbs or supposed qualities) to the divinity because the more we attribute, whether by imagination or
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inference, the more likely we are to make mistakes. As we don't really need a portrait to revere God, mystery seems preferable to misconception. 2. Secondly, it notes that ethics, whether about personal virtues or behaviour towards others, should reflect what we are as human beings. And because we are social animals, this means treating others the way we like to be treated (hence avoiding lying, stealing, killing etc, not being cruel to animals, looking after our earthly home etc). When the mind knows what is right for itself, it knows what is right for others. So there is no need for complex or inflexible and comprehensive moral rules. 3. Minimalism notes that life will have more meaning if we can establish satisfying relationships or develop our talents to pursue an activity that is satisfying and/or worthwhile (in the sense that it serves the future or our community). Again, this is practical and is based on our natures. Thats it: no big book, no priestly class, no ritual, no church, no mythology and no money.

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As for explaining the cosmos, minimalism considers that this is not a matter for religion (which is about our relationship with God and ethical living) so we should let science and philosophy serve as best they can for those who are interested. Similarly, for advice about food, health, personal problems etc, professional experts rather than religious advisers or dogmas are recommended if available. Wouldn't God want us to look after ourselves as well as we could, and isn't that guideline enough? And notably minimalism says nothing about an afterlife, even if there is one. We should simply live the way we should, given what we are. (And if we were created, would a revered Creator really be unhappy with that?) Reverence for the divinity should not be based on selfish motives such as the promise of an afterlife. Minimalism is not associated with an authority or personality. Its words speak for themselves. It does not aim to drive out existing religions but rather to supplement them.

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Is God of the Universe?

As you may know, I have a policy about not attributing characteristics to the Great Mystery that some call God. But I don't rule out commenting on characteristics that other people may give Her, if some sensible comment might be attempted. And I'm going to have a go at that now. In this essay, I thought I'd look at the idea that God, the mysterious supreme being, is something of this universe, like a force of light or a being whose molecular structure confers amazing powers. At its limit, this idea of God being of the universe becomes one of God being the whole universe itself, which is very interesting. I remember reading somewhere that Einstein expressed a view like this. But memory is creative so you'd be wise not to quote an old guy like me. Anyway, let's just say that these examples are not my invention and let's see what they reveal about our God assumptions. Or, perhaps, let's see what our assumptions concerning God say about these examples. Yeah, that's more like what I've got in mind.
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To save time, I'm going to deal with all these examples by reviewing the extreme case that God is the universe itself, as I think my comments in relation to this grand example apply to the lesser examples, too. And what we'll do is contrast the implications of this model with the classic monotheistic view that God is a Creator of the universe and hence separate from it. Okay? Oh boy. Now in the classical view, God, as the great Creator of everything, is seen as being allpowerful. I mean you'd have to be to do that, right? And along with this quality, She's also credited with being all-knowing. What's the point of all that power if you don't know what's going on? Oh yeah, and everywhere, too. How else would you know everything? So let's see how a God who is the universe shapes up against this classic but still simple view. Well, the everywhere bit seems fine if God is the whole universe. If you are everything, you are everywhere, surely. So it's just as well we're sticking to the grand example and not some lesser one, isnt it? But what about all-knowing? Well, I think we have a few problems here. You see, there's a profound difference between this God's allknowingness and our some-knowingness. Sure,
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all-knowing means more knowing but it has major qualitative implications. We humans, for example, try to get value out of some knowing by sort of generalising. You know, we make up a word like 'brick' and then say that our nice little cottage has 5,000 of them. But that's really kind of cheating, isn't it? In reality, every 'brick' is different, unique; different patterns, weight, size, hardness. You name it, it's different. That means there is only one of each of them. But generalising is helpful for us limited thinkers because trying to understand the uniqueness of a nearby lion would take a worrying amount of time. However, an all-knowing God would know every unique brick comprehensively. It wouldn't need to economise by using words. It would know everything, bit by bit. Wow! That takes a lot of memory. Ask Intel. And as the God we are imagining now is the whole universe, that memory would take up a lot of the universe. In fact, it would take up the entire universe. See, without going into all the physics, let's just say the universe is made up of a heap of very tiny stuff. Now, luckily, all this stuff is available to the God of the universe to know stuff. But each bit of tiny stuff can't know that much. In fact, it can only know about itself. Remember, God is not generalising here, She needs to have a perfect model of this stuff in its
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head, a replica if you like, in order to all-know it. And that replica is at least the stuff itself. After all, we can't have stuff and a separate replica of stuff as there isn't enough stuff for both so we'll have to make the most of it. So if it's a complex bit of stuff, it will need that complexity to describe the existence of its complex self in God's head, including, as I see it, where that bit of stuff is, which is very unique. Hence all the stuff in the universe would be needed to know all about the existence of all the stuff in the universe. That's a lot of info alright, but there appears to be just enough stuff for it if God's head is also the universe, and provided that God's head is all the God that there is. Otherwise, She would need more stuff than the universe for the rest of her. But we'll overlook that possibility and say that we have just enough stuff for an all-knowing Godhead. Whew! Or do we? What about knowing historical stuff? You know, what was happening in the previous instant, for example? Or what about future stuff. What will happen next? God should know that, too, right? Or what about abstract thoughts, say, about how the universe works or might be changed to look neater, and so on? It just doesn't seem like there would be enough stuff left over from knowing
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that stuff exists to know this extra stuff, too. So you see the problem confronting an all-knowing God in the universe, even if She is the size of the universe, don't you? Moreover, to integrate knowledge, to be able to process it, you need to connect these bits up, sending info from one end of the network to the other, like we and computers do, to create an operational mind. But a God of the universe would also be subject to the laws of the universe, too, right? So the fastest that information could travel in the Godhead would be the speed of light. And that means that it would take a couple of years to get a message from a bit of stuff in one star to another neighbouring star in the same galaxy; and hundreds of thousands of years to connect up other stars within a galaxy; and billions of years to get information in the universe, the Godhead, from one galaxy to others further away. So, by the time some information got somewhere important, it would necessarily be out of date. Doesn't look good for all-knowing. And the same problem applies to all-powerful. You need energy to do stuff and energy can't travel faster than the speed of light either. So by the time you might want to do something and actually get some force to the spot, it might just
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be too late. Rats. Although you mightn't even realise this because you're not all knowing. Ignorance is bliss. This power problem and the communication issue are the greater when one considers that the expansion of universe is not limited by the speed of light. Things then get seriously out of reach. So it would seem that if God is of the universe, it would be a pretty limited kind of God, wouldnt it? Sort of a demigod, I'd say. Not that you'd want to cross it. Now, from debating this question in various forums, I know that some people would argue that contradictions between what is possible in the universe and the classical concept of God imply that our classical God doesn't exist. However, I think that's going too far, since the classical view is that God is separate from the universe to begin with. But what could this mean? One might think, for example, of God's being in contact with each and every bit of stuff in the universe through a separate divine dimension. You know, touching each point with one of Her infinite fingers, the way we might touch a pane of glass and yet remain separate from it. Or maybe, She is just touching the idea of the universe with the fingers
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of Her infinite mind. That sounds cool but, of course, I don't really know. That's the Great Mystery for you: mysterious

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Seduction
Lets look at the phenomenon of love; human and divine love. What are the facts? I think that the first fundamental one is that we human beings are social animals and need love. Even Hitler needed it; before dying, he married. And a very loving person is a natural human ideal. Sometimes we project this ideal onto others near us, and can be disappointed. Sometimes we project it onto leaders to whom we build statues, which maybe later we tear down. And sometimes we project it onto gods or the cosmos, which brings us to Divine Love with a big L. God the Creator has become the God of Love. But does this new god fit the facts? A striking feature about the universe, including this world, is how violent it is. Stars are born in violence, burn with violence and often die violently, too. There really are Death Stars out there and one day one of those lovely twinkling lights above could send a packet of unkind and indifferent gamma radiation straight towards us.

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And there are plenty of inanimate threats besides dying stars; like volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fire, and asteroids. Nor is the food chain nice. I think we should take care not to inflict unnecessary pain on others but one cannot really avoid it. Even little unnoticed animals, with tiny legs and tiny eyes and a brain that feels pain, too, could slip silently down our throats with the vegetarian salad. Most sentient beings, all things great and small, are actually trying to consume other living things - whether that food is sentient or not doesnt really trouble their conscience. And if big teeth dont get you, watch out for those microbes. Everyone is fair game in life. Creation is a nasty, if beautiful, place. Beyond the friends and family of a few animal species like us, there is very little loving or kindness about. Pain is also part of Creation, but not without purpose. Its there, together with pleasure, to guide the behaviour of all animals, like us - but it isnt very nice. And love is there for practical reasons, too, to help us mate, reproduce, nurture, and cooperate; life doesnt serve love, love serves life. So if life isnt about pain and it isnt about love, what is it about? Well, if we look at its history
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and at biology, we see that life is about growth and change just like the rest of the universe, at least for now. Its hard not conclude, then, on the basis of the facts, that a Creator God isnt filled with our projected love. After all, if love is a practical tool for us, why would God have a personal need for it? But that doesnt mean that God shouldnt be revered. Why? Because the universe is astoundingly wonderful. We can see that by looking at it, maybe with a telescope or a microscope or even just with our minds, which may be the most wonderful thing of all. In fact, according to philosophers, it might be the only thing of all dreaming of everything else. But mortal mind is born and dies nevertheless, so there would need to be a greater dream with mortal dreaming in it. Thus, as a monotheist, I revere the great mind behind the universe, if the universe is there, and, in any case, behind the minds of us. Somehow that seems enough, and it does fit the facts. So beware of loving religious icons made by loving human hands. They can be seductive, I know, and they can also misdirect us. Of course, although the great mystery that some call God may not be loving, this does not mean
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that God cannot be kind. In this respect, hope is the well of the good. But you were going to be good anyway, right?

On Gardens On my flowers are grubs that munch 'em And above the grubs are birds that crunch 'em. Why is everything in the world so mean? Because it is a growth machine. Death makes room for changing life The strong grow stronger because of strife. Yet while we may discern this trend, Only its Creator can know the end. And only the Creator makes it.

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Siddartha
Religious icons often radiate a lot of tranquility dont they? Whether its a portrait of a haloed saint or a statue of a blissful buddha, we tend to mix in a bit of peace with the sublime. We often do it with gods, too, but because the world is obviously not like that we generally have to toss in a few devils or other destructive divinities as well, so we can keep the good gods kind. However, tranquility and truth are not necessarily the same, are they? And we shouldnt confuse the two. Truth is about how well our beliefs and assertions fit the facts, to the extent that we know them. Sure, the real facts are ultimately mysterious because we can only go by our own perceptions, subjectivity rules. But as a wise ruler seeks the counsel of reason, we should be careful about how much licence we give to the art of creatively infilling this necessary ignorance. We have to be rational as well, right? Believe me, Ive seen some big problems associated with minds that, sadly, arent and reason can deliver other benefits like your local doctor Most religions are also strong on antidotes to Suffering. Capital S. Its a central motivation.
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They tend to offer relief from suffering in either this life or the next, and sometimes in both. In Christianity, were encouraged to reduce the suffering of others in this world, which I think is a great ethic, but also to draw comfort by focusing on the bliss we could have in the next. And in Buddhism the liberty that comes from enlightenment in this world, bringing a detachment from suffering, also has its rewards in a reincarnated promotion of the soul, or maybe even in the permanent absence of strife after death. Mission accomplished. Well, I appreciate the importance of suffering and the need for comfort but I dont think it should be the principal motivation of religion or the principal concern of life, notwithstanding the fact that it is central to particular lives and at particular times, and that it should be a social priority. Suffering is terrible, I know that. For a long time, though, Siddhartha Buddha didnt. He was said to have been shielded from suffering until the age of 29 - so its discovery must have come as a bit of a shock. Of course. But most of us have seen a bit more of lifes downside before then. And so most of us also know the value of having a warm relationship if theres one on offer: one of the advantages of engaging actively

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and positively with life. So lets be wary of excessive deferment, alright? Yes, we all have our different beliefs but I think that religions have generally stumbled on the ground of suffering when they ought to stay focused on the Divine. And when a religious response to this human concern actually interferes with living, it fails in that respect, too. Its important to experience life, to the extent we can, here and now. That brief experience might even be the only span we have of conscious being Im not here to gloss over that. Just dont overdo it, okay? We need a bit of self control, too, to have a good life. And we almost certainly wont have one if we expect it all now.

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Not the Ascetic Lights the Way Not the ascetic lights the way Theres always some kind of price to pay, For with under valued joy and strife Come also under valued life. The pleasure seeker is likewise lost For excess pleasure incurs a cost, The mind distracted from its natural course By appetites that breed remorse. At times, it's true, one must stand aloof From pain beyond our human proof, But sometimes we must grapple, too, Making friends and foes as humans do. Thus balanced engagement I now prefer To life indulged or life deferred.

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A Fair Go
A friend of mine recently remarked that the closer people are to each other culturally, the more strife there is. Dead right. Look at monotheism. Weve had Sunnis killing Shiites, Protestants killing Catholics, Jews killing Muslims, Christians killing both - and vice versa. Basically, everyone is killing everybody else. It's as though we all feel such a strong need to belong to a particular tribe that were prepared to seriously savage others over the slightest differences. Newsflash: Its The Same God, Guys! Look, you know what the volume of the Sun is compared with the Earth? One million to one. Yes. So on a greater scale, how does the comprehension of God compare to the comprehension of a mere believer? Tricky question? Not really. The answer is infinity. And our lack of comprehension is theological, too. So fighting over such differences is stupid. Its like fighting over whether one persons zero is greater than the next. Struth! And frankly, I think Hindus are monotheists, too. As are others.
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But even if people are not, theres no need to send them to an early grave. I really doubt that God would want that. Ive got to say that I dont think that any of us is right and thats why were all fighting. If we really knew, we wouldnt have so much innocent blood on our hands. And were fighting over insignificant relative differences while an absolute God is shining from above. Stupid! But Im not asking people to agree with each other or to agree with me. Just to give it all a bit of a rest and thrash it out with words instead of bombs. Is that so unreasonable? No. Of course, its not. Thats why I argue: because I know we can all think. God gave us reason, too, nest-ce pas? Religious ideas, like all ideas, should be open to question and questioned openly. So let's be more open to our neighbours. People who maybe have partners and kids, struggling to get by in life and believing what they themselves were taught when they were kids, just like everyone else. Sure sometimes people are really fighting over land but again it comes down to this extreme tribal thing combined with inherited or culturally ingrained killer ape attitudes. Well, at least lets

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dont pretend that were fighting over God. Or Heaven. Not likely, mate. Good grief

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Supernatural Transactions: a Protocol for Sceptics

Sometimes our journey of life takes us through a dark forest, where things can go wrong, very wrong. Imagine they do. You're off the beaten track and have exhausted all practical options, leaving just two possibilities: dumb luck and divine intervention. The luck thing doesn't require your input but the latter might. So you have to make a decision. You don't know if you believe in God or whatever the great Supernatural Force might be called, but it's a weird wide world out there so you give it a shot and put in a call. But what are the protocols for praying? Let's begin by looking at eligibility. I don't think you have to be a member of any particular religion to do it. Billions of people of different faiths do it now and, after all, this is a one-onone thing between you and the Big One, so what does it matter what they think? Surely you don't need a licence to ask?

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Okay. You're eligible to ask. So why do it? This seems easy. It costs you nothing right? Sure people pray for other reasons too, like reverence, but this post is for sceptics. So I think that need pretty well covers it. But then why might the divinity answer? That seems easy too: because it wants to, right? Yeah but why should it want to? That's tougher and depends a bit on what this divinity's characteristics are, which is a bit of mystery. I mean, if the divinity isn't the all-powerful, know-it-all type commonly supposed, then the answer we've just considered seems good enough. You alerted it to the problem, then the Big One thought it over and gave your request the thumbs up (or down). End of story. But what if this force is omniscient and omnipotent? Surely it should have anticipated your problem in advance and, if it was bothered by it, put through a fix in the beta version of Creation? So prayer at this point should be futile. You missed out for a good reason at the beginning, or at least a God reason, and that's it. Even your current penitent attitude should have been predictable so it's not a new factor (and you were a bit sorry, yes?). So there's a why problem in the classic case.
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And I kind of go for this second type of divinity myself. First of all, I think of the universe as being its creation. Why? Well, from personal experience (no I don't see visions or have aural hallucinations), I believe there is a divinity about somewhere. But I also believe in the universe. Both of these beliefs require faith because the universe could be a dream, and if the former didn't make the latter then I've got two origins to explain. So I'm going with an economic solution. I guess you could take the option of them actually being the same, which is even more economic, but I have previously set out some reasons in Is God of the Universe for doubting that equation. Besides the big bang thing seems a pretty good theory to me and, while I can see how all that initial energy got into mass and then into a biological brain, this divinity thing seems more elusive. I don't see how it could have originated from this birth of the natural world. That's why its called supernatural, I guess. I could go with the universe being in the Divine, though, like a thought in its head, but not with them being the same. Now secondly, it seems to me that to make the universe you would have to be pretty clever and powerful. So I'm going to give God the benefit
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of the doubt and opt for omniscience and omnipotence. (I'm not sure about the need to specify omnipresence, as it does seem kind of implied by the other two.) These characteristics don't matter too much to me theologically. I'm happy to revere God in Her mystery. But you get my problem with prayer if they're true (or even largely true)? One alternative might be to say that God anticipated your problem, discounted it but then just changed Her mind - but that doesn't seem to me to really square with knowing everything. God is not usually considered to be capricious so there should be a reason for changing Her mind: an overlooked fact or unexpected change of circumstances, and there cant be if God is great. It does seem possible, however, that someone's prayer is predictable in a universe governed by cause and effect and that it was always intended to occur. If so, perhaps answering that prayer could have something to do with teaching us a lesson, or kick starting / sustaining a relationship? All part of the process of creation. Well, it's a possibility and I dont see others, so I'll take it.

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Of course, this doesn't mean that the prayer would be answered. That might depend on other considerations. But at least it might be answered and so might be worth the small amount of humility involved in praying. Done. If there is a lesson in it, though, you might want to keep your eyes open for a sign or something - just Her way of letting you know, maybe. So, having covered eligibility and justification, what are some tips? I'm sure most people would agree with these few: 1. No trivia please. Why waste brownie points? 2. Avoid pestering Her with unworthy asks. I'm afraid that might rule out big lottery wins (but it's hard to let that one go). 3. Stick to your scale in the general scheme of things. We're talking about disrupting the great lattice work of cause and effect out there, so nothing too big. For example, there doesn't seem much point in asking for a good day to be extended on your account, because when the sun sets on the city, it sets for all. Finally, having considered the why and what, how should we do it? Just in words I guess,

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silent or spoken, and in any lingo. I'm sure She'll understand.

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The Game Plane

All civilisations entertain myths that serve as explanations until better ones are found. And this goes for concepts, too. Many concepts that we commonly hold to be true only have meaning as terms in a game of our own making, with no real basis in broader truth. Concepts like blame, praise, justice, freedom, evil and sin only have meaning on a social game plane. Though important, they are superficial ideas that dont correspond with underlying facts on the real plane of life. Lets drill down into the ancient myth of evil to expose their common problem. When people speak of evils they think in terms of ills that befall either our physical or moral well being. The former can ruin us from without and the latter from within. So perhaps we should start by looking at the causes of each of these in turn to see if we really need some paranormal explanation of their origin. The food chain, the predation beyond Eden, is sometimes cited as an example of the first manifestation of evil. We could consider a microbial attack like the plague as one instance
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of such an evil visitation but Im going to select the example of a lion hunting a wildebeest because it involves two animals with minds (arising from brains) and this will provide useful background for us in the next example of evil. If you like, you could substitute a human for the wildebeest instead, though. Maybe someone you wouldnt really miss? But that kind of evil is getting ahead of our plot. Now, when a lion selects its prey from a herd of wildebeest, the particular prey that it chooses at the instant of the decision depends upon the lions circumstances in the previous instant: its hunger, preferences, perception of its ability to succeed etc; and upon external factors such as the position of members of the herd. Although these factors are very complex, they are a given and the lions decision will be determined by them. Similarly, the fate of its prey will also be determined. It depends not only upon the lions decision and actions but upon decisions and actions it makes, and these follow from the past as well e.g. where it is, how clever and skillful it is etc. And the circumstances of any prior instant depend upon those in a previous instant again, and so on in long and complex lines of cause and effect that begin with time itself. For time is
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merely the passage of events, the march of circumstance within the dancing constraints of an external material world. You may think that the lions eye is evil but really it is just making sure that you are watching that eye, its eye, so you wont see the other lion that is about to take you out. Hence the food chain is not evidence of evil, though it may well disappoint. It even appears to have a purpose in shaping and strengthening life forms like us. In the second evil case, involving humans, evil is used in a moral sense to reflect the presence of one particular causal link: the motivation of a morally misguided mind. But when we look at how people develop, we again see reasons at every turn. What traits were they endowed with genetically? How were they raised? What were they taught? Were they abused? and so on. Our personalities and values gradually develop in response to these forces. Some people will often be angry and others generally kind. Consequently, even when we speak of moral evil, we need to recognise its origin in circumstance. We dont need to delve into devils. And what are circumstances but the effects of prior causes like everything in the universe; the
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consequence of forces that shape environment, our society and our minds?

our

Which is why the best way to fight evil is to address the problems walking in the streets. This understanding of evil has many practical implications but it has other implications, too, like for religion. Because these ills arise from the universe, it follows that an informed and potent Creator would be responsible. It would not, however mean that this Creator has behaved immorally or could be blamed. For one thing, we cannot imagine the motives behind the universe to judge them. To appreciate a painting you must stand back. To appreciate the universe you must be God. And for another, our standards of morality apply only to us, they cannot be imprinted on our Creator. Our morality arises from our own social natures (and the world that we live in). As social beings, it is not generally in our collective interest to commonly lie, steal or kill each other. God did not have to invent virtue to bring it into the world: the relevant invention was us. Accordingly, there are no standards by which we could substantially condemn the Divine. God is great, never wrong. Ok now lets look at the game plane notion of sin. This concept of sin needs to be used
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carefully, too. Maybe a person could break a divine command but there could be no fundamental personal responsibility involved because it is merely an outcome of their nature. Free-will and true moral responsibility are therefore also game plane myths; all actions are destined and all wrong doers and victims are just unlucky actors playing undesirable parts. Some people think that reflection makes us free, but our ability to reflect and what we reflect upon are circumstances, too. So reflection also follows a course like a river, complex but not free at all. Hence the idea that sacrifice is needed to redeem us from sin in a moral sense is also questionable, whereas the ideas that we should learn from mistakes and try to lead good lives are sound from both theological and humanist perspectives (really, a bit of reverence should be all that separates the two). I think this practical approach to sin, seeing it as error capable of correction, is one of the merits of the Eastern concepts of repeated reincarnation until the soul is perfected but this approach does depend upon acceptance of human elaborations about the existence and recycling of souls that Im disinclined to accept.

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The bottom line here is that we humans live on a game plane where many concepts have been predicated upon notions of independence and freedom. On the game plane, people are fundamentally responsible for themselves; they can be guilty of crimes or sin, be rightfully blamed and justly punished by others more worthy than they. In reality, however, no one is free and everyone is fundamentally innocent. On the game plane we say: I blame this person for injuring me today. But on the real plane this decodes to: I was injured by causality passing through someone today. Its true that we need the notion of individual responsibility to help shape peoples behaviour but if they go wrong we need to be intelligent about our response. It may involve punishment and / or it may involve other approaches. And that also applies to our response to our own follies and failings. Forgiveness begins at home. Similarly, praise is a game plane concept, too. If one cannot justly blame, one cannot justly praise. Heroes, like villains, are made by nature, nurture and the opportunity of a moment. Yet praise can also be helpful, up to a point. So by all means lets play on the game plane and respect useful myths in so far as they are helpful. But lets also remember that theres a reality

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plane as well and temper our decisions by awareness of that.

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Meaning

Every flower must bloom, even if no one is there to see it.

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The Incredible Shrinking Man

One of my favourite authors once described her works as miniatures. Since all her works are substantial, I thought this was just simple humility at first but then I could see a bit of truth in it. In each work she was carefully detailing the intricacies of characters and relationships within her social microcosm. But that said, I still admire her skill in taking these small lives and, somehow, making them big. Or is that, perhaps, what miniatures are supposed to do? Well, they do draw you in... Scale: its everywhere, isnt it? A few months ago I saw an old sci-fi movie on TV called The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). At first I thought it was just another B-grade movie of that era, which I do enjoy, but then it began to really impress me. To begin with there were some quite good special effects for that era. You know, the sort of thing thats commonplace in Hollywood now: encounters with a giant cat and then, as the poor bloke got even smaller, a giant spider. Quite well done, I thought. Thats when the message of the film (or the novel on which it was based) began to sink in.
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You see, our shrinking hero, who had by this time become stuck in his own cavernous basement, eventually had to confront and vanquish this latter menacing rival, the hungry arachnid. And although his victory was the result of a real gladiatorial effort, he didnt at all delight in the destruction of a fearsome creature that had previously caused him so much strife. In fact, hed come to respect the spiders perspective and to appreciate its role in the scheme of things. Nor, exhausted by combat but still hungry, did he then rush towards the prize of this contest: a piece of old cheese used as rat bait and stored on the basement shelf. Rather, he slept deeply, profoundly, and, calmly rising afterwards, climbed up to the basement window and looked up at the stars outside. It was then that he began to also appreciate both the great and the small of everything. And as he looked it struck him that each level of the cosmos had its own equally valid claim to meaning; that meaning is independent of scale. Given the size of our universe, this seems promisingly relevant to us, too, doesnt it? which I guess was the general idea. In this moment of insight, our conquering hero was able to abandon the despair festering
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within him over the loss of his larger world and to live with new meaning, as a smaller being in a smaller world that was also, somehow, big. Interesting ending, dont you think? Not a happy reunion in sight - just one of those reconciliation type conclusions; reconciliation with a hint of hope. And the story does also make us think about all the various levels that exist in this complex universe of ours. Theyre fascinating in their own right, arent they? Did you know that theyve had to develop a whole new field of geometry to deal with them? Its based on funny things called fractals. By the way, fractals get that name from their odd characteristic of bridging dimensions. Instead of being a one or two dimensional thing, a particular fractal might better be thought of as having a dimension of, say, 1.5 i.e. as being fractionally dimensional. You know, a fractal might somehow be too big to be considered a one dimensional thing (a line) but not quite big enough to qualify as being a 2 dimensional thing (a flat surface). Like the way a young child colours in a drawing, moving the pencil up and down wildly, creating a long one dimensional line that almost fills in a two dimensional picture
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- but not quite. Sort Of. But we wont go into that as this is Fractals for Fun 101. Well, what actually is a fractal? A fractal is any curve or surface whose shape is independent of scale. A fractal looks much the same no matter what scale you use to examine it. For example, if you look at a jagged coast line from way up in the sky, it looks similar to a smaller piece of that coastline from a closer range. As you might have guessed, computers are good for making fractals as fractals are made by a repetitive process, so theres lots of computer fractal art out there. I once saw a picture of a horses head that was made up of lines built up from tiny horses heads and so on. You can make these things go on and on across heaps of zoom zones indefinitely. And if you were to measure the length of the image at a low zoom, say 1x, it would be shorter than at a high zoom, say 10x, even when you allowed for the fact that you are now looking at 10 times the original zoom. There's that fractional dimension thing again. But its not just an artificial thing for programmers to while away time on at the companys expense, because it turns out that the universe actually seems to be chock full of fractal thingies. Theyre the art of nature, so to speak. I kid you not. Incredible but true.
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Theyre not perfectly exact fractals in the natural world, and the scales are not infinite in range but there are strong similarities in shape at some of the scales present. Take a tree, for example. Now look at one of its branches and imagine that it was broken off and stuck upright in the ground. Looks like another tree, right? Now look at one of the smaller branches of this new tree and imagine doing the same. Hey, another tree! So a tree is a fractal thingy. And ferns can be even better. Its not just living things, either. Look at the structure of a lightning bolt. All those little attenuated jagged fingers look like little lightning bolts, too, when you zoom in on them. Well, okay, theyre both kind of branching things, after all. But take a close look at something quite different, like a cloud, or a coral reef, and they say youll find self similarities at various zooming scales, too. I sometimes wonder if the fundamental structure of the universe is a bit fractal, as well. Stars whizz around black holes in galaxies, planets whizz around stars, electrons whizz around the nucleus of an atom. And if we look at our little bluegreen planet, we see layers of life from the micro to the macro, each following the same

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basic pattern: feeding, breeding, and dying, old and young... If you want to design a universe like ours, youre going to need at least an A in fractal geometry at God school. But not to worry if you dont, because the standard is probably impossibly high and, besides, you can still use old fashioned geometry to make all sorts of neat stuff like pyramids and skyscrapers and motorcycles and well, you know, the things we humans tend to make that look so different to the natural world. And that's about all I wanted to say about scale. Remember the shrinking man, though. The universe is a very big place. Huge. Its not like that ancient theological concept comprising the Earth and Heaven, making us the star attraction of the material realm. Not likely. So ultimately we must each of us try to find some of the fractal meaning available at our particular level, and so strive to make our little lives big.

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Lights, Camera, Action!

Imagine youre a motion picture camera operator for the day. Well, you kind of are, arent you? In fact, youve probably got a whole movie studio up there, creative department and all. But lets just stick to the camera role for today. Now what you see in your camera depends fundamentally, of course, on where its pointed, on the camera angle. There are lots of them but lets just consider three big ones that have a bearing on finding meaning in our life, which is what this little essay is really all about. Okay, first lets turn our camera on the world outside. Its you, looking out. Right? So, do you like what you see? Friendly faces? A nice dinner? Hows that beaut house? Kids? Good Job? And what about the basketball game youre in the middle of now? Pass it to me! Got it! Got it! Shoot. Yay! Life can be fun, nest ce pas? Yes, a lot of important stuff that can make life worthwhile can be see from here. And worthwhileness is a kind of meaning, dont you think? the kind of meaning that motivates and seems to justify everyday life. But what if the
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view through the lens isnt that nice? Ah well, yes, we might then have a problem with meaning here alright. What can I say? Maybe you can make some changes? Even little progressive ones so you can see a brighter future? We can be unhappy now but still optimistic and that can keep us going, too, cant it? So lets consolidate those debts get a bit more education get out more maybe campaign for justice or just seek some help. Or, heres a thought, perhaps some of that stuff were missing out on isnt so important after all? Try lowering your hurdle, or shifting your goalposts, or something. You know what I mean. These then are two very important strategies for dealing with a problem in this particular camera angle: work on changing whats out there and / or reviewing our objectives. And while were looking, lets think about what were seeing and judging in others, too. Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt if they dont come up to our standards? The most humble situation can actually amount to a victory over adverse personal circumstance, cant it? So lets give others a break. Nice. I feel better already. Hey, I got some meaning from that!
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Which brings us to the second camera angle. How about we turn the camera around and look at us? At this point one of two reactions is possible. Yikes! or Kool! They say that humans are one of a few species that can recognise themselves in a mirror. We are, they say, self aware. So you do know that cool person in the mirror is actually you, yes? Well, what are you waiting for? Take a bow. The point here is that how we see ourselves also has a bearing on personal meaning. And thats fine in this case because you look good, have good values, are doing well at what you do and are right where you want to be at this time in your life. Yes, you fully approve of you. Lucky, lucky. And so modest. But what if you dont? Again you have those two options we spoke about. You can try to put some change in play and take a longer view or you can adjust your expectations. Remember how we talked about giving others a break? Well dont be too hard on yourself. Not everyone gets those opportunities plus youve had a few personal problems, too. Thats life. Snakes and ladders. Youre doing as well as anyone could rightfully expect under the circumstances. So there.

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But what if youve done this, got some change underway and measured your potential realistically, yet you still come up short? Oh dear. Fortunately, however, there is a fallback option. The camera can be a bit harsh, cant it? Makeup! Yes, theres nothing like a little makeover to improve your self esteem. I recommend a shade of imaginary rose, with just a hint of delusion, applied to both your circumstances and yourself. Let me help. Hey, what about that Uncle Jerry of yours? Leaving all his money to charity instead of his favourite relative. What a ratbag. You could have made it big with a little start up capital. Im sure of it. You could have been a diva. And what a voice! Ask your bathroom. Believe me, I fully sympathise. See, I sing well, too. You mightnt think so but you should hear me in my helmet as Im riding along. No one has ever complained, ever. Sometimes I can even hear the applause of thousands in the rush of the air and the rumble of my engine. Bravo! Encore. Now if only I could get my guitar in there Finally, lets switch to that third angle and turn our camera on the universe itself; thats everything, including you. Lets take a Gods eye view and see what meaning we get from that. Yeah, now were cooking. Whats that, you
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cant? Yes, I see the problem. Its impossible. So I guess were never going to understand the real meaning of it all after all. The meaning of you, of life, of the stars, of the good stuff and the bad stuff, of the past and of the future in the celestial tapestry of space and time. So true... Better concentrate on the other angles, then. Still, its nice to stretch yourself, dont you think? To contemplate the bigger picture. Its good exercise for our minds and well likely find out some pretty interesting stuff along the way. Plus some useful stuff. Sure. Besides, if we dont take a look ourselves well probably just make up a lot of weird stuff about it anyway, like we tend to do, and draw some misleading conclusions from that. So maybe, though ultimately futile, looking at the biggest picture we can is worthwhile enough. But not now. I dont know about you but Ive got a concert for one coming up. Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

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Successful Living for Small Lives

The universe, it seems, is always in the process of becoming something else. Perhaps one day it will stop, as some speculate, but if it ever does, that will likely be some way off. For now it is very much in motion and part of that motion, at least here on our little blue green planet, is the life cycle of birth, struggle and death. I guess I should lose a half a mark for not separately mentioning reproduction, but I'd say it's in the middle there with struggle, as I suspect many parents would agree. It's hard to make real sense of this cycle. Science, it's true, can track changes and discern many long term trends. And, importantly, it can even help to extend the period and quality of our struggle. But science cannot justify that process. That is not its role. However, from our studies we do know that death clears the way for emerging and different life; so we might suspect that the meanings of life and death partly lie in each other. From their
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wild and long tango more complex and stronger things emerge. And we can also make some sensible, if not definitive, comments about an individual life; about struggle in one's own lifetime, about how it impacts on the future, and how we approve of those whose struggle also involves attempting to shape the world for the better. Sure, the notion of what is better is relative, but deep down we know that we don't generally approve of the destructive, of the corrosive, of the purely selfish. And that, perhaps, is how weve been made over time; as social animals with a mind that desires consistency in values, we have few doubts about what is really right for this part of the universe. These may be values we choose but they are not arbitrary. Morals are the clothes of humanity. If they do not, on the whole, fit, they will not, on the whole, be worn. And perhaps that is all part of a greater design. We may still be destroying more than we are creating, for many reasons including ignorance and selfishness, but the point is, we don't actually approve of behaviour directed towards such negative ends. And so we also generally know when someone's struggle, even our own,
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has been worthwhile in terms of intended external outcomes. Sometimes a destructive person can have a long term beneficial impact by clearing away debris. But for the most part, such behaviour is not to be encouraged and I am not dealing with it here. Nor am I concerned with great lives, that's the province of big scale historians. No, this post is about us: whose small lives are largely responsible for humanity's past and the future. And, in the process, for this living planet's future. My view is that living in accordance with these positive values, those that produce positive outcomes on the world around us, is the key to living a worthwhile life, the key to living a successful life. There are two reasons for this. First, ones life will be worthwhile because of any positive impacts achieved, because of outcomes themselves. Secondly, it will be worthwhile because we will likely be able to draw satisfaction from our attempts in this struggle, from our self approval and from the supporting approval of others.

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And I believe that such worthwhile living is in fact typical of many individual struggles, of many ordinary lives, every day. To see this, we need only consider how much impact we have on the world through interaction with other people. We can daily improve the lives of others through our normal relationships with family, friends and colleagues; through our jobs and interests. Even isolated vocations produce outcomes that affect others; we only have to open a book or benefit from an invention to appreciate this. Alter one life and it will, in turn, alter another one, and so on as these positive impacts ripple through our small corner of the universe, through space and time, ultimately having great effects on the unfolding future. For, as every navigator knows, in time, small deviations in course become large ones in destination. And when we have positive interactions with others, even if we do not expect a return, we tend to get one. So by doing or trying to do something worthwhile, our lives become even more worthwhile. It is not even crucial that outcomes are actually achieved, only that we have tried to bring them about. For then we can approve of ourselves and perhaps enjoy the appreciation of others anyway.
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Moreover, in the broad, if enough people try then good results will be achieved because good struggles tend to bring about good outcomes. So much in the universe is about tendencies rather than certainties because the causal factors involved in bringing about effects are generally so complex. Thus trying is all anybody should be expected to do. Of course, not every life has even that chance, for we are the effects of other causes too. Sometimes, very sadly, these causes carry us away too soon. And sometimes we are too hurt by the causes that have shaped us to want or be able to give. By intent or accident, that seems to be the nature of things. But if we have the chance, then living in ways that tend to produce positive outcomes through our preferred interactions within the world is, it seems to me, what makes for a successful life. And what greater eulogy could there be than that? Before the big finish, however, we mustn't forget to have a bit of fun as well. Life is an activity, after all. A little joy can light our lives, and a bit of mirth can lighten them.

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Superman is Dead
You higher men, the worst about you is that all of you have not learned to dance as one must dance - dancing away over yourselves! Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra In this work Nietzsche resurrects the Persian prophet Zarathustra to renounce the old philosophies of good and evil and to announce the dawn of the Superman. No, not that Superman. Not the hero who, like Moses, came blanket wrapped in a capsule - but Nietzsche's Superman, the rampant warrior of wilful ideas, the one who embraces suffering and breaks free from the fetters of the past, transcending the morality, religion and ideas of the slave; the one who supersedes humanity and who can even live without God. Nietzsches Superman sounds manful but Zarathustra has inspired men and women for over a century and quarter. Feminists want to dance, too. Of course! So I want to talk about him today. Not about Nietzsche but about this Superman, or Overman more literally, whose

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dawn began simultaneously with that famous proclamation that God is dead. Well, let me begin by declaring my hand. In my view, it is Superman who is dead. He died in the ashes of World War 2. This is not to say that Nietzsche was a fascist or that all those who believe in his ideas are fascists - certainly not! The Nazis stole whatever they wanted and that went for ideas, too. German militarists also exploited Nietzsche in WW1. Philosophy is the first casualty of war. There is something in this Superman idea that does speak to fascism, though, or perhaps, there is something in fascism that warms to this idea, something called arrogance. It has a home in most of us, being part and parcel of our ego. And it can easily triumph in a Delusion of the Will. But as I say, Superman is dead - and the murderers were many. I reckon he had more assassins than Julius Caesar. Twentieth century history, as I have explained above, gave him a bad name. Then the knives came out, or rather scalpels that dissected his brain. Psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, sociologists; the good and clever druids of human cause and effect. See he is just a man, they declared. 'Just another creature of the past, born of DNA and

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shaped by experience. Superman was never self made nor the master of his own ideas. Im with them. There hasnt been and never will be a superman or superwoman in our world. There are only flawed human beings and other life forms here, struggling as they have always done through this mortal process called life. Some people strive more than others, it is true, just as the character of Moses strived in that story of old; only his striving was partly for and under the watchful eye of God. And we are, or should be, grateful for such strivings, when they are aimed at good. But its best not to get too carried away with ourselves in this striving process. Think, for example, of the great scale of the universe. On this scale, the Earth is no more than a grain of sand buried in a big beach adjoining the silicon cradle of an entire ocean. A grain born from much older rock that is on its way to yet another one. And people are small like that. Perhaps, as I think, we do have a part, or at least intelligence might. For while intelligence has always served life, it seems that we are now in a world where life serves intelligence. Thats why Nietzsche wrote and we read Zarathustra. And intelligence is on its way like that grain of sand to another
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future after us. But let's not get carried away by bickering over top billing in this grand event. We're lucky that we humans on this little remote planet are in the cast at all. And the loftiest idea is merely the small capstone of that great pyramid of bricks previously assembled by others. Everything comes from the past. And every idea is derivative, thats how we learn. Thats how Nietzsche learned. Intelligence doesnt make one free. Not fundamentally. Although, yes, it can ameliorate the effects of circumstantial constraints. But thats just problem solving. I think that if we could slice through this great fruit of space-time, we would find contained within the two instants of that cut, one on the left and one of the right, everything that was and everything that will be next. For the left would be pregnant with what will be found in the right. It is tempting and traditional to imagine that our minds, our wills, are so free that we can bring something to the future that is fundamentally original, that we can actually be an original cause of future events rather than the agent of causes passing through us. But that seems to be just another manifestation of our arrogant egos. A unique mind producing each unique idea is inextricably linked to a unique brain state. And
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the brain involved is merely an organ caught in a wondrous bio-chemical whirl whose current state is the product of yesteryear's genes, yesterday's memories, and this morning's breakfast. So lets not lose our perspective. Sure, let's strive by all means but not suffer unnecessarily. Struggle can be satisfying, through the effort and its reward. But, please, let's not suffer more than we must. If we do that, we might start thinking that others should, too. The way that some people repent and then become holier than thou. Its a natural reaction but who knows what kind of tyranny could result? The fact is, what does not kill us could well make us weaker despite our will; wearing us down. Ive seen it in the streets, in the wards and in our homes. Maybe you have, too. So let's get help when we need it ourselves and make our society the kind that helps others who have a harder time as well, like the sick. Nor are we in a position to understand or make the meaning of the universe ourselves. Its not a job for a superman.

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Understanding our limitations, understanding that there but for the Grace of God go we, brings compassion and constructive solutions to life. Humility is a rational response to that awareness. Humility is not the virtue of a slave but the insight of a wise mind. And compared with that, Superman is just another muscle bound action toy. So put it down and look around instead. That's my advice, anyway. By all means read Nietzsche, though. He remains extremely important in the world of ideas because his was a great mind even though, like the rest of us, he was sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Googling his name just now produced 13 million hits. Fantastic. And I, too, find much to admire in his words, including his powerful insistence that we should look for meaning in this world and not in some supposedly promised palace in the sky afterwards. Yes. Only I think that such meaning is to be found on our small scale, grounded in our nature, not in the making of future Supermen. Lets not forget Nietzsches dance, either. We must all of us strive to advance, to break from counterproductive fetters and bring on a better future for all. Bear in mind, however, after the

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thrill of the dance subsides, that birds do not will the wings with which they fly. And by the way, if you like big numbers, try googling God

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Three Pillars of Humility

Now I would like to briefly restate and integrate some of the main ideas in Under the Sun: mystery; causality; scale; and humility. From mystery and causality we learn that we can only be sure of our own voice, and that this voice is itself the effect of causes from the past, both outside and within us, and by circumstances confronting us in the present. From scale we learn that, relative to the universe, the world is much smaller than the ancients thought and that it is not at the centre of things after all. And these three phenomena comprise three great pillars of humanitys humility: 1. Fundamental ignorance arising from necessary subjectivity. Because all perception takes place in our mind we can never be sure that we have understood the universe correctly, or even if there is a universe outside. Everything is mystery.

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2. A fundamental lack of subjective freedom from causality. Genetics and past experiences shape us so that our decision in any circumstance is not really a free act. If I were you I would decide as you. Its as simple as that. Even if we can do what we want, we dont freely will what we want. We are each of us caught up in this intricate web of causality in space and time, regardless of whether there is a real universe out there or whether space-time and causality are the virtual context of our virtual selves. Rules are rules. And, 3. Layers of scale in the universe, some much smaller and others much greater than the traditional one of the world and us. Those little twinkles in the sky are not jewels in the firmament as the ancients supposed but planets, stars and great galaxies of stars often so far away that their light can take billions of years to reach us. On this vast scale of space and time, we humans are like microbes on a grain of dirt in far corner of a big paddock of a great land. So we mustnt imagine that we are the stars of the story or that a divined end of struggle in the

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cosmos will come soon. Not likely. Meanwhile, theres much to do. So we must build our lives upon the platform of humility supported by these pillars; taking joy from the apparent within the mystery, hopefully comforted by friends and sustained by the presence of that Greater Mind which embraces our own. That is up to us. And because we are not free, nothing need be sacrificed to redeem us. We only need to forgive ourselves. That is a positive start. Thereafter, living a confident and constructive life depends upon our having trust in our subjective knowing and being - where that does not conflict with reason. For subjectivity may be the regent of our realm but where would that realm be without judicious counsel? Art can transcend, but science can serve. Although we are not fundamentally free, it is still up to us, we social beings, to make what we can of things in this context, to find enough meaning to go on. To that end, we must aim to get satisfaction from the pleasure of life and from the pursuit of worthwhile outcomes produced by causality, sometimes passing through us with a thrill. Preferably from both. Im afraid to say that this will not make us superwomen or supermen. Egos must, like
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everything else, be managed by common sense. But if we strive we may, in the presence of sufficient opportunity, still make our little lives big. Similarly, on the broader scale of struggling peoples, we should realise how important it is for causality to pass through others as well - and in a constructive way. If we look at troubled regions in the world we will see that at heart there is a breakdown in the route of causality. People, usually but not necessarily minorities, are being bypassed, sidelined by oppression. But, oppression is not the answer, is it? It is the problem. And in our search for meaning through cooperation, we should observe also how human beings do seem to have the potential to reach beyond their scale, to walk on the moon. That is important. One day, well before the universe expires, this dear planet, which we do need to preserve, will nevertheless be devastated by at least one external cataclysmic event. Science knows this. Our planets descendants are ultimately at risk from this and we need to think about it. See, theres something to work on right now for a future that theology has missed.

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Times Like This

I was recently listening to a radio interview with a physicist who recalled both his boyhood enthusiasm for science and his concern for his mother, who didnt share the joy he had discovered in this great wondering. In fact, so concerned was he that one day he sent a letter to a famous physicist asking him to write to his mum about physics to awaken her interest in this marvelous new world. Well, the scientist did write back - but not as expected. Actually, he advised her to ignore her sons attempts to stir her interest in science. Physics, he said, is unimportant. Only love is important. Theres a lot of truth in that for each of us, isnt there? But love can mean many things cant it? So what kind of love was he talking about? Not the selfish kind, I guess. Thats more like desire, isnt it? Sure love can involve desire and romantic love often has that element - but pure desire, like love of money, or just sex, is not really outwardly directed, is it? Not really altruistic enough to qualify as real love. Now some people argue that, ultimately, even altruism is selfish because its biologically
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driven by the objective of preserving our genes. You know: we help each other and then our little packets of likeness have a better chance of getting further down the line. Okay. But that misses the point, doesnt it? For you and I know what life is like outside the evolutionary lab, dont we? We know what its like at the front. We know the value of a caring heart. Just like that physicist. And the boys mother. And the boy who is now a man and father, who still remembers the surprising reply received those many years ago. Everyone expresses their caring heart differently. For some its through romance, for others its parental or humanitarian, and for most of us its in more ways than one. Even something as hard as duty, crusty unrequited duty, usually has at its soul a guarded caring heart. Sometimes that caring extends a long way, like the doctor who is wearied but goes on. And on for strangers. Or maybe the focus is immediate, maybe it is just focused on a single soul. And not necessarily a human one, either. Maybe its a soul that goes woof. But its all important. You shouldnt measure love with a ruler. The potential for love varies between people, depending on their nature and experience. But the merit of love does not depend on quantum. I am reminded of that
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biblical story about the woman whose offering was small, yet big relative to her means. I think that the potential for love is like that. Some people are wealthier than others in that respect, not that I am one of them, but I think its important for everyone to give what they can in the form that they can, both for their sake and for the sake of the world today and the world to come. That's how I've come to think of it, anyway. It is part of what we are, manifesting itself in manifold ways. So carry on, good hearts; happy and lonely hearts. And, whatever you do, dont forget the music. You know the song, that special song for times like this.

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The Vibe
I guess weve all heard of resonance; its about vibes, right? But what sort of vibes? Well, were talking about vibes that are natural to the thing thats making them, now. And there actually may be more than one of these native vibes in anything, too, so that it makes a kind of harmonic sound, which can be nice. Or there might only be one natural vibe, which is often not nice because stuff isnt supposed to sound like that in this noisy world around us. Now an interesting and important thing about these resonant vibes is that if we time things right we can make both sweet vibes and destructive vibes without much effort at all. Lets have a look at that. Supposing were leisurely bouncing a ball, just tapping it a little when it comes back to the top to make up for that bit of energy it lost on the last bounce. If we do this and no more we should find that we can keep this thing bouncing for simply ages with hardly any work at all. How to pass time in the playground.

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But now interfere with this cycle by, say, patting the ball before it tops out. Notice how the ball is now working against us so its going to take more work to get it back to the old height. Thats because we wasted some energy slowing it down as it was still trying to go up. Or maybe we pat it late and end up playing catch up before making contact, or maybe missing it all together. More waste. Practice makes perfect. So weve got to go with the flow to make things nice and easy, okay? Well now we know and we go with the flow, only each time the ball comes back we get a bit ambitious and tap it just that bit more than last time. Wow! This bounce is starting to get out of hand. Woops, lost it. Houston we have a problem. So why did that happen? Well, by getting the timing right and using just a bit more effort than we needed to keep things sweet we ended up gradually increasing the energy stored in this oscillating ball of ours until eventually something went wrong. We lost control. So working with the vibe is good up to a point but weve also got to get our input level right. Were like that with each other arent we? You get a couple of people interacting in phase and its easy fun. And sometimes they can even pump up the energy levels in their naturally
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timed interactions for a bit of extra fun, too. Party time. So long as they dont go crazy this could be a mutually good thing. Then again, maybe the energy people are putting in is not exactly well intentioned. A little extra aggro can make things go wrong, too. Of course. Time for some time out, maybe forever. Or if were out of synch and not putting in enough energy to make up for that, things will kind of damp down, again maybe permanently, too. Thus, as the poets put it, things can end with a bang or a whimper, in fire or in ice. So if we get a mismatch in natural phase and energy levels, then there are going to be either downside or upside risks. Maybe you like that. Taking a break or walking on the wild side. Fine but just remember that in time all risks are realised. This phenomenon is something to remember about people, more generally, I think. Not just in finding a dance partner but maybe in terms of constructively influencing people, for example. Like teaching someone. Or correcting behaviour. Youve got to get the bounce right. For both of you. Good timing and measured effort equals optimal results. If only I could do that, could

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close the Worrying Gap Between Theory and Practice, or WGBTP if youre texting. And the world itself isnt perfect either, is it? People are not going to be that well synched. So we have to make adjustments and allowances. Sure. Thats called Live and Learn, Kid. Which is rough because learning before living would be so much better, wouldnt it? I guess thats why we have schools and stuff. And people who might know. Dont ask me, though, as Im The Last One You Should Ask. Anyway, all Im saying here is that theres more to relationships than chemistry; theres physics, too. Mutual dynamics. And thats where the vibe comes in. The vibe of me and the vibe of you. And of the two, physics seems to be the more significant factor because the vibe is important in all relationships: friendships; the workplace; within bands and between bands and fans; even between people and elected leaders. Some say its important in broader relationships, too: in the garden, beneath the seas and across the cosmos. But thats just crazy talk, right?

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Mortality
When I was a young boy living in central Sydney, I saw the word Eternity written elegantly in crayon on the footpath. Lots of people saw it back then, in different places and on different days over a period of some 37 years, from 1930 to 1967. For the first 25 of those years the identity of the writer was unknown. It was one of those little mysteries that made life and conversation more interesting. But in 1956, Arthur Stace was observed at work by the minister of the Burton St Baptist Church, where he himself worked as a cleaner and led prayers. Arthur had been outed. Arthur Stace, it was discovered, had had a pretty rough life. Born into a world of petty crime, drunkenness and prostitution, he was raised by the State, and gassed in the trenches of WW 1 France before returning home to a life of petty crime, gaol and alcoholism in the gutters of the city. It was at that low point in 1930, when the world was in the grip of the Great Depression, that he happened to hear a fiery sermon by a preacher who declared a desire to shout Eternity through all the streets of Sydney.
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Thats when Arthur felt his calling, when he picked up the remnants of his life, and got on with what he knew he should do, and what he could do, writing his one word sermon through the early morning streets every day for all those years. They say he wrote it more than half a million times before his death at 83. I dont know if you saw the broadcast of the millennium celebrations in Sydney? Arthur didnt. But there was his message, in fireworks fifty foot high on the Sydney Harbour Bridge: Eternity. Well, theres a lot one might say about Arthurs story. Humility. Faith. Humanity. Service. Purity, as someone once said. I especially like that one. This man turned himself into a living lantern to serve something higher and to keep other people off the rocks. But his is not a story about which one should say too much. And I expect that Ive said too much, already. Nor do I want to dwell on the theme of eternity. Like many, Ive given infinity a good intellectual shot and failed to grasp its essence. For I find that Im more like a mole, digging in the dark and making the most of what comes to hand.

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However, proceeding thus, I find that I can at least glimpse the mortality side of the eternity coin. That breath that passes away and does not come again as the psalm poetically says. That much I do understand. Not completely. But a little about the why of it, its advantage to life in the long run. And more about the is of it, I guess. Thats something we all discover as we get on, and see and lose. And maybe I understand something about the meaning of it, too. How life can be worthwhile if one loves living, or labours like Arthur for some end, or if one is really lucky, finds rich meaning from a combination of both. Like the teacher blessed with natural talent. Usually, though, more compromise is involved; between work and pleasure or objective and means. For its not about meaning as such but about finding enough meaning to warrant going on. Moreover, as I get on, Im inclined to think that mortality can be enough. Not if cut too short, of course. But for most, I think, after a while some of the freshness does fade and the labour becomes more wearying under the sun. It varies between people, though, like everything else. Well, after such a serious tour you will laugh at my digression now, as I relate how an Australian motorcycle mechanic once advised his readers
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that motorcycles are intended to be ridden and should be expected to wear out. Consequently, the aim of motorcycle maintenance, he concluded, is not to preserve the machine indefinitely but to ensure that most of its components wear out at about the same time. Thats good, dont you think? About life, I mean. For life, too, has its natural end. So take a bit of care, and may you live meaningfully, for so long.

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Armistice Day
The frontline is just one word, as though its all the same. But it isnt, is it? Time and place thats what really matters. The where and the when. It always comes down to that. Your unique spot in history. It might be okay there. True. Or possibly not. And there you are, running with the pack. Not with wolves, I dont mean that. Just people like you, maybe people you know. Or knew. Theres one lying there, strangely quiet in all this noise. And theres another, falling, when they shouldnt be. Whats wrong? Wounded. I see. Not injured. Theres a difference. They teach you these things. Civilians are injured. Soldiers are wounded. But I think wounded has broader currency than that. Casualty is a sign on your local hospital. So what do you do? Stop and help? Perhaps it is down to you. You might even be a stretcher bearer in life. Not easy, especially under fire. Or maybe you just have to push on ahead with the others. Through the muddy chaos. Others depend on that, too. Others about you. Others behind.
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Or maybe you find a shell hole in the chaos and just think it over for a bit. The why of it. I can understand that. Maybe that thinking runs even deeper. Darker. But if you do, just remember that in war there may not be a right side. No there might not. But in life, there really is

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The Good, The Bad and the Happy

Weve had a lot of rain here lately. Rain that has ended a drought but which has also damaged some crops and flooded towns. The good and the bad of things. Im not a believer in the idea that the universe is governed by a duality of good and evil, by light and darkness, or by a good God and a bad Satan. But events do produce various effects dont they? And these can be good or bad by human reckoning. So this phenomenon of good and bad really says more about us than it does about the cosmos: about our tendency to classify things and about what we experience in the way of pleasure and pain. And lets face it, good and bad things will happen to all of us so we should be prepared for that. Not too prepared, though, like an ascetic, or well miss out on life. Less severely, the stoics thought it was okay to be rich but that we should also be prepared for loss. Seneca, a stoic philosopher who had much and lost it all through the malice of others, said that he had prepared for this prospect by placing all his good things in an imaginary place where fortune could reclaim them without disturbing him.
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Ascetic or stoic, this approach is about detachment you dont feel troubled by the loss of what youre not attached to. Theres something in this. Sure. I like to apply it to struggles. We should aim for success but if it doesnt come we shouldnt be too hard on ourselves as there are always many contributing factors beyond our control. As for joys and their sources, however, I still think that we should keep the best ones close and make the most of them, even though there could be a future price. We shouldnt put our heart in another room. And I guess theres even something to be said for experiencing a balance of bad and good in life but, like most people, I just like to have the good. So we can get more good than is actually good for us. Or the planet. And now we really need to get back in balance, dont you think? By balance, I dont mean unchanging. Life isnt about that and never has been. But the change needs to have a sustainable quality about it; more like continuous improvement than continuous degradation. So what actually is good? Aristotle had an interesting way of tackling this kind of question. His idea is that something like goodness isnt actually a thing but a relationship between a thing and its purpose. You know, the way that a good carving knife should, say, be: sharp; able to
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keep its edge; maneuverable; and long enough for the job of carving, etc. I like this approach; its very versatile in terms of what it can accommodate as goodness and what problems it can be applied to. For example, it can, accommodate subjective stuff like appearance, since purpose can include satisfying a user in aesthetic ways, too. And it can be applied to both inanimate things and intelligent beings like us. Maybe its not perfect but it does seem to be a helpful tool in our inquiries. Lets give it a light workout on us. Suppose we ask what makes a person good? If we think about what humans do as living social organisms, Aristotles approach leads us to thoughts about physical attributes and personal qualities, and right away we can see that the likely conclusions are complex and throw up other it depends kinds of issues, like what a person is doing in life. If youve ever been tested for the military youll see that theyre interested in different qualities than is, say, a film producer casting for actors. But then again, were all human so some things are virtues for all of us, like a bit of courage, yes? And subjectivity is an issue here, too. You have to like your partner, right? And a bit of charisma can go a long way in politics.

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We might also ask what is good for people and I think Aristotles approach helps us here as well. Immediately we start thinking about the purpose of what is being evaluated as being good or bad for us. Well, it has to be something for us, like food, so its purpose is to satisfy wants or needs. Well, is it good? Once again, I reckon therell be a subjective element as in musical preference, so it depends on who you are. But there are also a lot of physical and psychological attributes that we have in common so what is good could be assessed in terms of how well the thing fulfils those generally shared needs. I think such an evaluation will be more straightforward in the case of physiological needs because weve learned so much about them, like tobacco use. And theres a lot of information out there on satisfying other physiological wants or needs such as healthy and appetising foods, and on healthy and fun lifestyles. But what about psychological needs? Well, people have looked into this, too, like a twentieth century psychologist called Maslow who saw all our needs, physiological and psychological, as being prioritised from basic to aspirational, like rungs on a ladder. And once we get something, were only happy for a while, right? Soon we want the next thing on our list.
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Anyway, heres the list he came up with (you might want to read this from the bottom up i.e. starting with 1: 5) Self actualisation (a fulfillment thing) 4) Esteem, (by self and others) 3) Belonging 2) Safety 1) Basic Physical needs We can debate this particular list but a lot of people think theres a lot of understanding in it. Unfortunately, advertisers appreciate it, too, so we tend to get a lot of confusing signals in the market place of life. A lot of commodities tend to be identified in our minds with higher nonmaterial rungs like belonging and esteem, dont they? Let me note here, though, that people do differ because of biochemistry (genetically and environmentally influenced) and life experience so some people are generally happier than others. That doesnt mean that theories like Maslows break down, however; the list can still apply to the more happy and the less happy

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person, its just that the outcome wont be the same for each. Now our tour of what is good for us wouldnt be rounded if we didnt acknowledge religious or metaphysical aspects of what is truly a good life for us. Maybe we believe that we shouldnt get too attached to anything in this life so our soul can benefit in the next? But in my view, the need to hypothesise souls to explain consciousness and life has really become unnecessary as we learn more about the brain, the mind and biochemistry. Or maybe we think there is a Creator God? If so, we might hearken to what a revered religious leader says that God wants of us. Alas, though, leaders of various religions dont always agree and people still continue to die over allegiances. Besides, almost all the big name teachers were originally preaching to a previous age and we know so much more about us and the universe now. So maybe we should try to work out these problems for ourselves. Alternatively then, if we believe in a Creator, maybe we could just look at what kind of human beings She caused to be created and work out what is good for us by reference to our nature? If so, the metaphysical answer turns out to be the same as the natural one weve explored above. Neat.
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Remember though, that while we may reflect upon these things to our advantage, this is not a perfect world for mortals, so we shouldnt expect perfect or enduring happiness in life. Ah! Vanity of Vanities! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or, having it, is satisfied? William Makepeace Thackeray

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The Right Stuff

When we talk about the right stuff we generally refer to virtues held by an individual, like courage. However, here Im going to look at the right stuff of societies; the moral codes with which they are endowed. What I want to talk about is the right stuff for a morally healthy society; to broadly review the wellspring of ethics in general. So what is this right stuff? Well, to be right it must satisfy some criterion, otherwise it would just be stuff, wouldnt it? And this is where the complexity arises. What criterion should we use? Some people say we must go with the absolute rules of a religion, meaning a particular religion. And traditional religions do supply them. Usually, such rules are either so explicit they could be called laws, like the Ten Commandments, or they arise from broad concepts like sin or karma, which are commonly fleshed out in various texts by religious leaders or teachers. In any case, they apply to all and at all times. Moreover, failure to follow them is said to have pretty dire consequences either in

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this life or the next. Religions dont just provide rules, they put muscle into them. But philosophers have also had a go at establishing ethical principles. I think that one of the most influential ethical ideas in Western philosophy at the moment is called utilitarianism. This ism is really about maximising societys satisfaction with particular outcomes and might be thought of as the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Sounds straightforward and sensible but the detail of defining and measuring happiness or well being is no easy task. You wouldnt want to take a superficial or short term view of happiness, I reckon. Part of being human involves a sense of purpose, for example, so one should be wary of a recommendation that we just hook ourselves up to a happy drug and switch off. Anyway, a lot of considered thought has gone into utilitarianism and it remains very influential in philosophy and other spheres; especially economics, where utility analysis has been developed into something of a science using algebra and geometry. Economists use theorems based on utility to prove all sorts of things, like the advantages of free trade or the benefits of income tax over commodity taxes. Its not without its problems
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or assumptions but, having used it myself in applying economic policy, I think it is pretty helpful in clarifying policy implications and comparing the likely outcomes of different options. You can see how influential utilitarian philosophers have been over the past few centuries. As a result of policies founded on their ideas, the world has changed significantly. But while utilitarianism still provokes considerable debate and interest amongst philosophers today, Im not sure theres anything philosophically profound behind its core principles. Rather, they seem to me to be rational expressions of the heart forming a useful but imperfect tool. Quite human, despite the math. And there are other philosophical approaches to ethics, too, based on, for an important example, individual rights. Ethical systems based on rights are also prominent in Western philosophy and have been of great practical import, particularly in politics. One can found such rights on utility but one can also argue on other grounds that people are free beings and must in principle consent to actions irrespective of utility associated with different outcomes. So there can be tensions between rights claims and
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the greatest happiness recommendations of utilitarianism. Rights theories flourished in the eighteenth century, a time when struggles against aristocracy and imperial domination really took off. Think French revolution and the American War of Independence. Philosophy, we see, can be very powerful. For ideas can become speeches and speeches can become deeds: barricadessmokecries of revolution! So the USA has quite a strong rights based ethical and political system, stronger than in my own country, for example, which is still pondering the pros and cons of adopting a Bill of Rights. Like utilitarianism, which kicked off in moderate Britain at about the same time, I think its hard to see a philosophically profound foundation for rights either. The Romans had a go earlier in their legal system, which has influenced subsequent ones. They argued that if you made a promise, say to get a loan, two things happen. First, you get the money and, secondly, you transfer a piece of your spiritual self to the lender who retains it until your promise to repay the loan is fulfilled. Then you get it back and become whole again. Kind of a neat idea - but a bit too mysterious for me.
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However, I think this explanation and our preoccupation with rights does say something about human psychology; something about our ingrained sense of fairness, individuality and independent, fighting spirit. Rights carry a warning sticker, though. Perhaps youve noticed that people tend to die in the ditch for them, sometimes over quite trivial matters, like a parking space. And things can get quite out of hand on a very big scale, too; rivers of blood out of hand. So if you ever want to set up a rights based society, make sure you put a good system of arbitration in place. Really good. And accessible. Nevertheless, rights in societies are very important protections. Without them you could end up with, say, a totalitarian system, lots of duty with few individual rights, which the world has fortunately been moving away from in recent decades. It seems to me that the best idea is a robust mix of both dutiful obligation, maybe guided by the utilitarian principle of happiness, and individual rights to reduce the risk of things like exploitation of minorities. But deciding on the proportions is not easy. In democracies, we tend to see parties from the right emphasising rights (making it easy to remember) and parties from the left emphasising compassionate duties.
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However, as large parties tend to compete for the centre, theres a lot of common ground anyway; which is probably good as it helps to keep that mix in steady balance. From this quick tour of utilitarianism and rights, you can see how ideas about ethics are very important; and how they have influenced both our economic and political systems, as well as the way people think in the street. But as I look around the world now and yesterday, the thing that really strikes me about ethical standards is how similar they are in different societies, old and new. The important ethical issues involving violent behaviour, theft, lying and so on are generally covered. This suggests that there are objective reasons behind the right stuff of societies and that these reasons presumably say something about us humans generally. Biological studies suggest that, too. Other primates, for example, also have ingrained notions of fairness that point to common ancient genetic factors. Thus chimps have been observed to refuse a reward completely if another chimp has been given more for completing the same task. Sounds like our concept of fairness, doesnt it? Of course, our behaviour is influenced by learning, too. Learning enables us to adapt to our
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particular context and to changes in that context. So we might expect some variation in ethical standards at different times and places, as we, in fact, find. Hence, in times of intense competition between different social groups, warrior virtues tend to have more prominence. And consider how more effective birth control and higher incomes, which increase economic independence, have resulted in radical changes to sexual ethical standards in the space of a few decades? Or notice how environmental ethical issues are now to the fore. Of course, we can mislearn things as well. I dont think many people these days think we should sacrifice people to ensure a better harvest, which is encouraging. Thus ethical standards also seem to be relative in practice, rather than absolute. That is, they vary relative to circumstances. They still seem to be based on objective considerations though, its just that the considerations are different because circumstances are, too. And this shift in circumstances can lead to real conflicts between old standards and new ones, especially where those old standards are based on absolute rules such as those documented in an ancient religion. Change is never easy.

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I think that this scientific approach of studying what people and other animals actually do helps us to understand the practical nature of ethics. Maybe God did once tell a religious leader or leaders what we should do. Or maybe God just made us and the changing world, and the right stuff follows from that. Thats kind of how I think. God didnt have to invent virtue to bring it into the world; the relevant invention was us. But even if you dont believe in a Creator, the same practical conclusions about objective reasons relative to circumstances would still be relevant. It is just that you wouldnt agree that God was ultimately behind it. Finally, having discussed absolutism, relativity and objectiveness, Id like to wind up this tour up by touching on subjectivity. Some people argue that we can, as free beings, define or redefine ourselves, and thus just subjectively choose an ethical standard to live by. This idea of self definition has been fairly popular from the twentieth century, when individuality seems to have blossomed. And I agree that, sure, we can and do choose our personal codes to some degree. But I also think that what we actually choose will still turn out to be based on what we are and the circumstances confronting us, even if we arent aware of these things. Birds do not

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will the wings with which they fly. As the song says, its only natural

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The Big Picture

I think people should have a dream because, like that persuasive happy song says, if you dont have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true? Besides, I read that a palliative nurse had compiled a list of regrets people had at their natural end and that not following your dream was number one on the list. And I think that dream should be supported by a big picture plan with some key ideas in it, like education. In this big picture we should be able to see ourselves in the landscape of life and the place we want to be when our dream does come true, as it will, right? The big picture is really the key to strategic personal planning. Of course, though, the big picture is flawed because it leaves out a lot of stuff that either doesnt seem to matter, but could, or is just plain unknown. Unknowing is how we tend to live our lives, running into surprises, good and bad. This is when we need to get tactical, so we can make the most of unanticipated opportunities and manage the damage. Some strategic goals help here, too, like that education we mentioned and broad experience because

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they can help us in unexpected ways, help us to cope with details and change. This brings us to the second big picture problem. We forgot to turn on the animation! Wow! Thats better. See, things are growing, things are dying, new people crop up, the train doesnt stop there anymore and now theres a bridge across the big river. And we change, too, dont we? Its not the same us throughout the animation. And maybe theres someone new in our life. Hey, nice kids. Little people to also include in our dreams. Of course, in time, theyll have dreams and big pictures of their own. But we can still have them in ours, cant we? Kind of. And my, how weve matured and sensibly redefined our objectives. We need new dreams, too. Dont worry about that nervous tick, it makes you look more interesting. Kind of. The main thing is that youre still smiling. The corollary of all this tactical stuff is that a lot of what happens on our journey isnt about dreams at all. A lot of it is just down to the lottery of life. Good stuff, maybe even better than in our dream; and bad stuff we best not dwell upon. The thing to bear in mind, however, is that youve gotta be in it to win it and thats the living truth. Naturally, having resources helps, too. If you have to cross the ocean, safety looks a lot like a
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big ship. People tend to forget that when they talk about personal responsibility for our problems and the burden of taxes on the productive rich. But you do have to make things work in life. Love and fun only take us so far. Life can be tough and we need to be a bit tough, too. And be sure to keep moving, wont you? Theres always room at the back of the bus. Dont worry about those punks there either; theyre not as bad as they look. Fingers crossed.

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Liberty or Life?
Is there a tension between freedom and order? And, more particularly, if life is ordered, is there a tension between liberty and life? Life, of course, is ordered and in two senses. Firstly, organisms are not called organisms for nothing. Theyre internally organised. And secondly, in the broader environment, what we call freedom and harmony seem to be the rule. Individuals follow ends without coercion and equilibriums in systems arise. Order arises. Sure, ecosystems move dynamically by gradual evolution or in spurts because of shocks, but between readjustments they do seem to achieve fairly stable states. Diversity rules wisely. Its tempting to reason from these observations of nature to us, isnt it? The idea that our lives should also be ungoverned, in society and markets, to achieve sustaining order is enticing; and I must say Ive always been sympathetic to the anarchist vision that liberty can lead to cooperative order. Libertarianism is actually a varied and sophisticated political philosophy and I cant do justice to it here. Let me just say that I think it contains a strong partial truth and that libertarian ideals have therefore made a strong
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contribution Permaculture.

to

environmental

reform.

But we have to take into account other things, too. Power does create problems for us and through us for the wider world but power is also needed to constrain it. Authority. See, a lot of things started going wrong with the planet when competitive life evolved us. We are very powerful and left to ourselves are collectively ruining nature for individual ends. We are simply too powerful to be let off the leash. Sure, some human societies have lived more harmoniously with nature and a few still do but thats because they hadnt developed or havent yet applieded the technologies that one day they would or will. Eventually they become as powerful as us who are fundamentally like them in having unending wants and natural talents. Our nearest relatives in the animal world, very near to us, seem to manage their place pretty well. But put a mirror to any human face and theyll behold a natural enemy of nature. So lets not kid ourselves. Our power is not going to be benign if left to itself. Yes, some people will do the right thing, or at least a less worse thing, thats what one expects statistically. And from hindsight and the normal curve we also know that most people wont, and that some people will be much much worse.
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Maybe anarchy could save the world if people could be good anarchists of the social kind but evidently they arent and cant while we have the power to live as individuals. Its just not on the cards. Most individuals are not going to voluntarily put their own price on carbon. And similarly, unregulated markets are not going to stop distributing highly toxic chemicals or refrain from making dangerous financial deals in the darkness of unscrutinised dens. So if the fish and the birds and the trees are going to be free we, the unnaturally powerful, are gonna have to submit to the yoke. Freedom is important, however, and there are many kinds to consider. Theres more than one balance between freedom and order to think about. For example, I wouldnt like to see prevailing political freedoms lessened and in many areas of the world more is clearly needed. We need the power to throw bad rulers out. And religious and academic freedom is also necessary to produce rich intellectual yields. But in that very important world of production and consumption, in the economy where we so often live, we may well need less freedom not more. Thats not to say that we should do without economic freedom but rather to note that we should work with it to correct its failings. In fact,
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often the best way to address problems arising from its failings is also the effective option which minimises the freedom loss. Thats why so many reasonable people want to add the cost of pollution to the price of the products and services that give rise to it. The price effect can work very quickly and effectively on free decision makers with least cost - if the price is right. Which it generally wont be. But better is better than worse and we need to get cracking on this. The world tends to have comprehensive antisocial laws. I doubt whether the balance needs to change substantially here. But we do need to be better at it. Better at dealing with underlying causality, at dealing with substance addiction and other mental illness. Better at making prisons that dont make people worse. Better at crime prevention, and at crime detection and rehabilitation when we fail. But our antinature policies and laws, and by nature I include our own natural well being, are not within cooee of where they should be. And thats where the economy is hurting the world the most. In capitalist economies we have too much freedom. In centrally organised economies maybe we also have not enough. Not enough freedom to use freedom to overcome its own

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flaws and the flaws of bureaucratically directed production. So lets beware of charlatans peddling unreasonable levels of freedom for self serving interests but lets also not sell freedom short. We want transparency, dont we? In these hallways are always vested interests. We want to look at the big picture and see the real results of our sacrifice. And by all means lets have personal green dreams of our own. Thats the libertarian bit. Because every good dream helps, provided we help good dreams to come true.

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Easy Rider
Ive been watching some motorcycle music clips recently, which has been a lot of fun but, more than that, theyve also provided food for thought. One thing they all had in common, either explicitly or implicitly, is the concept of freedom. Well, freedom and motorcycling have been so closely associated in art and advertising over the decades that its become a clich. But I dont want to let it go there. See, these clips were often sincere in their claim for more personal space, for freedom from judgment, for lifestyle and from physical constraints. There was often an intergenerational conversation to these claims, too, the new generation struggling against the old. Of course, freedom is a neutral term. We can be free to do good or free to do bad, as these clips illustrated; often theres a bit of both involved, isnt there? And distinguishing between the good and bad is not easy. I think that what is good or bad often has an objective basis in terms of what is good or bad for people as human beings. But a subjective element also creeps into our judgments, as in our preferences for music.
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This subjective element underlines the need for tolerance, a strong theme in the iconic film Easy Rider, which ends so tragically for the ambiguous heroes involved. We also need to be a bit tolerant when people do things that are actually bad in an objective sense, so that people can be free to learn, to exercise and develop moral muscle. Locking everyone up for misdemeanors is no longer considered wise; too much tolerance, though, can be equally bad. Alas its not easy to navigate between the rocks and the whirlpool, as many parents know. Sure, in this sanctuary from social sanction some people will go wrong and need help. But others will grow strong, art will flourish and new ideas will emerge to serve us in our changing world; ideas like environmental sustainability, which, we may remember, was nurtured in a radical and marginalised counterculture of the past. Well, thats enough motorcycle theory for me, it is now spring and time for prac. Every ride is a movie. Every mile a song.

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Defiance
Unfortunately, it is a cruel irony of life that the more we are able to defy authority the less is there a need. And sometimes the difficulty of that necessary task results in violence. But violence is as unpredictable as it is costly in suffering and lives. Sometimes its necessary and successful, as in the American War of Independence. And sometimes it ends tragically and can echo down the ages in many lingering ways Moreover, in modern times violence supposedly aimed at oppressors is all too frequently directed at the people; which is to be deplored. So without passing judgment on particular actions, let's just stick to peaceful defiance here, in line with my own experience. And who am I to speak on even this? Well, let me assure you that I know I'm no Mandela or Gandhi. I'm just a small man, living a small life, defying in small ways now and then. But I do have a bit of practical experience in the four Ps of protests, pickets, paste ups and letters to the press, even if it has been low risk activity in this peaceful land. Still, that's ok, isn't it, because many of you are probably like me, right?
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Now let's be fair about this. Law and order is an important, indeed vital, quality of every healthy society and, utopian ambitions aside, authority is needed for that. But alas authority often tends to see itself, not human happiness, as the end. And those attracted to wielding its sword may not always be the ones we would prefer to trust with the job. Often it is exercised for the benefit of those who see themselves as masters of the rest. It can become an instrument of favouritism and a protector of prejudice, a lever for folly and a means for malice. And even well intended authority can be ill informed or too slow to see and do what is right. Look at our planet! As I see it the aim of peaceful defiance is to diminish injustice by broadening domestic dissent, shaming authority, and encouraging external allies. This can be a slow process, like a weak acid corroding the strength of steel, so suffering could continue for many years. But it can be effective eventually, and often at less cost than a full on assault. Lets have a quick look at the four Ps I mentioned. Generally, they all aim to raise consciousness about an issue in the community and to show the authorities that people, preferably a lot of people, are concerned and opposed to the injustice involved. Obviously the
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press is important here; the free domestic press if there is one, or the underground press if not in any case the foreign press can be important too. Protests are single or sequential short events that often involve a march and / or rally and speakers. Placards are very important aids here in communicating simple ideas to passersby and the camera so people should be encouraged to put on a good sign show and, as numbers are vital, a lot of effort should be made to advise people of the approaching event. These days phones do an amazing job at that. Protests (and pickets) should also be announced with a press release: a short document containing a narrative with quotes that can form the basis of a media story. Remember, this is a newsworthy event so give the media some help to report your story. Pickets are usually smaller actions but they last longer and part of their function is to inhibit activity at their location, typically entry to a site. In any case, they have a consciousness raising and demonstration function, too. Someone needs to take responsibility for organising attendance, a roster if you like, and for filling gaps. This picket captain will have their work cut out for them and may find themselves filling in any unexpected gaps, so be kind to them and turn up
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on time if you can. Because pickets endure, think about some simple infrastructure as well: signage, a fire drum in winter, maybe a radio, stuff like that. On one picket line that I was involved with the local building workers union installed a portable toilet, a site shed and a tower of scaffolding to display banners and flags. Terrific! Pickets can also benefit from occasional complementary activities, say a commemorative assembly or a fund raising social event such as a concert or bbq. Think about it. Something symbiotic Pasting up posters is more of a stealth thing. A paste up was actually my first date with someone who then become my partner in life. Memories. A security guard sprung us that night but he was a bit of a softie and let us off with a caution. And it's not like we even promised to stop! Sometimes even defeat can taste like victory. Obviously posters are about publicity, maybe for a rally, fundraiser, things like that. Try to be sensible about whose wall you decorate, though; these days some enlightened authorities even install pillars in public places just for that purpose, to the appreciation of all. Smart. And also try to enlist the help of people with graphic design or artistic skills to make that poster look cool. Maybe their work will get on

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the news or even end up in an exhibition someday! As for letters to the press, try to keep them punchy and short, say under 200 words but check with your papers guidelines; long letters get rejected or seriously edited, which can mess up the message. Most letters are edited to some extent so dont be disappointed if it looks a little different in print it should be close enough and sometimes the editing can help. Newspapers like a bit of controversy to draw in readers but be sensible and never libelous. Its good to build letters around facts: a quote, statistics or some neglected history to the issue, and it will have a better chance of being published if its about something previously reported in that paper. Of course, an electronic letter can be emailed to more than one paper, although I usually dont. I like to reward an obliging paper with something exclusive if I can. Now Ive only mentioned print media here but there are other media too. Go for it. In addition to these four, there remains a fifth p of passive resistance, in which I have no real experience except through participation in strikes and that has been more for economic than political reasons. But no discussion of peaceful defiance would be complete without it so lets
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look at this form of defiance now. The aims of passive resistance vary and range from converting an opponent by highlighting injustice in a way that is less provocative than direct force (like Gandhi) through to frustrating attempts at effective government. Key tactics involve strikes and boycotts (even of elections or taxation), and a number of these initiatives may be combined with protests to form a broader campaign. One needs considerable community support to make passive resistance through such measures effective since they are easily white anted by others, and leaders must have considerable courage since they will be the obvious targets of any response by authority. Such measures, however, may not need to be that effective in a material sense to succeed in attracting public interest and in altering opinions at home and abroad. An important consideration in all defiance is to minimise risk. We want maximum benefits and minimum costs. Obviously it's going to be seriously dangerous in a repressive context, so sometimes defiance must take the form of whispers. But if the cause is just, the whispers will one day become voices, the voices join in a chorus and a song will be broadcast. At each stage in this process the protest is louder but, because dissent is by then more widespread,
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hopefully there will not be more risk to those involved and their cause. For authority is less likely to challenge an opposition that is more widespread. Well, that's the idea, I guess. So keep your cool and be calculating about risk. Work in cooperative groups by all means (first names are generally sufficient), listen to leaders, but evaluate risks for yourself. Of course, some people are more defiant than others in this world. And, whether it's hormones or the internalized experience of injustice, such people often become leaders of defiant causes at some level, depending upon their qualities and circumstance. One must always be thoughtful about whom one chooses to follow or work with, though. Eloquence with spoken or written words will often feature in their virtues as words are an important resource for peaceful defiance. Defiance is really about people, and people have minds which think in terms of concepts, and concepts are contained in words and pictures, which are like words in that respect. Besides, words can also invoke emotion and that can help to get the message through. Ultimately, winning is about persuading people. Soldiers hold terrain but words hold minds. True words. Just words. People respond to them. Naturally, authorities know that as well and, in
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extreme cases, opposing words will be suppressed. Old words will be appropriated for corrupt causes, and propaganda will be pitched as the plain and simple truth purporting to be obvious to all. So to those confronting authority, I commend words; new words to battle appropriated ones, or revived heartfelt words to battle dull and orthodox ones; words to bring hope, words to win over others, and words to make friends. Just one more thing before we go though: when opportunity permits, try to have a bit of fun with your defiant friends at the front, it can help you get through to the end.

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Forgiveness
I first began to realise that Id turned the corner of manhood when, at the end of the year, kids I didn't know began pointing at my silver beard and telling me how good they'd been. Kids. How much they believe of what we spin. And we do deceive them don't we, with our white lies, large and small? In fact, good parenting actually requires us to occasionally praise work more than is merited. In a book I'm lazily reading by Jane Austen, one of the characters remarks about a woman on the brink of a promising and genuine relationship that she should accelerate matters by showing him a little more affection than she currently feels. Lacking as I am in the social arts, this is not a tactic that I could personally recommend but its another example of an ethical misdemeanour that most of us would not consider entirely unacceptable. And in bigger circles, too, some untruth may be preferable to honest openness. For too much frankness can divide families, enterprises and even plunge nations into war, at such a tragic cost. Diplomacy is not always about truth.
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So when is wrong alright? I think the acceptable exceptions are when a wrong is not intended or when a wrong is intended but for a greater good. In these cases we are apt to consider forgiving the breach involved. Forgiveness is thus a kind of social mechanism to soften absolute commandments written in stone. It makes the world a better place. Moreover, it has the additional power of facilitating reform in that remaining case where wrong was intended and not for good. Here we might choose to forgive if it is sought remorsefully and in the hope that someone may thereby set themselves right. The courts take this view in sentencing; sometimes naively, I think. Anyway, in each of these three cases there is typically a guiding principle at work: the increase of human happiness. I hope you'll forgive this cool and logical treatment of what is often a warm and uncalculating response in us. But it is at the heart of our natures. We have evolved, or by experience and instruction been made to be sociable in small groups; our social behaviour determined to serve that sociable end, thus serving our posterity as well. What seems natural is not without reason and the
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complexities of natural behaviour need tools like forgiveness to help us work things out. However, forgiveness does not mean indulgence. There are limits - and consequences have their part to play in reform and deterrence, too. Nevertheless, we should also give offenders the training, knowledge and medical help, if appropriate, to help keep them out of harms way, assisting them to realise that bad behaviour takes a personal toll as well. There are always at least two victims of a crime. Despite the above discourse, I think that forgiveness, though useful, is itself founded on a lie: the lie of true guilt. A lot of theology has been built on guilt and I think thats unfortunate. Because when I look around and see how people have been shaped first by chemistry and then by life, I really don't think they could ever have been any different. So we should also realise that there but for the Grace of God go we and that everyone is fundamentally innocent. That said, we do need the lie and the practice of forgiveness because we also have the lie and practice of blame, both in society and personal life. Who hasnt blamed themselves? Fair enough, but go easy, okay?

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Now look, Im no saint when it comes to complaint but getting away from blame actually turns out to be very practical. Why? Because this alternative view of fundamental innocence is founded upon truth not a lie. Yes, consequences like punishment have their place, as Ive said, but if we really want to reduce crime we need to think about poverty, drug addiction, illiteracy, job opportunity, child abuse, family friction, medical problems, role models etc. The best way to fight evil is to address the problems walking in the streets. It isnt easy to get away from blame though, is it? To know is almost to forgive. The rest, takes will. And we are only human, after all.

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Encircled
We all know its not a perfect world, dont we? And yet I dont think our human minds can quite let go of such perfect little thoughts. So lets take a look at perfection itself. Lets circle it like an eagle on the wing, riding the dry desert air. And how perfect this circle is. How did we come up with that? This idea of a shape whose every point is equidistant from its centre. I think it may well have been the first geometric object to get inside our heads. One sees it in ancient human engravings in even more ancient stone. I once walked into a small sacred canyon in Australia, whose walls were covered in them. Wow! I suppose we thought of circles by looking at nature, where they seem more common than a triangle or square: the perceived form of the sun and moon; a mothers eyes; the profile of a berry; the cross section of a fallen tree, or the rim of a pool of precious water. Maybe we didnt realise how perfect the circle really was back then. We probably needed geometry for that and, at least in early Western thought, geometry and philosophy had a fair bit in common. Think Pythagoras. I dont really know when perfection got a start in the East or
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West but I suspect that it got a good go on in ancient Greece a couple of millennia ago and, surprisingly, from two opposing schools of thought, led by some very famous guys called Plato and Aristotle. Plato, the teacher, spoke of a world of perfect ideas that were actually archetypes of the imperfect world we inhabit. In that ideal realm there really is a perfect person of which we are imperfect forms. While Aristotle, the opposing practical pupil, instead fixed his mind on the observable world, a real scientist, and began classifying things to type. Classifying stuff also conjures thoughts of perfection, at least in less practical people, from its definitions of type. Thats because once weve got a definition based on characteristics sorted out, we start squeezing reality in, which can lead us into thinking that its reality thats flawed. Thats what we do with geometry and thats what we do in biology, too. Check out your local pet show and see which dogs take home the prize. Theres nothing like a little inbreeding for perfection, unless you happen to be the dog. We conjure perfection in a lot of things, dont we? We just cant let that ideal idea get away. Circles crop up everywhere even though there probably arent any. We thought wed found them in the orbit of planets but later found out
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theyre not. Not quite. And the same goes for straight line things like triangles and squares. The universe is in fact a crooked and wobbly place. Fuzzy and wavy as well. Everything is unique except in our determined head. So its not surprising that philosophy and religion built upon that conjuring. Like the idea that there could be a realm of perfect forms that somehow got mucked up down here. Or the idea that the next world offers perfection to those who at least try to be good. Perfection has to be somewhere even if its just in God. And of course, the perfection of God just happens to be our kind of perfection doesnt it? Not Gods kind, whatever that might be. Its what we either would want to be ourselves or what we need to receive. Like perfect love. But God is not perfect nor imperfect either. God is. I like elephants. We have some ornamental ones in the house. So the other night I tried to imagine what my perfect elephant would be like. Yeah, weird but so me. Anyway, I couldnt, even if I scrunched up my face and thought really hard about it, with a furled and heavy brow. So I guess its a case of vive la difference, eh? And its not just elephants either. If youre ever at a motorcycle club party and are stuck for a conversation starter, try asking a rider about their ideal bike. Bikers often talk about that. But
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youll generally find that the one theyd ideally like is different from the ones theyve chosen to ride. And if they ever did get that perfect bike, I reckon it wouldnt be perfect for long. You should see the Harley-Davidson accessory catalogue, does it say a lot about us. I must get a Harley one day. Or maybe a Triumph, Moto Guzzi or Mini Cooper S. Yes! So many perfections to taunt us. Is purgatory like that? See, once we get beyond geometry, perfection turns out to be illusive and even hazardous to health. Ok, I do see merit in striving for excellence, but not in all things. And I also think that endowments beg development, to the extent thats useful or fun. As we are not Gods we need to be sensible about priorities and balance. The road to perfection is lined with the suffering and the dead, the worst section lying between Judgement and Desire. Judgements where we have our ideal forms for kids and others. Everyone gets ranked there, when in fact everyones really unique. Each person, each day, each circumstance and each problem is different. So lets give ourselves a break. And even in seeking just personal bests we should remember that better, in a broad sense, is very difficult to achieve. How often
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can we make things better for us without making another life worse off? Just being less worse in that broad sense would be a good start. Do that consistently, buck the spoiling trend, and verily the frogs will sing. And when it comes to Desire, its so frustrating - this ideal thing. This perfection we somehow must have. And how our planet has paid the price. The price of that ideal home, of the perfectly shaped tomato, the perfect holiday and the steak that tastes just right. And if our yearning doesnt know what that perfect ideal is, no worries, there are executives out there who will gladly clue us in. So we dont even have to think. What could be more perfect than that? Ideals can really hurt us and produce mistaken big ideas. This, however, is the Earth, fuzzy and clayed; and we are its fuzzy clayed animals like our predators and prey. Of course, its important for us to behave but Id be beware of making divine palaces a home.

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Beyond Wishing
Lets talk a bit about wisdom. Look, Im no great shakes in the wisdom stakes but when youve been around for half a century or so you pick up a few clues from life and others; a little wisdom to help compensate for the odd missing neuron or two. So bear with me on this. And dont worry, Im not going to burden you with a list of wise sayings, not here anyway, but just briefly sketch a few different types of wisdom - three types, to be exact. I like lists of three, dont you? Little triangles, strong and closed. Plus you can remember them. Now if you mention wisdom in some cultures, one person who may spring to mind is the legendary Solomon, who wished for wisdom, not riches, and, in doing so, got both. Maybe youd like to make that wish, too? So lets start with him. Solomons wisdom was the wisdom of knowledge and skill. He reportedly knew a lot about many things and was a skilful judge. If
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youre a Solomon type, youll have learnt how to apply a lesson arising from one situation to other, and perhaps more general, situations. Solomons wisdom is really quite practical, isnt it? It can help you and help you to help others, too; help to give wise counsel. With this kind of wisdom, you might even get promoted! Second on my list is the wisdom of Qoheleth, that Ecclesiastes guy who spent a lot of time reflecting on life, the universe and everything. This is wisdom in the broad. The wisdom that can see the vanity of mortal things under the sun and which can recommend mirth. So take a break, ok? And then there's the third and last kind of wisdom: the wisdom of Job, the guy who suffered so much on the rack of life. Yes, this is the wisdom that comes from suffering itself. From suffering of the self and from the suffering of others close to oneself. This is close up, real and deep learning that must also struggle with despair and bitterness. It can lead to the kind of wisdom you can see in someones eyes. Yes. So if, like young Solomon, you ever have the opportunity to ask for wisdom, think twice about this one. Because if it isn't beyond wishing, it ought to be

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Thanks for the Memory

I guess its only to be expected that the older I get the less is the appeal of daily novelties and the more enticing become mere memories. Now in my late autumn years, many associations fill my mind: people; places; happenings good and bad. Things like that which have a dynamic. Sure, some memories are static, like the value of pi to three decimal places. But theyre not memories we relate to, are they? - memories with some emotional charge to them. One doesnt recall the memory of a personally known person as a static photograph, or even as a recording of what they once said. One converses with them; we visit and interact with them anew, laying down fresh memories as we do. Its as though these memories inhabit a different world; a world that time has abandoned but which is still there waiting for us in a quiet moment of reminiscence or an unconscious dream which afterwards we may recall. This ideal world isnt always ideally nice, however, is it? There are daemons there, too, skulking about the place. Wrongdoers and wrong doings. Over the years Ive learnt to
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challenge and engage with them at close quarters. Grappling is good, I find. It increases understanding and it increases our ability to understand as well. Thats why daemons dont like it. For what daemon can survive the persistent gaze of an understanding eye? Not that all memories are like that. There are good hauntings, too. Ghosts that smile or weep, inducing smiles or tears in us as they touch home once again. I dont chase these ones away but I suppose that one day they will go quietly of their own accord. Of course, its not always so dramatic in our halls of remembrance. A lot of memory is in that ordinary not too good not too bad kind of world, like everyday life. Its surprising how we remember the commonplace; faces, places and happenings that we thought were unimportant and gone can come back. Though much is forgotten, as the moving mind overwrites... And as other people have memories, their memories may also include us. Perhaps we are good, perhaps were inconsequential or convenient infill, or perhaps we wear the aspect of a daemon who has done them wrong. So better go softly guys, if you want a good part.

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Cloud Call
Were near the end now, the end of the last of our four themes; four strands of reason, in so far as I have some of that. And although separate, each of them twists about the other, both here and in my head, intertwining into a sort of knotted rope that hangs from a skyhook somewhere above the clouds. Sometimes, with a bit of effort, I find enough inspiration from looking up to scramble to the next awaiting knot. Then I rest and just hang about for a while, wondering and looking down. You can see our world quite well from here, quilted in brown and blue and green. And if you look hard, you can even make out some of the detail: the struggle and the hope, the happiness and the suffering, the odd cathedral spiraling above the chaos. Its all there alright. Fascinating, and a bit worrying, too. I guess I like looking. Its my favourite pastime. Thats why I live on this rope. And I have a little telescope, too. Someone dear left it to me. We climbed a long way together. Actually, I bought it for her. It was a present. Then, one day, she just sort of disappeared. Forever. Like into a
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cloud. Only not. That kind of thing happens a lot, doesnt it? And you never imagine that those little things you gave them will just be left behind one day, like relics of love. But I guess that happens a lot as well. Anyway, its neat, this small instrument of brass which you focus by twisting it around. You cant see forever, though. Ive tried. But you can see a long way. Like the trees on that hill. I like looking at trees. Not sure why. Theyre just neat. I guess Im not going to get much climbing done today. Its time to take a break. Maybe Ill just turn my little spyglass towards some of those other ropes in the distance, and see what their climbers are up to. If I see you, I will wave.

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Travel Tips
Leadership: More glory is generally achieved with less glory. The humble benefit most from victory, the arrogant from defeat. The arrogant want only a mirror. Underneath every achiever's pinnacle is a pyramid of bricks made by others. The subjugation of others usually involves subjugating the better part of oneself. The hardest dog to bring to heel is oneself. Ambition may discover that destiny has its own schedule. The world rarely gives more than is sought. One sin may cloud a thousand triumphs. Be wary of excessive prudence: tomorrow can be as seductive as today. To gain respect one must give it.
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Democracy may not install good governments but it can rid us of bad ones. Art: Art is a lever for the mind on the fulcrum of the senses. Writers must first be actors on the stages of their minds. Good authors need good readers to bring a work to light. Science can save lives and Art can make them. Every flower must bloom, even if no one is there to see it. Ideas: A single raindrop cant satisfy a thirsty crop. That's the difference between a raindrop and an idea. One thought may light a thousand years. So make it a good one. If the universe could be made out of ideas, why make it out of anything else?
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God: To appreciate a painting, one must stand back. To appreciate the universe, one must be God. Nothing endures like an idea and the greatest idea is God. Navigators have always looked to the heavens. The message is more important than the miracle. The universe is miracle enough. Everything is forgotten but by God. Religious ideas, like all ideas, should be open to question and questioned openly. Destiny: Everyone is governed by cause and effect but the wise are advised by it. Though everything in life be inevitable, inevitably, the lazy athlete did not win. Life reaches through us, not for us, to its ends. And so does intelligence.

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Ethics: When the mind sees what is right for us, it knows what is right for others. Morals are the clothes of humanity. If they do not, on the whole, fit, they will not, on the whole, be worn. Hope is the well of the good. Beware of convictions that are convenient. The best way to fight evil is to address the problems walking in the streets. We are the map of our own virtues, to read it is to be guided by God. God did not have to invent virtue to bring it into the world, the relevant invention was us. The best way to honour the past is to serve the future. To know is almost to forgive. The rest, takes will.

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Understanding: Reality is the mask of mystery. Endowments beg development. Though the mind seeks novelty, it desires order. If we understand ourselves, we understand something about others. If we understand others, we understand something about ourselves. Common sense ends where reflection begins. (But when logic recommends what common sense condemns, think again.) Leaps of faith occur over gaps in reason. Try building a bridge first.

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And, good reader, so ends this book of essays. If it is well written and to the point, that is what I wanted; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that is the best I could do. 2 Maccabees

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About the Author

Kristo was born into inner Sydney in the 1950s, when quaint cars had to contend with cheeky children playing ball games in the streets. His father, a disenchanted Catholic, and his mother, an alienated Anglican, entrusted their four Presbyterian children to Sunday Baptist care. While still a boy, his family was caught up like others in the phenomenon of urban drift, settling in a sandy, easy going suburb with a French name that actually meant "without care". As a young man, he struggled to understand how people could be discarded when their factories were still intact. This led to a degree and career in economics but, in between, he has worked as a factory hand, psychiatric nurse, cab driver, military officer and statistician. Pondering greater questions of cause and effect, he took a second degree in philosophy and mathematics in the 1980's, which has given him plenty to think and write about ever since. Shortly afterwards, he met his tolerant partner through a common interest in motorcycling and, for a time, she even let him write on the walls inside their house. Together they raised two daughters and a succession of terriers, guinea
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pigs, chooks and goldfish before, tragically, their good mother was claimed by a determined illness. Through his experiences, studies and reflections he has come to agree with those who do not think of themselves as being fundamentally free and who, as a result, do not intend too much when praising or blaming others.

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Travel Notes:

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