sudo life

We are social animals. It’s interesting to see how we evolved to that; but we are not unique in that regard. Many other animals out there require much social contact. Primates are a good example, so are different types of birds, and there are others.

We evolved this way because it is advantageous to work through life cooperating with those around us instead of fighting with them, or ignoring them. It’s very rare for the ‘going it alone’ attitude to actually succeed.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that many people find themselves feeling lonely. Not just alone, but lonely. We all have times where we feel alone. Maybe it’s a holiday, and you’re sitting in your apartment, listening to other people celebrate, because they are too loud for you to go to sleep. Or maybe you’re driving somewhere by yourself, and the radio is out, and you just wish you had someone to talk to. Feeling alone can happen in a variety of ways, but it’s different than loneliness.

Loneliness is a deeper, drawn out feeling of being alone. It’s not something that lasts a couple of hours (or days). It isn’t the result of a choice, either. Perhaps everyone you know is too busy all the time, or perhaps you don’t know anyone. Or perhaps you’re not even alone physically. You could be at a party, or gathering of friends and family, where everyone is having a wonderful time, and yet you still feel like the loneliest person in the world.

Loneliness isn’t merely about not being around other people. It’s about not connecting with other people. It’s about finding it impossible to develop meaningful human contact.

It’s no wonder that we developed all sorts of different coping mechinisms to deal with this. Self Medication, prostitution, spending money, porn, smoking, drugs, exercise, food, obsessions, television – the list is endless. I’ve used a few of those, and I know the dark places where they can lead. Religion for me was another coping mechanism. Who needs meaningful human contact, when you have a relationship with the greatest being that exists? Only, if the meaning in that disappears, where does that leave you?

Or if spending money is a coping mechanism, what happens when you run out?

Or what happens when you eat too much food, and eventually become obese?

Or what happens when you are self-medicating, and alcohol takes over your life?

Coping mechanisms can be helpful, but they can also lead to ignorance of the underlying problem. An alcoholic doesn’t become one simply because they like alcohol. They’re likely trying to fill another void in their life, something they haven’t figured out how to fill any other way.

One symptom of loneliness is the feeling that everyone else has so many friends, they’re never alone. An outsider can look at someone, and see the number of friends, or the closeness to family, and just assume that there is no way the person can be lonely. Both of those statements depend on a fallacy, that loneliness is merely about being alone. For example, I love my family and I love visiting them, but everytime I visit, feelings of loneliness crop up. Why? Because the things that are important to me are not shared by them. It’s difficult to make any sort of deep connection in that circumstance. Loneliness isn’t about loving others, or being loved, it’s about not being able to share your life with someone else.

It’s no different than where we were a hundred thousand years ago. Back then, we needed each other in order to just survive. We hunted in groups, gathered in groups, everything. If we left the group, we would likely die. Today, it’s not our physical lives that are in danger, though, but our mental ones. It’s no longer about hunting mammaths in order to eat, but it’s still about facing our lives.

Philosophy loneliness, psychology

We all know that answer is 42, right? Well, perhaps not.

But what is the answer? Why are we here? What is the meaning for our life?

I have my own answers to those questions. People will disagree – that’s great. I’m not going to demand that you live your life according to my standards, but I am going to demand that you pay me that same respect.

When I look at the universe, I see beauty that is indescribable. We can talk about it, but the experience of seeing that beauty is something I cannot find the words to communicate completely.   But even with all that beauty, there is some cold hard facts that I (and I believe that since they are facts, others should as well) have had to come to terms with.

The universe has no absolute purpose, as far as we can tell.  This is different than saying that it definitely has no purpose, just that there is no evidence for purpose.  In other words, we cannot know that the universe has purpose.

Our lives have no extrinsic meaning.  We are not here for a purpose set by someone or something greater than ourselves.  Please note once again, I’m not saying that no such purpose exists, only that there is no evidence that such a purpose exists.

With those two facts in mind, what possibly could be the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

Well, if purpose and meaning are not set by some external source, then we must set our own purpose and meaning.   This is an incredibly powerful idea.  We can decide what our lives will mean.  We can decide the purpose of our actions – the purpose of our existence.

For myself, I find meaning in discovery.  I need to know how the world works.  I need to know why I find it so beautiful.  I need to share those discoveries with others who are interested in them as well.

Where do you find your meaning, really?

Philosophy Atheism, spirituality

From a blog entry about psychiatry:

“When Marco Polo saw the exotic one horned quadruped, his frame of reference required that it could be none other than a unicorn, even though it did not conform exactly to his prior conception of it. Marco Polo made his observation fit his existing paradigm of zoology. While superficially (and in retrospect) this may seem silly and arbitrary, it is in fact the opposite, Marco Polo believed the only thing he could believe—because the alternative was to believe he had discovered an entirely new, unheard of, creature.“

While the original post dealt with psychiatry directly, I think there is a wider lesson to be learned here. Our assumptions about knowledge and authority can lead us down the wrong path.

Philosophy Science, skepticism

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a classic non-zero-sum game in game theory. I know that can sound a little intimidating, but I’ll lay it out in it’s simplest terms, because it really is quite simple to grasp, and quite valuable to understand.

As a former Objectivist, I really understand the power of selfishness and what it entails. Everyone is basically selfish – in fact, it’s impossible to be completely altruistic. However, that explanation depends on very rigid definitions of both altruism and selfishness, and those definitions are rarely used outside of Objectivism. The main point is that most people, most of the time, will look to maximize their own gain, and I think that most people will agree with that. Objectivism states that this can be a very valuable tool for the betterment of everyone, and there is a lot of evidence that backs that up. The problem is that it never takes into account non-zero-sum games, such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

To illustrate what I mean by a non-zero-sum game, let me explain the Prisoner’s Dillemma. Imagine two people who committed a crime together. When they are arrested, they are seperated into two different rooms, and the prosecuter comes in to talk with each of them. The situation is explained to them. If they betray the other person and turn states evidence, they will get away scot free. If they stay silent, while the state can’t convict them for the original criminal act, they can easily get a conviction for a smaller act committed later. The options each person is facing are these:

1. Stay silent, get convicted for the smaller offence, serve 5 years in prison.

2. Turn states evidence, betray their partner and serve no prison time.

It seems pretty obvious that option (2) is the best option. However, there is a twist. The other person is also getting the same deal, so the situation is more complicated. The possibilities are now this:

A. Both stay silent, both serve 5 years in prison.

B. One talks while the other stays silent, and so one goes free while the other spends 10 years in prison.

C. Both talk, where they both serve 10 years. In other words, if they both turn states evidence, there is no need for a deal, so they both go to prison.

Now the Dilemma should be clear. If they both take option (2) from above, they will both serve 10 years prison time. However, if one stays silent, they risk the other turning states evidence and getting off free while they serve 10 years prison.

What would you do?

Given that situation and the options given to each, I’m going to define option (1) as altruistic in nature, and option (2) as selfish in nature. If both people act purely selfishly, as our tendencies are, they both lose greatly. If only of them acts altruistically, they risk being screwed into something pretty bad. The best option now becomes for them to both act altruistically, seeking cooperation instead of self-preservation.

That deserves quite a bit of meditation. As in the Tragedy of the Commons, the best option for both the group and the individual over the long run is more altruistic behaviour than purely selfish behaviour. However, where as the tragedy of the commons can be addressed through private ownership to a point, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is more about interaction, which can be more difficult to really grasp, and I think relevent to morality. Where-in Objectivism holds selfishness as the highest moral principle, it does not necessarily reflect reality. Obviously, altruistic behaviour can lead to an even greater gain, depending on the situation. Those situations are non-zero-sum games.

Given that gaining and keeping resources is good for the individual, we can now derive a moral principal. In a non-zero-sum game, it is morally best for an individual to act altruistically, and immorral to act selfishly.

Okay, you might be wondering why I’m taking the time to write something so blazingly obvious to anyone. As an atheist, I’ve been accused as being a moral relativist, or even worse, completely lacking in morals. This is obvious to the accuser because morality can only come from god. I have now answered those accusations. I have demonstrated the creation of a moral principal using only reason, and without invoking the supernatural. What’s more, it can be applied equally to everyone, and it’s reasoning is available to everyone. It is not dependent on revelations to the elite, or an ancient and contradictory book. It something you can learn, here and now.

This is not something new. It’s not something I did completely on my own. This has been explained over and over again, and as I mentioned, there is a whole field dedicated to the study of such situations. Richard Dawkin’s has done a documentary on the subject called ‘Nice Guys Finish First,’ which explains the subject much better than I can hope for.

Philosophy Atheism, Mathematics, morality, Science

I’ve been a scientific skeptic for over nine months now, and I’ve discovered that most people don’t really know what this means. So, I’m going to attempt to explain it.

You can boil down the concept of scientific skepticism down to one single concept: we know things based on empirical evidence. But what does that mean? It means that the only evidence acceptable in support of something is that evidence that is available to everyone and can be verified by anyone.

When looking at the phrase ’scientific skepticism’ it’s important to focus on the first word. A scientific skeptic uses science and the scientific method to verify or discover new evidence.

There are many famous scientific skeptics you probably already know about. Here is a short list: Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Penn & Teller, and even the Mythbusters crew.

Using the scientific method, there are several things already know. We understand the effects of gravity (but are still working on how it works), the concepts of thermal-dynamics, the workings of the atom, evolutionary biology.

The things that there isn’t empirical evidence for are the things that the skeptic rejects. Examples of these things include: homeopathy, psychic readings, telepathy, and faith healing.

Sometimes the question arises about things everyone feels that they know, but we don’t really have evidence for. There is a scene in the movie, Contact, that illustrates this. The main character is asked to ‘prove’ that she loved her father. The point is that this was something she knew was true, but couldn’t really prove.

But is this a proper application of the skeptic epistemology?

There are several ways I’ve approached this problem. The first goes something like this. Personally, she has a lot of evidence for the fact that she loves her father. She has no problem knowing beyond all doubt that it is a simple fact. However, getting proof to this fact demonstrable and verifiable to a third person would be a bit more difficult. Some say that it would be possible for her to be hooked up to an MRI or EEG machine and readings of her brain to be taken. Or perhaps measurements of her body chemistry and how it reacts to thoughts of her father. In the end, however, there is an important thing to note that makes all of this rather pointless. She’s not trying to get other people to believe that she loved her father. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else believes. If she were to take on the task of trying to get other people to believe, perhaps then it would be necessary to provide such evidence.

When approaching a new idea, a skeptic will take a neutral stance and then look at the evidence. If the evidence contradicts the idea, then the idea is wrong, or incomplete. If the evidence is not enough to render a judgement either way, the skeptic will withhold judgement. This is an extremely important point. Skeptics are more tied to the method of knowledge discovery than to the knowledge itself. If contradictory evidence appears, the original idea is discarded and the search for a new one begins, one that fits with the evidence. Sometimes such new ideas are easily located, others may forever be out of our reach.

Philosophy meaning, Philosophy, Science, skepticism