John G. Messerly's Blog, page 157

Imagine if we invested more in science & technology

I received the following link from a friend:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/02/259133246/best-video-of-the-day-mits-3d-remote-touching-device utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

Imagine the world we might live in if more were invested in science and technology. Imagine if the money wasted on religions, drugs, entertainment, gambling, and other trivial comforts were invested in scientific research. What would result? I can’t say for sure but you can be assured that progress in nanotechnology, genetic engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence would be expedited. The world of Star Trek would be here sooner; we might transcend our current limitations; we might become transhuman.

Critics will reply that such a future might be hellish; and they are correct, it might be. But there is no risk-free way to proceed. If we abandon scientific research will definitely seal our fate–whether from asteroids, climate change, viruses or bacteria, or eventually the death of our sun.  Yes we should proceed cautiously, but not so cautiously that we allow the “yuck” factor to be our first response to new ideas and technologies.

We need to confront much of what is essential in life that we suppress–death, decay, disease, suffering, pain, anxiety, and unhappiness–and reject it all. Let us make heaven on earth. And this will not result from useless petitionary  prayers or vulgar superstitions. It will only come about when humans rely on reason and evidence to guide their thinking; and when human sympathy guides their actions.

But at the same time, in reality, what a difference there is between the world today, and what it used to be! And with the passage of more time, some two or three hundred years, say, people will look back at our own times with horror, or with sneering laughter, because all of our present day life will appear so clumsy, and burdensome, extraordinarily inept and strange. Yes, certainly, what a life it will be then, what a life! ~ Anton Chekhov

My Dad

My dad, Benjamin Edward Messerly, (1917-1989) died twenty-five years ago today from complications of diabetes. At the time it seemed unexpected, but in retrospect he had been hospitalized for the last couple of months of his life. He did get to die at home though.

He was born in north St. Louis, dropped out of technical school at age 15 during the depression to take a job with the Kroger company sweeping floors. He parlayed that into a job as a butcher which was his profession for almost 50 years. He was a fine baseball player and golfer. He played hardball at a pretty high amateur level and had a single handicap at golf despite only playing about once a week. He served in the Navy in WWII and came home to continue his family in the suburb of St. Louis where I grew up. He only had an eighth grade formal education but he read constantly and was well versed in the politics of the day. He also read a lot of history, and was especially fond of Harry Truman. I suppose a Missourian without a lot of formal education who spoke his mind was a perfect fit for my dad.

Objectively, I suppose my father was better than some worse than others–although I’d bet he was better than most of them. He instilled in me a love of golf, and though a somewhat trivial gift, I still possess that love to this day. But more importantly I followed my dad around constantly while growing up; accompanying him to his work at the church almost every night. I thought he was so smart arguing theology with the priests and fellow parishoners. In fact I owe my philosophical nature in large part to him. Due to many hours of discussions with him as a young boy, I realized from an early age that difficult questions exist and easy answers to them elude us.

I can still remember him telling me I was inquisitive. Not knowing what the word meant I naturally asked him! After he had explained its meaning to me I asked (remember I was inquisitive) if it was good to be inquisitive. He answered in the affirmative. I dedicated my master’s thesis to my  dad “who approved of my inquisitiveness.”

He also was fond of saying that great people do what they think is right and then disregard what others think about them. For me this translated into seeking the truth and then acting on the truth discovered. And while he didn’t agree with most of my conclusions–and I could hardly accept his Catholicism–he accepted me nonetheless.

He was a good man, who taught me, who loved me, and who inspired me. Words are so ineffectual, but I thank him.

I loved you too dad.

 

Human Relationships on a Sliding Scale

We never have perfect relationships with others. We might find that we can discuss sports or the weather with some acquaintances, but any more substantive topics get us into trouble. We might say we can have a “2″ relationship with them.

We might also have good friends with whom we can discuss a variety of things, perhaps we are even close with them, but religion, politics, and personal critique are off limits. We may wish that we could be more honest with them but decide that avoiding conflict over these more substantive or personal issues is wise. With these friends or family members we might have a “5″ relationship.

With our closest friends or confidants we might find that we can share almost anything without either party becoming upset or defensive. Still there might be a few personal topics or activities off limits. Perhaps you have a “8″ relationship with them. With our spouses of many years, we might find that they are almost another self; perhaps we have a “9″ with them.

You might claim that you have a “10″ relationship with yourself, but this is false. We all engage in self-deception, we are all motivated by irrational and unknown forces as Freud taught us a century ago. In fact others often know you better than you know yourself. I’m sure this ultimately has to do with our lack of complete knowledge about the world.

So its not possible to have a “10″ relationship with anyone–unless you undergo a Vulcan mind meld with them! But is this a good or a bad thing, this lack of complete unity with others? Gibran’s poetry seems to suggest it makes for a lonely life:

Life is an island in an ocean of loneliness, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst. 

Your life, my fellow men, is an island separated from all other island and regions. No matter how many are the ships that leave our shores for other climes, no matter how many are the fleets that touch your coast, you remain a solitary island, suffering the pangs of loneliness and yearning for happiness. You are unknown to your fellow mean and far removed from their sympathy and understanding.

But perhaps it is not so bad either. Gibran concludes his little section “on life” with the following:

Your spirit’s life, my brother, is encompassed by loneliness, and were it not for that loneliness and solitude, you would not be you, nor would I be I. Were it not for this loneliness and solitude, I would come to believe on hearing your voice that it was my voice speaking,; or seeing your face, that it was myself looking into a mirror. 

So Gibran thought that separation and loneliness are the price we pay for individualism. But is this price too high to? I didn’t think so when I first read Gibran more than 40 years ago, but I do now. We can be joined or separated. The more we are separated the more individual and lonely we become; the more joined the less individual and more connected we become. In the end we must hope that it is possible to remain a separate raindrop while merging into an ocean of being. (If we are allowed such a metaphor.) Thus we could experience both individuality and unity simultaneously. Perhaps our transhuman descendants will find a way to do this.

But there is a deeper problem here. And that is that we simply don’t possess the intellectual wherewithal to answer these questions. Life remains a mystery despite our best efforts to understand.

In the meantime we should accept whatever relationships we can have with others and be thankful we have them. Without them life is very lonely.

Are We Ever at Home?

Pamela Druckerman’s recent NY Times op-ed, “An American Neurotic in Paris,” (Nov. 27, 2013) briefly describes the author’s sense of assimilating in a foreign land.  She would seem to be at home there after ten years. She has mastered French, lives comfortably, has French friends, and the idea of moving to America terrifies her children who are French born. Still she claims: “No matter how familiar Paris becomes, something always reminds me that I don’t belong.“ 

This may be because she speaks with an accent, misses Thanksgiving,  or just doesn’t perfectly understand what’s being said: “Sometimes I yearn to be in a place where I don’t just know more or less what people are saying, but know exactly what they mean .” So it is difficult to ever feel at home in a place where you didn’t grow up.  Naturally she worries that she could ever feel at home in American again. But in the end she concludes that despite her multicultural experiences: “I’m American to the core.”

This raises questions about what it is to feel at home. Can we feel at home anywhere? Do we ever feel at home? Part of feeling at home has to do with what’s inside of us, but putting aside the internal and concentrating on the external–particularly the environmental, historical, social and cultural–can you feel at home?

Suppose you live in the same neighborhood or house of your birth. It seems then you should feel at home. But even then things change forcing you to adapt to the changing neighborhood, to persons living in the house, to your own physical condition, etc. Moving to a different city or different part of the country is more of a change, but assuming you live in a relatively homogenous culture–especially if they speak the same language–the change shouldn’t be too drastic. Of course its different living in Seattle as opposed to Texas (less concern in Seattle with having a big house or executing mentally handicapped teenagers). And living in Seattle is probably more similar to living in Europe than living in the American south.

But living where you have to speak a foreign language makes things really different. A good friend lived in Germany for many years and speaks fluent German, but told me that he still doesn’t understand German like he does English–a concern voiced by Ms. Druckerman too. So living where your communication skills are impaired would be a drastic change. Still many people have done just that and adapted, at least to some extent.

So maybe this feeling of not being at home reveals something deeper. Perhaps there is something about the human condition that impedes feeling at home. This seems strange though. The earth is our only home, we are well adapted to our ecosystem, and the thin blue line of our atmosphere separates us from an unimaginably cold, dark, vast, and inhospitable space. We should feel at home wherever we are on our planet.

But our minds always long for more; we are social beings who want deep connections; something always is amiss even in our best relationships. Perhaps this is what people are looking for in drugs or relationships with imaginary gods–beautiful relationships, blissful mental experiences.  They offer to fill the emptiness with … something.

But this asks for too much.  There are no perfect beings to have relationships with, only the imperfect ones here on earth. We should be content for the life and love we have here on this planet. And if others don’t speak the same language then we do the best we can. Yes, I think that’s better than whining about whatever is amiss in life. And that’s Ms. Druckerman’s conclusion too: “whether I stay or go, everything will be fine.” She has survived and adapted as best she could, as should we.

 

What should a blog be about?

“Be as a page that aches for a word which speaks on a theme that is timeless …”

(words and music by Neil Diamond)

Shortly I believe my blog entries will begin to address the questions of the role that hope and optimism play regarding the meaning of life, as well as trying to get clear on exactly meaning is to be defined especially as to how it relates to goodness, truth, and beauty.

But it is hard to write about something so profound every day and I find myself often reflecting on conversations I’ve had during the day or family situations that have arisen. This of course raises the question of what is most important to write about and the lyrics from the song “Be”from the 1973 movie “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” seem apropo. I think we should write and talk and think about timeless themes. In fact this is a good definition of philosophical questions–they are timeless instead of timely questions.

And yet it is hard to always do this. Sometimes we just want to tell stories or jokes or engage in trivial conversation as a kind of relaxation from the “heaviness” of life. Yes there is an “unbearable lightness of being” as Kundera taught us; but there is also an “unbearable heaviness of being.” At such times trivial talk or writing or quiet may be a better response to life.

 

 

Agree or Disagree?

A reader made this insightful comment on my recent post: “On Belief and Skepticism:

 I empathize with this exact scenario. I too am a dedicated skeptic, but find it difficult sometimes to “disagree without being disagreeable”. Many people I disagree with most fundamentally are the ones I love most profoundly. Do you maintain close relationships with people holding drastically different beliefs? It’s hard to separate the person from the ideas they hold especially when there is so much vested emotionally in those ideas. I hate the idea of “agreeing to disagree” . Im not going to dance around the issue; We are adults and honesty is important. How do yo approach these relationships?

I thought these questions so interesting I decided to write a new post addressing them.

As far as “disagree without being disagreeable” I suppose that’s a matter of attitude. So you can disagree in a disagreeable manner, but you can also disagree in a non-disagreeable manner. I don’t think you can disagree in an agreeable manner, since that would imply you were agreeing. So the best is to voice your disagreement with the ideas expressed, but not personally attack the person who expressed those ideas.

As far as having relationships with people who hold different views this certainly can be done. There are people in the most intimate lifelong relationships who disagree about politics, religion and other subjects. Still I think its easier to have good relationships if you at least share some values and beliefs in common, and in fact I believe that marriages for example are more successful between persons who have similar personalities. (Although I’m not sure about this.)s

It is hard to separate people from ideas they hold. If I’m progressive and someone is a fascist; or if I’m an agnostic and someone is a biblical literalist that’s very hard to overcome. In such cases it would be really hard to say “she is ok, but she is absolutely insane because she’s a biblical literalist and that involves holding contradictory ideas at the same time as well as believing things that conflict with well-established truths of modern science.” And you are correct, people certainly have a lot invested emotionally in their ideas, which in large part explains why they are so resistant to changing them, even in the face of good reasons to do so.

I think the best you can do is to decide when its worth it to enter into a polemic when you feel the truth is being distorted. At one end of the spectrum you should certainly not allow the truth to be distorted. For example if someone says that Asians are inherently inferior to my racial group and we should go kill them all then that’s clearly something to challenge. If they say that it is generally colder in Florida and than Minnesota and they are really attached to that idea then it probably isn’t such a big deal to disagree with them, even though they are mistaken.

Now suppose I encounter a gravitational, germ, or evolutionary theory denier. In such cases I should be willing to enter into a polemic because any educated person knows these are well-established scientific ideas. Furthermore to deny them might entail someone’s jumping off a building and thinking they’ll fly; not washing their hands before handling food, or counting on last years flu shot to work this year. (Yes viruses evolve quickly.) Of course you probably won’t change their minds since so many persons are willfully ignorant.

Now suppose you encounter a climate change denier. You can tell them that the intergovernmental panel of climate scientists now claim with 98% certainty that humans are the main cause of global climate change. But you probably have to leave it at that. The fact that they are mistaken when they don’t believe in it, (and arrogant to think they know more about the subject then the world’s experts), probably doesn’t matter that much. True you might convince them not to vote for a climate change denier, but one vote isn’t that significant anyway and their mistaken view is unlikely to change anyway.

Of course if someone is getting upset or violent then you should agree with anything they say. After all Galileo recanted the Copernican view of the solar system in the face of the Catholic Church’s threatening his life. (Bruno had been recently burned at the stake for advocating such a view.) But among friends–and if someone is willing to kill you over your beliefs they shouldn’t be your friend–I think you just have to decide how serious the issue is and take each case on an individual basis.

I will say this; as I get older I let a lot more slide than when I was young. And again that’s because you rarely change people’s minds because of the emotional attachment they have to those ideas as you mentioned earlier.

But when someone says: “let’s start another war,” or “let’s deny people health care” well those are claims that hurt a lot of people. And if that doesn’t matter then what does?

Tennyson: Ulysses and the Meaning of Life

Maybe the key to the meaning of life is not in our answers, our hopes, or our wishes, but in our struggles. This is a salient theme in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, which tells the story of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, and his ten year journey home after the end of the ten year long Trojan War. Odysseus’ tribulations on his homeward journey are legendary, as he battles giants, monsters, storms, and the sirens of beautiful women who call sailors to their death. After finally reaching home, reunited with his wife and his kingdom, Homer suggests that Odysseus desired to leave again, an idea picked up centuries later by Dante.

In the nineteenth century Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892) expanded on this theme. Tennyson was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria’s reign, and one of the most popular poets in the English language. His poem Ulysses, Odysseus’ name in Latin, famously captured Ulysses’ dissatisfaction with life in Ithaca after his return, and his subsequent desire to set sail again. Perhaps nothing in Western literature conveys the feeling of going forward and braving the struggle of life more movingly than this poem.

Tennyson begins by describing the boredom and restlessness Ulysses experiences after finally returning to rule his kingdom.

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

Contrast these sentiments with his excitement that his memories elicit.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honoured of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers;

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

He’s nostalgic about his past, but he also longs for new experiences. He describes his restlessness perfectly:

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

And so he will leave the kingdom to his son.

 This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

Looking toward the sea with a restless heart, he again feels its pull.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

Finally, he gathers his fellow sailors and pushes out of the harbor for new adventures. Tennyson describes the scene and the sentiment with some of the greatest lines in the English language.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses found joy and meaning, not in port, but in his journeys, in the dark troubled sea of life which tosses us as we wrestle against it. There we find the thrill and the meaning of our lives as we battle without hope of ever finding a home. For Ulysses, the struggle was the meaning.

 

 

On My Daughter’s 30th Birthday

Thirty years ago today my wife and I welcomed into the world a beautiful daughter. I cannot begin to express how successful she has been or what joy she has brought to us. And to think that now, thirty years later, she has her own beautiful infant daughter. Having children is life renewing itself. Still my wife and I are thirty years older too, and all of our parents, who themselves were proud grandparents, are no more. Not all is good.

All this makes me think about is the process of having and raising children, which puts you in touch with something beyond your best efforts to care for them. For try as you may you find the forces of society and culture and history and genes and fate transcend, and perhaps even undermine your efforts to care for them. What if war, disease, or violence strike? How will you protect them then? Yet even without such calamities parenting is entering uncharted waters. How we wanted all of our children to be perfectly happy and loving and intelligent… and yet no one is. All of this has reminded me of some simply poetry I read as a teenager:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable. ~ Kahill Gibran

However the situation is even worse than this, for their is no supreme archer. As parents, you are the archer, and your most careful aim will surely miss your mark by some distance, which will surely cause some sadness in later years. Still if you have done your best to aim well, you will have hit the target even if not the bull’s-eye. In this you take consolation. You did your best and you did not miss completely. And if life as a whole continues to do this it will get closer and closer to the bull’s-eye. At least let us hope so.

Happy 30th birthday to a most beautiful daughter. Continue to be strong and happy and courageous. And never go looking for happiness in Oz. Peace is found within.

I love you

 

On Belief and Skepticism

My very bright youngest daughter told me about a matrix in which our home state of Washington ranked 49th out of the 50 states. Naturally I was skeptical since the American south ranks lowest on virtually every educational measurement, and I expressed this skepticism directly. It turns out that my daughter was correct and here is the source:

“Washington is the nation’s No. 1 STEM economy and has the highest concentration of STEM jobs in the United States. Yet, the state ranks 49th out of 50 states states in the mismatch between the skills required for available jobs and individuals with those skills.” http://www.partnership4learning.org/priorities/stem.php

Of course I didn’t tell my daughter I didn’t believe her, but that I would be very surprised if Washington ranked so low in some such matrix. In retrospect what I should have said was “since you are very bright and read a lot and since there are so many different measurements that can be taken there is probably some measurement by which any given state ranks first in the middle or last.” Perhaps I expressed too much confidence. Interestingly though, this measurement says more about how many high tech jobs there are in the Seattle area than anything about the state’s specific educational shortcomings.

However skepticism is important in a world in which people are so credulous. In fact it is the basis of critical thinking. I can’t simply accept something someone says because I like them or even love them. Claims stand and fall on the evidence and if you have background beliefs about the education in the US you will know that on virtually any measurement the American south will be last. (As they will be near the top on measures of violence, crime divorce, and church attendance.) Without a healthy skepticism we will believe virtually anything, but we have a sacred obligation to believe only those things for which there is good evidence. And that’s because our ideas affect other people.

And the reason I am a skeptic is not because I want to give people a hard time or don’t trust them but because I want to know what’s true. I have a truth fetish. If we don’t care about the truth we become credulous;  and if we believe too easily others will lie to us with impunity. So many of the world’s troubles are caused by lying, and believing lies told to us.