Philosophical Rules of Engagement

Ok, this isn't intented as a comprehensive nor finished work just a few tips on how I think a philosohpy debate should conducted.

Point 1: Philosophy is the study of wisdom and therefore it should only concern itself with ideas, not people or authorities. Ideally, it shouldn't recognised people and authorities as having any impact on the validity of an argument. Therefore, each idea/argument should be judged on its own merits regardless of the profession, background, state of mind, social status or condition of the different parties in the debate.

This means arguments like, "I think you're wrong because you're a bigot/racist/poor/rich/annoying/skinny/fat/tall/short/busy/lazy/etc bastard," are meaningless because they attack the person presenting the idea and not the idea itself.

For example:

Person A: I think the world would be a better place if white people were subjugated to black people.
Persion B: You're a racist.

Problem: Yes, person B is corrected in that Person A is a racist, but they have done nothing whatsoever to counter person A's claim that the world would be a better place. So, instead of simply attacking the person making the argument CONTRIBUTE to the conversation by attacking the idea like this:

Person C: I disagree Person A, treating two groups differently tends to lead to sadism and gross transgressions of justice (such as what was observed in the Standford Prison Experiment). These actions will lead to distrust and ill will between black and white people and distrust leads to cracks appearing in the social structure that supports society. When social institutions fail insecurites about the future and each individual's personal safety rise leading to a dangerous potentially destructive scenario of overt warfare between the two groups. It is hard to see how the benefits of your proposition can outweight the problems is likely to cause.

Point 2: Ideas don't have Feelings, only the People who indentify with them do.

A lot of people think that if someone expresses an opinion in opposition to their own that they're somehow attacking them. This situation is actually quite absurd when looked at objectively but human beings have a complicated relationship with some ideas because they 'identify' with them. Let's go through some examples:

Scenario 1:
Person A: I believe it is cold outside.
Person B: No, I believe it is in fact warm outside.

Scenario 2:
Person A: I believe that gods exists.
Person B: No, I believe in fact that there is only one god that exists.

There is no difference between the logic behind these two statements however, the reader would probably agree that someone is far more likely to get upset with Person B in the second scenario. Why? Because human beings have developed a curious mechanism for extending the sphere of 'self' to include other people, things and ideas. We identify with our friends and family as being people essential to our sense of self and therefore are concerned about their well being and safety. We extend our sense of self to include certain objects and locations such as "my things" and "my house". We extend our sense of self to include certain ideas such as, "I am an Australian", "I am a Christian" or "I am a democrat" etc...

I hope you can see quite clearly that defining other people, things and ideas as being part of 'yourself' is absolutely irrational and absurd. I hope you can also appreciate just how essential that ability of human beings has been (and continues to be) to our survival as a species. I hope you can also see why people kill over lovers, friends, family, a patch of dirt or an idea like "liberty". Now, here's this for a logical extension of this idea:

"The more intensely people associate other people, things and ideas with their sense of self the more violent, aggressive, demanding and inflexible they become at defending or seizing those people, things and ideas for themselves,"

Thus the more a person identifies with their particular ethnic group, the more suspicious and hostile they become of foreigners. The more a person identifies with their set of beliefs (religion, communism, libertarianism, etc) the more suspicious and hostile they get towards other people who don't identify with them.

Thus, if you want peace in the world, you're probably beginning to realise that getting precious over the people, things and ideas you call your own is not going to help: it'll just make things worse a lot the time.

So the next time you get upset because I've said something like, "I believe religion is a farce," ask yourself: 'Why don't I just respond to this comment the same way I would if Jason had just said, "I believe it will rain next week" and it is really rational to get that upset because he thinks differently from me?'

I'm not saying that you shouldn't get upset when someone breaks into your house, just that you should be aware that when someone breaks into your house they are physically threatening you whereas if someone is attacking the ideas you identify with you are in no physical danger whatsoever so reacting aggressively will only turn a polite conversation into a fight and occasionally these fights turn into violent clashes... and if the people fighting have political power they can turn into wars.

I believe that until every human being comes to terms with this aspect of humanity there will never be peace on Earth. If a person is unaware of this dynamic relationship they have with what they define as 'self' and 'non-self' then consider that are a walking powder keg ready to explode in just the right circumstances.

Point 3: I'll add more as I think of them.

Literalism vs Allegory

This simple issue keeps coming up again and again with regards to the holy books. "The Bible/Torah/Koran aren't meant to be interpreted literally,"

What kinds of books are meant to be interpreted literally? Instruction manuals, science textbooks and history books.

What kinds of books are meant to be interpreted allegorically? Nursery rhymes, myths, poetry and fiction.

I think it matters a big deal if the holy book is literal or allegorical.

If you are religious and you consider your holy book to be allegorical then congratulations: you're almost an atheist because you've just tacitly admitted that your religious book isn't to be taken any more seriously than a work of fiction.

If you think that your holy book is literal then you really need to answer all of the historical, moral and scientific failings of your holy book.

I'm fascinated by how there are still Christians around at all today. The theory of evolution, the fossil record, the molecular biological data and the geological record all agree with each other: Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, never existed. If they never existed then they could never have eaten the fruit of all knowledge of good and evil, and therefore there can be no original sin for Jesus to have died for. The end, Christianity has been debunked as a fraud.

If you are still Christian is it because you don't understand the sheer weight of scientific evidence against your religion and/or you do not even know what your religion is about? If there are other reasons for believing in Christianity consider that the religion is ultimately worthless to you if it isn't real/correct.

The situation is similar in Islam except whereas Christianity claims to be 'true', Islam puts more emphasis on being 'correct'. However, like the Bible is full of myth and superstition the Koran is full of horrors and crimes against humanity. The acts of Mohammed are morally indefensible and generally quite sick and degrading. If you wouldn't vote for the Nazis then why are you voting for Mohammed? There really isn't a big difference between those two ideologies.

A New Secular Movement

NB: This post is a work in progress

Recently I've been spending a lot of time promoting atheism in my own way using my Facebook profile by posting a few choice tidbits from the world of religion. I've gotten quite a bit of attention from theists and atheists alike but what has boggled me immensely is the shear lack of understanding on both sides of theistic divide.

Theists who know nothing credible about their own religions versus atheists who don't understand even the most basic aspects of epistemology much less of the extent of religious violence in the world.

The biggest point of confusion is the belief that atheism somehow has an agenda and that's what they're expecting from atheism because they equate it as being a religion. Even atheists seem to think that atheism and religion are somehow one and the same. At first I thought it was because they simply didn't understand what atheism was but I now think they simply don't understand what religion is.

If they don't understand what religion is, how can they understand atheism?

Speaking of which my interest in religion has moved from believers to cult leaders and prophets onto sociopaths and dictators. Cult leaders, prophets, sociopaths and dictators all appear to be difference species of the same genus.

It has occurred to me that same nonchalant ignorance we have of the two dozen or so monsters (dictators) in the world and the heinous crimes they commit against humanity is the same nonchalant ignorance most non-religious 'religious' (and pro-religious non-religious) people have toward the crimes committed by the world's various religions.

For example, Kim Jong Il (put into the popular consciousness thanks to "Team America World Police,") jails hundreds of thousands of his starving people for 'hoarding' food... in country where it has to be rationed out and the average 7 year old is 8 inches shorter than their south Korean counter part. Why are the people starving? Because he spends all of North Korea's money on building missiles, nuclear weapons, warships and maintaining a massive offensive army while he lives a life unfettered luxury.

Such monsters are an insult to human dignity. Over 20 million suffer needlessly every day because of this man but does anyone care? Not many, certainly not the general public. Simply because no one thinks about North Korean long enough to form an opinion. For example, I have heard people talk about dictators and they've talked about Kim Jong Il as one of those funny crazy dictators that makes people laugh with the silly things they get up to. This used to make me feel ill being around people talking like this because they almost sounded like they like and respected the guy. But on reflection I don't think it is because they lack compassion for the plight of the North Korean people... rather they just haven't thought about it as deeply as I have.

I believe (no evidence yet) that if most people spent as much time as I thinking about these matters they'd reach the same conclusion as I would. That dictators like Kim Jong Il are a bleeding festering wound on human dignity and should be removed from power at the earliest opportunity. They might also consider that personality cult surrounding Kim Jong Il's father has a creepy simularity to how a new religion is generated.

Religion and politics do indeed appear to blend together very naturally in a dictatorship. Religion and fascism have the greatest in common: pro-natal policies, supreme imfallible leaders, unquestioning obedience to authority, paranoia about the loyalty of the faithful, believe they have the authority to tell people how to live their lives, don't care for the feelings of the people their destroy and highly dogmatic and resistant to scientific ideas and challenges. I know some people will bring up Nazi Germany as an example of a scientifically advanced fascist state, but keep in mind that the Nazis kicked out a third of Germany's intellectual before the war started and dumbed down the education system so that any future generations of Germany would be scientifically challenged if Nazism had survived.

What is needed to challenge this religofascism? I mean, we defeated the nazis and the fascists and the Stalinists... but just as Herman Goering predicted we are neck deep in Islamofascists, neostalinists, zionists and Christian fundamentalists in politics. It almosts seems as though the history of enlightened civilisation is about brief epochs of rebellion and aggression against religofascism only to fall back into generations of intellectual and spiritual laziness just expecting the forces of totalitarianism will just go away by themselves... all the time forgetting the blood shed in the name of freedom.

Brave men and women fought and died to bring about political and religious freedom. If we cannot honour and respect their sacrifices do we deserve to continue to enjoy the securities and liberties they worked so hard for us to have? Of course we don't... but our memory is poor and we all forget the reasons and sacrifices of generations long before us.

Once upon a time people used to talk about slavery like they would the weather. There was no feeling at all that slavery was in any way immoral or wrong. When some people started to question slavery and pressure people to abolish it... I rather imagine that people had the same kinds of reactions to my fellow irreligionists. What's wrong with slavery? Can't you see it is natural? Look, you're just upsetting people. Keep your opinions to yourself and stop trying to push them onto other people.

I imagine it was the same with equality, homosexuality and racism... can't you see the natural order of things? Women are inferior, stop making trouble! Homosexuals are unnatural, they're sick, they don't deserve our respect! All races only think about their own self interests, it is impossible to have a functional society made up of individuals from all sorts of different races, stop trying to upturn society!

In every case: abolition, equality, tolerance, multi-ethnicity, religious freedom etc... the general population's living standards and happiness improved. We need to stop object to agitators of change with a reactionary response but engage them in a free, fair and open debate. Then we need to be willing to either concede to them gracefully if they are right or to crack down hard on them if they are wrong.

And I mean crack down hard on people because multiculturalism is not the same as multethnicism and the while I completely support the latter and believe the former is a recipe for civil unrest. A nation should have only one set of laws from which no one is exempt, especially politicians and other people in high office.

Where is all of this speculation heading?

I'm still not entirely sure but one thing is certain, we need a formalise the ideas of the enlightenment movement into a political movement that crosses all borders and divisions. One that unites all of the people of Earth and looks to minimise the amount of suffering and harm caused to the greatest number of people. One that does not blindly think of the present but also considers the future and the needs of those who will come over us. One that is firm against dictators, religionists and sociopaths. One that is proscience for the treatment of humanities and world's ills.

I had thought that such a project would be too idealistic and unattainable. But rather I'm convinced we can improve on the previous ideologies of utilitarianism.

Instead of working for the greatest good or achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people we should be working to eliminate harmful and destructive elements: we should leave individuals to seek happiness for themselves but collectively work to remove sources of misery.

We should tell our scientists to focus not on enhancing humanity but instead on removing all of the weaknesses: cancer, heart-disease, paralysis, skin disease, every form of genetic and physical malady. Then let individuals choose for themselves if they want to explore being more than human.

Secular Mysteries: rage

I'm been thinking about the kind of topics a spiritual atheist would find enlightening. Time and time again my thoughts come back to the study of the arts and emotion. Truly can there be a better topic for an enlightened creature than to understand his or her self? Let us start with emotion.

Consider the eight primary emotions already considered on this blog: rage, vigilance, ecstacy, admiration, terror, amazement, grief and loathing. These are the most intense manifestations of these emotions, not the typical every day manifestations.

Just on that point, the fact that we consider it unusual to experience these 8 emotions on a daily basis is indeed interesting as it implies that frequently expressing intense emotions is somehow pathological. Actually it is... but not necessarily for the person expressing them but for the ones who have to endure such projections of emotions from these people which is very tiring.

I digress into topics I've already covered!

Anyway, consider the emotion of rage (anger, and coincidentally shares 4 of the same letters as 'rage'). Many people are immediately put off by an angry person. And anger person is percieved to be dangerous or unstable. While I don't doubt that there is some wisdom in such a conclusion it nonetheless runs the risk of missing the wonderfully positive effects of rage.

I was speaking to a man at the Parliament of the World's Religions who was bullied and abused as a child by teachers. He said he felt intensely angry as a child and this had prevented his spiritual growth and he felt guilty for harbouring such feelings of rage. Just as a suggestion I pointed out to him that maybe his rage had acted as a protective mechanism saving him from worse psychological damage as a child and how allowed him to be sufficiently intact to make a success of his career later in life. At this suggestion the man had an epifany and appeared to feel as though he could release much guilt he had been unnecessarily holding onto. I was quite chuffed with being an atheist and giving someone else a spiritual insight... :)

But apart from that it is hard to imagine Martin Luther King being such a great orator and inspiration if her were not full of rage. Admittedly, King had mastered his rage and turned it into a tremendous power for good. But that's the whole point. Anger is a powerful emotion, it is the emotion of power but it is morality neutral by itself. Anger is not the problem, the problem is the master whom anger serves.

If you meet an angry man in a bar perhaps it is worth considering whether he is angry at other people because he feels victimised and wants to take from others what he feels entitled to... or is his rage directed towards real injustices in the world and desire to use it to end the suffering of other people and not just his own?

For this reason I feel that everyone should take each emotion, for this example I have used rage, and really sit down and consider what makes them anger and why. Is it fair to be angry for such reasons? Are there more important things to be angry about? How much anger is too much? What limits should I put on the expression of my anger or what creative and good ways can I direct my anger towards? How can I use my anger to make me an inspiring and exciting presence in the world. One that doesn't do harm or upset other people?

Remember sometimes there are good circumstances to be angry: when someone steals something from you, when someone mistreats, when someone in anyway violates you. But as well as these good circumstances there are also good and poor ways to express ones anger that need to be moulded to suit the context.

Also, something more of personal issue... I often feel ashamed for being angry, I feel like I have to be perfect all of the time and so when I inevitably fail to live by these high expectations I turn my anger against myself. This self loathing is the equivalent of turning two powerful magnets of opposite polarity against each other. The effect is a powerful vice that can exert no force for useful work. Anger is spiritual power, it is the ability to reshape the world inside and outside of you... but it should never be used like a broadsword like this. It should best be directed at specific problems: like my self-loathing instead of myself! A focussed rage is a wise rage that can end slavery, liberate women and push personal development... and the better we can discern the best targets for our rage the better we can use it to make the world a better place.

Evilution

One of the most common misunderstandings of the theory of evolution is that all adaptations are somehow beneficial. I hear people say that those animals or that technology is more or less evolved. However, evolution doesn't work like that and machines don't strictly speaking 'evolve' at all. Evolution is a blind process that produces more problems than solutions. Think of all of the genetic diseases in the world, this is not good evidence of increasingly highly evolved people.

However, there is adaptation and some species can be more or less adapted to a specific environment but being very well adapted to ocean life is a huge set back if you live on land most of the time. But even with adaptation there can be some surprising complexities in its interaction.

I bring this topic up because people often assume that just because we have religion it must serve some purpose. This line of thinking goes along the lines of "we have eyes to see, nose to smell and hands to manipulate objects: everything we've inherited seems to have some useful function,"

While yes, everything we've evolved does serve a useful purpose but only for passing on our genes, not for making our lives better. Religion is like this. It has evolved along side us although it doesn't serve any useful purpose other than to reproduce itself. Please keep in mind that I distinguish between religion and spirituality so when I'm talking religion I'm talking dogma, irrational social-rules and harmful moral prejudices, and not creativity, altruism, self-knowledge etc...

But if religion is harmful why does it exist? Surely harmful things are selected out by nature. Actually, both yes and no.

Consider jealousy and greed (bullying). These are socially harmful emotions that no species wants to have but on an individual level though they are helpful for individual reproduction.

Consider two primitive men go out hunting: one man is fast, agile, strong and clever while the other is slow, clumsy, sickly and dim. He brings back food for the tribe but the weaker hunter can't catch anything. The strong hunter gets lots of attention from the women who want his genetics for their offspring. However, this attention makes the weaker hunter jealous... the weaker hunter then decides to kill the stronger hunter by striking the unsuspecting hunter when his back is turned. Now the women have no choice but to pass on the weaker hunter's genetics because jealousy increased his fertility.

Greed is common in most species, generally it manifests when a sibling will beat up and steal attention and food from another sibling. This bullying greatly increases the strength and size of these individuals, increasing their chances of reproducing.

But there's a problem here... if the weaker members of a species all wipe out the stronger members then that species is in serious trouble because soon the whole species will no longer be sufficiently adapted to survive at all! Also, a society full of bullies will fall apart as bullying is about breaking the rules and society can't function without at least partial observance of the rules essential for maintaining group cohesion and solidarity.

With these qualities of jealousy and greed which help individuals increase their fertility but overall harm their entire species there exists a balance. If too many individuals in a species are overcome with jealousy and greed then the species will either select against these qualities or go extinct.

Thus religion is like this. It is greedy, it wants the power, resources and attention of the people it infects and is jealous of other religions which could be better than it. But can't get too powerful otherwise it will wipe itself out. Consider what would happen if the Catholic Church was successful at removing every man with high intelligence from the gene pool by putting them into the priesthood during the middle ages? Or if muslims strictly only married within their families? Or if no Christians used condoms in spite of an HIV epidemic? Or if scientific progress had been successfully suppressed instead of just slowed down?

Consider the Zorastrians, they won't take converts and can't marry outside their group... the one time super religion has wiped itself out.

Religions are their own worst enemies, killing the very societies that keep them alive. But fortunately a society that resists complete domination by a religion is still able to grow and indeed when the Church went too far the people fought back and pushed through religious reforms to make their religion more tolerable and less harmful. Until we get a point today when the Catholic Church is no longer able to declare wars, conduct genocides, witchhunts and brainwash children en masse... at least not in the west.

Despite how harmful religions are to society as a whole they are very good at motivating people to protect and nurture them. This is the most curious thing. There is something very noble in human nature, humans appear to be most courageous, most motivated and passionate when fighting for something greater then themselves: a love, an identity, a principle or a dogma. Religion exploits this human nobility and perverts it.

I believe the purpose of spiritual thinking is to replace religion and revitalise our ideas of things greater than us by pushing individuals to create their own inspirations and to continuously refine and develop the principles that they would get up and fight for. Because if it isn't a conscious choice to decide what you believe is worth dying for then you're simply living as a slave to somebody else's prejudices.

Own your prejudices and make the future the way you believe it ought to be. If you speak up, you will never be alone.

The Evolution of Prejudice

The other day I was voicing strong criticism of the muslim hijab. This lead to a discussion of "but forcing them not to wear it is as bad as them being forced to wear it," this lead to a ridiculous situation where both sides were using the same argument: prejudice is wrong, regardless of the message. Therefore we can't criticise people from other cultures because that's prejudice and prejudice is wrong.

This is actually a very important issue. One that Sam Harris has already brought up. People who are prejudice against prejudice like to think that they are occupying a strong moral high ground because it can not easily be attacked.

Wrong.

Fristly, prejudice is part of human nature. Everyone has prejudices. If you don't think you're prejudiced then consider that without them your sense of self must be by definition be so tenuous that you simply don't matter because you have no opinions, dreams, goals or will of your own.

Secondly, not all prejudices are bad: I hate lies. I hate liars. I hate laziness. I hate disease. I hate death. I hate religion. I hate manipulators. I hate insecurities. I hate ignorance. I hate cowardice. I hate poverty. I hate greed. I hate inequalities. I hate bullies. I hate injustice. I hate impatience. I hate intolerance. I hate defeatism. I hate disrespect. I hate stupidity.

Thirdly, prejudices could conceviably be positive (Prejudice, n, Any preconceived opinion or feeling, whether positive or negative): I like life. I like people. I like Australia. I like honesty. I like self-control. I like courage. I like determination. I like kindness. I like understanding. I like independance. I like action. I like creativity.

Fourthly, prejudice is the foundation of morality. One person's prejudice is another's moral code. We can have conflicting moral feelings and that's very common. We can argue about the reasons why we have our different likes and hates. But you cannot attack me simply for having those feelings.

for example:

Person A: I hate foreigners who don't conform to our ways and culture.
Person B: You're a racist bigot.
Person C: Really? It doesn't upset me that much. Why does it upset you when foreigners don't conform to our ways and culture?

Who is more moral, person B or C?

Answer: none, they are all moral entities - one is either moral or not moral, there is no spectrum here.

Who is the more wise, person B or C?

I would argue that person C is the most wise because they have responded respectfully and honestly, while I would argue that person B is applying a very simplistic category-based system of morality because they have attacked another person for simply expressing an opinion.

I think one should consider the type of morality one has:

Is it category based? (Good guys and bad guys)
Is it value based? (Honesty, consistency, kindness etc...)
Is it reason based? (Because X = Y and then Y = Z this person should be treated like that even though usually when Y = Z we treat them like this)

If you are threatened by other people's opinions (as opposed by their actions) then remember that what a person thinks and what a person does are completely different things. If someone has opinions that upset you remember that logically you must have opinions that upset them. I suggest that we don't worry about getting upset about what other people's opinions, we just focus on getting upset with their actions.

Some food for thought:

If you don't like racism simply because it is wrong... can you still be a racist?
If you like your culture more than others are you being racist?
Can you like one thing and not hate its opposite?

Atheists Versus Atheists

The recent Atheist meeting in Melbourne brought up quite a lot of conversation and controversy. Interestingly many articles in the opinion columns of newspapers weren't theists attacking atheists... but atheists attacking atheists.

Atheist attacking atheists? This usually happens very often but is, perhap surprisingly, not as complex an issue as it might appear.

On the surface it is quite straight forward, there are two camps of atheists: militant atheists and hippy atheists. Of course neither group would approve of being called either of those terms because those are the names the oposing group calls the other. Which I use here because it actually tells you exactly where the disagreement is coming from:

Militant atheists consider the threat from theists to be so serious that one should guard against them and work to actively thwart their expansion at every opportunity otherwise they could seize control of the country and unleash a reign of terror.

Hippy atheists consider theists to be generally very little threat and believe that that through better education the theists will disappear like an aspirin in water.

In other words: the argument is about "how dangerous are religious people?"

This is a very interesting question... when I think of all of the theists I know I am forced to say well... most of them are really harmless. Even the ones in the clergy are hardly extreme or authoritarian.

When I think of the theists in Iran, a country I know a great deal about, I'm forced to say that they are extremely dangerous to human wellbeing, dignity and world peace.

When I think about the theists in history I'm just going to repeat what I said about Iran.

So... I would consider myself in the militant atheist group because even though I know dozens, if not hundreds of theists who are gentle, wise, kind and just... those are all people from my culture. A culture that emphasises equality, respect, kindness, compassion, fairness and freedom of speech ahead of religious dogma. Theists from outside my culture are just pure destruction (spiritually, academically and physically) in human form.

So... I'm actually also quite sympathetic with the hippy atheists as well because all they have to do is say, "Look around you, do you see any evil theists?" well, while there are lots of annoying and bad theists in Australia, the evil theists are nonetheless so rare I can see why they wouldn't consider them a threat.

But here's the thing... I used to be a hippy atheist...

September 11, End of Faith and the events in Iran over the last 31 years have all convinced me to go militant.

But at the end of that day, this whole disagreement between two groups of atheists doesn't upset me at all. Simply because atheists don't kill, maim, rape or destroy in the name of atheism and these two groups of atheists are never going to exchange more then heated words with each other and well... that is the society we want after all: where everyone is free to voice their opinion without fear of being brutally silenced.

I believe that if a theist group attempted to seize power in Australia then all of the hippy atheists would jump to the militant atheist camp. I also believe that once theism is routed the militant theists will start pouring into the hippy theist camp en masse.

Transference: The Good, The Bad and The Spiritual

One of the most exciting developments in neuroscience recently has been the discovery of mirror neurons. Admittedly, our level of understanding of what these neurons actually do it mostly speculative. But such speculation is greatly intriging for those who are interested in the Philosophy of Mind. But for me personally, I believe that these brain circuits are an essential component in explaining where spirituality comes from.

I'm particularly interested in how these concepts might explain the psychological phenomenon called 'transference' which has many definitions. My personal definition is: "the transferal from one person to another of their emotions, complexes and experiences to another person." That might sound suspiciuously like telepathy. Well in a sense it is, but it isn't supernatural, it happens every day and is one of the wonders of being a human being.

Today I'm going to highlight three experiences I've had with transference and hopefully convince some people that this is a worthwhile thought experiment to investigate.

The Good:

The other week I was feeling deeply insecure and afraid. I have a series of maxims and comforting words I tell myself when I feel like this to soothe myself like soothing a distressed child. I find that when there is just one crisis in my life I am easily able to soothe my troubled heart... but when there are multiple crises after I have soothed one another one needs my attention and then the next and so on until I'm too tired to hold back the deluge of misery.

It is in times like this that a like spirit can offer considerable psychological aid. When you walk down the street and you see someone laughing or smiling and it makes you laugh or smile this is transference. It isn't usually that intense with a stranger... but with someone whom you understand well it can be quite intense. If they are willing and courageous enough to take the risk to open themselves up to transference.

The other day a like spirit shared with me some of her peace of mind(/heart?) which helped me enormously to regain my peace of mind. It was a beautiful gift because when someone opens themselves up for transference like this there is always the risk that they will take on your anxieties, worries and complexes... which would be a borrowing someone's car and then returning it covered in mud and no petrol.

The thing with transference is that the better you know someone the better it works... although the experience isn't always such a pleasant one of peace and love shared with a like spirit. It can actually be quite disturbing.

The Bad:

Two days ago I experienced a violent assault on my psyche. I was being beaten up emotionally with the intention of overpowering me through my sympathies and guilt. In short I had the peace of mind and power to soothe that another person wanted so they sought to take these from me by using guilt, they intented to coerce me to give them care and love at my own psychological expense. They were basically throwing their emotional turmoil at me to make it my problem too with the hope that I could drag them up when I dealt with their issues for them. Of course, I have enough issues right now and the resulting conflict only dragged me down into their pit of woe, despair and anguish with them.

The whole ordeal left me feeling angry, miserable, exhausted and deeply conflicted. Even as I write this I'm still tense and uncomfortable. As I mentioned earlier, when I'm upset I have a repertoire of maxims which I use to soothe and calm myself down... but these had been usurped by the traumas and complexes of the other person who had thrown them at me. This were unfamiliar problems for me... I just don't have these insecurities and so I find that my maxims are just inadequate to deal with them. I find myself stewing over these kinds of unsettling transferences for days as I have to mull over and wrench each issue from my mind to restore my inner peace. Just as a friend was able to transmit some of her inner peace to me this person was transmitting their inner chaos to me. Giving me fears and anxieties that I don't normal worry about.

I believe that there is an etiquet regarding these kinds of things and most of us learn it unconsciously during our lives: when retelling an emotional event to a person don't be intense and theatrical! If a person tells you a story calmly versus if they were to tell it intensely it has a very different affect on the listener. Poets and story tellers have been using this technique for thousands of years to draw their audience into the story. So when someone is always being melodramatic whenever they relate a story be wary that they could be trying to overwhelm you emotionally and use to for manipulative purposes.

Simply put, a person who plays up their emotions is subconciously saying "listen to me, my emotions are important" which is ok if they are considerate with what emotions they choose to share such as joy, wonder, awe and peace of mind. But when they won't let you have the space and time to share your emotions with them they are saying, "listen to me, my emotion are more important than yours!" This is psychological abuse and it is harmful.

The Spiritual:

Since my father's death I've been dealing with the unfortunate circumstances of his departing. He only just started to open up to me but in the 45 minutes we had alone together in his final days we had only just started to redefine our rocky relationship. There were a lot matters left undiscussed, unresolved and unsaid.

Fortunately for me I have a psychological memory of my father. Not just memories of his existence by a 'living' memory of his fears, feelings, complexes and attitudes. In a sense part of him still lives inside of me. This is only possible via tranference because it has allowed me to keep part of my father alive passed his death. I actually have an extensive 'library' of people, friends and relatives that I've built up throughout my life.

I suppose that I am perceived as quite an intense person for this reason: When I meet new friends I'm eager to 'get inside' their minds and figure them out. I greedily devour my every moment with them taking in their thoughts, feelings, reflections and mannerisms. I like to cultivate an environment of peace and total security if I can manage it for them because it helps them to share with me these precious parts of their psyche. I find this experience very rewarding because it helps me to form new maxims and enhance my own psychological resilience to trauma... also it gives me new interests and hobbies which increase my interest and enjoyment of life. It also provides me with endless challenges and creative inspiration. Although recently I've also come to realise that it comforts me when they are gone... either because they have died or because they don't want to be my friend anymore. When I'm writing stories I like to take elements from people I know and blend them into new personalities to write into my stories.

But sometimes when I'm feeling intense sadness, joy or awe my ability to readily accept transference starts to behave in rather unusual ways. For example, it stops applying just to other people but to things. Take a drop of water for example. The molecules of water cling to each other but not to other things. The molecules themselves actually have a very complicated atomic relationship with each other and during these intensely emotional moments just observing a drop of water can feel sublime. It is as though all the rules and laws of the world I've learned to live and interact in have been forgotten and this drop of water is the one law that explains the universe and everything within it. The great mass of humanity is suddenly percieved as a great psychological pool of water and we're all interconnected to each other in complex and unconcious ways. It is usually a very moving and visual experience with little linguistic content.

In a sense, to borrow a Neitzche idea, while we peer out into the universe around us, through transference, the universe is able to peer into us. I'm not going to make any grand claims that this is where we come in contact with the fabric of reality because I just can't see how human beings could ever know reality. But there is a peace in this state of mind that dulls the fear of death and this is certainly worthy of investigation by thought experiment.

The Limitations of Our Democracy

Recently I've been putting a lot of thought into a question. Have we reached the peak of our development as a civilisation?

This question interests me because in almost every age people have asked the same question. From Plato and the Romans to enlightenment physicists lamenting the end of new scientific discoveries in their day (the late 1800s)! Why are civilised people always fearing the end of civilisation and the world? I personally think it is healthy to think like this to a degree. Simply because if one is worried about the state of civilisation like this it implies that one cares for and appreciates civilisation and life. It also fosters an attitude of pushing for excellence instead of falling into the trap of mediocrity. (A trap I often feel firmly wedged in)

As a biologist I tend to view civilisation like the evolution of any species: There are growth spurts, periods of intense selective pressures, dips in population and geographic spread, loss and gain of genetic diversity and of course occasional mass extinction events. Incidentally, I also view religions like this too. Each religion being a species that inhabits the ocean of minds that is humanity and spreads from person to person.

But for today I just want to consider the political diversity of the human species: democracies, tyrannies, military dictatorships, theocracies, empires, republics, autocracies and oligarchies... just to name a few common variations. Then within these they all have different ways of organising the different organs of state: parliaments, cabinets, judicaries, education systems, defence forces, public health, etc...

Curiously though, we seem to be heading towards a political monoculture where everyone adopts a very neat and polished version of western democracy: government divided into three parts (executive, legislative and judicary), an electoral system emphasising a two party system, a unified position of head of government and state who is directly elected and a 1 vs 1 contest and media dominated lobbying on political parties as a whole as opposed to individuals/independants.

I believe this is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity. It is the biggest source of my 'healthy' fear for the end of civilisation.

It is not simply because I believe this version of democracy is bad. Rather I do think we have generally an excellent system of government... but just because I can't imagine far into the future enough to plan for it doesn't mean I should stop trying to influence it. We live in an age where governments are increasing in numbers but decreasing in diversity at the same time. When one looks at the changes in governments over the last 1,000 years one is struck by the enormous amount of 'evolution' that has taken place. The differences is structure and philosophy of government are dramatic... yet, despite the occasional revolution, these changes all occurred gradually over time. Magna Carta for instance didn't automatically create parliamentary democracy, parliamentary democracy gradually grew out of Magna Carta over 700 years of small incremental changes. Also, the revolutions were generally a case of importing pre-existing ideas from somewhere else, not spontaneously developing nuclear fusion on the first attempt.

The recent wars in Iraq and Aghanistan have made me realise that we have an ideal for how democracy ought to be done. This is dangerous (yes, you can probably hear my 'dogma alert' alarms going off already). Political institutions like democracy are not either democratic or not, they exist on a 'democratic' spectrum. At the extreme end of the democratic spectrum we have autocracy followed by oligarchy a little further along. In the middle we might have the Roman Republic and some of the ancient Greek democracies. At the other end of this spectrum we have our modern day democracies which are far more sophisticated and inclusive than the Greek and Roman models. However, just because we're at the end of the spectrum that we can see doesn't mean there is still not more of the spectrum we haven't yet discovered. Think of the light spectrum: The visible light spectrum is history (what we can know) while the UV rays, X-Rays and Cosmic Rays are the future we haven't discovered yet.

The Bush administration worried me terribly for many reasons, but of these reasons in particular was because they appeared convinced that America had 'got democracy right' and that there was no need for further reform or development. All other countries will one day come to see the light and adopt the American model. This is political dogma and it is dangerous because it promotes an kind of political apathy that works like this: I don't need to worry about politics because we fixed the political system ages ago, it all works fine now and it only needs small and occasional fixes from time to time.

I feel that we need to get into the mindset of perpetually challenging and interogating our political institutions and never be complacent with them even if we do currently have the best polical systems in the world at the present. Just because you're winning it doesn't mean that you're right. Any cheater can win a race for example, and any dunst can too if the opposition don't bother to show up. Never assume that winning is always a good thing.

At the moment our democracy is centred around a two party system that only gives people one choice. Considering how diverse the electorate is, this kind of voting system is insulting and disappointing to almost everyone. No one likes any of our leaders anymore because we don't feel like our votes are actually going to the people we want to see elected.

Consider this day dream democracy of mine, does it have any qualities you would like to see implemented?

* Four party parliamentary system with each party obliged to have strict rules on who can join it. For example, in Australia both the liberal and labour parties have left and right wings internal to the party so the people don't have a clue if they're actually electing a conservative, moderate or progressive government because the party name is meaningless nowadays. By having stricter rules governing political parties the people would actually have a meaningful idea of what the different parties actually intend to do once in office. Modern 'all inclusive' political parties create a situation where we might as well live under a communist dictatorship for all the good voting for them does.

* Preferential voting. Only Australia has preverential voting. It is simply better than anything else other democracies have and it ought to be tried in more places. The fact that such a mindbloggingly good voting system isn't spreading simply because it is good, but rather contained simply because it either isn't what all the other big democracies do (the "don't think for yourself, just copy the winner" mentality) or because it is far easier to manipulate elections when one doesn't have the preferential system.

* Head of state separate from the legislative. That is, having both a president and prime minister so as to divide power.

* Fund the development of political wikis for each country where the citizens can record every piece of information they find out about their local members. That way when election times comes one can quickly read through all of the speeches and political statements a candidate has made and search records of how they voted for every piece of legislation. This is the information everyone actually needs to make an informed decision when voting. The election campaigne is all smoke and mirrors. People actually need to turn off their TVs at election time and get to know their local members. Using a polical wiki would be the best and most efficient way of achieving this.

* Compulsory voting

* Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press

* Constitutionally prohibitted cross-media ownership laws (No one should be able to own a news media company that can potentially create a monopoly across all mediums)

* Constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

These are just a few I'm personally interested in. Please share any more ideas you might have in the comments because just thinking up new ideas as an exercise is great for any democracy because we need to break through the mentality of 'we're in the west, we are the best' because this intellectual and cultural laziness will be our downfall if it becomes ingrained in our cultural psyches.

The Fertility Crisis

This morning a shocking article came to my attention. The short of it is that the Prime Minister of Australia has the same view on the fertility crisis as the previous government. This raises two issues which bug me a great deal: public perceptions of the fertility crisis and the complete failure of the two party political system in Australia. I'll talk about the failure of the two party system in Australia another day.

Firstly, the fertility crisis in a nutshell by a paranoid idiot:

White people (and the Japanese) have stopped breeding. While the non-white people of the world appear to be breeding so much that they are threatening to overrun all of the lovely clean white countries (but not Japan because they're rightly scared of foreigners (and don't have massive social problems either, apparently ;-)). Something must be done about this! It must be women's fault!

Question: What can we do to make women have more babies (for us men since we don't have any part in childrearing)?

Now, the fertility crisis in a more realistic and calm nutshell.

People from highly educated societies have decided to put off parenting until later in life, not because they don't want children, but because they do not feel that they could properly support and raise a child by themselves or by their current financial means. Although highly educated people have existed in these countries in great numbers for over one hundred years, this situation has only appeared since female birth control allowed women to take control of their bodies.

Question: What can we do to create a society and environment that women would feel comfortable and safe raising more children and at an earlier age?

The first explanation is far simpler and has a far simpler and cheaper solution: simply force women to have children. In fact, the baby bonus is also a lot cheaper than actually fixing the wider problems society has: educated women just don't feel comfortable raising children until they feel secure enough that they can do it on their own terms.

Now, some women genuinely don't want to have children, that's true and always has been the case historically. But most young women I've spoken to have expressed a desire to have children... yet they don't. We should be listening carefully to these women and stop dismissing their opinions.

I think the problem is that our society simply takes fertility and child-rearing for granted. In the past contraception was the man's responsibility and not one that they particularly cared about if it went wrong. Sure, societal pressures might have helped some men to help raise any unwanted children but really, who wants to be forced to live with a man who doesn't want to be father to your children?

I don't want to start turning this into an "it's all men's fault" argument but rather suggest that we try accepting that men and women often have needs that society would rather they didn't have so that we could have a perfect utopian society. Men generally don't want to settle down into family life at age 20, after age 30 though that's a different story. Men also need a lot of support when it comes to relationships, particularly as boys and young men. Men generally don't do as well as women on tests of empathy. Men also have greater trouble resolving disputes with women because women often don't understand how important saving-face is to even a really friendly kind man and men don't realise how less important saving-face is to women in general so long as an equitable solution is reached (i.e. for women the priority is the outcome of the argument, for men the priority is in how the outcome is reached).

I should stress that the reason why I think women are generally ahead of men when it comes to thinking about child-rearing/family matters is not because women are necessarily better at doing the family thing. Rather, if one has a uterus then one usually spends a lot more time thinking about what the consequences of getting pregnant involve. If one doesn't have a uterus, one generally doesn't think about these things as deeply. I personally believe men have enormous potential in the family, not just as breadwinners, but as loving, caring, nurturing and supportive members of the family regardless of whether they are fathers, uncles, brothers or cousins. But for men, thinking about family issues probably doesn't come so naturally because babies don't come out of penises... although I don't think that's the only reason why Australian men in particular might not be the most family literate.

Of course both men and women could definitely use more practice in understanding how to interact with each other... but as an Australian man I feel that the general perception is that men don't have a role in the family. The family is 'women's business' and men are actively discouraged it seems from wanting to have a significant role in the family. When I hear men talk about problems in their families it often sounds to me as though they are helpless observers of what is happening and not empowered agents of support and care within their families.

It is hardly surprising though because as an Australian man I often feel as though women are turned off by a man who cares too much about others and his family, or for merely being too easy to get along with. A lot of my male friends have a saying, "chicks dig pricks". (Dear women, stop dating arseholes at once! Why is it that men are apparently so much better at spotting arseholes than women?!?!)

As for women, I really think we have to stop harassing single mothers! This is mostly a women picking on women situation, but there are plenty of conservative male politicians who do it too. Although the situation has improved alot, I personally think single mothers are heroic and if the Prime Minister genuinely cares about women having more babies he should be championing single mothers because at least they are having children. All to often this debate turns into a social engineering debate and not one about how best to care and look after the people in the community. Trying to force people into models of behaviour that some people think is 'natural' (although nothing has been 'natural' in our society for a very long time) is really a disturbing attitude to see in someone who is meant to be a leader.

In conclusion, my own list of suggestions on how to deal the fertility crisis:

For to fix Australia's fertility problem:
1. Guarantee a certain level of free child care.
2. Force all workplaces with more than x number of employees to provide free child care facilities in the workplace.
3. End non-co-ed education.
4. Promote platonic male-female friendships in the media as a way for men and women to better understand, live and communicate with each other.
5. Teach parenting in high-school, it is a valuable life skill is it not?
6. Emphasise the challenges of parenting and promote community support groups parents can join for advice, help and support.
7. Accept that single-mothers are still mothers and promote them as heroines rather than whores.
8. Promote fatherhood as a challenging, heroic and rewarding experience.
9. Give women equal pay for equal work FFS.

Why does this post even belong here?

The key problem with the Prime Minister's thinking is that he believes he is a social engineer. He has a vision on how society ought to be and through legislation he believes he can shape people and society into how he thinks they ought to be. The problem isn't that he is trying to shape society, after all, that is what the government is supposed to be doing. The issue is where does he get his idea of an 'ideal society' from? I don't think he sat down and rigorously interogated people in the community and thought hard over the question of "what would be best for everyone?". No, I think he just copied some conservative dogma about men being breadwinners and women being dutiful child factories. His lack of creativity/flexibility demonstrates an unwillingness to listen to other people and be challenged in his opinions. If your policies aren't working Mr. Rudd, stop, listen, think and come up with something new. Stop wasting our time trying tried and failed methods!

Why do we elected arrogant and paranoid men like this? Sure, it's always great to have a lot of arrigant and paranoid men like this working in the defence department, always erring on the side of caution willing to take risks with people's lives for the good of the country. But would you trust the military to run the social security system like that? Of course not. Get the right man for the right job. Don't put arrogant and paranoid men in charge of child care. This is a job that requires a complex, creative and thoughtful solution.

Which means we now have to chose between Tony Abbott (Catholic) and Kevin Rudd (Anglican). Both chauvanists too thick to notice that women's rights are actually human rights which, for some dogmatic reason, won't be given to women but we've been giving to men for decades.

My Sister's Church

(Warning! This post may change as I'm still thinking about a few aspects I don't think I developed properly in it)

One of my sisters goes to an interesting church. 'Interesting' simply means not one of the dozens of Catholic churches across the country I've been to. I must say that I like their format better than the Catholic model but overall I think Antioch (a Catholic youth group) has the best approach to communal whorship/gathering.

I must admit, after visiting my sister's church a couple of times in the last few weeks I did feel like going back again this week. Not because I'm in any danger of spontaneously discovering god. Certainly not for Pastor Garry's 'enlightened' opinions as to why we had the bushfires last year. But because watching them whorship was a far more emotional and moving experience than the typical Catholic herd. Although, I have seen communal forms of whorship so boring the only thing 'moving' communally about those services was perhaps the congregation's bowels from the endless cycling between sitting, kneeling and standing up, so maybe I'm not really qualified to judge.

Which has lead me to the very serious proposition of touring all of the different religious congregations in the area: orthodox, jewish, muslim, hindu, zoroastrian, protestant, buddhist etc... In fact I can already think of two friends who went with me to the Parliament of the World's Religions who are probably already anticipating exactly why I would want to do this and where this entry might be going.

Rabbi Irwin Kula is convinced that religion serves an important purpose in many people's lives. He also believes that the great number of non-religious people are having to give something up, as it were, when they leave the religious fold. I suspect that he and I are in agreement that it isn't the dogma of religions that they're missing either. Although the dogma serves to aid in the differentiation and establishment of battle lines between religions it isn't something non-religious people feel that they have 'given up' on. I believe that Irwin would probably emphasise personal wisdom or spiritual wisdom as being one of the main benefits of being involved intimately with religious tradition... but I would emphasise that behind every successful religion (and cult) is a powerful sense of community.

I urge you to re-read that last sentence. Community is the source of any religion's power. Community is also the powerhouse of society. Community is a tool and like every tool it can be used to help individuals florish and succeed but it can also be used to clamp down hard on individuals and fuel a horrendous war machine. It is important to consider that it isn't simply because of religions like islam that drive people to become terrorists but collective pressure from a community that feels under seige in the modern world that pushes individuals to go out and rage jihad against the west. Individuals generally struggle to act out against the wishes of the community even if they disagree with them. In fact extremists generally don't ever go it alone: they consolidate into communities first otherwise they wouldn't have the confidence to carry out the acts that they do. Heal the community and we effectively poison such terrorism... conversely we might also be establishing a system of control so rigid that no individual can think for themselves.

A challenge for the 21st century will be to create large cohesive secular international communities that encourage freedom, creativity and innovation but at the same time don't turn into mobs of angry, ignorant people afraid of change and differences. They must also be resistant to takeover from other hostile/disruptive cultures otherwise they will perish after a few generations.

These are altogther fine words and aspirations but building a new culture that encompasses all of humanity, promotes human rights, scientific progress, world peace, eudaimonia on a large scale, yet be sparring on dogma and resilient against totalitarian cultures is no small feat! It is to my mind entirely possible to achieve but the one million and one steps needed to reach it means it is a project that will require many prophets/visionaries/champions over many generations in many different countries to develop into a stable and practical form.

One of the things I learned from my sister's church is that the younger generation actually wanted to be there. They were involved, passionate and committed. Considering only 8% of the population in Australia reputedly go to church once a week my sister's church have already achieved sometime significant. Like Hilary Clinton, I'm a big believer that it takes a whole village to raise a child and that even the best parents in the world couldn't raise a child to their full potential on their own. So seeing a community of young people aged 10-25 gathering in a community socialising, going to movies, playing soccer, participating on working bees and countless other activities was quite impressive. Although I did notice that the 25-45 demographic wasn't very well represented. Maybe it was just the day I was there or maybe they have a high attrition rate over the age of 25?

It is all very easy to organise sporting groups, movie nights, camps and other groups but they tend to be very focussed squarely on the activity at hand. While focus is important what would count as a truly successful community for me would be more than just shared common interests but genuine affection, respect and desire to be with the people there not simply because of the common interest.

What is needed to link all of these things is revelation. I'm not sure if I am capable of thinking up the kind of revelation needed but I am convinced that the human capacity for affection (love) has a key part to play.

Affection is important. Love, it seems, is a scarce commodity in our world. You have to love some people more than others and in doing so you have to divide your love and apparently when love is divided it ceases to be as special. For example, we consider it unusual for a person to have more than one best friend or more than one romantic partner. We might say that this because one can only give one other person the time and commitment that is required to make them feel special. But if this is the case then the love a parent has for their first child will diminish with each additional child. The first child gets all of their parents love so total love (TL) = 1/child. Then a second child comes along so the TL must now be divided accordingly, TL = 0.5/child. Then a third and forth child: TL = 0.33/child and TL = 0.25/child respectively and so on. I think you have to admit this arithmetic doesn't quite describe love as we know it. So why only have one best friend? Why not have several and love them all equally? As for loving one adult romantically totally to the exclusion of all others one wonders why an adult needs more care and attention than a child?

I'm not even necessarily promoting polyamory with that statement, just pointing out that defining love as a finite source is rather absurd. There really is no limit to the number of people we can love. I for one argue that the more open a person is to loving other people the more open that person is to new experiences, ideas and approaches to problems (because other people are new experiences, ideas and problems). Such a worldy and eclectic person tends to also be a peaceful and calm person. Simply because they are more accepting of the messiness and chaos that is other people and the world. I'm not saying I'm not chaotic either, I challenge people constantly by pushing them out of their comfort zones. When people learn to love another person, they learn to expand their world because everyone is different to us so learning to love others means learning to accept those differences in them... just as we had to learn to accept ourselves (assuming one has learned to accept oneself).

I'm an atheist and I will put this out there as simply as it is: pushing oneself to love more is a good thing. For yourself, your family, your friends, your community, your country and for your planet. It is hardly going to solve all of the world's problems by itself. But if we're going to move from followers of dogma to individuals guided by creativity and rationality we need to stop competing with other people to fit a mold and start competing with ourselves to grow as wise, strong and capable as we can be. How can we keep pushing ourselves, from within, onto bigger and greater challenges? By expanding our love. I believe that quite literally the more things we love, the more we can be.

In a sense, our minds need to eat. As appetite is to food, love is to people. For a healthy growing mind we need plenty of experiences and relationships to feed it. A good love, like a good appetite, helps us to eat everything we need to grow strong and healthy.

Of course, once we have a good appetite for experiences and relationships, we need to start thinking about the kind of experiences and relationships we allow our minds to consume, because our minds are what they eat. Another point is that sometimes we just need to have a strong stomach to digest the tough experiences and relationships we can't avoid. For those we need to learn coping mechanisms. All of these things can be best shared and transmitted through a community because a community is a rich source of affection, experiences, relationships and wisdom.

We have so many great reasons to build these great communities now that all that is left is a revelation that can be shared to bring people together from across the world to start building them. Of course previous revelations have been "I am the lord thy god, thou shalt have no other gods before me", "I am the son of god who has risen from the dead and he who believes in me shall not die", "reincarnation and kharma are the basis of justice and order in the universe", etc... But to be frank, these are hardly revelations that are going to stand the test of time or intense scrutiny. Nor are they going to promote world peace or cultural diversity.

Once upon a time the idea that a Pharoah could turn into a god if people whorshipped him was a revelation sufficient to create a vast unified community... but such an idea is now laughable. No, we need a revelation that is altruistic, enlightened, adaptable, expandable and resilent. Or maybe just better than what we have so far and when the next generation grow too wise for it they can simply replace it and step boldy forward once more.

I feel I should end this entry now lest I stay up all night. But the point I am most anxious to get across tonight is this:

One doesn't need to believe in god or supernatural phenomenon to realise that love has enormous potential to produce positive results in the growth an individual, a relationship and a community. Love probably simply evolved through natural selection precisely because it was advantageous in this way. Learning to master this emotion would be a great virtue for anyone to possess. Essentially what we need are love 'technologies' (literally love 'philosophies') for the 21st century.

Love and Submission

Over the last few weeks I've had no shortage of topics I want to write about. I've written several drafts of entries I have wanted to explore and not published them because while I'm full of ideas I'm not particularly emotionally stable these days. I find that when I try to write while not under the influence of emotion it is painful to write and disjointed in structure. When I'm writing under the influence of intense emotions it is altogether impossible for me not to sound manic.

While I hardly expect that I'm going to find inner balance and peace anytime soon considering the vast number of traumatic and high impact events in my life recently. Nonetheless, it is painful to be multi-tasking so many intense emotions for prolonged periods and very difficult for me to work efficiently. So, I'm trying to bring acceptance and peace to the turmoil within me. In the process I'm also appreciating that all my previous models of emotionality are far too simplistic to adequately describe the conflicts and changes going on inside of me. Models based on 2 or 3 primary emotions are really just preposterous to me now. I actually think only a thinking-type person with very little self-knowledge could put forward such a ridiculous idea.

In my quest to expand my model of emotionality I've found the following:



Wow.

The eight colours each represent a primary emotion. The intensity of which increases the darker it gets. The emotions written in between represent complex emotions made by combining the elements of the two neighbours. For more about the person who invented this wheel of emotion click here.

Intuitively I know there is something wrong with this model immediately: If we have 8 primary emotions then we shouldn't be limited to 8 composite emotions. While I accept that opposite emotions can't be combined easily there is no logical reason why composites can't be made across 90 and 135 degree arcs. Reducing it to 4 primary emotional bi-poles would eliminate such issues... but for all I know such complex combinations are allowed in the 8 primary system. But for now let's move aside from the flaws in this system.

What strikes me is the location of love on this wheel: between joy and trust. I've found myself many many times in trusting and accepting relationships that I just wouldn't call love. I trust them with my physical and material safety and they felt the same with me. But I never trusted them with my emotional safety and I have friends who would be far more intimate with me if they could bring themselves to trust me with their emotional safety.

My problem with my previous relationship was mostly because while I was seeking to encourage serenity within the other person, the other person was seeking to encourage fear in me. Which apparently would lead to my submission to them if successful. Certainly, I felt that their intention was to make me submit to them and their wishes and my problem was always being able to feel sufficiently good about myself to break free of them... otherwise I really did feel like I should submit to them. The thing is I haven't just experienced this dynamic, I've watched it in other people's relationships. One or either of the people in the relationship try to make the other person feel insecure about the other person's care and affection for them. Certainly, it feels more comfortable to feel above someone than below them.

It is probably much easier to get someone to submit than to combine ones psychological assets to work towards creating harmonary and peace with each other. It does require taking off ones psychological armour to another person and trust that they won't hurt you. In my mind the idea of getting someone to submit in a relationship sounds a lot like, "find their biggest fear, fluster them with it and fuck them," because it is easier to induce fear in a person than serenity and really, fear can be as reliable as serenity when it comes to tying a person to you. Also, I don't think this happens only in romantic relationships. I've been reading up on a few tyrants recently, they honestly see themselves as loving people and the people below them genuinely feel unworthy of their tyrant's love. Yet the flow of kindness and compassion in their relationship is assymetrical.

Of course, I for one belive that we should be brave in our search for love. We should bolster up the confidence and happiness of those we love even though we're giving them strength they could use to leave us with. I know abandonement hurts, but if you lift up a person and they desert you for it then it is a good thing that they have left your life because they don't deserve to have someone as wonderful as yourself. Of course you can get angry with them, hate them even for abandoning you, but I have to wonder, if we just accept that sometimes people will desert us for our effort just as department stores accept that a certain proportion of their stock will get stolen, then can we not avoid a corrosive recourse into bitterness? I hope you'll get me when I say what I am proposing is simultaneously optimistic and cynical. Optimistic in the endeavour to find true love but cynical in the acceptance that some people just don't want to love us back.

What impresses me about this model is that the creator, Robert Plutchik, wanted to prove that there was a survival advantage in having emotions and that all animals use emotions as part of their basic information processing schema. I wonder if he knew that we're now trying to give computers emotions because it is considered by some to be the missing ingredient in artificial intelligence?

What concerns me, as I've probably said it a million times, is the number of people in positions of authority in the world who don't appreciate the role and importance of emotions. They push them aside and dismiss them as though they are some form of weakness. A person without emotions is simply not alive and as autonomous as a robot. While conversely they would point out that people who are over emotional are inefficient and irrational. However, the fact that they've said 'over' instead of emotional gives away that they recognise the importance of emotions on some level and referring to people who struggle to balance and harmonise their emotions isn't fair considering the millions of people who successfully balance and harmonise their emotions every day.

What we need is to learn to be literate in an emotional and relationship-wise sense and appreciate the value of empathy. One can always reach a win-win solution with a person who has adequate empathy but you will never reach a win-win solution with someone who cares more for themselves than others. Conversely, a person who cares more for others than themselves will always be getting the rough end of the deal.

Empathy Deficiency, Personality Disorders and Emovores

I feel like writing today for the first time in weeks so please forgive me if I just start overloading this page with with my rabblings.

Some of you will know that I have a tendancy of reading the descriptions of personality disorders in Wikipedia and making out a list of people I suspect might have these traits. Fewer of you will realise that my personal opinion is that most of these personality disorders are not psychological in nature, but physiological. I don't actually think people can become selfish through life experience rather I believe people are born selfish and the environment influences how selfish they eventually become. The same with kindness; I think some people are born with the potential to be kind and some people just have to learn (or not learn) through social pressure.

I know this kind of thing upsets a lot of people. Generally the kind people because the selfish people don't care as they're happy with themselves and they just wish everyone else was too.

This is really a typical viewpoint from a neuroscientist and one that psychologists stay up late at night worrying about. The fundamental difference between a psychologist and a neuroscientist is that a neuroscientist is a biologist and a psychologist is an academic. I'm not saying that psychology is useless, it has many various uses for our society. However, when psychologists call themselves scientists they are making a huge mistake. They have two claims to being a science: 1) they use statistics and 2) they study the nervous system.

1) Accountants, sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, politicians, marketers etc all use statistics and we don't seriously think they are scientists so why should we think of psychologists as an exception?

2) The study of the nervous system is by definition neuroscience not psychology. If you're calling yourself a psychologist and studying the nervous system you need to reconsider how you identify yourself.

So, back to the topic of interest. I've been spending a bit of time recently reading up on the cluster B personality disorders: Borderline, Histrionic and Narcissistic in particular. What fascinates me is how similar they all are in that the person with any of these disorders lacks or has severe deficits in empathy. They inflict enormous pain and suffering onto other people in their lives but have very little idea of how much hurt that they have caused. If you ask them to describe how much they have hurt someone they usally have no idea what you mean or just a vague notion of having upset someone. Then they'll explain how hurt they are... hmmm... this one-way awareness of psychological pain seems unimaginable to the great majority of people who have empathy. But really, we all take for granted that most other people recognise easily when we are psychologically hurt. When we come across a person with a personality disorder (from cluster B) we are taken by surprise that anyone could be so blind to another person's emotional well-being. But really, should we be? Empathy is a very complicated and advanced process. It is remarkable that we have empathy at all much less to the extent that most people have it.

Empathy isn't simply the awareness of how other people feel. It is our ability to understand and get inside someone else's head. It is our ability to absorb other people's emotions and feel them as though they are our own. It is our ability to feel connected to a friend or a lover. It is our enjoyment of conversation and the ability to learn to speak at all!

That's why I find people with deficiencies with empathy so interesting. They aren't actually unhappy most of the time with lacking empathy, rather they seem to find it liberating rather than lonely which most people with considerable empathy generally feel when they don't have someone to connect with them.

It is hard to say too much empathy is bad for someone because empathy is the perfect tool for manipulating and controlling people. Just think how easy it is to control someone whom you know so well that you can accurately predict how they would respond to a given situation? Yet ironically perhaps, because empathy can't be switched off, the person doing the manipulation is going to absorb the hurt and pain of the person they're manipulating when they find out they've been betrayed. Of course hating someone is a great inhibitory pathway against feeling any concern for the injury that they've caused... but yet again having high empathy increases the capacity for forgiveness and thus makes hate a short lived phenomenon in that person's mental life.

(A good rule of thumb is to be careful of anyone who hates anyone for a prolonged period of time)

I think most of the problems people with empathy have is that they can't imagine a person who has serious deficiencies in empathy. I think narcissists, for example, would stop being narcissists if they could balance their sensitivity for their own feelings against an equal sensitivity for other people's feelings. But if their own feelings sound like a siren and other people's like a whisper then they're going to spend most of their time and effort taking care of themselves and neglecting their friends.

With histrionics they over act their emotions. They dramatise their feelings. The DSM-IV gives no clue as to why they do this but I think it is rather clear. They have trouble picking up on other people's emotions because the pick-up volume has been turned down on their empathy microphone. So I imagine that they feel they need to 'speak' louder (emotionally, as well as literally!) for other people to pick up on how they are feeling. Interestingly, highly empathetic people are usually calm and self-restrained even when being intensely emotional precisely because they don't want to overwhelm their listener with the full force of their emotionality.

What is interesting with sociopaths is that they can accurately interpret other people's behaviour and thoughts but are completely unaffected by their emotional state. Instead of feeling disturbed by a struggling victim as they knife them to death they feel exhilaration!

Which kind of pushes us onto the next topic: emovores (I can't remember if I made this word up or not as I've been using this word for many years).

Emovores are people who cannot maintain their psychological equilibrium by themselves. That is, when alone, away from safe comfortable environments etc... they can't 'hold it together' and start to fall apart psychologically. How they deal with this is to latch onto another person and depend on the other person's intrapsychic ability to maintain their own psychological equibrium.

(Now everyone feels like they can't "hold-it-together" sometimes and this is generally due to a traumatic experience but if no traumatic experience is present and there is no clear objective reason why they would be struggling to maintain emotional equilibrium then they just might be an emovore... but on further reflection the best guide is their profound lack of guilt when hurting/inconveniencing someone giving them the impression of having a strong sense of entitlement)

For a person with narcissism... they can't maintain positive feelings about themselves continuously so they seek out a person who will help keep them feeling 'good' about themselves. For a person with histrionic personality disorder the story seems to be much the same. As for a person with borderline the situation appears to be much more desperate. They need constant interaction with someone intimate to keep themselves stable by maintaining an elaborate fantasy about themselves and cannot handle even short periods of separation.

I think the emovore threat is real enough that people should be warned early in life that some people need to feed off other people emotionally. I'm not saying this without compassion. These people clearly have the psychological equivalent of paraplegia. But it is not clear what counselling would do for them because the affirming attention of a counsellor is precising what they want and only reinforces their harmful behaviour. True, some people with these disorders are very smart and learn to be more balanced in their dealings with other people... while I've also witnessed anti-depressants work at taking the edge off their emotional cravings.

However, I'm sure the cause and cure for these disorders won't be found in the psychiatrist's chair but under the microscope in my lab. Until then I think we should be more aware of these people and how best to handle them so they don't cause genuinely kind and caring people unnecessary suffering.

Finally, I should bring this random post back to the stated aims of this blog. I'm deeply concerned about the dogmas surrounding mental illness and of which psychology as a profession is full of. I want to strip these dogmas away and bring these topics of interest of psychology into the every day speech of all people as awareness of the issues raised in this post would be greatly beneficial as common knowledge taught in classrooms instead of being the privy of a few uni students. I know some of you reading this are psychologists and will feel the need to defend yourselves... please don't... there is nothing dangerous in questioning the usefulness of your profession... actually it is very enlightened for anyone to do so, whatever your occupation. It is called forward thinking. I think you'd also have to concede that distance between psychology and neuroscience is getting smaller ever year and it is entirely foreseeable that we'll be using exactly the same research methods in the future, so I don't see us as enemies or rivals... just players on the same team except you probably should stop being so shy of the microscopes and sharp cutting instruments.

PS: I didn't mention this but I have been reminded that sometimes ordinary sensitive caring people manifest these disorders as a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I must admit I have been negligent in discussing this in this post and hope to fix this up in a later post as this is a clear instance of an environmentally induced personality disorder and one that one can potentially recover fully from. One should therefore consider, due to my negligence, that this article is only about people who in the absence of a traumatic event in their lives nonetheless manifest these traits and cannot be reasoned with regarding them. Also my jabs at psychology are more playful here, I most certainly don't want to see psychology destroyed or treated as a pointless field of study... I'm just worried about anyone who calls themself a scientist but doesn't actually practice true science.

Beauty and Truth

"One often hears beautiful people in the media talk about how ambitious they are. Overstatement? Maybe... but what could be more ambitious than making a living out of being useless?"

An acquaintance of mine is exceptionally beautiful. Both her body and face are equisitely shaped and chiselled. In the myth of Narcissus the young boy spends all day staring at his reflection longingly. That is precisely what my beautiful acquaintance does.

It didn't catch me by surprise to hear that there is some evidence that the fusiform (part of the temporal lobe specialised for recognising faces) is also responsible for our appreciation of beauty. Nor did it surprise me that heterosexual men and women can identify physical beauty in both sexes (although only get aroused by the opposite sex). What does surprise me is that beauty appears to be very much like a narcotic but before the age of 30 people seldom seriously talk about beauty like this (and they don't actually use the word 'narcotic', they usually refer to it as being 'deceptive').

(Alert readers will pick up on the similarity between 'narcotic' and 'narcissist')

When I think of my beautiful acquaintance looking at herself admiringly in the mirror I am reminded of myself on a warm summer's day at the university admiring the hundreds of well-shaped and proportioned young women. It is important to note that even without any intention of chasing and sleeping with all of these women there is still pleasure just in observing their physical beauty. I know some women definitely feel the same way as I do when they observe physically beautiful men and I also know some men who just don't get why looking at physically attractive women is that exciting.

However, for many people, probably the majority, looking at physical beauty is exciting. So what happens when you're physically beautiful like my acquaintance? I suspect that you simply fall in love with yourself. I think it becomes so exciting to admire oneself that one begins to have fantasies about oneself like one often does about that proverbially attractive person in the office who smiles and says 'hi' to you each morning. Fortunately, that very beautiful person in the office is capable of rejecting us and returning us rudely from a daydream back to reality. But if you're in love with yourself there is no one to who can wake you up from this daydream, except perhaps old age... but really by this stage the narcissist has most likely fucked their life up.

From a biological perspective it is interesting to note that human beings did not evolve in the presence of mirrors and therefore there is no biological beneficial role in this kind of behaviour.

From a sociological view it is interesting to note that most attractive people are more confident and outgoing than less attractive people. Most likely because they get so much positive feedback from other people who really just smile and say nice things to them simply because they look beautiful and not necessarily because they have earned it.

I should mention that if it sounds like I have an axe to grind against beautiful people that's partly true. I know a few people who are both beautiful within as well as without but the majority of attractive people I know are deepling in love with themselves to the point where even having a friendship with them is inevitably unbearable and boring. I know in some of the exceptions I have met they have a low opinion of themselves because of abuse they have suffered as children which probably stopped them from falling in love with themselves because they had so much negative self-talk going on inside their heads by the time that they could admire themselves in a mirror. Other rare cases just seem very down to Earth, yet gorgeous and not self-hating... truly lucky people.

I guess I should make it clear here that my belief is thus: beauty is (generally) a curse.

Anything that makes you feel good without a rational reason will introduce delusion into ones thinking. Sure, if you realise this and have some form of emotional counter balance (not necessarily from abuse but also from more positive sources like an aethestic appreciate of internal virtue) then you're capable of admiring your own beauty without becoming delusional from it.

Delusions are harmful precisely because they feed us false information about the world we live in. If you have a false perception of what's important in life then you're going to make decisions that are far less likely to result in the desired outcome. For example, I might admire a beautiful person and it makes me feel excited to be with them... but if I give too much value to their beauty and marry them because of it then I'm running the risk of either finding their personality hideously ugly or ceasing to love them once they grow too old to be attractive anymore.

Why am I spending so much time on this topic which is really starting to be obvious to every person near and after that age of 30? Well simply because the age of 30 is far too late to be understanding how harmful beauty can be to oneself and others. Sure, it really does help with breeding more people and increasing genetic diversity in tempting married men and women to cheat... those really are great biological benefits and our genetics are well ahead of us there.

The thing is, our genes don't care about our happiness at all, they only care about their own survival. What's good for our genes isn't necessarily good for our long term happiness. From a biological point of view we can be utterly miserable but our genetics will be thriving. This is a serious problem for any sentient being as it puts limits(/threats) on our freedom to act rationally.

I don't feel comfortable saying these behaviours are right or wrong. I'm sure in other cultures many of these problems aren't issues at all. But what is wrong is that we aren't encouraged to look at this problem of beauty seriously when we're teenagers and only just discovering physical beauty in a new and exciting way. If we have all the facts and the philosophical tools to use them properly we could avoid a lot of pain later in life.

As for the beautiful people who have fallen in love with their reflections with a glazed look in their eyes... I can't help but feel sorry for them like I would a heroine addict. Just because something feels good doesn't mean it is good. These people have a seriously problem and our continued admiration of them only makes things harder for them. They need tough love, but sadly unless the great majority of people agree around them they aren't likely get enough to help them come back to reality... and really, why would they? Physical beauty is power (erotic capital).

The Self-Destruct Instinct

The recent death of my father has forced me to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth. Although my father didn't consciously acknowledge that he was doing this, he effectively killed himself. Through smoking, alcohol abuse, bad eating habits and a sedentary life-style my father had removed 20-30 years from his life expectancy.

As a child growing up I struggled with the irrationality of my father's self-destructive habits. I felt deeply hurt by his self neglect because I felt it had a negative impact on my life and happiness. When I grew older I came to understand my father better. He was a dazed and blinded soul who had lost much of his will to live. Certainly, he was neither suicidal or aware of having a self- destructive nature. Yet I feel certain that my father hastened this death considerably through his day to day decision making.

My father was not alone. Millions of people smoke, drink too much, take drugs, don't eat properly and fail to exercise enough. Millions? Billions is more accurate. We as a species have a curious habit of destroying ourselves.

As a biologist the first question I must ask is, what is the survival advantage of having a tendancy to neglect and harm ourselves? The truth is that not all self-destructive behaviour is considered bad.

Enlisting in the armed forces or police force of your country is a sure way to put yourself in harm's way. Doing a PhD, quitting your job, having sex with a stranger and going on a hunger strike are more ways one can harm oneself.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this tendancy to harm ourselves is very important. Not simply because it makes us capable of heroic sacrifice but on a more sublime level it gives us a sense of free will. I know scientifically speaking absolute free will does not exist, but I don't want to go into that topic today (but be assured this is a topic I definitely want to cover in the future).

Instead consider an animal that can only act in its best personal interests. Such an animal is not capable of giving freely (they would always be expecting an equal or greater reward for their generousity else they are being self-destructive). They would also not be capable of making a choice, as a choice requires more than one option. If the only option is self-preservation then one isn't capable of considering radical solutions to problems like turning around and facing the problem head on in spite of the risks.

I enjoy watching David Attenborough's wildlife series but I'm always frustrated whenever I see ten thousand impalas or caribou flee a hunting dog or a solitary wolf. If the herd turned on their predator they could easy trample and kill it by sheer weight of numbers. But clearly these animals have no choice because they very predictably flee from a problem they could easily solve with a small amount of intelligence. Tragically, the few smart prey who do turn around and fight are rare mutants that don't occur spontaneously in large enough numbers to be effective and so the gene pool is kept clean of rebellious elements.

I postulate that a delicate balance of self-preservation instincts versus self-harming instincts is inside all of us. I believe this is both natural and desirable to have. I also believe our ignorance of our own tendancy to harm ourselves by investing more than we should into a project or relationship is more harmful than not having the ability to put ourselves through difficult experiences like post graduate education or raising children.

Today I have been thinking about all the ways I induce pain on myself and why. Poverty, so that I may follow a dream to become a scientist. Physical exhursion so that I might become fitter and stronger. Helping people out so that I will have people willing to help me when I need it.

No wonder we can't tickle ourselves, it is all so it won't hurt so much when we decide to harm ourselves for our own good. Gosh we're a complicated species.