Love and the weight of happiness

Posted by Steve Long on Oct 7, 2010 in Philosophy | Comments Off

I have to admit, my data are skewed. I am in love with my muse and she with me. This means that the constant good feeling I have is probably more due to that love than anything else.

It does not invalidate my data, it just skews it. It actually validates my proposition. In being in love, I have a greater concern for her happiness than mine. For the rest of my friends, my concern for their happiness is more equal to my own. But she is unique in that the weight of my desire for happiness is greater for hers, than mine.

Now this is an unbalanced position. This is a biased attitude. This is a subjective weighing of information. This unbalanced weighing of information could bring unhappiness if it was not completely returned by her love. There is probably not a more miserable person on earth than someone filled with unrequited love. With both of us being more concerned with the others happiness, balance is restored and joy is the result. There must still be a balance, but it is achieved through the union of two hearts.

The necessity of giving oneself with a balanced return negates the idea of polygamy. Polygamy does not work because it is impossible to give oneself completely to two people. If two people give their self to one person, then the return is unbalanced. I don’t think a balanced relationship would be possible with complete giving by all parties. The relationship could not progress beyond friendship where all parties were equally concerned with each others happiness and their own.

Marriage is a legal recognition of the phenomena we call love, when two people declare that they will give themselves completely and totally to one another. Our society needs to remove the restrictions between which two people can have their love legally recognized. If two people are in love and of legally consenting age, they should be allowed to be married. To restrict marriage to one class of couple is a biased implementation of law. We should legally recognize love between any two individuals.

God is love. That special love called AGAPE in the bible. It is the kind of love that puts the needs and happiness of others above your own. If that love is present in any couple, then God is present in that couple. If God approves by his presence, then who are we to gainsay? Lust seeks its own happiness, love seeks the happiness of the beloved.

I honestly do not understand why homosexuality is demonized among the religious. I have no ability to choose to be a homosexual. Every sexual fantasy of mine, every wet dream, is about women. I have zero desire for men. There is no choice. I can’t choose to be gay. So if I can’t choose, how does any one choose? Aren’t we pretty much stuck with what we’ve got? It is not our natural desire that makes us evil, it is the intent of the heart which determines good or evil.

Reason controls perception

Posted by Steve Long on Oct 6, 2010 in Creativity, Philosophy | Comments Off

Prejudice is reason without facts. Prejudice controls perception. If you are prejudiced against a group, then when you see an individual of that group you will interpret everything you see as supporting a previously established conclusion. Reason then restricts true awareness and perception. It discards any data that does not fit the previously established conclusion. So the limited data allowed by the perception reinforces the previously established conclusion which further restricts the amount of data received. A bigot is someone who has reached a conclusion and will not allow any further information to be processed.

So by removing previously established conclusions we are able to receive more data. This in turn gives us more information to work with. Having more information we can make better conclusions. Reason still controls perception, but in a way that is more beneficial. It does not restrict the flow of data by coming to a conclusion too quickly. It does not come to a fixed certainty without a complete set of data.

Sam Harris and morality

Posted by Steve Long on Oct 5, 2010 in Philosophy | Comments Off

Sam Harris and Jon Stewart talk about that morality can come from an understanding of nature through science. Mr. Harris never says what that basis is, other than an intuitive understanding, so I guess I’ll have to buy the book to see if his assessment agrees with mine.

Am I deluded?

Posted by Steve Long on Oct 4, 2010 in Philosophy | Comments Off

I think it a good exercise to examine myself every once in a while and make sure I’ve not slid off into some delusion. Delusion may be defined as having a fixed certainty about a readily falsifiable fact or idea.

We must take the subjective into account as well as the objective. For example, I have a fixed certainty; I perceive the color of the sky to be blue during the day when not covered by clouds. However, someone who is color-blind will not be able to distinguish whether or not my subjective perception agrees with the objective truth. To them, there is no objective truth called color. Their subjective experience denies my subjective experience. I believe my subjective experience to be true, however, because it is verifiable with the properties of light and molecules. A repeatable effect occurs when conditions are right and I can call that effect blue, or cyan, or aquamarine. Sometimes, I wonder if atheists are God-blind.

Now, when it comes to God and joy, my two main philosophical musings, I have verifiable effects and facts. I use those verifiable effects and facts to construct a hypothesis which best fits that information. I take into account my personal subjective experience because that personal experience agrees with experiences that other individuals have had and that the effect of joy is repeatable.

Constructing a hypothesis is not creating a fixed certainty. It is creating an idea which can be tested to see if it is a true repeatable effect.

So my hypothesis is that the universe itself has a consciousness. This would be a monist consciousness, not a dualist consciousness, therefore it is natural, not supernatural. It is an emergent property of the electro-magnetic field generated and sustained by the universe. It is one with the universe. It is not a singular subjective consciousness like ours, it is universal and eternal as is the universe itself. A universal consciousness would be the only truly objective consciousness, being all information and perceiving all information from a universal objective perspective.

We have a singular consciousness that allows us to have the survival mechanism of intelligence. An eternal consciousness has no need for intelligence. It has no need to evaluate information to benefit its own survival. Consider it more like an aspen colony, growing and expanding as the universe itself grows and expands, distributed and localized, but all one entity that we are a small part of. It functions according to its own nature and it in turn controls our nature. It is in fact, nature.

I have a motorcycle with an engine. If I tune that engine in accordance with the laws of physics, it functions properly. Likewise I propose that tuning my consciousness to be objective rather than subjective produces an effect in me that I recognize as joy. If I step outside of my own subjective perspective and make an effort to encompass the perspective of my fellow human beings, it produces an effect I call compassion. Joy and compassion are not effects directly connected to the consciousness of the universe, they are effects produced by my own biology that occur when my consciousness is tuned in harmony with the rules of consciousness in a similar fashion to my motorcycle’s engine being tuned in harmony to the rules governing thermodynamics.

When the universe reproduces it produces a living awareness. Life begets life. A universal consciousness begets a subjective consciousness. The universe is vast beyond measurement or comprehension but it produces seeds. Our consciousness is singular and limited to a very small perception. We perceive only the smallest part of the universe. Yet, that small perception is our whole universe. We in effect become our own singular, subjective universe. The purpose of the universe is that we grow from a subjective awareness into an objective awareness.

The goal is to expand our perception beyond our own subjectivity and encompass a larger awareness. An awareness that mirrors and reflects the greater awareness. An awareness from not a singular perspective, but a universal perspective. It is as simple as walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

My theory answers why religion works, we perceive a presence we call God. It answers why science works. It answers why morality works. Everything, including religious joy, proceeds from an unbiased reasoning and an unbiased living awareness. Unbiased reason produces unbiased awareness. Which is coincidentally what is what I propose is at the core of the universe itself. God needs no reason because God is already unbiased awareness.

So, nothing in my hypothesis is based on readily falsifiable facts. I don’t deny that the age of the earth is billions of years. I don’t deny that there is a natural process called evolution that has created the diversity of life. I have a hypothesis that encompasses all known facts and effects, including the subjective ones that I have experienced. There is no fixed certainty, no faith, it is unnecessary when regarding issues of God’s nature. I can conclude that lacking a fixed certainty in readily falsifiable facts that I am not deluded.

I do have faith, a fixed certainty, in the necessity of unbiased reason and action toward my fellow human beings. I know from my life’s experience and the study of human history, that every human being needs to be regarded as having the same rights as every other human being. I believe in this faith firmly and strongly. This is a faith worth living, and if necessary, a faith worth dying for, a faith that I hope to spread.

Beauty in the pattern

Posted by Steve Long on Oct 1, 2010 in Creativity, Philosophy, Photography | Comments Off

I’ve been thinking about left-side of the brain, pattern recognition. When we see beauty it almost always has a certain symmetry that we subconsciously recognize and that symmetry almost always contains what is called the golden ratio. It is a universal proportion that we find in nature and art, and we find it pleasing. There is a resonance in us, a pattern recognition, and we feel joy in beauty and symmetry.

Now, when thinking about God, I think most of us who have some notion of God, recognize God not as a logical necessity, but as an aesthetic necessity. I see a pattern; the necessity of an unbiased morality, i.e., the golden rule, and the necessity of an unbiased examination of the natural world, i.e., science. And both of these endeavors require an unbiased reasoning. The unbiased morality we are taught through religion and is part of our laws and society. In school, we are taught about science. In both instances there is a pattern recognition in individuals for a subjective preference for either God or Nature. The need for pattern recognition in life is a need for a greater purpose in life. We use pattern recognition to answer the question of why. A need for greater purpose is the decision maker in those with a preference for God, and logic is the decision maker for those with a preference for Nature. The subjective preference is a result of upbringing, education, temperament, genetics and native intelligence. The subjective preference is bias toward either decision making on aesthetic pattern recognition or logical reasoning.

There is a need for us to complete the pattern to feel joy. Let us consider a musical analogy; music is a series of patterns containing in the major scale, the root note, the third and the fifth. Consider morality the third in a chord and science the fifth, our music sense will supply the root on its own. A scientist will call the root Nature, a theist will call it God. In both cases the pattern is complete and both feel joy. But in both cases the root must be supplied, the pattern must be complete.

If I try to remove God from my reason, the purpose is incomplete and my joy disappears. If I try to remove Nature from my reason, the logic is incomplete and my joy disappears. It is the necessity of both that turns me to Spinoza, for whom God and Nature are one and the same. The aesthetic necessity of God completes the greater purpose of life, the logical necessity of science allows us to discover the manner in which the purpose is accomplished. God is the answer to the aesthetic thinking, science the answer to the logic. An unbiased mind holds both together, the aesthetic and the logical.

It is the necessity of the root note that is perhaps the most telling thing about human nature. If there is no pattern, there is no root. Intellectually we crave the root, the key to unlock the pattern. We supply it by faith or by science, but supply it we do.

From Carl Sagan

Posted by Steve Long on Sep 29, 2010 in Philosophy | Comments Off

Regarding the vast multitude of stars, Carl Sagan famously said, “A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.”

To turn it around a bit; regarding the billions of years of evolution to create man; it is also a sad spectacle of misery and folly and if not for a greater purpose, what a waste of time.

Spinoza and understanding

Posted by Steve Long on Sep 28, 2010 in Philosophy | Comments Off

I’m reading On the Improvement of the Understanding, by Baruch Spinoza. He makes a very good point about how we obtain a true idea, a real understanding of a thing. We start with the fundamental attributes of the object and understanding is built upon these fundamental attributes. We can eliminate attributes that are not compatible with the fundamental attributes and thus increase our understanding of the object or entity.

For instance, if we consider the fundamental attribute of God to be his self-existence and eternity, we can eliminate all other attributes that would contradict his self-existence or eternity. For example, the poet says that “God is a jealous god.” Do we accept that attribute as a true attribute or is it an attribute of the poet’s imagination? Is jealousy an eternal attribute? Of whom would a self-existent God be jealous of? Who can be greater than God? It is pretty obvious to me that the attribute of jealousy is an attribute given to God by the imagination of the poet. It is poetic license to make a greater point, which is the folly of idols. It is not a true attribute and does not aid us in understanding God if we take it literally instead of poetically.

In the same vein, the prophets and poets speak of God’s anger and hatred, but anger comes from frustration or fear. God is omnipotent and therefore free from frustration. Hatred is reserved for rivals, yet who can rival God? So both hatred and anger are attributes of the prophet’s imagination, not an omnipotent, unrivaled God. They serve the purpose of the prophet which is to motivate the stubborn to repentance, but do not aid us in understanding the true nature of God.

In a similar way we can affirm an attribute of God. Consider when the apostle John wrote, “God is love.” Can love be an attribute of an eternal God? Well, certainly not in the animal sense of sexual love, but in the rarefied, pure sense of giving without thought of return, then yes. Self-existence would imply no need for hoarding anything necessary for survival and so I see no conflict in that attribute with the fundamental eternal nature.

In fact, love, joy and peace seem to be attributes that do arise from an eternal nature. They are not dependent on self-survival, they seem to arise from denial of self-interest. Every time I’ve felt love or joy or peace, it’s been when I have not been self-interested. Caring for my children, I was filled with joy and love. Doing something for others without their knowledge or thanks is an avenue for joy. It is when we release our self-interest that we embrace the eternal, that which has no need for self-interest.