Live a Great Story

 

This blog called PhilosFX. The motivating idea behind the combination of Philosophy and Special Effects is Plato's Maxim, that the unexamined life is not worth living. Early on, I expressed this motivating idea as, 

"If your life were a movie, would anyone watch?" 

The implication of PhilosFX's motto is that life is a performance. Our time on the stage of life is brief and uncertain. The best way to live is to fully express each fleeting moment. As an Extrovert in the MBTI sense of the word, this motto makes perfect sense to me. Living your best life means living out loud.

There has always been one aspect of the motto that troubles me and some of my more introverted friends. The quality of one's lived experience is best judged by the individual's internal scale, not some external measure like audience approval. 

Today, I think I have found an inspirational phrase I like even better. 

"Live a Great Story." 

Seriously! Why didn't I think of that!? 

I am not affiliated with the creators of that inspirational phrase, now available on stickers, but I like it enough to send them some business. Please have a look at their website and consider ordering some Inspiration Sticker Packs. Spread the word. 

However you say it, remember the timeless truth in Plato's Maxim, and lean into life! 

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

 

This blog's name and phrase will remain unchanged but I do acknowledge the lesson. I believe that remaining open-minded, expressing some vulnerability, and showing a willingness to explore the unknown unknowns is consistent with living a fuller life. 

Thank you for dropping by PhilosFX today. Peace. 

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Recently, I wrote about five related words describing human existence: alive, conscious, sentient, sapient, and awake. As a result, I offered the following functional definitions of these five words. The definitions are repeated here with light editing as indicated:

• alive: having a heartbeat and emitting brainwaves, i.e., neither dead nor unfeeling. In human existence, there are degrees of aliveness ranging from barely to fully alive. Aliveness is manifest in the physical world, in the body. 
• conscious: aware of one's surroundings; responsive, i.e., neither asleep nor comatose. In human existence, there are degrees of consciousness ranging from barely to fully conscious. Consciousness is manifest in the physical and mental world, in the body and all the sensory organs, especially in the brain. 
• sentient: alert; having the power of perception by the senses; aware of one's place in the Universe, i.e., neither lost nor confused. In human existence, there are degrees of sentience ranging from barely to fully sentient. Sentience is manifest in the physical, material, and cosmic domains, and as a construct in the brain of the observer. Sentience requires an awareness of self that is not required in previous states, i.e., one may be conscious yet not self-aware. 
• sapient: having or showing great wisdom or sound judgment; i.e., neither ignorant nor incompetent. the actions of the hands align with the plans of the head and the values of the heart. Sapience manifests in the social world. Sapience, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. External observation validates one's degree of sapience. 
• awake: a fully functioning body, mind, and spirit; clear; at One with the Universe, i.e., neither conflicted nor distracted. In human existence, there are degrees of awakeness ranging from barely to fully awake. Full awakeness requires no external validation--it simply "is." Awakeness is manifest in the metaphysical world, when hands, heads, and hearts align in harmony. 

Are you awake?

Now let's really have some fun and use these definitions to dig a little deeper. Can we use our five-term lexicon describing levels of human existence to compare and contrast mankind with other forms of life--five entities in existence, if you will? Let's make the comparison with humans and other animals, other forms of life such as plants, and with entities that stretch our imaginations a bit, such as robots, and even rocks.

Man--in particular, an armed man in provocative tribal war paint

• Mankind. All people may be created of equal value, but we are not all equally "-abled" or gifted. Some of us are born faster, stronger, or smarter than others. Opportunities are not evenly distributed. In addition to genetic variety, luck or chance also plays a role.
• People experience the 5 terms on a sliding scale from low to high. Why is that? Why are we not all perceiving the same things? Are these variations in how and what we perceive part of what defines humanity?
• We have different skills, knowledge, abilities and other traits that have been developed by education and experiences gathered from birth over time. In addition to what nature imbues, the experiences of nurture also shape our outcomes--and those of our fellow humans.
• All other things being equal, we achieve varying degrees of  happiness and success in life. Why is that? In addition to our "born-in" attributes and all of our deliberate developmental choices, individuals are also subject to life-altering randomness.  

The within-species variation is great. For the sake of our comparison of various entities using the 5-term lexicon, we'll compare the theoretically "typical" human against the typical examples of the other entities. 

Monkey appears to be lost in thought

• Monkey. The animal kingdom contains many species besides homo sapiens. Bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans share about 99% of the human genome, making these primates our closest human relatives. Just as with humans, there is much within-species variation between individual primates. The variation occurs in appearance, aptitudes, and behaviors. Monkeys are primates, but unlike apes they have tails and tend to look and act more like four-legged creatures. For this study we'll think about our more distant relative, the monkey. Mmmmm, I think I see a pattern developing here...

Marigold, could have been any plant, but this one fits the alliteration scheme

• Marigold. Biology--the study of life--includes two main subsets: fauna, represented by the human and the chimpanzee discussed above, and flora--the plant kingdom. Though we don't typically think of plants as thinking or feeling, we do know that they have common biological functions such as ingestion, respiration, digestion, excretion, and reproduction, and that these functions occur over a life-cycle. Naturally, plants recognize and respond to sunlight, as well as the absence of the sun's life-giving rays. There have also been studies that suggest plants respond to music, and even to positive or negative emotional energy. 

Machine, in particular, the spectacular Large Hadron Collider

• Machine. A machine is a tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. People are tool-makers and have made machines since pre-historic times. As machines get more complex, do they reveal human creativity, or is it the other way around? That is, is there a Master Machine who reveals itself through the successive approximation techniques of its human drones?     
• Simple machines include Inclined plane, Wheel and axle, Lever, Pulley, Wedge, Screw. 
• Machines have grown in complexity from the first flint hand-ax to the Large Hadron Collider. 
• Computers have led to robots which in turn have yielded androids. 
• Computers play chess with human Chess Masters and play Jeopardy against champion human Jeopardy contestants. 
• With increasing amounts of "intelligence" coming from non-biological sources, the Singularity seems to be drawing near. How soon will we have computers which can pass the Turing Test? Futurist Ray Kurzweil estimates that the Singularity will happen in the year 2045.

Meteorite: Compressed Stardust

• Meteorite. What is a rock? When is a rock more than it seems? Why do we laugh at the phrase, "Dumber than a box of rocks"? We have descended to the lower end of the intelligence scale and we are now discussing mineral clusters, aka rocks. 

• The Earth spins on its axis and revolves around the sun. The molten core of the Earth swallows up the edges of tectonic plates and spews the excess out through volcanoes along a "ring of fire." We are riding on a rock surfboard skimming across a burning lake of molten iron.

"The surface of the Sun is hot – over 5500 degrees Celsius (which is nearly 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). But if new findings are correct, then the center of our own planet may actually be hotter – over 1,000 degrees hotter than previously thought." --Forbes 

• We think that our life on the surface of Earth is pretty stable but things look much different from the perspective of geological time.Continents drift. Mountains are formed, and mountains erode. Minerals circulate from the center to the surface and back again. But did you know that out of 4,000 minerals known to exist on planet Earth, a great number and a significant quantity have been transported here from outer space? 

"...[C]oncentrations of precious metals such as platinum and rhodium in the rock portion of the Earth today...could not have ended up there by any known internal process, and instead must have been added back, likely by a 'rain' of extraterrestrial debris, such as comets and meteorites."-- Science Daily

Summary.

We have used our five-term lexicon describing levels of human existence to compare and contrast mankind with other forms of life--five entities in existence. We compared humans and other animals, other forms of life such as plants, and with entities that stretch our imaginations a bit, such as robots, and even rocks.The table below is a matrix of the entities in what are assumed to be descending order from top to bottom, and the terms in what are assumed to be increasing order from left to right. Imagine the path from lower left to upper right. Buddha's body was composed of stardust--as is yours!

Table 1. Matrix of Entities and States

The bottom line:

• As a human, I can recognize other humans and distinguish humans from other non-human entities in my environment. What makes me human is the same stuff that allows me to make this basic distinction. But when I try to define that "stuff," I find that the distinctions are not nearly as obvious as I had thought.
• I certainly believe that all other mammals can do the same basic sorting. For example, fish give sharks wide berth, and lions recognize and occasionally obey their human trainers. 
• I assume also that plants have some awareness about themselves in relation to their environment. This awareness is manifest in the Venus Fly Trap, but is less evident (to me) in other plants who lack the ability to move. Yet a plant can distinguish sunlight from darkness, and grow toward the light. A carrot can sense the coming freeze, and pull all its sweet nutrients to its core in an attempt to survive.
• We have created machines capable of sensing and responding to environmental cues. 
• When one considers rocks and minerals one must consider
• the Big Bang distributed all known material and non-material elements into the void of space
• so many of the minerals we have on our little planet have been deposited here from external sources
• the Earth's volcanic activity continues to churn, producing new surface material and consuming material pulled in to the center from the edges of tectonic plates. 
• Tall, jagged mountains wear down to older, rounded ones, and trees somehow grow in the cracks.

The seed from a tree found enough food and water in this crevice to survive.

According to Arthur Koestler, the Universe is composed of fixed rules and flexible strategies. All things are simultaneously whole and part of something else. His so-called holarchy applies to inanimate objects, too, and objects that are created by people or by natural processes. For example, a piece of music that resonates with the human ear is an expression of fixed rules of tone, rhythm, and harmony. Despite fixed rules "governing" music, there exists a near infinite variety of potential original musical compositions. Who am I to deny that the mineral components of a mountain do not yearn to be absorbed, transformed, and ultimately united with the Divine?

In the next installment of What Does It Mean to Be Human, we'll delve into the difference between a brain and a mind. Stay well, and stay tuned!

Alive < Conscious < Sentient < Awake

I created and administered a Facebook Poll, and the title of this post is the "theoretically" correct answer--but NOT the consensus result! Let me explain...

50 people were invited to take the poll, and 6 participated within 4 hours for a 12% early response rate. More responses continue to trickle in and I am grateful for all who have or will yet engage. I wanted to get some comments out sooner rather than later. The poll is still open and available here (although, if you are reading this post, your subsequent participation in the poll might be OBE* since you are about to learn the school solution!).

The question 

Place these words in order of increasing significance

I presented four (of 4! = 24 possible) permutations of four related words in the order shown below

• alive < conscious < sentient < awake 
• alive < awake < conscious < sentient 
• conscious < awake < sentient < alive
• conscious < sentient < awake < alive 

The premise

Here is how I set the stage: "Words draw meaning from social constructs. I would like to know your opinion about the relative significance of these related words. Please vote!"

Actual results (in rank order)

• alive < awake < conscious < sentient       3 votes
• alive < conscious < sentient < awake       2 votes
• conscious < awake < sentient < alive       1 vote
• conscious < sentient < awake < alive       0 votes

3 (50%) indicate that Sentience is of the highest significance
2 (33%) indicate that Awakeness is of the highest significance
1 (18%) indicate that Aliveness is of the highest significance


Why only 4 permutations? And why these particular 4?

I am interested in the functional definitions people have of the words Alive and Awake in the context of human existence. I added other related words to make the question less obvious and thus remove bias from the answers. I did not want to list all 24 possible permutations, because such an intimidatingly long list would surely reduce participation. I thought that I could learn something interesting from just 4 sequence choices.

I picked two permutations where "Alive" was the least significant, and 2 where "Alive" was the most significant. "Awake" bounced around in positions 2, 3, and 4. Placements of conscious and sentient were random even though I do also have a theory about the relative significance of those terms as well.

Many people think that there exists a sliding scale for Alive that ranges from barely alive to fully alive. I can agree with that. The mixed results indicate a wide range of valid interpretations for the term. As one respondent eloquently stated in comments:

"Perceiving "alive" as a physical state, for me, puts it at the beginning. But feeling the spiritual state of "alive" puts it at the other end."

Most people think that Awake is binary: one is either asleep or awake. I believe that is the prevalent view. The fact that 67% of voters did not choose Awakeness as the highest significance bears that out. My own contextual understanding may be a bit different from the majority.

Being a devotee of Mark Nepo, I have come to understand "awake" on a sliding scale, too, just like "alive." In Nepo's world, to be awake is much more than merely to be not asleep. To awaken is to become fully aware and fully present. Nepo's The Book of Awakening is about having the life you want by being present to the life you have. Just as there are degrees of aliveness, there are degrees of awakeness. I suppose there are degrees of sentience and consciousness, too.

Of course, Nepo did not invent the concept of Awakening. He popularized an existing notion rooted in ancient wisdom traditions. By accepting Nepo's sense of Awakening, I tend to think of aliveness being exhibited in the physical world, whereas Awakeness is manifest in a metaphysical or spiritiual domain. Awake and awakening are magical, mystical terms for me.

What have we learned?

It's hard to say for sure from such a small convenience sample that we have learned anything definitive. However I feel safe in pointing out that words like Alive and Awake mean different things to different people.

Where do we go from here?

Before we can talk about these concepts in further posts, we need to develop a shared understanding of the key terms. The resulting functional definitions of the four original words are shown below. I added "sapient" after I constructed the poll, since sentient and sapient sound so similar, and well, because homo sapiens. Once we are using the same functional definitions for terms pertaining to human existence, we can begin exploring other questions.  So please take a moment, read the definitions, and see whether you agree. If not, please let me know.

Functional definitions

• alive: having a heartbeat and emitting brainwaves, i.e., neither dead nor unfeeling. In human existence, there are degrees of aliveness ranging from barely to fully alive. Aliveness is manifest in the physical world, in the body.
• conscious: aware of one's surroundings; responsive, i.e., neither asleep nor comatose. In human existence, there are degrees of consciousness ranging from barely to fully conscious. Consciousness is manifest in the physical and mental world, in the body and all the sensory organs, especially in the brain. 
• sentient: alert; having the power of perception by the senses; aware of one's place in the Universe, i.e., neither lost nor confused. In human existence, there are degrees of sentience ranging from barely to fully sentient. Sentience is manifest in the physical, material, and cosmic domains, and as a construct in the brain of the observer. Sentience requires an awareness of self that is not required in previous states, i.e., one may be conscious yet not self-aware.
• sapient: having or showing great wisdom or sound judgment; i.e., neither ignorant nor incompetent.  the actions of the hands align with the plans of the head and the values of the heart. Sapience manifests in the social world. Sapience is in the eye of the beholder. External observation validates one's degree of sapience. 
• awake: a fully functioning body, mind, and spirit; clear; at One with the Universe, i.e., neither conflicted nor distracted. In human existence, there are degrees of awakeness ranging from barely to fully awake. Awakeness is manifest in the metaphysical world, when hands, heads, and hearts align in harmony.

Once we have a common, agreed-upon vocabulary, then we can really have some fun with these ideas! Watch this space for more posts on this theme. And as always, thanks for reading, sharing, and commenting.


*OBE is Overcome By Events

The Immortal Brain

I just learned of the untimely passing of one of my classmates. Rhonda and I were neighbors, living about a half mile apart in rural Iowa in the early 70s. We attended a small consolidated county school in the town of Minburn, and in the summer we made spending money walking beans (note 1) for farmers, along with other stuff that 5th grade farm kids do. After a couple short years, my family moved, time went by, and then one day decades later Rhonda and I reconnected through email and ultimately, Facebook.

And it was through Facebook that I learned of Rhonda's passing--after the fact. Friends and family have been writing tributes to Rhonda on her Facebook wall. I joined in, tagging Rhonda in my comments. I do not expect her to see my comments, but I do want to be a source of comfort for Rhonda's closest family and friends. She leaves behind a grandmother, parents, siblings, a son, and a grandson.

All of Rhonda's posts, including her last one about the joys of grandmotherhood, still exist. It's somewhat chilling to think about the fact that a collection of personal expressions shared in discrete moments of time are now preserved and accessible--just like the memories in my brain.

The question I am pondering now is whether our memories are accessible after our death. I am not referring the the stuff we wrote when we were alive. I am talking about the stuff stored in our brains that enables us to remember childhood friends and experiences years later.

Related questions:

• If memories are accessible after clinical death, under what conditions, and for how long? 
• Can a human be frozen and brought back to life? Or is this just a fantasy?
• If so, would that person's memories still reside and be accessible in his or her thawed-out brain?
• If not, what happens to the memories once implanted in those brain cells? Where do they go?

"Despite the fact that no human placed in a cryonic suspension has yet been revived, some living organisms can be, and have been, brought back from a dead or near-dead state. CPR and Defibrillators can bring accident and heart attack victims back from the dead daily.  

"Neurosurgeons often cool patients’ bodies so they can operate on aneurysms without damaging or rupturing the nearby blood vessels. Human embryos that are frozen in fertility clinics, defrosted and implanted in a mother’s uterus grow into perfectly normal human beings. Some frogs and other amphibians have a protein manufactured by their cells that act as a natural antifreeze which can protect them if they’re frozen completely solid. 

"Cryobiologists are hopeful that nanotechnology will make revival possible someday. Nanotechnology can use microscopic machines to manipulate single atoms to build or repair virtually anything, including human cells and tissues. They hope one day, nanotechnology will repair not only the cellular damage caused by the freezing process, but also the damage caused by aging and disease. 

"Some cryobiologists have predicted that the first cryonic revival might occur as early as year 2045."

--Zidbits.com

I heard an extraordinary story on NPR (note 2) about Anna Bågenholm, a woman who cheated death after a skiing accident in Norway. The 29-year-old was clinically dead for three hours until doctors thawed out her frozen body and brought her back to life. Anna had been skiing in Norway when she crashed head-first into a river. She became wedged under the ice and struggled to breathe through an air pocket for 40 minutes. It was another 40 minutes before she was pulled out. By then she was clinically dead, completely without consciousness, no pulse, no breathing, and she had a core temperature which went down to 13.7 C (56.7 F). They performed CPR and flew her to Tromso Hospital. There, they immediately connected her to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, which is the same machine that you use for open heart surgery where you take the blood out of the body, you warm it up and you put it back into the body. So actually what they did was simply to slowly warm her back up. Her heart started beating again, and she was revived. After weeks of intensive care and months of rehabilitation, the only reminder of Anna Bågenholm's ordeal is a tingling in her hands. All of her memories survived.

Speaking of NPR, I heard a story on NPR's Fresh Air about Ted Williams (note 3), and learned that The Kid's body has been frozen. Actually, his head was frozen, and then they decided to go on ahead and freeze the rest, because, if future scientists can figure out the technical details of thawing out a head, then hooking that head back onto its original body should be a relative cakewalk, right? And in a show of unity, Ted's son took the big sleep, too, opting to be cryogenically frozen just before death, in hopes of being revived and reunited with his Dad at some future time.

We humans are biologically pre-disposed to fight for life, and yet morbidly aware of our mortality. It may well be that our DNA governs WHY we remember, while the cells of our brain handle the HOW. This leads me back to my original and unanswered question: are memories accessible after death? If so, under what conditions, and for how long? And perhaps a more troubling extension of that question is this:

What is the meaning of death if the contents of a brain can be preserved and accessed indefinitely?



NOTES

(1) What the heck is "walking beans"? That is when you stroll through the rows of a 80-acre soy bean field with a hoe, removing all the volunteer corn from last year's crop, as well as all the weeds that might choke a bean.

(2) What's the story about the skiing surgeon's miraculous recovery? It's all HERE

(3) Ted Williams' body is frozen? Read more in the new book, The Kid : The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, by Ben Bradlee, Jr.

At long last, the epic biography Ted Williams deserves--and that his fans have been waiting for. 

Williams was the best hitter in baseball history. His batting average of .406 in 1941 has not been topped since, and no player who has hit more than 500 home runs has a higher career batting average. Those totals would have been even higher if Williams had not left baseball for nearly five years in the prime of his career to serve as a Marine pilot in WWII and Korea. He hit home runs farther than any player before him--and traveled a long way himself, as Ben Bradlee, Jr.'s grand biography reveals. Born in 1918 in San Diego, Ted would spend most of his life disguising his Mexican heritage. During his 22 years with the Boston Red Sox, Williams electrified crowds across America--and shocked them, too: His notorious clashes with the press and fans threatened his reputation. Yet while he was a God in the batter's box, he was profoundly human once he stepped away from the plate. His ferocity came to define his troubled domestic life. While baseball might have been straightforward for Ted Williams, life was not. 

THE KID is biography of the highest literary order, a thrilling and honest account of a legend in all his glory and human complexity. In his final at-bat, Williams hit a home run. Bradlee's marvelous book clears the fences, too.

The Questions That Will Save Your Relationships | Glennon Melton

Intimate Conversation

What is life, if not a series of conversations? You overhear one side of a phone conversation during your morning commute. You discuss last weekend's exploits with your colleague. A child asks you to play a game. You wake up from a dream. The driver in front of you is a moron. The person you are looking at does not look back. The doctor takes a breath, and then asks you to have a seat.

Sure, some conversations are more impactful than others, but does that mean that we can afford to treat less impactful conversations as trivial? As we move through space and time on the stage of life, there are no dress rehearsals and truly no "insignificant" conversations.  Living as if your life were a movie--and in particular, a movie that someone would actually want to watch--means living with intention and passion. Even the small moments may be purpose-filled. Make your words count and your interactions matter!

Many of us ask the same boring questions and then wonder why we get the same empty responses. Glennon Melton's great Huffington Post article recently came to my attention. Here is the Cliff's Notes version:

Don't ask your spouse or significant other, "How was your day?" Instead, try:

• When did you feel loved today?
• When did you feel lonely?
• What did I do today that made you feel appreciated?
• What did I say that made you feel unnoticed?
• What can I do to help you right now?

When your kids get home from school, don't ask, "How was your day?" because they don't know. Their day was lots of things. Instead, ask:

• How did you feel during your spelling test?
• What did you say to the new girl when you all went out to recess?
• Did you feel lonely at all today?
• Were there any times you felt proud of yourself today?

Never ask your friends, "How are you?" because they don't know either. Instead, ask:

• How is your mom's chemo going?
• How'd that conference with Ben's teacher turn out?
• What's going really well with work right now?

The questions we ask reveal how interested we are in the responses we get. To ask a boring question is to communicate that we will be satisfied with a boring response--or worse, that we do not really care at all.

I am going to try asking better questions!  

H/T: JBM via her Facebook post

Photo attribution: Dr. Dana Lightman's blog, accessed 28 Jan 2014 

L.I.N.K.S. (8): Mood, Memory, & Movement

L.I.N.K.S. that Lure, Intrigue, Nurture, Kindle, or Stimulate, Part 8


This 8th edition of L.I.N.K.S. explores the brain as it relates to mood, memory, and movement. We'll look 5 links to research being done to better understand depression, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. This fascinating work--the cartography of neurons--is mapping the uncharted territory of the last great frontier, the human brain.

Neuron Forest
http://www.alz.org/braintour/neuron_forest.asp

1. Mood, memory and movement: an age-related neuro-degenerative complex?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20021382

2. The University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute is a research center specializing in collaborative treatment and investigation of stroke, brain aneurysms, brain and spinal cord trauma, Parkinson’s disease, brain tumors, seizures, neuralgia, Alzheimer’s disease and memory disorders, mood disorders, and neuro-muscular disorders.

http://ucneuroscience.com/

3. Dr. Andres Lozano's TED Talk about deep brain stimulation,a technique allowing surgeons to place electrodes in almost any area of the brain, and turn them up or down -- like a radio dial or thermostat -- to correct dysfunction.

http://www.ted.com/talks/andres_lozano_parkinson_s_depression_and_the_switch_that_might_turn_them_off.html

4. NPR interview with Dr. Andres Lozano regarding deep brain stimulation, aka "hacking the brain."

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/09/209618161/can-hacking-the-brain-make-you-healthier

5. As emerging technologies begin to overcome fundamental human limitations, what are the ethical matters involved? Here is a frighteningly amoral look at the future of our species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

The Most Important Thing

My friend RS asked, via Facebook, 

"Help me out here. What is the most important thing?"

A predictable array of answers trickled in: friends, family, faith, health, etc. No one said corner office, or big pile of toys. No one said warm coat, either, but then one's priorities have a way of shifting over time, don't they? 

One way to develop an answer to this quandary is to push the variable of time to the limit: imagine yourself on your deathbed. By default, at that point, health would seem to be pretty darn important, right? Yes, but we all know that there is only one way out of this game called life. Preparing for Life's Final Task involves facing death (a) unafraid and (b) without regret. Therefore, in life's last moments, having lived a good life is more important than having good health for just a few minutes more.

So how will we know we have lived a good life if we are so fortunate as to have a final moment of reflection? What constitutes a good life? What will have been the most important thing to us when we examine our lives with the benefit of hindsight? What would we do more of today, right now, if we wanted to be (a) unafraid and (b) without regret in our final moments?
   

In my work Value Focused Thinking / Lean Six Sigma work I often use a process of discovery known as The 5th Why. Each time we ask Why, the answer gets us closer to a fundamental truth. Follow this illustration (your answers may vary):

1. Why do you get out of bed in the morning, day after day? To make a living.
2. Why do you make a living? To provide food, clothing, and shelter for myself and my family.
3. Why do you provide for yourself and your family? To survive, of course, and hopefully to become successful.
4. Why do you want to be successful? To contribute, to add value, to live well, to make a difference.
5. Why do you want to be significant? Significance is like self-actualization. It is how I operate in the world after I have fully become my true self. It is me radiating love, truth, and light--shining forth as a beacon for others.

As I said, your answers may vary! But the point I am making is that The 5 Why technique helps us get to the real purpose behind any endeavor. Yes, it can take more than five whys until you get to the fundamental objective. Try it. You'll get the hang of it.

Is self-actualization the most important thing, as Maslow said and as our Five Whys exercise implies? Here I want to double back on myself a bit. Self-actualization, as Maslow defined it, sounds like an end-state. But, how will we know when we have achieved our full potential? Isn't this a moving target? Can't we set the bar ever higher as we achieve more of our potential over time? Can we simultaneously imagine ourselves as more significant in some future state, and yet grateful and accepting of the degree of significance we have achieved in the present? On further reflection, we want to imagine a process of continuous improvement that is constantly oriented on increasing the level of significance we can achieve even as our experiences mold and shape us. Therefore I would say that the development of character is the most important thing.

The development of one's character is the answer to the 5th Why, i.e. it is the Fundamental Objective of life, not friends, family, faith, health, wealth, freedom, or power. The abundance or the absence of any of the above will neither prevent nor guarantee the development of one's character. Friends and wealth are the fruits of a developed character, not goals in and of themselves. Health, freedom, and power can be stripped away as they were for Nelson Mandela, whose character continued to develop while he was in prison for 27 years. Faith is not the most important thing unless one defines God as character perfected and one's faith is a means of obtaining communion with the Divine.

May we all live long lives in good health and comfort, helping each other as we are able. May we all embrace the challenges of living each day to the fullest extent. May we allow ourselves to love, and to be loved in return. May we shine forth as a beacon for others, and may we thus face the future (a) unafraid and (b) without regret.

H/T: RS

In Praise of Failure?

I refer you now to COSTICA BRADATAN's intriguing blog In Praise of Failure, which just appeared in the NY Times' Opinion Pages. It features a great still of Max von Sydow as Antonius Block, playing Death in a chess game he knows he must lose.

Winning isn’t everything. Antonius Block, right, played by Max von Sydow, challenges
Death to a game of chess in the 1957 film “The Seventh Seal,” directed by Ingmar Bergman.

BRADATAN says "[t]here is a danger in our quest for a more perfect future — that failure will become obsolete."

He goes on to make a case for the importance of failure, saying that failure is significant for several reasons. He discusses three of them:

• Failure allows us to see our existence in its naked condition.
• Our capacity to fail is essential to what we are.
• We are designed to fail.

While certainly thought-provoking, I find I am unwilling to agree with the author's premise. Allow me to propose the alternative I prefer. What is all-important is not failure, but struggle.

Obviously, the nuance is that struggle offers the possibility of success, even when failure is inevitable. Antonius Block knew he would ultimately lose the chess game, yet he chose to play on. I get the idea, but I find myself resisting. Replace fail or failure with struggle in the article, and suddenly, I could not agree more. To wit:

• Struggle allows us to see our existence in its naked condition.
• Our capacity to struggle is essential to what we are.
• We are designed to struggle.

Karl Popper emphasized the need for "falsifyability" in hypothesis testing. We may not be able to "prove" that something is correct, but if we can demonstrate that the opposite idea is impossible, we will have extended the boundary of human knowledge by an amount epsilon. Tiny epsilons have kept thousands in PhD programs around the globe.    

Aristotle argued that the development of character is the highest aim of life. This point of view clearly favors the hard-fought victory over the effortless one. 

There must be the possibility of failure or a victory is meaningless. Does anyone care who made the 2008 Detroit Lions go from 0-15 to 0-16? Personally, I am more interested in the character of the coaches, players, and staff who played the 16th game of that horrible season with all the passion and grit they could muster. 

We are made to struggle against random odds and toward some often ill-defined future. We meet with varying degrees of success. The need for struggle implies that an easy life devoid of struggle would be relatively meaningless. This is my excuse for not becoming one of the idle rich. 

Struggle on! 

Hat Tip to long-time friend and frequent contributor MF/LT

L.I.N.K.S. that Lure, Intrigue, Nurture, Kindle, or Stimulate #6: Life Force

L.I.N.K.S. that Lure, Intrigue, Nurture, Kindle, or Stimulate, Part 6, in which we contemplate

LIFE FORCE

1. We are (recycled) stardust. The atoms in our bodies are composed of elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen which were created in exploding stars. The atoms in your left hand may have come from a different star than the atoms in your right hand.

http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=52
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990625080416.htm


2. The science around evolution and the origin of species is all but settled. The essential enduring mystery in the science of life's origins centers around questions like these: Where did the first material come from? And what force lit the very first spark? Recent discoveries about RNA offer clues about the (spontaneous?) origins of Life.

http://exploringorigins.org/timeline.html


3. Our bodies are only 10% human. The human body consists of roughly 100 trillion cells, of which only 10 trillion contain human DNA. The rest are mostly bacteria in the gut and on the skin. The micro-biome of our bodies contains hundreds of bacteria species. The colony that thrives on your tongue seems foreign to the colony that thrives a "continent" away on the roof of your mouth. We are not only recycled stardust carrying the physical and spiritual evidence of life's first spark, but, to literally trillions of single-celled animals, we are the embodiment of a mysterious and symbiotic Universe.

http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/zen-photo/m/microbiome#.Urh4m_RDtgk


4. We sentient beings know that there is but one way out of this game called life. We struggle to survive for a variety of reasons--your reasons may be different from mine. The animal kingdom is ruled by survival instincts, and all creatures instinctively fight, or flee to fight another day, while hopefully existing long enough to pass genes to the next generation. In nature, there comes a moment when a mighty moose accepts its role--as food for the pack of hungry wolves. Life is not about winners and losers but about balance and acceptance, and finding and fulfilling your purpose as best as you are able.

http://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/survival-of-the-fittest


5. Animals with big brains are not the only living things filled with life force. Survival instincts occur in plants, too. When temperatures drop and the ground begins to freeze, the carrot pulls its sugars to center. Some cooks prize these cold-tempered carrots for their delicious sweetness--even deliberately subjecting carrots to freezing temperatures right before harvesting them. Did you realize that when you bite into the resulting sweetness, you are tasting that carrot's attempt to survive?

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/storing-vegetables-for-the-winter


Collections of Stardust. The Spark of Life. Symbiotic relationships. Balance and acceptance. The will to survive. My motive for tying all of these seemingly disparate LIFE FORCE links together? In a word, cancer. Do you have cancer, or do you know someone close to you who has cancer? Odds are, everyone reading this post knows someone who has some firsthand experience with this horrid disease.

Walk with me:

• Cancer patients are composed of stardust--just as are their tumors. Cancer is harmful but it is not unnatural. It is part of life.
• Cancer patients are filled with a mysterious life force--so too are wolves, carrots, and tumors. We do not know where the tumors come from, or how to prevent them taking up residence in people we love. But we do know why tumors persist, and what happens if they are not defeated.
• Like all of us, cancer patients host many non-human creatures--a soup can's worth of bacteria, mostly in our digestive tract. Unlike the mutually beneficial arrangement we have with most of our parasites, tumors are unwelcome invaders.
• The life force compels us (and our parasites--beneficial, or otherwise) to accept uncertainty. In a world of predators and prey, of the survival of the fittest, of the ultimate stakes, there are some pitched battles. A pack of cunning wolves can forcibly bring a mighty moose to the moment when that moose stops struggling and accepts its fate. Similarly, the cancer patient, his medical team, his family and friends, and a global network of Prayer Warriors fighting back as a team can force a tumor to succumb.
• Like sweet, cold-harvested carrots, tumors try to survive by adapting to their environment. Some tumors are especially good at adapting. This is to be expected and even respected. What to do? Find a way to win. If necessary, make a way to win. 

The LIFE FORCE is mysterious. We are made to struggle. We have no choice but to fight. The way we humans look at the world may not be the only way. What makes one particular collection of space debris more important than another? What does God look like to the bacteria in your gut? Go. Fight. Win. What else is there?



Here are links to previous entries in the L.I.N.K.S. series. Enjoy them and feel free to suggest a theme for the next edition, L.I.N.K.S. 7. Comments always welcome!

L.I.N.K.S. 1 (Interesting): http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2010/12/links-that-lure-intrigue-nurture-kindle.html
L.I.N.K.S. 2 (Random): http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2011/01/links-that-lure-intrigue-nurture-kindle.html
L.I.N.K.S. 3 (Mysterious): http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2011/03/links-that-lure-intrigue-nurture-kindle.html
L.I.N.K.S. 4 (Building informed and engaged organizations, teams, and individuals): http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2011/05/links-that-lure-intrigue-nurture-kindle.html
L.I.N.K.S. 5 (Is alcohol good for you?)  http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2013/10/links-5-is-alcohol-good-for-you.html

A short guide to the Middle East

The Middle East Explained In One Excellent Letter To The Editor

This letter to the editor from Mr. K. N. Al-Sabah ran in the Aug 24th edition of Financial Times.  It was then picked up by BuzzFeed.
 

 

 

This Quixotic quote inspired me to attempt a drawing of the social network described in Mr. Al-Sabah's letter.

 

Assuming we do want to get involved in the Middle East, do we know enough to actually make the situation better?

 

 

Look in the comments under the article as it appears in BuzzFeed and you will find a visualization by Derpina which takes the form of a Flow Chart.

 

The first problem I have with Derpina's visualization is that the Turks are Sunni, not Shia. The second problem is that the flow chart makes the situation look deterministic, which is misleading. 

 

I believe my spaghetti chart above captures the chaos more accurately, in my never humble but always biased opinion.

 

That said, I believe this version by the Elder of Zion is even better. His is an improvement on one created by another blogger, the big Pharaoh. As the Elder of Zion states, any attempt to understand this situation will change daily.

 

I wonder if this idea of graphing the complex social networks in the Middle East would make a fun parlor game? I wonder what I will think of this post when I look back on it in 10 years?

 

 

Meet Your Mind: A User’s Guide to the Science of Consciousness

I enjoyed this "Meet Your Mind" series, dated Nov 2012 and aired on WAMU 88.5 FM in Jan 13. The series inspired some deep thoughts about consciousness. What do we mean by consciousness? How well do I understand my own consciousness? Can one change, modify, or improve one's consciousness?


The six part radio series produced by To the Best of Our Knowledge (TTBOOK) is accompanied by a comic book style guide available HERE:

"What you hold in your hands is a comic book companion to Meet Your Mind: A User’s Guide to the Science of Consciousness — a series of 6 one hour programs brought to you by To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Peabody Award-winning public radio show about ideas."

Here’s some of what listeners will hear in Meet Your Mind:

• Part 1: Mind and Brain — tackles the mystery of how the physical “stuff,” the three pounds of wetware in our brains, produces mental experiences.
• Part 2: Memory and Forgetting — the science of memory and forgetting; how to build a memory palace and how to erase a thought.
• Part 3: Wiring the Brain — examines the connections between different parts of the brain, and how they shape our intuition, insight and analytical thinking.
• Part 4: The Creative Brain — what is creative genius? the neuroscience of jazz, art and other creative endeavors.
• Part 5: Extraordinary Minds — introduces you to savants and cyborgs and gives a glimpse of some new kinds of human potential.
• Part 6: Higher Consciousness — explores the spiritual dimensions of consciousness, from religious experience to contemplative practice.

Guests include:

• Neuroscientists: Richard Davidson, David Eagleman, Michael Gazzaniga, Eric Kandel, Christof Koch, Charles Limb, Oliver Sacks, Sebastian Seung and Jill Bolte Taylor;
• Psychiatrists and psychologists: Susan Blackmore, Stanislav Grof, Daniel Kahneman, Iain McGilchrist and Giulio Tononi;
• Philosophers: David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Ray Kurzweil and Alva Noe;
• Writers and musicians: Andre Aciman, Karen Armstrong, Lynda Barry, Joshua Foer, Vijay Iyer, Daniel Levitin, Sy Montgomery, Daniel Tammet and Alison Winter.

Full details, schedules, transcripts and audio — and lots of extras — are available HERE

ENJOY! Feel free to share a link to this post and leave a comment.

Related posts:

• The Consciousness Hypothesis (TBP)
• Ray Kurzweil: "How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed" | The Diane Rehm Show from WAMU and NPR (TBP)

Toxic Masculinity?

Judge Thomas Lipps listening to arguments in Jefferson County Juvenile Court. AP Photo/Herald Star, Mark Law

"If we want to end the pandemic of rape, it’s going to require an entire global movement of men willing to do the hard work of interrogating the ideas [with which] they were raised...."

So says Jaclyn Friedman in her provocative March 13, 2013 Prospect article, Toxic Masculinity. And I am writing today because I could not agree more.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the Army. As a retired Army Officer and father of two teen-aged daughters, I have a personal stake in ending the pandemic of rape within the military. I care about my family, my community, and the military culture in which I served for 28 years. It pains me to think of the lives destroyed by such horrendous acts as have been in the news so much of late: acts of violence carried out mostly by men, and mostly against women or children. Sometimes the crimes are carried out with guns, sometimes with sexual violence, and sometimes with both.


Toxic Masculinity.


Is it just me? Has there been a measurable shift in media coverage on topics of violence? If so, are the reports merely documenting the incidents, or fanning the flames?  Are people worse, or are we just hearing about bad behavior more often because of improved communications technology? Let's agree that the question is rhetorical at this point. The "behavior-or-hype" answer is not obvious, and is most likely due to a combination of these and other factors. Still, based only on my instincts, I feel there has been an increase in gun violence and sexual violence over the past decade that tracks with the following phenomena:

• increased desensitization to death and destruction after a decade of war
• increased objectivization of women (eye candy, ornamentation, pornography, provocative fashion)
• increased female body modification (liposuction, breast augmentation, botox, tattoos and piercings)
• increased male body and performance modification (steroids, erectile dysfunction pills, penile implants, weight loss pills, hair transplants)  
• increased media hostility toward successful, powerful, and intimidating female role models
• increased glamorization of men as gladiators (athletes, actors, Special Forces, super heroes)
• increased hyper-sexuality and gun violence in video games and movies 

Rape is a global concern, but I am especially interested in the phenomenon of rape within the military. People are people and rape is a human problem, not an Army problem, per se. That said, “fairness, dignity, and respect” are already expressed tenets of Army culture. Army Values (LDRSHIP) reinforce the Army's cultural ideal. Never-the-less, the actions of some within the culture (the perpetrators of sexual violence, in this discussion) do not exemplify those expressed values.

According to Ed Schein, culture may be defined as, “the way we do things around here.” I would emphasize that culture is the way we actually do things around here, not the way we say we want to do things. All the speeches and posters in the world do not define culture as clearly as do the actions of the people in that culture.  Truly, actions speak louder than words.

To the recipient, a caring embrace is worth more than a journal full of written expressions.

There is a bell-shaped curve describing the behavior of a group of people on questions of morality. No one individual represents the entire group. When the bad apple stands out, it must either be pruned, or the whole tree is suspect.

The goal is to teach perpetrators--by any means necessary--what we MEAN by fairness, dignity, and respect—how we measure it, how we reward it, and how we prosecute violations of it.  If we reform or remove the perpetrators, then the Army’s bell-shaped curve will shift. And that is culture change.

So there are lots of ways to bend the culture. Cultural change is an overly broad goal for the Army's Sexual Harassment / Assault Prevention and Response (SHARP) Program. What I like better is the more explicit goal of reforming or, if necessary, removing the perpetrators. Identify them before they offend, if possible, or as soon as possible after the first offense. Remove them and reeducate them. Reintroduce them if possible, or dump them back into society with a big red warning label if not.

I would hate to pass my problems off to someone else, but in the case of the Army, they have a bigger mission than retraining all the society’s bigots, sexists, misogynists, and psychopaths.  They can and must retrain some, but the hard fact is that Toxic Masculinity is a supply-side problem. Today's Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines reflect the society they serve--which is to say, many of them played football in high school.   



In the midst of all this toxic masculinity, it occurs to me that men are not raised to be men. We raise men to be "not girls" and "not gay." Sensitivity is mocked. Empathy is derided. Victory on the basketball court or the hedge fund is praised--even, and perhaps especially, if victory involves a good punch in the throat. Been to a hockey match or a NASCAR event lately? "Rubbing is racing." The stereotypical male is a sex-and-violence machine. We worship star athletes, covering them with adulation and not a little cash, while forgiving every indiscretion and even the odd crime. Kobe Bryant, accused rapist and still star of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. Tiger Woods, serial philanderer and once again the top-ranked golfer on the pro circuit, with a gorgeous blonde on his arm. The list goes on.

Is it any wonder the high school football players in the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial felt entitled?

The opposite of Toxic Masculinity is not spineless foppishness. A hunter can hunt and kill with respect for the prey. A father can defend with love for his family. Anyone with passion can advocate for a cause in a non-violent manner. What seems to matter is emotional intelligence and a healthy awareness of one's place in the universe. Focus on developing the health of boys and men, and eliminate the harmful symptoms of unhealthy, even toxic, behavior.

Fixing the pandemic of rape includes teaching boys how to be real men: swift, strong, skillful, smart, and sensitive, yes... but above all, healthy.



  

Image attribution:

• The photo of Judge Thomas Lipps listening to arguments in Jefferson County Juvenile Court accompanies Friedman's article. Image attribution: AP Photo/Herald Star, Mark Law
• The beautiful illustration of actions speaking louder than words was found here: http://vezalife.blogspot.com/2012/08/actions-speak-louder-than-words.html 

Read relevant articles:

• Check out Jaclyn Friedman's Prospect article here: http://prospect.org/article/toxic-masculinity.
• See Zerlina Maxwell's piece in Ebony here: http://www.ebony.com/news-views/5-ways-we-can-teach-men-not-to-rape-456#axzz2OaDi4R8B

More information:

• Learn about the Army SHARP Program here: http://www.sexualassault.army.mil/
• Learn about the DoD SAPRO here: http://www.sapr.mil/
• Visit the website for Men Can Stop Rape here: http://www.mencanstoprape.org

Stories about rape culture pulled from recent news reports:

• Indian gang rape: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9773918/Indian-gang-rape-victim-fought-back-against-attackers.html
• Gang rape sparks racial tension: http://abcnews.go.com/US/gang-rape-charges-18-men-sparks-racial-tensions/story?id=13095476
• Richmond High School gang rape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Richmond_High_School_gang_rape

You can contribute to this blog! Send me article ideas and links by commenting on this post. I will give you credit for your contribution to future posts. Thank you for reading and participating. 


Note: This post was edited at 4 pm, April 15th, 2013.

Flow and Friction

The Vessel

an allegory of 

Flow and Friction

My favorite vessel is the one that is closest when I am thirsty....

Diogenes looking for an honest man

I have a cupboard full of cups. The nicest glasses in my display case are fine works of art, but they rarely get used. Some of my cups remind me of special places I have visited in the past. I love them all and could never have too many.

Sadly, I have dropped a few and chipped or broken or shattered them. It happens. None of these vessels were meant to last forever (unless you count the recycled shards). When I lose one, I treasure the remainders all the more. 

But here is the real important thing about these cups and glasses: In the end, the value of a vessel is not about the container. A vessel is all about the flow. All life is flow and friction.

"Flow" by Paul Stopler Glass

You may be "just the vessel" but the point is, of all the cups in the cupboard, you are the one being used. You are flowing and being refilled. You are quenching a mighty thirst. There is a reason for that. 

(Or maybe not.)

Either way, the message that fills you is flowing through you right now. 

                                                    And I am in awe.

dedicated to my amazing brother and his life-changing testimony