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"Perceptions" ITEM
Copyright © 2008 Ray Dickenson
Pecking Orders
Running in Circles?
How can we ensure our life-style has the "quality" or "goodness" or even "pleasure" - we're supposed to want?
A look around shows just one thing: - a single human lifetime is just too short for an individual to verify - by checking cause and effect - the real worth of most actions. Why?
Because most actual pains or pleasures result from random causes, or from other reasons which are outside our control, and mostly hidden from us.
I.e `astute' or `clever' or `good' behavior or actions are violently skewed, either by chance, or - most likely in modern societies - by being rewarded or punished for `accidentally' conforming with, or offending, a current paradigm.
What's a `paradigm'?
Our fondness for `paradigms' is a result of our not knowing anything for sure.
So we get diverted from sensible thought when we're promised that an easy `paradigm' will give perfection.
Paradigms invented as new Diversions
Every so often, the intelligentsia and the ruling elite become aware that elements in the population have seen through the current `reasons for obedience' and are restless.
So new paradigms are invented - witchdoctors / religions / socialism / capitalism / nationalism / efficiency / militarism (even pacifism).
But all past paradigms have had identical results: greedy incompetents are in charge, while mediocrity and worse - corruption, brutality, perversion - is rewarded, so long as it doesn't rock the boat for rulers.
[Throughout history, the only person who is always going to be punished is the truth-teller: one who sees through all `paradigms' - and says so]
Whatever works
Weirdly enough, our predicament, even our rulers' predicament, is reflected by activities of captive pigeons.
They, like us, are programmed to find rewards (food) by trying out actions and repeating those that "work".
I.e. - those actions getting food.
Pigeons, like us, don't live long enough to eliminate random or hidden ("corrupt") reasons.
And they have even less of an attention-span.
How do we know? When caged pigeons are fed regularly (by machinery) they attribute the arrival of food to whatever they were doing just before food arrived. ref-1
Yes, even crazy stuff like walking in circles or more complicated patterns. As far as the pigeons are concerned - it worked last time.
So, when a pigeon gets hungry - or bored - it'll start obsessively running in circles, or figures-of-eight, to `call forth' food.
Obviously, that `works' for the pigeon - unless the food delivery machine were to break down!
Human pecking Orders?
Sadly, it's the same with humans. Almost any paradigm can also seem to work.
Devil worship? / Human sacrifice? / Religious Crusades? / Witch-hunting? / Nationalism? / Wars on `Terror'?
For many thousands of years the `sacrifice', first of a human life, then of animals' lives, was thought to be necessary, and the people of those times believed that it would work.
Besides, the ruling priests / witchdoctors always chose any critic as the next `sacrifice' (i.e. - target).
The evidence shows we humans are most often trapped in pointless behavior, like a peckish pigeon running in figures-of-eight.
Wasting our time and mentality, trying to `attract' rewards, or to `avert' punishment.
Easy prey for any modern witchdoctor, priest, guru or politician.
Of course, we shouldn't ignore a possibility: that there could be `something other' behind the scenes, something which might really control events.
From research - we find the parameters - of density and expansion and temperature and all else - of the universe are so finely, almost impossibly balanced at the one point where organic life can arise, that we are left with two choices:-
We can shrug anthropically, saying merely `we are here' - or we can further conclude - `They must be there'. ref 1 & ref 2
"As our vague and uncertain knowledge seems to suggest,
we may be tempted to conjecture that our minds are in contact with reality through other than purely physical means"
A SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE DEFINING UNKNOWNS AS UNTRUE IS ITSELF FALSE
MORE THAN 99% of UNIVERSE'S DATA ARE UNKNOWN TO OUR `SCIENCE'
"Philosophy is written in that vast book which stands forever open before our eyes"
Galileo
can we
take off the blindfolds?
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