Folk mentality claims that one of the lamest, yet most effective and hardest to counter-attack excuses, right after “I am fine”, is “I don’t have time”. Relax, this is not another peroration about relativity, Einstein, McTaggart, presentism or time and how “it keeps everything from happening at once”. It is neither about its social importance or having economic value, nor about something being measured in attoseconds, tachyons or money. It is about time as priorities ordering tool. The sifter of ultimate choices.
“I don’t have time” is, in fact, a very reasonable excuse to be offered to us or to others when take them off the priorities list. Within a relationship, that means “you are not important to me enough to make time for you”. When we give it to ourselves it works as a defense and coping mechanism: I don’t have time to start a diet or go to the gym or give up drinking. It is true. In order for you to do so, it would require a good amount of energy, well packed with drive and motives. That implies focusing your attention and eventually changing a few patterns. And that is hard to do and requires not only energy but lots of time to re-wire those paths of good old habits.
I never buy this excuse, as I also sell it. I never had time for those who did not matter enough to me to make time for them. When we offer something as volatile, imperceptible and irreversible, yet so strenuous on our energy drive, such as “time”, we offer instants of our lives. Hold that thought for a second. How important should anyone be to be offered a slice of our lives, a bit of our only chance on earth? Damn important, I tell you. Yet, we offer plenty of time to things that seem but are not necessarily less important, and we do that with no qualms of conscience. We give time to our jobs, which we think might “take us somewhere”. Where? Maybe a higher position on some corporate ladder, which comes with a handful of benefits, and loads of personal sacrifice. We make split decisions, ordering the weight and consequences of things, people, tasks, and silly pretenses (prior to tense, after all) and then we wisely conclude “we don’t have time”. We really don’t.
But some gladly give their time to that. Why is that? How do we decide the order of priorities? A friend of mine might comment saying “Well, I increase my status if I score high on the corporate ladder, that would get me a nice female mate with whom I would have daughters- as some think beautiful people have more daughters- and that would insure that 50% gene transmission into my offspring, assuming jealousy plays its evolutionary role and prevents her from cheating on me. While if I go out with a beer-belly buddy and give him that time, it might not increase my status so ultimately, the survival of my genes is the basic idea of how I choose my priorities and to whom I give time. So I give my time to whatever/whoever increases my status”. It sounds logic to me. What is the ultimate destination that impulses our tiny little egos, except social recognition? Could be a temporal investment into the survival of the fittest theory? We tend to offer time, and thus invest our feelings and energy into something that rewards us enough to compensate for the feeling of time loss. If we believe the compensation is smaller than the investment, we do not go for it. We don’t participate in contests for the sake of action, in spite of what sensation seekers claim, we do it because we want to win. This is why I never believe the Oscar losers who claim it was an honor just to be nominated. No, it was not. It would have been an honor if they won. This is why they replaced “And the winner is….” with “the Oscar goes to….”. To compensate the ones, who did not win the award, for their loss of time.
Obviously, all our selections, either we are aware of them or not, are a sum of benefits minus costs. What do I gain and what do I lose if I spend something I don’t own, yet is the most precious thing to me, my time, with you? That is a pretty big investment. It is like a down payment for an apartment in a building that is not built yet. If the outcome results in a higher benefit, I would obviously effectuate that particular choice. Our lack of time is justified. We really do not have it. It is Universe’s fourth dimension, not ours, but it gives us sense and ordinates us internally. All we have is the knowledge that we are determined by its shortness -80 years on earth are not that much-, and the shade of fatalism that we could lose that at any given time. What will happen in the future - death that is- is already unavoidable, as death is the most imminent and immanent result of life. It is like seeing a new movie with Jesus Christ or the Battle of Hastings. How do you think it will end? There is no surprise there.
Thus, the first “lack of time” excuse we've uttered must have coincided with the discovery of life’s inevitable end. That was the moment we lost our credulity in afterlife and first said it. So, when was the first time you said it? When did the anxiety of time loss kick in? Was when you were around nine, right?
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
The conceptual divorce of deaf dyslexics: who takes the Dog ?
A friend’s grandfather wisely said “potatoes need shit to grow, not prayers”. True enough, in a universe which is spatially flat with a margin of error of 2%, we would need more than prayers to feed ourselves (with more than hope). Elias’ grandfather, while harvesting his potatoes in the valleys of Lebanon, a country which is cyclically torn by wars held in a name of an unaware god, had no idea who Crick was. Or what his astonishing hypothesis said. Yet, at an intuitive level, he knew that those solarium tuberosums (potatoes) are an ensemble of molecules of amylase, amylopectin, mono-saccharide, suberin, lignin and sucrose and prayers would not help much if potatoes are not helped by another organic matter such as “shit” (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, salts, cells, cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose).
We like to believe that Crick was a slick politically driven reductionist, and we are more than a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Are we? Can’t we appreciate Bach’s sonatas just because we know that we just a bunch of molecules? No, we cannot appreciate Bach unless we agree first on the stuff both Bach and I are made of. The fracas emerges when everyone is claiming or is attempting to take monopoly over the right to be right.
Humans cannot just be, they need to be right, validated, praised, thanked for, agreed with, looked up to, conduct, rule. This claim at "the right to be right" leads to a wide palette of various social struggles and intellectual conflicts that transform into a perpetual and conceptual debate over who/what is right: science vs. non-science, beliefs vs. non-beliefs, and atheists vs. religious. Provided that “right” can be considered right only within a certain social community, and be completely “wrong” in another, this story has no happy ending. These irreconcilable conceptual divorces are the end result of “the right to be right”, to which we are all entitled to. Responsibility engulfs maturity, which comes with understanding of other points of view. A constant level of maturity and responsibility is not only hard, but almost impossible to maintain.
None seems to hear what the other has to say. “What if you are wrong?” became a treasured motto to both sides. Some debaters present lengthily theories, which seem to enrapture an ignorant, credulous and thirsty for circus public. Either detractors or supporters, each seems to have a point and each thinks is right. Who can referee? In time, the debate became like a messy break-up of “she said, he said”.
In their spirited debate, while trying to pick the lower well ripped fruit, the agnostics, both sides make appeal to all kinds of arguments among which argumentum ad ignorantiam seems to preferentially stand out.
1. God must exist because no one has proven he does not- in which case it is true, as no one proved it is false.
2. God cannot exist, because no one has proven he exists- in which case is false as no one has proven it is not true.
It is not far the prospect where the argumentum ad baculum will be also used. Some seem to have a specific weakness for false dilemma fallacy and they abundantly use it by claiming that any gap they find in the evolutionary theory consequentially becomes a proof of the biblical creation. Their favorite stand on this take is: there are only two possible ways, your way and my way, and if you are wrong, that makes me right. The fallacies are smartly conceived, but especially willfully deceptive unfortunately with a major impact on the audience.
The debate is pretty much futile as it greedily engulfs two subcategories which make the object of the discussion: one is religion versus areligion, and the other is believer versus non-believer. Meaning, one can have a religious sensibility or an inclination towards magic and spirituality without having to believe in a super-natural power. Religion, as a tool of social cohesion, is almost mandatory. Why are there religious people? As religion is the norm, and if we all live in a benefits minus costs world, where the perfect strategy to be applied is Nash's Equilibrium, it is obvious I have nothing to gain if I change my strategy unilaterally. In a world with almost 5 billion believers, my strategy is to eventually be religious. Otherwise, your opportunities to pro-create diminish.
People adapt their mating strategies according to the number of chances offered by the environment at a certain point. Douglas Kenrick, a social psychologist, studied the role of religion on mating strategies and concluded that if the competition is higher, women tend to be more religious. The explanation behind the moral choice of religiosity is actually a very simple evolutionary one. Religion denotes and resonates with a pattern of sexual loyalty, promising like a white check a trait, which biology does not necessary endorse, which is fidelity. It is obvious that the man will opt for the religious = loyal female which enhances the belief that the offspring is his. Religion thus became a moral guarantee. If we leave aside the metaphysical meaning of religion, people prefer, at least at a declarative level, to self-describe as religious if this ensures mating and perpetuation. The reasoning behind it is quite simple: so my competition is acrimonious; therefore fidelity would work in my advantage. So fidelity is good. Religion preaches fidelity, therefore religion is good and becomes a sort of social badge, representing desirability. A religious person comes with the guarantee, yet unfounded, of morality and its allies (justice, loyalty, altruism etc) and hijacks what is naturally human. The Nash Equilibrium works. I will not go astray from the social rule, if I my loses outweigh the gains as I have nothing to gain if I change my strategy unilaterally. And at times, in spite of our real “religious” options, we prefer to perpetuate a social lie, in order to keep the balance.
If Summer's theory was right, and I tend to believe it was, it is always about us and the others. And "we" are always smarter, better, faster and more superior. If we weren't, we would already be "the others".
We like to believe that Crick was a slick politically driven reductionist, and we are more than a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Are we? Can’t we appreciate Bach’s sonatas just because we know that we just a bunch of molecules? No, we cannot appreciate Bach unless we agree first on the stuff both Bach and I are made of. The fracas emerges when everyone is claiming or is attempting to take monopoly over the right to be right.
Humans cannot just be, they need to be right, validated, praised, thanked for, agreed with, looked up to, conduct, rule. This claim at "the right to be right" leads to a wide palette of various social struggles and intellectual conflicts that transform into a perpetual and conceptual debate over who/what is right: science vs. non-science, beliefs vs. non-beliefs, and atheists vs. religious. Provided that “right” can be considered right only within a certain social community, and be completely “wrong” in another, this story has no happy ending. These irreconcilable conceptual divorces are the end result of “the right to be right”, to which we are all entitled to. Responsibility engulfs maturity, which comes with understanding of other points of view. A constant level of maturity and responsibility is not only hard, but almost impossible to maintain.
None seems to hear what the other has to say. “What if you are wrong?” became a treasured motto to both sides. Some debaters present lengthily theories, which seem to enrapture an ignorant, credulous and thirsty for circus public. Either detractors or supporters, each seems to have a point and each thinks is right. Who can referee? In time, the debate became like a messy break-up of “she said, he said”.
In their spirited debate, while trying to pick the lower well ripped fruit, the agnostics, both sides make appeal to all kinds of arguments among which argumentum ad ignorantiam seems to preferentially stand out.
1. God must exist because no one has proven he does not- in which case it is true, as no one proved it is false.
2. God cannot exist, because no one has proven he exists- in which case is false as no one has proven it is not true.
It is not far the prospect where the argumentum ad baculum will be also used. Some seem to have a specific weakness for false dilemma fallacy and they abundantly use it by claiming that any gap they find in the evolutionary theory consequentially becomes a proof of the biblical creation. Their favorite stand on this take is: there are only two possible ways, your way and my way, and if you are wrong, that makes me right. The fallacies are smartly conceived, but especially willfully deceptive unfortunately with a major impact on the audience.
The debate is pretty much futile as it greedily engulfs two subcategories which make the object of the discussion: one is religion versus areligion, and the other is believer versus non-believer. Meaning, one can have a religious sensibility or an inclination towards magic and spirituality without having to believe in a super-natural power. Religion, as a tool of social cohesion, is almost mandatory. Why are there religious people? As religion is the norm, and if we all live in a benefits minus costs world, where the perfect strategy to be applied is Nash's Equilibrium, it is obvious I have nothing to gain if I change my strategy unilaterally. In a world with almost 5 billion believers, my strategy is to eventually be religious. Otherwise, your opportunities to pro-create diminish.
People adapt their mating strategies according to the number of chances offered by the environment at a certain point. Douglas Kenrick, a social psychologist, studied the role of religion on mating strategies and concluded that if the competition is higher, women tend to be more religious. The explanation behind the moral choice of religiosity is actually a very simple evolutionary one. Religion denotes and resonates with a pattern of sexual loyalty, promising like a white check a trait, which biology does not necessary endorse, which is fidelity. It is obvious that the man will opt for the religious = loyal female which enhances the belief that the offspring is his. Religion thus became a moral guarantee. If we leave aside the metaphysical meaning of religion, people prefer, at least at a declarative level, to self-describe as religious if this ensures mating and perpetuation. The reasoning behind it is quite simple: so my competition is acrimonious; therefore fidelity would work in my advantage. So fidelity is good. Religion preaches fidelity, therefore religion is good and becomes a sort of social badge, representing desirability. A religious person comes with the guarantee, yet unfounded, of morality and its allies (justice, loyalty, altruism etc) and hijacks what is naturally human. The Nash Equilibrium works. I will not go astray from the social rule, if I my loses outweigh the gains as I have nothing to gain if I change my strategy unilaterally. And at times, in spite of our real “religious” options, we prefer to perpetuate a social lie, in order to keep the balance.
If Summer's theory was right, and I tend to believe it was, it is always about us and the others. And "we" are always smarter, better, faster and more superior. If we weren't, we would already be "the others".
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