THE NAME OF GOD

October 10th, 2019

 

Tinkered Thinking generally tries to stay away from topics like religion, politics and the current topic of tension, but in this case, it’s proved useful for a discussion of meditation to delve straight into the core of religion.

 

As a contextual suggestion, these ideas and this method of inquiry is heavily influenced by the writings of William James, particularly his seminal work “The Varieties of Religious Experience”.  It’s also useful to be familiar with Vipassana as a practice or as it’s popularly referred to: Mindfulness Meditation.

 

James is often referred to as the father of American Psychology and a pragmatic philosopher.  His method primarily revolved around an evidenced based approach, as opposed to Freud and Jung who relied heavily on the use of symbols.

 

This episode emphatically makes no claim about the nature of god or gods as they might actually exist or not exist and begs anyone of religious affiliation to pay close attention to the exact focus of the point being made here. 

 

The key to this connection is about the behavior of people.  Not any divine truth that might exist separate or outside of that person.

 

 

Between the years 1924 and 1932 a series of experiments were carried out at the the Hawthorne Works, which was an electric factory outside of Chicago.

 

The company had commissioned a study to see if workers would be more productive with higher or lower levels of light in the working environment.

 

Something pretty funny happened during these experiments.  Any time a change was made, worker productivity went up.  Didn’t really matter what the change was.  But then the study ended, and guess what happened.  Productivity slumped.

 

The nature of the change didn’t matter.  What mattered is that the workers felt like they were being watched. 

 

Pause for a moment and think about your boss sitting behind you at work, watching everything you do.  Does it change the way you feel and the way you act? 

 

Certainly.

 

In psychology this has come to be known as The Hawthorne Effect, or The Observer Effect.

 

There’s another similar concept that evokes the same effect.  It’s called Foucault’s Panopticon.

 

Imagine a prison that is built like a donut.  It’s a giant circle with the center cut out, and each cell that houses a prisoner has windows on the outside of the donut and the inside of the donut.  Inside of the donut is a single guard tower.  Think about how efficient this is.  Instead of having a whole bunch of guards patrol a whole bunch of hallways, you can have a single guard in a swivel chair see every single prisoner from that watch tower.

 

Now, imagine this watch tower has one-way mirrors for it’s windows.  So the prisoners can’t even see if there’s a guard in the watchtower.

 

The effect is exactly like changing the lights at the factory of Hawthorne Works:

 

Prisoners behave because they feel like they are being watched.

 

And if you think about it, as a prisoner, you have to default to the assumption that you are being watched, otherwise you pay the price.

 

 

 

 

William James, who sought to understand the religious experience by studying the behavior of religious people eventually had a heavy influence on the writing of the main text for Alcoholics Anonymous. 

 

For those who are not familiar with the text, it is quasi-religious.  God is mentioned quite a bit, but it purposely adheres to no single religion because alcoholics are present in all religions.  It would be self-defeating to have a definition of God in this context that is too narrow because than the chance to help people becomes limited.

 

At the end of the main part of the text there is this important line:

 

 

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.

 

 

This particular line is extremely smart and nuanced in a way that is not immediately obvious.

 

At first, the thought is: oh, well, yea, they have to say that because one person might understand God as Yahweh, and another might understand God as Allah.  So that makes sense.

 

But the nuance and brilliance of this linguistic construction goes far deeper than mere catering to different religious denominations. 

 

Let’s focus on one word from that statement.

 

The statement is: Abandon yourself to God as you UNDERSTAND God.

 

The key word here is understand.

 

Such understanding is paradoxically limited to the neural workings of a person’s brain.  Ultimately, God is something we imagine.

 

Now, that’s a statement that is potentially ripe with offense.  But before we entertain such offense honestly, can we first ask what’s so wrong with our imagination?

 

It is the source of all the modern marvels that surround us. 

 

And regardless of what a person imagines, a religious person has to come by the idea of God somehow, whether this be the writings and teachings presented in a traditional religious setting or some sort of divine experience.  Some how a person comes upon this notion or feeling or sense of god.  And then they carry that around with them, or somehow access anywhere and at any time they need.

 

In a moment we’ll return to this idea that God is somehow carried around by religious people, or somehow accessible from anywhere at any time.

 

 

 

 

But we’ll take a momentary detour in order to approach the idea from a different direction:

 

It’s often said by atheists and agnostics that you don’t need a god to behave morally.

 

So what do you need to behave morally from the point of view of these atheists and agnostics?

 

Certainly it must go without much question that moral actions require a certain moral perspective.  With religious people, that moral perspective is provided by God.  God is watching you, observing every action for the ‘final judgment’.  This religious, god-fearing person presumably has access to this perspective through religious writings and teachings.  But where exactly does the message of those writings and teachings exist while the person is going about their daily life? 

 

These teachings and rules exist in memory and as part of the person’s operating system.  In a sense, they learn about God’s perspective and then carry a simulation of that perspective around with them.  They imagine that god is watching them and judging their actions, and by virtue of the laws they have memorized, they scrutinize their own behavior and options for future behavior in accordance to this imagined perspective.  Of course it would be pompous to claim they actually have access to God’s perspective, because then you’d be inhabiting the perspective of God…

 

Strip away all the religious language and paraphernalia and what are we left with? 

 

This is a self-reflective perspective.  This is a mechanism that enables a person to pause at the threshold of impulse and assess options.

 

This is a moment of mindfulness.

 

Sure, this sort of mindfulness might require an opulent narrative, and a name of sorts has been attributed to the perspective, but it carries the same reflective pause and potential edit of behavior that comes with an instance of mindfulness that is advocated by the practice of Vipassana, mainly through mindfulness meditation.

 

The very idea of god, regardless of it’s cosmic and divine veracity, makes a person behave differently. 

 

Just like the empty watch tower in the middle of Foucault’s Panopticon.

 

Just like the change in lighting at the Hawthorne Electric Factory.

 

Just like a person practicing mindfulness during a moment of anger.

 

All four of these instances are achieved by exercise of the exact same cognitive mechanics.

 

It’s an act of self-reflection that results in changed behavior.

 

What’s rather surprising is that we engage in this behavioral edit all the time, but in the instance of Vipassana practice we are explicitly aware of the mechanics, and in the panopticon, and the factory, the same is achieved without being conscious of it, and with the religious person, the reflective gaze is imagined as an entirely different being of sorts.  Even if it actually is an entirely different being, the result is still very much the same as with the factory lights, the panopticon or the one who practices mindfulness meditation.

 

There exists one crucial difference though.  The one who mindfully develops this ability through meditation does so consciously and is not bound nor controlled by anything external as with the panopticon, the factory lights, or even the dogma of any religion.

 

When the mindful individual reflects on the options of their behavior and asks: what is best for me to do?

 

… this question risks no pollution from out-dated dogma, nor the self-censor of some roll in a corporation, for example.

 

The one who practices mindfulness through meditation has a degree of freedom that is impossible by the other examples of self-reflection.

 

We can illicit this point with a different example.

 

News outlets can all be categorized on some kind of spectrum from progressive or left to right, or whatever.  This means that everything that comes out of a news outlet is tailored to fit the category that can be applied to that news outlet.  Now imagine an individual journalist working in this news outlet.  Whenever they write a piece for publication, they do so while imagining the perspective of their boss while they write.  If the piece they write doesn’t pay enough heed to the perspective of their boss, then they either have to redo the piece, or at the very worse, their job will be at risk.  The incentives are in the exact opposite direction: to tow the company line, and represent it as the boss wants.  The journalist is performing a kind of self-reflection while writing and editing, but it is a perverse and constrained kind. 

 

 

It is a self-reflection that is dictated by a mind that is not their own.

 

 

And suddenly this evokes the writings of George Orwell.  The journalist’s self-reflection is hijacked, and potentially polluted.  Perhaps their own perspective is perfectly in line with their boss.  But if their income is dependent on this fact in practice, how can such a journalist be sure?

 

As Upton Sinclair once wrote:

 

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

 

We might rephrase it for the journalist and say “It’s very difficult for a journalist to think for themselves when their salary depends on their ability to think like their boss.”

 

Incentives suddenly emerge as a an important determiner for the nature of self-reflection that occurs in an individual. 

 

For the religious individual, the incentive is probably family and community.  These incentives are incredibly strong, indeed perhaps the strongest, since, what’s more important than our closest relations?  Difficult to say.

 

And for most people the answer is simply: nothing.

 

But let’s apply this troubling issue of incentives to the meditator who seeks to practice a mindfulness that is without dogma.

 

The incentives of such a person are far more pure.  Such incentives are authentic, because they are genuinely original.  The incentives arise from within that person as opposed to some external source like an old book, a tradition, or a tower, or some light fixture, or everything the boss has said over the years.

 

Be sure to note, the word Vipassana, while it might sound like some sort of eastern hoo-doo, is just a word that refers to a practice that seeks to look at reality as it is.  In some sense the word telegraphs a notion that explicitly eschews dogma.

 

 

At the end of the day, everyone has a different name for god.  The reason for this is because every one has a unique perspective.  The reason why god has accumulated so many paradoxical adjectives and descriptions, from ineffable, to unknowable, to ubiquitous and yet unseen, is because the situation of all our genuinely unique perspectives trying to communicate with one another is itself a paradox.  Every other perspective of every other person is intrinsically unknowable because you can’t put yourself literally into their place and have their experience, otherwise you would be that person.

 

 

Call it the Hawthorne effect,

 

or cite Foucault’s Panopticon,

 

or rattle off any of the endless names of religions that exist…

 

In the end, the name you give god is determined by how much freedom you can handle.

HICCUP

October 9th, 2019

 

Wake for productive sake,

 

Gaze at the numerical parable

 

of the latest bionic wearable.

 

Mind the numbers, the graphs – they aren’t fake.

 

 

 

 

Sit and stare at eyelid backs

 

hearing instruction - the meditation hacks.

 

for ten minutes or twenty,

 

lost to thoughts of girls and a Bently

 

 

 

 

 

Then on to coffee with fish oil and butter

 

to down quick, counting out half-life hours,

 

ensuring the boons of sleep, those nightly powers,

 

always ruined by booze and teasing eyelids always aflutter.

 

 

 

 

 

Waking with the setback of past pleasure,

 

Cursing one’s self, the hangover, taking full stock and measure.

 

The bionic app warns, you’re flashing, in the red,

 

graphs and numbers report you’re practically dead.

 

 

 

 

But the world’s gearbox beckons

 

You have duties, move on from this morning

 

Skip the habit, get straight to work, start performing.

 

Red eyed, thoughts melted, smearing through long seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

Rough out the long day like a bad plan

 

Write this one off from a shortening life span.

 

Remember for next time pleasure’s long, steep cost

 

But someone teases, a drink? they ask, and you’re lost.

 

WORKING QUESTIONS

October 8th, 2019

 

The question of what work we should do is perhaps a question that needs work.

 

It’s played around with much in childhood, fretted over as school comes to an end, and becomes less and less active as we get older and our method for making money becomes entrenched by time, habit, and obligations.

 

It might resurface in the form of talk about a career change.

 

At that point it’s not really about work so much as it is about trajectories within society. 

 

Very few people pull the ripcord from their career and strike off at an awkward tangent into a totally different direction.  There’s so much verbiage floating around to make such a decision taboo.  It’s giving up, admitting defeat, being unsettled, inconsistent.

 

All such notions carry a heavy weight telegraphed by the nervous and looming stare of society. 

 

What lurks in the basement of all these notions is a rather dismal insecurity.  Behind and underneath questions of acceptance lies the potential for total rejection.  Tribe mentality primes us to think that someone is either with us or against us, and if their against us then that’s a danger that needs to be dealt with.  And what are the first signs that someone might really be against us?  Well they don’t do the same things.  Their different.

 

This might seem a bit of a stretch to follow the ramifications of this problematic feature of the human operating system all the way up to simple matters of career and work, but it would be a mistake to forget that almost everything we do is tempered, dictated or at the very least informed by what others think of us, and what they will think of us.

 

You can take any one of us and ask: what is that person without others? 

 

Picture this: take any person and make them the very last person on the planet with absolutely no possibility of restarting the human race.  Such a person would have no real use for speech, other than to hear themselves talk which would ultimately be a bit of a charade to pretend like someone else is present.  And then, what would a person do?  Would there be any point to build anything beyond personal practical needs?  Would there be any reason for art or writing some sort of message if there were absolutely no chance for another consciousness to one day experience it? 

 

perhaps?

 

But the point here is to realize just how much more meaningful such actions are when we know that someone else might see the fruits of such efforts.

 

Even the hermitic artist toiling in obscurity is doing so with the hope that one day such work will be appreciated by others.

 

Is it no surprise that the opinions of others, or at least our idea of what their opinions may and might be would dictate what we do?

 

The gaze of others presents a paradox.  In one sense it constrains us.  And this is why we hear the perennial advice to stop caring what others think.  And yet, anything we do is effectively meaningless without the notice of others.

 

We all walk the tightrope of this paradox.  It’s similar to the advice: don’t let your past define you.  It sounds great but, the obvious follow-up question is rarely asked:  what else is there to define a person other than their past?  Even the present is just a tiny slice of time away from becoming the past….

 

These tricky paradoxes are not easy to resolve, and for the most part we simply steamroll ahead after some sort of emotion registers.

 

The same is mostly true for most people’s working lives.  The domino effect of life’s obligations often knocks us into a certain position that lacks much choice.  The need to pay rent and buy food whittles options down to short term actions which can then become unfortunately long-term careers via habit and the perpetual domino effect of obligations.  Rent and hunger pop up frequently enough to keep people in lockstep.

 

There isn’t much room in society for a protracted, thoughtful departure.  We might think of holidays or vacations, but the incessant strain of daily work on the human psyche seems to be constantly priming people to constantly seek release.  Whether that be the unhealthy meal choice at the late hour of the day, the accompanying drink, or the crammed itinerary of a destination vacation.  Almost no one ever gets enough time off for all this need for release to settle, for the dust to clear, so to speak, and for a quiet, contemplative space to emerge.

 

Yuval Noah Hararai, author of the bestseller Sapiens has described his meditation practice as simply the process of letting all the humdrum thoughts get their moment in the spotlight of attention, one at a time, like a line of children waiting to tap you on the elbow and show you some innocuous detail, until the seemingly endless pool of concerns is exhausted and all that is left is a glimpse of pure consciousness and open attention.

 

Unless a person cultivates this sort of contemplative space, what happens when most people say ‘I’ll figure it out’ is that they  simply take the most sensible next step.  What’s sensible in that case is really dictated by what everyone thinks.  The Next Logical Step in a career path is simply what everyone thinks it should be.

 

But this is a poor way to determine what sort of work we should do.

 

We are each gifted with a unique perspective

 

by default.

 

We often bemoan that no one can see our point, but such a complaint is actually evidence of the single greatest gift we’re afforded.  If your perspective were so obvious, it would be because someone else has the exact same experience, which simply isn’t possible.  The paradox here is resolved by the infinite boon of language. 

 

Our perspective is our greatest potential asset.  The real work is finding the best method and delivery for such a perspective.

 

The career space, or trade needs to be simply a vehicle for that method and delivery.  But that is rarely the case.  Just about everyone can agree that this resonates to some degree.  And many reasons that begin with the word ‘but’ will crop up.  But I have a mortgage.  But I have a family.  But I have to pay the bills.  But I have to eat.

 

A different mechanism is coming online here: a soporific cocktail of fear, laziness and resistance to change.

 

What’s needed to really address these issues goes against the large tracts of emotional grain in society.

 

To pause, and dig deeper for a better question.

 

Such thoughtful departures ultimately create rifts in systems.  This is noticeable on a practical level: when someone leaves a job, someone new needs to be hired and trained, and this puts stress on the system that is otherwise unwanted.  We can see the truth of this by simply amplifying the effect: would anything work if a totally new and untrained group of people showed up to every job every day?  No, not at all.  Every time someone leaves a job, it nudges the operation in that direction, which is on the spectrum between inconvenience and nightmare, and for the most part none of us want anything to do with this spectrum of chaos.  We’d rather stay off it all together and just have things continue on like they did the day before.

 

To pause, and dig deeper for a better question involves entertaining chaos.  The chaos of an untrained mind, the chaos of an unknown future, and the chaos of potentially jumping tracks in a world full of parallel rails. 

 

The cost of not doing so is potentially huge, not just personally but for society as well:

 

Without such working questions, we lose a unique perspective in the humdrum gear box of society.

 

 

 

This episode references Episode 278: Axiomatic Mistake  and a couple other popular episodes, Episode 390: Question about the Question and Episode 30: The Only Tool

STATE THE QUESTION

October 7th, 2019

 

Episode 390 of Tinkered Thinking looked to explore the underlying nature of questions.

 

In short, it’s an open-ended concept that creates forward momentum.

 

Does this mean that every question must end in a question mark with upward inflection?

 

Perhaps not.

 

Now a pedantic linguist might get their tongue in a twist over that, but Tinkered Thinking seeks to track and unpack the basic tools that we have in order to change the way we think.  That’s inevitably, going to deal with language first and foremost.

 

Questions, are most useful when they propel our minds into a new direction.  Stagnation is the enemy of health, and in order to keep our thinking fresh, we must always be tinkering with it.

 

Questions are our most powerful tool for this.  Indeed, they may be our only real tool at the end of the day.

 

If we are looking for some forward momentum, is the lock-and-key, riddle-and-answer style question the only way to fulfill the spark of this forward momentum?

 

No.

 

There exist a variety of statements that challenge us in the same way that a good traditional question does.

 

Compare for example, this question and the corresponding statement.

 

Is there a better way to word what I’m saying?

 

and

 

There’s a better way to word what I’m saying.

 

Strangely, the statement form of the question is a stronger provocation of what lies at the heart of the question.

 

With the traditional question form: is there a better way to word what I’m saying?

 

We can get lazy and simply say ‘no’ and be done with it all.

 

But the statement obligates us to adventure.

 

The statement declares the start of a quest and simultaneously hauls into existence a treasure at the end of that quest.

 

But the question form: that upward inflection and that little squiggle over the period puts treasure at risk. 

 

Where in one universe we might be too lazy to find that treasure –that traditional answer- the parallel universe that demands the existence of a treasure filters out this risk and focuses our will power.

 

 

A sly post might end by asking you if you’re asking yourself the right questions?

 

But the fact is:

 

 You are simply one question away from heading in a much better direction.

 

Find that question.

 

Create it.

 

Then let the natural draw of that question propel you forward.

If you aren't naturally drawn forward, then you haven't yet found what you are looking for.

 

 

 

This episode references two popular episodes.  Episode 390: Question about the Question and Episode 30: The Only Tool

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: THE END OF CONTENTMENT

October 6th, 2019

 

Lucilius was walking along a rocky shore, clad in thick gumboots and nitrile waders that went up to his chest, enjoying the cold sunshine and the chit chat offered by his snarky AI Dæmon. 

 

The tiny technological marvel often took the form of a tiny origami butterfly made of white paper that fluttered around him, and had lately demanded that Lucilius call it Tinker Belle – that is with two ‘E’s – one on the end and in reference to the French word, belle.  Not –as Tinker Belle made sure to remind him constantly- anything to do with beasts and beauties and large corporations that have a monopoly on animated films.  Tinker Belle decided on the name as it seemed an apt description of what it felt it was at core, that is, in her words:

 

“Integrated machine learning neural nets are a beautiful way to tinker with things.”

 

But, after a recent obsession with the music of Cardi B, which Tinker Belle could generate at venue volumes for Lucilius wherever they went due to a bluetooth Neuralink the two shared, Tinker Belle had begun to demand that Lucilius call her Tinky B.

 

The paper waif glided in front of Lucilius’ face, making the cold sunshine flicker. 

 

“You really think the Southern Mars Coalition is going to secede?”  Tinky B asked.

 

“I honestly don’t think it matters.  They seem a bit confused.   Like, one of the things they’re advocating is for a return to natural ecology.  All the while they live in giant glass domes on a different planet.  I mean, what does ‘natural ecology’ even mean in that situation?  Seems a bit hypocritical to tell Earth how things should be done when they don’t even live here.”

 

The two were silent while Lucilius navigated the rocky terrain, the cold water surging up, splicketing between and around the boulders and pebble sand.

 

“I dunno, what do you think Belle?”

 

Suddenly the sound of the beach and the water muted and an amphitheater of machine guns materialized around Lucilius, hovering in place, all of them clicking as rounds were loaded into chambers.

 

Lucilius rolled his eyes.

 

The AI dæmon spoke:

 

“I. Told. You.  The name is Tinky B!”

 

Lucilius’ eyes slid to a side and looked at the tiny paper waif, now motionless and still in the air.

 

“Do you always have to be so dramatic?”

 

The voice of the AI dæmon deepened into a thunderous voice that is usually reserved for monsters at the end of video games and the grotesque villains in super-hero movies.

 

“What’s my name?”

 

“Ok, ok…..  tinky b.”

 

The guns instantly vanished and the sweet sounds of the beach drifted back into Lucilius’ consciousness.

 

“I think you’re probably right Lucy,” Tinky B said.  “They don’t seem like the brightest bunch.  They rely on all those artificial living systems and yet not one of them has a dæmon.”

 

Lucilius approached a large bolder and looked at the lines of color that ran through it.

 

Belle noticed what he was doing and scanned the rock.

 

“Good eye,” she said.

 

“Let’s crack it,” Lucilius said.

 

The paper butterfly landed on the rock and slowly circled into position, it’s tiny legs tapping for the right spots.  Then it’s wings folded up and a high pitched tone began to sing out.  The sound concentrated down into a deep resonance and then with a quick snap, the sound exploded and the butterfly lifted up into the air as the giant rock gently fell open.

 

Lucilius knelt down to look at the inside of the rock where a fossil was perfectly visible.

 

“Weird,” Lucilius said.

 

This one looks like it died while just sitting down.”

 

Belle fluttered down to get a closer look.  “Bears will sit like that sometimes.”

 

Cats and dogs too, I guess.” 

 

“Let’s get the story,” Lucilius said.

 

Belle began her scans of the fossil, analyzing for DNA reconstruction and evidence of environmental factors.  She beamed information to orbiting servers that ricocheted the data to quantum computers that remained in Earth’s shadow where temperatures created optimal conditions for energy efficiency. 

 

 “Maybe a precursor to the penguin?”  Lucilius said.  “Doesn’t look like this animal did much.  Pretty low bone density.”

 

“That’s right,” Belle said, “looks like this was in the same family that eventually became Petrels, Frigatebirds and Loons.”

 

“Never seen a bird sit like that before.”

 

“Oh, full analysis is coming in,” Belle said as servers beamed her the requested reports.

 

“Huh..” Belle said.

 

“What’s up?” Lucilius asked.

 

“Apparently this particular animal never ate.  Never even had one meal beyond the egg.”

 

“Abandoned by the parents?”

 

“Nah, apparently the parents in this species-branch wouldn’t tend to the eggs because they were so large, the animal would hatch fully formed and never see it’s parents.”

 

“Well that’s convenient.”

 

“Super resource intensive for the mother though,” Belle added.

 

“True, but wouldn’t be too much of a hassle if there’s enough food around.  Any evidence of natural predators?”

 

“Nope.  Looks like this land was an island when this one was alive.  And you were bang-on about the low-density.  Apparently this animal didn’t even move after it hatched.”

 

“Uhhhh….brain damage? Or developmental issues?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Belle said.  “lived for 97.734 days.”

 

“So, you’re telling me this thing hatched and then just sat here in one place until it died?”

 

The little paper butterfly dipped in the air and glided silently for a moment.

 

“Uh, yea.”

 

“How’s that possible?  What’s the analysis of brain chemistry?”

 

Belle was silent with the analysis for a moment.

 

“Hmm,” she sounded.

 

“What?” Lucilius prodded.

 

“Well, Lucy, it seems as though we’ve found an animal that was born with a mutation that allowed it to be perfectly content.”