Diary

masters and slaves

Once the gap between two different groups with too different interests is too big, it is difficult to find a bridge which is strong and long enough to cover the gap. The problem is even more relevant, if there are people who try to use the reality of the gap to promote their own interests.

Mankind is never safe from such kind of a situation. Things change fast and without any remorse. A big gap of interests combined with some masters and plenty of slaves have the potential to shake complete societies. And it still works that the slaves follow the masters without trying to use their own brain and without making up their own mind.

People are easy to seduce if the situation fits. And it can happen every there any time. Once the slaves started to follow their masters it becomes difficult for both of them to acknowledge that they might be wrong. No party is able to retreat from the march against the other side because it would mean to show to everyone that particular kind of weakness of accepting one’s own ability to fail. To even stop this kind of idea are critical thoughts no longer means of any interest.

Driven by their fundamental fear that the other side might also have a right to exist they march forward and destroy themselves as well as their opponents.

Diary, observations generally

ping and pong…

trend and antitrend… there is no way to predict the future but to expect that things might change against the temporarily existing trend. The world is complicated and therefore it is difficult to predict any kind of further development.

We live in the now and here. Our past is stored in books and in our mind, but it is gone. Eaten by the Langoliers. The future is not done yet. While being in the now we create the then. It is a steady stepping forward and a steady creation of then.

Things happen and happend. These things have a direct influence on the now. The human mind can only deal with a certain number of issues at a given time. Futhermore has the human mind some severe issues deciding what it should focus on and what not. Normally the human mind goes for the screaming, flashing, colorful things, to speak in metaphors. The silent things are neglected, but nevertheless they happen. Nobody is able to see these silent things and to draw them into account. Humans are never able to see the complete picture, how hard they will ever try to do so.

Therefore… the future is the future. We will meet it if we arrive there. We can wish things and we can try to float into a certain direction – as a person or as a society. But we can never ever say how it will be. We can’t even tell that if we behave in a certain way, if we do certain things, that this and that will happen. We can’t look onto the CV of Steve Jobs and say: “Ha, let’s go for it!” If it would be that simple…!

People earn a lot of money claiming that they know the future, that they have the tools to predict the future. And other people are eager to believe them as humans generally are seeking for safety through knowledge. If we know the future we can prepare for it. Unforunately we can’t know, we can only act to achieve something in the now, without knowing how it will evolve.

observations generally, PhD

me?

This text questions the idea that there is such a thing like an individual identity. The thoughts hereby are based on the authors observations (for many things one just needs to LOOK…) and the work of Tim Ingold, Ernst Mach, Daniel Kahnemann, Benjamin Libet and Humberto Maturana, all of them as the maybe most influental source of thought inspiration for me. Among many others. Uncountable others.

Uncountable others not only for the reason that the things in the head did not grow there but were achieved through the lifetime. The brain is the organic part that creates thought based on previous experience. And experience is an ongoing process which affects the thinking world.

Inspiration! Some people might respond concerning the authors last claim. “What about inspiration? What about new ideas?” Did these things not grow in ones brain without previous examples or experience? The author dares to answer: There is no such thing as pure inspiration, as the pure idea, as the thing which only comes from within. One can move things in the mind one has names for and one knows. It is possible to move these things into new positions and confront or combine them with other things of knowledge and with names. Sometimes this happens in the mind and sometimes we do it while doing – the painter who starts a painting and follows her intuition to develop it for example.

Given the agreement that the brain processes information it got from outside: what happens to this information? It is alternated according to new knowledge and new experience which again comes from outside. As an example: If a person moves from one context into another (from Bejing to Cairo) this relocation will influence the very behaviour of the person. One adapts subconsciousness to the new circumstances and behaves in new ways. The described thing is already valid in small changes, like relationships for example: One becomes a different person according to the the phase the relationship is in and to the person it is to.

All this just to illustrate that the human mind is a fluffy thing – no identity valid for now and forever. (as long as one does not stick to the exactly same living circumstances all life long; this might result in a stable personanlity caused by the lack of stimulation and without defining a real identity as the stimulus could always happen.)

So, the knowledge comes from outside, the experience comes from outside, the stimulus come from outside. Nothing left to come from inside but the processing of influx – and hereby everything is processed subconsciously before reaching the light of consciousness. The human brain is a processer of infomation which comes from outside. All identity is based on this information. So one might say all identity comes from outside and always is outside. A Person is not a defined thing but an individual whoms identity is re-created every new moment of interaction. We are not in state of being what we are but in a steady state of becoming who we will be.

Some might feel a bit dizzy accepting the proposed idea. If we accept the preciously mentioned we need to see the world with different eyes. It is not any more the individual who is in charge for the very behavior – it is more the environment. And the environment is also nothing defined and nothing with a consciousness. Panta rhei. No. Not rhei. Panta ebullio. It is a steady bubbling and boiling of things which dictates and creates the float of everything.

Diary, observations generally

Fear is the new religion…

well, not really new. Fear has always been a key element of any religion. But now many abondoned god but put the pure being-afraid-of-the-future in place. Now one might have no hope of being raised again but a great choice of dangers to be afraid of. The climate change, terrorists, my neighbor – everything is worth of spending some sorrows on it.

Some use this fear smart as it enables some to control others. Preach security and protection and one is on the safe side. Promise hope and many will listen.

Of coures: NOBODY can see the future. Not the best experts are able to predict how everything will be. We are not even able to predict what tomorrow will bring. The present is already far to complex to be sure of the next thing, the future is beyond all knowledge. People who pretend that they know the future are not better than the ones who pretend that they have a direct line to god.

It is the present one needs to be afraid of. It is the present one can interact with. It is the present that prepares the future which will become true as it happens.

observations generally, PhD

the borders of I

We could understand the human mind as a processor of information and the human body as a processor of energy. Of course are both parts intertwined and connected and much more complicated than we need for the reasoning here. The important thing is that the mind works with information and the body with energy. External information and external energy.

Both things are not part of any given person. The connection to the world beyond our skin is obvious: we eat, drink, breath, bleed, touch … we listen, watch, smell, feel… over a certain time all these sensations sum up to form a personality that is valid at a given time and within a given context. This restriction of validity is because all the sensations were made in a certain context and are therefore bound to this context. A change of the context might add new signals and alternate the personality.

Nobody can be completely disonnected from a context. Even in an empty room we have the room around us and the feeling in us. To derive somebody of his complete sensual sensations would have a severe impact on his state of health.

Everybody acts within a given framwork of relations and personality is often affiliated with the mind. So we might take the mind in closer consideration.

To approach the topic from a different angle: What makes a personality? We might say: The parents, the education, the culture, the food, the environment… and some more. The parents deliver a certain genepool but also education and training and socialization. Somehow the same but on a different level does the enviroment and the culture. Our behavior is defined by many constraints we have no influence on.

Still… there is a mind behind the skull. This mind processes information and evaluates situations and comes up with decisions. But all this is based on external input. This input might happen just on time, for example during a dialogue, or long-term via education or experience. And some thing do not even need to be learned as they are already part of the basic pattern of behaviour defined by the genes.

So… there is no such thing a individuality or individual responsibility. It is more a vast network of brains and knowledge transferred via the means of communication and evaluation. Objects communicate as soon as a person evaluates a given scenario based on previous experience. This experience again did not grow in the brain but was gained through behaviour within a given context.

The solace of all this is, that we can’t get lost without leaving traces. Our mind is part of a bigger context and while some ideas a preserved via the mind, the idea might preserve some traces of a single persons mind.

Diary, observations generally, on the road...cairo

Emotions and power

The 30th of June was the turning point. Now the brothers are the hunted. And they are hunted with fierce and thoughtless anger. The brothers nevertheless shoot back and are trying to mobilize their people.

Tension rises and emotions grow. The thing which declines rapidly is the will or the ability to think. Every tiny piece of opinion is taken as pure infomation. Logic does not play any role any more. The masses are tumbling and no reason might be able to stop it. Only a few voices try to mediate between the different fractions, only a few people raise their voice to ask questions.

In times of threat, sorrow and anger it appears that there is only black or white, but no grey any more. This effect is well known and books are written about it. But still it is able to enfold its devastating force.

Diary

good night

Oh dude… no vision, no mission…(at least nothing you would tell us…) but something like legitimacy achieved through a tiny majority in a vote against SHAFIK… are you serious?

Dr. El Baradei… it is kind of known that communication is an important tool to solve problems.

Man!

Uncategorized

bread and culture

Nowadays it is often said that it is much more important to provide food than to provide culture. On the first glance this claim sounds quite obvious. But only on the first glance.

The core of each human identity is the brain. The brain needs energy to work, most often provided by food. Food is the tool to keep the brain running. At the same time this brain is the tool to plan how to get food. And to get food is only one task in the overall task schedule, mainly focused on the pure principle of survival. Survival is a very individual task, without any rules of how to achieve this.

This is the moment culture becomes important. Culture regulates and supports the human interaction and defines the context the individual is acting in. Bread keeps the individual running, culture keeps the system running. Without culture the system will collapse and most of the individuals might struggle to find bread.

 

 

Diary, observations generally

men and monster…

The social environment defines strongly how people act and interact. Also individuals which were known as someone change their behavior according to the social context. Everyone wants to be respected and to be liked and it needs a defined behavior within a defined social context to achieve this.

The death of a system is the organization of power in a pyramidal structure and the error-intolerance. The top of the pyramid does not make mistakes by any chance. Making mistakes is reserved for the people below the top. These people below the top are eager to contribute the errors which happen automatically once people act downwards the pyramid. The alternative is to stop acting.

The top of the pyramid defines a certain climate of possible success. The unwritten rules describe what people have to do to be successful within the system. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy – people invent behavior according to these unwritten rules and try to move forward according to these rules.

There is no such thing called personality. Everything happens within a social context. The difference between men and monster is a broad but invisible border.