The Matrix

The Matrix is one of the most successful, popular and lucrative movie franchises of all time.  I will assume the reader has watched at least some of the shows in this series, perhaps more than once.

Quite apart from its entertainment value, the Matrix has provided a new "meme" for bar room philosophy: the idea that reality itself is a kind of "matrix" - that we are all living in a simulation. This has struck me as a rather stupid idea for a long time and I have occasionally bent my "back of the napkin" analysis tools to showing how ridiculous it is.

But it's true. We are living in a simulation. Realizing this can be a big leap forward in our quest to understand ourselves and the universe we inhabit.

How can this be true? Well, quite simply. Everything we experience is presented to our minds due to an amazingly complex set of sensations and brain processes. We never experience reality directly. We are born, live and die inside the simulated universe of our minds. Fortunately, the simulation is accurate enough so that we stand a good chance of survival while never knowing exactly what the world looks like.

All this is easy to see. But there's more.

Our minds don't construct the matrix independently. In fact, the matrix is constructed with a lot of help from the people around us and, of course, extensive personal experience with the actual universe. Contrary to what the "idealist" says, reality needs to be taken seriously, even if we have no direct knowledge of it. Without the "real world", the matrix world of the mind does not exist.

So it is, that we live in a shared matrix in an ultimately unknowable "real world". Many aspects of this matrix are critically important to us (inside the matrix) even though they do not correspond to anything in the "real world". Most prominent of these are God, language, money and the overcoat of human values that we paint over everything inside the matrix.

Although we are trapped inside the matrix, we sometimes get a glimpse of "reality" that is a shocking reminder of how we wrap ourselves comfortably in the illusions of the matrix.

The Author's Brain While Writing This

On several occasions, I have been awake during medical procedures that unmistakably show the shocking physical reality of what I think of as "me". I have Xrays and Cat scans on file of my spine and knee. This week I underwent an ablation surgery on my heart, which reminded me that this little lump of muscle is real - always behind the scenes waiting to end me at any time.

I read quite a bit about my "microbiome", the community in my gut that makes up the majority of cells in my body and mysteriously influences my health in a myriad of unknown ways.

Actual Photo of My MicroBiome

Thinking of the world we live in as a "matrix" simulation opens the door to a new way of thinking of ourselves and our place in the universe. We all live in our own personal matrix and that matrix is shared with different sets of people. That's the nature of being human. Something that is absolutely real in one person's matrix can be an illusion or completely absent in another. We always need to be aware of the fact that none of us has the option of living outside the matrix. But we do have the option to appreciate and respect the world that others live in, along with perhaps the humility to always be aware that our own matrix is not the real world. It cannot be.

The Matrix - Pushing the Metaphor

Many of the "Matrix" ideas can be seen as just a slightly different angle on ideas presented elsewhere in this blog - especially here, where I summarize "progress to date".

Art is a useful species of simulation. It allows us to imagine different worlds using no more hardware than our senses and our brains. The result can go beyond what we usually think of as "metaphor" - even extending into the realms of myth and religion.

The Matrix movie series provides a challenging dramatization of metaphors that are so commonplace that they have become tropes for empty speculation and dead-end philosophy. The movie updates some old ideas in dramatic new ways:

• Many religions, including the "Abrahamic" and Hindu traditions, regard reality as some kind of dream, with the "real", important reality being the realm of the gods. The "soul" is separable from the body and travels on after death into the more important realms of the gods. In such traditions, little attention is paid to the actual details of the "real world". It's Turkmenistan*.
• Certain philosophies, most notably "idealism", claim that the there is nothing but our experience - the "real world" is either non-existent or unknowable. This comes close to how I regard the "matrix" to work, but, in my view, the matrix is built on the real world and assumes the existence of the real world.
• Antonio Damasio teaches that complex animals, such as mammals, "model" the real world by means of states of their central nervous system. However, somehow the word "model" doesn't convey the fullness of our experience - how totally comprehensive and all-embracing these models can be. We live inside the models.
• In his best-selling novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig presents the concept that a motorcycle, in spite of being made of hard physical metal, is really an idea. While Pirsig later claimed that the novel has nothing to do with either Zen or Motorcycles, his motorcycle-as-idea formed the basis of what was "Zen" for me and allowed my concept of the "Matrix" to encompass more than "mere" mental phenomena. All "artificial" objects are also ideas and therefore part of the "matrix" for both their creators and users.
• In the Knowledge Illusion, Sloman shows how the world surrounding us and the world of our ideas is really constructed by society. Our own contribution to our thoughts is easy to overestimate (the illusion). Our ability to navigate the physical world is the result of an illusion that we know more than we actually do - actual knowledge coming, for example, from the designer and builder of the car we thoughtlessly drive around.
• In Thinking Fast and Slow, one of the most influential books of the 20th century, Kahneman shows how we go through life on auto-pilot most of the time, living in a sea of assumptions that are questioned only when we run up against surprising challenges. This calls to mind the throngs of people in the matrix, who go about their lives without a thought about what is really going on (in this case, they are living in a computer simulation).

All this combines to produce my vision of the "matrix" as being more than a product of the individual mind and more than something "merely" mental. Like any good work of art, it invites us to go beyond the obvious and ask for deeper connections. The matrix is what Hoffstader would call an "Essential" metaphor. We are invited to take the "red pill" to learn our true nature. Within the constraints of movie fiction, our "true nature" is something simple, dramatic and (let's face it) implausible. Outside of fiction, discovery of our "true nature" is perhaps the most important quest of all.

* Turkmenistan is my short-hand for aspects of the world that you know are real but, other than that, we know little about them and you are not overly curious to know more.

A Practical Mind/Brain Model

(The following is a messy draft. For technical reasons - a glitch in blogger software - the text was trashed. However, it seems that this idea is worth a more formal treatment).

The following is based on correspondence with an old friend, John Heerema. We are both addicted to thinking about problems by imagining what a solution would look like, then "reverse engineering" the solution into a practical program. 

What would a silicon brain look like?

Cortical Column Model

A 10,000 x 10,000 in-memory matrix (100 megabytes)  representing (i,j) connection strength would seem to be feasible for a column modelled on a single CPU), Matrix structure may work better in 3 dimensions, x,y,z where z is the vertical layer, between 4 and 10. In this structure, we may get away with a sparse matrix which supplies non-zero interaction only for neurons that are "close" in 3 dimensions or even a network  (rather than a matrix) that allows communication only with daughter cells of the same stem cell. In any case, it would seem that the memory "budget" for this structure would not exceed 100 megabytes.

The cerebral cortex seems to be a layered structure (like the skin) with vertical properties similar to the pores of the skin, called cortical columns (google cortical column). As with the skin, elements of the cortex are probably daughter cells of a single stem cell. The number of layers varies within the cortex. As daughter cells mature, they communicate richly with neighbor cells so they "know" what to do, what shape to take, when to stop growing, when to divide etc.. This process is extensively studied in skin cells. 

Cortical column structure seems to be "fractal", an observation that is apparently common (google "fractal cortical column"). All this hints at what a computer model of the brain should look like. 

1. Model a "well-studied" region like the visual cortex

2. Simulate cortical columns, perhaps one CPU each. 

3. Simulate lower level columns recursively to model the fractal internal column logic. Each cortical column should have the same software driven by a "similar" table (see below)

4. Simulate column interaction with another layer of CPU's. Column interaction "wiring" should resemble the way the skin is wired to the spinal chord. This should reflect neural plasticity.

Such a model would need to reflect the strength of neural connections in several ways. Column-to-column connections could perhaps be simulated in a different way than internal connections between the 10,000 or so neurons within the column. 

The fractal model of columns indicates that neurons (and columns) tend to respond to the same stimulus in a "similar" way (as in the skin)

The model of column interaction could be a sparse matrix (or network) ignoring interaction between far-off columns, so if we wanted a million columns your interaction matrix would model a trillion interactions with a matrix that only bothered to have non-zero elements for |i-j| < K. Just a few gigabytes of memory, maybe spread out over 1,000 CPU's. 

The Blue Brain project was not aiming at real time simulation (although you'd never guess that from the sales talk). However, the structure above could shoot for real-time performance, especially once the column logic has settled down so it can be burned in to silicon. The computational power of the whole thing would reside in applying its fractal, recursive nature to a narrow universe of inputs (such as visual inputs).

Hofstader's vision of the mind would lead me to think of the pre-frontal region of the brain as structured in a similar way but "stacked" logically ("on the fly") rather than physically (as in the retina), allowing "virtual tissues" to be instantly formed and re-formed at a rate of 40 to 100 HZ (brain wave frequency). To speak intelligibly about how such a thing might eventually "think", it would be necessary to first model perception, the most elementary "memes", which is why you want to start with the visual cortex. But the overall strategy of fractal, recursive logic would still apply. 

It looks feasible to me. The whole strategy could be demonstrated with java in the cloud, which would leave open the actual decision about where logic would "run" (it could, for example, run on multiple distributed PC's or just one PC). First step would be to shut yourself up for six months and read what everybody already knows about this. You'd need to find a research environment to host the project. There are hundreds of strong programs calling themselves "cognitive this or that" to chose from.

In the cortex, columns in the retina and visual cortex are the most studied. Horizontally, the cortex seems to have regional "specializations", such as mapping the body onto regions at the top of your head. 

Matrix Revisited

good piece. Sooooooooooo, do we build our own matrix, or is built by others and the way they interact with us? Is this a simulation or is it and illusion? ...and how do we when our matrix comes in touch with reality. Is the matrix our physical body or only partly (your reference to surgery while awake) How does the illusion relate to our spirituality? Stuff for another blog. 

1. We build our own matrix with the constant help of others - mostly indirect. Through language and the man-made environment, for example. A city may be regarded as a matrix. It exists through wide agreement on what it is, why it exists, the rules it enforces (walls, laws, roads). The city is called into existence because we all agree on what it means. To see this, imagine what a city is to, say, an e-coli bacterium or a crow.

2. It's a simulation that employs illusions sometimes. For example, we have the illusion that our eyes look out on the world constantly and smoothly. The brain allows us to miss blinking and saccades (rapid, constant jerky eye movements). It's a simulation in the sense that it models certain relevant aspects of reality fairly accurately at the scale required.

3. For mammals, the simulation is accomplished by the central nervous system and is implemented through states of that system. Humans extend this by means of communicating nervous systems and constructions in physical reality that convey "meaning", such as roads and doors.

4. Spiritual "reality", including entities like God and angels, are furnished in the matrix of some individuals and cultures. For such individuals, the "reality" of such entities is not questioned but is held at arm's length, such as one's belief in a country called Turkmenistan. It's real, "out there" but little is known about the details.

The Synapse as a Quantum Nano Computer

There are at least 100 trillion synapses in the human brain. For comparison, there are about 1 billion "hosts" (Unique devices) on the internet. So there are 100,000 synapses in one brain for all the computers in the world. I compare synapses to "hosts" (computers) rather than "bits" for reasons that will become clear.

In theory, a synapse is either "open" (permitting a signal from the "upstream" neuron to pass to the "downstream" neuron) or "closed" (resting or somehow blocking the signal). Call this state variable S=1 or 0 for open or 0 for closed. So one might naively think of the synapse as a "bit" in a computer analog. Every neuron in the brain is only a few synapses away from any other neuron, so one might think that the brain could be like a 100 billion x 100 billion matrix with the synapse "bit" telling whether the signal passes from neuron i to neuron j. That would be a pretty big matrix, but it would still fail to capture the "state" of the brain. The image leaves out the quantum nature of the "bits", encouraging us to think there is some kind of huge function that could "compute" the next matrix from the last one (erasing free will in the process).

The state of a synapse changes about 5 to 50 times per second. During that time, the synapse "re-computes" its status using a massively complex series of chemical reactions. On this scale, quantum effects are everywhere. It is quite proper to consider the state of the synapse using a Schroedinger wave function. This function (perfectly real but known really only to God) gives the probability of the next state (say, in 20 milliseconds) given the state "now". Both states would involve a mind-boggling array of "inputs" including the state of billions of individual active molecules. The most interesting thing about the "state" of protein molecules (the ones that really count here) are its shape and potential energy. Both of these are well into the influence of quantum effects. You can't really say what the shape of a protein is. It's a superposition. Molecules don't have energy, positions or momentum in the sense that macro objects do.

The quantum variable we are interested in is S. The wave function gives the probability for S being between 0 (closed) and open (1) at some specific time. The wave function "collapses" to either 0 or 1 in any particular instant. The synapse conducts or it doesn't. This cannot be "computed" (predicted), or mathematically modeled even in principle, because:

• It depends on billions of inputs, themselves quantum states (superpositions)
• even classically (ignoring quantum mechanics), the synapse would be characterized by thousands of non-linear equations - unsolvable in principle

One interesting thing about the "synapse" computer is that its state depends on its previous state in fundamental ways - you might say "designed in" ways. In particular, the state is "sticky", meaning that a synapse that passes a signal once is likely to do so again. That's how brains learn. Synapses also send signals "upstream" to the parent neuron, ultimately influencing DNA expression which determines the proteins available for the quantum calculation we are talking about.

Another interesting thing is that the synapse "system" described here can never be described formally as an isolated system in any particular case. That's because we can never say what is and is not part of the system. The synapse requires the constant supply of energy (in the form of glucose or ATP). The whole thing is bathed in active molecules that come and go, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and enzymes that catalyze the reactions. The list goes on. The problem here is that the Schrodinger Wave equation needs to refer to the same system on each side of the equation, so it can never quite apply as I have sketched above. The effect of this is to add even more indeterminacy to the situation, but not so much as to undermine the usefulness of the approximation.

If we are to consider the synapse as a chemical computer, we should note that individual steps in molecular reactions occur in the picosecond range. The synapse is performing millions of these calculations in parallel and the reaction times depend on classical considerations such as concentration, temperature and so forth. At the scale of the synapse (20 nanometers), it's worth asking if classical parameters matter or whether quantum effects dominate. When considering the effective speed of a calculation, perhaps we should take into consideration the relevance of the outcome. Relevance is exactly what a synapse is calculating. 

There are complications. For example, we cannot assume that passing a signal through the synapse will, somehow, influence the downstream neuron. Ultimately, that depends on many factors, most notably the availability of ions and ATP along the way and how this signal is combined in the neuron's calculations.  The point is that the "matrix" model of neurons influencing or not influencing each other in some kind of binary way just can't work. Your brain is not a computer. It's a network of 100 trillion quantum computers, each performing calculations that cannot be simulated in a computer, even in principle. It's a "thing" of its own, unlike anything else in the world.

Synapses are, of course, just part of the story. Neurons are living things in their own right. They influence each other in many ways besides through axons and dendrites. There are hundreds of different types of neurons. The more you know about the brain the less it resembles some kind of computer.

At least in the human brain, it does not seem plausible that 100 trillion quantum calculations will somehow "average out" to produce predictable ideas and behavior. In fact, our experience is that humans are wonderfully unpredictable and creative. At the very least, there is no reason whatsoever to regard human behavior as being the result of a massive number of determinative mechanical effects. At every instant, we are all surfing on a Schrodinger wave. What's next is anybody's guess.

What's more, our brains influence each other, forming a meta-network of their own. But I'll stop there.

Is God the "Ultimate Reality"?

Religion is (and still is) a means whereby cultural norms are enforced through means of authority derived from "off planet". Zero-cost credits for carrots and sticks are offered to be cashed in in that alternate universe. Religion justifies the infliction of terrible punishments in the here-and-now and has sponsored genocidal wars. Religions that we generally regard as "peaceful" seldom live up to their own reputation. Good Christian folk brought their kids to watch lynchings in the US South. Buddhism is playing a key part in the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar and a similar role in the violent suppression of the Hindu minority in Ceylon. Religious authority is behind the rape of thousands of children and the coverup of these crimes. Religious authority enthusiastically participated in the attempted genocide of indigenous people in Canada in the residential school system.

If these are the benefits of religion, we can clearly do without them. Rational human being should not only reject "organized religion" but push back hard against the claims of religious enthusiasts to exert outsized influence on the rest of society.

That said, we must also recognize and respect the fact that, for many, the religious "matrix" is as real as our own. Moreover, the religious experience is quite real and waiting around the corner for any of us.

At one point in my life, I was an enthusiastic member of the evangelical wing of Christianity. What was I thinking? All this is usually comfortably buried under half a century of skepticism but sometimes I'm pulled back at the most unexpected moments.

On my latest dog walk as I watched the trees reaching for the light in a way that reminded me of my "Roots" analogy - how we blindly reach our roots into "reality", sucking up information for our survival. The tree does not "know" about sunlight, wind, and water, yet its existence depends on all these things. What is there "out there" that is equally vital to human beings but forever beyond our ability to understand or even suspect?  That line of thinking was 100% in line with the way I thought in 1977.

Back then, the theology of Paul Tillich was popular - he spoke of God as the "ground of all being". I recalled for the first time in decades the impressive Theology of wonder by G. K. Chesterton. My insight on the dog walk was not new, but perhaps more mature and articulate.

The world truly is wonderful. We do indeed reach out to a vast, unknown - perhaps unknowable Universe. What is more, we are rooted in this vastness. We rely on it for our existence. It is very natural for this feeling of dependence, combined with the feeling of awe and helplessness to be translated into what theologians call an "I/Thou" relationship. This means that we regard the other end of this relationship (the vast, unknowable Universe) as personal - i.e. God. Of course, it actually is personal. We are experiencing the Universe through our own brains which are alive and, in some sense, playing it to us on our "inner movie screen". That screen is not flat, dead and impersonal. It's created by live neurons in our heads. But our brains also create the illusion that what we see "out there" really is "out there".

"Professional" theologians will ignore the neuroscience and try to build a rather academic "Christian" theology on this slim foundation. In the same spirit, people make from the "First Cause" argument** that "proves" the existence of God to swallowing whatever version of Christian theology that appeals to them. Paradoxically, people of "faith" acknowledge our the palpable lack of ultimate knowledge but then turn this into a surprisingly long list of certainties large and small.

"Peak experiences" are often interpreted in whatever religious context (matrix) that's "in the air". Peak experiences are a real thing (I've had a few myself). In fact, my insight about the trees on my walk might qualify as a mini-peak experience. After years of such jolts of insight, I more readily attribute them to bipolar illness than any special insight.

Since the '70's we have been able to produce "peak experiences" quite reliably with a pill - LSD, MDMA or psilocybin. In the long run, that puts peak experiences and religion itself under the umbrella of neuroscience. Back when all this became a tsunami of "experimentation", we were also experiencing a much more cosmopolitan view of religion. In the end, this resulted in the invention of whole new religions and new religions under old names, such as what passes for "Eastern Philosophy" in California. For many, peak experiences could not stand on their own. If a matrix of religion were not readily available, one could be invented. Space aliens served as well as God. But whatever the psychic explorers thought about the details, we all agreed that there was another "level" to the Universe. Peak experiences were the door into this Universe.

There were other ideas "in the air" back in the 70's. At the time, I did not regard Christianity positive drag on human progress. I was quite aware of how empty dogma served as the glue to identify the "in group" vs the "out-group" (I called this the "Creedal Group" and eventually wrote a whole blog about it). But "hardcore" professional theology was not what people assumed it to be. Still isn't. For this, you need to attend a liberal Theology school (I went to Queens University in Kingston). It turns out that the musings of "professionals" about God are as dry and irrelevant as trigonometry. They have nothing at all to do with the daily life of a "true believer". For a true believer, Christianity makes life an adventure. The theory of it all is left to others or simply left out entirely.

There was something in the air called Liberation Theology  This pushed many in the Catholic Church "hard left"*- to see Christianity as a champion of the poor - especially in South America, where US-backed right-wing dictatorships were slaughtering the poor by the thousands. For young, idealistic folks like myself, it married political outrage to a nascent knowledge of the Bible. You can certainly read the Bible and especially Jesus this way. Back then, the "standard" portrait of Jesus looked a lot like the standard portrait of Che Gueverra.

Being smart, arrogant and gullible is a dangerous combination. I can now see that I knew nothing about Christianity, Liberation Theology, Marxism or Che Gueverra. But sometimes a sprinkling of knowledge is precisely what you need to inspire projects to save the world. For me, Christianity, or at least Jesus (interpreted correctly) was on the right side of history. It was also more fun than Computer Programming.

I am a human being - just as likely to be trapped in a matrix as anybody else. I had been warmly accepted into an open-ended social group for the first time in my life. Our awkward questions can be put on the back burner. Sometimes permanently.

In, "Going Back to Church", I take on the same subject, looking back on my theological education and the future as a Minister that I escaped through no honorable effort of my own. I write from the pews in a modern congregation with the old ladies and my 98-year-old mother in law.
---------------------------------------------------------

* As it turned out, the Catholic Church pushed back hard against Liberation Theology and embraced the "powers that be". The Catholic Evangelical movement (of which I was part) would become a vehicle for conventional dogma. It would not be until the elevation of Pope Frances that social responsibility - or maybe not raping little kids quite so much - asserted itself at the highest level of the Catholic Church. Just a bit.

** The "First Cause" argument is something that is only offered by people who already want to believe in God and are looking for a way stop thinking about it. It is for children.

Summary April 4, 2019

BOXES

One fanciful vision of the (flat) Earth was that it was supported on the back of a turtle, which was, in turn, standing on another turtle and so on: Turtles all the way down.

Similarly, I find it useful to think of "boxes within boxes all the way down." Box 1 is the world we experience "in our head," which includes all experience and everything we know. In particular, it includes what we have been taught and what we have been taught to assume, which is, to a certain extent, "programmed". Box 1 is the "matrix" of individually shared reality. But, unlike the Matrix of Science Fiction fame, our matrix depends deeply on the "real world" outside and our senses within, as eloquently explained by Antonio Damasio.

Our evolutionary survival strategy involves survival as a member of a group, or "super person". Not only do we not "think for ourselves," we can't.

We experience ourselves as objects in the world (that's me) and assume that the world exists without us. It has been here long before we were born, will still be here long after and exposes only a tiny amount of itself to our investigation. This is "Box 2". Box 2 is contained in Box 1. Thinking in "box 2" terms, we recognize that other people exist and that they have an internal world - their "Box 1" which is, to us, Box 3. Of course, there are billions of Box 3's, including Box 3's that belonged to people long dead. We are in "Box 3" when we say things like "I know what he's thinking". Language uniquely provides access to Box 3, when we ask things like "What do you see" and expect an answer that makes sense. It can get pretty crazy. It makes sense to ask if Galileo correctly understood the discoveries and system of Kepler (he didn't). In a similar vein, we can ask of the Church threatened Galileo because of his beliefs or because he was, according to what was known at the time, wrong. All this depends on an acceptance of the fact that each of us lives in our personal "Box 1". This is an unavoidable consequence of our nature. It follows that persecuting an individual for his beliefs is misguided since nobody really "thinks for themselves."

When we are speaking of experience or "external reality," we need to be aware of which "box" we are speaking from. For example, statements about objective reality belong in Box 2 and should not contain "mind-like" concepts like the "laws" of physics. Laws of physics belong in Box 1. They are statements about our experience of the world.

I allow for "Box 0", which is the hypothetical and unobservable world - beyond the reach of our cleverest instruments, observation or reasoning. Like Box 1, Box 0 is relative. We are always biting chunks off Box 0, but we must admit that there are things we will never know about the Universe. At the very least, we must, as individuals, recognize that almost all of Box 0 is beyond what we will ever understand. I assume that "Box 0" exists even if there are no observers anywhere - the situation we assume at the time of the Big Bang and millions of years after that.

I regard all of mathematics as being in "Box 1" as something "mind like." This stands against the common intuition of physicists that the Universe is somehow fundamentally "mathematical" and that we are "discovering" mathematical laws that exist apart from our minds. This assumption is certainly worth challenging, but it's good to make it explicit. Similarly, any statement that includes an "observer" or an "apparatus" is a statement in Box 1, not Box 0.  As far as I know, such "mind like" concepts can be removed from relativity and quantum mechanics without losing anything but hooks for idle philosophers to make their speculations sound "scientific."

"Theory of Boxes" takes a dim view of theories that attempt to explain either of these questions:

• Why is there anything?
• Why does it feel like something to exist (Chambers "hard question")

I am greatly aided in this skepticism by knowing that not all perfectly sensible questions have answers.  While it has not been proven that either of the above questions is formally undecidable, I think it's reasonable to think of them in this way until some future genius settles the matter. For now, at least, I proceed on the assumption that we have something called "experience" and that it is an experience of something other than ourselves. Not much of a stretch I think.

THE INTERFACE

In effect, what we call "mind" is an interface between the "real world" and "Box 1". You could say it's responsible for creating the whole stack of boxes. It is worth asking how it does this, which boils down to curiosity about neuroscience - the brain. More subtly, it involves asking about the nature of the universe we inhabit and what it takes to survive in it.

In this area of concern, we also consider how the interface is "programmed" by language and other cultural factors. Analogy plays a key role here, as outlined in "Surfaces and Essences". A key concept in that books is "isomorphism" - the idea that some analogies are better than others. In fact, the best ones allow us to learn about one system from the properties of another. For example, we assume that objects in the universe behave as if they "obey" laws of gravity (mind-like ideas). Thus, we can predict how objects will behave (say the date of an eclipse) by working out the math in the model. On a broader scale, we can ask which of our ideas genuinely underpin reality itself, the subject of "A Beautiful Question".

Evolution has gifted humans with an obsession with "figuring out what's really going on". Many of our guesses are wide of the mark and wind up as "mythology". Some are impressively robust and useful - they are called "Science". So far, we can't be sure how closely our ideas mirror the "real world", but we can help ourselves by keeping in mind the difference between our ideas (mind-like) and the actual reality we attempt to approach.

SUSBSTACK OUTLINE

 SUBSTACK

Substack is a platform that allows writers and journalists to easily publish and distribute their work through email newsletters. It provides tools for writing, editing, and designing newsletters, as well as managing subscriptions and sending out email updates to subscribers. Substack also offers tools for monetization, allowing writers to charge for subscriptions and earn revenue from their work. It has grown popular in recent years as a platform for independent journalists and writers to reach an audience and generate income directly, bypassing traditional media outlets.

The question is, am I ready for SUBSTACK? In theory, this would bring my work to a larger (larger than zero) audience, provide a way to communicate with subscribers and even "monetize" my efforts in the long run. It would also enforce some discipline that is lacking in the current blog. 

Raising the curtain on a SUBSTACK presence may encourage me to work systematically to make regular posts around a theme. What theme should that be? Broadly speaking, the plan would be to start with a topical source of mystification and then proceed by baby steps to reveal the source of the phenomenon and how we have attempted to deal with it.

100,000 words is "book-length" eventually total or 500 to 1,000 words per concept would need 100 topical posts. Not terribly unreasonable over a period of 2-3 years. The current blog has over 500 posts over a period of 5 years or so.

Corkulous outline essential to keep track of it all.

Suggest careful indexing of the current blog and polished drafts of potential topics. The first few should be "barn burners."

Let's take a shot at an outline of a dozen or so posts around the theme "It's all in your head or The Reality Distortion Field."

1. RDF: The "Reality Distortion Field" (4)
2. On the use of AI tools
3. Time, space and the self
4. Evolution of Mind (Damasio) (5)
5. Kant, Plato and Shoppenhaur
6. Einstein and Bohr (1)
7. Metaphors: The Matrix (2)
8. Metaphors: Hinduism (3)
9. The restless brain-psychosis
10. Hallucinations
11. Psychosis
12. Religion: Hinduism
13. RDF: Christianity
14. RDF: Trump
15. RDF: Musk
16. Viral Psychosis (Trump)
17. Viral Psychosis (Christianity)
18. Viral Psychosis (Climate Change)

------------

(1) The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics

 is a philosophical framework developed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s. It provides a way to understand the behavior of quantum systems and formulate predictions about their properties.

According to the Copenhagen interpretation, quantum systems do not possess definite properties (such as position or momentum) until they are observed or measured. Instead, they exist in a superposition of all possible states until the act of measurement "collapses" the superposition into a single, definite outcome.

The interpretation also emphasizes the role of the observer, asserting that the act of measurement or observation fundamentally affects the system being observed. This implies that the classical understanding of a neutral observer, separate from the system being observed, does not apply at the quantum level.

Another crucial aspect of the Copenhagen interpretation is the notion of complementarity. It suggests that certain properties of a quantum system are mutually exclusive and cannot be measured simultaneously with arbitrary precision. For example, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to simultaneously know both the precise position and momentum of a particle.

The Copenhagen interpretation has been highly influential in shaping the field of quantum physics and continues to be widely taught and accepted. However, it has also prompted debates and alternative interpretations, as it involves philosophical and conceptual questions about the nature of reality and the role of the observer in quantum phenomena.

 Albert Einstein was critical of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He famously disagreed with the idea that quantum particles exist in multiple states simultaneously until they are observed, as stated in the interpretation. Einstein believed that the Copenhagen interpretation was incomplete, stating his famous quote "God does not play dice with the universe." He thought that there must be underlying hidden variables that determine the properties of quantum particles. However, despite his reservations, he respected the work of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, who were major proponents of the Copenhagen interpretation.

(2) In the movie "The Matrix," the Matrix

 refers to a simulated reality that has been created by intelligent machines... to deceive the human mind and make them believe they are living in a normal reality, while in actuality, they are living in a digital construct...

(3) Hinduism - the world is a dream

In Hinduism, the concept that the world is a dream is closely tied to the belief in Maya, which refers to the illusory nature of the material world. According to Hindu philosophy, Maya is the cosmic illusion that makes the physical world seem real and tangible, while actually being transient and unreal.

The idea that the world is a dream can be understood in several ways within Hinduism:

1. Illusion of Reality: Hinduism views the material world as an illusionary realm that deceives individuals into perceiving it as permanent and separate from the divine. Just as in a dream, things appear real and solid, but they are ultimately unreal and temporary. This illusionary nature of the world is believed to prevent individuals from realizing their true nature and the ultimate reality.

2. Transitory Nature: Hinduism teaches that everything in the physical world, including our bodies, thoughts, and emotions, are constantly changing and impermanent. Similar to a dream that fades away upon waking up, the world is seen as ever-changing and transient. This perspective encourages individuals to detach from the material world and seek a deeper understanding of the eternal reality beyond transient experiences.

3. Veil of Ignorance: The world being a dream suggests that individuals are living in a state of ignorance, unaware of their true spiritual nature. Hinduism teaches that the ultimate reality is Brahman, the formless and limitless aspect of existence, and our individual selves (Atman) are an extension of Brahman. However, due to the illusion of Maya, individuals remain trapped in the dream of worldly pursuits, attachments, and desires, forgetting their ultimate connection to the divine.

4. Awakening to Ultimate Reality: Just as awakening from a dream brings one closer to the state of wakefulness, in Hinduism, the goal is to awaken from the illusion of the world and realize one's true nature and the ultimate reality. This awakening is often referred to as self-realization or enlightenment (moksha). Through spiritual practices like meditation, self-inquiry, and seeking knowledge, individuals can transcend the illusory nature of the dream-like world and attain liberation from the cycle of birth and death.

It is important to note that this concept is not meant to demean or dismiss the significance of the physical world but rather encourages individuals to recognize its temporary and illusory nature and seek a deeper understanding of the eternal reality beyond it.

See also "Dream of Brama" 

(4) "Reality distortion field" (RDF) 

is a term coined by Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh development team at Apple, to describe the persuasive and charismatic effect Steve Jobs had on others. It refers to Jobs' ability to convince and manipulate people into believing in his vision and ideas, often distorting the perception of reality to align with his goals

The term suggests that Jobs had the power to bend and mould reality according to his desires, making others see things the way he wanted them to be seen. This skill enabled him to inspire and motivate his team to achieve seemingly impossible tasks or standards. It was believed that his charisma, confidence, and persuasive communication style created a "field" around him that influenced others into accepting his versions of reality.

In a broader context, the term "reality distortion field" is sometimes used to describe the phenomenon when someone has an influential, persuasive effect on others, leading them to adopt a distorted view of reality. It implies the ability to shape perceptions and affect people's judgments and decisions.

(5) Damasio's theory of the evolution of mind 

suggests that the mind originated as a consequence of the evolution of the nervous system and the need for organisms to successfully adapt to their environment. He argues that the mind emerged from the constant interaction between the body's physiological responses to stimuli and the brain's processing of these responses. This process eventually led to the development of emotions, feelings, and consciousness, which allowed organisms to assess and respond to their surroundings in more complex and sophisticated ways. Damasio's theory emphasizes the crucial role of emotions and feelings in guiding decision-making and adapting to the environment, ultimately shaping the evolution of the mind.

Stephen Hawking, Mensa and Intelligent Answers to Good Questions

Last night I attempted to introduce the idea of "Spinosa's God" to a MENSA group. I got my head torn off. Although these people are in the top 3% on the IQ scale, they are all over the map on the "emotional intelligence" scale, nor can one assume that they are widely informed outside of their various specialties, even though they tend to assume that. It is famously difficult to know what you don't know, but especially difficult for smart people. I call this the Donal Rumsfeld syndrome. But don't get me started ...

"Spinosa's God", defended by Einstein and the coincidentally recently deceased Stephen Hawking refers to the unexpected deep order in the Universe. This "God" is not a person behind the scenes, pulling the strings to punish the bad guys and reward the good guys. "He" is totally impersonal - another name for physical law, which turns out to be comprehensible by the human mind - mostly in terms of mathematics. It is important to understand that those who speak of this kind of "God" are speaking of their personal feeling of awe, not a fact "out there" in the world.

In our "conversation" (food fight) at MENSA, I reminded my friends of my time 40 years ago as a junior Minister and theological student. For them, this tarred me as a Scientologists or ISIS terrorists. It seemed to be impossible to get anyone to talk about what they believed or I believed to take a break from filling the room with "straw men". They competed with each other to rant about the stupidity of un-named individuals who were not there to defend themselves. Logically speaking, blaming all the evils of the world on people who believe in God is equivalent to blaming the same problems on people who are over 2 feet tall. For most of history, everyone believed in God.

So here, in a "note to myself" let me say a few things I would have loved to have on the table with the "top 3%".

For one thing, even in my most "religious" years (age 27 or so), I leaned toward the "Theology of Wonder", specifically that of G. K. Chesterton. That is about the experience of awe and humility inspired by the Universe - growing more compelling the more you learn about the Universe. As the Island of Knowledge grows, so does the shoreline of the unknown. At the time, I felt this compatible with a career in the professional clergy. I was also taken up with the language and mythology of the evangelicals, who stressed a "personal relationship with Jesus". To me, at the time, this meant bringing my personal affairs into line with what we imagined to be a personal, daily relationship with Jesus. My MENSA friends were not at all interested in the fact that education of the professional clergy is mainly about understanding the myth as myth. They imagined themselves as uniquely able to spot the logical inconsistencies in the "faith", which is an achievement akin to proving that Superman is not a real person and being proud of the insight.

In the long run (by my 30th birthday) I saw all this as a language -  a way of talking about life in a way that admitted you to a certain social circle. It was a point along a very long journey from the time someone told me about God (age 5) to the present day (age 71). I can still speak the language and appreciate the worldview, but it's all very much in the rearview mirror. My MENSA friends showed no interest in what I believed now or how I viewed my old ideas: only in competing with each other to attack what they imagined other idiots (not named or present) must believe. It was MENSA at its worst.

As it happens, my journey has taken me back to the old neighborhood in the last year. I wrote about the dismaying hollowness of a modern Christian Service here. This was made all the more unsettling because the young Minister was exactly at the point that I would have been at her age (early 30's), attempting to force what she really meant into the procrustean bed of "Christian" language.

I was also reminded of Spinosa's God through my project to read everything Damasio has written, including "Looking for Spinosa".

The fact is that none of this interested my MENSA chums, who don't seem to read or think very much. The previous hour of discussion had been devoted to Game of Thrones and Zombie movies.

What was it that had dragged me back to reconsider issues that had been buried for 40 years? Looking closely, I think it was an emotional shock - a sudden realization that there is something absolutely real and important but previously caught only out of the corner of my eye. The "Theology of Wonder" came roaring back.

I tripped over it quite accidentally when I considered the "proto-life" era. I quite vividly imagined the impressive complexity of the first known life form and the yawning gap - perhaps permanently mysterious - between physics and the simplest form of life. Not really an original insight, right? But it bothered me. It kept me awake for hours. It stayed with me as a new, important feature of reality. It's a bit like the Big Bang. I have no direct knowledge of the Big Bang, nor does it have the slightest impact on my life. Yet it is profoundly important to my worldview - always in the background. This is something the hardened skeptic has problems grasping: that "spiritual" insight can come as much from the shocking realization of what you don't know as from what you suddenly do know.

This is not entirely unrelated to the long series of shocks that came in the last few years from my study of Zen. For example, I found that I had no idea what I meant by the word "self" or even the word "I". For me, at least, the "spiritual" attitude comes from "knowing" less and less about more an more - a fundamentally Zen concept. But I digress ...

Is it unreasonable for other, intelligent human beings to grasp these awesome mysteries and wrap them up into a feeling of humility and awe that is religious? Is it crazy to seek out a community that shares these feelings? Is it not the height of arrogance to assume that such people are reacting foolishly to not knowing answers to the ultimate questions? It is the conceit of the world-weary cynic to imagine that "religious" people think they have all the answers. It is not a fundamental error of logic to assume that although some religious proponents talk as if they have all the answers, that this is typical or even universal of the "type". These are errors that are shocking to find in a group that prides itself in exceptional intelligence. To many in that room investigate the wonders of the Universe by devouring and endlessly discussing Game of Thrones: leave the crazy speculation to the fools.

One particularly high-decibel genius defended the theory that the Universe is a simulation (the Matrix idea). He failed to see that this is logically equivalent to belief in God behind the scenes. The only difference is a modern "science fiction" gloss - something that a Scientologist would appreciate. "Believers" in the Matrix theory show exactly the unwillingness to discuss things like "proof" that we see in hardcore theists. The only difference is that the theists are also tarred with all the evils committed for thousands of years by people who believe in God. In my narrow experience, the Matrix idea is uniquely popular among people who are smart enough to be fooled by it. And people who watch too much TV.

These ultimate mysteries form a common ground for respectful dialogue between "religious" folks and the rest of us. There I also a broad common ground in our common acceptance of social justice - although the modern skeptic will loudly deny this has anything to do with our Christian traditions.

One "bumper sticker" sums up my personal "religion":

"Whatever this is, we're all in it together". 

When it comes to profound ignorance on deeply important matters, there is no "us and them".

Brain Waves, Associations, Forgetting

I think of brain waves as the process of "re-hashing" memes in the brain. A "meme" corresponds to a fantastically complex pattern [1] of activation of neurons. Activation of these patterns can be observed outside of the skull due to electrical side-effects of neuron "firing". I envision a looping chain reaction of memes, some at a very low level (hardly qualifying as memes), such as the sensation of breathing and some much higher, such as a friend speaking to you.

The wave frequency corresponds to the speed of "unpacking" one meme into another, or how fast one meme "reminds" you of another.

It's important to think of the brain as active and dynamic rather than a static container of "knowledge" and a "soul" sitting around inside the head observing he world. The looping never stops. When we are conscious (Beta waves, about 15 to 40 cycles per second - Herz). this looping is consciousness.  As we think harder, the frequency of our Beta waves increases.

When we dream, these loops activate images in a chain of reactions we call dreaming.

In deep sleep, the loops fire neurons in a pattern that may seem random. Apparently, the object of he random firing is to dissolve or weaken connections between neurons. Connections that survive this process have been repeatedly activated and strengthened (neurons that fire together wire together).  Pathways that are rarely used or used only once tend to be dissolved in his process as "irrelevant". These correspond to short term memories, such as the make and model of the car in front of you when you stopped at a traffic light yesterday.

On the other hand, the looping re-activation that occurs during conscious or dreaming states activates and reinforces associations between "higher level" memes. For example, you may dream of fixing your car or having an argument with your boss. The result is that memes will, in future, tend to cluster and "remind you" of each other.

During dreaming, the prefrontal cortex seems to be more or less "turned off", hinting that the corresponding function of that brain area is to dynamically involve itself in loops through the memes "stored" in the rest of the brain. The looping is more selective than it is during a dream. There seems to be a special kind of looping (waving) going on when we are awake.

[1] A bit of mathematical thinking: Imagine the state of the brain at any one time as a vector T in Hilbert Space. There is a component in this vector for each neuron: either 1 for "firing" or 0 for "not firing". Suppose further that there is a matrix S at any one time that characterizes the state of the synapses. It's a square matrix with rows and columns corresponding to T. Each element of the S (a,b) is 1 or 0 reflecting whether the synapse will conduct a signal from neuron a to b. At the next "instant", we will have a new brain state characterized by T' <= ST.  S can change over time but more slowly, reflecting the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. S says which neurons will receive an input signal when any neuron fires. What the neuron actually does with this signal can be complex but it boils down to firing or not firing.  T will correspond to a large but finite number of memes. T' will correspond to a large but related set of memes. The rate that T' is generated from T corresponds to the frequency of the brain wave. For example, we may be "unpacking" memes to bring other memes to mind at a rate of 40 times a second when "thinking hard". This corresponds to a "frame rate" of 15 frames per second in a movie, hinting at why "thinking" may seem like a continuous process while ideas are actually "popping into our heads" at a finite but still fast rate of 40 times per second. "Alpha" waves, corresponding to deeper, more creative thought are coincidentally closer to movie frame rates of about 8 Hz, maybe allowing us to "picture" what we are thinking about.

This is not meant to be an actual model of the brain -- just a way of thinking about what's going on.

This model is based on something I built in 1969 to make a computer "think" about how "ideas" (programs) are related to each other. Each time around the wave, the computer "knew" which "ideas" were related to others in more and more indirect ways. This process can produce a relatively stable "S", in the sense that we can reinforce the association between memes simply by re-activating the association. The association becomes "natural" and "automatic", such as when you think of big ears and a trunk whenI say "elephant".

Near Death Experiences

If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, I refer you to that the breathless and uncritical treatment of the subject in near death experiences on CBC Ideas. It seems fairly common for people who are "near death" in the sense of having their heart stop to have a vivid memory of leaving their body, seeing themselves from the outside, perhaps hearing and/or seeing what's going on around them, seeing a wonderful light and feeling a great sense of peace and well-being. The classic treatment of the subject, "Life after Life" is cited with approval by the "expert" for the CBC audience.

"People have reported "near death experiences", or NDE's, over centuries and across cultures. The nature of them has historically been the territory of religion and philosophy. But now science has staked its claim in the discussion. And the questions are profound: where is consciousness produced, in the brain, or somewhere else? Can consciousness continue to exist even after the heart and brain have stopped working? Contributor Ashley Walters explores the science and the meaning of near death experiences. **This episode originally aired December 7, 2016"

Of course, one may listen closely to the episode and fail to find any mention of how"science" is "staking a claim" in the discussion. The piece is basically a book report.

The CBC program is a textbook case of the kind of muddle that surrounds the NDE issue. Time and again, the subject is claimed to have undergone "clinical death", yet somehow remembers something. The central paradox is, How can he remember anything when his brain has stopped functioning? It must be true that his "soul" somehow works without the brain.

This is all turns on a deliberate misuse of the term "clinical death", which does not involve cessation of brain function: merely cessation of heart beat and respiration.  In the cited cases, even this is far from certain, since the subject is usually revived before medical assistance arrives (otherwise real death is the likely outcome). Certainly in the ambulance and even on the operating table, the patient is rarely instrumented to detect (or not detect) brain function. In any case, I am not aware of any case where brain function has actually ceased and the patient has revived. Even in cases of deep coma, there is some brain function. To put the case clearly: we don't have anyone coming back to tell us what it's like to be brain dead. There's a good reason for that, I think.

This removes the central mystery. There is certainly nothing stopping a person undergoing "clinical death" from having (or at least remembering) some kind of experience.

An important element in the NDE mythology is the "fact" that so many of these experiences have so much in common. The problem with this claim is that the "journalists" that write about the experience actually go out looking for the people who have that exact experience. The vast majority of people with a different experience (especially no experience at all) are passed over. You would think this would be a serious problem for the theory that we all pass on to another reality upon death when obviously most of us don't. In a word, it's cherry picking.

So there goes the second source of wonder. Some people have similar experiences when their heart stops. It's starting to seem to be a somewhat weaker challenge to the "conventional" idea that we need a brain to "be".

For those who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of consciousness itself, the fact that people can hear what's going on while "blacked out" is remarkable. However it is a well established fact that the brain's auditory systems are alive and working even under general anesthesia - we just can't normally remember what we hear. In the unusual brain state of the "NDE", it is not to much of a stretch to assume that what the subject is hearing will be woven into whatever visions are remembered.

So what about the sensation of leaving the body? Well, you can ask this a different way. Why is it that we usually have the feeling that we are in our body? The familiar exception to this experience is the dream. Why is this not relevant?

The sensation of being "in" the body can be knocked out of action by, for example, a shortage of oxygen to that part of the brain. Feelings of being outside the body can be triggered by a variety of situations - you don't need to be "clinically dead". Feelings of euphoria and heavenly visions can also be attributed to release of endorphin in the brain - akin to a big shot of morphine released as an automatic response to the trauma that stopped the heart in the first place. It makes more sense to ask how the brain creates a vivid "trippy" dream rather than ask how the experience happens without the brain. While the brain still holds many mysteries, we are quite sure what parts of the brain are active when an "experience" is going on and what parts are necessary for that experience to be remembered. Why is it that we so casually set aside all this knowledge and embrace the idea that all these brain functions happen without the brain? Where is the evidence that the brain is not responsible for these experiences?

It should be noted that these "trippy" experiences (known as "peak experiences") happen to people who are in perfect heath and do not require "clinical death". Peak experiences are also notorious for fitting into a matrix of mythological interpretation that is familiar to the subject - such as "seeing God" or being "saved". The subject needs to be "primed" to find the right words to describe the experience.

What we are left with is claims that the disembodied soul went wandering around and learned things that could not have been otherwise learned. This is essentially a claim of a telepathic experience. In these cases, we have more theories available than wandering souls. The wandering soul hypothesis is, after all, a rather radical one. Following Carl Sagan, we demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. (Skepticism 101). What must we assume in order to be left with the conclusion that of telepathy is the only possible explanation?

• The subject is not lying. Lying is an ordinary behavour and does not require supernatural explanation.
• The subject perfectly remembers the experience. This is an odd assumption to make since we know that none of us has perfect memory and these subjects are specifically selected to have been recovering from a near-fatal trauma.
• Third party testimony (the gold standard in these fables) is accurately reported. The "witnesses" also are credited with perfect memory even though they themselves have usually been part of an extremely traumatic experience.
• We must ignore powerful confirmation bias acting to confirm the subjects belief that he has proven that death is not the end. Confirmation bias is the bane of serious scientific investigation. Why not a problem with amateur interpretation of a once-in-a-life-time experience?

What we are left with is lots of strange tales. The plural of anecdote is not evidence. We can't toss aside everything we know about the brain without compelling evidence. That's Sagan's rule.

But then all this fits nicely into the religious mythology of the culture. As stated in the outset of the piece, "all" religions teach that there is a life beyond death. Even if the subject doesn't believe this, the experience in question will tend to convince him otherwise. It's an available "explanation". He is more likely to be familiar with Christian mythology than neuroscience.

None of these points are addressed in the CBC piece, which is really nothing more than a pitch for another "New Age" book helping the credible to deny death and put the whole issue on the back burner pending the next boozy discussion over the camp fire.

My personal opinion is that the brain is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness. Consciousness critically depends on a social setting. We experience the world together. This is starkly evident when the individual is placed in a situation that departs widely from everyday experience., It makes perfect sense for the "self" to dissolve finally into a drug-assisted and muddled dream set in a comfortable mythical world. The story is told not only by the "subject" whose heart stopped for awhile, but by those around him who cooperate to keep the myth alive and authors who sell books to the gullible. It is that social matrix of ideas - right, wrong, good and bad - that lives on. These ideas don't need to reside in any one particular brain. When one brain goes dark, the "memes" live on.

Dimensions of Value: Maslow's Hierarchy

After writing it, I felt that this post was a bit "over the top". I thought of deleting it, but decided to leave it in, since it actually does connect to many of other ideas. It's just that I don't think our situation is quite this dark. I've got to stay away from Russian novels ...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

We really should give a nod to Maslow's attempt to visualize the human situation in terms of "needs", which are almost the same thing as "values". Let's discuss Maslow's ideas - assuming that we somehow manage to "value" what we "need". My general impression is that Maslow's summary is somewhat misleading. It tempts us to over-simplify human motivation and overlook the fantastic complexity of these "needs". Once we shift to "values" and unpack the "values", we wind up with something that can actually explain practical things like political parties, war, persistent poverty, "fake news" and all the other things that seem to arise from the depths of human nature to form "social hurricanes" that leave us feeling helpless and in need to at least understand what's going on.

Maslow's "analysis" doesn't seem to provide much immediate help to individuals wondering how to organize their lives and priorities. But that's not the worst of it.

Maslow's cute diagram was flashed on the screen in millions of "Social Studies" classes around the world as a quick and dirty way of getting the issue out of the way and providing teachers with a good source of multiple choice questions. But it is horribly misleading. It is a lie to imagine that the business of human life boils down to the individual seeking to meet individual needs. The fact is that one must choose between (a) abandoning society naked savage in the jungle or (b) absorbing oneself into the society which may or may not allow you to live.

NETWORKS

We all exist within social networks. We also find ourselves in a physical environment which, for many of us, is man-made and (therefore) a world of ideas-made-real. We are born into such a world that has been designed by society to meet the needs Maslow discusses. In fact, we find ourselves in a "matrix" that society provides for us to meet at least the bottom 3 tiers of Maslow's pyramid. For most of us, whether we struggle to meet our "needs" at the bottom of the pyramid or the top is a matter that society makes for us.

This tells us that our fundamental need (and value) is to be accepted into a network of social relationships that provide for our needs in detail. Through this web of relationships, we acquire food, money, safety and all the other good things that keep us (and our society) going. Of course, it remains to discuss how these networks and value-transactions work in real life.

It turns out that there is not an exact correspondence between "need" and "value". We value lots of things we don't need - such as drugs, sugar, jewelry, viral videos, alcohol, new cars ... We also tend to not value things we actually do need, such as a healthy mind and body. It is more fruitful to analyze values than needs. For example, where, in Maslo's, hierarchy do we find cocaine? Prostitution? Child soldiers? Nuclear weapons? Obesity? There seems to be something missing in the assumption that human life is mainly concerned with meeting our needs.

SELF ACTUALIZATION (TOP NEED)

I have always found this term to be an annoying catchphrase of the self-involved California hippy. We still hear it a lot - mostly from people who have - through skepticism or laziness - rejected all other value systems and wound up with "be all you can be". Back when Maslow did this work, the choice seemed to be between "religion" (discredited) and nihilism. A false choice.

Maslow is here assuming that humans, in general, do not regard self-sacrifice and/or self-denial as a value. For example, he's assuming that humans won't be happy living as Muslims, Christians, following Confucious, joining the armed services or devoting their life to service of any kind.   The challenge for Maslow would be to ask if the ultimate need in human life is not to lose oneself in a higher goal - something that transcends the self. I seem to remember that Maslo himself acknowledged the ultimate need is to lose oneself in something beyond yourself - transcendence. I also remember that this was taken in a kind of mystical "hippy" kind of way.

To a certain degree, one needs to surrender to this need/value if one expects to be a valued member of a group. On a very basic level, this means that one may be asked to clean toilets in a MacDonalds in order to make enough money to eat. The fact is that society rather strongly forces the individual into a role that serves society at large. In post-WW II America, this pressure was widely resented. Although we may regard some spectacular examples of "self-made men" "being all they can be", if we scratch the surface, we find people who are massively supported by society for the ends of society itself. Many others who have followed this path are known as criminals - especially psychopaths. The self-actualizing individual who rises to the top of a major corporation effectively surrenders himself to the myopic and psychopathic goals of the corporation (profit at all cost). Maslow's hierarchy makes no distinction between the people we call heroes and the people we call criminals.

I'm sure that Maslo imagined that everyone would become a philosopher like him if they could only succeed in "being all they could be". The fact is that freezing to death on the street is about all that some of us can manage. Beyond that, we all seem to need a lot of help. Some of us have come to the conclusion that the highest values of life are to be found with "a little help from our friends". Not just finding but providing help.

THE FOURTH TIER - BEING ACCEPTED

This is the need to "fit in". Maslow provides few details about how this is achieved, but we can see that the general idea is to find one's place in the social network to maximize the flow of value transfer between the individual and those who he/she is connected by bonds of employment, debt, business, obligation etc.  We note that Maslow makes no distinction between "fitting in" with the Mafia, fitting in with the Republican Party and fitting in with a campaign to save the whales. Doesn't it matter which group we "fit in" with? Doesn't it matter what we surrender, as individuals, to "fit in"?

The nature of these bonds needs to be "unpacked" if we are to wind up with a general view of what motivates human beings, which seems to be what Maslow is going for.

A CULTURE'S PYRAMID OF VALUES

Perhaps I will come back and put this in a pretty picture, but let's consider things from the point of view of a "network" or "superorganism" S, starting at the bottom. We can think of S as being a corporation, or nation-state.

Physiological

The continued existence of S doesn't depend on the survival of individuals - they are expendable. What needs to be preserved is the agreed-to system of values that prevent mass defection of individuals required to keep things going. Workers who are no longer needed can be off-loaded and taken care of like other externalized costs, like pollution and wounded soldiers. They are somebody else's problem. 

Safety

Again, the individual is expendable. The safety of S preempts the safety of the individual. The individual must be convinced that the bravest thing to do is to die for S, or at least work himself/herself to death for S at the expense of any personal benefit. Beyond a certain size, the corporation is immune from prosecution for any crimes it may commit. The nation-state need never acknowledge crimes committed in its name. Superorganisms are immortal or at least act as if they have a natural right to exist and grow forever.

Love/Belonging

It is necessary for S to maintain some kind of social cohesion by promoting values that make sense to individuals (both employees and customers) but may or may not be actually promoted in practice by S. A Strong feeling of "us" and "them" is necessary. "They" can be killed or starve to death or slowly killed by a poison produced by S. Whatever is good for "us" (namely S) is good. It is essential that unanimity be achieved on this score. Those individuals who challenge the common value system must be suppressed or expelled. "They" must handle the "externalities", preferably without taxing S.

Esteem

Depending on the type of S, it's called "protecting the brand". The national "brand" -  "national pride" should preempt the individual's desire to live. The "brand" should seek to preempt the individual's freedom of choice as a consumer. The actual benefit to the consumer (from Maslow's pyramid) is irrelevant. The consumer must be lead to think there is a benefit - even a need. Ideally, the consumer will see benefit from the bare brand itself - on a flag pole or T-shirt for example.

Self Actualization

A corporation becomes the ideal corporation by crushing competition, driving down wages or possibly eliminating human workers entirely. It dictates prices and convinces consumers to buy its products. All risks and costs are externalized. Ideally, the corporation can buy back its own shares, eliminating the need for pesky shareholders demanding return. It can suck up capital by leveraged finance, offloading risk by issuing bonds and buying insurance. The ideal corporation has no employees and no shareholders. It has no tangible product but accumulates profit and grows solely by amassing patent rights and leveraged financial capital. It is everyone's absentee landlord. It manages to "tax" every financial transaction while outsourcing all risk. Imagine one bank absorbing all the others and being run by a machine. Sometimes I think of this as being the ultimate state of Amazon. Just a machine that taxes the movement of goods from manufacturer to consumer, all done by robots and a vast machine we call the "cloud".

The ideal nation-state has crushed all other nations and dominates the world. Outside its own borders, there are only "they". Inside its borders, a tiny cadre has the precarious honor of being "us". All others are "they", under constant suspicion of treason. Imagine Stalin's Soviet Union covering the world. Imagine, in this world, all material goods being crap sold by Amazon.

The ideal nation-state and the ideal corporation are actually the same thing. The goals of a nation-state are best served by co-opting the corporation. The goals of the corporation are best served by absorbing the nation-state. Such a nation-state is called a "kleptocracy". To me, Russia looks like it "wants" to be like this. Where do the "oligarchs" end and the nation of Russia begin?

THE DARK TRUTH

In the real world, there is nothing to prevent superorganisms from taking over the planet while humans chase after Maslow's "needs". The world of "Terminator" is not as far-fetched as it seems. We need to understand that we are not the only sentient beings on the planet. The "needs" of every cell in my body are met by a system they don't understand. In fact, the organism called "me" doesn't understand much about the process either. But the analogy breaks down when we consider that I am (presumably) "smarter" than any of the cells in my body. The survival of all these cells is (mostly) up to me. But the "superorganisms" of which we are apart are usually pretty stupid. Their rules of growth and survival seem to make them even more destructive and stupid.

It is important to understand that "morality" exists only on our scale of things. 

I'll leave it there. I've talked myself into feeling rather unsafe. A nice friendly chat is called for. Besides, I'm kinda hungry...

----
More dark thoughts on the malignant influence of superorganisms may be found here

MacIntyre - Beyond Adam Smith and Karl Marx

Parse this if u can. It's worth re-reading it until you get it:

"Market relationships can only be sustained by being embedded in certain types of local non-market relationships, relationships of uncalculated giving and receiving, if they are to contribute to overall flourishing, rather than, as they often do, undermine and corrupt commercial ties."

MacIntyre hates sentences shorter than 20 or 30 words without lots of parenthetical thoughts thrown in. It makes him very hard to read.  He's not a bumper sticker philosopher. However, as far as I know, he is the smartest philosopher of the 20th century, maybe any century.

What he's doing here is tossing out the entire moral philosophy that underlies both capitalism and socialism. Adam Smith had it wrong. Karl Marx had it wrong. To "flourish" (be human) we need to have certain virtues and exist within a network of mutual obligation. Commercial transactions make sense only when embedded in this larger human matrix of relationships. What's more, that larger network is the important one -- the commercial stuff is a side-show.

This is from Dependent Rational Animals. You go to the butcher to buy meat and he sells it to you for his benefit. So far so good. But suppose you find him on the floor with a heart attack? Why not just walk out and go to some other butcher? Why not just call 911 and leave? Conventional economic theory would be fine with leaving the guy to die on the floor. Why is it wrong?

The fact is that nobody, nor even a total stranger, would leave the guy on the floor.   We don't have an ethical theory that adequately accounts for ordinary human virtue. MacIntyre's has been working to correct this problem for decades. If you want to have anything to say about justice, virtue or politics, you need to take the time to plow through his prose and understand what he has to say.

The example of the unfortunate butcher is just a start. MacIntyre's analysis sweeps from the deepest, innermost motives of the individual, through intimate friendship, to family, to community  to the nation state. At every level, he asks, what sort of a person should I be? What virtues should I posses? What kind of friendship, community, nation would allow these virtues to flourish?

In many cases, his answers are "conventionally unconventional", for example, when he challenges the claims of a nation-state to spend the lives of its citizens for some kind of community value (dangerous fiction). Yet he clearly delineates the need for nations and the boundaries of our obligation to them.

An illustration of MacIntyre's radical departure from conventional thinking is his claim that anyone who asks why he should help the butcher -- who offers some kind of reason for such action -- is lacking in a crucial virtue. Such virtues are taught by communities and lead us to act in certain ways without calculating the benefit to ourselves or anybody else. This would seem strange if it were not exactly the kind of thinking - or acting without thinking - that we see again and again reported by real-life rescuers.

His book is grounded on the notion of dependence -- the idea that we are not, never have been and never will be totally independent. We are always part of a network of "giving and receiving". We always have obligations. Yet, to flourish, we must become rational and to become rational, we must reason together. This is more than a justification for democracy. It is a blueprint for a comprehensive world view that sheds light on all the sorts of human interaction that we are likely to experience, including those that are scarcely mentioned in conventional philosophy, such as those of caring for the disabled or being totally disabled.

Throughout, MacIntyre speaks of the human condition, describing a world view that makes perfect sense, yet challenges all the familiar philosophies, political ideology and economic theories. MacIntyre is standing up and saying the theories are wrong and it's time to think carefully about what sort of people we need to be to reach our full potential -- individually and as members of families, communities and societies.