Category Archives: Identity

Trust, In the Long Run

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I never know what to make of new people. I’ll usually just watch them making themselves. It says more. They can say or do anything, whether it is true or not. Time makes everyone honest, eventually.

It’s often said that you know a good, honest person by their actions when their back is up against the wall. There is some truth in that. But even more truth can be found in someone’s actions when they are utterly embarrassed or humiliated. People avoid this, more than anything.

I’ve spent my whole life asking questions, even the most intimate and penetrating, as all of you who know me can attest. I do it to gain further insight into people and myself. It is also, inevitably, a test of character. I think I live up to my end. It is, perhaps, not entirely fair to expect others to. And I don’t. After a while, the questions aren’t even important. It is everything around them that tell the truer story.

Ask a guy how often he plays with himself. If he answers seriously, “I don’t, I’ve got a girlfriend” or “I just get laid”, you know he’s propping up his insecurity with some notion of “manhood” he holds important, and is willing to lie instead of feeling even insecure. If he answers, “none of your business,” you know that he has some rigid boundaries to watch out for. If he answers, “as much as possible,” you know there is much more likely a true, confident and solid person there.

In other words, going for the throat, or the root, so to speak, can be an efficient and accurate means to divine the more fundamental character of another, at least in part. I have no idea how Obama would answer that question, but imagining it has lead to a wide variety of scenarios. But it is not a question for the public sphere, yet, I suppose. And when it is, it will have lost its efficacy.

A few days ago, someone left some comments on an article I wrote a few years ago about Andy, Mark and marriage in Canada, and even moreso, about the decisions we make in life that effect us through time. This is what he had to say:

“fags. a bunch fucking asseating,cocksucking fags. hope you get aids faggot motherfuckers.”

I ask you, do you think he plays with himself? How would he answer that question?

People do not have such strong emotions unless something very personal is involved. This presents interesting problems for we people, who are mostly bisexual to one degree or another, who live in a society strongly slanted against same-sex love, despite our conceit of some “modern” acceptance. This acceptance exists only barely in our larger society, and sadly, rarely for any individual who ever finds themselves attracted to someone of the same sex.

This certainly leads to a lot of self-loathing, which can manifest in many bizarre and seemingly unrelated ways. But for the bisexual, it’s not always so difficult just choosing the path of being “straight”. What is important to remember, that such things are a choice. In other words, you cannot be straight simply by saying that you are, or even trying to believe it. That’s a good thing to keep in mind when you head to the voting polls. Some things are choices, and some things are not. Who we are capable of loving is not a choice. It just is. And it is the most wonderful thing we can ever hope to experience. And any time that love becomes more, and stronger in the world, we should help it to grow. We all need that.

So if you hear someone talking like this, I suppose it’s okay to get angry. My reaction is more akin to pity, because something within them is truly eating them up. I would try to help, based upon who they were. If that took anger, they would have it. If it took patience and persistence, they would have that. I would want to help, and not for myself either.

So the next time a guy tells you that they cannot tell if other guys are good looking or not, because they like girls, feel sorry them — try to help. Nobody is so insanely straight that they become blind to the aesthetic of half the world’s population. They become blind only as a means, and this is a confessional. If confronted with this fact, their next position is to admit, well, of course the can tell, but they’re not sexually attracted to men. It’s a hot spot, again, so to speak.

Sex is a very strong motive power for us, especially in men. Sparta harnessed this to create one of the world’s greatest armies. But when self-loathing is involved, any attraction can turn to aggression and even the machismo camaraderie of war.

Honesty is a rare quality. Even when brutal, it always leads to greater things. Imagine the trust you might place in another person, entering into a relationship with them, in love, or even in business. If they are willing to lie, rather than feel any degree of embarrassment or humiliation, how likely do you think it is that they would lie to you about selling you out for their own benefit, in one way or another, which is itself, a humiliating and embarrassing thing to do, and confess?

I suppose it might be like a little cache box of personal treasures that we keep hidden, for only our own eyes. Because if we reveal them, we are no longer special. We are no longer what we want to be, or wish we were. We become, only and simply, who we are. And we do not realize, that is where our true magnifisence begins.

Justin, you might be surprised to hear me say this, but you are the “straightest” guy I know, out of all these years, and all these people. Even considering that bizarre Swedish biker fantasy you shared with me. This isn’t a prize. Nor is it a curse. It’s just been a while since I told you that I love you, and I miss you, and in particular your clear, refreshing and utter honesty in all things, that even overwhelms me sometimes. Maybe it is a prize, if I had one to give, that could ever match that.

So here is hoping that should change come, that its foundation is rooted in the truth of all our vulnerabilities and our worth. May our separateness change directions. And our inadequacies find people that can fill them. May we no longer fear, and even have the reason.

And What Might You Be, Crazy Creature?

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Jake in the WheelbarrowI’ve never told him to do this. One day he just decided that he liked being in wheelbarrows. I accept such things, without understanding them. Maybe he feels he is a clever dog and wishes to demonstrate just how so. I think it’s not so grand, though. My suspicion is, being in a wheelbarrow is just another strange thing of many that he likes.

Right now the yard is covered in thick snow. It is a world he has never known. When he goes outside, he runs, back and forth wildly, in leaps to keep his chest above the snow. Then he stops, bends forward, pushing his head deep into the white powder, and does a somersault, flopping onto his back, then kicking himself around in circles. Then he stops, jumping up completely still and alert, looks quickly from side to side, then rolls onto his back again, rolling and kicking snow into the air while snorting. Again, I don’t know why. I tell him that he’s crazy, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

He also has obsessions, namely tennis balls. Always, he carries at least one around with him. He even drops one into his bowl as he eats, apparently because it’s all good. He can hold them between his paws, while he’s laying down, his stubby claws looking more like fingers, wrapping around the little ball. He even rests his paws on them, slowing rolling them around under his touch.

Jake holds the ballWhenever I come upstairs from down, there is at least one tennis ball on the steps, waiting for me. I am expected to bring it to him. When I stand near the bottom of the steps, doing dishes or making coffee, I almost always hear a thwunk, thwunk, thwunk as a ball slowly bounces down the steps. Looking up, he’s laying at the top of the stair with his paws hanging over, staring down at me with a big grin, waiting for me to throw the ball back up to him. It’s irresistible. I throw it up to him, where he catches it, chews it for a moment, then sets it on the ground between his paws. Moments later, he hits it with the top of his nose, sending it bouncing back down the steps to me, with that silly grin.

There is existence and awareness in that creature, that is not illusion, I have no doubt. There is a soul, as certainly as we might have one. This is beyond most forms of Christianity, and many other religions as well. In this, at least, those religions are wrong. And so are people who believe cats can even compare.

He has a darker side as well, manifest through pathological jealousy. Any other dog who dares comes near to say hello, he intercepts, and shoves firmly away, but in the friendliest of ways. He is the only one that will have our affection.

There is even self-sacrifice. Hating riding in the car, he lays down stiff and motionless in the back seat, completely unresponsive. It isn’t terror or sickness. It’s more like the ultimate in “grin and bear it”. So why, you might ask, is he forced to ride in the car? And the answer would be, he isn’t. He insists on going because it’s a much better alternative than you leaving without him.

I think it is likely, in his dog brain, that he has no awareness differentiating himself from humans. Laying down next to him to pet his head, you will find his paw on your own head, which is not always pleasant, when claws are loving torn down your cheek.  Nor always, your arm held firmly between his jaws when he is exceedingly happy about something. He has learned to curb his enthusiasm, to a degree, but not enough, by intent, to squelch his personality.

Jake a little downSometimes he needs to be reminded, not of his status, but of his limitations; those sometimes arbitrary-seeming rules of conduct. For example, the table is not his place to eat. The counter tops are sacred places, with strange and wondrous things to smell and eat, but never to trespass upon. And all of this is accomplished through the two soul-crushing sounds for which everything must stop. “No!” “Bad!”

Happily for him, almost everything else is good. It is a peculiar and simple life, almost always coming back to tennis balls. There are times when he brings two or three in his mouth to you, laying them in your lap, wide-eyed and waiting for you to throw them. But other times, when you might be in the mood to play, he will hide them from you. And still others, he will hoard them between his paws, in an iron grip. He prefers sharing the tennis balls on his own terms.

But, being smarter than he, I have discovered ways to circumvent his particularities. I keep a spare ball, all my own, out of his sight. One bounce of that ball, anywhere in the house, and he will completely forget about any balls of his own. One bounce, knowing that another ball exists that is not his, and he will fixate, absolutely, on making it his own. It does not matter that he already had two or three balls. If you have one, he must have it. I have learned to exploit that laser-sighted greed to swoop in and steal the balls he left unguarded. He knows this trick by now. I can see it in his face, when he hears me bounce that ball, out of his sight. He knows I will end up with his, and hesitates. But another bounce will drive him over the top, where he simply must have it. And then I’ve won.

But other times he will just bring a mouthful of balls to you, laying them in your lap. Or sometimes he spreads them out on the floor in front his face, where he lays with his chin on the ground, staring at you until you come take them to play. If you stand near them, he will spring to his feet, crouched in a serious four-legged kung fu pose, completely motionless, waiting to catch the ball with his paws if you happen to kick one instead of picking it up.

It is far more interesting when a relationship is not domineering. Personalities blossom, in unexpected ways.

Here, the Fourth of July is very loud, with fireworks shooting up into the sky in any direction you look, with the occasional bright white flash of some deafening explosion. Jake loves the Fourth of July. He is the only dog I’ve known to love it. He runs out across the yard, barking at the lights and sounds, in a happy, not at all anxious way. And when he is hot from running, like the rest of the summer, he will lay in his little plastic swimming pool of water, rolling around in near ecstasy.

After balls, water is his second love. Even though he cannot sink his teeth into it, he tries. When you pick up the hose, he runs toward you, expecting to be squirted. He requires it. You cannot expect to use water from the hose without this dog finding a way to get in it. Even strong jets of icy water he will lay down in, as if it is the most nonintoxicating and pleasant massage.  Short bursts he will bite at, trying to catch, or bat at with his paws. He is a strange dog.

Did I mention he does yoga? He loves to stretch, and loves help stretching further. Maybe this is how he can so easily leap into the wheelbarrow with such balance. Perhaps that is why his paws are more like hands. Certainly his flexibility, strength and precision set him apart from most other dogs. Perhaps this is just the pride of a parent.

Jake's imp grinFor my part, I have never thought of Jake as a dog. Well, consciously you must. But I give him the benefit of more. Actually, I try to do that with all dogs. And yes, even cats. Well, after that initial period of ignoring them completely until they put themselves at a disadvantage by making the first gesture of friendship. But where they might walk away, I’ll listen. Even though it’s questionable they deserve it, after such games. But not all dogs, do I think of, as more than dogs. Their characters can be radically shaped by we humans. To me, that is a nearly overwhelming consideration. But it is not, for all humans.

It is a peculiar thing, the spirit of an animal. And peculiar even ourselves, when we have such power over it, what we choose to exert in that dominion. It is something telling, as all acts, and all inactions, are confessions of ourselves.

I can say he is a bad dog. Or a good dog. And I determine all boundaries and structures of his world. But I forfeit that power, as much as I can. Instead, I choose to be one creature to another with him. Perhaps this is how he can be something more – how he can be such a strange and wonderful dog.

In a large way, this is because of my dad, by his example, or the voodoo that seeps in through the alchemy of families. It is a realization that gives me pause. Because, if I must admit many things, it gives me, perhaps, just a glimpse, of my own wheelbarrow.

You might be seeing me, standing in it now, from your perspective that encapsulates such creatures. But I can talk. And were I to, I would tell you, I am not feeling particularly clever. I like the wheelbarrow. It’s a little above the ground and it’s fun to balance. Even when I get scolded. Or laughed at. I mean, look at this, standing in the wheelbarrow. You glorious little lunatic! Yes, you.

And so we know, there are people who say, treating your dog as an equal is a bad thing. They say, they need the discipline, hierarchy and rule of the pack. They are happier that way. Well, it isn’t true. They need excrutiatingly honest and sincere interaction with you. That’s all. And yes, that is a far taller order.

Ooo – Make It Stop…

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You must do things that you normally would not. Particularly if you have never done them before. If you are the slightest bit curious, that is, or think that you should. Or feel that you must.

I’m not going to say why. Just do it. If it doesn’t harm anyone. Take a peek behind those corners, inside those dark closets and basements, and under those stones. Stick your toe in. Take a leap. You just have to.

I did something completely out of character a couple nights ago. Something that I never do. Well, that I haven’t done for a very, very long time. I felt like I should, but I didn’t really want to. Even the thought of it made me feel awkward and uncertain. But strangely, that awkwardness began to bother me in other ways: it should not feel awkward, nor should it make me feel uncertain. And that’s what convinced me over the hump. I decided to do it. I was going to pray.

I know! But I’m telling you, you have to be able to take your own advice. Do something crazy. I told Jeff’s aunt, who seems like this sweet, wonderful lady, that I would pray her hip replacement surgery would go well. It seemed a nice and innocuous thing to do. But it wasn’t long before I wanted to back out of that promise.

But how could I? Backing out of something like that is like killing a butterfly, just to be mean. Not that I would know. Then I thought, well, while I’m it, I guess I’ll throw in some bigger ticket items, like including soldiers and civilians in the prayer, too. It couldn’t hurt, and would give me more bang for the buck.

And as that night wore on, the impending bizarre event loomed heavier and heavier on the near horizon. Why was it was such a big deal? It irritated me that it was a big deal. Was it irrational, being so bothered by something so benign? Was it my rationality that was offended, eliciting an emotional response of dread? That didn’t even make sense. Sure, rationality ought to be dispassionate, but even when it’s not, getting dread from something like having to pray just didn’t make sense. After all, this was simply a task that needed doing. Cut and dried. Matter of fact. But for some reason, it was HUGE. This made no sense.

Eventually it was time. Lights out, cell phone positioned, I took off my clothes and climbed into bed. Eyes closed. Laying on my back. Darkness. Ok. Here we go…

Now, simultaneously and contradictorily, in both hubris and jest, which you Psychologically dominated people are welcome to erroneously interpret as false modesty, I say that a lesser man would have just played with himself and gone to sleep. Nobody would be the wiser, if I just skipped out on this praying thing. Sure, I might have to answer to someone asking questions, but it would be a minor lie. Laying there, considering, I was on the verge of doing just that. But somehow, it sucked me in. I had to do it. I was going to pray. It was just too weird. I had to.

Ok. Wriggle, wriggle. Eyes closed. Dark. Silence.

I become very aware of the Earth at times like this, and our movement through everything out toward the stars — at least in my imagination.

Ok. Pray. Ok… Umm… Ok. Uh… who do I talk to? Where? Do I just think words, or do I speak into the darkness? Ok. I don’t need to speak. Thinking the words would be better. I’m sure he’s psychic. Well, he or she. Or whatever.

But words are so narrow. God has to be way larger than that. I can send him whole big landscapes of thought, instead of just narrow little words. I just can open up everything I am, and broadcast it out there, like an Arecibo made of meat and electricity. I wonder if satellites can pick it up? Damn freaks who go into the military to be voyeurs. Then again, people just broadcast themselves on webcams…

Ok. Wait. A prayer. It’s simple. Just pray for the hip. And not to the Hindu pantheon either, because she’s Christian. Those Hindu gods wouldn’t care about her hip. But why not? But maybe I could be just kinda Hindu-ish and unite with the vibrational energy that permeates the universe and make it flow into her hip toward the future when she’d be in the hospital. Gads, but it might short out the operating room equipment.

Damnit. God. Pray to God. Ok. God. Big guy. Yup. Ok. “Um, hi God,” I thought at Him.

Oh, how stupid is that? The creator of all existence, at all scales, both huge and subatomic and vast, and all the crazy intricacies, and I’m going, “duh. Hi God.” I mean, I can’t just outright talk to him, right? I guess he could have invented English, and speaks it. Or he’s like connected into everything, and I don’t even have to talk, because he knows it all, and made it all.

Damn. Hmm. Well, maybe I can just lay here, and be cosmically connected to him, and he’ll know about the prayer. Yeah. Ok. Deep breath. Focus. God blob. God blob… ok.. like all over the place and around, everywhere. Christ, how do I tell something so huge to make some person’s hip be ok? I mean, if the hip is bad, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? How arrogant of me to try changing that plan. Or maybe he likes bad things until we beg him to make them good. That’s not very nice. Yeah, that whole problem of Evil existing so prominently. And those weak arguments about free will being the reason for it. Bah!

Man, but that lady’s hip. She seemed so sweet and nice. They’re going to have to slice into her, shatter her hip into pieces, dig it out, and put some synthetic bones back in her. That sucks. I bet lots of people end up going through that. All kinds of nasty, terrible stuff as you get older. And even those soldiers. I wonder how many of those young guys had to get their hips replaced cuz they got blown up? Lucky to be alive I suppose. So many bodies and lives, really. Strangers. I wonder what their stories were like? Never will know now, I guess. Silly young humans. Killing people. Getting killed. With all the conceits and vulnerabilities you see, in same people out here, walking around at a market. People that can kill people. Or get their own bodies ripped open by others.

And it wasn’t long before I found myself lying there, in the Dark, and in the Silence, amazed at all the images and feelings moving through me. I told myself, I’m not there with any of those people — I don’t know know any of them. It doesn’t matter. And it became even more proundly sad. And I found myself wanting, more than anything, for them all to be better. For them to be lifted out of that. To be free.

Stupid prayers. It wasn’t even a prayer. Well, maybe. I don’t know. But I was done. It was no different from, during every day, when you stop all the silliness around you, just to absorb in the world – to let your existence touch you, how it will. Or the existences of others. I don’t want that burden lifted. I need to feel that weight. I need to work to lessen that burden, and not just for myself.

Maybe that’s something God told me, in his language. I wouldn’t presume. Maybe when you pray, you’re not supposed to talk, or ask for things. Maybe you’re supposed to just open up and listen. Maybe our whole lives are supposed to be one, ever-present prayer. Maybe that’s why I felt so awkward, going to ask for something.

I wonder what people ask for, in their prayers. Or if they even pray, just to pray. Just to listen.

I guess I don’t know how to pray any more. Or I can’t. I tried, though. And I heard something really huge. And I am still really, really sad.

My Head, the Universe – Is It All Good?

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That last piece on the nature of consciousness provoked some interesting responses. It makes me wonder why the philosophy departments are always so small. Probably because we feel more comfortable being error-prone lunatics, like unfastening the top button on the jeans after a big meal. I wonder what that says about people who always wear sweats?

Here’s a reminder, too. I was criminally negligent in supporting the positions for those three main views of consciousness in the last piece, Am I Alive? I am working under the assumption there is a reason philosophy departments are small. Very intricate and in-depth discussions for each of those positions exist, and are easily accessible if you have an interest in the detail. Even more importantly, distilling those arguments into quick examples lets me be lazy, too.

In addition to being told definitively what consciousness actually was, I was also pointed to a fascinating project within IBM’s Cognitive Computing group. This project just received $5 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the same agency that funded the creation of the Internet, and many other incredible (and dubious) things.

The award funds IBM’s proposal, “Cognitive Computing via Synaptronics and Supercomputing (C2S2)”, which will be the first step in fulfilling DARPA’s “Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE)” initiative. Another company, HRL Laboratories, which is owned by Boeing and General Motors received three times this amount. HRL Laboratories is also involved in DARPA’s Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System, and their Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program, which wants to revolutionize urban combat using three-dimensional object recognition.

Anyway, IBM has built a rat brain. Well, not really. They’re simulating one on a supercomputer. Neural networks were long considered the most promising path toward simulating cognitive functions with computational devices. That approach focuses upon the role of neurons in the brain. However, neurons actually account for a very small fraction of the brain’s circuitry. Most of the circuitry are synapses, which connect the neurons together. Many synapses are connected to a single neuron. In fact, IBM’s rat brain has 55 million neurons and 442 billion synapses. That’s pretty much the same as a real rat brain. In comparison, a human cortex has around 22 billion neurons and 176 trillion synapses.

The IBM rat brain is somewhat larger than a rat, though. Their rat brain requires a 32,768 processor supercomputer with 8 trillion bytes of memory. It consumes more energy than 1,000 typical households. That is one fat rat.

And alas, it will probably never be on par with a real rat. Real rat brains, like our own, operate asynchronously, with variable timing (frequencies) and ooze chemicals as well as electricity. Being biological, they are also adaptable and fault tolerant. And most importantly, memory is not so separate from the processing. Traditional computers always keep memory separate from the processor. Then again, rat brains don’t run Linux.

But the IBM folks are well aware of their limitations. This is an incubation project. Cognitive Computing differs significantly from traditional artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence identifies problems, then comes up with ways to address those problems programmatically. On the other hand, cognitive computing does the engineering first (by reverse-engineering the brain) and worries about the more programmatic problems later.

The supercomputer is used only as a simulation. The intention is to build chips and electronics with a similar structure like a brain. They then plan to ram it full of sensory input from sensors all over the world, to create a “world brain”. I tell ya, these military guys are crazy. The idea is actually to overload this brain with sensory input. Part of me is suspicious, thinking these guys are hoping to create a physical structure modeled after a brain, and then by flooding it with sensory data, it might just burst into life with some ability to perform cognitive functions on that data. Or maybe even come alive… No, they would never say that.

What they do not intend to create is an actual rat brain, or human brain. At least that’s what they are saying. But you know mad scientists, particularly when they’re working for the military. They want to create computers that can get closer to the efficiency and power of biological brains, and this is, to them, in large part a structural issue.

What is interesting, philosophically, is suppose they do create a synthetic human brain. Would any mind, or consciousness, that arose from this brain also be synthetic? Or, for that matter, what exactly does synthetic mean? If souls exist, what is mind without a soul? If mind, or consciousness, is simply an illusion, is there anything wrong with just shutting it off and dismantling it, after we turn it on? Or if consciousness is only an illusion, is there anything wrong with just “turning off” a person’s mind?

Before we can deal with any of these questions we must define, if only in very broad terms, a nature of consciousness. Consciousness is something more than illusion. It may be an aggregate of biochemical processes, or it may be something related more closely to a notion of spirit. But to say that consciousness, which we all seem to experience, is merely illusion is to side step, in the name of convenience, the very basis of our ability to reason and perform science. Consciousness must exist or there is no context in which we might ask questions, formulate answers, be curious about matters, or feel anything at all. If consciousness is illusion, what is being tricked, if not consciousness itself? Consciousness precedes itself, when examining itself.

However, to say that consciousness exists is not to say that spirit exists. It may very well be that consciousness cannot exist independently of some physical substance. It is to say, however, that consciousness currently appears to be a more abstract quality than something wholly physical. That is, though consciousness may be dependent upon the physical, consciousness itself may not physical, any more than the processes of mathematics is physical. In fact, it is metaphysical (devoid of the pedestrian connotations).

I cannot touch my consciousness, or the consciousness of another person, nor can I smell it, see it, or measure it. This is does mean that consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness must exist before I carry out any processes of science. In order for me to see, taste, smell or feel, or on higher orders, evaluate, determine and hypothesize, I must have a consciousness. Whether or not this consciousness is dependent upon the physical, I am stuck with its necessity. Even though considering the consciousness illusory may help win some arguments, the problems created by such a proposition far outweigh any gains. Consciousness does exist and it is something metaphysical. It might even remain metaphysical, even if the bridging problem between physical, biochemical processes and the manifestation of consciousness are eventually solved.

This admission should not, in any way, fly in the face of science. Many abstract, not altogether tangible things exist that are, for some reason, wholly accepted by science. One of these things is mathematics. Another is the laws of physics themselves. Scientists have no problem accepting that some abstract laws exist that somehow determine the behaviour of everything physical. The question here is, what holds these laws? Why is there an electromagnetically negative charge and a positive charge, and only those two? What determines the probabilities associated with quantum mechanics? In science’s inference of multiple universes, where even the laws of physics can be utterly different in different universes, how are those laws of physics imprinted into that particular nature of reality? Perhaps consciousness is something abstractly structural like this. But it is abstract, similarly, beyond any given physical system. But again, that is not to say that it is not dependent upon a given physical system.

And now to the meat of things, the reason for this piece, which continues after the last one that left us questioning whether consciousness even exists, as most of us assume it must. For if we are questioning the epistemology of consciousness itself, where does that leave us when we consider other people, or other beings, or things, besides ourself? If we question the very possibility of consciousness, what possible hope is there for any sense of ethics or morality – of right or wrong?

First, I want to distinguish between ethics and morality. Here, ethics will mean something we can think about and discuss to reach conclusions. Morality will mean something that we learn through tradition, or are told. This being said, morality will be left out of the discussion altogether. This is done in the interest of expediency, since morality does not lend itself well to any reasonable discussion. Its basis sits in absolute notions that are generally entrenched and immobile. I leave it for people to shout about on the back porch between beer drinking and farts, until they reach their conclusions through a wrestling match, or a bloody club.

If a scientist or philosopher is of the ilk to question the existence of actual consciousness, it is altogether likely they are also of the ilk to question the existence of a basis for any ethics, let alone good or evil.

When you consider consciousness an illusion it is very difficult to reasonably consider ethics. Ethics seems intrinsically oriented toward life, and becomes more relevant the higher you go up on the complexity of life scale. If there is no consciousness, any notion of a higher order of life scale is arbitrary at best. Would you consider applying ethics to the way a physical cluster operates as individual components? How can mechanical operations be ethical or unethical if no consciousness guides them? Without consciousness, things function as they do. Ethics is replaced by gross domination through a preponderance of purpose, or just simply strength.

However, since we can more sanely say that consciousness is something more than illusion, we can also find a place for ethics. Perhaps not for good and evil, but ethics, most certainly. Here the question becomes, is there such a thing as right and wrong, or good and bad, that exists, similar to consciousness, or the laws of physics, in its own true abstraction? Stay with me scientists…

The question of ethics is a very old one; ancient even. Right now we are looking at these questions of ethics and consciousness, framed by a backdrop of new technologies, during a period increasingly dominated by scientific thinking. It is important to keep in mind that rational thinking is timeless, though not all rational positions remain rational over time. The questions of ethics are richly discussed in texts throughout many centuries, distinct from religion. My one selection here, for your consideration is this:

Let’s say that a dog exists. It’s a good dog, but occasionally bad, as dogs are. There is plenty of food for the dog, and the dog will not harm its environment. It will not overly reproduce. In fact, let’s assume there are no ill effects whatsoever from this dog existing, and there never will be. The question is, is it better that the dog lives or dies?

You would be an unusual person indeed if you claim the dog ought to die, when there are no bad effects from it living. If you just hate dogs, substitute a cat, or a monkey, or better yet, yourself. Particularly when you substitute yourself, even saying that it makes no difference whether you live or die rings a little untrue. Most people would agree that, all things being equal, it is better the dog, or you, should live, rather than die. But what makes it better? This is certainly not something purely mechanical.

Interestingly, you can take this even further back, to address concerns about the origin of the universe. Why does the universe exist? Why did it come into being? Well, is it better that the universe came into being, than if it did not? This is the exact line of reasoning early philosophers used to posit the existence of an ethical universe. Personally, I have a hard time accepting that the universe sprang into being because it was supposed to, along with all its physical laws. Nevertheless, there is something to be said about a natural state of ethics, alongside our conscious determination and use of the natural laws of nature.

It will be interesting, if we manage to create a synthetic, or even “real” consciousness – will that consciousness have a similar sense of the inherently ethical? Will it know that being alive is better than being dead? Will it know that promoting non-truths is bad? Or does it require emotion for such determinations? Does consciousness itself require emotion?

But I think the important thing for us to realize is that science and rational thinking does not require us to throw out any value we place upon life, nor to give up on what we know to be ethical choices. Science is still entrenched in its long war against the domination of religious thought. Unfortunately, it runs the risk of creating a narrow dominion of thought all its own, in the process. If we are to have truly open minds, our thoughts and perspectives must be willing to travel beyond their comfortable and familiar contexts, if only just to take a quick peek.

For all the dogma and doctrine out there, the important thing is that we are all alive, participating in, and affected by what each of us embrace, promote, or even just participate within. Life has intrinsic value that is greater than any equation or any religion. Life’s value is greater than any system of government, economy or social tradition.

It is a quality of life that it must grow. Consciousness must grow. However, reductionism and normalization should only be considered a fertilizer for the soil, and not the cage. Otherwise, we run the risk of scientific oppression that would make religious oppression pale in comparison.

Am I Alive?

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Here is a simple question. Is your consciousness solely a by-product of biochemical processes?

In other words, is your awareness of the world and who you are, simply a condition of electrical and chemical interactions between cells?

This is a very simple question. It’s the simple answer that reveals enormous problems. Yes, or no.

My consciousness is considering the ramifications of either answer right now. Don’t mind me. It’s just some chemicals sloshing about. But consider – the answer, yes or no, is important. If known with certainty, the answer to this simple question would topple many fundamental assumptions we currently entertain. Either way it goes. And most of these fundamental assumptions we do not consider. In grossly simplistic terms, do we have a spirit? What does it mean to be conscious?

If our consciousness is a by-product of chemical interactions, there are few compelling reasons that we should also have a spirit. If I feel joy as a result of something I hear, it’s just chemicals flowing around in one area, which trigger a blob of chemicals in another area which creates a “sensation” (whatever that is) of joy, which in turn triggers more blobs of chemicals in another place which may bring back memories to my consciousness of similar joyful things, in whatever region of the mass of neurons in which the consciousness actually manifests.

However, if our consciousness is spiritual in nature, how do we explain the oftentimes profound alteration of our conscious state through brain injury, biological diseases, or chemical alterations? If we have a spirit, how can our personalities be so radically altered by physical changes to a materialistic brain?

These issues may seem purely academic, with little importance in our daily lives. But the issue is significant. Both science and religion exert tremendous force upon our lives. When considering the nature of consciousness, each “team” plays by a completely different rule book, and their game effects us all both directly and profoundly.

For example, brain drugs are now prescribed to people of all ages, even children, with alarming frequency. These drugs represent a major portion of pharmaceutical profits. They are backed by science and the belief that consciousness is, at least, in large part a materialistic process. But if we believe our consciousness is purely biochemical, why not throw chemicals at our biology? Doing so, we can alter our state of mind to happily accommodate any feelings or perceptions we have of the world, or ourselves. We can alter our consciousness to be content with any stimulus or situation. In essence, we can engineer a paradise for ourselves that is completely independent of anyone or anything in the external world. If we are simply biochemical, why not have this bliss?

Well, for one, the people handing out the drugs could get away with murder. But so what? Isn’t some notion of morality and ethics dangerously close to spiritual considerations? I admit there are possible reasons why not, that do not require us to have a spirit. For example, if we all were engineered happy and content regardless of our environment, we might find ourselves soon extinct as a species. Why does it matter that a plague kills everyone? We are happy. Perhaps there is some biologically hard-coded imperative for survival. If we have engineered ourselves into happiness, have we engineered out this imperative? This could be a valid reason to avoid engineering our biochemical consciousness that is not dependent upon having a spirit.

But even this raises a question toward the spiritual. Is our biological imperative toward survival an imperative for only our own survival, and not necessarily the survival of other people? It would seem so. If many other people were to die, there is less competition for food, for mates, and less chance that I will be killed by someone else. Though rational, this is not how most people think. For some reason we find it important that other people should live, instead of die, even when they are not part of our “pack”. Perhaps we feel this way because mirror neurons in our brain somehow allow our consciousness, whatever that is, to place ourselves in the position of others. And because we can imagine ourselves in another person’s shoes, we choose to want them to live, rather than die. Of course, this argument skips the whole problem that we simultaneously know that we are not that person, yet still choose that they should live. That argument relies upon us having, at minimum, empathy. Who knows what combination of cell types and chemicals would cause our consciousness, in whatever grouping of cells it lives, to experience empathy. But maybe empathy isn’t a feeling. Maybe it’s a purely mathematical phenomenon.

One of the largest problems science faces when trying to explain consciousness is providing an account for consciousness in the first place. Is consciousness inside our brain? Where is it? Does it simply manifest itself somehow as a combination of all biochemical processes which occur in the brain? Would our consciousness exist if we had no body, other than a brain, nor external senses? You see, it is one thing for us to affect consciousness in some physical way, but it is quite another to actually pin it down.

The prevailing wisdom of science says that consciousness does not exist, in and of itself, but is rather an illusory result of electrical and biochemical processes that occur within the brain. What we consider our self, or our consciousness, is really an illusion. Our consciousness is just a systematic and recursive material, or mechanical, process that results in some meta-state that we imagine we experience, which we call consciousness. But really, this consciousness is nothing more than a plethora of mechanical processes occurring, which give us the illusion.

To some, believing this explanation turns us into little more than zombies who wander about doing our mechanistic things. You might appear conscious to me, but really you are a mass of predictable mechanics. I must confess there are times when this seems true. But is it the whole picture?

In the West we have a long history of separating the mind from the body. Our thoughts, and therefore our ability to reason, are dependent upon our ability to sense and observe the world. Our mind, which most agree is the seat of our consciousness, is dependent upon our body to provide the sensory input we use to consider the questions of science, and even questions of our own consciousness.

One of the first questions we must ask is, why would this mechanical process have a curiosity about its own consciousness? Is it another biological imperative related to survival that has trickled up over centuries of evolution, that makes us curious in growingly abstract ways, as our brain power develops? I wonder, also, at what point during our evolution, did consciousness, or our illusion of it, spring into being? Are dogs and cats conscious? It is evident to me that they do, at least, have something equivalent to mirror neurons. Or are they just different models of a machine?

But if we believe that consciousness is an illusion, then what, exactly, is being tricked? Is it an illusion that fools itself?

Something rationally critical breaks when we say that consciousness is an illusion that rises up from materialistic processes. But we can fix that. If we say that consciousness does, in fact, exist, and that it is not an illusion, but is solely dependent upon materialistic biochemical processes in the brain — that works. In this sense, consciousness really does exist, but not without our physical gray matter.

This seems far more likely to me than consciousness being an illusion. But it does little to explain how our consciousness comes into being from these material processes. The best explanation I have heard claims that the brain operates in an electro-chemical “loop”. When it operates above a certain frequency, we have consciousness. Below that frequency, we do not. Perhaps it is just a matter of putting all the materialistic pieces together, and eventually we will have our answer about the nature of consciousness. Or, it may be that we are only side-stepping and delaying the inevitable problem: trying to tie the metaphysical to the physical.

But what is metaphysical about having consciousness arise from something material? The same question confronts the science of artificial intelligence. How can something intangible and unphysical, like consciousness, be created from a machine? Their answer? Well, we find ourselves back to the original, predominant scientific position: that there really is no such thing as consciousness — it is mere illusion. By saying this, science does not have to confront any questions about the metaphysics of consciousness. Consciousness just doesn’t exist. Our sense that we are conscious is an illusion. Then here I am again, fooling myself. Or my consciousness. Or whatever. Brainsss!!

Another way to consider the problem is to return to Descartes. The one thing I can say with certainty is that I have consciousness. Anything I learn beyond this comes to me through my senses which may be wholly inadequate to determine any true reality. In this scenario, our consciousness becomes the most fundamental thing in the universe, while all other things are speculative. There is something comfy in this manner of thinking, but it is also an isolating and wholly inadequate position to explain consciousness.

In a similar vein, we might say that consciousness is our spirit which inhabits a materialistic body. In this, we are back to dualism, and we also cannot easily explain why our consciousness is altered by physical changes to our brains. It just doesn’t work.

So, if we look at big score board so far, it appears the spiritualists lag far behind the materialists — yet of the materialists, the ones supporting a true existence of consciousness, rather than some illusion of consciousness, are ahead. OK. Now let’s give the spiritualists some game.

Let’s think of our life, clear back to childhood. Remember how different you were back then? Imagine how different you were, all along the way of your life, up until where you find yourself right now. Some people can’t believe the things they used to believe. It’s almost as if you were another person. But you weren’t another person. You were you, all along the way. It still is you. But you’ve changed. Your consciousness has changed. It’s evolved. You perceive things differently, yet still the “essence” of what makes you, you — it’s still there. And it’s the same. This is one quality of our observed experience of consciousness that materialists will have a difficult time resolving satisfactorily. Not only do we have a current sense of self, but we also have the sense of a meta-self that has always remained in place throughout our life’s experiences.

In many ways, the older civilizations of the world, such as India, have dealt with the concepts of the spirit in relation to science for far longer than the West. Their philosophical works are an interesting read. Interestingly, a good deal of their philosophy deals with an integration of the mind and body, including through such practices as yoga. Yoga seeks to bring the mind and body into a harmony. It does not treat the mind separately from the body — they are one organism, and that organism is you. They take it even further, though. The mind may have many thoughts and ideas running around within it. The practice of yoga seeks to still that chaos in the conscious mind. In their terms, the content of the mind is constantly changing. However, the context of the mind is unchanging. This contextual representation of consciousness is what we might call a spirit, and it sits beyond both the mind and the body. In this way, if the mind or body is damaged, the spirit remains, while life remains. This is true, even when our mental consciousness appears radically altered — the content of the mind can change, but the context of the mind does not.

In this way, the essence of who we are, or our spirit, escapes the logical problem associated with having a notion of spirit in the event of brain damage. In other words, just because our behaviour or personality changes after physical brain damage does not mean that the essence of our spirit is changed. It is only the mental processes that are changed, much like a broken bone. This escape trick is no worse than the escape trick of saying that consciousness is only an illusion. It also explains how we maintain an abstract sense of self despite radical changes to our consciousness over time, even though the natural acts of learning.

If we can look internally, which is, of itself, another argument against illusion, we can actually get a hint of the difference between the content of our thoughts, and the context in which those thoughts occur. Similarly, most people in the world believe in reincarnation, where after death, and before we were born, we were someone else, or even something else. We might have been male or female. We might have been a dog, or a spider. In each of these, the content of our minds would change. However, the context would always be us.

As rigorously as many scientists rail against any notion of spirit, claiming access to tangibly provable and all-encompassing knowledge, it is somewhat ironic to hear, so often coming from them, this notion that we humans are “star stuff”, and, in essence, the universe trying to understand itself. Perhaps they mean this purely mechanistically. Why would the universe seek to understand itself? Is that mechanical?

Who knows? I like the idea, though. Unless I just seem to like it. But maybe that’s enough. It certainly isn’t going to keep from exploring more. And it’s certainly not going to cause me to just patently accept all sorts of things that stem from people believing one way or another on these issues. Perhaps that makes me a squeaky cog in the great cosmic zombie machine. Perhaps it damns me. I just want it to be an honest game. And this game is far from over.